JDC Group AG ($JDC)

[indiscernible] quarter figures for 2026 of the JDC Group [indiscernible] the company's CEO, Dr. Sebastian Grabmaier, CFO, Ralph Konrad and COO, Dr. Ramona Evens will guide you through the figures in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat. And with that, I'm handing over to you, Sebastian.

Yes. Thank you very much, Judith, for the timing welcome. Yes, a very warm welcome from our side from the Management Board of TDC Group and happy to present you Q1 figures 2026, another record time despite a very, very challenging times, as we will see in a moment. My name is Sebastian, CEO, Co-Founder of JDC Group. So together with my partner, Ralph in the line, we found the company now 25 years ago, happy to be on the stock exchange for 20 years. And yes, so also Ramona with us. And Ralph, maybe some words what are you doing with JDC.

Yes. I'm still here, responsible for finance and IT and all our M&A activities, yes, and happy to present you the figures today, Ramona?

I'm Ramona, I'm the COO of the group, and I always come into the picture when man and machine works together. So I'm very happy to be here today to also talk about the progress with FNK and our AI initiatives.

Yes. We may exclude or excuse our college Marcus some important clients today. So whole board on board. And we look at our JDC figures at a glance -- you know that we are more than 400 employees right now on the next page. We have more than EUR 8 billion right now, it's almost EUR 8.5 billion in fund and asset management volume on the platform. EUR 1.5 billion in insurance premium, more than 16,000 intermediary brokers using our platform more and more now also using AI tools now end customer standard more than 2.5 million customers with basically every insurance product, fund product available on the platform. So I think we should look at the macro environment right now in Germany in all of Europe. And you can see that all these errors on the right side, they point downward, meaning that the yes, consumer confidence is as low as it has been during COVID times. So if you look at all these graphs, consumer climate of for us, also enterprise climate, labor market figures, macroeconomy. So all these errors point downward as the overall sentiment in the market is very, very bad. So especially in retail markets, you see a downward anxiety-driven performance of lines and consumers. We think this is temporary, but still, it hinders our new figures, the new business figures, especially. And then when you have a German sentiment, you know the existence of German angst due to Ukraine war and Iran or in the Middle East. This is very present in German media newspapers. So there's a very high sentiment for not buying now. So everybody lot of clients postponed their investment decisions, both on the investment and especially also on the insurance side, and this is -- has some major effect on our platform, which you see on the next page. Firstly, obviously, even if our new business figures are still up 3%. The volume is down, especially the very big pension contracts do not come to the platform right now. Also -- in the health segment, we're a very front-loaded contracts are making the business. We see some postponing, and this is coupled with some higher cancellation rates, yes. So the investment assets actually are doing fine. We see in a moment. But -- so we -- the new business definitely has a little weakness, which we can compensate by our strength in the recurring revenue side. But also for FMK, it's rather winter times, and we're very happy that FMK is performing that well in a world where also the search volume for financial products is down, sometimes even 20% with Google and others. And this means that also in a scarce market, advertising cost per contract are up and this is not really favorable. And still, we see that FMK is performing as planned. And you also see less marketing appetite of financial institutions. We not only see that with FMK, but also for other online brokers that make quite some figures in our contract transfer segment. We see maybe on the next page, if you look at the -- you can see that the first time that we can remember the number of contract transfer is down by almost 10%, and this is dependent on a very big institutional clients and [indiscernible] spending less in advertising, and therefore, these transfer contract transfers is down a little bit. As I said, a number of new orders still up, but the volume being a little bit down that exactly reversed from last year where in Q4. The number of orders was down, but the volume was up. But we're very happy that -- and this is, I think, what shows the resilience of our platform business is that our assets under management figures are up nicely, so from below EUR 8 billion to almost EUR 8.5 billion. And also, that's a very good figure, I think, for the future is the annual net premium insurance up 12%, stands now at more than EUR 1.5 billion. This is basically, as you know, the source of our future income because 82% of our income comes recurring from these figures, assets under manager management and net premium. So this is why we are very optimistic for the business of our future, but see that we have very temporary weakness in our new business, and this also yes, you will see in some of the figures we are presenting today. Yes. So overall, we're very happy to present to you like a strong growth company. You see that the turnover growth stands at more than 20% from EUR 62.2 million up to almost EUR 75 million. So that's a record high quarter, not only a record high Q1 but a historic high figure. And also, if you look at our guidance is EUR 300 million to EUR 330 million, you see that we are right on track that 1/4 of it is already in the books. And then also, you see that the -- together with FMK now the platform is scaling up with an EBITDA growth of more than 60%. Ralph?

