Azimut Holding S.p.A. ($AZM)

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Azimut Holding First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Giorgio Medda, Chief Executive Officer of Azimut Holding. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Azimut's First Quarter 2026 Results Presentation. As you know, I'm Giorgio Medda, CEO of the group, and I'm pleased to be here in Milan with Alessandro Zambotti, our CEO and Group CFO; and Alex Soppera, Head of Investor Relations. So following a defining and record-breaking 2025, I'm quite proud to say that the first 3 months of 2026 have proven that our growth trajectory is indeed structural and accelerating. We have started the year exceptionally well, setting a very powerful pace that underpins another year of expected high-quality growth. So let's get started and move to Slide #3, please. Despite adverse and volatile market conditions during the quarter, our teams across the globe have once again demonstrated the true strength, scalability and resilience of our diversified business model. We closed the first quarter achieving a staggering EUR 4.6 billion in net inflows, an absolute record alongside a highly solid net profit of EUR 125 million. Importantly, I want to highlight that EUR 4 billion of these inflows were entirely organic, making it our best result on record for organic growth, and this translates also in attractive double-digit growth in recurring net profit. Alongside these strong operating numbers, we are making steady progress on our broader strategic priorities. First of all, in the U.S., we have successfully integrated NSI, further strengthening our footprint in the world's largest wealth market and where we are about to launch a suite of active ETFs, bringing our market-leading global asset management capabilities directly to American investors. Meanwhile, the TNB spin-off remains firmly on track. It is a transformational step, I remind you, for the group that will unlock significant value, and we are working diligently towards this completion, and Alessandro will discuss it in more detail later in the presentation. And on the back of the strong start of the year and our continued operating momentum, we confidently confirm our full year 2026 guidance of EUR 10 billion in net inflows and EUR 550 million in net profit. And with that, let us please move to Page #4. Here, we detail the financial metrics that underscore this robust start to the year. Total assets reached EUR 144 billion at the end of March, up 32% year-on-year, and this reflects both strong organic growth and the continued expansion of our global platform. In terms of net inflows, the story here is the sustained commercial momentum of our global platform with half of inflows generated outside of our domestic operations remains strong and continue to be the cornerstone of our success. Importantly, this growth is translated directly into high-quality financial growth. Looking at the top line, we delivered EUR 371 million of revenues with recurring revenues up 14% year-on-year, and this is highlighting the resilience of our business mix. The same momentum is visible in profitability with recurring EBIT increasing by 14% and group net profit reaching EUR 125 million, with recurring net profit actually being up 15% year-on-year. Let me also highlight that global operations have contributed EUR 14 million of net profit, representing 12% of the group's total. This contribution is still below its long-term potential and was temporarily impacted by transitory items and business growth effects as we scale our platform. However, the direction is clear, and we expect this contribution to continue growing as our global platform matures. In summary, Q1 2026 set the pace for another year of robust and sustainable growth. So turning to Slide 5. We look here at the bridge from our reported net profit of EUR 115 million in the first quarter of 2025 to our current EUR 125 million. As the title of this slide suggests, this is a clear story of high-quality earnings expansion, driving record profitability. So we start from the left, and you can see here very clearly a strong 14% uplift in our recurring operating performance after cost. If you want to see that differently, we grew by EUR 20 million. We also generated EUR 4 million in better performance fees, split equally across both our mutual funds and our insurance products. And let me remind you that this has been done during a quarter where market conditions certainly were not the easiest for everyone. However, it's important to note that the markets around the world and our global operations book performance fees on a semiannual basis. Hence, there will be certainly a better contribution coming at the end of Q2. The strong positive operating drivers were only slightly offset by a EUR 2 million impact from our strategic affiliates and GP stakes, primarily due to lower dividends from the GP stake in business and due to an EUR 11 million impact from other items below EBIT, and Alessandro will detail on those later. While this reflects higher gains on our own investments year-on-year and the continued strong growth on Nova, there were some negative fair value options net of nonoperating costs, finance expenses and higher minorities. So yes, the ultimate takeaway from this bridge is that our recurring net profit grew by an impressive 15% year-on-year, reaching EUR 128 million. Now turning to Slide 6 and 7 very briefly. We provide here a deeper look under the hood of our reclassified profit and loss statements by business lines and geography. So we start with Integrated Solutions, Slide 6, which is our core business dedicated to retail and affluent