Banco BPM S.p.A. (BAMI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Full Year 2024 Banco BPM Group Results and Business Plan 2024 through 2027 Update Presentation. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Arne Riscassi, Investor Relations Manager of Banco BPM. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining the call. Let me just remind you that on the website, you can find all the material presentation for this conference call that, as you know, will present the full year results and the update of the strategic plan. And now I leave the floor to Mr. Castagna. Thank you.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for being with us, very importantly for us to be here to present the '24 results and the update of our business plan. We call the continuation a solid and continued success story because we want to show this plan now. The last 8 years was characterized by commitment from our side and delivery, not a single year below expectation. Now we are at the final step of transformation of a solid commercial bank into a well-diversified, integrated conglomerate with strong support from commission and product factory up to 50% of our net profit. So Banco BPM for us is the place to be, and we want to write the new road map towards 24% of RoTE. Let's start from '24 results, all-time high for our bank. Net income stated at EUR 1.9 billion, with EUR 1.5 billion of dividends distributed. Let me remember the former target of net profit for the plan was the same amount we will -- which we will remunerate our shareholder, EUR 1.5 billion was the target of net profit for 2026. Net income adjusted to EUR 1.7 billion and RoTE adjusted at 16%, well above market consensus and 2026 targets. Cost income down in 2 years, 7.5 full point. Gross NPE ratio, already below the target of '26, down to 2.8%. And net bad loans, close to 0. How we were able to manage the bank in this way, we are leveraging on a strong business model in the Italian banking landscape, focusing on the most dynamic regions at European level, not only Italian, unparalleled distribution franchise with best-in-class product factory models build up in the last few years, lowest and NII sensitivity across peers based on historical observation with the new transaction of Anima to further improve noninterest income, contributing from 40% to 50% of our total revenues. The new target, the target for the updated plan will be outstanding. We will deliver in 2027 net income for EUR 2.150 billion, which are realistic, highly feasible, and we will show you in the next page how we'll reach this target. Anima adds EUR 200 million of this net income. Let's consider also that we were, of course, more conservative vis-a-vis the previous plan with the Euribor scenario down to 2% vis-a-vis 3.1% over the last plan. All other P&L growth drivers are strictly in line with 2023-2026 plan, and mostly conservative if compared to the trajectory we were able to realize during 2024. So we are not pushing the results we reached in '24 up to '27. We want to be most -- at most of our credibility to show you the same trajectory of the plan presented in '23. The RoTE in '27, we have a concrete perspective to reach -- to overcome 24% of RoTE with improved business mix, high-value business at 45%, 50% of new net income vis-a-vis 30%, 35%, which is the current contribution. And of course, the management is happy to commit to top-notch shareholder remuneration with a minimum of EUR 6 billion cumulative distribution over the plan, plus EUR 1 billion of additional distribution upon obtainment of positive feedback of Danish Compromise application. All that with still a rock-solid capital with a CET1 above 14%, also considering the EUR 7 billion of distribution. Let's pass to the results of 2024. We accelerated profitability and increased remuneration at an unprecedented level. We reached EUR 1.7 billion adjusted. The top-up is done from the combination of income coming from the Numia transaction and the funding of the early retirement scheme, which we signed in December '24. Net income adjusted, EUR 1.7 billion, means 16% of RoTE versus 12.9% of guidance. And the same net income is EUR 330 million, above '24 guidance, which means 24% above the guidance and is already EUR 190 million above 2026 target, 13% higher. If you look at the figure on the left, you will see that we started from 2023 pent higher. If you look at the figure on the left, you will see that we started from 2023 with an EPS of EUR 0.83. We committed at a guidance of EUR 0.90 for 2024, increased during the year at EUR 0.95. We conclude the year with EUR 1.12 of EPS adjusted, EUR 1.27 of EPS stated, already above the EUR 1, which was the target of EPS in 2026 and now is the DPS for this year and going forward. About distribution this year, we increased our distribution of dividends to EUR 1.5 billion with increasing also the payout to almost 80% coming from 67%, again, with the DPS at EUR 1 and the dividend yield also at the current price above 11%. In the first 2 years of the plan, we realized the cumulative dividends of EUR 2.350 billion, which is EUR 500 million above our guidance of 1 year ago. The total cumulative dividend is up from EUR 1.850 billion to EUR 2.350 billion, which means 27% increase. And all of this with the common equity Tier 1 increased to 15%, starting from 14.2% of last year '23 , well above the landing point of the '26 plan at 14%. And all of these will still further profitability coming from the product factory that has yet to emerge because of the recent start of many of these activity. So why update? Because as it's very clear from Page 8, we are above '26 basically for all most important figures comparing '24 results and '26 ambition. As you can see, we are up 5.4% in core revenues, 4.4% vis-a-vis the target '26. Preprovision income, up more than 10%, both vis-a-vis '23 and the target of '26. Cost/income down 47% with a target of 50% or below 50% in '26; and cost of risk already below the '26 target of 3% at 2.8%. And this is why we are updating our business plan. Let's go to some figures at '24. Net income adjusted again to 1.7%, 18% year-on-year. Net income stated 52% higher than '23. As you can see, basically, all the core revenues went up as well as we had a reduction in loan loss provision and other expenses, and we reached the profit from continuing operation at 22% higher than last year. And after an increase of 30% of the tax paid, we landed up in net profit from continuing operations, up 19% vis-a-vis last year. On Page 10, let's go some of the main figure of these results. Let's start from NII. NII, the only figure, which is underperforming, but much better than the majority of the competitor, is a reduction of 2% in gross performing customer loans, even though we were able to manage new lending for EUR 21.5 billion, which is 10% higher year-on-year compared with '23. Many -- the vast majority of our competitors did a much lower figure in this respect. Deposit went up 1.4% as well as certificates and other debt security at fair value, up 12%. Let's have a look to the Euribor compared with the commercial spread we were able to reach. Basically, we performed better than the decrease of the Euribor because the commercial spread both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year was ended up with a better figure vis-a-vis the reduction of Euribor in 1 year. The Euribor went down 94 basis points. Our commercial spread was down to 81%, so bettering the reduction of Euribor. The same was quarter-on-quarter, the Euribor was down 55 basis points. We went down 40 basis points. How we did that? The trend of net interest income was supported by managerial action that added on positive NII contribution both in an increasing and in a declining interest rate scenario. Let's start with the increasing scenario, which is the comparison year-on-year. You will see that we went up EUR 150 million compared to '23. Even though the sensitivity would have given us only EUR 48 million, we were able to adding up more than EUR 100 million through managerial action in which we will explain immediately after. The same was with a scenario in the last quarter of Euribor down. As you can see in the last quarter, comparing last quarter '23 and last quarter '24, the Euribor went down 94 basis points per quarter. This means a predicted sensitivity of minus EUR 70 million. We were able to mitigate this impact to EUR 12 million all in all, with a contribution from the managerial action of almost EUR 60 million in positive. On top of that, this figure were done with the sensitivity of the end of '23. Let me say that end of '24, we have a full funding cost sensitivity, which is EUR 200 million, reducing EUR 50 million year-on-year. Net interest income, again, and that's some further explanation about both sensitivity and managerial action. If you compare the trend of Euribor in the last 3 years, starting from first Q '22 to last Q '24, you see the curve of Euribor. But comparing the increasing rate scenario coming from the beginning in '22 to last quarter '23, because then the Euribor is starting to decline, we have been the bank which the lower growth in NII; and also compared to the average of the peers, we are at 70% contribution coming from the NII growth scenario vis-a-vis a contribution 97% of our competitor. This is explained by the cautious managerial action we improve during that phase of increasing Euribor, which now is paying off and it is allowing us to reduce the sensitivity effect and give support to our NII. The same is impact that you can see of the more limited contribution of NII vis-a-vis total revenues that our bank has been performing over these 2 years vis-a-vis the other banks. So the fact that very often, we are considered as a bank very much subject to sensitivity. I think that we have completely overcome this understanding through the action we were able to took in place during these last 2 years. And these are mainly on the right side of the slide. You see that we have increased from EUR 15 billion to EUR 22 billion, the replicating portfolio. But if you add down the increase to 34% of our index at the current account, basically we are covered for half of the deposit base vis-a-vis more than 50% of our deposit base. And of course, thanks to the index, the current account, we have experienced a reduction -- an immediate reduction of the impact on NII vis-a-vis the Euribor. The Euribor went down 98 basis points in the -- during '24, and we had -- 94 basis points. And we had a positive impact, a less penalizing impact of 98 basis points, thanks to this maneuver. On top of that, I remember that we have also some direct effect on cost of