Yes, let's go 1 step deeper, revenues increased in the first quarter by 23% to EUR 74.9 million, as Sebastian mentioned, record high for our history. The advisory segment grew by 22.4% to EUR 65.9 million in the advisory segment by a solid EUR 6.6 million to EUR 14.5 million. The gross profit increased by approximately 25% to more than EUR 21 million. And this is also a record high for the first quarter. Yes. As Sebastien already said, the economic environment was difficult for our traditional platform. People in Germany are postponing their investments in their own retirement planning whether in insurance or an investment, and therefore, it's not really surprising that FMK drove the growth in the first quarter, even though the environment was far from easy for FMK as well with a 20% decline in the search volume for a financial product in Germany. The increase in gross profit led to an EBITDA plus of more than 60% to EUR 8.1 million. Overall, I think a really good number. And for those who are interested in a little bit more in detail on FMK's contribution, the turnover of FMK was EUR 12.1 million EBITDA, EUR 3.9 million. And if you deduct this EUR 3.9 million from the EUR 8.1 million group EBITDA you can see that the profitability of our platform, ex FMK, was at EUR 4.2 million EBITDA and thus below the previous year. However, it's important to note and understand that people are postponing their investments and not cancel them. You can do without a second watch, but you can't do without a solid retirement plan. And that's why we expect a rebound as the -- once the indicators improve again. And we are very confident on that because we saw exactly the same situation during the COVID-19 crisis and the same situation at the start of the war in the Ukraine as well. Yes. As for our quarterly performance, I'm suffice to say that we were able to start a year 2026 with a typical cyclical pattern -- the first quarter was more or less on par with the fourth quarter of last year, and this provides a solid foundation for the rest of the year. As mentioned, the broker platform saw a challenging environment. The turnover of the investment business was flat. That's the reason why you don't see an investment bar here. And it was flat in the first quarter. The insurance turnover was up 2.6%, which is EUR 1 million. Others were down EUR 0.2 million. And again, the main driver of the growth was our new lead business with FMK, which was up EUR 12 million. When you look at the composition of the turnover and its development by channels, you can see that the IFA business is down in the first quarter by 4%. But this is more than compensated by a very good development of our major customers business, which is up 11%. I think a remarkable figure in this environment and the advisory segment grew by 11% -- by 7%, sorry. And again, the lead business grew by EUR 12 million. The pie chart on the right hand of the chart shows that with the integration of FMK, our turnover split by channel is now a little bit better diversified, roughly 50% by IFA business, classical FA business, 25% major clients and 20% lead business. Yes, then we go into the adviser tech numbers in detail. The revenues were up 22.4% to EUR 65.9 million. Gross profit rose by 30% better than turnover because, again, lead business has a higher margin than our classic platform business. Depreciation and amortization is on previous year's level. Personnel expenses and other operating [indiscernible] respective 16 points first because of the FMK costs that are now consolidated and second, because of the overall cost development of the platform. As a result, EBITDA increased by 62% to EUR 8.1 million and thereof, as mentioned, EUR 3.9 million FMK. The advisory segment performed well in the first quarter, 7% growth is not our target, but it's a very solid figure at this point. The gross profit rose by 6% and with the total costs increasing by approximately EUR 0.3 million. EBITDA was EUR 1.2 million and stable compared to the first quarter in 2025. Let's come to the cash flow statement. We started the year with a cash balance of EUR 36 million. Operating cash flow was a little bit smaller, decreased from EUR 6.3 billion to EUR 5.6 million. And this for 2 reasons. The first is FMK paid EUR 1.5 million in taxes. And in the first quarter 2026, we had no tax payments because of our tax losses carried forward. The second was -- the second answer or second reason is, please keep in mind that we, as JDC Group, have a negative working capital profile. That means we first received the commissions and then pay them out to our agents. So if we now receive less money due to weaker new business, which was the case in the first quarter, we still have a higher payout for the previous year's period new business, which was higher than it's normal that this has a negative effect on operating cash flow. The cash flow from investing activities amounted at a very small negative number of EUR 600,000 and cash flow from financing activities increased due to higher interest payments from EUR 500,000 to EUR 1.7 million negative. And yes, the interest -- quarterly interest for the bonds for the new Nordic bond is between EUR 1.1 million and EUR 1.2 million so that