customers. Here, our clients, let me remind you, daily benefit from our full vertical integration and the direct synergy of our investment professionals and financial advisers. As a result, this business commands superior margins and as we are seeing robust growth here, coupled with disciplined cost control. in Italy, we see this vertical expanding across all metrics, ultimately, our recurring net profit margin increasing year-on-year to 71 basis points. In our Global Wealth division, the higher net profit margin year-over-year reflects the scalability of our proposition across our key international financial hubs and the resulting increase in recurring and ancillary revenues. Looking at our institutional and wholesale business, we delivered strong asset revenue growth driven primarily by Nova and NSI. While the bottom line for this specific segment is temporarily impacted as we integrate the latter, NSI into our platform, we remain highly confident that the strategic value and the future revenue potential will unfold in short order already during the course of 2026. So finally, looking at our strategic affiliates, we are seeing that strong business growth is progressively and finally translating into improved profitability, yet impacted by financing costs as investments are still in an expansion phase. So moving to Slide 7 and zooming in by region. The message is very much the same and consistent across our entire global footprint. In Italia, we continue seeing outstanding resilience and commercial momentum with our net profit reaching EUR 110 million and our recurring net profit margin remaining exceptionally strong at 67 basis points. Globally, top line growth in America is being driven by the perimeter change. I mean, we said following the consolidation of NSI. And while the net profit contribution from this global operation is temporarily impacted right now, it's fully expected to unfold progressively as we bring these assets to scale. And all of this, while maintaining a healthy group recurring net profit margin of -- sorry, 41 basis points. Ultimately, the takeaway from both of these slides is clear, continued platform expansion, resilient margins supported by cost discipline are driving our net profit increase across Italy, the Americas, the Asia Pacific region and Europe and the Middle East areas. So now moving to Slide 8, more on the qualitative side of our business performance. We see that our commitment to global excellence, global local expertise is benefiting not only our clients, it was also recognized by the industry. On this slide, you see a selection of recent awards that we have won around the world. I'm particularly proud to highlight that Azimut was recently named the World's Best Independent Wealth Manager at the Private Banking Awards 2026 by Euromoney in Singapore. This prestigious global recognition highlights the strength and consistency of our independent business model. It acknowledges our commitment to excellence and our ability to combine a solid international presence with a long-term strategic vision. And all this, in turn, allow us to deliver high-quality tailored advice services to clients worldwide. Beyond this overarching global award, you will see top recognitions across our entire asset management platform. For example, in Brazil, AZ Quest was recognized at the Melhore do Mercado 2026 Awards organized by Exame & BTG Pactual. Furthermore, in the United States, North Square Investments was named as a winner at the 2026 Lipper Fund Awards for its preferred income securities fund. From the Americas, our specialized Islamic funds and our Asian wealth management teams, our investment capabilities are being celebrated locally and globally. This broad success proves that we are delivering superior performance and measurable client value in each market we operate in. And turning to Slide 9. We zoom here on the performance of our Italian clients, and we look at the net weighted average performance that we have delivered since the start of the year, as I mentioned earlier, in adverse and volatile market conditions. We had a very solid start. And certainly, the period was not easy for everyone in the market, but we managed to overcome the sharp turbulence in March triggered by the geopolitical anxieties that led to a sharp and sudden market correction. However, our teams have stayed highly disciplined, maintaining a constant dialogue between our portfolio managers, our financial advisers and ultimately, our clients, and we have successfully navigated this complexity. I'm pleased to report that despite the highly unpredictable market, our net weighted average performance delivered to clients year-to-date is at 2.1% that is currently beating the industry benchmark by about 50 basis points. So furthermore, our outlook remains confident with resilient global growth, solid corporate earnings and the potential easing of global trade tensions expected in mid-May, we are perfectly positioned to capture further upside for our clients. At the same time, let me stress that we are driving forward our strategic expansion and continuous product innovation in private markets. And certainly here, empowered by our global ecosystem, we recently secured exclusive access for our Italian clients to a prominent U.S. artificial intelligence project, allowing them to co-invest alongside leading institutional investors. And including this club deal, our private markets inflows in recent months have exceeded EUR 950 million. projecting us firmly towards our goal to -- of over EUR 2 billion of private market fund raising by the end of this year. And with this, I hand over to Alessandro to give you more insights into our financials.