funding. First one is the share of time deposit vis-a-vis the original plan, which is 1/3 of the original plan for the first year. We have 1.4% of time deposit, which of course are much costly vis-a-vis 4.5%, which was the first expected for '24; and 9%, which was expected for '26, and of course, it's now not anymore needed because of the reduction of Euribor. On top of that, we have the decrease in cost of new wholesale bonds. As you can see, the issuing made in '24 and '25 after the obtainment of the investment grade, the positive outlook from all the investment rating companies allowed us to have a reduction in the wholesale cost of funds, which come -- goes from 60 basis points of the senior preferred to the 200 basis point -- more than 200 basis points of 81. Let's have a look on Page 12 on the total net fees and commission. We have an all-time high also in this figure, a 6.5% -- 6.4% normalized with a strong impact both from the commission from investment product fees and the commercial activity. Let's have a look at the investment products. We went up 10% in terms of contribution of commission, the vast majority coming from running fees as a consequence of the improvement of 22% of the investment product placement performed in 2024 vis-a-vis 2023. Let's say that we have started '25 even better with the same pace in January, which is almost 20% higher than January last year, which was a record month for 2024. And also in terms of commission generation, we are applying a policy in our investment product placement, which allow us to increase the average commission for our products. This improvement in investment product placement helped us to increase the stock in the funding from EUR 62 billion to EUR 66 billion in assets under management and from EUR 44 billion to EUR 50 billion in assets under custody. First month of the year, we are EUR 2 billion up this figure. Very strong performance also in the commercial activity with a particular improvement of 18% coming from the specialized activities, agro structured finance, trade finance and so on. On the right side of the slide, there is also some comparison between the results of '24 coming from the new structure of our product factory built up very recently, in which the first year of the plan we are already above the growth -- the pace of growth forecasted in the plan '23-'26. The plan forecasted 11% growth aggregate, and we are in the first year already at 12%, even though many of these product factory started only in September '24. A look from Page 13 to our cost-income ratio, reduced to 47% without the positive contribution of the solidarity fund, which is only starting in '25. So we will have the concentration of EUR 150 million of positive contribution not anymore distributed down 3 years of the plan, but in the next 2 years, '25 and '26, allowing us to recover more than EUR 75 million out of the figure that we have shown today. Let's also mention that also in other administrative expenses, we have a reduction of 5%. Meanwhile, we have an increase in D&A because of the massive investment we are performing in IT, AI and all the digital banking activity. Let's go to the cost of risk. This is really a solid success story. You know where we started from. We are now another 17.4% reduction of cost of risk at 46 basis points, still at the high of our competitor, also with what I call before becoming net 0 bad loans bank. We were able to manage our gross NPE down 24%; net NPEs, down 15%. Let's say that out of EUR 1.6 billion -- below EUR 1.6 billion of net NPE, if you exclude the state guarantee loans, we are below EUR 1 billion. And in terms of bad loans, we have only EUR 200 million of exposure. We experienced a solid, I would say, default rate until November, the same rate of last year, below 1%. Then we already switched into nonperforming loans, some big asset and this brought the total slightly above 1%. The coverage is still very solid as well as the vintage has been reduced by 1 year vis-a-vis '23. Also, the Stage 2 loans went down to EUR 9 billion. Just have a look to the capital, liquidity and funding position. We have been proving to be able to build up further capital year-by-year, even considering the massive distribution and higher distribution to shareholders increased in -- with this presentation. Of course, this is our proposal to our general assembly. So we started from slightly above 14%, and we ended up with the dividend at 67% to 15.4% of common equity Tier 1. If we consider 39% bps -- 39 bps, sorry, not percent of dividend payout increased to 80%, we remain above 15% even after the increase in distribution with a very solid MDA buffer, almost 600 basis point. LCR and SOFR, you see the figure, really confident. And I think that with this very solid set of results, again, more than EUR 300 million ahead of our plan, we can update the plan and continue to improve the forecast that we have for our bank. Where we stand today versus competitors? I would say that we are in a highly attractive competitive position, both because of the strong franchise rooted in the best region of our country, I would say also Europe, with 75% of our asset loans in the North of Italy; but also because of our capability to build up in the recent years a new model of bank, starting -- passing from a pure commercial bank and introducing a complete full range of product factories. If you compare with our peers, we are now the best-in-class We have for all the 5 principal product factories, our direct presence as shareholders, many -- sometimes as only shareholders, sometimes through joint venture with best-in-class partner. And you can see that starting from asset management with Anima, life insurance with the 2 insurance companies that we own 100% and as well Anima, we will own 100%. Non-life insurance and consumer finance with our partnership with Credit Agricole and the recent partnership with [ FSC ] and Iccrea in the payment system with Numia started in September '24, we now have the best position amongst all the main banks reaching, let's say the bank, which is normally considered best-in-class as far as our direct presence in product factory and increasing the gap vis-a-vis the less structure bank in terms of product factory or, I would say, the more NII-dependent bank vis-a-vis our situation. What have we done during these years to be rightly considered as a management team with an undisputable track record of growth and accomplishment? Let's have a look to the results over the last 4 years. We have always overperformed our trajectory. As you can see, you see both net income adjusted stated for the last 4 years as well as with a massive increase from EUR 500 million to almost EUR 2 billion in terms of stated; and from EUR 700 million to EUR 1.7 billion in terms of adjusted; as well as the reduction from 5.8% on gross NPE to 2.8%; and the increase notwithstanding the massive distribution to shareholders from 13% to 15%. But we have also exceeded our own commitments always. As you can see in the last 2 years, we had a target in our plan '21-'24 of EUR 740 million for '23, and we ended up with basically the double of these results. As well as last year, we gave a guidance of EUR 1.3 billion of '24 results net profit, and we ended up with almost EUR 330 million up our guidance. The same is for NPEs, the same is for common equity, even considering the increase of distribution of dividend. And of course, all these results show you not only the need, but also our ambition to present an updated plan, which take into account the big result, the consistent results and the new confirmation of our bank. Let's also say, on Page 19, that we not only exceeded our expectation, but I would say we always exceeded the expectation of the brokers. You can see year by year, of course, starting with a big gap in '21 was our first year after the COVID. Of course, a lack of confidence toward the banking system in general, and we had a gap of 190% between consensus and the actual end of the year net income. But this gap has always been present with an average of almost 40%, also in last year with 18% gap between consensus and actual results of the bank. This has been, of course, paying off through a very important total shareholder return above 1,000%, if we start after the COVID period in May 2020. And our stock went up not only in the -- after the recent OPS on us, but was already 800% of the 25 of November, so before the OPS. And let's say that after the OPS, we grew 27% vis-a-vis 23% of the year. So I would say that this 1,000% is undisturbed. Also in terms of dividend yield, at the European level, we are the second bank in terms of dividend yield. We are above 11%, and you see all the other peers below. I believe that with this full set of results, we deserve credibility for our commitment. So let's go more in details to show you the key message and the key figure for our updating plan. The key message are basically we have a more conservative Euribor scenario. We were 310 basis points. We are now 200 basis points in '26. The new starting point is of course the '24 performance adjusted, which, as we mentioned many times, is ahead of plan for more than EUR 300 million and allow us to increase the new targets. But the key pillars, the action, the driver, the growth that we presented in '23-'26 plan are all confirmed, adding on only the integration of Anima starting from the second part of 2025. So the growth are not pushed because of the situation, but at the same growth that we forecast 1 year ago, starting from a better starting point. And of course, we improved to '27 because it does make sense to have a plan, which is not at least 3 years of horizon. Let's go to the performance. We are able to confirm you, again, with a prudent plan assumption that net income will go up from EUR 1.5 billion to EUR 1.95 billion in '26 and EUR 2.150 billion in '27, with a contribution of Anima of EUR 200 million. The 4-year cumulative shareholder remuneration passed from EUR 4 billion to up to EUR 7 billion, but EUR 6 billion assured in any case obtaining without -- or with the attainment of the Danish Compromise. If we obtain the Danish Compromise, of course, we will have more capital. We will be able to give a further EUR 1 billion of distribution. The RoTE is going from 13% to more than 24% in '27 and higher than 20% in '26. And the landing point of common equity Tier 1, again it's not a target but it's a landing point, will be above 14%. And even in a situation which is not foreseen of no Danish Compromise, we will be above 13% with the same distribution we explained before. Let me give the word to -- the floor to Edoardo Ginevra for the detail of the plan.

