Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft (DBK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Presentation] Shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our Annual General Meeting 2023, which I hereby formally open. I'm very pleased to be able to welcome you here today for the first time. It is an honor for me to serve this institution as Chairman of the Supervisory Board. During my first year in office, I had many conversations which have shown to me Deutsche Bank is highly regarded by its clients and plays a very important role for the economy. It can rely on excellent employees and on the confidence of our highly valued shareholders. For that reason, I am particularly looking forward to our exchange today. We have decided to hold a virtual AGM again this year, having further refined the format. The aim is to hold an inclusive meeting offering our shareholders a forum where they can exercise all their rights without having to travel. At the same time, we want the exchange to be as informative and productive as possible. We hope we have achieved this. Accordingly, for the first time, we have published in advance not only the speeches but also the answers to the questions which have been submitted. This should enable you today to ask specific follow-up questions. We are convinced of the advantages of a virtual Annual General Meeting. That is why we are asking you for your approval today to continue with this format for the next 2 years while developing it further. However, let me, first of all, turn to a number of formalities. The Annual General Meeting has been convened in proper form and in due time. The agenda was published in the Federal Gazette of 30th of March 2023. All members of the Management Board are present in the studio here today. With the exception of Michele Trogni, John Thain and Frank Werneke, all Supervisory Board members are also present here today. Professor Winkeljohann and myself are also present in the studio, while the other members are in a separate meeting room in this building where they are following the Annual General Meeting and are able to communicate with us if and as necessary. Let me also welcome all of them very warmly. The notary, Dr. Habetha, is sitting on the right-hand side from your perspective. He will be taking notarized minutes of today's Annual General Meeting. The list of participants is currently being drawn up. It covers the company's proxies present in the attendance area here today. It also includes all shareholders and shareholder representatives who have electronically joined the Annual General Meeting here today. We will announce the attendance once the list has been completed. It will then also be made available to registered shareholders and their representatives via the shareholder portal. The attendance area covers the so-called forum, including adjoining rooms, in the E2 section here in Taunusanlage 12; as well as the premises in C2 and C3, where the backstage area is located and where the votes will be counted later today. It also includes the Supervisory Board meeting room and the adjoining rooms on a 35 floor. The agenda with the wording of the proposed resolutions is on display here. The notary also has a copy of the convocation document to hand. This also applies to the counterproposals submitted in due time, which we have also made available on our website. So much for the formalities. Ladies and gentlemen, today, we look back on a very successful year. Deutsche Bank achieved its highest net income in 15 years. We exceeded the key targets of our strategy launched in 2019, a return on equity of 8%. We can therefore say with some pride that Deutsche Bank's transformation has been a success. At the same time, the bank is in a very solid position. At the end of the first quarter of this year, the common equity Tier 1 ratio stood at 13.6%. And what we are particularly pleased about on the Supervisory Board is that we can propose a dividend of EUR 0.30 per share to you today. This is 50% more than last year. This progress is based on a lot of hard work. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Management Board and all employees of Deutsche Bank for this. Without their great commitment and efforts, the transformation of the bank and these results would not have been possible. And of course, I would also like to thank you, our owners, our shareholders, for your loyalty and support. Christian Sewing will report in more detail on the past year in a moment. He will also explain the bank's strategy for the next few years. The Supervisory Board closely monitored the bank's progress and the work on the Management Board over the past year. The Supervisory Board and its committees held a total of 59 meetings. In the light of the economic challenges, one of our priorities was to convince ourselves of the bank's resilience, risk management and balance sheet quality. We also closely monitored the further development of the strategy. In March 2022, the Management Board had presented a strategy update together with financial targets for the years up to 2025. The Supervisory Board expressly supports the even stronger focus on the role of a Global Hausbank. This strategy puts our clients even more at the center and delivers our global expertise to them locally. The goal is to provide the best possible support to our clients worldwide and across all business areas. In this way, Deutsche Bank is fulfilling its role for the German and European economy. The Supervisory Board is also convinced that this is the right way to generate sustainable profits and returns for you as shareholders. Environmental and social considerations as well as good corporate governance are playing an increasingly important role in any bank's strategy. That is why we have decided that, in future, we will discuss sustainability matters in the Supervisory Board together with strategy-related matters in the same Supervisory Board committee in future. It is part of our responsibility to society to do what we can to help make our economy carbon neutral. At the same time, this is an opportunity for us. Deutsche Bank is extremely well positioned to support its clients in their sustainable transformation. In this context, we have realigned the former Integrity Committee. As the Regulatory Oversight Committee, it monitors and supports the Management Board in ensuring that legal provisions, regulatory requirements and internal policies are complied with. These issues are the key priority for the Supervisory Board. In recent years, Deutsche Bank made significant progress in this area. However, it does not yet meet expectations in some areas. The Supervisory Board has also taken this into account in the remuneration of the Management Board for 2022. For this reason, the so-called short-term award was reduced by 5%. Further progress on regulatory issues will continue to be a top priority in the current year. This receives the highest weighting in the targets defined for nearly all Management Board members. That summarizes some of our key priorities for the completed year. The detailed report on the work delivered by the Supervisory Board can be found in the bank's annual report, on Pages VIII to XVII. Of course, the key tasks of the Supervisory Board also include personnel decisions. In 2022. There was only one change in the Management Board. At last year's Annual General Meeting, Stuart Lewis handed over the role of Chief Risk Officer to Olivier Vigneron. However, we decided to initiate a major restructuring of the Management Board a few weeks ago. I would like to briefly explain that decision to you. In recent years, the management team, led by Christian Sewing, had successfully led the bank through the transformation. Now time had come to align the Management Board for the next phase in the bank's growth strategy. This requires an even greater focus on our clients and on the business areas in which the bank aims to grow. At the same time, we need to be even more consistent when it comes to further strengthening our controls. In addition, the bank needs to become even more efficient, and that includes a leaner Management Board. We had all these goals in mind when we put together the responsibilities of the new leadership team. The changes include 2 farewells. Upon the close of this Annual General Meeting, our Americas CEO, Christiana Riley, will leave Deutsche Bank. After around 17 years in our bank and 3 years on the Management Board, she has decided to take on a new role in the financial sector. Also present at the AGM for the last time is one of our presidents, Karl von Rohr. He will leave the bank when his contract expires at the end of October. Mr. von Rohr has worked for Deutsche Bank for more than 25 years and has been a member of the Management Board since 2015. Both Christiana Riley and Karl von Rohr have rendered outstanding services to our bank and delivered significant contributions to the successful transformation in recent years. On behalf of the Supervisory Board, I would like to express my sincere thanks to both of them for their dedication over many years. We wish them all the best for their future endeavors. It speaks for Deutsche Bank and its management team that Christiana Riley and Karl von Rohr have excellent successes from within the bank. We have redistributed the tasks in such a way that we can reduce the size of the Management Board from 10 to 9 members. Claudio de Sanctis will join the Management Board as a new member. He has been with Deutsche Bank since 2018; and has successfully transformed the International Private Bank in recent years, focusing it on its strengths in the advisory business. With that experience, he will take over responsibility for the Private Bank as a whole. Chief Financial Officer James von Moltke will be responsible for Asset Management on the Management Board, in addition to his current responsibilities. James knows the business model of asset managers very well from earlier stages of his career, and he has worked closely with DWS in recent years. Alexander von zur Mühlen will assume responsibility for the regions Germany and Europe, the Middle East and Africa [ by ] remaining in charge of the Asia Pacific region. He will be responsible for positioning the bank as a whole in its home market and ensure that the regions are more closely connected. Stefan Simon will take over responsibility for the Americas region. In addition to a focus on clients, the structure of the U.S. market also requires a lot of dialogue with regulators. It therefore makes sense to transfer responsibility for the region to the Board member responsible for relations with regulators worldwide. In order to make the bank even more efficient, Rebecca Short will be given an expanded role on the Management Board. As Chief Operating Officer, Rebecca will assume primary responsibility for the group's costs. She will also be responsible for human resources. We are convinced that this will give us a leaner and yet even more powerful management team. I wish all members of the Management Board every success in their new or expanded roads. However, with this new composition, we fall short of our own commitment of having a share of women on the Management Board of at least 20%. Of course, we are not satisfied with that. The Supervisory Board stands by its commitment and will do everything in its power to deliver on it again over time. The Management Board is supported by a Supervisory Board with extensive experience. Today, you will be voting on 4 Supervisory Board mandates. All 4 colleagues are standing for reelection. I would like to thank Mayree Clark, John Thain, Michele Trogni and Norbert Winkeljohann for this. Also 4 are not only proven experts in their fields with extensive experience in the financial industry, the financial -- the technology sector and auditing. They've already made a significant contribution to the work of our Supervisory Board in recent years. It is therefore very gratifying that they wish to extend their commitment to Deutsche Bank. I would be delighted to continue working with these highly respected colleagues. That is why I'm asking you, shareholders, to support our election proposal. On the other hand, there will be some changes among employee representatives at the end of this Annual General Meeting. Among others, my deputy, Detlef Polaschek, who is going into well-deserved retirement, will leave the Supervisory Board. Dear Detlef, thank you very much for cooperating with me on the basis of confidence and trust over the past year. You made it much easier for me to get started on the Supervisory Board. Ludwig Blomeyer-Bartenstein, Martina Klee, Gabriele Platscher, Bernd Rose, Stefan Viertel and Frank Werneke will also be stepping down after today's AGM. I would also like to thank all of them for their service to the Supervisory Board. In their place, 7 new employee representatives were elected to the Supervisory Board in the April elections. These are Jürgen Tögel, Gerlinde Siebert, Birgit Laumen, Claudia Fieber, Frank Schulze, Susanne Bleidt and Stephan Szukalski. I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you on our Supervisory Board. I'm looking forward to working with you, as I am with the reelected employee representatives Jan Duscheck, Manja Eifert and Timo Heider. Shareholders, this brings me to the end of my speech. The Supervisory Board believes that Deutsche Bank is on the right track. We will do everything we can to continue to support the bank in the next phase of its growth strategy and to put our clients at the center of everything we do. The bank has the right setup and a strong and focused management team. By focusing on our clients and our strengths, we will create sustainable value for you, our owners. Christian Sewing will explain to you in a moment what the Management Board's plans to deliver this looks like. Please note, as you know and will have realized by now, German is not my mother tongue. For this reason, I will hand over chairmanship of the AGM to my deputy, Norbert Winkeljohann, with the speech of the CEO. Thank you for your understanding. Of course, I will continue to follow the debate here in the room and look forward to the meeting with you, but let me now hand over to Christian Sewing. Thank you very much.

