Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the half year results 2024 analyst conference call. I am Sandra, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants have been listening remote 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 will not be recorded for publication or broadcasting. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Giulio Vitarelli, CEO of VZ Holding. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, and welcome to the presentation of our 2024 half-year results. I assume that everyone has been able to download our presentation, which is available on our website. I will guide you through the presentation today, together with our Chief Financial Officer, Rafael Pfaffen. Rafael will take over agenda item 2, and I will take you through agenda items 1 and 3. We will both take your questions at the end of the presentation. Let's start our presentation with the summary on page 3. Over the last 6 months, the market environment improved steadily despite ongoing geopolitical tensions. We had falling inflation rates, robust economic growth, the first interest rate cuts in Europe, and the prospect of a first interest rate hike in the US, that have supported financial markets. In this market environment, we were able to further expand our business.
It was also favored by the ongoing need for reform in the Swiss pension system, on which the Swiss population has to express its opinion on two occasions this year. As a result, we continued to see strong demand for our services, which was reflected in strong marketing response and in a still high number of consulting projects. And as a consequence of positive financial markets development in recent week, recent weeks, we can see that customers are somewhat less hesitant about making investment decisions. After a consultancy project, many clients opt for one or more of our platform services, and as a result, we gained 4,188 new households using our platform services.
As planned, we are further increasing our consulting capacity in 2024 by roughly 8% to an average of 237 FTEs, and our academy is well staffed with young talent, so we will be able to expand the consulting capacity in future years as well. For 2025, we plan to increase the number of financial consultants to an average of 255 FTEs. For the first half year, the annualized net new money number per consulting capacity stands at CHF 19.7 million, so on the upper end of the long-term average. Looking to Germany and UK. In Germany, we are growing according to plan, in step with Switzerland, and we plan to enter northern Germany by opening a new branch in Berlin in the following months.
And in the UK, we completed our management team, which will lead Lumin after the full acquisition in 2026. So the Lumin founders are gradually handing over operational management to the new management team. This will enable us to fully take over the company as planned in 2026. On the right side of page three, we find the summary of the financials. Our top line growth came in at 12.8%, so we are at CHF 252.9 million, compared to the CHF 224.3 million for the first half year of 2023. And total expenses, as total expenses, with 8.7% grew less than revenues, we were able to increase our bottom line by 19.1% to CHF 102.8 million.
These figures lead to an EBIT margin of 47.1% and a net profit margin of 40.6%. Our balance sheet shows still solid ratios, well above the industry average, and we want to keep it in that way in the future. More details, details on, these topics will follow later. On the AUM side, there we were able to generate CHF 2.34 billion net new money in this first half of the year, which is comparable to the strong first half of 2023. AUM stood at CHF 49.6 billion, which corresponds to an increase of 16.4% compared to one year ago, or an increase of 10.4% compared to the end of 2023.... Now we will go into some details on the following pages.
On page four, we see the details of our, of our revenue streams. All five components came in higher than in the previous year. The largest component, the management fees on AUM, came in with strong growth of 13.9%, mostly driven by net new money and also positive financial markets. Of the other components, I would like to emphasize the growth in consulting fee income. The 2.7% seems not to be strong, but we have to keep in mind the strong development of this component in 2023. That was a plus of 20%. That means that the demand for our consulting services is still high, is still at the high level. Banking income was still higher compared to the first half year, 2023.
But looking to the details on the next page, 5, we can see that interest rate business grew by 19.2% year-over-year, but decreased compared to the second half of 2023. This is the result of the first two hikes in interest rates by the SNB and indicates the direction for the second half of 2024 and also for 2025. Transaction fees decreased due to the strong demand for all-in-fee models and index-oriented investment styles, like also in the past years. And we expect the stronger demand for all-in-fee models and index-oriented investment styles to continue. Trading results recovered from the lows in 2023 and increased by 21.6%. This figure is mostly driven by the financial markets fluctuations. Let's turn to page 6.
Here we can see the bottom line development, which came in 19.1% higher than in 2023, at CHF 102.8 million. The net profit margin stands at 40.6%. This high margin is, is driven by the interest business, as it was driven in the second half of 2023. On the long-term average, we, still have our target of 38% margin, and this target is, is still valid for us. On page number 7, on the left side, we can see the development of our financial consulting capacity. The development is taking place as planned for, of planned for 2024.