Thank you, Giuseppe, and good morning, everyone. So let's start with the scenario. We have been adopting assumptions that on a macro perspective are very similar to the previous plan, GDP in Italy growing 0.7% in '26 and 0.4% in '27, inflation rate at around 2% both in '27 and '26. We were much more prudent in the area of interest rates, where we've been below the assumptions of the previous plan for more than 100 basis points. Now we are at 2% both in '26 and in '27. These assumptions lead to the bridge between the current level of profitability and the future level of profitability, which is shown on Page 22. So allow me to go step by step. We started last year from an adjusted basis -- on P&L an adjusted basis of EUR 1.430 billion. Today, we are at EUR 1.69, and the guidance we gave 1 year ago when we announced the plan was EUR 0.90, which is EUR 1.36. So we are ahead of the previous plan, the previous announcement, EUR 330 million on an adjusted basis. The increase between -- like-for-like between last year and this year is 18%. The overall average growth rate embedded in the plan from now to '27, it is 7.5% which, if we exclude Anima, is much more prudent, 4.9% from EUR 1.69 to EUR 1.95. How do we achieve this level? First of all, reduction in NII, EUR 300 million and we'll come to describe all of these pieces more in detail in the following part of the presentation, of course. We have noninterest income increasing of EUR 150 million, EUR 280 million is commission, EUR 80 is net financial result, EUR 90 million is income from associates, life insurance and other net operating income. Then we have a contribution of EUR 60 million from the reduction of both operating costs and [ LLPR ] provisions, a contribution of EUR 70 million from the removal of systemic charges and a tax effect, which drags something like EUR 40 million. This leads to EUR 1.95, and we believe this can be very easily explained on a piece-by-piece basis. Then the addition of Anima is EUR 200 million on top. And again, this also an Anima, this EUR 200 million is simply consensus plus some very conservative additional assumptions. Let's go piece-by-piece. First of all, nothing new compared to the previous plan. Page 23 says that simply, we have exactly the same assumptions in terms of growth of loans, growth of net fees and commission, growth of volumes in indirect funding, stability of operating costs and cost of risk that were used in the previous plan with some natural evolution in some areas. And nothing new also from the viewpoint of the pillars that are needed -- the initiatives that are needed to complete the plan. The same 7 pillars that we used to have: leadership in SME and corporate, reinforce wealth management and life insurance distribution; capture value from our product factories; partnerships in P&C in payments; develop further our omnichannel approach to our clients; improve the level of innovation, continuing investment pace with more than EUR 200 million per year during the plan; consolidate our balance sheet, improving further the asset quality; and empower people and community. We had, in addition to these 7 initiatives, Anima, a new pillar of which we will provide some detail in a moment. And we preserved the approach to sustainability that is completely integrated in the various pillars throughout the plan. Anima, the Page 24, is coming from EUR 230 million, the current level of profitability, EUR 50 million of which is part of our P&L given our 22% stake to EUR 260 million. EUR 60 million is like-for-like. The current stake, EUR 200 million is the addition. How we arrived there? First of all, we took consensus for 2026, then we extended consensus to the following year, 2027, with an inertial and conservative approach, then we added the conservative assumptions on synergies. Anima is -- year-by-year is amortizing its intangible set consolidated level, which is something that after our PPA will be removed from our P&L. Then we have a limited amount of synergies on the cost side. New LTIP will be aligned to Banco BPM policy, some central function synergies and really very conservative on the revenue side. Just to give you an idea, we are talking about EUR 5 million of revenue synergies in terms of contribution to net profit and given by additional increased penetration of another product in our client base, so fully under our control, to give you an idea of the prudent approach. This gives me also the opportunity to briefly illustrate what we are doing on Anima. As you probably have read in the press release, we are calling for a general assembly. This gives me also the opportunity to briefly illustrate what we are doing on Anima. As you probably have read in the press release, we are calling for a general assembly, and we received the commitments from shareholders of Anima. So now we have already secured 43.3% of Anima capital. And the general assembly is planned for 28th of February, in a little bit more than 2 weeks, to approve the new offer price of EUR 7 and to grant the Board the authority to decide on waivers for the condition precedent that we included in the offer, we launched on November 6 and because of the passivity rule introduced after we have been subject to the tender offer from UniCredit are now -- need now an approval from the general assembly. These condition precedent include minimum acceptance -- may include the Danish Compromise. Important to bear in mind, we are not giving up to such conditions with approved -- general assembly approval. We are simply delegating the Board decisions about future management of the offer process, perfectly in accordance with [indiscernible]. On commitments that we received letter, and we are grateful for that from both Poste and FSI. Poste owns about 12%, FSI owns about 10%. Then there is the dilution for LTIP leading to 21.3% of Anima share capital, on top of our 22% fully diluted stake becomes, as I said, 43.3%. These are subject to the general assembly approval concerning the authorization to amend the terms and conditions, as I say, the earlier price and the other conditions. On top one point worth noting is role of Anima management, they are entitled to receive some 4.7% of share capital following the acceleration of LTIP. These shares are either to be tendered or subject to 12 months lockup, excluding the sell-to-cover portion for tax reasons. So we are confident we can have a positive contribution to the offer also from such shares. The metrics that we use for the Anima deal are fully confirmed. Financially, EPS accretion is 10%. RWA impact is an addition of 39 basis points. From a strategic perspective, as also Giuseppe was mentioning before, contribution of noninterest income will go as high as 50% of total revenue. So half of this bank will generate revenues on the noninterest part at the end of the plan. And 35% of our net profit base will be generated by wealth and asset management and protection, leading to a very strong diversification of the business model. Page 27. Now let's go to the details section. In this page, we show the comparison between '23, '24, the previous plan landing point or target, sorry, at '26 and then the updated plan including Anima. Total revenues, EUR 5.70 billion, the current starting point; EUR 6.07 billion in '26 instead of EUR 5.4 billion and EUR 6.36 billion in 2027. This is due to the, as I said, earlier, reduction in NII, conservative interest rate scenario later as I want to confirm again, and increase in net fees and commission, thanks to Anima contribution and thanks to the improvement of our fee generation through the various business both product factories and traditional banking. We will have a total level of core revenues, which goes from EUR 5.69 billion to EUR 6.24 billion. Contribution of factory, this is very important, target was to go from EUR 862 million, a little bit less than EUR 1.2 billion, this was the existing plan. Now we are already at almost EUR 1 billion. So we are full speed compared to the plan. And we target EUR 1.72 billion, thanks to the contribution of Anima. We will see details on this in a second. Operating cost, basically stable or slightly reducing, thanks to the agreement with the trade unions and to cost discipline. Then we will add only Anima cost base on top for cost to income, which will go down as 44% at the end of the plan. And let me remind you that the previous target was 50% -- below 50%. Cost of risk, naturally going in the low 40s until arriving to 40 basis points in '27. And finally, sorry, if I reiterate, net income. Net income goes from EUR 1.5 billion, which is the previous target and more or less is the current consensus, as you all know, EUR 2.150 billion, an increase of EUR 650 million. And again, I have in mind that other banks announced an increase of the same order of magnitude, but starting from an order of magnitude of around EUR 9 billion or things like that. Return on tangible equity. This year, we generated an already excellent 16%. In '26, we target 20% -- above 20%; and in '27, we target above 24%. We'll come back on this 24% in a second. Volumes, loan growth is moderate -- is expected to be moderated at 1.7% per year, also facilitated by the new interest rate scenario. The assumptions on growth are very conservative and similar to what we did in the previous plan. Customer deposits are flat, but with an important remix compared to the previous assumption in the plan because we will not need to push that much on time deposits in reduced rate environment. So we conservatively estimated to go from the current level of EUR 1.5 billion to a final level of EUR 2.4 billion, but we probably will need such a high size. Indirect funding, we grew in 2 years of almost 13%. We will grow in the next 3 years of only half of that or less than half of that, 5.7%, with a remix between assets under custody and asset under management in favor of the second. So NII. For NII, the part -- Page 29. The left part of this slide simply summarizes the analysis that Giuseppe showed in the previous -- in the first part, commenting the results. Simply, we are not that rate sensitive. The simple truth is that we -- our net interest in the period of rate increase grew of only 70% compared to 97% of our peers. And now the portion of total