Dear shareholders, I also would like to welcome you to this year's Annual General Meeting. Allow me to make a preliminary remark. Unfortunately, I've had a cold since yesterday, so I will be taking a sip of water now and then during my speech to ensure that my voice holds up. I kindly ask you for your understanding in this regard. Ladies and gentlemen, preparing to report to you and the shareholders of our bank here at the Annual General Meeting always presents a good time to pause and reflect on the previous year, on our achievements and what they mean for the way ahead. In the past 3 years, moments of reflection like this have become even more valuable. All too often, the speed and intensity of the epochal changes keep us trapped in the here and now. Taking time to reflect is important, though, especially after a year like 2022 with the many profound changes it brought: a terrible war in Europe, geopolitical tensions between major powers, continued uncertainty over supply chains, the return of the specter of inflation haunting. Rarely have the basic conditions that govern the global economy changed so abruptly and fundamentally. However, ladies and gentlemen, 2020 (sic) [ 2022 ] also had some positive and encouraging things to offer, one of these being the cohesion that we experienced in so many places and on so many different levels. The same applies to the decisiveness with which politicians acted during the crisis and also to the flexibility and resilience our companies have shown. When I talk about the resilience of our economy, then this is especially true for our Deutsche Bank. As Alex Wynaendts just outlined, 2022 was on balance a most successful year for our bank. That is all the more pleasing, as 2022 was the benchmark year for us meeting our objectives. When we started our transformation in July 2019 and defined our goals, we gave ourselves 3.5 years to achieve these. Back then, we embarked on a course which we have since followed unwaveringly against all odds despite operating in an environment where external shocks were unprecedentedly frequent and despite experiencing enormous levels of volatility and uncertainty. Last year was undoubtedly dramatic for our bank, but it showed us one thing above all: We are on the right track. Our bank is strong. Our business model works and has proven itself even under the most adverse circumstances, first, during a global pandemic; and later, in an environment of geopolitical tensions and uncertainties and high inflation. There is little else that could endorse our strategy quite so overwhelmingly. We were able to reap the rewards of our strategy once again last year. We kept our promises and we achieved our highest pretax profit in 15 years. We could not have wished for our transformation to come to a better conclusion. Of course, we also want to share that success with you, which is why we are proposing a dividend of EUR 0.30 per share today. That is EUR 0.10 more than last year. We are also planning further share buybacks for the second half of this year and are already in discussions with regulators on this. Dear shareholders, we promised to reward your many years of loyalty and patience with us. And I am delighted that we are now in a position to take another step towards delivering on this promise. Ladies and gentlemen, let me now give you a more detailed account of our bank's business performance over the past year. I have just said that we finished 2022 with the best results since 2007. Specifically, pretax profit was EUR 5.6 billion, 65% higher than in the previous year. And at EUR 5.7 billion, our net profit more than doubled. This figure includes a one-off effect due to a revaluation of our deferred tax assets in the United States, which is not going to repeat in this way. Ultimately, however, this appreciation in value is a reflection of how well our business has developed and how our outlook has improved in U.S. and is therefore testament to our success. This success, and I'm particularly pleased about this, is better balanced than it has been for a very long time. In the first years of our transformation, the Investment Bank was by far the most important profit generator for our bank. Since then, though, our Corporate Bank and our Private Bank have both doubled their contribution to group profit. Together with our Asset Management business, these businesses accounted for a good 2/3 of total profit last year. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm especially proud of these results. However, they only reflect a part of the many major projects that we have completed or advanced in 2022 or over the course of our transformation. Examples include the sale of our hedge fund business; our technology partnership with Google Cloud; and the UNITY project for the integration of Postbank's IT, which is nearing successful completion. All of this has been made possible by the dedication, the passion and the unwavering commitment of the approximately 85,000 employees of Deutsche Bank. They have demonstrated their support for the strategy we started in 2019 in a unique way despite all the cuts and all the hard work that this transformation entailed. They are, ladies and gentlemen, proud to work for Deutsche Bank again just as I said I wished they would in 2018 at my first AGM as CEO. And their hard work demonstrated -- demonstrates it day in, day out. All of this, ladies and gentlemen, deserves a huge thank you. Let's turn back to last year's figures. As in previous years, 2 things are driving our strong growth in profitability: a noticeable increase in revenues and continued strict cost discipline in an environment in which inflation has caused some major price hikes. Let's start with our revenues. Once again, we significantly increased revenues as we have been doing year-over-year since the beginning of our transformation. Last year, we increased revenues by 7% to EUR 27.2 billion. Not only does this far exceed the EUR 25 billion target we set ourselves 3.5 years ago for 2022. Our revenues are also a good EUR 2 billion higher than in 2018. At that time, we remained active in significantly more business areas; and this shows just how well our setup of 4 strong, focused divisions meets the need of our clients. The fact that we are gaining market share in many areas is further evidence, and we are convinced that there is more potential to unlock. I am particularly pleased that we have successfully generated higher revenues without losing our focus on costs. Of course, we continue to invest in our business, in technology, in our controls and also in our existing and new employees. After all, these are investments in our future success and improved service for our clients. Ultimately, we have reduced costs. Last year, our adjusted costs, excluding transformation charges and bank levies, on a currency-adjusted basis declined by 3%. And our cost-income ratio decreased by 10 percentage points to 75%. Compared to our 2018 baseline, adjusted costs have fallen by a good EUR 3 billion. I think that's remarkable, although I can only repeat what I said earlier. There is still more potential. The combined power of revenue growth and cost discipline meant that we managed to achieve one of our key targets of our transformation, a post-tax return on tangible equity of 8%. In fact, at 9.4% by the end of 2022, we exceeded our target by some way, though the tax effect I mentioned also plays a role here. Just as important is that we protect our bank against crises, volatility and unforeseen events. We achieved enormous stability here, as the year-end figures show. Our common equity Tier 1 capital ratio stood at 13.4%, well above our minimum target of 12.5%. Our leverage ratio was 4.6%. And our liquidity coverage ratio, a measure of our ability to absorb large-scale short-term withdrawals of customer deposits, was an impressive 142%, which is EUR 64 billion above the 100% minimum threshold required by our regulators. These are excellent figures which we were able to confirm and in some cases even improve in the first quarter in a more difficult environment. It is this kind of stability that gives us the strength to navigate difficult phases, phases, ladies and gentlemen, like in spring of this year when several regional banks in the U.S. had to be bailed out. And in Switzerland, UBS took over Credit Suisse. Markets were temporarily worried about a new banking and financial crisis. This had a severe but short-lived impact across the banking industry, affecting shares, credit default swaps and other securities, our own included. As you can imagine, these were troubling times for us; and we expect the environment to remain volatile for some time. One thing is clear, however. Our bank is healthy and stable. We have a strong balance sheet and are sustainably profitable. And above all, we do not have the vulnerabilities that got other banks into trouble. Our loans and deposits are highly diversified, high quality and well hedged. Our liquidity reserves are high and our capital base is sound. And most importantly, we have a clear strategy and a business model that drives sustainable profitability. Regulators, rating agencies and analysts have all explicitly confirmed this to be the case, but to make one thing quite clear too: We still have issues to work on, and that applies to 2 areas in particular. Firstly, our controls. We have made progress in the last few years, but we need to more quickly remediate the remaining deficits that our supervisory authorities criticize. This will be an even higher priority for us in coming months. And of course, secondly, we are, just as you all are, dissatisfied with our share price because it does not reflect the achievements I have just described. There are a couple of reasons for this, not all of which are within our control, but obviously we also must do more to convince the markets of our merits. And you have my word that we will keep at it. Dear shareholders, let me summarize. We have met or even exceeded the targets we set ourselves for 2022. We are an -- a robust bank, a very robust bank, with 4 strong business areas, high growth momentum and sustainable profitability. We are well protected against unforeseen events. And as a Global Hausbank, we are geared towards serving our clients holistically worldwide. This setup has proven its worth and we feel very well prepared for the coming years. We intend to continue along a sustainable growth trajectory, further increasing our returns to you. With that in mind, we set ourselves ambitious goals for 2025 last year, goals which I presented to you here at the AGM 2022. Based on the success of 2022 and what was another very first strong quarter of 2023 with the best results in 10 years, we are confident of being able to achieve even more. We now expect to be able to increase revenues in the next 2 years at a stronger rate than previously assumed. This year alone, we consider a figure somewhere in between EUR 28 billion and EUR 29 billion to be completely realistic. In 2025, we should be able to convincingly exceed EUR 30 billion. Developments in the first quarter have opened up new opportunities for us to gain additional market share, and we are determined to seize these opportunities. We expect to be able to save EUR 0.5 billion more in costs than originally planned over the next few years. That will amount to total savings of EUR 2.5 billion. By reinvesting the costs saved in our business, we want to enable further growth. And we also believe that the 10% return on equity target that we set ourselves for 2025 is more likely to be at the lower end of what we can achieve. After all, return on equity would already have reached this level in the first quarter if the annual bank levies were spread out over the year on a pro rata basis rather than being booked in one single payment at the beginning of the year. In order to be able to further exploit this potential, we aim to accelerate the implementation of our Global Hausbank strategy, which is why we announced concrete measures at the end of April. These can be divided into 3 categories: first, operational efficiency and additional savings associated with it. We see some potential here through the use of modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, which will help us to automate and ultimately simplify our processes. We also aim to optimize our sales network. Another component here includes a limited number of job cuts in non-client-facing areas, primarily with a view to dismantling hierarchies. In future, all measures will be centrally managed by the newly created COO function, under Rebecca Short. We hope this will give us even more clout on this important issue. Second, investments. Through our cost-cutting efforts, we also intend to enable additional investments in growth areas. We will continue to invest in technology that enhances our product offering for our clients. And we will also boost our efforts in particular in areas which require little -- relatively little investment to generate significantly higher revenues. One example is in our Private Bank, where we plan to expand our direct and digital sales offerings, but it also includes all those areas where we are supporting our clients with our advisory expertise, for example, in our Wealth Management business and in our Investment Bank, when advising on IPOs, capital measures or other types of financing. The planned acquisition of the British corporate broker Numis at the end of April was a first step in this direction, which significantly expands our advisory offering for corporate clients in the United Kingdom. Third, capital efficiency. In the future, we aim to pay even closer attention to the business areas where we invest capital and use it to grow where it is most worthwhile. We aim to reduce activities that only generate low returns for us, for example, in the mortgage business. Overall, we expect to reduce risk-weighted assets by EUR 15 billion to EUR 20 billion this way. We intend to put the capital we save to more profitable use in other business areas, but we will also use it to increase our payouts to you, our shareholders, as promised. All these measures should help us to become more efficient, faster and even more profitable. More than anything else, though, our long-term success will be built on the added value we give our clients. This must be at the heart of everything we do. We are dedicated to our clients' lasting success and financial security in our home market in Germany, in Europe and all over the world. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the purpose which the model of our Global Hausbank is built on. We are a reliable partner for individuals, companies, institutions and governments in some 150 countries around the world. As a house bank, we are there for our clients all over the world, offering them expert advice, innovative solutions and seamless support whatever their financial needs. Rarely has this been so relevant and in such high demand as these past few years. The geopolitical tensions mentioned earlier, supply chain shifts, unprecedented monetary and fiscal policy measures and an enormous volatility in the markets pose major challenges for our clients, and all this at a time when they are already challenged with keeping pace with digitalization and managing the transformation to a sustainable economy that makes careful use of its resources. To help our clients meet these challenges, we as a bank must continue to develop. Being the Global Hausbank for our clients means being there for them at all times and, above all, by providing a holistic service not just to provide and sell products but also to give advice, manage their risks and offer solutions as a partner. A full focus on our clients is what I have been calling for from everyone at Deutsche Bank since I took office in 2018. It made sense in terms of realigning our business units in the summer of 2019. And this is also one of the leitmotifs for the reorganization of the Management Board which our Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Alexander Wynaendts, described earlier. One thing we aim to do, for example, is to better our -- better connect our business units across all regions, with the aim of offering our clients a uniform one-stop service. In the last few years, progress in cross-divisional cooperation has already been good. For example, from 2020 to 2022, compound annual revenue growth from cross-divisional initiatives was more than 20%. However, there is still a great deal of further potential. During recent crises, we have shown what client focus is all about. By significantly increasing the number of client calls in all our business areas, we are able to cater to their needs faster and provide them with more targeted support. We are also developing more and more tailor-made and innovative products and solutions that we device -- design in close dialogue with our clients. There are a number of fine examples from recent months that showcase this. We structured a complex financing in Asia for a large U.S. corporation, with the aim to place financing in Indian rupees with international investors while hedging the funds locally. This innovation was made possible by the collaboration of the Investment Bank and Corporate Bank teams in London, New York and Singapore. In our International Private Bank, we created an opportunity to engage in venture capital investments in the tech center (sic) [ sector ] at the initiative of our clients. The tailor-made Tech Venture Growth Fund invests in 5 of the most successful VC funds from Europe and attracted more than 450 clients from around 30 countries at launch. At the Corporate Bank, we worked on a new type of financing for fuel cells for the Bosch group. Thanks to our solution, fuel cell users can pay for the system use -- based on usage, a milestone in the future field of "asset as a service." And for AirTrunk, a data center operator in the Asia Pacific region, we issued a loan of AUD 650 million which is linked to compliance with environmental, social and governance commitments. That is ESG. One aim is also to reduce the energy demand which is particularly high in this industry. Ladies and gentlemen, it is no coincidence that 2 of these examples have a strong sustainability component. The opposite is true. Sustainability is part and parcel of our strategy. ESG issues may have lost some of their visibility recently, but in dialogue with our clients, we are noticing how the economy is adapting to this transformation or, as some say, this disruption. We see how companies are restructuring their supply chains to make them more sustainable while also focusing on human rights. And of course, energy security and efficiency are both key issues not just for companies but for private households too. The transformation to a more sustainable economy will cost trillions of euros, but ladies and gentlemen, it is also a huge opportunity if we manage to raise the capital required. And you know my firm conviction that we will only succeed if Europe drives forward the overdue Capital Markets Union. It would significantly increase the investment power of our economic bloc. In any case, the European economy is well positioned as one of the world market leaders in green technology. And we at Deutsche Bank are excellently positioned to accompany them on their journey to sustainability with advice, with financing and with individual solutions for complex challenges. We made sustainability a management priority back in the summer of 2019 and since then have consistently integrated environmental and social aspects deeply into our own processes and have been building up in-house expertise. In 2022, we achieved our 2025 goal of facilitating EUR 200 billion in sustainable finance, which we brought forward by 3 years. And we are already at EUR 238 billion after the first quarter of this year. We have now reaffirmed our goal of reaching EUR 0.5 trillion by 2025. We have also underscored our commitment to reduce emissions from both our banking operations and our financing business to net 0 by 2050. This requires an intensive dialogue with our clients, as we can only achieve our goal if their carbon emissions are net 0 too. Our dialogue is particularly important with companies in the most carbon-intensive sectors. From 2026 onwards, we aim to ensure that at least 90% of the carbon-intensive clients in these industries that wish to take out a new corporate loan present a credible net 0 commitment. To put this into perspective: Not even half of companies worldwide have committed to this today. And I also would like to emphasize at this point that, among international peers, we are excellently positioned in terms of reducing our exposure to coal, oil and gas. We will not take our eyes off the ball for a minute even in our own transformation. And we see it as our duty to accompany this change intensively in dialogue with politicians and other stakeholders. Ladies and gentlemen, back in 2018, at the AGM, I said that we as a bank must be at the heart of society. Wherever possible, we have an important contribution to make when it comes to solving the most pressing problems. And this is something we definitely want to do. Helping to find ways out of the climate crisis and making the world a more social and equitable place are key elements in achieving this. It also means standing up for and supporting the less-fortunate members of society, and I'm deeply grateful for everyone's great commitment here over many years. In 2022, Deutsche Bank employees dedicated nearly 190,000 hours of their time to working on social projects. And together with Deutsche Bank, they have donated to numerous charities and to people in need, more than EUR 1.5 million raised for aid to Ukraine alone, in addition to all the in-kind contributions and the immense personal commitment to refugees and people in the war zones where we maintain our banking operations to this day. And following the devastating earthquakes in Syria and Turkey this year, our bank, together with its employees, raised more than EUR 750,000 in very short time, which was donated to the Red Cross and Red Crescent organization. This is a truly outstanding willingness to help. Despite such initiatives and despite the important role we play in financing the economy, recognition and acceptance for our industry within society remains in a fragile state. This is not least a long-term consequence of the financial crisis, and the turbulence in March testifies to its continued impact. Problems suffered by individual banks immediately caused doubts about the system as a whole. And they led to blanket appeals for stricter rules, whatever these might be, yet the financial crisis was 15 years ago, 15 years in which our industry has made enormous progress. There is no need for new, additional regulation in Europe because we banks are in a solid position. We have adapted our business models, reduced our balance sheets and reduced balance sheet risks. We have massively built up liquidity and capital and significantly improved our profitability. Our transformation cost us a lot of money for a few years, but we are earning good money again. And not just Deutsche Bank, but the industry as a whole is now earning sustainably well again. We have the strength to be the part of the solution that our economy needs to finance its transformation. We must, however, admit that we apparently haven't done enough to explain all this, to make it clear what banks are there for; and the positive impact we have for our clients, for the economy and for society as a whole. We have it in our own hands to improve our reputation. Contributing to this is a matter that is close to my heart as President of both the Association of German Banks and as well as the European Banking Federation; and of course, especially as Deutsche Bank's Chief Executive Officer. Dear shareholders, looking to the future, the Deutsche Bank that I have in mind is a bank that has a positive impact on improving our industry's image: a bank that is there for its clients and helps them navigate times of volatility and radical upheaval; a bank that connects worlds; a bank that fosters growth and innovation and generates wealth; a bank that continues to grow, competing to gain market share wherever it operates; a bank that is sustainably profitable and reliably offers attractive payouts to its shareholders; a confident bank that is at the forefront of Europe and operates globally on an equal footing with the best; a bank of which not only its employees are proud but which its clients, shareholders and society hold in high regard. We have come a good deal closer to this vision in recent years because we have taken resolute steps towards it and, above all, have taken them as one united team. This is especially true of my colleagues on the Management Board, on whom I could rely at all times and without whom we would not be where we are today. This is why I would like to express my sincere thanks today to my colleagues on the Management Board; and especially to the two of you, dear Christiana and dear Karl. It has already been said that both of you will be leaving Deutsche Bank. I'm deeply grateful to both of you for the enormous commitment you have shown to Deutsche Bank over so many years, for everything you have initiated and achieved during this time, for all the passion you have put into the comeback of our bank. Above all, of course, I would like to thank you for the intensive journey that we have undertaken together on the Management Board over the past years to make our transformation a sustainable success. Dear Christiana, you went to the U.S. for us in 2020 and made a big difference there from the very beginning. Not only did you improve the dialogue with our customers, supervisors and other stakeholders, but in particular, you brought the culture and the interaction between our colleagues to an entirely new level. And that applies especially to the all-important issue of inclusion, equal opportunities and diversity, which you embody with such great passion and conviction. This commitment serves as a role model for all us -- all of us at our bank. And to you, dear Karl, I am particularly grateful for the way you have driven forward our transformation with me, repositioning Deutsche Bank in Germany in particular. The fact that our Private Bank is so successful again today and that the integration of Postbank is on the home straight is thanks to a magnificent team effort that you made possible in the first place with your leadership, but there is one more thing that is very important to me. As Deputy Chairman of the manage board -- Management Board, you not only always had my back, but you were also always available as an adviser and sparring partner. Dear Karl, you were always a super partner full of honesty and integrity, and I thank you very much for our time together which made us friends. It has meant a lot to me and it will mean a lot to me in the future. Dear Christiana and Dear Karl, it was a great pleasure to work with you. I wish you all the best for your future tasks. And I'm glad that you, Karl, will stay with us for a few more months. Together with all of you on the Management Board; with our Supervisory Board, led by Alex Wynaendts; with our first-class employees; with our clients; and of course, with you, our shareholders, we will continue to work with passion and determination along our path to further develop Deutsche Bank as a Global Hausbank and to secure the leading position in the industry that it deserves. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank Christian Sewing very much. I think he gave our shareholders a very clear idea of how the Management Board sees the bank and which path it wants to follow. And the Supervisory Board will continue to support and constructively accompany the Management Board on this way. Shareholders, before we enter into the agenda. It has been a well-established tradition of Deutsche Bank that at our AGM we commemorate the employees and pensioners who have passed. In the past business year, 67 of our active employees and 694 of our pensioners passed away. Our thoughts are with them as they are with victims of the war in Ukraine and other armed conflicts in the world. I would just like to ask everyone in the room to raise from their seats. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for raising to commemorate the deceased. We now enter into today's agenda comprising 11 matters. Item #1, the annual financial statements of Deutsche Bank for the business year 2022. This includes, amongst other things, the established annual financial statement and the management report for Deutsche Bank AG which is drafted on the basis of German HGB. In addition, it comprises the approved consolidated financial statements and management board (sic) [ report ] according to IFRS and the report of the Supervisory Board. All these documents have been made available on our website since March. The annual financial statements and the management report as well as the approved consolidated financial statements and consolidated management report have been audited by Ernst & Young GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft. Neither the audit through the auditor nor the review by the Supervisory Board have given rise to any objections. The auditor issued an unqualified auditor's opinion. The Supervisory Board has approved the annual financial statements and the consolidated financial statement at its meeting on March 16, 2023. The annual financial statements has thus been established according to Section 172 German Stock Corporation Act. The additional items of the agenda, the full version of which can also [ be retrieved ] from our AGM website, includes the following: item #2, appropriation of distributable profit. The Management Board and the Supervisory Board propose to pay out a dividend of EUR 0.30 per share from the distributable profit. The current motion for a resolution, which considers the number of owned shares held as of today, you also can find on the Internet page of the bank. Item #2 -- item #3 and #4 is the ratification of the acts of the Management Board and Supervisory Board. Item 5, election of the auditor. Based on recommendation of the Audit Committee, we suggest to again elect Ernst & Young Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft. Item #6 is the resolution on the approval of the compensation report for the 2022 financial year. And items #7 and #8 include annually recurring resolutions for the acquisition of own shares in the framework of share buyback programs as well as the use of derivatives for the flexible implementation of these programs. Item #9 is the election of 4 Supervisory Board members. As Mr. Wynaendts mentioned initially, the 4 incumbents stand for reelection. Election takes place in the form of individual election, and I will come back to this later. Item #10 covers a range of amendments to the articles of association, which are also to be voted on individually. There is, for example, authorization of the Management Board to have the option of holding virtual AGMs in the next 2 years as well as a clarification on the possibility of a public transmission and broadcasting of the AGM. Also the Supervisory Board members [ ask to be ] given the option to participate in the AGM by way of audio and video transmission. This is without being physically present. Finally, the articles of association are to be adjusted in line with changed requirements regarding the entry of shareholders into the share register. And then finally, item #11 is about the changed compensation system for the Supervisory Board, the relevant changes to the articles of association and the approval of the AGM to these matters. I'd also like to refer you to the explanation in the invitation. Let me also point out that counterproposals and election proposals were published on our website in keeping with the legal requirements according to Section 126 and 127 German stock corporation law. Precondition for this was that we receive these counterproposals and proposals before the end of the 15th day before today's AGM and that they require publication. We have also published statements [ for ] shareholders that were not connected to counterproposals. Ladies and gentlemen, so much on my explanation with regard to the content of the agenda. I may then announce the attendance. [ From the ] share capital of EUR 5,223,021,975.04 subdivided in 2,040,242,959 non-par value shares, at today's AGM, 862,623,765 shares, with the same number of votes, are represented. This corresponds to 42.28% of the share capital. Apart from that, [ for 23,311,988 ] shares, with the same number of votes, the possibility of absentee vote was used. If you add those votes, you have a ratio of the share capital of 43.42%. The attendance list is being uploaded to the shareholders' portal and will be available for inspection to the shareholders. Ladies and gentlemen, also in the last 2 years, Deutsche Bank has been paying special attention to safeguarding shareholders' rights and enabling interaction with then participation of shareholders when designing and organizing its virtual AGMs. Now it was exactly that intention that made us provide shareholders the possibility of sending in questions in advance, which were then answered by the bank by the day before yesterday and then published on our website. Here we will find 300 [ of shareholders' ] question-and-answers, which in parts consist of explanations and summarized answers, providing a broader context. This format, on the one hand, gives the bank possibility to deal with the questions raised in a more intensive fashion. On the other hand, it makes space for more focused exchange at today's AGM. In order to give appropriate room today to matters that were addressed by various shareholders before the AGM, the Management Board will address some of these matters and provide the explanations that were also included in the answers provided on the website, as they were already published in the context of the answers. Ladies and gentlemen, what is very important to us also this year is to enter into a discussion via live statements and in which, using this, you basically enjoy all the rights as in an in-person meeting. As the Chairman of the meeting, according to Section 131 of the stock corporation law, I determine those questions may only be asked in the context or in the form of video statements when making use of the right to speak. I also point out that, today, only add-on question within the meaning of 138 of stock corporation law; and question on new matters, pursuant to Section 131 of the stock corporation law, will be answered. Since the beginning of our AGM today, you can register for taking the floor in our shareholders' portal, which is access protected, via the button [indiscernible]. We already received some requests for the floor. I would cordially like to ask you to register early so that we can plan for proceedings appropriately. I'd also like to -- be grateful if you identified if you want to comment on particular focus areas or submit a motion. Our technicians will contact you via telephone in order to set up connection to the AGM and check for functionality. In order to provide for this, before every [ block of ] speakers, we will take a short technical break so that the speakers do not miss any content while they are waiting for their turn, so please be ready if you registered for taking the floor. And also let us know if you decided against making a planned contribution. This makes procedures of the AGM very much easier. According to the -- to how things have developed during this year's AGM season, I do not assume that we will need a hard limitation of speaking time. However, I have to retain the right to do so. I would like to ask all speakers to limit themselves to speaking time of 10 minutes when they take the floor so that all other speakers can also take the floor within an appropriate time. In order to have the same conditions for everyone, it is only the speaker and myself who will see a clock during a presentation. After 9 minutes, an indicator will blink, which will remind you that it will soon be time to cede the floor to the next speaker. You will, of course, be free to register again for making another statement. Now ladies and gentlemen, before we enter into the discussion, I would like to give Mr. von Moltke the opportunity to explain to you how the Management Board made use of the authorizations for capital measures excluding subscription rights or preemptive rights provided by the AGM in the year under review. Mr. von Moltke, you have the floor.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to provide some explanations on the exclusion of preemptive rights in connection with the issue of AT1 instruments, the delivery of owned shares to employees and the acquisition of Deutsche Bank shares. Since the last AGM, preemptive rights were excluded for the issue of AT1 instruments, which fulfilled the regulatory requirements for being recognized as additional Tier 1 capital. The exclusion of preemptive rights is necessary in order to be able to use favorable market conditions for a successful placement of the instruments at attractive conditions. The instruments were issued at a price close to the theoretical market value. The issue took place in November 2022 and it had a volume of EUR 1.250 million. Since the 2022 AGM, 36.3 million shares have been bought back according to the authorization to purchase own shares pursuant to Section 71, para 1, sentence 8 German stock corporation law and which -- and so the 36.3 million correspond to approximately 1.78% of the current share capital, [ were used in ] potentially exclusive preemptive rights. These 36.3 million shares were and are used to satisfy entitlements from share-based compensation components, in particular from share-based variable compensation, as stipulated by the compensation rules of the German regulation on compensation in the banking industry. Since the last AGM, 39.6 million Deutsche Bank shares that had previously been bought according to current and previous authorizations were transferred to employees in the framework of compensation programs or employee share programs, with the exclusion of preemptive rights. Ladies and gentlemen, so much for the explanation on these matters. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank you for your attention.