Yes. Thank you, Giorgio, and good afternoon to everyone. So moving to Slide 10, and let us break down the quality of the revenues. Total revenues reached EUR 371 million, which represents a solid 15% increase year-on-year. This was primarily driven by our recurring fees, which grew by nearly EUR 39 million or 14% year-on-year. If we break this down further, our global businesses grew by EUR 28 million and this was significantly boosted by an EUR 18 million perimeter effect from the successful integration of NSI, Kennedy Capital, HighPost and [ Knox ]. And furthermore, our existing global business added almost EUR 9 million, led by solid organic growth in Brazil, Singapore and Egypt. It's also looking to Italy, we also delivered strong growth across all the business lines, charging over EUR 10 million to our recurring fees. And this was supported by the usage perimeter of the public fund, the private market fund, our advisory service and also our partnership of Nova. And while we achieved impressive double-digit growth year-on-year, and let me spend also a moment comparing these figures against the fourth quarter. We achieved quarterly growth despite the natural headwind of having fewer billing days in February. And if we adjust for those missing days and account for the adverse March market that Giorgio mentioned before, our actual growth is actually higher than compared to the quarter. So therefore, we look confidently ahead the increasing of the figures further over the remainder of -- the remaining part of the year. Looking at performance fees, we recorded a EUR 2 million increase year-on-year. This positive result was mainly driven by momentum in Monaco, Singapore, Turkey and Switzerland, which has successfully offset a EUR 1.3 million negative fulcrum effect in Italy. Furthermore, looking to our insurance revenue, we reached EUR 35.5 million for the quarter. This includes a very solid base of EUR 28.5 million in highly stable recurring revenues due to the underlying asset growth and a favorable product mix. And also as well, we benefit from EUR 7 million in insurance performance fee, mostly recorded in January and February. Finally, our central commission income and the other revenues also showed a strong positive development, primarily driven by higher entry fees across Dubai, Switzerland, Monaco and Singapore. So overall, this picture of highly resilient and high quality of revenue generation that perfectly support our growth looking also to the following quarters. So then moving to Slide 11, we analyze the evolution of our operating costs. Total operating costs for the first quarter amount to EUR 206 million, which represents a 15% increase year-on-year. This projection is entirely coherent with the expansion of our consolidation perimeter and the underlying growth of our business. Breaking down the main components, distribution cost increased by EUR 4 million to EUR 116 million. And this variation is directly correlated with the growth in our recurring revenues, both in Italy and abroad. And within this line item, we observed higher social security and severance payments for our Italian financial adviser, which were largely mitigated by lower provision for variable incentive and reduced marketing costs and costs related to events. Looking to the personnel and SG&A expenses, we have an increase of EUR 20 million year-on-year to reach EUR 82 million. I would point out that EUR 19 million of this increase is entirely linked to our global business. This is primarily reflects the change in perimeters that we just mentioned for the recurring fees and are related to the United States and Brazil for an amount of EUR 40 million. On the other way around, in Italy, we have an increase of EUR 1 million, confirming our ongoing cost discipline in our domestic operation. Finally, depreciation and amortization and provision increased by EUR 2 million. This movement remains substantially linear and primarily reflects the perimeter effect that we just mentioned also for the previous line of the P&L. So in summary, our cost dynamics remain firmly under control and are directly aligned with the strategic expansion of our platform. So now moving to Slide 12. We highlighted our operating and net profit figures that are fueled by strong organic growth and geographic diversification as our recurring EBIT rose to EUR 157 million, and this represents a 14% of increase year-on-year. Below the operating line, finance income amounted to EUR 7 million for the first quarter compared to the EUR 15 million in the same period of last year. This EUR 7 million result is primarily driven by a positive EUR 10 million contribution from our assets and portfolio performance. And this positive impact were partially offset by a negative EUR 4 million adjustment related to the fair value option and equity participation alongside a negative EUR 1 million impact from the IFRS 17. And then looking to the tax position, we recorded a rate of 22% in the first quarter, but our guidance for the full year '26 remain at around 25%. Finally, looking at the bottom line of our reported net profit was EUR 125 million, and our recurring net profit reached EUR 128 million. This confirms a highly robust 15% expansion year-on-year. So let's now turn to Slide 13 and talk about the net financial position. So our balance sheet remains very strong and provide a solid foundation of our strategic initiatives. So at the end of March '26, our total cash and cash equivalents stood at EUR 918 million. On the liability side, you will note our bank loan figures sits at EUR 45 million. This financial debt was coming up from the acquisition of NSI, and we are currently starting the renegotiation. There is renegotiation of this debt to secure better financing terms for the group. Looking at our cash deployment during the first quarter, we have sold EUR 43 million in M&A and investment to support our expansion in the U.S., Brazil and Italy. We also executed EUR 16 million in share buyback, purchasing approximately 488,000 shares and an average price of EUR 33.4. These outflows were partially offset by a positive EUR 24 million related to the reimbursement of stamp duties and net of tax that we paid in advance. Importantly, this robust EUR 847 million net cash position doesn't yet include the upcoming cash dividend of EUR 2 per share that will be paid on the 20th of May. So now moving to Slide 14. We outlined our capital structure and shareholder remuneration targets. I will not go into full detail here again as we presented this plan in March. The key message is that we remain committed to returning approximately 25% of our current market capitalization to shareholders between now and the end of '27. So as part of this commitment, the AGM has recently approved our share buyback program with cancellation of shares. This cover up to 10% of our share capital equal to about EUR 500 million at current prices. From the execution standpoint, we will conduct the share buyback in various tranches over the next 18 months, and we expect to start the first tranche after the dividend payment in May '26. But as usual, we progressively update the market regarding any buybacks that we will execute. So let's now move to Page 15, where I give you a quick update on the TNB project. The project is firmly on track and also the TNB division is proceeding with a solid growth results. Since our last update, we have completed the remediation activities related to [ group ] capital management, which have now also been reviewed by our internal audit team. The regulator is currently conducting their customary follow-up assessment and our dialogue with them remain constant, transparent and highly constructive. This is the prerequisite step to continue receiving the necessary regulatory approval from the regulators for the overall TNB transaction. Based on the current timeline, we remain confident that the project will be completed before the end of '26. So I now let hand over to Giorgio for the conclusion.

