AIB Group plc (A5G) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the AIB Group plc Annual General Meeting 2021. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Conor Gouldson. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you very much. Okay. Just to start off today just to introduce Brendan McDonagh, our Chairman for today, who will take us through today's proceedings. Thank you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our 2021 Annual General Meeting. My name is Brendan McDonagh. I'm the Deputy Chair and acting chair of AIB Group plc, and I'm very pleased to chair today's proceedings. I have confirmed that we have a quorum and so that I can now formally open the meeting. The notice of the meeting together with the 2020 annual report were posted to shareholders on the 1st April 2021 and are available on our website. The Annual General Meeting is again being held under constrained circumstances given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Hopefully, next year, we'll see us gather once again in one room for this meeting. For today, we have the minimum number of people present in our group head office at 10 Molesworth Street required to allow the meeting to be validly held. That is the quorum of 2. In addition, we have a very limited number of people necessary to answer your questions, which may comprise -- which comprise myself; our Chief Executive, Colin Hunt; our Chief Financial Officer, Donal Galvin; our General Counsel, Helen Dooley; and our Company Secretary, Conor Gouldson. Meanwhile, our physical arrangements today ensure that we're observing the social distance and guidelines, with at least the distance of 2 meters between each of us. All of the other directors are joining us by phone today. I will invite Colin to give an overview of the bank's performance during 2020 later in the meeting, and we'll also address the quarter one trading update released this morning. In my statement in the 2020 annual report, I noted that everything that could be said about the group's performance in 2020 must be set against the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting health and economic crisis. At our AGM last year, the directors withdrew the resolution relating to the dividend, and there is no such resolution this year either on account of the group's financial performance during 2020. The Board booked a substantial provision for expected credit losses in 2020, amounting to EUR 1.46 billion, having taken a conservative forward-looking and comprehensive approach to the economic situation. Despite this, the group maintained a very strong capital position at the end of the year with a CET1 ratio of 15.6%. This is only my second time in an AIB office in the past year. Almost overnight, other than for our branches, which remained open throughout the pandemic and continue to remain open, AIB managed to pivot the business to remote working and working from home for over 7,000 employees whose commitment, dedication to the group and to our customers with commendable resilience I wish to pay tribute to them now. These employees continue to put our customers first and enabled us to extend breathing space to more than 80,000 payment breaks and other supports to many of our retail and business customers who are facing into very uncertain times. They support each other, and they help the Board discharge this responsibility seamlessly when it's switched to remote meetings. Your Board has met 29 times in 2020, and its main committees have met 49 times. Everything after 5th March 2020 has been done remotely, again, all made possible by our employees. Since the AGM last year, we appointed Fergal O’Dwyer and Andy Maguire to the Board, and to the Audit and Risk Committees, respectively. Both are very experienced individuals and are contributing very effectively already. We have a number of additional Board appointment processes and training including 1 for the Board Chair, and we'll share details with you as soon as we can. I will now pass over to Colin. Given the unique circumstances of today's meeting, there's no video or other formal presentation. Rather, Colin will address you here in this room and those of you joining us on the conference line. Thank you.