We have an average of 237 FTEs working as consultants for new clients, and we expect to increase these numbers, as mentioned before, by a further 7.58%, to an average of 255 FTEs in 2025. We plan to increase this number at the same pace over the next years. This enables us to meet the strong demand for our consulting services. As you can see in the middle of the page, the strong demand has been reflected in the strong consulting revenues. This is the signal which shows strong demand for our consultancy, consultancy offerings, that key element for our future growth.
As a result of the strong client demand, net new money number came in at CHF 2.3 billion, very slightly weaker than in the first half year of 2023, but still at a considerable level. These numbers translate to an average of 19.7 million net new money per consulting FTE. That's an annualized figure, which is at the upper end of the long-term average corridor. As mentioned before, as a consequence of positive financial markets in the last few weeks, we, we see that customers are somewhat less hesitant about making investment decisions. And, with positive financial markets ongoing, we expect that this positive trend will go on also in the next quarters or weeks. Moving to page 8, here we can see the wealth management numbers.
As mentioned before, AUM increased by 16.4% to CHF 49.6 billion, driven by both lines. The PM mandates increased by roughly 90%, and the others increased by 12.5%. Equally important for us is the development of the number of platform clients. These numbers went up by eleven point nine percent compared to the first half year, 2023, and now we stand at 77,500 clients, which actually are households. This means a strong increase of about 4,200 new wealth management clients in this first half year, and we expect these figures to continue to increase at the same rate as the client demand on the consulting side. Moving to page nine, we can see the results of our work on the platform clients.
On the left side, we have the share of our clients using only one platform, and on the right side, we see the share of clients using three-plus platforms. The share of clients using three-plus platforms increased to 25.6%. As you know, our long-term target is a share of 33% of clients using three-plus platforms. Although the increase in the last six months was not as strong as usually, I think it's realistic to achieve this target in the next, let's say, 5 to 6 years. Continuing to add more than 8,000 new clients a year, this can be considered as a strong performance. A very important measurement for us is the client satisfaction reported on page 10. We measured the satisfaction with the Net Promoter Score.
The evaluation shows a very high level of satisfaction for both client segments, consulting and wealth management clients. We stand at 30.3 for the consulting clients and 8.9 for the wealth management clients. Just to remind you, our NPS score above 20 is considered as very good, and a score above 50 is considered as excellent. And for us, even with a fast-growing client basis, we are able to keep our service quality at a very high level. That is very important to us. Looking to page 11, you can see our branch office network over the three countries. Our plan is to further increase the number of branch offices over the next years. In Switzerland, we are working on opening 3-5 new offices over the next 2-3 years.
The next ones will be opening, opened in Reinach, near Basel, and then in the French part of Switzerland. As mentioned before, we have decided to open a new branch office in northern Germany, in Berlin. That will be realized in the next few months. In the UK, we will be able to expand our presence around London, London. This path is mainly driven by the acquisition and integration of smaller IFAs in the future. What you can't see on this chart is the extension of existing branches. We still expand the areas of two to three Swiss branches every year because we are experiencing more customer demand. So far for the first agenda point. Now, for the next agenda item, I have the pleasure to pass you over to Rafael Pfaffen, our Chief Financial Officer, who will go through the details of our financials.
Good morning also from my side. I start the presentation on page 13. Here you can see our revenues and expenses on a long-term basis. This gives you a good idea how our business grew in the last years. As Giulio has already elaborated on the most important effects on the first six revenue lines, I go directly to the total revenues. Compared to the first half year, 2023, they increased by 12.8% to CHF 252.9 million. Total expenses grew only by 8.7% to CHF 133.9 million. And the reason for this, that the reason that the total expenses increased lower than total revenues lies in the other operating expenses. They decreased by 1.5% and were at CHF 26.9 million.
I will explain the reason for this decline on page 15 later on. The personnel expenses grew by 12.2%, more or less in line with the total revenues, and the personnel expenses were at CHF 94.9 million. The depreciation and amortization grew by 7.1%. This is more or less the growth rate, which we have seen also in the past. The depreciation and amortization in total of CHF 12.1 million. As the total expenses grew lower than the total revenues, the EBIT grew by 17.7% to CHF 119 million. I will not comment on the net finance income, as it's not relevant. Important to note is that the income tax is increased only by 10.3% to CHF 16.1 million.