Thank you very much, Mr. von Moltke. We now have a break of about 5 minutes to allow for the first group of speakers to join us. So I would like to ask the following speakers to get ready: Mr. (sic) [ Ms. ] Alexandra Annecke for Union Investment, Mr. Andreas Thomae for Deka, Mr. Markus Kienle for die Schutzgemeinschaft der Kapitalanleger, Mr. Klaus Nieding for DSW and Karl Werner Freitag (sic) [ Karl-Walter Freitag ] for Riebeck-Brauerei of 1862 AG. And now we take 5 minutes break. [Break]

Ladies and gentlemen, the first speakers are now waiting to take the floor. I'd like to remind you of, please, sticking to a speaking time of no more than 10 minutes. I would now like to ask Mr. (sic) [ Ms. ] Alexandra Annecke from Union Investment to take the floor. And Mr. Thomae and Mr. Kienle, please be ready. Mr. Annecke -- Ms. Annecke, the floor is all yours.

Dear members of the Management Board and Supervisory Board, dear shareholders, my name is Alexandra Annecke. I'm a fund manager at Union Investment GmbH. We are the fund manager of Volksbank and Raiffeisenbank and one of the big shareholders of Deutsche Bank and represent interest of 5.8 million investors. Ladies and gentlemen, after the last decade of 10 years when one capital increase was coming after the next and losses we're accumulating, the '20s are starting better. We're back in the profit-making zone. And 2022 was a year of [ profiting from the best profit ] after many years. Deutsche Bank is coming back like phoenix from the ashes. The compete-to-win strategy of Mr. Sewing, which is a radical remedy actually, is showing its effects. And we would like to thank you, Mr. Sewing, for that, but we'd also like to thank all employees who successfully implement the strategy. But you haven't reached your target yet, Mr. Sewing. There is still a lot to do. The capital market is not -- does not benefit. The capital -- with the total return of 8.2 means that Deutsche Bank is lagging behind the banking sector because the total return in the banking sector on the average is 22.5. In spite of what's been achieved, the Deutsche Bank share is trading at a book-to-value or the book to -- or the [ share to value ] of 0.3. Ladies and gentlemen, the combination of digitalization, of social media is changing the investment business and poses new challenges to the banking industry, as shown in the latest banking upheaval in the United States and in Switzerland, for example, so reputation is key. It's more key than ever. It shows that mistakes from the past can tarnish your present and your future in the long term. So the share and the credit default swaps of the bank after the collapse of Credit Suisse was really shaken up because they were worried about contagious risks. Although this is not appropriate considering the solidity of Deutsche Bank, we can also not just say that this was an irrational [ market relation ]. The book-to-value of 0.3 is a warning and a task. Mr. Sewing, it's completely up to you. It's up to you to make the investors aware of your progress and take you seriously when it comes to the future. When you were talking about better costs; and capital efficiencies; and high distributions, dividend distributions, I think you named things that are most important for the investors. We welcome capital efficiency and your efforts to increase this. We also welcome that you want to be more stringent here and also with regard to the share price. Customer orientation and entrepreneurship are not an end in itself, but they have to create value for the shareholder. Deutsche Bank is the German bank which -- and European bank which is most dependent on investment banking. It's [ an in-transparent ] business which reduces the value of Deutsche Bank. About 50% of your capital is used for this area, the return on equity of which is lagging behind the others. Too much capital is bound in a volatile business which does not achieve the minimum return of 10% to 12%, which the Investment Bank would need in order to create value for the shareholders. Mr. Sewing, please stop this wrong allocation of capital. Reduce the capital that is bound up in the Investment Bank, to the benefit of other areas of the bank that turn in higher returns. The most effective instruments in order to make shareholders interested, for example, are dividend payouts and share buybacks. After we didn't get a dividend in 2019 and 2020, the dividends of Deutsche Bank are still fairly meager compared with other banks. The fact that Deutsche Bank started its reorganization much later than other European institutions which also compete for shareholder interest is showing this detrimental effect. Many European banks have a lot of surplus capital which they pay back to their shareholders in the form of share buybacks. This is not yet the case for Deutsche Bank, but at the current low valuation, share buybacks are highly attractive because the increase in the earnings per share resulting from the share buyback is about twice as high as if you were to use the capital in your business for your business development at a return of 10% to 12%. You should take this into consideration when it comes to your capital allocation. Mr. Sewing, looking forward, cost discipline is also key. Here we were disappointed in some areas. It's only with strict cost discipline that you will achieve your return objectives and defend the profits against a stagnating or even -- a stagnation or downturn in the bank and economic development. Now ladies and gentlemen, the current AGM is still done virtually. And questions were to be handed in 3 days before. You do not -- you are still compliant with the stock corporation law, but you are -- you offend your shareholders. We would have preferred to see more dialogue. We will vote against the election of EY, under item #5, because APAS, because of breaches of professional duty, issued a penalty against EY. And so the burden of proof, it was reversed, so -- when it comes to item #9, we are against electing [ Ms. Trogni ] and Ms. -- and Mr. Winkeljohann because they have too many mandates already, while we'll support [ Mr. Trogni ] and Mr. Thain. We also vote against the changes in the articles of association with regard to the virtual AGMs, under item #10, because we have no real explanations what will be the conditions for deciding for or against the virtual AGM by the Management Board. Also it says nothing about how virtual AGMs are to be held in the future. We also believe that the physical presence of Supervisory Board members are essential for the dialogue. With the shareholders, when it comes to the other items of the agenda, we will approve of them. Members of the Supervisory Board and Management Board, we clearly prefer an -- in-person meetings. And we are clearly against a preemption of the question rights, the right for questions. We do not see that the quality of questions had improved. It is only at an in-presence meeting that you can have a lively general debate where the shareholders actually can address the entire Management Board and the entire Supervisory Board with questions. You should at least, once a year, be open to questions and criticism from the shareholders and feel the vibes and the atmosphere in the hall, in the presence hall, so we would like to ask you to do in-person meetings in the future again or at least have a hybrid version.