revenues, which is represented in the last quarter by the increased NII, is 24%. For our peer, the same ratio gives 28%. So less than 1/4 of our total revenues is the impact of this increase in rates. How to explain the dynamics of net interest income going forward? This year, we went from 3.29% to 3.44%, and Giuseppe explained very well that this is the result of not only sensitivity, but also additional managerial actions. And the surprise, surprise, this is the same that we will do from '24 to '27, 390 of reduction, which is led by sensitivity. This is simply arithmetics from the initial to final level of Euribor. But we are able to mitigate this impact of EUR 100 million. And let me reiterate that this EUR 100 million is -- in 3 years is the same amount that we generated in only 1 year in 2024. So it looks like it's achievable and credible. On top, same, rate dynamics will drive the improvement in cost of certificates that you see in the bottom of this page on the right, from 280 to 117. For net fees and commissions, Page 30, gives the dynamics of the various components. So we grew this year of 4.4%, which is a normalized 6.4% after neutralizing for increased in cost of synthetic securitizations, which we're not expecting for the future and for current account excess liquidity commissions. So the real growth was 6.4%. The future growth is 4.4% per year. And of this, EUR 110 million are attributable to investment product fees; EUR 40 million to commercial banking; EUR 70 million to strategic partnerships. Again, we reiterate this is an area where the full potential has still to be attained given that Numia started only in September and the Agricole partnership in P&C started 1 year ago in January. Finally, the fees from specialized activity will contribute to additional EUR 60 million. Anima, with the consolidation of its fee base, provides an additional contribution of EUR 500 million. On product factories. We wanted to provide on Page 31 the same detail that we comment quarter-by-quarter, which we start giving to the market 1 year ago with the plan. So basically, as I said earlier, we grew EUR 110 million this year from EUR 860 million to EUR 970 million. We will grow EUR 100 million per year with -- so growth rate, which is below. Because last year, it was 12%, now it will be 11% -- 10%. Anima will lead to 440. Just a quick note -- a technical note to say it's different from the EUR 500 million in the previous slide, because here we remove duplication in -- created by the fact that currently we account for the net profit share within the associates P&L line. But it's the same amount that you see in the previous page. The total is EUR 1.72 billion. Easily on operating costs, this is an area where we have already secured a reduction in HR by EUR 60 million. Basically, we have the effect of the trade union agreement is overall EUR 100 million and the effect of the final tranche of the new contract will be in the 3 years EUR 40 million. The part related to administration expense and amortization is increasing EUR 30 million, but simply because we start amortizing the new investments, which we are producing. Because this is a bank that invests every year in technology, in digital, in cybersecurity and in people, by the way. So we arrived to 2.62, which is lower than the stand-alone base of 2.66 Anima at EUR 170 million, for a total of 279 -- EUR 2.790 billion. Asset quality. So we used to be a 24% NPE bank. We are now expect to be at 24% return on tangible equity bank. 24% is the starting point of our journey end of 2016. And if there is a success, this management achieved is to be credible every year incurring the cost of risk, now at 46 basis points and expected to be 40 basis points in '27. We adopted a very prudent stance in projecting the level of stocks, so from 2.8% to 3%, so that the stock of NPE is around EUR 3 billion cost. And we already said that net bad loans are close to 0 after you consider the part that is guaranteed by the state. Default rate and our workout activity are consistent with our track record and within these market dynamics, respectively at 1% or below 0.9% in '27, and in the area between 27% -- around 27% for the workout in the same year. So Page 34 explains the difference between our numbers and the numbers in the consensus. The numbers in the consensus, which reflect the stand-alone position of the bank, lead to a total net profit in '27 million of EUR 1.5 billion, whilst we project EUR 1.95 billion. And on top, we had EUR 200 million for Anima. So let's break piece-by-piece this difference, stand-alone versus stand-alone. So first of all, these are net numbers. Let me -- allow me to switch to gross numbers pretax. So 450 becomes some 615. Then let's go line-by-line and break down the difference piece-by-piece. NII. NII, we are at 3.44%. Target is at 3.15%. Consensus is EUR 100 million below. The difference is simply the managerial actions that we expect to deploy in 3 years. We did EUR 100 million of managerial actions in 1 year in 2024. This is 3 years. Net fees and commissions, we are at EUR 2 billion. We want to go -- we expect to go -- the target is EUR 2.28 billion. Consensus is again EUR 100 million below with a growth rate on average of 3%. This is the consensus. We grew last year on a normalized basis of 6%, and we still have -- as I said, we will -- to achieve this number, we will need to grow 4.4%. And we still have to deploy the full potential of the product factories, which will contribute further to the development of commissions. Other revenues. Other revenues is another contributor of the P&L that needs to be clearly identified. This includes not only the trading, but also contribution for certificates, includes insurance, includes the associates. A significant part of core revenues for us come from there. We start from EUR 260 million this year. We expect to achieve EUR 450 million. Consensus is so sort of halfway between the two, EUR 320 million. Why do we believe that we can achieve our target of EUR 450 million? First, benefit from certificates, more than EUR 100 million because of the reduction in rates, which reduced the cost of funding coming from these instruments. Second, NPS dividend. Of course, in '24, we didn't have this. Whilst this starts to contribute starting from 2025. We have 5% of Monte Paschi, Monte Paschi pays an order of magnitude of EUR 1 billion, so 5% is an order of magnitude of EUR 50 million. Then there are product factories. The product factories here, as I mentioned include not only associates, but also the insurance line. And here, we expect EUR 100 million split in two -- between these two. And for associates, of course, we expect an increase in contribution by -- from our joint venture like Argos, like Numia, like the P&C [indiscernible]. Let's go to operating costs. For operating costs, we arrived to 2.62, again, stand-alone, not -- Anima is not included in this scheme, this breakdown. Consensus here, really difficult to understand why, but say it's 2.73. So another advantage of 110. For HR, I think that there is nothing more to say apart from the fact that we signed an agreement with the unions. And so it's just about implementing this agreement. For the other costs, we have a history, a track record that speaks for us for -- in terms of cost discipline actions implementation. We have a tradition of being very rigorous and disciplined in acting on each and every single cost lever. We expect to do the same, if not better, in the next few years. The final part is LLP and other provisions, where we have a total starting point over 540. And market consensus leads to 610, whilst we expect to land at 420. The difference is probably to be better explained by dividing between LLPs, 120, and other provisions. For LLP, we target -- our target is highly consistent with the improvement trajectory that we have historically experienced and with the trend reported by peers. For the other provisions, basically here, real estate covered the lion's share in our history. The portfolio, real estate -- the investment portfolio of real estate is now drastically reduced to below EUR 180 million. It used to be EUR 1.1 billion at the beginning of 2023. So a reduction in the portfolio initiatives such as Square project and also the future environment of reducing interest rate will explain the improvement of this line of the P&L. Let me go to capital. Capital is from 14.2% to 15% and will go to 14.4%. How we get there? Retain the earnings, 146 basis points. And here, you have the details of the components from net profit and from the distributions at 80% payout. Then ordinary RWA will be a reduction of a little bit higher than 100 basis points, taking into account our ability to continue to implement the synthetic securitizations by replacing the current existing ones with new ones, so without material -- without additional impact on the P&L. Then what we're doing here, this is Basel IV -- Basel III plus accounting for 94 basis points. So here, we have updated our previous guidance after some optimization initiatives that we started to implement in our portfolio. And Anima leading to a contribution of RWA of [ 39 ] basis points. Then we have a positive expected contribution both from DTAs, which will be recovered, thanks to the profit capacity generated during the 3 years and from fair value comprehensive income reserves with usual assumptions of pull-to-par. Participation after the reduction -- after the reduction in the portfolio will lead to an improvement of 30 basis -- 31 basis points. Then this leads to 16%. In case, after we obtain the approval for the Danish Compromise, we'll be able to distribute EUR 1 billion additional to our shareholders, and this will lead to 14.4%. Important to bear in mind that, first of all, this final level doesn't take into account the future potential capital, which might be created by further recoveries in DTAs and in negative results on favorable comprehensive income beyond 2027. Second point is that even in the scenario, which we don't think is likely of the -- of no Danish Compromise treatment of Anima acquisition, still we expect to have a CET1 ratio above 13% at the end of each year during the plan horizon. And now I think that Giuseppe may conclude the presentation.