we ended up at a cash balance of the quarter of EUR 39.4 million. And cash on hand last friday was EUR 41 million before the payment for our buyback program, which will be EUR 5 million. Yes, there's always some information about bonds and the share price. We have 2 bonds outstanding, the SME bond on the German law for EUR 20 million. And you know our Nordic bond with a EUR 70 million which we issued to finance the FMK transaction. Perhaps one more comment on the Nordic bond, we attended the first time the Pardo Securities and eNode Corporate Conference Motion conference last month. And we met many of our bond investors in person for the first time. We had a very packed schedule and gave a group presentation to the large -- to a very large audience. All in all, it was a successful event for us. And we received a lot of excellent feedback from existing and prospective bond investors. So that's good news for us. And maybe one more information that is important if you look at our liabilities and our bond liabilities. We have covenants regarding the issuance of new debt, but we don't have any maintenance covenants -- so the only risk that we face here as a company is that the interest rates on the Nordic bonds are floating and could rise. We haven't hedged against this yet, because we think the costs have been too high, but this decision could change within the next weeks or months. Yes. Coming to the share price, our share price shows a long upward trend even though we experienced, you remember, a significant setback to around EUR 21 in 2026 due to investors fear about AI and its influence on insurance brokers. The share price subsequently recovered to more than EUR 26, but since then has formed again over the past 3 months, most recently this morning to EUR 21.60. We still hold 147,000 treasury shares that we purchased at an average price of EUR 19.89. And I will comment on the result of the share buyback program in some minutes. The submission period has ended and the results of the share buyback program were finalized at 11:00 a.m. this morning, so after the release of our corporate news, and that's the reason why we were not able to comment on this topic with our corporate news this morning. So we'll do this in some minutes, shareholder basis is stable. We have only changes in free float. Yes. Let's come to the spotlights. We have 4 spotlights. We want to give you some information about the peer transaction that happened in the last months, we will give you some information on the share buyback program. And then afterwards, Ramona will give you some update on FMK and AI at JDC. Yes. The peer transaction. Most of you will have read that our competitor net funds has been acquired by a private equity firm. It was [indiscernible] and it's not a secret. It's widely known in the market. that this transaction was completed at an EBITDA multiple of 17.5%. And we would like to take this opportunity to compare this to the current valuation of JDC. But before -- let me say, we are aware as management that it's not our role to explain to you investors what the company is worth. It's our task to deliver strong operational performance, but nevertheless, the difference in valuation is so striking that we at least want to bring it to your attention. Yes. Let's go into the table. You see the JDC guidance, the lower end with EUR 35 million; and the upper end with EUR 38 million. If you multiply this by 17.5, this is the variation of the peer transformers, the transaction then you end up at EUR 610 million to EUR 660 million enterprise value. If you then deduct the company's net debt, EUR 60 million. The equity value would be EUR 550 million to EUR 604 million, with 13.7 million shares that we have, and we did not deduct the treasury shares you would end up at a share price of EUR 40 to EUR 44 per share at JDC and the share price actual is 21.6% when we started the conference here. So you see there is multiple discounts between 45% and 50%. If you compare this to the peer transaction. But again, it's not our role to explain you how to evaluate, we just want to bring this to your attention. That brings me to my last chart about our share buyback program because this transaction, the NetFort transaction, coupled with the fact that the stock performance in the last 24 months has not kept pace with the company's operational performance from us as management and Supervisory Board of the JDC Group to carry out the share buyback that has just been completed this morning. We think that based on the variation of EUR 22.5 per share that an investment in JDC is highly attractive for all shareholders. of course, for the shareholders who do not want to sell their shares. And for this reason, we have decided for the first time to launch a public offer rather than a traditional ongoing share buyback program, which we did before because it was our goal to fully invest the plan EUR 5 million and not only parts. In the previous buyback programs that we ran, we were only able to buy significantly fewer shares than the maximum allowed. So we are very pleased and happy that we were able to fully exercise our public offering, and we were able to acquire 222,222 shares at a share price of EUR 22.5 per share.