Thank you, Alessandro. So turning to Slide 16. Let me wrap up this presentation by looking at our guidance for 2026. What is obviously a very clear robust operational performance achieved to date makes us very confident on the ability to deliver sustainable growth, and we are confirming our targets for the year. So let me remind you that under normal market conditions, we are targeting EUR 10 billion in total net inflows and a core net profit of EUR 550 million, excluding extraordinary items. Let me give a bit of a spoiler for April net new money figures that will be published early next week. And let me anticipate that we have already achieved over EUR 5 billion in net inflows to date. That means that we're already 50% way to our annual target in just 4 months. While on the profitability side, with EUR 125 million, we have already secured what is essentially a very solid first quarter, but we are absolutely on track to deliver another year of robust and sustainable growth for our shareholders. And with that, let me thank all of you for the time today, and we will now open the floor to your questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Elena Perini of Intesa Sanpaolo.

I've got 3 questions. The first one is on your recurring fees as basically the growth versus last year on a like-for-like basis was quite limited. And also compared to the fourth quarter, there was some of a drop. So I would like you to elaborate a bit more on the trend that you are expecting going forward. especially in terms of margins. Then I would like you to ask about your TNB project. So you are saying that you are confident to finalize it by year-end. So I know that you are under regulatory review for the remediation plan. Is there any other potential obstacles that you could find in your part? Yes. And finally, I was wondering about your JV with UniCredit. UniCredit is looking for an alternative to Amundi for next year. How do you feel about this? And do you feel ready for potential replacement if it would come?