Yes. Sorry for keeping you so long, but I think we had many pieces of news, very important. And for us, it's really important that you can understanding deep each number of this presentation. Let's terminate with the -- our commitment. Of course, we are committed as a management team to perform, let's say, as usual on the positive solid track record of delivering, which we never missed any year, and will bring us to a cumulative net income of almost EUR 8 billion, EUR 7.7 billion vis-a-vis EUR 6 billion of the plan; a cumulative shareholder remuneration from EUR 4 billion to up to EUR 7 billion with a minimum of EUR 6 billion; to a return on tangible equity end of plan, which was 13%, is now 24%. And as Edoardo said, this number for us has some meaning because it was our NPE ratio. When nobody believed that without any share issue, we would been able to reduce basically to 0 this amount of NPE. Shareholder remuneration. Basically, we tend to more than 50% of our current market cap. This doesn't change from the previous plan, but what changed is the price of our stock. We went up from EUR 5 to EUR 9. This means that we are delivering the double of what we were committed 1 year ago. The formal remuneration will be reassessed periodically. The interim dividend is confirmed. Quick note about guidance '25. Net income, higher than adjusted '24; total revenues positive; NII at full funding cost in middle-digit, single-digit reduction; net fees and commission, double-digit high with Anima contribution for 6 months; cost to income, at the same level of this year; and provision, a bit lower than this year. Let's terminate with the final slide that we want really to make clear, it's not only a matter of numbers. We -- I think we present a number which are really unexpected, which are very surprising, meanwhile, we think are very credible and very feasible, the number of the plan. But now we don't want to conclude our number. We want to conclude on the business model we have created during this year. We have done an impressive work over the last 3 years to develop a new transformation in the bank in order to come from a commercial bank, pure commercial bank activity to a specialty banking solution, to a wealth and asset management plus protection bank. This will constitute 35% of the revenues and the profit of the bank, together with the specialty banking solution, will go up to 50% of noninterest income. This change completely the profile of risk of the bank. We will have a bank which is much less risky, more resilient and replicable in terms of profitability, less capital intensive, and so allowing us to be even more generous with our shareholders. On the right side, you see that what we have done during this year. We have taken advantage of higher interest rate not only to perform the TSR that we mentioned before, which is outstanding, but also to devote part of the profit to build up the new bank, a new bank, which not only has trial of our net profit, but this net profit will come for half of them from the activity we develop day by day in the last years. Somebody say that can change banks in 6 months. This is a dream or maybe can be transformed in a nightmare. You have to be consistent when you do this kind of a job. We now have a bank that, through the joint venture with Agricole, the reinsourcing of life bancassurance, the joint venture from the payment system and newly announced acquisition of Anima, will transform completely the risk profile of the bank, enhancing also our multiple in terms of value creation. So let me make a small joke. Somebody says that he has an unlocked plan. I would say this is a plan locked in, in terms of results. Thank you very much. We are ready for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Pamela Zuluaga of Morgan Stanley.