And we were not long when we came out with these numbers, right? It's just like that the price divided by EUR 5 million just resulted in these 222,222.

Yes. if you would have known that it's so complex to tell this, then maybe the numbers would be different. We now own 369,335 treasury shares, representing 2.7% of the share capital very correct, we will own these numbers of shares because the transaction has to be done within the next days. And yes, we think that's a very good news for our shareholders, for me and shareholder, I think this is a good news. Yes. Then I would like to hand over to Ramona to lead you through some further information.

Thank you, Ralph. And also a warm welcome from my side. I'm very happy to be here today to give you some insights on the business is up with we have been working very diligent in the past months to bring the vision of a new shared FMK JDC insurance sales engine to life. And I'm very happy to announce that sales engine is now up and running. As a short reminder of what FMK is doing in their core business. They target customers at the very end of the such funnel and primarily focus on the customer that I'm about to buy. So they target those customers through cat marketing campaigns. So wherever the customers are right now, currently, that means search engines, social media and AI tools. And from there, they lead the customers to their own landing pages, for example, Finance Fox to get the customer data here and to create a lead. So we have launched and went live with 3 new insurance products in the past months. It's disability pension and income protection. And we chose those products because they are very profitable. You get a 4-digit commission for each share. And what's different now in the insurance business, and it used to be in the Personal Finance business that all those needs go now exclusively to us, to JDC, that's our in-house broker. We hired a new sales team that exclusively deals with those leads and convert them to sales. And we build up a new late infrastructure with them. And now this engine of FMK provides those leads to our sales team and our sales team gets to each and [indiscernible] feedback back to FMK. How is the quality of the lead so that FMK can optimize their campaigns and then further focus on more profitable clients. So now this is now up and running and every sale leads to the next sale. And this is a fully automated feedback loop. And put in a little chart here. As you can see, in January and February, we started to build up the infrastructure. And in March, it started to scale. So that the number of leads went up. In terms of sales, we already have a 6-digit potential with the leads we already created. However, in the products that we have chosen in disability, you have a need to say conversion time from 6 to 8 weeks. So why is that you usually have like 2 advisory meetings. The customer needs to get the medical records together and the insurance company has to answer the risk request. So this takes time. So as of now in May, we are getting in the sales of the leads from March. So we definitely have a time lag between lead creation and sales -- and then, of course, again, from sale to commission, we only get paid once the customer has paid the first rate. So you will see the P&L effect of the business always with a few months in delay. However, even though I said that our plans for Q1 have been currently met with 110%. And now over the year, our plans grow more and more ambitious month by month, and we are very determined to keep those plans. And so far, it's been a lot of work so far and the collaboration with FMK is going very smoothly. So I'm very happy that the engine is now up and running, and we will see the fruits of that over the next couple of months. And this is one of the things that we have already started. And if could you go to the next slide, please? But in parallel, we are also building up new income streams like the first thing was the direct channel. And the second thing is that we are also building up a platform for our brokers to buy leads and then convert them themselves. We are currently working on this lead on the lead distribution platform. We deliberately did this consecutively because we first wanted to optimize the campaigns with our internal sales team before we are selling the leads to all brokers because, of course, we want to sell high-quality leads and making sure the brokers are happy with the needs they are buying. And in this business model, we profit from the lead sale as well as from our commission shares through the platform. So -- and we are planning to go live with this lead distribution platform in July. And then the third income stream is the transfer of the existing FMK, online insurance business from one-off to recurring business. So FMK used to be a tikgiver that means FMK in the past was giving a tip to the customer about to take out insurance. And for the TIP, FMK received a one-off payment from the insurance company only. And now with our as the broker, we start to build up the new business as broker business. That means we are getting paid a running commission throughout the entire lifetime and the contract and not only the one-off payment. So I guess to know brainer, it's better that you get EUR 100 every year for the next 10 to 15 years than getting EUR 200 once. But however, in terms of revenue, this can mean that you get less revenue in the first year of being a broker than to being a person who actually is just tipping the contract. So we are doing this step by step because, of course, the insurance company is prefer to give you EUR 200 once. So we then can be transforming the business to broker business in a way to make sure that we keep our income streams running. So lot of the very detailed light coming back to a higher level market overview, and there is also good news from that point of view. The global AI market development favor the FMK business model. That is an advertisement based business model. And if you remember last year, one of the risk factors of the transaction that we consider was what if in the future, every consumer will only have a paid catty subscription, and the there'll be no more room for advertisement in searching -- so even at that time, we get that most probably the Google ad finance model will prevail. And it does so ChatGPT announced that it will expand as in other countries. And this followed the lead of Google. Goodwill themselves are already making money with that an AI overview. So I guess, we can say that the technology has changed from a classical search engine to AI, but the underlying business model stays the same. It's an ad finance business model. And the first test that FMK also did in these AI overview shows that the conversion in the AI advertisement is even better than in the search engine because it's more focused on what the user actually needs. Okay. And then just to wrap up on FMK and also a few words on our AI initiatives. We continue [indiscernible] the AI development in the German broker market. And besides our like internal efficiency gains that we achieved with II in the last 2 years, we are also putting out new AI features for our brokers on a very quick path to make their life more efficient think last time in the last earnings call, I've already introduced the tariff that in [indiscernible] that's -- that's a feature that assesses the entire portfolio of the broker and shows them optimization potential. We also already introduced the [indiscernible] companion and this is a feature that answers in real time terms and questions on the terms of conditions of insurance tariffs, of the entire German marketing dating back more than 3 decades. So it's an absolutely unique feature with a nonpublic data base that only we can access. So it's absolutely unique in the German market. So in our U.S. development is that it is an AI assistant that helps of the day-to-day service inquiries of the broker. This is now in a better phase reference and family can test, and this will go live soon as well. And we have more projects in the pipeline that we will review with appropriate marketing measures in the future. And just to give it -- to put this in a larger context, those features are really important in the ongoing consolidation of the broker market because then in the future, there will be fewer brokers with more customers and this can only work if the [indiscernible] and we take off most of the administrative tasks of their shoulders. So we want to be the favorite help of the broker in the market, and we have shown that our AI initiatives which will be the favorite partner, and we will keep on bringing new features out to help our brokers to focus on their main business, which is selling insurance.

