JDC Group AG (JDC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the earnings call regarding the H1 figures for 2026 of the JDC Group AG. The company's CEO, Dr. Sebastian Grabmaier; and CFO, Ralph Konrad; as well as 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 said, I hand over to you, Mr. Grabmaier.

Yes. Thank you, Mara, for the warm welcome. Also welcome from our side from the Management Board of JDC. You can see it's a challenging time, but again, we could deliver a record half year and also a very good Q2 2026. So my name is Sebastian, Co-Founder and CEO of JDC Group. And with me in the call is my partner, Ralph, and my colleague, Ramona. So Ralph said hello. Ralph here, responsible for finance, M&A and IT and Ramona.

Hi, everyone. I'm Ramona, and I'm the COO and responsible for the operations of the JDC Group.

Yes, you can see that all our KPIs are going just one direction up, right? So obviously, we are a platform company. We are taking in all the data of all the product companies that's more than 250 insurance groups, the investment platforms, the mortgaging banks. So now we serve about 2.5 million customers with more than 400 employees. We have basically every financial product in the market that has some quality available on the platform. And obviously, now we are quite engaged for the last 2.5 years to have more and more [ AI tools ] supporting our intermediary clients and also our [ end clients ] via our allesmeins app. So you can see that, obviously, the economic environment in Germany is still challenging. You can see that especially the consumer climate is not up again. We have some bad disappointments that we live through in Germany by our government. I think it's from all democracy in the world, still the least loved government with like 16% support rate and more than 75% now are not content with the work of the government. So it means that the atmosphere, the political surrounding is not really positive for consumer business. And you see some effects of the deindustrialization of Germany in the labor market. So you see that it's still on a very high -- so employment is still on a very high level and still record level, but still the quotas of the unemployed that goes up a little bit. And also the macroeconomic environment is not really giving us tailwinds. Inflation is still up due to high energy prices. So in the insurance market, capital markets are rather flattish even if we saw some record highs also in the German [ DAX ]. So geopolitics are a burden, and that's always interesting and that the very famous German angst that wars wherever they are, are first tipping German economy more than any other, even of countries that are closer. So overall, the environment is quite difficult, but still we're very positive that we could deliver very good results against the backdrop of these factors. Yes, you can see on the broker platform, there is -- there was some pressure on new orders. We show you that we could have a turnaround here from minus figures in new orders, we are now positive figures, we show you in a minute. But still the high-volume business is not really back in the market. So especially life insurance and pension planning, there is a little delay, and we see that this will go up by Q4 at the latest. But right now, it's still quite low, and this is always corresponding in higher cancellation rates as obviously, the cancellations of the past come to lower standards or volumes this year. And this is also then having some impact on the turnover figures as we're always reporting net figures. And also the investment assets, they go up and up. That's still volatile, but this is rather a positive impact right now. And on the lead platform, we see that the search volume for financial products is at a historical low. Even if the overall search volume is going up, financial products are not in favor of the consumers right now. And also this means that the acquisition cost for contracts is increasing. So leads are becoming more expensive. And this means also that there's some pressure on the lead market as well. And obviously, then the marketing appetite for financial institutions is quite low, but I think this will turn around, especially we talk more about the Altersvorsorgedepot. So the new pension regulation of the German government that will start January 1 and will lead to a big wave of marketing euro spend starting after the summer break. So against this backdrop, again, I think we're doing quite fine on the platform. So the number of orders that we had to report the first time in many years, a minus in Q1, we had the turnaround. So over the first half year, we're now at a plus 5%. So that's coming back. But again, not the high-volume orders, but a lot of [ P&C ] orders. Here on the number of contracts could be misleading. The reason for this little minus here is we did some quality measures. That means we have a new filter that we use to bring down the number of revocations. So basically, the customer initiate a transfer contract and then had a withdrawal period and these revocations hurt the insurance companies as obviously, it's quite an effort. And then if the client revokes it, then the transfer has to be reversed. So we put in some filters in here that we just passed through contracts with a very high probability of being transferred in the end to the insurance companies. And this does not have an economic effect in the end because we lose the transfers that are revoked anyway. So this economic is rather a flat number. And -- but it's very good for the long-term view is that the number these figures that we show on the volume of the assets under management is up 18%. That means the trailer fees we receive on investment will be up considerably in the next quarters to come. And also the annual net premium, which is a direct KPI for all the recurring revenue that we are receiving in the next quarters is up 11%. So now we're quite proud as a management team that we can show that all the little slag or downturn in the -- or [ pothole ] in the new business, we can more than compensate by the recurring income that is also promising more income in the future. And then you can see this is a new record half year. It's not only the best first half year we ever had, it's also topping the second half year in 2025. So turnover is up 18.7%. And then Ralph will in a minute, explain the pro forma figures that we're showing because we did a little different. We're basically treating the accruals by performance fees a little bit different this year than last year. So there's a EUR 4 million effect there, but we'll also go into detail here. And also EBITDA is up almost 70%, so very good numbers. But obviously, development is mostly driven by FMK. So FMK just performed as it should. We have very nice figures also not only in turnover, but also EBITDA just as planned. We're very happy here. And also even if our platform is still suffering, as I said, from this crisis environment, yes, we are at a very good path to develop the platform further. And again, new business will be back into Q4. So we're really happy that we also can stay at our guidance as you are used to.