Thank you very much, Ms. Annecke, and for your questions. We now get to the next speaker, who is Andreas Thomae, for Deka Investment. Mr. Thomae, the floor is all yours.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear Management Board members and Supervisory Board members, dear shareholders, my name is Andreas Thomae. I'm representing Deka Investment, one of the biggest asset managers in Germany. We are representing 50 million Deutsche Bank shares. This is 0.8% of the share capital. More than EUR 5 billion in terms of profit in 2022. This is -- and a very good first quarter in 2023. These were impressive figures that we had not been accustomed to coming from Deutsche Bank for a long time. Mr. Sewing, you managed the turnaround. Deutsche Bank is stable and [ future prone ]. It's not only the profits that are increasing. You also reduce risks. You reduced or downsized several areas of business. And the EUR 8.5 billion that are needed for the transformation -- were needed for the transformation, you financed under your own [ steam ] without actually asking money from the shareholders. This is an enormous effort and an enormous achievement and we'd like to thank you and all employees for making this happen. Now in the year under review, which was marked by a war and inflation, for example, Deutsche Bank has shown resilience. The revenues increased by 7%. The loan loss provisions are fairly low. And Tier 1 was at 13.4%, which is solid. The RoTE was 7%, economically speaking, which is the highest number for a couple of years. Thus, the targets from your transformation program have been largely achieved. Now how do we continue? You have clear plans. RoTE, by 2025, is to increase by more than 10%, sustainably so. The stable businesses, this is Corporate Bank, Asset Management and Private Bank, are to be increased and make the bank even more solid. Mr. Sewing, these are ambitious growth plans. Deutsche Bank needs a lot of tailwind also from the markets. The first [ aid ] is already around the corner. It was already coming. The increasing interest rates are pure adrenaline for the banking industry. Results were also evident in 2021, but how sustainable are those increases in revenue? What do you assume? What will be the concrete developments when it comes to the interest margins and the NIIs by 2025? What will be the share of the revenues from the stable businesses by then? So wherever there is light, there is also shadow, ladies and gentlemen. Due to the increase in interest rates, inflation rate is very high. This has an impact on the cost development and the loan increase by the bank, so what do you think? What -- can the cost increase be compensated for by improvements in [ IT ]? What is the outlook for the credit increase? Will the default rate increase because customers were not -- no longer be able to serve their credits? And what about in the United States? What about office real estate? What are your risks in that area? In the United States, over the past few months, we saw more and more problems when it comes to regional banks. High interest trends -- interest rates led to losses on portfolios. And at the same time, customers were withdrawing their deposits, and some banks did not -- were not resilient enough. Mr. Sewing, you have been navigating your big ship through difficult waters very securely so. And the bank has a good risk management, but we'd still like to know and from you, Mr. Moltke, how well Deutsche Bank is positioned. What are the interest costs on deposits, especially when it comes to subordinated loans which have suffered from the recent turmoil? Now let's have a look at the different business areas. The Investment Bank has increasing [indiscernible] investment banking. You were able to win back market share. Now the earnings or the revenues that have -- [Yes.] They increased. Now [ Numis was your latest ] acquisition in corporate and investment banking. Why do you make acquisitions in that area? And what are the benefits from this? The Asset Management was going through a troubled year in 2022, but it has received new inflows just recently. Do you want to grow organically, or do you also look at potential acquisitions? The KGaA has been a problem for some time, the structure, so we would like to ask you to change the structure and reap the benefits in the group. When it comes to the Corporate Bank, you say e-commerce and payment services with traders are the areas you want to grow in. Have you made any headway there; and if yes, to which extent? And then lastly, the Private Bank: You are thinning out your branch networks, improve mortgages; and are working in the IT processes. The Wealth Management is to make a bigger contribution. In which area and to what extent do you want to grow here? And in particular, we would like to know by when you will have a uniform IT platform for the Private Bank in Germany and when you can reap the synergies that you alluded to. Then IT, the former big problem child of Deutsche Bank. You made additional progress here but not only for the reasons of risk and controls. IT is very important for a bank. The IT infrastructure, technical infrastructure, is also a major driver to increase efficiency and react to customer wishes speedily. [ Mr. Norbert ], we would like to ask you. What are the economic benefits from the cooperation with Google Cloud? What are you planning with NVIDIA? Where are you already using these technologies, Mr. Leukert? Cybersecurity is essential for a bank, and hacker attacks are ever increasing. How well can you protect yourself against this? How strong will -- what effect has the fact that you gave up your IT center in Russia? And does this bring additional IT risks? Ladies and gentlemen, Deutsche Bank is doing better. And it's about time or already overdue that they also reward the shareholders. So the distribution policy is based on an increasing cash dividend which is fairly small. However, for this year, we're EUR 0.30. You also announced a share buyback program for the second 6 months. This would be an important token of trust by the ECB, which has to approve of that; and also for the -- bank-wise because -- if you're strong enough to do so. Mr. von Moltke, how much surplus capital do you have for share buybacks? Now when it comes to environment, social and good governance, Deutsche Bank has made progress. When it comes to the compensation system, clear targets for decarbonization by 2030 were included. Compliance targets are well anchored. The coal policy was made more stringent with the investors at the [ SDD ], the second [ SDE ] -- increased transparency and credibility. Also the fact that you have now achieved sustainability office to control and implement the ESG strategy in the group is a positive thing. Variable pay, in spite of the increase in profit, has remained basically unchanged because there are still some regulatory weaknesses that have to be dealt with, so this is our question: How far have you come? How far have you made progress with your efforts? And when will you go for the home stretch? When will you enter the home stretch? Now reducing the Management Board from 10 to 9 is something we welcome. This strengthens focus in the group. Mr. von Rohr, we would like to thank you today for your long-term service in the Management Board. And we would wish Mr. de Sanctis, in his new role, all the best of luck. Also, Ms. Riley, we would like to thank for her work and the progress being made in the United States. And we wish Mr. Sewing all the very best for his extended duties. Ladies and gentlemen, now let's have a look at how we will be voting. And apart from the change of the article of association with regard to virtual AGMs and the reelection of Mr. Winkeljohann, we will be approving all items of the agenda in the sense of the administration. To have -- we will not accept an extension of virtual AGMs for more than 1 year. For this format, many improvements are still needed. We are very much in favor of a hybrid solution. Shareholders are to decide for themselves as they -- whether they want to attend virtually or in person. Mr. Winkeljohann, as we see it, has too many Board mandates as it is. And we have our doubts that he has enough time for all of them as a deputy -- shareholder at Deutsche Bank, Bayer, Sievert, [indiscernible], et cetera. So we wish the members in the Management Board and Supervisory Board and all employees of Deutsche Bank all the best of luck for the further implementation of the strategy. You're on the right track.

Thank you very much, Thomae, for your contribution and for your good wishes and also for your questions. And we now continue with the next speaker, which is Markus Kienle from the SdK shareholders' association. And he is going to be followed by Mr. Nieding and Mr. Freitag, but now first of all, Mr. Kienle, the floor is yours.

Mr. Wynaendts, Mr. Sewing, ladies and gentlemen from the management, dear shareholders, my name is Markus Kienle. I'm a lawyer in Frankfurt and I represent the SdK shareholders' association. Mr. Sewing, yes, you have delivered to the greatest extent, although with some tailwinds such as the positive tax effect of EUR 1.4 billion regarding deferred tax assets. But a 9% return on tangible equity, that's something which only a few analysts and experts would have considered possible just a few months ago. Now for the great performance in the past fiscal year, we congratulate and thank the employees and the management; and ask you, Mr. Sewing, to pass on our shareholders' thanks to the employees, but I will come back to the figures again, hopefully. First of all, I have to express my annoyance about the virtual AGM because, in contrast to other companies who decided to have a face-to-face AGM -- whereas you insisted on a virtual format this year, which also means that the shareholders are deprived of their rights. Furthermore, your position as a role model of the last 2 years, namely such as in the year 2019 with a friendly format of the virtual AGM -- now we have lost that front-runner position. You are now rather trailing the pack and are damaging the shareholder culture in an unnecessary manner. Now after 3 years of COVID-19, we had hoped that you will -- would have an in-present meeting again this year and would not use the transitional period allowed by law. A virtual AGM, which does not allow for full interaction, and -- is therefore not even a virtual AGM but rather a digital one. And therefore, it cannot be used as a yardstick for shareholder sentiment. There is no possibility of direct interaction with the management. Participation is more or less limited to a passive role. And a lively debate also requires the permanent participation of the shareholder, which is the only main actor of the AGM. Therefore, this is not compatible but only a partial involvement of shareholders. Shareholders are always limited to stay on the sidelines, and therefore the AGM is like a Management Board's TV show. The cost argument as one of the key arguments in the public made in favor of a virtual AGM is not really convincing. It's rather even ridiculous. Furthermore, a virtual AGM which is not fully interactive is compared to an in-presence AGM which, however, includes a full, lively interaction. Only the costs of a fully interactive AGM can be [ prepared ] to an in-presence AGM, and then the cost gap would not be as big as you pretend to be. On the other hand, the additional costs cannot be really an argument against a personal meeting with the shareholders once a year, considering all of the other costs of the company. We do not understand that, especially with shareholders, you want to save. Furthermore, it's also a part of good corporate governance for shareholders to be able to meet the management at least once a year rather than keeping shareholders at a distance. The argument of sustainability of virtual AGMs because there is no traveling required is not really convincing because, with this argument, almost any kind of in-person meeting can be ruled out irrespective of the fact sustainable traveling modes can be used. And there are certainly many other cases where in-presence meetings are considered necessary. Therefore, we are not in favor of a virtual AGM. Higher attendance in years 2020 -- to 2020 was not [ determined ], according to surveys that we have access to. And therefore, furthermore, such a widespread participation was also made more difficult due to the different time zones in which shareholders reside. Furthermore, in the past, shareholders in other companies have also been offered the possibility to participate in a hybrid format, which is also rendered possible in the articles of association, so why don't you make use of that possibility? We believe a hybrid AGM is the best format in the future because it can take the different interests of shareholders into account and allow them to assume their roles in the way they prefer. And for that reason, today's virtual AGM is not sufficient to refuse to act -- to refuse to ratify the acts of management of the Management and Supervisory Board. However, we will reject the proposal to hold virtual AGMs in the future at the discretion of the Management Board because we believe that a virtual AGM should only be held in moments and situations of crisis. And a situation of crisis must be due to an external influence -- such as a bank to hold meetings with a large number of participants. And another issue at the -- of the virtual AGM is the fact that questions can be asked only by submitting them beforehand in writing. And for that reason, we will not be able to approve that proposal. For the past fiscal year, you once again -- finally again you submitted figures that give rise to -- especially, the Corporate Bank and Private Bank have produced good results. However, Private Bank has the highest CIR of 72%. And considering this high CIR, the costs situation has been improved further, because in 2025 you're aiming for 62%. And the first quarter of '23 shows that there's also a headwind. Results before tax have deteriorated in the Private Bank. However, the Corporate Bank has maintained its position, according -- at least according to the numbers of the first quarter. However, increasing regulation -- with increasing equity requirements, also regarding real estate loans, must be countered with respective responses. The development of the investment banking business shows how volatile that business is. This business not only saw a reduction of its profits in 2022 but also in the first quarter '23 in an above-average manner. Therefore, we are only happy about the good development in the Corporate Bank in the first quarter. Therefore, the equity ratio, considering the risk structure of the supervisors, is not only worse, but it's not -- it's also inappropriate. Let me come to topics of corporate governance. Once again, target achievement in anti-money laundering at only 50% is disappointing. Therefore, Mr. Wynaendts, I think it's obvious to think about consequences in variable compensation, but what is essential and existential -- that you finally find out why target achievement in this parameter which is important for the bank is so clearly behind 100% target achievement, because you certainly want to be able to bid farewell to the special auditor of BaFin as soon as possible. Considering that, we cannot understand at all why you once again want to elect EY as the auditor. In the Wirecard matter, it's not about the fact that only individual auditors committed wrongdoing but that the overall understanding of their -- responsibility of EY is still questionable because EY still claims that it did not commit any wrongdoing. And they consider themselves to be a victim which has to defend itself, so they do not contribute to resolving one of the biggest frauds in the 20th century. Therefore, APAS will not only issue sanctions against the individual auditors in the Wirecard case, but it also limits EY's possibility to act or apply for additional [ matters ] in the next 2 years. So the problem is in the acceptance of this behavior which, we believe, reveals a systemic deficiency in the understanding of an auditor's job. So based upon the actual findings of APAS, consequences should have been drawn, which means a new auditor should have been proposed to us for the year 2023, actually even earlier. So it's not a sign of good governance to ignore the APAS decision. Therefore, we will not support the election of EY. And the compensation system for the Supervisory Board. We cannot approve the system. We welcome the simplification of that system, but if you look at the proposed compensation of EUR 950,000 for the Chairman, we are absolutely flabbergast. Now by combining the various components, the previous Chairman also achieved such an amount, but that was already exaggerated in the past. And Deutsche Bank would have been well advised to bring the compensation to an acceptable level with its current review. Now for Deutsche Bank, the [ Deutsche Bank ] would have to work 1,000 hours per year in order to earn at least EUR 1,000 per hour, but we do not even know whether the Chairman is able to put 1,000 hours per year at the service of Deutsche Bank. And I haven't even asked whether EUR 1,000 per hour would be appropriate, in the first place. The invitation to the AGM does not specify any criteria that will make that increase of compensation plausible. This brings us to my last item: We cannot support the reelection of Professor Winkeljohann. Mr. Winkeljohann, we do not have any doubts about your expertise. However, you're holding several more mandates. And therefore, Professor Winkeljohann is overboarded, according to our criteria. The further mandate he holds at Bayer as a member or even as the Chairman of the Supervisory Board is already reason enough for us to have doubts whether Professor Winkeljohann can dedicate the necessary time to its mandate at Deutsche Bank because Bayer requires a full-time dedication. Furthermore, Professor Winkeljohann, in a newspaper article, specified that for Deutsche Bank and Bayer he needs only less than 20 days and has even still time for further mandates. However, he ignores that the time dedicated to Deutsche Bank is not required sequentially but in parallel and without even taking unpredictable events into account. If Professor Winkeljohann agrees to withdraw from his mandate at Bayer, then we would support his election here at Deutsche Bank. And finally, Mr. Sewing, we wish you and your team all the best for confirming the numbers that you have presented in 2022, but at the same time, we ask you to properly take care of the any laundering -- money laundering issues.

Thank you very much, Mr. Nieding (sic) [ Mr. Kienle ], for your statement and also for your questions. And with that, we now continue with the next speaker, Mr. Nieding from the DSW shareholders' association. Mr. Nieding, the floor is yours.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Nieding. I'm a lawyer in Frankfurt. And I address you in my function as the Vice President of the DSW shareholders' association, which is Germany's biggest and leading shareholders' association. Mr. Sewing, first of all, all the best for your health and good recovery. It's remarkable that, in spite of your heavy cold, [ you address here today ], which we appreciate very much. You and your colleagues on the Management Board have done a good job in the reporting year. The figures that you have presented, they speak for themselves, the highest profits in 15 years, EUR 2 billion from Private Bank and EUR 2.1 billion from the Corporate Bank. [ One here ] can easily accept that the profit of our Investment Bank dropped by 6% to EUR 3.5 billion. The numbers show in an impressive manner that the new strategy which you presented in July 2019 is bearing fruit, so we have been and are on a successful quarter, and for that, we congratulate you and all of the employees of Deutsche Bank most cordially. Of course, our numbers, as with other banks, were supported by the interest rate turnaround of the ECB. Could you tell us what our results would have been on the basis of the interest -- of the average interest rate level of 2021? Furthermore, you're also telling us that, in the current fiscal year, you expect hardly any loan defaults anymore. Now what does this mean specifically for our loan loss provisions in euros in the current year after they had been at about EUR 1.2 billion in the reporting year? The only downside for the fiscal year in 2022 is in DSW (sic) [ DWS ]. There are rumors of so-called greenwashing because DWS, compared to its competitors, was most strongly invested in fossil companies, namely EUR 850 million [ all in all ]. All in all, the funds classified as green of DWS at the end of 2022 would include fossil shares of more than EUR 5 billion. Regarding the greenwashing accusations of 2021, U.S. American and also German regulators are running investigations. The DWS Chairman, Asoka Woehrmann, also had to leave also due to these allegations. The same is now being discussed also in the connection of the farewell given by our Deputy Chairman of Supervisory (sic) [ Management ] with Karl von Rohr. What is the status of the official investigations? And when can this be expected to be closed? Because the accusations against DWS have reminded us of past times; and also the publication of BaFin in November '22, in which it announced that, in order to prevent money laundering and terror financing, special measures have been ordered against us, against Deutsche Bank. What are these specific measures? And have you already fully implemented them? On the planned change of the compensation of the Supervisory Board, I've got the following questions and comments. Of course, exceeding the threshold of EUR 1 million per year is remarkable. On the other hand, ladies and gentlemen, one also has to bear in mind that the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of our bank cannot be compared to other chairs of supervisory boards. The positive thing is that the members of the Supervisory Board have to purchase shares. My question: Is that to be paid off their gross compensation? If yes, it would be almost 50% of net compensation. By the way, many companies such as Covestro have already abandoned that system again. Why is our bank still insisting on that? Finally, what would have been the compensation of the Chair of the Supervisory Board in the reporting year 2022 if the current system had already applied last year? What would have been the difference to the extra amount paid out? And which message or [ steering ] effect comes from the fact that the fixed compensation will increase whereas the committee work counts less? Now regarding the agenda of today's AGM. What is absolutely not understandable for me, that you still insist to propose EY for election, especially against the background of the auditors supervisory body APAS. Now having investigated various Wirecard matters, APAS has found evidence that EY has violated auditors rules and therefore has imposed sanctions against EY and against 5 individual auditors. Another 7 auditors were only able to evade such sanctions by giving back their auditor certificate. The total fines are between EUR 23,000 and EUR 300,000 for the individual persons and EUR 500,000 against EY. And what is much more painful is that EY is not allowed to run audits of public companies for 2 years after the judgment has been issued. Now what is excluded from this ban are old -- are only so-called existing mandates, which is also the back door that you are using in order to propose EY again. Now this is the most comprehensive proceedings carried out by APAS and the toughest sanctions imposed by APAS since it has been founded. Now other companies such as Commerzbank or Deutsche Telekom, on that basis, decided to discontinue their cooperation with EY. Or didn't they even enter into it, but it's different for us. You insist to hold onto EY, which we criticize as hard to understand and unnecessary. And if you now use the argument that APAS' decision was a sudden one and that finding a new auditor would require some more time but -- let me refer you that the entire APAS proceedings lasted for a very long time and you could have already prepared for the ruling. Therefore, we are going to vote against the proposal under item 5. We are also going to vote no on item #10. As you know, we reject virtual AGMs if the respective articles of association do not define that profit and loss transfer agreements, delistings and so on must only be approved by in-presence meetings. Therefore, I've got the following additional questions. Can you rule out that you will use AGMs to limit the right to speak and that virtual formats will also be used in special situations such as squeeze-outs and other special matters? In which formats, namely virtual or hybrid form, have you held investor meetings with institutional investors in 2022 and '23? And please give us also the percentages for virtual, hybrid and in person. And if you are holding such meetings in person, then I'm asking you whether we, the free-float shareholders, are second-class shareholders whom you do not want to meet in person? Please bear in mind that it's much more efficient and sustainable to meet on 1 single day, over a period of 4 to 6 hours, which is by the average duration of in-presence meetings of the DAX companies with several thousand shareholders, but rather -- traveling around the globe all over the year to have so-called one-on-ones with institutional investors. And also let me add one more comment. If you really intend to have excellent investor relations on 364 days of the year, then you should also aim to be [ that if it's done the ] 365th day of the year. And let's be honest, Mr. Sewing: Standing ovations of the shareholders [indiscernible] is something you would have fully deserved today. For the current fiscal year, I wish you the best and good results again.