Thank you. Yes. Again, that's what we told you the last earnings call, right? Everybody is talking about AI, but nobody is talking about the data, nobody is talking about the infrastructure, nobody's talking about the customer access. And we here at JDC, we have all 3 of them, right? We do have the deepest and strongest and biggest data bank in the German market. It's the Morgan Data Bank, with 80,000 contract entries in tariffs out of the last 20 years. So we're the only ones who can really have this comparison not only on the modern product, but also on the past product. We do have the infrastructure with the one of the most modern platforms in the market. And with FMK, we do have the customer access that all is what you need to run these agenticAI agents in the future. Yes, just to give you news on the guidance that are no news. We're definitely staying with the guidance we gave you last time. And on the next slide, that's the EUR 300 million to EUR 330 million in turnover and also EUR 35 million to EUR 38 million EBITDA. So if you see from the turnover side, EUR 75 million is already in the books. We think that there will be only temporary weakness in the new business. So if this comes just a little bit back to normal, it would be quite good guess that we reached this guidance. And also on the earnings side, we are on track and also with our key initiatives here, we want to give you the overview on our tools. I think there's a lot to come that helps the broker to be more efficient in the business and also to save costs for us internally, right? Now we are working on a number of projects that also enhance our efficiency group side. So that's all good news inside the company and the rest that the crying eye is all of our business definitely depends on the development of especially the German consumer confidence. That's the #1 topic and there, we are used, as Ralph said, some prices in their mindsets. But normally, this comes back in the course of 1 or 2 other quarters. So yes, that's so far from our side, and we're happy to take any questions you might have. And I see this Judith there are some...

[Operator Instructions] And the first one is, the capital markets has rebounded strongly in April and May, will this influence the numbers positively the rest of the year. And the second one, why was the tax rate payments so high this year when you still have tax loss carryforward you can use.

Maybe I can take the question. The connection is not [indiscernible] at the moment. Yes, of course, Andreas. It wasn't Andreas. The rebound of the capital markets in April and May will lead to higher trailer fees in the following quarters. So the answer is yes, this will have a positive influence. And the tax payments, they were high because they came from FMK and FMK does not have tax losses carried forward. Can you hear me? No, you cannot hear me.

Yes, I can hear you.

Okay. Because the colleagues are frozen on my screen. Yes, tax comes from FMK, and so we were not able to use the tax losses carried forward because our participation is 60% and not 100%. That's the answer.

Mr. Konrad, maybe you take off your camera and then the Internet connection, okay? And the Internet connection is lost at this point. Maybe one of you can take over to answer the second question. Right now, Mr. Dr. [indiscernible] I cannot hear you, even though you are unmuted maybe miss Evans, can you jump in on that.

Okay. Fine, I'm the only 1 talking. I think the second, you asked 2 questions, and I guess both were already answered by Mr. Konrad. So we can go to the next one.

As the new business market is weaker, is there any cost-cutting options you can do to offset this to support EBITDA?

Sure does anyone want to join.

No, we cannot share you yet. Maybe..

Ofcourse, we are also taking the cost side under consideration. Like when it comes to new hires, we only focus on sales, but all the other or the other or the other new hires are currently frozen. So we are taking this very seriously to making sure that we are not -- that our cost is not growing faster than our sales. That's for sure. And we started a new cost-cutting initiative where we really look into each and every cost point that we have. And considering is that something that we still really need? Or is that something that we can that we can save for the future. And this is something that has been going on this cost initiative over the past few months. So we really want to go ahead of the wave and be prepared in case that the market developments are not coming up in the future as we have planned. And yes, we are looking into that.

Thank you very much, Dr. Evans. Ladies and gentlemen, we are [indiscernible] for the technical problems on this side. The Management Board is on 3 different parts in Germany. So maybe we can go on Dr. Evans.

Yes, we can go on. I'm here now can hear again. I'm in the office in the middle of this button, but obviously, there is there were some connection problems. And Sebastian is on the equity forum where he talks to some of you maybe in person. And maybe there's some Internet problems. But we're here to answer your questions.