Yes. No, I explained what Ralph explained a minute ago. When our customers -- our brokers go to their customers, they can arrange contracts, asset management contracts with performance fees. Means that the customer pays the performance fee if the performance of the depot is more than X or Y or better than a hurdle that we calculate the performance fees. We manage that, we process that, we pay that out. So it's part of our P&L. And in the first half year, we had accruals for this performance fee of EUR 4 million first half year 2025 and EUR 600,000 in EBITDA. And although the market develops very good, you see the line is the MSCI development, and we expect that the performance fees will be higher than in 2025. We nevertheless decided not to do the accruals in this year. Because as Sebastian mentioned, we have this geopolitical uncertainties and performance fees pay day is the 31 of December. And yes, this is our decision for cautious reasons. And that's the reason why we show the figures pro forma. We just deduct in 2025, EUR 4 million in turnover and EUR 600,000 in EBITDA. Having said this, let's go into the numbers. The turnover grew by 25.5% to EUR 68.6 million in the second quarter, 22.8% in the first half year to EUR 143.5 million. You can see here what Sebastian mentioned that new business is coming back. The growth is increasing growth in the second quarter is better than in the first quarter and better than in the total first half of the year, especially in Adviser Tech segment, we grew by 30.6% to EUR 58.3 million, 26.1% to EUR 124 million in the first half year, leading us to a gross profit growth of 29% in the second quarter and 26.7% in the first half year. EBITDA development is very nice from our point of view, a plus of more than 100% in the second quarter from EUR 2.9 million to EUR 6.4 million. And the development in the first half year is with 82.7% also nice. from EUR 7.9 million to EUR 14.5 million. If you are interested in the contribution of FMK here, we want to be transparent on this. It's a turnover in Q2 of EUR 12 million and an EBITDA contribution of [ EUR 3.5 million ]. And in the first half year, it's a turnover contribution of EUR 22 million and an EBITDA contribution of around EUR 7 million. Okay. Let's look at the development by quarter. And what we can see here is that 2026 shows a very normal seasonal pattern so far. We're starting with a good Q1. This was a record Q1, as you remember, then even if Q2 is also the strongest Q2 in JDC's history, it's weaker than the first quarter. Now we are in the summer season. We expect a weaker Q3 than Q4. And in this year, especially a very good fourth quarter for 2 reasons. The first is that, as already mentioned, new business is coming back. And the second reason is that we expect relevant effects from the regulation I already pull on both the broker platform and FMK, and Ramona will give you some more detail on this later on. Yes, how is the composition of turnover growth, the EUR 120.9 million became EUR 143.5 million. Main contribution was our new segment rating comparison lead business by EUR 22.6 million and thereof the majority, of course, FMK. Advisory contributed 8%. The major customers contributed 9% and we have still a weaker IFA business, better than in the first quarter, but still weaker than in the previous year with a minus of 4%. And if you look at the turnover split, 51% now is coming from the IFA business, more than 25% from major customers and in the meantime, more than 20% by our new -- yes, segment rating comparison and lead business. Let's go to the Adviser Tech numbers. Advisory grew by 30.6% in the second quarter to EUR 58.3 million, which is a growth of 26.1% over the first half year. Both first half year and second quarter are record high numbers, as mentioned. The gross profit increased by approximately 40%, which is a very good development to