So let me take the first 2 questions. So starting from TNB that I would say is the easiest one in a way that, as you know, there is no additional point to add compared to what I already mentioned. So there are 2 stream of work between nowadays, there is one that is dealt by the fund or by FSI to, let's say, present and define and fix everything is required to get the license. And the other way around that is also important because it's part of the condition to get there is the stream that we are dealing with the Bank of Italy in terms of obtain the okay to proceed with the extraordinary transaction. So in all to where we are, as I said, we finalized the remediation plan. We completed also the internal audit review. We present and provide everything to Bank of Italy and now Bank of Italy is dealing to review and to get all the confidence to give us the okay to proceed. So at the moment, there are no elements to be negative. On the other way around, we continue to manage the situation with them with the constant dialogue. So therefore, we just try to work in the correct way to get the results within the end of the year. Referring to the recurring revenues. So first of all, taking consideration the same perimeter, so taking out the effect of the global business evolution. So without having the contribution of the EUR 19 million coming from the new acquisition, the like-for-like comparison has to consider from the global business, EUR 9 million of growth and from the Italian business, EUR 10 million of growth. So all in all, the current business compared to last year is producing EUR 19 million more compared to last year. That means a 10% growth. Obviously, as I also said during the presentation, we have seen an evolution compared to the last quarter that seems to be not -- it's in line with the expectation, but the key elements that we have to consider is the fact that February, so the quarter in general, if we compare the number of days that is based the calculation of the, let's say, the recurring fees generated by our fund or portfolio -- discretionary portfolio, et cetera, has to be compared with, let's say, 2 days more of the full quarter Q4. That means that we are missing in the revenues around EUR 2 million, EUR 3 million of growth. So a positive contribution, obviously. And also, we are considering -- I mean, we are impacted by a March that was a month very complicated from the situation. outside the market that impacted the AUM. And also one point more, when you look to the growth of the group in terms of AUM, you have to, let's say, maybe exercise to allocate also the growth in terms of AUM or net new money that are coming from the strategic affiliates. Few elements -- and as you know, sorry, the strategic affiliates are not consolidated line by line. Therefore, all in all as well, there are 3 elements, I would say, to put on the table to make the right comparison of -- with the last quarter of the year. And therefore, from our, let's say, size and the numbers that we are managing on the other way around, we have -- I mean we are seeing a positive growth on the evolution of our recurring revenues. I'll let then Giorgio for the last report.

Yes. Let me tell you that we love all our clients, all our partners. Certainly, we can say nothing less when it comes to UniCredit. We see this relationship working great. I think what is very important for us is that we are delivering to UniCredit clients top performance. I guess that strengthen our relationship for the future. And we stand ready should UniCredit need any help on their strategic focus on asset management. This is what I can say. But certainly, we read the press as you do, and nothing has changed since we have seen the news regarding relationship that UniCredit has with other players in the market.

Okay. If I may, I would have a follow-up. It is a question about your private credit and private markets exposure. Just an update if you are -- if you are seeing any tensions in your exposure or everything is like you said in March?

Yes. On this one, Elena, I think we have elaborated during our last earnings call on the fact that our private credit funds have very little to do with the areas of the buckets of the market that have created some troubles elsewhere, particularly in the U.S. One aspect that is certainly very important to highlight here is that our private credit strategies are essentially focusing on asset-based finance. So we talk about private credit with the strength of a very strong collateral. And the second of all, most of the troubles were related to the so-called evergreen fund structures, I mean, funds that promised or committed to provide liquidity to investors should investors redeem part of their investments in the funds and probably a bit of mismatch between the portfolio composition and these liquidity needs have created the issues that we have seen in the market. But none of our funds here in Italy are evergreen, in particular, when it comes to private credit, we only have one evergreen portfolio in the private credit catering to institutional clients. But I can say that we always manage it with the liquidity buffer in line with the potential liquidity that we need to provide. So all in all, we see no issues. We have no impact on our performance, and this is related to the fact that what we do here is very different from what others do right or wrong, something that anyway doesn't really create any issues for us or our clients.