The main reason for this is that we had a one-off tax adjustment in the first half year, 2023. As you can remember, most likely, the UK increased the income taxes for corporations from 19% to 25% in 2023. And as income tax is increased lower than the EBIT, the net profit increased by 19.1% to CHF 102.8 million, as Giulio has already mentioned. I move on to page 14, to the personnel expenses. As mentioned, they grew more or less in line with the top line. The personnel expense ratio was at 37.5%. Here, we think that in the long term, the personnel expense ratio will go up to 39%, and this is also the figure which we have seen in the past.
On a net basis, we were able to increase our FTE base by 61 FTEs in the first half year, 2024, which corresponds more or less to 70 headcounts, 70 personnel. And at the end of June 2024, we had 1,450 FTEs employed, which corresponds more or less, so, to 1,700 headcount. It's a little bit below these 1,700 headcounts. Then on page 15, you see the other operating expenses. As mentioned, they decreased by 1.5%. The main reason for this is the general and administrative expenses. They decreased by 4%, and we have two reasons for this. The first one is the implementation of IFRS 17 in 2023.
That's the evaluation of the insurance contract, and the implementation of IFRS 17 had the effect that the general and administrative expenses were a little bit inflated in the first half year, 2023. The second effect is that we had certain cost optimization effects that kicked in in the first half year of 2024. As you can imagine, we believe that in the future, the other operating expenses will grow again as our business grows as well. Therefore, we expect that the operating expense ratio in the future will be again around the 11%-13%, which we have seen in the past. The EBIT is shown on page 16. It increased by 17.7%. I have already explained why it increased more than the top line.
The EBIT margin was at 47.1%, and as you can see, it came down from 49.2% in the second half year, 2023. Giulio has already explained why this is. He said our interest income was affected by the lower interest rates, and we expect that we will also be affected by more interest decreases in the second half year, 2024. Looking forward, we expect that the EBIT margin will be around 44%, as it has also been in the past. Then, the balance sheet is shown on page 17. The total balance sheet increased by CHF 500 million to CHF 7 billion. This is a plus of 7.8% compared to December 2023.
The customer deposits increased by 5.2%, which is a plus of CHF 250 million. The future balance sheet growth will also be driven by new clients. We also have seen an increase in long-term debts and other liabilities. The fact here is that we were able to increase our repo portfolio, and we're also able to receive more cash from the mortgage-backed bonds, the so-called Pfandbrief. The average remaining interest period on our financial assets, the asset side of the balance sheet, is 1.6 years. This is quite short and means that our interest business reacts quite quickly to changes in the yield curves. Overall, we have a very safe balance sheet, very safe assets.
The CHF 1.5 billion cash and cash equivalents are basically deposited by the Swiss National Bank, and the CHF 4 billion Swiss prime residential mortgages have a loan-to-value ratio of well below 50%, which is a very good ratio. The rest of the financial investments are high-quality liquid assets, like bonds, and we also provide credits to municipalities and cantons in Switzerland. We also have some quite safe time deposits, which we provide to other Swiss banks. On page 18, you see the equity and payout ratios. In the table on the upper left-hand side, you see the net profit of 2023. It was at CHF 187 million.
The General Assembly approved in April 2024 a dividend of CHF 88.5 million, which corresponds to a dividend per share of CHF 2.24. This corresponds to a payout ratio of 48%. For the next dividend, we expect the payout ratio to be at around 50% or to be at 50%, also provided that the General Assembly in 2025 will approve this payout ratio. As you can see, we have increased our payout ratio from 44% in 2021 to hopefully 50% then in 2024. On the right-hand side, you see the equity ratios. Here, the most important ratio is the CET1 ratio, the so-called CET1 ratio.
The CET1 ratio is currently at 25%, which is quite an important figure, as it shows to our clients that our balance sheet and our banks in the VZ Group are quite safe and financially strong. We plan to keep the CET1 ratio at ± this 25% also in the future. That the VZ Depository Bank in Switzerland is quite strong and financially well equipped is also shown in the Moody's deposit rating, which we have for the VZ Depository Bank. It was at Aa3, which corresponds to Aa- in the Fitch or SNB language. With this information, I hand back to Giulio, who will elaborate more on the outlook of the coming quarters.