Thank you very much, Mr. Konrad and we're doing our best. What tax rate do you expect for 2026?

Good question. The platform ex-FMK still has take losses carried forward. So there will be very little tax rate and FMK, as they don't have tax losses carried forward, you should calculate -- but maybe in parallel, I can ask my back office that is listening to give a judgment. So I can pass the answer by the end of the call.

Thank you very much. And why do you pay the minority shareholders for the Q1 performance.

Yes, that's all form of profits [indiscernible] . So there is no duty on paying cash to minority shareholders. And for the first, for the Q1 or for the whole year, there will be 1 date of payment dividend for the year will be paid after the general assembly in 2027.

Thank you very much. And we do have an audio question from Edwin Young. Mr. Young, you can unmute yourself now. Please accept the yes.

Yes, a couple of questions from my side. first of all. And so the reluctance of the German consumer made as I said the revenues in Q4 last year and 2025 was already a little bit lower. So in Q1, it didn't really come back and Sebastian already alluded a little bit that is going to get back this year in the same pattern as it was with the Ukraine war and open how should we see that play out, let's say, Q2 that there will be more recovery or is it a Q3 figure? And to what extent do you need it for meeting the guidance.

1 Okay, as Sebastian is still on and off with this internet connection. I take this question, Edwin. To be honest, nobody knows exactly when consumer confidence comes back, what we know, again, is you can do without a second watch, but not without a proper retirement plan. So what we know is that people postpone their investments and they don't cancel them. And in general, the later this -- the rebound will be the hit will be to match the guidance. That's clear. But from today's point of view, we have a very weak environment for 4 JDC old platform, our existing platform and for the FMK business. And nevertheless, we could generate an EBITDA of EUR 8 million which is times 4, a little bit below the guidance and a turnover of EUR 75 million, which is times 4 at the lower end of the guidance. So we are still very confident that we will meet our guidance this year despite this environment.

I couldn't really hear the last part of [indiscernible]

So we are really -- we are still very confident to reach this guidance because, again, Q1 EBITDA times 4 is a little bit below the lower end of our guidance. and turnover times 4 is at the lower end of our guidance. And this -- although the environment is very hard at the moment. So we are very confident to reach our guidance this year.

I was also seeing in the presentation that the large clients that they are still growing quite fast even to double digit. That's something that would underpin the revenue growth and let's say the IFAs come behind us or around.[indiscernible]

Major clients have grown by 11%. You're right. And the IFAs are the ones that are, let's say, the ones that are the most dependent on economic environment because there is no structured system that helps everybody. You need 5 meetings tomorrow to get your goals, and they are in such phases, you can always see that the structured sales teams like our Finan team or Alberto's or others, they performed better than the normal single brokers.

Thanks, Ralph. And maybe for Ramona, for FMK so great was the first 3 months, EUR 12.1 million, as Ralph said, and I say that compares to, I think, almost EUR 12 million in the last 4 months of last year. So there's quite some growth there. Is that -- is it fair to assume, let's say, what part of the FMK revenue is really insurance related and what part is on the other business then.

Maybe Ramona, I can take the question, if you don't mind. The insurance portion is still low. As Ramona said, we are generating leads, but with the leads -- we don't pay FMK by lead, but with the commission split. And as Ramona explained, there is a time delay in 6 weeks. So there is still not a relevant number, not a relevant figure that FMP runs in insurance. And Yes, there is a growth compared to the fourth quarter, but at -- you have to know that it's not like the JDC business, a predictable business because -- the first quarter is good, and you have a weaker segment of that and a very good fourth quarter. It more depends like if interest rates are rising, then the platforms want to spend money together new customers. So it's more driven by external influences. And in general, I would say they are on a good development still very profitable. especially because there were no like this external positive effects in the first quarter. Bitcoin was down, [indiscernible] was down nobody was thinking about doing investments. And so we are very happy with the development in the first quarter.

I can imagine. And finally, on the AI part. Naturally, table but the AV Chetan all these kinds of new AI features. Is there a way that you can monetize it? Or are you already monetizing the dollars just, let's say, making more service for your clients, so to say?

We always try to monetize that so that we have a free version with like a basic feeders and then you pay for the more advanced features. But obviously, the brokers are very hesitant to pay extra for the features as of now, might change in the future. So I guess the main impact is really keeping our existing clients and brokers with us and being attractive for new young brokers to join our platform. I guess that's the main initiative here with these features and everything is an add-on. But if we just look at on what brokers pay for the additional features, then it wouldn't be profitable. So it's more like initiatives to keep and to attract new brokers. Ralph, do you want to..