Thank you, Mr. Nieding. Thank you for your contribution, your questions and all the good wishes. This takes us to the last speaker in the first round, Karl-Walter Freitag, speaking on behalf of Riebeck-Brauerei [ von 1862 AG ]. Mr. Freitag, the floor is all yours.

Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Karl-Walter Freitag from Cologne. I represent Riebeck-Brauerei [ von 1862 AG owned shares ] and other shares of non-shareholders. I welcome all participants from wherever they have joined this meeting, from whichever backroom or whichever corner. I can only subscribe to the criticism raised by the previous speaker regarding -- speakers regarding the format used this year, which allegedly as has been said has been further refined. These were the words used. I fully subscribe to all the points of criticism raised in this respect. It is very dissatisfactory to see that this allegedly further refined format now makes it possible for anybody from whichever bar to join this meeting, as long as they hold 1 share and then log in to the meeting from a pub or wherever. This is really weird in my view. And I cannot certainly consider this to be a further refinement or a further improvement of the virtual format. The Chairman of the Supervisory Board, why did the start -- in the first minute, started to repeat Mr. Sewing's statement in the form of a mantra whereby a return on equity of 8% has been achieved? As I will explain in a moment, this is an illusion presented to the shareholders. This return target of 8% actually represents a manipulation of the balance sheet through extra one-off additional revenues and income. And if you were to leave this aside, the bank would certainly have missed the return target by more than half. If the 7.5 million -- 7.5 billion (sic) [ EUR 5.7 billion ] after-tax profit -- well, if from this revenue you deduct the EUR 1.4 billion from the Americas and if you also deduct EUR 2.1 billion to be offset against equity and if you also deduct the extraordinary one-off gain from the sale of the Italian subsidiary of EUR 0.3 billion, then below the bottom line, after all these balance sheet exercises, the total is not 7.5 billion (sic) [ EUR 5.7 billion ] but only EUR 1.9 billion, below the bottom line. If you then also include the provision for the Postbank litigation of EUR 1 billion that has not been formed, which would actually be appropriate because -- if anybody who's followed this litigation in front of the BGH in Germany, the supreme court in Germany -- I mean this must be the conclusion you'd draw. The bank can only lose here, so if you also deduct this, then a lot less remains below the bottom line. So instead of the 5.7 -- or 7.5 billion (sic) [ EUR 5.7 billion ], there's only EUR 0.9 billion left in terms of operating result below the bottom line. This is not an [ ordinary ] success. This is a striking lack of success. The return target of 8% that you have cushioned from all these effects is pure fantasy and imagination of your PR department. That is all it is. I've got a number of urgent questions, follow-up questions. Regarding Mr. Sewing's financial reporting, where he juggles figures -- and when Mr. von Moltke as well and the Supervisory Board were here, I questioned whether the Supervisory Board has it up -- the right mentality and attitude. I had submitted a lot of questions in the run-up to this meeting, but the answers to these questions were somewhat distorting, somewhat deviating, somewhat unsatisfactory, so my impression is management have tried to avoid answering my questions or the questions put forward by Riebeck-Brauerei, so let me start with my questions. Regarding your answer to my question concerning the seriousness of financial reporting by the Board, on Page 12 of the list of answers [ that you're answering ], yes, Mr. Sewing -- [ so it's a cause ] that the answers to these questions were considered to be [indiscernible]. I mean the -- my question was yes or no. Was this [indiscernible] piece of information? Well, in your answer to this question regarding Mr. Sewing and Mr. von Moltke -- the question is whether this is appropriate, if those 2 gentlemen, at the balance sheet press conference in 2023 and in their speeches to this AGM, talk about the highest profit in the company's history since 2007 when in fact it was a loss in 2022. I refer to Page 231 of the annual report, in the German version, where if you take a close look and bear in mind the fact that some losses were hidden here, which were not mentioned in any publication, then this is the real results. [ 360 billion ] worth of profits are reported here, but for Q1 2023, EUR 1.9 billion have been reported. At the same time, there was a loss of 1 billion which was not mentioned for Q1. And so is this what the Supervisory Board understands by true and fair financial reporting and capital market communication? Would the Supervisory Board, please -- and the Management Board, please, provide specific answers to the questions listed on Page 31 of the catalog, questions that answered -- in my view, these questions have not been answered yet. The DTAs in [ 2028 -- 2022 ] were used to distort figures. And what is reported here are figures that management hope to achieve in the future, but these are not the actual operating results delivered. Mr. Chairman, I can see that you are talking to somebody seated on your right at this point. I presume you are able to do both listen to me and talk to other people at the same time.

Yes, you can rest assured we are listening to you.

Thank you very much. I'm very happy to hear that. So it's good to see that you are so attentive in following the AGM so attentively. So what I would like to note is whether, in the framework of the 1.4 billion DTAs, future negative developments apart from interest rate developments might also have an impact. So for example, the government shutdown in the U.S. that might happen [ every ] day now or a further decline in property prices. So what are you talking about when you say fundamental obligation regarding DTAs? Is there an option regarding deferred tax assets? Have these options been elected in order to report higher profits? Yes or no. Have the DTAs also included future interest rate increases? If so, at what level? If so, what would the number be if these effects were included? Would this not be an inadmissible duplication because actually this had already been included in the results for the previous year? Yes or no. So what about the sale of the Italian business? I think it was worth EUR 310 million. Was this an operating profit for 2022? Yes or no. Would the Supervisory Board please [ quite so ] disclose the actual numbers regarding Page 32, where losses seem to have been offset against equity? So I would like to hear about the real numbers. EUR 1.285 billion would be the right number rather than the EUR 986 million that you are showing in your list of answers. So was this offset from equity? Yes or no. Were profit worth EUR 286 million included in the P&L? And would they therefore be included in the EUR 7.5 billion (sic) [ EUR 5.7 billion ] reported by the Management Board? Yes or no. Were losses on write-downs of derivatives worth EUR 618 million, instead of [ EUR 570 million ] you mentioned, offset from equity in a hidden format? Yes or no. Were profits from these items worth [ EUR 71 million ] transferred to the P&L and therefore part of the profit announced by the Board of EUR 5.7 billion? Yes or no. Was the highest profit recorded since 2007 of EUR 5.7 billion [Because he keeps saying 5.7 instead of 7.5]. Was this profit increase as a result? Yes or no. Were the DTAs included? We're talking about EUR 3.9 billion here. Yes or no? Where are -- do these losses stem from? And incidentally, I was not asking about a predominant effect on number. In your answer, you are insinuating I was asking about predominant effects, but I would really appreciate it if in the future you were going to reply to answers -- to questions the way they were actually asked. And I was not asking about predominant effects. Please answer these questions, where these losses stem from and not where they predominantly stem from. So how much is related to credit solutions? Please answer in euros. I refer to my question on Page 32 of the list of questions and answers. Could you please answer this question in particular regarding the return on tangible equity of 9.4% for 2022 as mentioned by Mr. von Moltke? I hope that you deduct all these seeming effects. And please report the actual numbers and the actual results for 2022. Can the Supervisory Board answer the question I raised on Page 30 of the list of questions and answers? Has the bank, according to the prudent business rule, actually generated a lower return on tangible equity compared with, say, Commerzbank? I also refer to Pages 33 and 54 on the list of questions and answers, and I would want you to answer these questions listed there. I hope that you have also checked your capital market communication for correctness and accurateness.

Mr. Freitag, would you care to come to an end, please?

Well, yes. I've got a good number of questions left. I think other speakers have also spoken for longer than they were expected to.

Yes, but you have already spoken for 14 minutes.

Okay, I've got about 10 questions left. I've got a question regarding technology and the registration process. I would also like to comment on an internal process within the bank that relates to me. And then I've got 1, 2 final questions to the Supervisory Board, just to make it clear in advance. I continue with my questions. On Page 33 of the question of lists and -- of the list of questions and answers. What does this mean? Does this mean that the Supervisory Board does not check in any way whether the Board destroys billions worth of profits of the company and has been doing so for decades? Yes or no. Are the CDS spreads -- did they increase in Q4 2022? And was this not -- due or not due to a speculative attack in 2023? Yes or no. After announcing the restructuring program, was the bank -- between 2019 and summer 2020, in the -- was the bank forced to take out 2 billion worth of loans? Yes or no. On Page 52, I'm asking a number of questions and I'm asking you to answer. I had asked for a euro amount between the creation of the Capital Release Unit in July 2019 and its [ relief ]. So I can only look back to the year 2017, but I can't really check those numbers regarding any point in time before that. I was also asking about the capital release. I was not asking about capital allocation but capital release. Please answer that question by giving me the amount in euros. How much did you pay in terms of fines [ in ] litigation? So that shareholders can understand whether the Capital Release Unit at least released the capital required for that purpose. The Supervisory Board has not yet answered my question listed on Page 85 of the list of questions and answers. Does this mean that the Supervisory Board was unable to comment on the agenda? On what legal basis was the issue transferred to the [ Chairman's committee ]? Please refer to the articles of association and the rules of procedure. How many Supervisory Board members did not take part in that decision? So these are my main follow-up questions. This takes me back to a technical problem I was going to mention with regard to registration when you register as a shareholder. So for example, you log in to the meeting and you want to ask a question. Then you get a button that shows and that reads cancel absentee vote, but you can only cancel your absentee vote if you already made an absentee vote, in the first place. I sent you an e-mail about this and you seem to have solved this by removing this button. I would like to know. What votes were passed by who, and when, as far as our company is concerned? Because this button was removed. And so why is it you did not reply to my e-mail, the e-mail I sent you in this regard? And what was the impact of your removing this button? I was actually talking to a German client 2 months ago, where I purchased some shares off market on the 15th of March. So to date, 2 months later, this has not been executed yet. On 18th of April 2023, I received an e-mail from you saying that there was an increase in the number of orders and that there had been some industrial action. Just for your information: This is #23/78052. This is the complaint management reference number. I'd like to know. In what period and from what -- by what specific industrial action were you affected during that time? This is particularly relevant given that, for a period of 2 months, a simple purchase order for a security does not seem to have been executed by you as a result. Would this not be a good reason not to be a client with Deutsche Bank? By way of conclusion -- yes. Please, one more thing. What members of the Supervisory Board were notified of the questions I had submitted in the run-up through this AGM? When would -- that happened. At what date? At what time of the day? What members of the Supervisory Board were involved in the answers prepared to these questions? Or who answered? Who gave these answers to these questions? And regarding the virtual format, one more question: How many requests for the floor have you received thus far? And could you please compare this with last -- the last in-person AGM you held? How many shareholders had requested the floor back then? So much for my current comments, my part of criticism and questions. I hope that the quality of the answers to the questions asked by shareholders will dramatically improve in the future. Because that is actually necessary.

Thank you, Mr. Freitag. Thank you for your contributions. Thank you for your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, before we start with the next round of speakers, for their questions; and then the round of answers to these questions, I'd like to, first of all, ask the Board to comment on a number of questions that were submitted in the run-up to the AGM. And this will then also give those of us who haven't yet had a chance to read all the questions and answers made available on the Internet an opportunity to hear from the Board members regarding a couple of points that are relevant to shareholders. Let's start with Christian Sewing on strategy.