Thank you, Brendan. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and thank you for taking the time to join us today. I'm very pleased to be here to update you on the group's performance for 2020 and for the first quarter of this year as per our trading statement released to the market this morning. We are undoubtedly living through extraordinary times. Our customers and the communities we serve have faced an unprecedented social, health and economic crisis as a result of COVID-19, coupled with additional economic uncertainty arising from Brexit. At the outset, I also want to pay particular tribute to all our team members across AIB group for their exceptional performance in supporting our customers and each other at this very difficult time. 2020 was a year like no other, and our performance last year was very much shaped by COVID-19. We entered this crisis in a position of capital strength, which, enabled by our leading digital technology, allowed us to deliver unparalleled levels of support to our customers, communities and the economy when it mattered most. We gave our retail customers over 66,000 payment breaks, with over 88% of those customers now having returned to full repayment of principal and interest. Over 80% of our employees moved to working from home, while hundreds of our team members remained on the front line, serving our customers, keeping more than 99% of our branches open. And bringing stability to the main streets of Ireland when so many other businesses were forced to close their doors. AIB was first to market with our government-backed COVID-19 credit guarantee scheme term loan, allocating EUR 746 million to support businesses as disease-mitigating lockdowns affected day-to-day operations and supply chains. We didn't get it right all the time. But we responded quickly in areas where we initially fell short. We navigated the pandemic, while fundamentally altering our operational model, proving ourselves to be extraordinarily agile and resilient at a time of great change and great uncertainty. The trends in relation to digitalization, sustainability and changing the way we work, have been fast-tracked by COVID-19. Against this backdrop, it is our view that this once in a lifetime event was the moment to accelerate positive transformation driven by our ambition to be at the heart of our customers' financial lives at every stage. At the onset of the pandemic in March of last year, while our immediate and primary focus was on supporting our customers and our people, we also began work on refreshing our strategic plan. In December, we announced details of the acceleration of our existing strategy, which will see our organization transformed and delivering on a revised set of targets to 2023. In light of the revision of our strategic plan, we took the opportunity to review the Executive Committee's structure to ensure that we were best organized to deliver our strategic priorities and objectives. The outcome of this review led to the redefinition of the role of Chief Operating Officer into 2 distinct positions, a COO to lead transformation while driving the ongoing efficiency of our operations, and a Chief Technology Officer to lead our technology agenda and ongoing enhancement of our customer and employee digital propositions. The process is currently underway to fill these positions. Since December, we have been implementing our strategy at pace, and we are pleased to report progress on both our cost initiatives and on our growth initiatives which are designed to broaden the range of products and services that we present to our customers, to win new customers and to strengthen our business. In March, we were delighted to announce the acquisition of Goodbody, for which the regulatory approval process is currently underway. Commercial negotiations are progressing well with Natwest Holdings, following the filing of a memorandum of understanding for the proposed acquisition of Ulster bank's circa EUR 4 billion corporate and commercial loan book. And in addition, discussions are progressing well with Great-West LifeCo to establish an AIB-branded joint venture to greatly enhance our life pensions and savings propositions that we offer to our customers. While there have been challenges in 2020, the fundamentals of our business remain robust, sustainable and strong. We continue to have the leading position in personal loan, current account and credit card markets. While also leading the sustainability agenda in financial services in Ireland. We have a really strong franchise. It's an exceptional platform, and one we do not take for granted. I'm pleased to report that the group returned to profitability in the first quarter of 2021 and is on track to deliver a performance in line with expectations for the full year. Total income decreased by 4% versus the same period last year, which was in line with expectations, while overall revenue displayed resilience through our diversified income streams. We have maintained our focus on cost discipline with operating expenses broadly similar to the first quarter of last year. And our strategic cost initiatives are on track with full-time employee numbers reducing by 1% since December. Our expected credit loss approach deployed in response to the impact of COVID-19 has been comprehensive, conservative and forward-looking. And we recorded a net credit impairment charge of some EUR 50 million in the first quarter, with a return to a more normalized credit environment expected based on positive trends at merger. In the first quarter of this year, total new lending of EUR 2.3 billion was recorded, a reduction of 7% versus the same period in 2020. We saw mixed trends across segments with sluggish demand in consumer lending and stronger activity in corporate sectors. The Irish mortgage market performed strongly in the first quarter of 2021, with total drawdowns up 7% on the first quarter of 2020. A solid rise in mortgage lending is expected with market estimates revised to some EUR 10 billion for 2021. Our new mortgage lending was EUR 500 million in the quarter. The first quarter pipeline shows strong applications and approvals data, both at market level and the group's share thereof, giving us confidence in our full-year performance. The first quarter lockdown impacted consumer credit demand, which led to a 30% decline in new Republic of Ireland personal lending versus the same period last year. In contrast, household