This is Alex here. Just for your question also before with regards to recurring fees and how to model them out. Actually, if you want to do it on a like-for-like basis, it's best that you would now take the Q1 numbers and what you should probably factor in is about a 1% quarter-on-quarter growth for the remainder of the year. And with this, you basically already are baking in that benign market, what we assumed so far. And then, of course, the fundraising targets, which we have given out and then may potentially update in the course of the year.

The next question is from Hubert Lam of Bank of America.

I got 3 questions. Firstly, just a follow-up on the Evergreen question that was just asked. I think, Giorgio, you mentioned that you don't have any Evergreens in Italy. But just wondering about any Evergreen funds you have in the U.S. through your various stakes and entities, any impact on them so far? That's the first question. Second question is on the regulatory review from the Bank of Italy, just wondering when we should expect them to respond to you? What's the expected timing on that? And last question around the NSI. And can you talk about integration so far and how that's coming along? And you also mentioned about launching some active ETF funds through NSI. I'm just wondering, in your view, how much you expect to raise through these new funds?

Okay. I shall respond to the first and the third question. So when it comes to our GP stakes in the U.S., we do not have any manager in the market with the Evergreen fund structure. So what I said for that is actually true also for the U.S. Hence, we see a very little risk of contagion as opposed to what is troubling others. When it comes to NSI, yes, we said very, very successful integration of NSI into our platform. Let me tell you, I mean, we don't provide net new money figures by a single business. We actually consolidate everything into a geographic sort of aggregate, but NSI today is contributing approximately $200 million to $300 million of net new money. This is actually something even better than we expected considering our initial projections. Certainly, every month is different from the other, but things are going great. We had a bit of integration cost at the beginning, hence, a bit of impact on the profitability. The launch of this active ETFs on July 1 certainly will mark an important meaningful development even for Azimut as we have never been really active in this space. It's a great way for Azimut to enter the U.S. market with our global investment management capabilities. We already registered with our sales force strong market interest. ETFs will be available -- will be made available, sorry, to a very large audience of RIAs, private banks, commercial banks, broker-dealers. We are talking about more than 6,000 distributors and wholesalers. We tend to be always very, very conservative when it comes to this thing. So we are projecting by the end of the year, net new money into the ETFs into the range of between $200 million to $300 million. But certainly, we are undershooting here on what is the real potential. In particular, active ETFs have become a very hot topic in the U.S. in light of the very appealing tax treatment that the instrument has vis-a-vis mutual funds. Last year alone, there have been more than 7,000 active ETFs launched in the U.S. market against only 50 mutual funds being launched during the same period. And the fact that we are entering the market with these global strategies, what the Americas call international markets focused portfolios. I think right now, looking at what's happening in the world, looking at investors' preferences in the U.S., people seeking diversification even when it comes to currency, I think this is a great opportunity where we see, honestly, little competition from the incumbents, certainly stronger, better known for what they can deliver when it comes to the U.S. markets. But when it comes to global strategies, I think we have a bit of potential here courtesy of our agility and always think different and disruptively as opposed to what the others do. So we are very confident, as I said, NSI was a transformational deal for Azimut in the U.S., and we see this as a very meaningful engine of growth for assets and profits for the short, medium and long term.

And taking the second question related to Bank of Italy and TNB. I mean, unfortunately, the time is an element that we do not control. From a regulatory point of view, there is no, let's say, kind of a number of days within they have to answer. Therefore, what we know that we have no to do, let's say, the wrong way to approach to them to make them pressure. So therefore, we are keeping them, as I mentioned before, obviously updated on everything and keeping also the good dialogue that we built over the last few months. So we are just waiting, I would say. But on the other way around, we are keeping the dialogue open.

The next question is from Ian White of Autonomous Research.

Just a couple from my side, please. I guess just around the sort of delays we've had on TNB. Can I just understand whether that's causing any other sort of frictions or challenging conversations internally? I'm thinking about things like advisers becoming restless, unusual attrition, anything like that just because I know that your advisers wanting to raise deposits was one of the reasons that you explored this in the first place. So that's my main question, please. And just secondly, is there any particular reason that you're stopping short of increasing the net inflow guidance at this stage? Is that just caution? Is there a specific reason that this run rate might not be sustained over the next 8 months?