Thank you. I'd also like to use this opportunity to thank our shareholders, for the questions you submitted to us in the run-up to the Annual General Meeting. Strategy was one of the key questions or the key topics you asked about, and I'd like to comment on our strategy. As I already pointed out in my speech, our results for 2022 have underpinned the fact that our bank is robust and profitable. This was precisely the goal of the transformation we launched in July 2019. We have aligned our 4 business areas to their strengths and consistently withdrawn from nonstrategic business areas. At the same time, we have significantly enhanced our efficiency. We have reduced costs by more than EUR 3 billion since 2018. However, the savings were not achieved at the expense of our investments in the future. We spent a total of EUR 15 billion on technology during our transformation in order to accelerate our progress in this essential field. And we invested a further EUR 4 billion in our control functions in order to reinforce them and eliminate previous weaknesses. All investments in technology and controls were financed from our own resources, as were the costs of transforming our bank. Nevertheless, we had sufficient capital buffers at all times during the transformation, as our CET1 ratio was consistently above the target of at least 12.5%. At the end of 2022, it was 13.4%; and we thus met the target we set ourselves in 2019. On 10th of March, at our Investor Day, we presented plans for the further development of our strategy and our financial plan up to 2025. Building on the success of our transformation achieved since 2019, we are targeting robust and sustainable growth in the next phase of the strategy. We are convinced that customer demand will continue to fundamentally change in the coming years given the severe changes in the macroeconomic environment, geopolitical environment and technology as well as the necessary transformation to a sustainable economy. As a Global Hausbank, we want to support even more clients in this environment and be their first point of contact in all financial matters. In doing so, we will continue to rely on the strengths and leading market positions of our 4 business areas; our firm roots in our domestic German market; and our extensive network in Europe, Asia and the Americas. We are convinced that we are well positioned to grow faster than the market. At the same time, we want to continue our cost discipline and further enhance our operational efficiency. The resources we are going to save as a result will be reinvested in the growth of our business areas, in technology and a further strengthening of our controls. In the framework of the publication of our results for the first quarter of 2023, we announced additional measures which are designed to accelerate the implementation of our strategy as a Global Hausbank. We are confident that this will enable us to exceed the revenue and profitability targets announced in March 2022. I described the additional measures in detail in my speech, but I would like to summarize them briefly once again. Due to additional efficiency measures, the target for additional cost savings will be raised from EUR 2 billion to EUR 2.5 billion. We aim to reduce risk-weighted assets by EUR 15 billion to EUR 20 billion. We also aim to increase revenues beyond the previous targets with growth in business areas with low capital commitments. We are convinced that the successful implementation of our current strategy will be positively reflected in our market valuation in the long term. We want to achieve a RoTE of more than 10% in the long run, and this should have a positive impact on our market valuation. Higher and sustainable profitability should enable us to increase distributions to you, our shareholders, step by step. Last year, we promised to return a total of EUR 8 billion in capital to you from 2021 to 2025 via dividends and share buybacks; and this commitment also remains in place. Of course, our plans are subject to current geopolitical and economic developments. However, our bank has proven that it has the resilience and stability to hold its own in difficult times and deliver the best possible performance for our clients. We are sustainably profitable again, significantly more efficient; and have a well-differentiated business model. We remain convinced that we have the right strategy for the bank and that we can achieve our goals. I would now like to hand over to Professor Simon, who will take up the topic of the virtual AGM.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, from the contributions and from the questions you have submitted and the answers to these questions, [ still we'll have ] realized that a lot of shareholders have asked about the virtual format of today's AGM. And therefore, as the Management Board, we'd like to share our views with you and explain to you why it is that we chose this format that we're using here today. First of all, the legislator created a legal basis for virtual AGMs after the pandemic and the lessons learned from the pandemic, and this allows companies to carry out virtual AGMs. And this means that virtual AGMs are considered to be equivalent to in-person AGMs, and this is the background to all of our deliberations. In preparing this year's AGM, the Management Board, with the approval of the Supervisory Board, of course, discussed this very extensively, taking into account the rights and interests of the shareholders and the question as to how you are best able to implement your rights and interests. And of course, we compared the benefits and disadvantages of an in-person meeting, a virtual meeting and a hybrid meeting. And we came to the conclusion that, at this point in time, the virtual format is the right one to choose. Let me mention, in particular, one specific issue. Our goal is to ensure an improvement in dialogue between shareholders and management. And in this context, we are trying to make sure that the new tools and instruments available can actually be brought to bear in this AGM format. And that is why we decided to play a pioneering role once again this year, which is what we did in the past few years as well. And therefore, this year, we have used the opportunity to enable shareholders to ask questions in the run-up to the meeting to give management the opportunity to answer them and make these questions and answers available to shareholders online. We believe that this has improved the quality of the answers, and at the same time, shareholders benefit from a higher level of transparency regarding our views concerning certain questions. And you will also benefit from the answers -- the extensive answers given to these questions. In addition, last year, live contributions were made possible, and we are offering that opportunity again this year. So we're not just offering you an opportunity to exercise your speaking rights, but also your rights to ask questions and your right to submit motions. And it is just gratifying to see that live contribution seemed to be a lot in demand this year. So demand has gone up about 10 minutes ago, 13 requests for the floor had been submitted. So 13 shareholders have asked to begin the floor and we will check once again what that number was at this point in time in the last in-person meeting. Well, of course, sustainability and costs also play a role in this context. So in weighing off the various AGM models, of course, this is to be taken into consideration. Based on the numbers available to us, we can save about 80% in terms of CO2 emissions in a virtual AGM compared with an in-person AGM of Deutsche Bank. So we, therefore, believe that this format is equivalent, an equivalent alternative. And as already said, we would like to continue testing it this year. Of course, we are not immune to your criticism. We are aware of your criticism regarding this format. We are aware of the criticism raised in Germany regarding the various formats. But I'd like to repeat once again, we are trying to find out what you can achieve with the different formats and how to improve dialogue between shareholders and management using digital tools and instruments. And this basically means that the time available at the AGM can best be made use of, so we can focus the time available on the key topics that are of strongest concern to you, our shareholders. Regarding the hybrid format, we do not believe the hybrid format is the best format because at the end of the day, it would mean that we would have to use significantly more time, effort and cost. It would create additional complexity, but it would not really create any additional benefits. And therefore, the hybrid format has rarely ever been used in the market and has not been able to establish itself in practice in the market. As you will have heard and you would have seen from the documents on the agenda Item 10, we are asking you for your approval to authorize us to hold a virtual AGM in the next 2 years as well. And should you approve this motion, then we will take a relevant decision at a given point in time to decide which format is right and appropriate one at a given point in time, weighing off benefits and disadvantages. And of course, we would also take into account any special factors relating to any AGM, which is what you mentioned in your contributions. One final comment regarding costs because we've had a lot of questions about costs. We believe this year's AGM will cost us around EUR 3 million. Last year's virtual AGM costed us EUR 2.83 million. The cost of the last in-person AGM in 2019 was EUR 4.6 million. So basically, this means that the virtual format would save us about 40% of costs. So without any further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I hope we've been able to explain to you what are reasons were, why we chose this format and on the agenda Item 10, we're asking you for your approval and your support for this format. Thank you very much. And over to James von Moltke at this point, who will now comment on dividends and share buybacks.

Thank you very much. And Deutsche Bank's profitability has improved significantly in the course of the transformation to date. In financial year 2022, for example, we achieved a post-tax return on tangible equity of more than 9%. This higher and more sustainable profitability allows us to make distributions to our shareholders and to increase these distributions step by step. As we have reconfirmed with our first quarter results, we plan to return a total of EUR 8 billion in capital to our shareholders in the form of share buybacks and cash dividends in the financial years 2021 to 2025. Last year, we already paid a dividend of EUR 0.20 per share for the 2021 financial year. Together with the share buyback program of EUR 300 million, this totaled to around EUR 700 million that were distributed to our shareholders. For the 2022 financial year, we have proposed a dividend of EUR 0.30 per share. This is in line with our plan we presented in March 2022 to increase the payout per share by 50% per year for the financial years 2022 to 2024. For the 2023 and 2024 financial years, this would correspond to dividends per share of EUR 0.45 and EUR 0.675 respectively. For the 2024 financial year, we are targeting a payout ratio of 50%, resulting from a combination of dividends and share buybacks. As announced with our results for the first quarter 2023, we have initiated discussions with the regulators regarding share buybacks and plan to carry them out in the second half of the year. We will make the final decision on when and to what extent we will buy back our own shares in the future in due course. Please note that share buybacks must be approved by the regulatory authorities and that our shareholders make the final decision on the amount of dividends. Furthermore, we also must take into account the requirements of the Stock Corporation Act when making such distributions. An overview of previous share buyback programs can be found on our website under the Investors tab. And with that, I hand back to Christian again.

Let me now turn to our sustainability strategy, a topic that is close to my heart to that of many of you. Economies and societies around the world are facing various social and sustainability risks. Among these, one important aspect is to fight against man-made climate change and environmental degradation, which is one of the greatest challenges facing current and future generations. Deutsche Bank intends to contribute to the fight against climate change and environmental degradation through close interaction with companies and private and institutional clients. As a global financial institution, Deutsche Bank considers it part of its responsibility to support and where possible, accelerate the transformation towards a more sustainable economy and society. At the same time, this also represents an opportunity for our businesses. We see a consistently good demand for ESG advice and products across all divisions. Deutsche Bank takes a holistic view of sustainability and place the topic at the center of its strategy as a global house bank years ago. Since 2019, our bank has focused on the following 4 pillars: sustainable finance, policies and commitments, employees and own operations and thought leadership and dialogue. To implement its sustainability strategy, Deutsche Bank is currently focusing on the following initiatives. Deutsche Bank is targeting EUR 500 billion in sustainable finance excluding DWS by the end of 2025, having exceeded the first volume target of EUR 200 billion from 2020 to 2022. The bank reaffirms its voluntary commitment to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050 itself and is following a systematic approach to implement it. Deutsche Bank wants to contribute to the fight against climate change by interacting closely with companies as well as private and institutional clients and by supporting clients in their transformation. To this end, it has already published net zero target paths for 4 carbon-intensive sectors back in 2022 with at least 4 more to follow this year. Using these target paths, Deutsche Bank is integrating CO2 emissions into its lending decision-making processes. Deutsche Bank is setting up policy and controls to manage sustainability measures and ensure their compliance. Following the update of the thermal code policy, the focus is now on updating the oil and gas policy. Another focus is on the data strategy to automate and standardize nonfinancial reporting and integrate external data. Both the Supervisory Board and the Management Board are continuously briefed on the implementation of the sustainability strategy. Last year, Deutsche Bank further developed its governance for sustainability matters. The bank appointed a Chief Sustainability Officer and also established a steering committee to oversee the implementation of the sustainability strategy. This enables the bank to better manage, measure and review its sustainability activities across all business units and regions. Karl von Rohr will now elaborate on the integration of our Postbank IT infrastructure.

Ladies and gentlemen, Deutsche Bank develops its IT landscape further strategically and has been doing so for many years. And now it's consolidated. It is a separate IT system in one uniform platform. It will be our target to create a platform designed on the basis of uniform standards for both our brands, which is Postbank and Deutsche Bank. In the course of this multiyear program, which is called Unity, about 19 million product contracts as well as data of about 12 million customers of Postbank will be migrated to the IT platform of Deutsche Bank in 4 waves. Additionally, for more than 5 million Postbank clients in new online and mobile banking will be introduced. We'll be using cloud technology to do so, and it will enable us to implement new features and application improvements faster. The first wave of migration was successfully completed in April 2022. In fact, about 4 million customers were saving products. Over New Year's Eve 2022, 2023, we then migrated an additional 4 million product contracts of about 2 million Postbank lines to the IT systems of Deutsche Bank. In the second wave, we also started a new cloud-based online and mobile banking app for about 1 million clients. The third wave which we completed in March of this year included 6.5 million contracts of about 5 million customers in the areas of credit cards, current account, overnight money, term deposits and savings accounts. Additionally, about 2.7 million additional clients can use the new platform for online and mobile banking. It was our top priority, and it continues to be our top priority to ensure stable and secure transfer and migration of data and products. In order to minimize risks, some elements from the second migration wave over years end 2022, 2023 were taken out and postponed to the current year. Now this minimization of risk had a temporary impact on the client experience, and we'd like to expressly apologize for that, ladies and gentlemen. At the same time, we would like to ask for your understanding that we consciously had to give high priority to risk consideration in order to ensure secure and stable transfer of customer contracts and data in order to make sure that the overall success of this comprehensive project is not jeopardized. Now based on our experience from the wave around New Year, we communicated more intensively in the run-up to the third wave at the end of March, communicated on the changes that would happen. And also after the migration, in our branches, in the call center or via e-mail or social media, more colleagues will be available in order to support our customers whenever they have questions or problems. Now, some customers were not happy with the functionality of the new Postbank banking app. I do understand that because, initially, the bank was started in a basic version with a small number of features. Now, the scope of functionalities has been expanded and extended in the meantime and will continuously be expanded further in order to also enable completely new functionalities, which hopefully then will live up to your expectations. Now in summer, the IT migration, which is amongst the biggest and most complex IT migration projects in the European banking sector is to be completed. Now in the fourth and last wave, 4 million contracts of about 2 million customers will be migrated. Now this is about consumer lending, mortgages, current account, overnight money and term deposits. Also, in this wave, all company clients will be migrated and an additional 1.9 million customers will get access to our new online and mobile banking. After the successful migration, the IT legacy systems of Postbank will be decommissioned step by step so that cost savings will increase step by step before 2025, for example, by license fees that would no longer have to be paid. As of the year 2025, Unity is then to enable Deutsche Bank to harvest cost synergies in the amount of about EUR 300 million per year. Now so much on IT changes, and I'll now hand over to James von Moltke, who will comment on the share price development and market valuation. James?

Thank you, Karl. Now our share price had been strongly impacted by macroeconomic and geopolitical development since the AGM in May '22. The war in Ukraine and the macroeconomic insecurity associated to that was a burden on the capital markets up until the second half of 2022. An important factor in Germany was where worries about potential energy crisis. Now when this insecurity abated in November 2022, our share price increased step by step to more than EUR 12, of course, supported by higher interest rate level and an improved evaluation on the basis of fundamental data. Also, the successful completion of our strategy, Compete To Win, have the positive impact which was reflected in a markedly improved business result for the year 2022 and post-tax RoTE of 9% or more than 9%. In March and May of 2023, a flare-up of nervousness in the financial markets was again a burden on our share price. This was triggered by U.S. banks getting into troubled waters and also problems in the banking sector in Switzerland and also by unexpectedly strong price movements in the equity and derivative markets. However, during the market turbulences at the end of the first quarter, we were able to prove that Deutsche Bank can withstand volatile times. Our strong results in the first quarter and -- with regard to profitability, but also with regard to our capital position and liquidity underpins that. Now once the current insecurity abates, we expect that the share price of Deutsche Bank will again be more aligned with fundamental data again. As mentioned on our investor deep dive in March 2022, Deutsche Bank is to become even more profitable and by 2022, it is to achieve an RoTE of at least 10%. So we believe that we are well on track to achieve this objective and with the results for the first quarter, we announced further measures to accelerate the implementation of the strategy. We are convinced that our share price will benefit from that. So much on our statements, and then now hand over to Norbert Winkeljohann.

Thank you to the Board of Management for these interesting statements. And now I would like to ask the technicians to now have the next speakers join us. The following shareholders will be contacted by our technicians, [indiscernible] and [ Daniel Walner ]. As a third person, [ Annalina Simbroski ] [indiscernible] for the solidarity network, [indiscernible] Hansen. And finally, in this round, [ Denise Mai ] for an NGO on the fossil industry. Now we have a short break. [Break]

Ladies and gentlemen, after this short break, we will now continue with the second round of statements. As the first speaker, I would like to welcome Dr. [indiscernible] and [ Daniel Walner ] and as already announced, then will follow [ Annalina Simbroski ] [indiscernible]. Now you've got the floor.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is [indiscernible] and I am in Fridays for Future, the Climate Group. And I would like to thank you very much for having me speak here. While I'm speaking here, people are experiencing the consequences of the climate crisis in Myanmar, in Bangladesh or even fighting for water in France. The climate crisis has reached all corners of the world. The good news is that you already know this, and you probably, all of you can name further disasters and you are all aware of the consequences of the climate crisis. And you also know the course, the fossil system and also the consequences should not be new to you. We have to move out of fossil energy. It's really very simple and more and more companies and people are now working to change the system in 2023. In the climate crisis, they have seen that there is no possibility to go on as we have done in the past. And if we listen to you, Mr. Sewing, we can have the impression that Deutsche Bank also has taken the decision to find ways out of the climate crisis and to contribute to making the world a more social and better world. You have described how you see that companies are now embarking on this path. But aren't you just watching what they are doing? Don't you think that your shareholders and customers should know more about what is happening with your money while you are philosophizing about the future? Deutsche Bank was among the 25 banks with the highest fossil investments in the world in 2022 and in the investment into fossil companies. And since it was said that we now have to say goodbye to fossil energy, so Deutsche Bank has given USD 1.8 billion to Total and companies can now afford to have more and more projects against the environment. And this means for Total that they are building a new oil pipeline. For Total, this means that the largest heated oil pipeline worldwide is going through a very sensitive area in the United States. And this means that people will be disposed, and this means 0.5 gigatonne of CO2 emissions. The country of Uganda would need 85 years in order to compensate for this. In the energy crisis in a time where people really need renewable energies, Deutsche Bank has increased or tripled the investment into fossil projects in the later period. And now we have people who really take environmental protection seriously. And why you are now saying that you are doing something good for the environment? The public prosecution is investigating you because of greenwashing. In 2022, the green DWS funds apparently have invested $850 million into fossil companies in order to profit from increasing energy prices. Sometimes I have the impression that people like you, Mr. Sewing, you have the possibility to make decisive decisions, have lost any feeling for what you are doing and how your friendly global house bank is doing? And so my questions are as follows: will you stop the support of the Total pipeline and will you stop or terminate investments into fossil energies? When will you stop investing into fossil energies? Will this be in time in order to stop the climate disaster? Or will you do this when it fits into your business plan, which is much too late? And how much money do you want to invest into environmentally friendly projects and do you think that you can really live up to your responsibilities regarding the environment? Sustainability does not mean to just pick out a few green projects and to have some good targets for the environment, but then just to do business as usual and to do the same as you have always done. This is not sustainability, but this is greenwashing. While more and more banks are withdrawing from fossil industries, you are investing a lot of money into your own greenwashing. And the question is, where would you be if this energy would be given for real environmental and climate friendly projects. All this shows that we cannot rely on the promises and voluntary self-commitment of people who only focus on short-term earnings. As long as business is still important, some people will make money available. And in order for the financial sector to leave the climate destroying systems, it is necessary to make sure that people will no longer endanger our future by telling us how green they are when they are not. And all people are now asked to really do what they can. Do not work for these companies any longer. If you invest your work in green alternatives, we can really make a lot of progress. These alternatives exist. Please don't give your money to these banks. What Mr. Sewing is working with is your money. And obviously, the banks do not really want to live up to their responsibilities. And all people who can take the decision today, I would like to appeal to you do not ratify the actions of the Management Board because they are destroying the basis of our lives. All the people are now needed, they have to do something, and we can win so much if we are really honest to ourselves and get started.