And we will move on to the Q&A questions. Did you lose tenders? Are you bidding for contracts of significant size -- it's the first answer button is not able to tell us anything because this microphone is mute. So that's a very new right? So but we can hear you. We can hear you. Okay. So you can answer it if you want to.

We told you about, I think, in the last or before the last, I just remember very one tender that we did not win. The rest of the tenders we won. Is there any tenders of significant size? Definitely, yes. But then we never know when they are signed as all these very big clients take ages to sign and decide. So no promises here.

Yes. Maybe I released a feedback from our back office. The the answer was the same, very hard to calculate or to predict the tax rate. But the best guess is between 15% and 20%. Just as a feedback to this question. Thank you very much, Mr. Konrad and we're moving on. How many shares were you offered at the 22.5% price? The best thing you want to answer?

Yes. So that was surprising. So this is the first tender we took and we learned several things about the stock market. One was that there is a lot of people on arbitrage deals. So you could see that the stock price grows very fast to the 22.5% figure. That's not surprising, but was surprising that some of our very big institutions told us they put in a very big number of shares to get a small portion of it back in the tender with an expectation of sometimes lower than 6 or 5. And this is what happened. We received more than 1 million shares and happy to trade all these blocks because we do have a very strong conversation now, but people looking for very big blocks. And -- but I would be surprised of our investors that we identified are then also selling these blocks, but we'll find out in the next week.

The concrete figures are published in our website since 11:30 or something like this. And again, we would have commented on in our corporate news, but this was not possible because we received the information after our announcement.

And could you please elaborate on your plans for the shares repurchased [indiscernible] and thereby reduce the total share count? Or do you plan to retain them for other purposes such as acquisitions or employee compensation plans.

Not for employee compensation. But the other 2 options are options. We are allowed to hold them and to cancel them, and we have not decided yet, but it will not be used as like a management incentive plan. That's what we can promise. We will do with the shares, what's the best for shareholders.

What is the limiting factor for faster onboarding of rent physicians came Baan, Sparkassen and Allianz, do you expect onboarding to increase.

That's a very good question, actually. So you'll hear us being impatient about the progress of exactly these biggest clients. We see a lot of progress with the savings banks in the frontal region, but not really much in [indiscernible] regions. And it's just some movement in the hands as we hear from the Board that they are sometimes really happy with the projects, especially our retail well. We bode the number of banks, right? But from 5 to 20 and having 800 , there's a long way to go. Yes, we don't see that there is limited factors, but we also don't have any big idea how we can really improve the progress and increase the speed of these projects as we basically are in very good project meetings, but it obviously takes some time. Do we expect on board in [indiscernible]. Yes. So the number of savings banks on the platform is high, but it's on the end until you convert clients at the very point of sale in the branch, and this is something we have to get too fast.

Thank you. And with net funds getting bought at double the valuation of JDC at what time would you consider putting JDC up for sale to get some same multiple? and with stock below the 22.5 and more than 1.2 million shares tendered in the program. Are you considering doing another tender?

Yes. Number one, it's actually you as investors having to tell you at what price you would sell, right? Obviously, there is a different gap, a huge gap in valuation and we always said, Ralph and I, it's not on us to know the best of the world. So if an attractive offer is coming in. We'll ask you all obviously, right? We will not be glut whatsoever. So yes, that's an open market. And -- but it is not -- well, you can ask us as investors and as we think that we will get to reach this EUR 1 billion in valuation, but not now, but in some years out, right? You also have to consider that money now might be better than money later, but definitely not at the current price right?

And Sebastian it's important to posting it's important to point out that from my point of view, the difference in valuation is not because [indiscernible] is a better company. We think it's different, of course. The difference is driven by the fact that private markets at the moment, evaluate much higher than public markets. I can remember times it was different. That was the reason why a lot of companies want to do go public, but now it's different. And the truth is somewhere in between. But maybe not at the valuation that we have today.

Yes. And the second part of the question, whether we are considering doing another tender. Well, obviously, that's very new information for us, right, came in Friday night and now this morning, obviously, right, if first, we have to talk to the investors that would give and that we identified, whether they would like to sell it all because that's not so clear at the moment. And then yes, obviously, we think in comparison to buying other platforms at 7.5x corporate commercial brokers at 16 to 18x or private brokers at 11x, 12x, it's the cheapest target in the market. And just by your own interest, it's a very good idea to spend our money in our own shares.