deposits have continued to increase while credit card debt and overdrafts declined. We expect this trend to reverse some of the opening of the economy as discretionary spending increases, as we saw in the third quarter of last year. The SME sector, supported by government measures, remained resilient, and we recorded a 3% increase in new lending compared to the first quarter of 2020. Corporate institutional & business banking had a good start to the year, particularly in the renewable energy sector and corporate banking. In addition, new lending in the U.K. was up by 8%. We continue to support our customers with the transition to a lower carbon economy and green lending accounted for 21% of total new lending, whilst our green mortgage product represented some 15% of new mortgage lending. A key priority for the group is addressing nonperforming exposures in a sustainable way. Our preference is to restructure loans for customers in difficulty on a case-by-case basis. And for customers to engage with us in order to provide sustainable solutions. In the first quarter, we agreed the sales of 2 NPE portfolios in deep arrears, which as at the end of the first quarter, reduces our NPEs to EUR 3.8 billion or 6.5% of gross loans, down from EUR 4.3 billion in December of last year. We remain committed to reducing NPEs further, given their impact on cost, capital requirements and balance sheet resilience. As regards to capital, we have a fully loaded CET1 ratio of 15.8%, up from 15.6% in December, which is well ahead of our medium-term target of greater than 14%. Our strong capital position enables us both to invest in our business and to pursue ROTE accretive acquisitions and joint ventures, which will, over time, enable us to resume distributions to shareholders, subject, of course, to regulatory approvals. We also made major advances in sustainability, which sits at the very heart of our strategy. We are fundamentally committed to supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy, reducing our own carbon footprint and helping our customers to do the same. We have clearly shown it is possible to do well while doing good, with our green lending being the strongest performing part of our lending book. We have announced our commitment to becoming the first Irish bank to operate as carbon-neutral across our operations by 2030, and we pledge to use our local reach and influence to help society make that transition, ensuring a greener tomorrow by backing those building it today. So far this year, we are proud to be the first Irish company to have committed to use World Economic Forum's Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics in our reporting, joining 78 other sustainability-focused companies globally. The forum's Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics are based on the 4 value-driven principles of people, planet, prosperity and governance. This commitment reflects our pledge to lead with purpose and to seek long-term value creation by adopting a multi-stakeholder approach. Additionally, we are the first Irish Bank to join the United Nations Net-Zero Banking Alliance. Our progress is recognized independently and externally by both rating agencies and industry bodies. Most recently with Sustainalytics, ranking us 53rd out of 1,047 banks globally, with a low-risk ESG score of 14.5 in April this year, which benchmarks very favorably compared to our peer group and demonstrates our significant progress in advancing the sustainability agenda. As I reflect on the last year, there is no doubt that we are really seeing the best of our culture in action, with our people coming together to deliver solutions for customers, colleagues adapting to new ways of working, and in parallel, people and teams supporting their local communities. As part of our ongoing cultural evolution program, in 2020 we launched a refreshed set of values and associated behaviors to further enable fair customer outcomes. Our strategic ambition can only be achieved when all of our customers see AIB as their trusted partner to help manage their financial well-being at every stage of life. As we look to the rest of the year, we expect a robust recovery as the economy reopens and the rollout of vaccines gathers momentum. The implementation of our strategy is well underway and positions us strongly for the future. As our industry undergoes significant change, our strategic clarity gives us confidence that our strong balance sheet, digital capability, distribution and franchise will enable us to grow, serving our customers and the communities in which we operate. As stated earlier, we are progressing a number of acquisition opportunities to complement our existing strong customer propositions. And we look forward to updating you on these initiatives at the appropriate time later in the year. As Ireland emerges from lockdown, the vaccine rollout continues, we are confident about the outlook and our ability to generate sustainable shareholder returns and meet our medium-term targets by 2023. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Colin. We now come to the formal part of the meeting where we will consider and vote on the resolutions. There are total 24 resolutions to be proposed. This may seem high, but is due to the need to treat the proposed resolutions regarding the reelection of each director separately. You'll have an opportunity to ask questions in a few moments. But if you prefer to ask your questions privately, then please make contact with our Company Secretary at any time after the meeting, and they will be answered. The relevant address is in the notice of meeting. Between myself and the Senior Executives President, we will do our best to answer your questions, but where more information may be required, I'll ask that you provide your details and questions after the meeting, and we'll ensure that they are followed up. Also, I ask you respectively to focus your questions on the business of today's meeting. As a matter of procedure, I will propose the 24 resolutions in 1 section and then take questions in relation to the 24 resolutions when that is completed. You're entitled to ask any question, any resolution in that question section. I hope this makes it easy for you. So I seek your patience as the question of will time come later. Board believes that it's important that the intentions of all shareholders who register a vote are taking into account. And therefore, I'm