The first question that I have is specifically on your Q4 results for insurance income. There was a sharp quarter-on-quarter decline. Can you give us some color around what were the moving pieces for insurance income in the quarter? And what are the main drivers that you expect for this line to grow moving forward? And the other one is a follow-up on your distribution targets. I understand that you will assess the distribution mix for the 80% accrual. But what about the potential additional EUR 1 billion distribution? Are you open to it being distributed via buybacks?

So Pamela, insurance income in Q4 has been clearly satisfactory, even if not at full steam. So in Q3, we have been benefiting from the reversal of some of the loss component booked in the previous quarter. In this Q4 was sort of a more normal type of evolution, but still below the potential. In terms of driver for growth, we continue to be very effective in pushing for products -- for two areas of products, the most important being Vera Vita traditional products; and also with the mix, the hybrid product that we sell through the Irish-based factory. Going forward, in this rate environment, we believe this will be very conducive to further improvement in the insurance results, and this will makes us confident that this line of profit will create additional contribution during the plan, as I said, in commenting the projections. Let me leave the word to Giuseppe for the distribution.

Sorry, very easy. This is subject, as we mentioned, to the -- getting the final word about the Danish Compromise. We, of course, feel that this is something that has to come by this year. And this will be distributed most probably as a share buyback.

The next question is from Ignacio Ulargui of BNP Paribas.

Just wanted to get a bit of your thoughts on -- when I just look to the NII of 2026 that you provide in the press release of the plan, it looks like there is an incremental decline in '26 versus '25. So I just wanted to get a bit of your thoughts on what are the moving parts on that decline in NII? And the second question that I just wanted is how relevant volumes can be in improving the performance of the top line in '25 and '26. Have you seen any kind of acceleration of lending growth, some signs that provide some comfort on a recovery of volumes?

Yes. Thanks a lot for the question, Ignacio. So what happens in '26 is that we have the full impact of the reduction in rates, which already go down to 200 basis points on average in this year. Basically, the cycle of rate reduction is fully completed during 2025, and then we have a certain constant level of Euribor for '26 and '27. So this leads to the need to allow for some time for the deployment of the -- of part of this, the managerial actions that will be -- will create most of the impact in 2025 -- in 2027, sorry. So at the end of the day, what happens in '26 is simply, if I can simplify a maximum the moving parts, the effect of the pure sensitivity. So if you look at the chart that we show on '27, '26 will not have a material impact of the managerial actions that you see fully deployed in '27. On volumes, very good question. Basically, if I think to the balance sheet of the bank, the point is mostly -- and NII, the point is mostly about constant level of deposits -- of stable level of deposits. Then, of course, the more we can do on loans, the more we are happy in financing the economy, creating side business with our clients, improving our franchise. We are very happy to deploy capital instead of leaving it idle. But still, if volumes are not growing, if you put the same amount into bonds and security, at the end of the day, you get a very similar type of contribution to the P&L in terms of NII. So NII-wise, volumes are really not that important, not that critical for the achievement of the target results.

If I may add, Edoardo was very clear on loans. And of course, we can be sure that if there is a recovery, we will be the first bank to see this recovery because of our geographical position. If you compare the small loss of volumes that we had during this last 2 years and you compare with bank which are not present as we are in the North of Italy, you will see figure massively below 7% of decrease. But talking about the other aspects, so basically deposit and indirect funding, we are already growing in 2025 at the same pace of 2024. As I mentioned before, we have already EUR 2 billion of increase in indirect funding, volumes that are 20% higher in terms of investment products. So we are very confident that comparing this growth with a really small and prudent approach of the plan, that I remember only figured 6% of growth in a 3-year CAGR, we are very much above.