Thank you very much. And with an eye on the time, we have 8 questions left in our chat works. I will vastly read them. High congratulations on a solid quarter in the midst of market [indiscernible] first one, there has been a lot of talk about market headwinds and uncertainty today, which macro assumptions, if any, are built into reaching in the 2026 guidance. Second, how much of the March leads spike is campaign optimization, although early is the expected LTV still up to expectations -- and third, speaking of capital allocation, would you consider additional bids in 2026.

I think to answer number 3. That's very short. Number one, yes, when we put out the guidance we just lived through the Q4, which was not good in new business as well. So yes, some of the headwinds are calculated and we could not foresee the Iran war, unfortunately. But -- it's not something that we are afraid of. So I think we're right on track to reach our guidance in '26 and we are very relaxed on that. And number two, I give to Ramona and Ralph.

Its both. It's -- we increased the number of campaigns, and we are also optimized campaigns already. And ATV's -- but you mean with that provision, but we are still within our plans, and it's pretty much, as I said, we are like 110% of our plants that we have achieved. So we are so within the expected results.

Thank you very much. you have the goal to reach EUR 1 billion market cap. The share price is weak and the market is not willing to increase the valuation multiple through what measures could you grow more than forecasted.

Yes, that's a question on consumer confidence in the future. So we calculate this goal, but just extrapolating our growth figures, right, if you like, take 15% growth for another 4, 5 years, you will see that you come to EUR 500 million plus in turnover and also then to EUR 60 million EBITDA. Obviously, at an 8.5x multiple, then the EUR 1 billion is far out. But yes, but then if you have like, let's say, what was normal platform multiples until now or what private pays that's the way to go, right? So the measures are -- take all these AI efforts that make our business much more efficient and a huge cost saving effect and then top it up with a much faster way to get across to the client by not just having 500 people in call centers calling people, but have a bot calling 40,000 clients in a minute right? There's so much new potential in these new tools, which we will show you once it's in reach.

Maybe we can ask one question regarding the [indiscernible] because the rest of the remaining questions are already answered, I think. Maybe let's focus on this one.

Okay, regarding the coming [indiscernible] in Germany, will this pose a chance for FMK to sell leads to banks or a threat to other pension margins?

Well, maybe I'll take this will be big, right? This is one of these campaigns Ralph was talking about everybody, everybody, all these need brokers, all the fund refund industry that has now access to which was formally a realm of insurance companies now wants to attract the client to have them for other products as well. So this for FMK will be very, very big. My sentiment for the rest of the business, while there was the star product in the market that was not sold extensively in -- this also goes for the other insurance product. There will be some positive effect also for the rest of the platform. But for FMK, this could be the thing for the next year.

And if I may just add, FMK is ready to go. All the landing pages are already created. So even you can buy it only from the first of January 2027. You can already put your data in there and make sure you are the first ones to actually able to buy that sort of product. So they are ready to go right now. There's very little interest in charging it as was already pool, but of course, the next time it's going to be in the news or at the latest at the end of the year, we are ready to get in all the customer interest that there will be.

As a spotlight for the next morning call because I think it's a very interesting what are the different effects on our platform, FMK very positive broker platform, maybe a little bit of question mark, but we will give you the answers, and there's a lot of potential because what most of you might not know is that insurers who offer this very cheap [indiscernible]-- they will also offer the same with higher commissions and let's say, try to sell this. So there's also a very good chance for the rest of the platform. So it's -- the question was, is the chance of a threat? It's definitely more chance than -- thank you very much and very good last words.

With that, we have come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you very much for your interest in the JDC Group [indiscernible] we thank you also to the Management Board for your presentation and your time. Shall you have any further questions at a later date, please feel free to reach out to Investor Relations, of course. I wish you all a successful day around the world. And with that, I'm handing over to Sebastian for some final remarks.

Yes, thank you, Judith. So again, we apologize for the technical problems. That's the first time that happened. We'll find the sourcing will not happen again. We hope Yes. So thank you for your trust. And yes, it's challenging times, but you can see that the base of our business that's the recurring business that's growing. That's the core for our future growth, right? This is going as it was, and it's 82% of our business. So we are not afraid of some weaknesses in a temporary new business phase because we always know this comes in waves. Normally, these are 1 or 2 quarters. And then at the third and fourth quarter, this may catch up. So we will see better times ahead. And this also gives us an impression that, yes, the shares stay cheap. And we will definitely is cost buying back more shares and also try everything that furthers our growth. We see a lot of potential in all these AI figures, as Ramona showed you, I think we are market leaders in developing these tools based on the data bank and the infrastructure. So Yes, stay tuned for more good news from our platform. And yes, we will do our best to achieve our goals. This year, we are very positive to reach the guidance and also for the years out there's a lot a lot of growth ahead. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.