EUR 14.8 million in Q2 and in the first half year by 34.7% to EUR 31.8 million. The costs are up a little bit, 4% in depreciation, 5% in personnel and 13% in other operating expenses. And the reason is mainly that we invest a lot in IT. The depreciation is increasing because of the cost of the IT platform. Personnel expenses are up mainly because of the development in our IT team, the AI team, and it's the same with other operating expenses. There, we have a second issue, and that is that we increased the spending -- marketing spending for the promotion of the JDC platform in the broker market. Yes, EBITDA was up 100% from EUR 2.4 million to EUR 5.9 million in the second quarter and by 10% (sic) [ 90% ] from EUR 7.4 million to EUR 14.1 million in the first 6 months. Yes. Advisory shows also a stable development, a good development. Revenue grew by 9.4% in the first -- in the second quarter and in the first half year by 8% from EUR 26.7 million to EUR 28.8 million. The gross profit developed in the same direction, leading us to an EBITDA development of 11.9% in the second quarter from EUR 1.3 million to EUR 1.5 million and from EUR 2.5 million to EUR 2.7 million in the first 6 months, which is a growth of 6.3%. Yes, let's come to the cash flow statement, which is next, I think, yes, we started the year with a cash of EUR 36 million. We could show very good development in operational cash flow in the first half year with EUR 8.5 million, EUR 2 million more than in the previous year, driven by the operational EBITDA development. We had a very small investment activities with minus EUR 1.2 million, which is EUR 1.4 million less than in the previous year. But we have a high negative cash flow from financing activities with EUR 8.4 million. And the reason is that 2 reasons. The first is you might remember, we had this tender offer where we bought back 220,000 shares or 222,000 shares for in total EUR 5 million. That's part of this number. And the second is we issued our Nordic bond with a size of EUR 70 million in August 2025. So the interest payments for the Nordic bond are included in the first half year 2026, but not included in the first half year 2025. And then we ended up at a cash balance of EUR 35 million. And when I look at it, I thought that's not a very high number, but the reason is for -- if you look at the liquidity curve of JDC, end of June is the low point over the year because the trailer fees for the second quarter, they will not -- they start in July and August. And as of today, I just looked into the accounts 2 hours ago, we are at like EUR 45 million cash on hand in the group. Yes, we have no changes in our bond structure. We still have our German Mittelstand bond that is due 2028 and the Nordic bond that is due 2029. The Mittelstand's bond has a coupon of 7% and the Nordic bond has a coupon of now 6.69% is the rolling coupon is Euribor plus 450 basis points. And as Euribor has increased a little bit, our coupon has increased a little bit if you compare this to previous calls that we showed you. We have call options on both bonds, but no decisions made there yet. Here, the development of the share price on the long term, I think we can say it's still a long-term positive trend. We are not so happy with the development of the share price over the last 20 months or 24 months because share price did not follow the operational performance of the group. Now we saw a little turnaround at the price of [ 20 share ] price going up again. Yes, we're working hard on operational performance, and I hope that will show up in the share price as well. The shareholder base is still stable. No changes. Management has 11%, Provinzial VKB 6%, Great-West 27%. What we now know is that Teslin added some shares and are now at more than 7%. So that's new for us. So we will change the chart here. And we hold 369,000 treasury shares on our hand. Ramona?