Thank you, Rafael, for your comments. Let's go to the outlook now on page 20. I start on the left side of this page, and here I can say that basically, we will continue to build up our business by increasing the new client inflow and the consulting capacity. We are working on the client conversion rate of consulting clients into platform clients, and as we mentioned before, the demand for our consulting services is still high, and we assume that it will increase also in the next years, due to demographic and the challenges in the pension system. So as planned, we will work on increasing the consulting capacity by 7%-9% per year, also over the following years. With the platform clients, we are working on increasing the platform usage per client.
Last but not least, we are increasing or expanding the physical presence with our branch offices. All of this is the base of our business model and the key for the future growth. On the digital side, we will continue developing our VZ Financial Portal. As next steps, we will expand the self-onboarding and self-service functionalities. We will offer a personal finance management tool for budget monitoring that enables the retired clients to monitor their financial plan and roll out the mobile version of our professional e-trading platform in Germany. The financial portal is very important for us because it is the digital interface to our clients, and the share of clients who use it is increasing steadily. If a client uses the portal, the probability of using more platforms strongly increases and keeps the client close to us.
So this development has the same importance to us as the development of the physical presence with our branch office. In Germany, we will go on working on marketing our services to increase the new client inflow and improve the conversion rate from consulting platform to client. And as mentioned before, there we also want to expand our branch office network in Northern Germany. In the UK, we are still working on improving the marketing intelligence to gain new clients in an organic way, in broadening the internal trainee program for new advisors, and we are working on smaller IFA acquisitions and integration. Then we are exploring the possibility of integration of our own portfolio management platform, but this will take time. Today, our clients or PM mandates are serviced externally.
In the first step now, we will reduce the number of external platforms from today 17 to about 3. This step started in the last month and last about 24 months. Integrating the PM platforms could bring an increase of efficiency in managing the client portfolios and increasing revenues without raising the prices for our clients. The importance of this will increase, especially in view of future growth, also in the UK. Moving to the right-hand side of the page, there we have the financial outlook for 2024. As mentioned before, due to SNB interest rate adjustments, our net interest business is expected to be considerably lower in the second half year, 2024, compared to the first half year. This decline will continue and thus very likely also slow down growth somewhat in 2025.
However, net interest income only accounts for around 13% of all our revenues. So revenue and profit growth in 2024 should be within the long-term average, assuming that financial markets remain stable. And say this, we expect a significant lower growth rate of top and bottom line in the second half year, 2024, compared to the first half year, due to the higher base last year. Then, as Rafael mentioned, we will continue with the gradual increase in the dividend payout ratio from 48% to 50% for the financial year 2024. Overall, we can state that with our business model, the long-term growth story is unchanged, with a potential growth rate of around 10% per year on the top and bottom line, and that will remain unchanged also for the next years.
So we will remain focused on continuing to grow the business at the same pace for the next years also. Here, our presentation comes to an end. Now, we, Rafael and I, we are ready for your question. For this, I pass you over to the operator. Please, Sandra.
Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on the touchtone telephone. You will 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 followed by two. The first question comes from Andreas Venditti from Vontobel. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, maybe on the client mood. I think in the press release, you stated that second quarter was better than the first quarter, and in the call, you also said that the last few weeks improved further. So I guess further from the second quarter, so July, August, I conclude that it should be even better. So if we look at, for instance, net new money, or net new money per FTE, should we expect this to improve further, i.e., for the second half, maybe to be above the 20 mark? And also, are the statements also related, including the recent market volatility we had, or did you not really see a change in mood due to the quick recovery that we've seen there?
Then in terms of net interest income, you obviously mentioned that the rate cuts will have an impact in the second half. Can you maybe explain what your rate expectation is or how you base your rate expectation, let's say, going into next year, given that you mentioned that you expect a further decline there in terms of net interest income? And then maybe a bit more detail in terms of the insurance business. When I look at the figures there in the report, somehow it seems that you either had higher claims versus last year or maybe some provisioning changes or additions. Maybe you could give us some explanation there. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for your question, Mr. Venditti. I take question number one and then pass over to Rafael for question two and three, to explain the interest rate cuts and insurance business. On the net new money number, yes, I mentioned that the last few weeks or the second quarter, net new money came in higher than in the first quarter, so clients are less hesitant making investment decisions. And I mentioned that we expect that this trend will go on in the second half year of 2024. But I don't expect a further increase compared to the second quarter of 2024.