calling a poll on each of the resolutions proposed. We will be voting by poll on each of them separately at the end of the meeting. And in that way, all the proxies received prior to the meeting will be taken into account. The full text of each resolution is included at pages 11 to 15 of the notice of meeting. We'll come to the questions after we've proposed all of the resolutions. The first resolution on the agenda relates to the 2020 Annual Financial Report, which I propose shortly as an ordinary resolution. Before I do that, I need to turn to the independent audit report. This is extremely detailed and is set out on pages 215 to 226, inclusive of our 2020 Annual Financial Report, copies of which we've received and are available on our website. John McCarroll from our auditor, Deloitte, is also joining the meeting by phone. However, I propose that with the consent of the members present here at the meeting, we take the auditor's report as read. Thank you. I would, therefore, propose the following resolution. The following review of the company's affairs, the financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2020, together with reports of the directors and the auditor thereon be received and considered. Resolution 2 deals with the auditor's remuneration. The work of the auditor and the level of the auditees are reviewed on behalf of the Board by Board Audit Committee. That committee is satisfied with the effectiveness of the auditor and that the fees are appropriate. I'm pleased therefore to propose as an ordinary resolution to authorize the directors to fix the remuneration of the auditor. Resolution 3 relates to continuation in office of Deloitte as auditor. Under the Irish company laws, statutory auditor is automatically reappointed, except in very specific and limited circumstances, which do not pertain here. Accordingly, this vote is an advisory vote only. So I propose the following ordinary resolution as an advisory resolution that the continuation in office of Deloitte as the auditor of the company until the conclusion of the next Annual General Meeting of the company be considered. Resolution 4 deals with the election and reelection of directors. As advised in the letter from the deputy chair accompanying the notice of the meeting, AIB Group plc is required to comply with the provisions of the Irish listing rules and the U.K. listing rules relating to controlling shareholders and the election or reelection of independent non-executives directors. As the Minister of Finance of Ireland is controlling shareholder for the purpose of the listing rules, that is the Minister exercises or controls more than 30% of the voting rights of the company. Resolutions for A, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J and K must be approved by a majority vote of both the shareholders of the company, and the independent shareholders of the company, that is the shareholders of the company who are not controlling shareholders of the company. The Board is confident that all directors are experienced and knowledgeable and that they bring valuable skills the Board and provide an objective perspective. The Board considers that the contribution of each of the individual directors and the Board as a whole is and continues to be important to the long-term sustainable success of the company. Biographical information on each of the directors being proposed for election or reelection is set out on pages 54 and 55 of the 2020 Annual Financial Report. And in the case of Andy Maguire, in my letter to you, which accompanied the notice of this meeting. So I now propose a separate ordinary resolution for each of Basil Geoghegan, Colin Hunt, Sandy Kinney Pritchard, Carolan Lennon, Elaine MacLean, Andy Maguire, Brendan McDonagh, Helen Normoyle, Ann O'Brien, Fergal O’Dwyer, and Raj Singh be elected or reelected as a director. Resolution 5 is another advisory resolution which deals with the remuneration of the company directors as disclosed in the 2020 Annual Financial Report. So I propose the following ordinary resolution as an advisory resolution, that the Directors remuneration report is set out on pages 205 to 207 of the 2020 Annual Financial Report be considered. Resolution 6 is an advisory resolution in relation to the remuneration policy. I propose as an ordinary resolution that the remuneration policy as set out on Pages 201 to 202 of the 2020 Annual Financial Report be considered. Resolution 7 through 11 are very technical in nature and are quite long-winded, unfortunately, and are set out in detail in the notice of the meeting and explained in the company letter from myself. They are considered to be in line with market practice and take account of relevant guidelines and principles. And with the consent of the members present here at the meeting, I propose that we take the full text of the resolutions as read. And I will instead describe briefly the purpose of each of these resolutions for you now. Resolution 7 is an ordinary resolution, which I now propose to authorize the directors to allocate new shares should the need arise. I propose Resolution 8(a), this is a special resolution, which, if passed, would allow for the limited disapplication of preemption rights while empowering the directors to allot equity securities for cash otherwise then in accordance with statutory preemption rights. This limited disapplication is restricted to just 5% of the current issued share count. I also propose Resolution 8(b), this is another special resolution, which, if passed, would allow for the limited disapplication of preemption rights proposed to empower the directors to allot equity securities for cash to fund an acquisition or what the directors determined to be specified capital investment. This limited disapplication is also capped at 5% of the current issued share capital. Taking these 2 resolutions in this way, this recommended practice of the preemption group, which monitors the protection of shareholder rights in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Resolution 9 is proposed by me as a special resolution to authorize the market purchase by the company of its own shares up to 10% of the company's issued ordinary shares as at the date of the passing of this resolution. Resolution 10 is a special resolution to authorize the company to reissue shares purchased by it and not canceled as treasury shares. If granted, the minimum/maximum prices with treasury shares