Okay. Thank you very much, Mrs. [indiscernible] for your contribution and your questions that we will answer later on. And the next speaker now will be [ Daniel Walner ]. [ Daniel Walner ], you have the floor.

Hello, everybody. My name is [ Daniel Walner ] and I am a shareholder of Deutsche Bank. And I have 3 follow-up questions on 3 topics, although these topics have already been raised in the 300-page document. But for me, it's not satisfactory. The first topic is the -- is Ernst & Young, the audit work done by them in my written question, and I do not want to repeat everything. I already mentioned Wirecard, and I said that this company would -- commissioning this company would not be good for the reputation of Deutsche Bank in this time when everything is still open and pending. And that 9 other DAX companies are also using the services of EY is not really a reason because they are saying Deutsche Bank is also using them. So this is no good reason if you choose an audit company that is difficult. What is the reason why you are not choosing one of the 3 other major audit firms? And my proposal is to make sure that at least next year, we are changing the audit company. And now I would like to have one question. In the [ SKL Carbon ] shareholders' meeting, I asked a question, and I asked the question why KPMG is -- has been auditing the company for such a long time. And she answered that there are only 4 major audit companies. And as a global company, you just have to choose 1 of the 4 companies. And I think that this is a fact, which is really not good. My question to you is, what does Deutsche Bank think about it? Do you also see this as a problem that there are only 4 big audit firms, which can be used as external auditors of DAX companies? Don't you think that there are also conflicts of interest? Yes, of course, you cannot simply find a fifth one. But what does Deutsche Bank think about it that you are so restricted in the selection of an audit firm? The second question is about the IT move of Postbank and well, I was in the preferred position. We have 2 accounts. I had one with Postbank, and I have this ever since I started to work and even while I was still a student, and then I opened an account at Deutsche Bank when I advanced in my career. So I can compare the problems that we had in these accounts. And I can also tell you a little bit about how these problems were solved. As a Postbank customer, you feel as if you are of second class compared to Deutsche Bank. What is this strategy? How -- do you really plan to merge this? And the question is, does this have to be merged? Does this have to be migrated? Because Postbank also has a history of itself, social responsibility, catering for smaller people, not earning a lot of money and they are still have having accounts with Postbank. What do you do with them compared to Deutsche Bank customers? You could ask whether my assumption is correct that they -- the customers of Postbank are rather pensioners, old people, not IT-enabled people and perhaps you should take special responsibility for them. So you have to be really very honest and open. The months of migration were really a disaster. It was not only a few hours where things did not work, but you had long waiting loop. Sometimes I heard the message, you have to wait at least 20 minutes, and then I just put down the receiver. And if you write a letter or an e-mail, then you get an acceptance, you get an acknowledgment that your message was received and you never hear from them again. And this is really a huge disaster, which I experienced here that people did not leave Postbank is probably only due to the fact they had an account for years at Postbank, and it's quite difficult and troublesome to then change. Who is responsible for this, is my question. Is this Karl von Rohr? Is he responsible for the disaster and does this have impact on his leaving Deutsche Bank now? The question is, what is the strategy of Deutsche Bank regarding the migration or the integration of Postbank? Do you plan to keep up the branches of Postbank? And an explanation, I forgot the pin for my home banking, and I tried to get it back and then I called, and I had to wait 20 minutes, then the phone was not answered, but there is also the possibility to go to the Postbank branch and do this in person, but this was also not possible because nothing is happening. So this is really very difficult, and I would like to know what your strategy is in this regard. So I already talked about social responsibility. You feel as if you were a prior at Postbank. I went to Deutsche Bank and I got first-class treatment, and I talk too highly motivated and very friendly staff when I had a problem with my account at Deutsche Bank. So it was completely different when I talked to Postbank people. The people there didn't know what they were doing. They had no expertise. And then they were probably brought in on the market in order to have new people sitting there, but this doesn't really help you if you have people who can't give you proper advice. And the last point I would like to mention is the virtual shareholders' meeting or rather the idea to have a hybrid shareholders' meeting. I think this is a very exciting option that this will cost a lot more if something that I can understand as an objection. But my idea is to have the pre-submitted questions that are then answered in writing and having then face-to-face shareholders' meeting so that you can save costs. Those people who cannot come to the shareholders' meeting have the possibility to ask questions beforehand. And otherwise, you have a face-to-face meeting where you really can meet people again. I would really love this. And for virtual shareholders' meeting, the fact that there are so few people asking questions here is probably due to the fact that so many other DAX companies have their shareholders' meeting today. I would have loved to join for their shareholders' meeting today, but I prefer Deutsche Bank. And this is something that should not happen. We have so many in parallel. The DAX companies at least should agree in beforehand on the date so that we don't have too many things happening in parallel. I'm looking forward to your answers.

Thank you very much, [ Mr. Walner ] for your questions and your contributions. Questions will be answered later on. And the next speaker is [ Annalina Simbroski ] for [indiscernible] Association. [ Ms. Simbroski ], you have the floor.

Thank you so much. I'm sorry. I seem to be hearing myself. Now, I don't. So my name is [ Annalina Simbroski ] and I come from the Environmental and Human Rights Organization [indiscernible]. And today, I speak for the Association of Ethical Shareholders after the NGO report Banking on Climate case, your financing of fossil fuel infrastructure and liquified gas infrastructure, you tripled, you are #11 among the LNG financing companies. According to the report, you gave a credit to Venture Global LNG, which started the LNG capital port in Louisiana. The entire U.S. Gulf Coast, a number of LNG terminals are being built and other petrochemical ports. The gas does not only kill the climate. The projects have a negative influence on the local population and the environment. In this context, I would like to read our John Beard's report -- John Beard's comment. And I would like to point out that next year, we would like to welcome to get direct -- whole direct reports in English with simultaneous translation. We have the original message -- his original message on our social media channels. So this is Mr. Beard on our Instagram channel. He has authorized me to read out the translation of his speech now. Hello to the members of Management Board and to the shareholders of Deutsche Bank. My name is John Beard Jr. and I'm the Founder and President of Port Arthur Community Action Network, an organization to foster environmental improvement and social community cohesion in Port Arthur in Texas. Deutsche Bank is the biggest co-financer of LNG projects in the U.S. And I would like you to know what influence you have in mind and many other communities at the U.S. Gulf Coast. Many of the projects financed for you are in communities of color where people have less income and not a lot of opportunity to be against LNG projects and to defend themselves against them. In these communities, there are lots of other petrochemical plants that lead to lots of death and illnesses of the people living there. So what you are basically doing is moving oil into the fire. You make it more difficult for people to work there, to live there and enjoy their lives. These communities for many decades have been burdened quite a lot. This is unbearable. You have to understand it and know that we have high degrees of cancer and heart diseases, lung diseases caused by the other companies. Your investment mean further dangers and worse environment, worse health for people. This needs to stop. You cannot move -- you cannot be calling yourself a responsible company. At the same time, co-finance the death of people at the Gulf Coast here in the U.S. This needs to be stopped. I demand that you change and move towards cleaner and greener and more renewable energies and to stop the financing of LNG projects and petro industry projects at the U.S. Gulf Coast. Our lives are endangered and you will also save your lives because you're importing the gas to your country and the climate change and heating up of the earth is real. You will see it here, and you'll see it over at your side. I ask you to show respect and with respect, I ask you to stop the investment into petrochemical and LNG projects and instead go into cleaner, greener and renewable energy, bring your investment there in order to save lives like mine here at U.S. Gulf Coast. Right. So that was the end of the speech of Mr. Beard and linked to that, my questions are, number one. Looking at the massive limitations for people and nature and the negative effects on the climate, I would like to ask you as to whether your financing of LNG infrastructure in the U.S. and globally, whether you will limit it as regards in project financing and company financing for companies that are mainly active in the LNG arena. And question number two, in your written answers on our questions, you say that LNG, you don't see that as a future-oriented source of energy. How does that fit into the tripling of your financing of LNG last year? And when do you plan to move out of LNG financing completely? So much from my side. I'm looking forward to the answers to my questions. Thank you.

Thank you, [ Ms. Simbroski ] for your hints and for your questions and for the presentation of John Beard's speech, and we come to [indiscernible] Solidarity Network, that's where who she is speaking for. Ms. [indiscernible]. You have the floor.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is [indiscernible]. I also speak for the Umbrella Association of Ethical Shareholders, on behalf of the [indiscernible] Solidarity Network, to make you aware of the fact that Deutsche Bank through awarding credits, the mineral and oil group, Lynco, favors the resettlement of indigenous communities in Colombia. Deutsche Bank according to the Banking on Climate case report in the year 2016 through to 2021 gave credits to the tune of USD 440 million to Glencore. And from 2017 to 2021, USD 221 million went to Glencore in 2021. Yes, the Deutsche Bank continued this and was participating in a credit to the tune of USD 6.54 billion. As an international solidarity network, we stand with the indigenous [ Yuma ] community in their fight for justice. - -- -- community in their fight for justice. I would like to read out a translated letter to all of you, in particular to you, Mr. Sewing. My name is Juan Pablo Gutierrez. I belong to an indigenous community in Colombia, the peoples of the Yukpa. We are a community of 4,000 people who at the moment are seen as immediately threatened by extinction by the Colombian courts because our indigenous country was taken away from us. This is mainly due to building huge coal mines that were built on our country without consulting us and without our consent. These mines have destroyed the variety of species and the paradise was transferred into a cemetery. Rivers were changed and through breathing in coal dust, we have lots of illnesses, respiratory illnesses. The holy cemeteries of our community were there and now they are no longer there. The operators of the mines, together with paramilitary groups in Colombia moved out the people who -- they were died, they were resettled and terror was waged upon them. For Glencore, the mines meant progress and enormous financial gains for shareholders. But for us, this means hunger, it means the death of more than 50 children in 2022, murder, paramilitary violence, deviated rivers, respiratory illnesses and the risk to become extinct now. The risk as Yukpa took over to be done away with. We, the people of the Yukpa are here, thanks to supporting activists who give us their voices to make you aware of the reality that is on the other side of the coin of the company that you are financing. It's the dark side, you don't want to talk about, the violent side that we have to suffer from as indigenous people because European companies like Glencore want to make their profits with coal. There's one thing that the world needs to know. It is that Glencore is responsible for the situation in which we, the Yukpa, are -- is seeing ourselves now. And from now on, the information that we give to you, you will also be culprits if you decide to continue financing Glencore. Discontinuing financing for Glencore is a question of life and death for my indigenous people. Moreover, in the context of the climate crisis, it needs to be seen that it has the potential to stop our life, our lives as human beings. It's a question of life and death for the entire -- for all of humankind. That was the letter of one Juan Pablo Gutierrez to you. Our question that we handed in, in how far the principle of free and informed consent according to the Declaration of the Right of Indigenous People is included in your environmental checks? You said that you are a signatory of the Equatory Principles and thus projects that are financed by you, you have to give evidence of the fact that this principle of free previous consent was agreed upon. Unfortunately, your answer quite apparently is not living up to reality because in the Colombian context, in the case of the Yukpa, this is not true. And as I can tell you, this has not been a single occurrence. That's why I would like to ask you the following questions. In order to live up to international rule of law and in order to live up to your own social and environmental recommendations, will you recheck the projects that you finance that have effects on indigenous communities? And how do you plan with a view to the fact that companies financed by you -- co-financed by you like the Glencore are abusing the UN Declaration of Indigenous People? And how far will you extend your further checks in the future? Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you so much, Ms. [ Jaeger ], for your question and also for reading out the letter of Mr. Gutierrez. We come to [Adalbert Hansen ] as the next speaker. Mr. Hansen, you have the floor.

I don't see myself on the screen yet but I can get started. My name is [ Adalbert Hansen ] and I represent my wife's shares. Together with my wife, I had some unpleasant experiences with Postbank, and this is why I would link up to the -- to Mr. [ Verner ], who spoke earlier. Well, let's imagine that you wanted to transfer money from Postbank but you can't do this and because credit is delayed for days. And just imagine that Postbank is not -- cannot be reached, you cannot even ping the server. You can use your Internet but you cannot reach Postbank. The provider is not at fault here. There are websites which show that Postbank has had several problems for days. And I have exactly this experience when I wanted to move out all the money because Postbank had canceled my account. And I really no longer wanted to be with them. And let's just imagine last day of more than 50 years business relationship, you write a fax to complain about the lack of the credit and Postbank sends the answer 13 days later per letter. On the night of your termination, you still do not see the credit in your account. But the next morning, you do see the amount in your account retrospectively. I could then -- I could only do the transfer one day later with all the codes and terms and my account showed that the transfer was accepted. But Postbank did not really handle the transfer, although I even sent a fax to show this. And the answer was that they blocked the account. The children's allowance that was sent to the same account, however, was credited to the account and the positive balance was just blocked. About 2 months later, then finally, I got a bank statement for Postbank and in the upper line, a huge amount and then below, a transfer that I had neither authorized nor made. It was on another account at Deutsche Postbank, Postbank to handle residual amounts. Until when? Well, until the statute limit. Well, everything is gone. And this is really a [indiscernible] experience. Do you know how long it really took me to get my money back? It took me more than half a year. I needed a lawyer to help me. I can really recommend Postbank, I can recommend to avoid Postbank. You can only be a real house bank if you have different relationships with your customers. You have not reached your goal yet. You still need a transformation here. And then we also had our savings account at Postbank and the termination period, according to the regulations on banking, it's a very complicated legal term, is 3 months and not 2 months and you cannot transfer the money from your savings account. Savings accounts have to be shown in the balance sheet in a special way and we can see that it's EUR 60 billion at Deutsche Bank balance sheet. And 3 years after the termination, I took all the documents and went to the branch in [indiscernible] and I had read all the different legal regulations and I printed them out. And they said it's forbidden to have a deposit business if there is -- it is excluded or if it's made too difficult to pay money. And I wanted to get money. I wanted to withdraw money from this savings account, but I didn't get anything. Mr. Sewing, does [indiscernible] is not valid for Postbank? Half a year later, after many letters and contact to my lawyer, finally, I received the money. And there's 2 weeks delay but I wanted the money in cash. I didn't want to have it transferred to me. I wanted to have it in cash in line with the relevant regulations. But it's 100 pages of general terms and conditions, very difficult language legalese. And in -- the process of -- procedures in -- one of the complaints of many people was that the Postbank is too lethargic, it don't respect -- don't react because of illness or any other things and does this -- this is really something that can be seen at Deutsche Postbank. And probably, this was the reason for the verdict. Why do you need terms and conditions for bank? The Section 675 A to Z, really, all the letters of the alphabet, in the banking act they already defined the relationship between the bank and the customer. Is there anything that still needs to be covered by terms and conditions in Section 700 -- [ 675 H ] was then entered to protect the customer and it said that the customer can terminate for ordinary reasons at any point in time. And then you have also the agreement #15 in 100 pages of text, we have a slight line. Isn't this too surprising and does not have any effect? Because this creates a lot of insecurity but apparently, you are all in favor of having a good, clear situation. But the terms and conditions, Section 15, are really only used in order to make it difficult for the customers. So let me summarize. Postbank does not have command of their data processing. And this for more than a year, so this is really a sustainable problem. And terms and conditions of the banks, which are all the same, might also fall under antitrust regulation. Negative interest rates, this is something that is not really good for the customer. And I'm anxious to see what the Supreme Court will say on this when it's finally taken there. EUR 52 million of damage, so the damage is much higher than the benefit. And the Postbank customer, [indiscernible] is now pushed into other assets. What does this mean? In the 28th of January 2022, there was an article in FAZ that the Deutsche Bank is earning billions because many customers are now going to the stock exchange and that you have the interest rate. So who is not thinking about extortion and fraud there? A bank that does not pay for half a year, although the money should have been paid, is it still on the right way? Here, transformation is really necessary. So this is why we cannot ratify the activities of the Board of Management. Deutsche Bank is handling Postbank in such a way that the reputation is really in danger. And this should also have been noticed by the Supervisory Board so that we cannot ratify the activities of the Supervisory Board either. Well, the next topic, the 20 multiple of the salary of a normal employee should be sufficient for the members of the Board of Management. And this for proper work and to not the suspected criminal activities such as CumEx or other fraud activities and also the green washing that the previous speakers spoke a lot about. And also we now have to say no to the compensation of the people. So in this sense, thank you very much for your attention. That was all.