I expect that we maybe can see the same numbers as we have seen in the second quarter of 2024, also for the next two quarters. So I expect that the net new money per FTE will hopefully stay at the same level as we have seen in the first half year of 2024, maybe a little bit higher. But not over the CHF 20 million per FTE, and that is the upper line of our target corridor. Mentioned this, your third point was the market volatility with that we experienced at the end of July, beginning of August.
That didn't affect the mood of the clients because of the fast recovery that we have experienced in financial markets. And of course, the mood is always affected by financial markets, but it takes a longer time to change the mood of the client. Is this okay for you for the first question?
Yes, thank you very much.
Okay.
And on the net interest income, or the interest business, you were asking about, our rate expectations of the Swiss National Bank. Yeah, I mean, we just or we don't have our own expectations here. Actually, we just look at the forward yield curve, as most banks do. And here, at the moment, at least, we can see that the market expects rates to come down by 50 basis points in September, and another 25 basis points in spring 2025. So that's more or less what we expect as well. So a certain cost can be maybe sort of 25 basis points in September and 25 in December. But the conservative market opinion is that it will be 50 basis points already in September.
And then on the insurance business, yes, you're right, we had a little bit higher claims, but I have to mention here that those claims are very conservatively reserved. The actuaries are really conservative because our business is new, and if we have new clients, then they claims, then they reserve them quite conservatively. And mostly then, in the second half of the year, they already released some reserves built up in the first half year. So actually, I expect that... I don't know which current situation will be in second half year, but it's not that I expect at the moment that we have a higher claims ratio overall than in 2023.
Maybe important for you to know is, due to IFRS 17, it's really hard to know the development, to see the development of the net owned premiums, and I can give you here an idea. It's roughly 20%, it's just similar level as we have seen in the past. So I think that's the most important thing.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Yep. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star followed by one. The next question comes from Daniel Regli from ZKB. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. My first question is a follow-up on Andreas's question about net new money. From your comments, I kind of conclude that, or at least, can you maybe provide a little bit more detail into the developments between Q1 and Q2? What you just said, I would conclude that in Q2, the net new money was more or less at the CHF 20 million per financial consultant, which then, you know, kind of calculating from the 19.7 you achieved in H1, the net new money in Q1 would be CHF 19.4 million per financial consultant, which doesn't seem to be kind of that much of an uplift between Q1 and Q2. Or did I get something wrong about this kind of trends in H1?
Obviously, you, I understand if you cannot confirm the numbers exactly, but just from a, give me a bit of a feeling about what exactly was the difference between Q1 and Q2, and then what should we read into this for H2. The second question is on your guidance about net profit growth, or respectively, top line and bottom line growth. You say you expect top line and bottom line growth, in for 2024 within the longer term range. Can you specify this a bit, what exactly you consider to be the longer term range? Looking at your net profit growth since 2005, I just calculated it, it would be 14%... So what exactly do you mean by this? And then my last question is on the net interest income.
Can you maybe specify the impact of the changes by the National Bank on the minimum reserves and the kind of interest you're getting on the minimum reserves, specifically the dropping of the interest on the minimum reserve? Is this significant for you or rather not? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Daniel, for your questions. I'll start with question one, and then go on to question two, and for question three, I'll pass you over to Rafael. To the net new money numbers, we don't disclose the numbers of the quarters, but I want to maybe give more details going back to the last two years, 2022 and 2023. As we all can remember, 2022 was a very negative year for financial markets. Out of this, 2022 and 2023 was difficult for the clients, so they were reluctant to make investment decisions. This behaviour was also the same in the first two, three months of this year, of 2024.
But now, in the last few weeks, the last quarter, the mood changed, and so the clients were less hesitant on doing investment decisions. And we can see this behavior not only in the net new money numbers, but also in the decisions for working with us in a platform service. As you know, our clients plan their retirement with us. So the decision to invest the money is not made at the same time as the money is investable, because it's pension fund money, and the money is paid out at retirement time. And that's not the same moment as the client gets an advice from us or a financial plan from us.
But as I answered before, we assume that in the second half of the year, we will have the same situation as we experienced in the second quarter of this year. The mood of the client will remain stable, and they are less hesitant to make investment decisions. Our guidance is in behalf of the net profit growth of 2024, what do we mean with our long-term average? Our long-term average is not 14 or 15%. Our long-term average that we calculate and mean is the long-term potential growth that our business has, and that's a low double-digit growth, 10, around 10%, and that's what we expect for 2024. Maybe it will be a little bit higher.