may be reissued, shall be determined in accordance with this resolution and the company's articles of association. I now propose resolution 10 to this meeting. Resolution 11 is another special resolution and is proposed by me to permit the directors to resolve that any dividends declared in the future by the directors or declared by the shareholders on the recommendation of the directors shall be paid by electronic means only. Resolution 12 is also proposed by me as a special resolution to authorize the directors to call a general meeting, other than an Annual General meeting, or a meeting for the passing of a special resolution or the appointment of director on not less than 14 clear days' notice. Finally, I propose resolution 13 as a special resolution. This resolution, if passed, will grant the company authority to make off-market purchases of ordinary shares from the Minister of Finance or his nominee, pursuant to the directed buyback contract, which is envisaged will be entering the company shortly after today's meeting. There is no current plan or intention to exercise this authority, and any exercise of it in the future will only be contemplated by our Board and undertaken if it considers that this transaction would be in the best interest of shareholders as a whole and relevant regulatory approvals are in place. We are now open for your questions. First, I will take questions, which were submitted in advance of the meeting, and I will ask our Company Secretary, Conor Gouldson, to read these on behalf of the shareholders. [Operator Instructions] I also ask that you limit your questions today to matters which are specifically related to the resolutions before today's meeting. And I would like to thank you for your cooperation in advance. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Brendan. So we received 2 shareholders who wrote questions in advance and submitted them to us, and I am delighted to deal with them now. The first is from [ Colin McDonald ]. And the question is, in 1991, the bank induced staff and retired staff to transfer to new benefits in the group Irish-defined benefit pension scheme. The benefits included pension fully linked to the consumer price index. These benefits replaced pensions, which were related to salary scales. The bank is now denying that it has an obligation to fund the schemes sufficiently to allow the trustee to fully award these benefits. How do you reconcile this policy with your own code of conduct, which requires management, both individually and collectively, to behave honestly, ethically and with integrity to honor your commitments and, in general, to do the right thing. So my answer to that is as follows: The decision on the awarding of pension increases is a discretionary decision of the trustee without regards to the bank. It is not a decision of the bank. The trustee set out its position in relation to the 1992 and the 1996 deeds in some detail in the 2016 member newsletter following an extensive legal review and the trustee issued personalized letters to each affected pensioner. In 2017, the Board having taken actuarial and external legal advice determined that the funding of discretionary increase in pensions and payment is a decision to be made by the Board annually for the group's main Irish schemes. A process, taking account of all relevant interests and factors, has been implemented by the Board. These interests and factors include the advice of the actuary, the interest of the members of the scheme, the interest of the employees, the group's financial circumstances and ability to pay, the views of the trustees, the group's commercial interests and any competing obligations to the state. The Board has followed this process since 2017 and has disclosed this very transparently in its Annual Report since. Pensions are a complex matter. And whenever the impact upon the bank and are considered by the Board. The Board ensures that it has the necessary actuarial, financial and legal advice to ensure it is fulfilling its duties. The second question came in from [ Vincent McManus ]. And he's got 2 questions. The first is, was a live video conference or audio cast via platforms such as Zoom, Crowdcast, MS Teams or Lumi considered for the AGM? If so, what were the arguments for and against? If not, was there a particular reason? And the second question is, I particularly like receiving hard copies of annual report. I accept that 120-gram per square meter card paper is needed for archiving purposes. I am impartial to having color in the document. Has the Board considered producing annual reports with paper weight less than 80 grams per square meter, if not, is there a particular reason why? So our answers to these questions, Brendan, are: we did consider 1 of the platforms, but decided against it for this year on the basis of technical capability and evidence of more widespread adoption amongst users. We also wanted to see more evidence of the technology being proven in events such as an AGM, particularly where the fielding of questions and voting are concerned. AIB embraces new technologies, and it will certainly form part of our consideration again for next year's AGM. And it's important that central to our thinking this year and to the last year was to ensure a stable, reliable channel for shareholders to both listen in to the meeting and to ask questions with the minimum of hurdles to clear to do this. We have quite deliberately favoring ease of access to and participation in the meeting. As regards to the query on the annual report, the paper used in the majority of our annual report this year is, in fact, 80 grams per square meter. We have already looked at options below this level for future reports, although maintaining a minimum production standard and durability will, of course, be important. Sustainability is a central pillar to the group strategy, and we do encourage shareholders switch to electronic or online access to the annual report. Only 10% of our shareholders, 8,300 of our 82,000 shareholders continue to request a hard copy of the annual report, and we actively seek a reduction in this level each year through a direct mail to such shareholders. We only publish our annual sustainability report online. Over to you, Brendan. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Conor. With that, I believe the operator will let me know if there are any questions in the -- I believe we have a question.