Thank you very much, Mr. [ Hansen], for your explanations and for your hints and we will then continue with the following speaker, [ Denise Ney ] for parents against the fossil energy, Mrs. [ Ney or Nye ], I don't know how to pronounce your name. You have the floor.

Hello, everyone. I'd like to say thank you to the umbrella Association of Ethical Shareholders that they gave me the right to speak here. My name is [ Denise Nye]. I come from Berlin. I'm a mother of 2 sons. And today, I speak to you as a woman, as an economic engineer, teacher and representative of the group, [indiscernible] Parents Against Fossil Industry. [indiscernible] now or never, that's the 6, that's the motto of the Sixth Report for IPCC, the best researchers of the world have looked at research of the last few years and summarized it. And the message is, now we have to act. Otherwise, we destroy the livelihood of the children of the earth and the coming generations so that we remove future of them. Women and children, in situations of crisis and disasters, are those that suffer most from the consequences. Therefore, today, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, young people, scientists and other supporters have blocked the Deutsche Bank branch in Berlin, Unter den Linden. Your branch office in Friedrichstrasse shows climate books on pseudo wooden tables. You ask people to save water in the sinks and you have customers handing in coats to be recycled. [ Marin Schutzman ], mother of a 3-year-old child was present in the blocking campaign. And today, she said, Deutsche Bank with billions keeps up the fossil fuel industry alive. And parallelly in the so-called Quarter Future celebrated greenwashing is cynical and dangerous because it shows to people that supposedly, someone is looking at the ecological crisis, whereas António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN in the last World Climate Report says fossil fuels are a dead end for our planet, for humankind and yes, also for national economies. Deutsche Bank in our country is the bank with the highest amount of investment in fossil fuel industry. According to Fossil Fuel Finance Report, as of 2023, Deutsche Bank since 2016 has put more than USD 94 billion for building or rebuilding fossil fuel infrastructure. Even in 2022 despite urgent warnings of the scientific world, it was still $7.4 billion. Is that in line with you calling yourself -- having a branch office called Quarter Future? Or isn't it just showing that greenwashing belongs to the dirty business of your group? Quite serious questions arise from this. What's the scientific basis and study that is a reason for your net zero study through 2050? How can you say that you live up to the Paris Climate Accord contract if you finance oil and gas projects to the tune of billions that for a decade will use greenhouse gas emissions and destroy local environment? How do you justify it vis-a-vis your shareholders that you destroy the future of your children and our children? And why do you keep investing in 2023 in fossil promotion projects and infrastructure that in the foreseeable future will be stranded assets? Physician -- physicists and mathematicians supports the parents of Extinction Rebellion in the blockage in Berlin. He says, currently, the money of Deutsche Bank is going into new fossil fuel projects all over the world. Deutsche Bank is one of the main organizers of the financial support and investor of the Spanish oil giant Repsol that's responsible for the oil spill in January this year in Peru. Deutsche Bank is prepared to give loans to companies in Australia like Whitehaven Coal that plans new coal mines. Deutsche Bank is still interested in East African Crude Oil Pipeline, EACOP. That's the largest heated oil pipeline that's to be put into practice. And Deutsche Bank is one of the biggest financer of fracking in the Latin America, fossil technology that is banned in Germany. Thus, Deutsche Bank actively participates in our collective suicide as António Guterres, very clearly describes the situation. When will you stop the support and financing of the projects just mentioned? [ Petra Nielsen ] was also present in Berlin, Unter den Linden. She is the mother of 2 children, 2 daughters below 7 and she asked herself, how can it be? Scientific findings are so clear. New fossil fuel infrastructure and the Paris Climate Accord cannot coincide. Why do you still allow it that fossil profit interest are prioritized and the future of our children is blown up? Wouldn't it be high time to go the way of the demands of full decarbonization, to support it and with a view to the escalating climate crisis to immediately act on it? The financing of fossil fuel projects doesn't have to be stopped right now. I ask you today on this AGM, in addition, when will you as Management Board and as shareholders finally act responsibly and give our children and all children of the world the support they need? We as children, as grandchildren, as uncles, as aunts, as people who feel responsible, we as parents against fossil industry ask, demand the shareholders not to ratify the actions of the Management Board but to assume responsibility for the fossil destruction of our livelihood. Guidelines have to be there, people over profit. Thank you very much for your attention and I hope that you listened well and I expect honest answers to our questions. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Ms. [ Nye ]. Of course, we listened attentively and we are here at the end of the second round of questions. I hear that initial answers are available on certain questions and I would like to start. The Management Board asked me to answer questions on topics that are -- questions to the Supervisory Board. I'd love to do that, but I'd like to point out that the Management Board lives up to the obligation to -- for information according to Section 131 of the German Stock Corporation Act. I'll start. Mr. Freitag, your question asked regarding question on Page 85 that the Supervisory Board in its entirety did not acknowledge the addition to the agenda before the statement was made on the Supervisory Board's behalf and you asked for the legal background and the date of the delegation resolution to the Chairman's Committee and the number of the Supervisory Board members who did not participate in this decision. The delegation of responsibility to decide statements of the Supervisory Board on potential additions to the agenda on the Chairman's Committee of the Supervisory Board happened upon resolution of the Supervisory Board as of 10th of March 2022. Legal background for the delegation of tasks to a committee is Section 107 (31) of the German Stock Corporation Act. Handling of the additional matters of the agenda was delegated to the Executive Committee of the Supervisory Board and thus the Executive Committee looked into the statement of management report of the Management Committee instead of the Supervisory Board in total. Irrespective of that, all Supervisory Board member have the possibility to receive information by the committee and demand to get it at the meeting of the Supervisory Board about the delegation of the decision as regards handling additional agenda items, all of the Supervisory Board members participated. The resolution of the committee, the Executive Committee regarding the statement of the Supervisory Board on the additional agenda item, the members of the Executive Committee, all participated. Mr. Freitag, you asked for details in how far the Supervisory Board knew of the questions on today's AGM. The questions that you were asked were mainly available by mainly under the responsibility of the Management Board. The questions to the Supervisory Board between handing them in, had been looking at them, were talked about, were answered by the Supervisory Board Chair and the Deputy Chair. From Monday onwards, we had access to all of the questions and asked by the Supervisory Board members -- asked by the shareholders. Over to you, Mr. [indiscernible].

Mr. Thomae asked for the background on the published offer for Numis and the advantages for the bank. This question has already been partly answered, to be found in our document on previously answered shareholders' questions on the website under ID HV23-362. As regards to your question, Mr. Thomae, as regards the advantages of the transaction, we would like to add, the expected advantages from the transaction are not only limited to investment banking. The transaction allowed us a far more intensive commitment in the Corporate segment. Deutsche Bank thus is turned into a leading offering company for financing needs of more than 170 corporate clients. We believe that Numis clients, through the existing service offer of Numis, will benefit from the profit range of Deutsche Bank. This includes global M&A consultancy, third-party capital admission, FX business, treasury solutions and private banking and also the general support through a strong balance sheet by Deutsche Bank. James von Moltke is going to continue with answering questions. Thank you.

Mr. Nieding, you asked for interaction with our shareholders. This is a question which we have already partly answered, to be found in our document previously entered shareholder questions on the HV website, under HV23-216. In addition, we would like to mention that the deal with our shareholders, irrespective of private or institutional ones, we hold in high esteem, be it in a virtual format or in person. There are percentages on virtual and in-person interactions, were put into our document under #167 on the AGM website. Mr. Freitag, in your redirect, you assume that there was manipulation. We clearly reject this. The Management Board has checked the -- has checked the closure of accounts by IFRS standards. And our internal control system around accounting is adequate and controls are effective. I refer to Pages 238 and 239 of our annual report. The Supervisory Board, in particular, the Audit Committee has monitored the accounting process. The auditor checked the results reported to the Supervisory Board and gave an unqualified opinion. The group accounting was agreed upon by the Supervisory Board. So 2022 accounts gives an adequate picture of the asset situation and revenue situation of Deutsche Bank. Mr. Freitag, thank you for your redirect, as to in the future negative economic development will have effects on the activation of negative deferred tax assets to the tune of [ EUR 1.4 billion ]. We have answered it. You can find it in our document on the HV website under ID #327. Activation of deferred tax assets happens on the basis of the approved strategic business plan. The business plan, of course, includes positive and negative expectations for future years. And among them, it includes a preview of interest. And in each and every quarter, estimates on deferred taxes are reassessed. Further on to the questions by Mr. Freitag, you asked for capturing the losses from depreciation and assets to the tune of EUR 1.285 billion and earnings in P&L to the tune of EUR 285 million. As we show in our documents on the HV website under ID 327, in the businesses, in group capital equity change on Page 232, there, you'll find the losses. And you look at the financial assets and the changes after taxes, EUR 986 million and the derivatives, you see the deviations of payment flows to the tune of EUR 570 million. They mainly have to be seen in the context of strategically activity reserves and businesses in corporate and other. The value changes of the positions are captured in equity according to IFRS. On Page 239, we show pretax assessment. The realized earnings and losses of the reporting period are moved into the P&L. We refer to our explanations on classification and capturing of financial instruments in our Annual Report 2022 from Page 241 onwards. Mr. Freitag, you asked for capturing losses from depreciation and assets to the tune of EUR 1.285 billion. This question has already been answered for fiscal 2021, to be found in our document and the AGM website under ID HV23-327 and on Pages 241 and 361 in the annual report. In addition, I would like to say that the Board of Management as in HV 327, as it said there, in this question, the valid IFRS stipulations were abided by as they need to be used in the EU. Among others, they give the classification and capturing of financial instruments. We, again, would like to refer to our explanations in Annual Report 2022 from Page 241 onwards. Mr. Freitag, you again asked for the calculation of the return on tangible equities. Annual accounts 2021 show an adequate picture of the asset and revenue situation of Deutsche Bank. Management Board has used adequate accounting regulations and according to IFRS, as to be used in EU and this was used to set up the annual account. So Supervisory Board, in particular, the Audit Committee has monitored the auditing process, the auditor checked this, reported to the Supervisory Board and gave an unqualified opinion. Then the group accounts were approved of by the Supervisory Board. Mr. Freitag, you asked for an answer to your e-mail. You e-mailed on the 15th of May '23 at 07:50, was sent in at the address for the AGM and it was answered then. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, James. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we start with the next round of speakers and will then give you the next answers in the next round. I have one general comment on the questions, the legislators' concept of a virtual AGM with stating questions before and says that only redirects are being answered in the AGM directly. Certain issues that are of general interest that were the -- were talked about before we talked about in our statements. So we'll be focusing on new subjects and to your questions in so far as they have not been answered fully before, thus, we hope that we'll have a focused exchange of ideas today. So this brings us to the next break and to bringing in further speakers. This time the following, ladies and gentlemen, coming first, Ms. Vanessa Müller for Facing Finance, then Hans Oswald, then Markus Kienle for SdK and then [ Rolf Rosinski ]. Mr. [ Rosinski ], we were not able to come in to touch with you via phone. We would like to ask you to join the meeting now. And then Karl-Walter Freitag for Riebeck-Brauerei of 1862. This brings us to a short break. [Break]

Dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, we will now continue with the next round of questions. And the first speaker is Vanessa Müller from Facing Finance, and then we'll have Hans Oswald and then Mrs. Markus Kienle. Please get ready. Mrs. Müller, you have the floor.

Hello. Dear shareholders, Board of Management, Board of -- Supervisory Board. My name is Vanessa Müller and I am the Deputy Head of Facing Finance. And I now have the right to speak on behalf of the association of critical shareholders. Thank you very much for your written answers to our numerous questions, also on plastics and I would like to make a few comments. You are writing that at present, you do not see the necessity for a dedicated plastics policy. Let me give you 3 reasons, why in the interest of the environment and the climate but also in the interest of your shareholders, you should have a financing policy on this topic. The first reason is the climate. Plastics is not only a waste problem but plastics is produced from oil and gas and 9% of all the gas consumption and 8% of the entire oil consumption in the EU is used to produce plastics. As a bank, you cannot on the one hand, say, you are supporting the Paris Climate Accord and then, at the same time, not have a policy on plastics. If you finance plastics production, you are damaging the climate. The second reason is the environment. Plastics is here to stay. We'll find plastics and the included chemical components, toxic components in the air, in the water, on soil, on your plate when you eat something. And your answer is right, that you are supporting initiatives that address waste -- plastic waste in the ocean. But at that point in time, the plastic has been produced already, is already in the ocean but you have to work on the causes. And this means that you have to go for a reduced production of plastic packaging. If you want to reduce plastics waste in the ocean, you should not finance any companies producing plastics. Start at the beginning of the cycle and not at the end. The third reason are your shareholders. If the climate and the environment are not of highest priority for you, you should at least think about your shareholders because if you still, as a bank, think about whether you should get active or not, you will be overtaken by realities because plastics, not only in the EU, but also in other countries of the world is regulated more and more strongly. And you know that more than 200 countries are now discussing and negotiating about a binding plastics agreement. The politicians want to reduce plastics packaging and the demand will rise. Money that the bank is now investing into plants to produce plastics will be stranded costs very soon. And so you should be more proactive. Think ahead and anticipate changes that will come and do not take your decisions when it's too late. The circular economy, this is what you have to focus on. You have to finance real solutions, real deposit systems. And you also have to explain to the plastics-producing companies that they should not continue in the way they are doing right now. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mrs. Müller, for your contribution. Next, we will hear Mr. Hans Oswald. Is that right? Mr. Oswald.