The next question is from Noemi Peruch of Mediobanca.

I have a few on the Danish Compromise. And I would like to know the day 1 impact of the acquisition of Anima without the Danish Compromise and if this would not impact the 80% payout on earnings in 2025. And I was wondering if you could give us a little bit of color on this decision, whether it is a matter of timing, considering the tender offer ongoing, or if it is a matter of skepticism and maybe you sensed from the supervisor? And then on NII guidance. I think you mentioned mid-single digit, down for 2025. I was just wondering if this is a full funding cost or is it NII as it is. And if you could give us the difference between the two in terms of year-on-year evolution.

Okay. Noemi, I believe that what counts is the sum because at the end of the day, the gross profit is -- in the gross profit, they go both. But I mean, we are in mid-single digit including full funding cost, high single digit not including funding costs in the trend of NII in 2025. On Danish Compromise, what I can say is, first of all, payout is confirmed every year, 80%, whatever is regulatory treatment of Anima acquisition. Without any compromise, like, I would say, before any optimization actions, the acquisition of Anima cost us around 240, 250 basis points would cost. We believe that, at the end of the day, what we are doing with the Anima offer if general assembly approve, is simply going back to the position at the beginning of the offer. Because when we introduced the offer, we wanted maximum clarity and certainty. So we introduced the condition precedent on ECB. Now we understand that this condition precedent is difficult to be fulfilled with the pronunciation from ECB before the end of the offer period. We are very committed to proceed with the offer with Anima. So the removal of the condition precedent is all in order to make sure that the offer can be implemented in the right timing. Then for concerning the regulatory outlook, we are fully convinced that what is written in the EBA question in the Q&A that says that Danish Compromise is applicable to the goodwill that you obtained after acquisitions through the insurance arm of the financial conglomerate is a clear outlook for our acquisition of Anima.

The next question is from Adele Palama of UBS.

I have a few questions on the fee and the AUM growth, so in the plan. So can you tell us a little bit about the -- how you see the fee margin evolution and which type of market performance you are embedding in your fee forecast -- in the forecast of the AUM? And then, sorry, can you repeat the impact of the Danish -- of the -- if you don't apply Danish Compromise to Anima, it's around 200 basis points, you said. Then I would like to know if you have any DTA of balance sheet, I mean, you probably have, if you can tell us the amount? And then one general question, more around M&A. I mean, how do you think about inorganic growth opportunity for BAMI at this point?

Well, let me repeat, Danish Compromise. No Danish Compromise on Anima is around 250 basis points if no optimizations are involved. Also, thanks for giving me the opportunity to restate that we don't believe this would be the end of the story. We believe there could be room for optimization. Then interesting question on DTAs. I've been in this bank for 10 years. We never had DTAs off balance sheet. So just to correct that we have the opportunity to provide clarity in case it is needed that this is -- we probably kept our DTAs in the balance sheet. So the only point on DTA is capital discussion and not P&L discussion. On AUM and fees, you asked probably for market effect, correct, which is...

Above -- on the market performance expected into the forecast and on the margin -- on the management fee margin evolution, how you see it.

Okay. No, management fee margin evolution is stable over the plan. And for the market effect is 2.5% on average to the plan.

Let me add something about M&A. Let me remember that we were bought in 2017 and, in 2024, the first bank to move into M&A, first, with the deal with between BPM and Banco and recently, the 6th of November with only cash offer present in the market on Anima. After us, a lot happened. Of course, we have now to be consistent at what we did because we didn't want only to be bigger. We want to be better. And in order to be better, we have to perform the business model that I tried to explain in detail during the presentation. Then we have another offer, which basically now is not an offer because it's at a discount, but can materialize in the future. We will deal with that possibly, of course, with all the restriction of the passivity rule. Third, if we go out also from that, of course, I think we are the best positioned bank for further M&A. Again, no need to explain our performance, no need to explain our geography, no need to explain our business model, the most complete. So whoever don't want to have an M&A with Banco, I don't know. We will see in the future which opportunity we will have in the interest of our shareholders, or of our people, of our client, of our territory. We want to ensure our shareholders that they don't run useless risk and stay on the best place.

The next question is from Andrea Lisi of Equita.

The first one is if you can provide us an indication of upfront fees in the fourth quarter 2024 and, in general, over the full year. And what is the level of upfront fees that you are assuming in the plan obviously for the Banco BPM standalone and combined with Anima? And in Slide 31, you have pointed out the [indiscernible] EUR 80 million increase in revenues from associates. Can you provide some detail on that? And really, just a clarification on the evolution of the NII. Can -- have I understood correctly that the increase of 5% of NII in 2027 versus 2026 is not driven by volumes or by marginal part by volumes and mostly by managerial actions that you are planning to put in place? And which are these? If you can provide some further details on these managerial action.

Okay. Thanks, Andrea. Upfront fees, sorry, I had in front of me, in 2024, which I believe has been given in the presentation. But we are a little bit above EUR 250 million, and this is a level which will be consistently maintained during the course of the plan. So as an order of magnitude, we are stable on upfront fees, thanks to level -- same level of intensity of selling activities by our branches. On associates, let me go back to the slide. It's -- the product factory contribution to income from associates once I have removed Anima, and the detail of this is -- so first of all, Anima is a strange impact because here, it's accounted for in associates for -- not removed, in associates and they're removed in the effect from Anima consolidation. So that's why you are finding this there. We have also increased -- an increase in Agos Ducato, which will provide -- which will contribute for a little bit less than half of this EUR 80 million, and Numia Group, which will contribute for more than 1/4 of this EUR 80 million. The rest is [indiscernible] and is [indiscernible] as well.

And let me just add, just to the clarity of what I also said before, that meanwhile we adopt this is a conservative measure in terms of fees that Edoardo was mentioning, which are the same that we forecasted in the previous plan, '23-'26. The -- our current experience of upfront fees both in end of the year, but especially in the beginning of the year, is massively increasingly. So I think you would see some figure, which is consistently higher than the forecast we adopted for the plan. Let me say that the average quarter of last year could be reached between the first 45, 50 days of the year this year.

On NII in '27, in general, we said that the EUR 100 million are the impact of both volumes that are developed throughout the plan, including the last year. So part of it will be obtained in '27 and managerial actions. Managerial actions are represented by reduction in spreads on funding that we pay on issued bonds and on certificates, the mix of the funding sources in a way to optimize the contribution to the net interest income and replacement of -- replicating portfolio, the part that is going to mature during the next 1 and 2 years, which are typically at low rates with higher rates comparable with the current shape and with the expected shape of the yield curve, which will contribute more in -- towards the end of the plan than in the beginning.