It depends on, on, many, many items, as you know. But that's what, that's what we mean when, if we say, in a long-term average. It's on a, very low double-digit growth, number. Is that okay?
Yes. Thank you.
Okay. Then for the third question, Rafael?
Yes. Yes, you're right. The Swiss National Bank doesn't pay any interest on the minimum deposit or minimum reserves any longer. And yes, this has an impact on us, but it's not very big, to be honest. And there's another positive effect. The overall threshold on which the SNB pays the full interest rates to us also increased. So in the long term, we are able to deposit more money by the Swiss National Bank on which the Swiss National Bank pays us the full interest rate. So overall, those two effects level each other out, and the net impact not be very big. So and I can't give you the exact figures, actually, but don't expect a big impact out of it.
Okay. Thank you for the explanations.
Once again, if you wish to register a question, please press star followed by one. The next question comes from Gerhard Schwarz from Baader Helvea. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions, and, congratulations also to your, very good results. When it comes to the net interest income, there were already a couple of questions around that. Obviously, the bottom line seems to be that even though the S&P lowers interest rates quite significantly during this year, you do not really see that the overall absolute number of your net interest rate income will decline significantly, meaning CHF 10 million or more. But it's more a minor amount, as I read it. Is that correct? That would be my first question. And the second question is about assets under management.
That really was, I would say, the biggest surprise, a positive surprise, in the report today compared to the consensus you provided. Can you elaborate why there has been a strong performance on client portfolios during the first half? And this should be a quite important driver, given net new money was a little bit muted overall in the first half. And my third question was about- would be about the clients' willingness to invest. In the last call, you mentioned that there would be a high willingness of your clients to look on the liability side, meaning running down debts, managing debt exposure as interest rates have risen.
Has that pared back a little bit, and that in turn meant that, again, more the asset side of, client portfolios is more relevant? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Schwarz, for the congratulations first. Then I start with question two and three and pass them over to Rafael for question one. I hope it's okay for you. First, your question was the impact of performance on the AUM side, and why did we have such a high performance? And I can only say that the mix in the PM mandates or the asset allocation of our PM mandates is roughly at 50% stocks and 50% other securities. And as we are invested, or most of our clients invest their money passively, they had market-related performance.
So, it was a market performance that we experienced in the, in the first half year, and that pushed the AUM figure together with the net new money figure that we achieved. The willingness to invest, yes, as mentioned, and your question was about, if the what we saw last year or last two years, that more clients amortized their mortgages because of higher interest rates, if this trend goes on or stops or whatever. What we can see in 2024 is that, in the first quarter of the year, this was an item that we experienced.
But now with lowering interest rates, with the S&P cutting interest rates, this trend didn't stop, but it's much weaker than in the last year. Yes, and on the net interest income, I mean, I can't give you the exact figure or range on how the interest business will be affected by the interest cuts. You were asking about CHF 10 million, but you didn't mention a period. But I can say that the net interest income of 2024 compared to 2023 will be most likely below this CHF 10 million. So, I mean, the 2024 net interest income will be below the 2023 net interest income, but the decline will not be as high as you have mentioned. But besides this, I can't give you more details.
That's perfectly fine. Thank you very much for answering the questions.
We have a follow-up question from Andreas Venditti from Vontobel. Please, go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Maybe just a detail, but still, on the UK business, this handover of the founders, was this exit, planned in advance? I mean, when you bought it, was the plans that they would, start handing over, at this time? Thank you.
Yeah, of course, it was planned. So, as we, when we acquired Lumin, or 50% actually of Lumin in 2021, that was not on a classic acquisition that we did. That was a succession plan of the founders of Lumin. So they sold 50% of the company in 2021 with the perspective of selling 100% of the company in 2026, because they will retire then. So the handover was planned, and it was planned that we put in place our own management team that basically consists of new people and existing Lumin people, and that the handover had to start somewhere in these five years, of, of...
Yeah, it was actually the plan, and it's going as planned.
Very good. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Gentlemen, so far, there are no further questions. Back over to you for any closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you for the question. Thank you for listening. Have a good day and then weekend, and I give back to the operator. Thank you, Sandra, to leading us to the presentation.
Thank you, sir. It was a pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Conference Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you. Goodbye.