So we take both questions. So let me tell you, first of all, on the impact from what's happening in terms of engagement and constructive dialogue with the authorities, the regulators vis-a-vis our Italian advisers. I mean, Azimut has been operating as a nonbanking financial institutions for 36 years. So it's not a couple of months changing the way advisers are in the market. And you see the results in terms of net new money, people that are still very effective, very strong. Our business at the end of the day is based on very strong personal and business relationships. Certainly, we would have all loved to have the TNB transaction being closed by now for a number of good reasons that there's no need for me to elaborate on, but that is not impacting the determination and the commitment by advisers to keep delivering performance and service to clients. So we see no impact and we see no stress, as I said. In a way, it's business as usual. We are waiting and working hard to make things happen, and we remain confident that will happen within the timeline that we have been extensively commenting on until now. And then when it comes to net new money, so let me take this question with a light answer, but it tells you a lot. We have a tradition of overshooting our net new money targets, and we have always a tradition of upgrading our net new money by H1 results. So let's see whether we can keep the tradition of changing our forecast in July when we report on our H1 results. What we see right now is absolutely giving us all the confidence that we can keep delivering. But we won't sort of do anything different that will sort of make us look too -- I mean, rushing in changing things. As I said, let's be a bit more patient for another couple of months. But as far as we can see, this might be another year where we will deliver better than we expected at the beginning of the year.

The next question is from Alberto Villa of Intermonte SIM.

I have a couple. One, maybe I missed it, but it's a busy day. Did you give any anticipation about the April net inflows trends? That would be helpful. And second is on Slide 14. I see that on top of the committed equity at the end of 2025, you also had another EUR 300 million in the coming 18 months and a fair portion of it would be potentially dedicated to M&A. So I was wondering if you can give us a sense of what might be of interest for Azimut in the M&A space. It's a fair significant amount of money that could be invested. So would be interesting to get your view on that. And on the first tranche of the buyback, can you quantify what would be the amount that will start after the payment of the dividend?

Okay, Alberto, you must have been very, very busy because we made a very clear comment on April net new money at the end of the presentation. So we will update, obviously, with the official figures early next week. But we can say right now that figures are pretty strong, and that would make us certainly close the first 4 months with cumulative net new money above EUR 5 billion. So let me tell you that, that was the result of strong commercial performance, both in Italy and across our global operations. When it comes to committed equity and how much of that is earmarked for M&A, look, I think here, what we want to convey to you is an approach when it comes to balance sheet and, let's say, financial management. Historically, we have been sort of favoring M&A as opposed to the remuneration when it was coming to making that decision of managing capital. What we have been saying now loud and clear over the last year is that we're going to approach this topic with a balanced approach, both growth and shareholder remuneration are equally important. As in what is a growth company, we will never retreat from a mission of growing the business, even if that is nonorganic, yet, we want to have a balance sheet run efficiently and our capital management strategy that we announced now a few months back, I think, is a testament to this commitment to manage and to return capital to shareholders in multiple ways. Should there be any major M&A, I think we will keep the same balanced approach, and we will make recourse to third-party financing in the form of debt. and that we certainly prove an approach remaining consistent and certainly aiming at what is a disciplined management of our balance sheet, where discipline means also taking care of the efficiency. So an optimal leverage structure that allows everyone, but shareholders in particular, to enjoy both earnings growth and capital return. When it comes to the share buyback and how we will be in the market forming the dividend, I'll let Alessandro to comment on that.

Well, we are obviously looking to define a partner to proceed with this process. It's going to probably split it in 2 tranches. The 2 means between 6 and 9 months of the -- for the single tranche, so 250 and 250 and up to me, that's something very linear in terms of approach.

[Operator Instructions] Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered. I'd like to hand it back to you for any closing remarks.

Excellent. So we thank everyone for attending this call and look forward to seeing you all soon. Thank you.