Next question is from Delphine Lee of JPMorgan.

Just a very few quick clarification. Just on NII, a follow-up on what you've just said. Is your assumption on the replicating portfolio to still increase that eventually towards EUR 25 billion or EUR 30 billion? And would it be possible to have the sort of rate the -- of what is maturing on your replicating portfolio you think lower rates just to kind of assess how much of an uplift we can get during new plan? And then on buybacks, would you start -- just about the timing of that. Would you start that, I would assume, after the Anima offer? Would you ask the authorization for that as soon as you get the Danish Compromise? And also and maybe, just when do you think you get clarity on the Danish Compromise? Is that March or could that be later?

Let me comment on the replicating portfolio. You gave me the opportunity to provide a few pieces of data which we started giving to the market in the last quarters. We have a duration of the replicated portfolio of 2 years and 1 quarter, and we have an average yield on this replicating portfolio of 2.1%. So given the current shape of the yield curve and having the opportunity to play a little bit with maturities, we are able, over time, to increase the overall yield of the portfolio, receiving part, I mean, whilst we will pay less because of declining in Euribor. On the other hand, we don't foresee an increase in volumes. We are happy with the current level of EUR 22 billion. We didn't account for the forward start in this level, which we will use to continuously replace maturities that we have. So I don't know, it will be EUR 22 billion to EUR 23 billion, but we don't expect definitely to arrive in the current [ 18 to 30 ].

Let me say about share buyback. Of course, we have to wait for ECB authorization. Otherwise, we cannot decide the timing. Once we will have the timing, we will propose to our assembly a further distribution of EUR 1 billion that the management is committed to perform. And in that case, a rebate is yet to come with another date, but most probably will be a share buyback.

And the Danish Compromise is March, you would say or could be later?

How can answer to a question, that depends on ECB, not on us. So I don't know how I can give you some guidance about that. We were -- we make a decision to anticipate Anima offer without waiting for the Danish Compromise approval just because, strategically, it's much more important to take onboard in our conglomerate the Anima contribution and then wait that very quietly for what we think should arrive. When this will arrive, we will have further capital in order to have a further shareholder distribution.

The next question is from Manuela Meroni of Intesa Sanpaolo.

The first one is on the loan evolution. I'm wondering if you can comment on the trend of loans in the fourth quarter and what do you expect in 2025? The second question is on the regulatory headwinds at Page 35, 94 basis points. This is just related to the Basel IV. Or there are some other elements we should take into consideration? And what is the phasing that you had assumed in your business plan? Third question on the sensitivity to rates. I'm wondering if you have further room to reduce the sensitivity. I imagine that you have. And finally, on the DTA. What are the DTA that are remaining in your balance sheet after 2027?

Loan evolution has been flat during the fourth quarter, even though we experienced there a big increase in loan granting. As I mentioned during the presentation, was 10% higher than last year, and the vast majority of this increase was in the last quarter -- in the last 2 quarters, basically from September on. This year, again, as Edoardo mentioned, we are keeping the 1.7% growth over the plan horizon, this year a bit slightly above the growth of the plan. Up to now, we are having good loan granting. But of course, we are not already experiencing growth because we think this will come with the interest rate reduction.

On headwinds Manuela, it's Basel IV. It's deployment of the Basel IV rules that has a phasing of 7 basis points per year, which in our simulations, of course, which will continue for additional 3 years after the end of the plan. On DTAs, sorry, we mentioned 130 basis points of additional potential capital, 50% of that is the DTAs. So after '27, we have 130 basis points of potential additional capital represented half of it by DTAs and half of it by negative results on fair value of the comprehensive income.

The next question is from Hugo Cruz of KBW.

It's related to that DTA effect and OCI effect in your capital waterfall. Quite big numbers. I was wondering if you could clarify a bit the timing of those positive impacts, like in each year.

Yes, again, but allow me a few seconds to go through the material. Okay. In '25, I have 44 basis points of DTA tax loss carryforward and some 50 in total considering also the fair value and other comprehensive income. Similar pace in '26, again, some 50 basis points, and then much less in '27 because we start exhausting the potential. We are about -- in '27, we are in between 20, 25 basis points, something like that.

The next question is from Marco Nicolai of Jefferies.

So my understanding is that the amendment of the Anima offer consideration allows also UniCredit to terminate their offer of Banco BPM. I don't know if you want to -- if you have any color on the Anima offer consideration allows also UniCredit to terminate their offer of Banco BPM. I don't know if you want to -- if you have any color on this or -- any reason to believe the UniCredit instead will not exercise this condition.

Thank you, Marco. Very interesting question. Of course, the behavior has been a bit random in the next few weeks with many intervention and UniCredit in financial activities. So really, we don't know what they want to do also vis-a-vis our decision to go ahead in Anima. It's very difficult to say. In my opinion, it's not only the Anima thoughts that they have to have, but also some much better understanding of our plan, our potentiality, how much they should spend in order to get successful their potential offer that, again, now is not an offer.

The next question is from Luis Pratas of Autonomous.

I have the first one on the Danish Compromise again, sorry. Could you please give any color regarding your interactions with regulators on this subject? You seem to be a bit more cautious regarding the timing. So I'm basically trying to assess what is the risk of not receiving the Danish Compromise altogether. And secondly, could you also provide a bit more color on the cost development throughout the business plan, how much you expect for cost, for instance, next year. And do the EUR 100 million benefit from exits, does this come equally throughout the years? Or it's going to be more front-loaded next year or like more closer to the end of the business plan?

Okay. Interactions with regulators, simply reflected in our statement on the fact that we want to make sure to close the deal Anima as soon as possible. And we prefer not to wait for the [ pronunciation ] of the regulator. So simply, that we don't want -- we don't have a clear certainty on timing when they will provide confirmation or potentially give indications that diverge from what currently the EBA gave to the whole European system. On operational costs, we are going for a decline already next year in '25 compared to '24 and then marginally improve going forward. So I'm talking about stand-alone, without considering the contribution of Anima, which is on top. But what we will do is that we will achieve an improvement in costs next year. Then going forward, it will be balancing between a further reduction in cost of personnel for additional deployment of the agreement with the unions and some marginal increase in depreciations -- amortization and depreciations.

Gentlemen, Mr. Riscassi, there are no more questions registered at this time. Would you like -- I just like to hand it back to you for any closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you very much. Sorry, again, for this very long conference call, but I think it was worth to attend, to discuss. Of course, we will be on road shows since this afternoon. We will be very happy and keen to give you all the further information you need in order to better understand the many figures that we presented today. Thank you for your attention. See you soon. Bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.