Yes. So our first question comes from the line of Brendan Burgess.

Chairman, you've been on the Board since 2016. During that time, you and the Board have overseen the bank's approach to the prevailing tracker scandal. You were on the Board when it approved the argument it wasn't a breach of contract, it was only a service failure. You were on the Board when it approved the argument this service failure doesn't impact our customers because the tracker rate would have been as high as 12% when the [ FBR ] was 5%. Why did you not point out that these arguments made no sense to any reasonable person. Why did you have to wait for the Financial Services Ombudsman to point out that they made no sense? Was your only question at the Board meeting, if a cost of EUR 300 million to treat the prevailing rate customers fairly, how do we avoid paying this out? You were on the Board when AIB came up with a slogan, Putting Customers First, why did you not put customers first when it came to respecting their contractual rights to a tracker? You were appointed to the Board for your experience, your judgment and your independence of mind. But although you've received EUR 600,000 as directors fees over the last 5 years for this part-time job, you don't seem to have had the judgment or the independence to challenge the anti-consumer approach of AIB to the prevailing tracker scandal. Another AIB slogan is Backing Brave. It takes bravery to admit that you are wrong and then to fix around onto your customers. But you were not brave enough to do that. Given that you've shown no judgments, given that you've shown no independence, given that you've shown no bravery, do you not think that you should now do the honorable thing and resign from the Board?

Thank you very much, Mr. Burgess. First of all, let me just address your last point first. The election or reelection of directors is obviously a matter for all shareholders. And the Board has this charge as duties in the best interest of the company all of its stakeholders and including its customers. Regarding the customer group that you refer to and with the decision of the Ombudsman. As stated in last year's AGM, our view has always been that this particular customer group were not disadvantaged by being offered the tracker mortgage. We believe the tracker mortgages at the time would be more expensive than other rates on offer, with the trackers have been continued to be available. However, in March last year, when the Ombudsman issued a final decision in relation to a complaint made by 1 of these customers, bank decided to apply the same level of compensation to all of the customers and acted as quickly as was practical. We've also stated in the past -- and you mentioned when a Board should recognize that mistakes have been made, as we've stated previously, that the Board does deeply regret the tracker mortgage issue ever occurred. And as again, as we stated in previous AGMs, the company made mistakes, they are staying on the bank's record. However, this Board, on behalf of all of its stakeholders and its customers has worked to remedy as quickly as possible all of the mortgages identified through the overall tracker mortgage examination process. And that exercise is largely now complete with over, nearly, 99.9% of all customers having received the appropriate compensation. Thank you very much, Mr. Burgess for your comment and questions. Operator, I think we can move to the next question.

There are no further questions at this time.

Thank you. In that case, we will now proceed to hold the polls on the resolutions proposed today. Votes may be given by registered holders of ordinary shares present here and in person or by proxy and entitled to vote. Every such -- apologies, every such holder has 1 vote for every ordinary share held. I will vote on behalf of those shareholders who have submitted a valid proxy appointing the Chair to vote on their behalf. I should mention that for those shareholders who've already launched the proxy, they do not need to complete a poll card unless they wish change the vote. Poll cards are on the reverse of the proxy form. I will now ask the shareholders present who wish to complete polling cards to complete, sign and deposit them into the ballot box in this room. And should anybody have any questions on the poll process, please ask Mr. Gouldson. The polls will close immediately after the meeting closes, and the votes cast will be verified under the scrutiny of Computershare. As normal, the results of the poll on the resolutions proposed will be announced publicly later today by the company to the Regulatory News Service known as RNS, and will be available on the AIB website. This concludes proceedings, and it only remains to me now to thank you for joining us today and for your participation, and to wish each of you and your families, good health in the weeks and months ahead while we navigate our way and our country through this COVID-19 crisis. Let me assure you, on behalf of the Board and all of my colleagues today, AIB will continue its work in supporting our customers and our economy in these challenging times we now face. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating, and you may now all disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.