Thank you, Ralph, and a very warm welcome also from my side here. And building on the financial results you've just seen, I'd like to share 3 operational highlights that help bring those numbers to life. And hopefully, we also provide some perspectives on the opportunities we have ahead. First topic is that we believe -- just go on Yes. The first topic is that we think that we are very well positioned for the Altersvorsorgedepot, that's Germany's and new state subsidized private retirement accounts in German, a lot easier to say. Second is that FMK is becoming a visibility asset in AI-driven search environment, and we brought some numbers to illustrate that for you. And the third spotlight that we'd like to share to you with you today is AI. And I guess, operational excellence remains a key driver of our scalability. We have achieved significant efficiency improvement through AI over the last years, and we would like to share some examples with you. about that. Now to next one. Thank you. So Altersvorsorgedepot, or our non-German audience, the Altersvorsorgedepot is the new state-subsidized private retirement account in Germany. It's launching on January 1 of next year, and it's going to replace the old [ RISA ] pension. And there are 2 broad groups of product providers that offer solutions for this. And on the one side, the insurance carriers and on the other side, banks and especially also the new Neo banks. And the good news is regardless of which route the customer takes, JDC stands to benefit. So in Germany, the traditional way of building retirement savings is going through insurance products. Because they also cover the longevity risk. And if a customer decides to go that route and work with the broker, that's just our bread and butter business. So there's nothing new there for us really. But if the customer decides to take out a brokerage account at the bank, which she can do in this new scheme, then we can benefit through our subsidiary FMK as banks and especially Neo banks are among its largest customers. So that's -- the good news is that as a company, we are in a unique position to win in both scenarios. And then let's just shed some light on how we support our brokers to become ready for AVD. We are doing a lot of trainings right now to educate our brokers and those trainings are in very high demand. Our Head of Broker sales just wrote me a couple of hours ago that the last training yesterday had 400 attendants. It's a very long time that we have trainings that were so much in demand as this one. So the entire market is really discussing this topic and everybody is getting ready for this. And as well, we also provide tools for the brokers to compare on the one side, like what's more attractive, the Riester or the new AVD. So for some people, it makes sense to close a retirement plan this year before the new AVD comes into place. But it also helps to decide, should I switch plans or is it reasonable for me to take out a new plan. So we have built some sophisticated tools to help the broker to really give a good consultation to the end customers. So -- but that's just a little bit business as usual. And the second part is new to us, [ Gal ]. So now we also have FMK in our group and FMK is also already ready for the for the demand, all the websites, they are already live. So even if you can buy the product only in January, now you can get all the information you need, all the content on all the websites is already live. And starting next month, there will also be a dedicated calculator available on all their websites. So FMK is prepared as well and the market potential is clearly substantial, as you can see also on the left side. And of course, our ambition is to capture the largest possible share of this opportunity. So again, insurance and banks and JDC stands to profit in both ways. We cannot really tell the customer which way to go. The customer decides in the end. But in this scenario, we are in a pretty unique position in the market to benefit either way. So that's about the RVD. The next highlight I would like to share with you are the developments in the AI-driven searches. And now with the help of external providers, we are able to bring greater transparency to FMK's visibility in the large language model-based searches. We all know that FMK is already highly successful in the traditional [ VIA ] environment. And now we can also see that FMK is very well positioned in the emerging AI-driven ecosystems. So -- and for personal finance-related prompt in ChatGPT and Google AI, in 70% of the answers, one of FMK portals appears as the set source. So very impressive result and puts FMK also well ahead of the competitors, as you can see here compared to Finanztip or even CHECK24. And there are several reasons for this, and just let me highlight 2 of them. The first of them is that FMK provides the financial comparison content for major media brands such as [ Handelsblatt and FAZ ], et cetera. And these brands, of course, have built like journalistic credibility over decades. So they are very well presented in the training of the ecosystems of Google and OpenAI. So FMK is recognized as an expert and not as an advertiser. And I guess that's very difficult to replicate. That's the one reason for why FMK is so successful in the AI tools. And the second one is also that FMK has developed a fully AI-ready content infrastructure that makes it very easy for these LLMs to access, understand and process its content. So of course, there are tools like the content of FMK. So right now, in Germany, right now, in Germany, the LLM tools are not getting monetized yet. So there is no advertisement. So we expect this going to be changed with ChatGPT over the next couple of years -- years, weeks. So we expect ChatGPT to be the first one in Germany to launch advertisements. And I guess FMK will also be here in the full position to be one of the first partners who are able to get that volume in the market. Now, [indiscernible]. Thank you. And the first spotlight is on AI. And over the last couple of earnings call, we have presented AI tools, especially designed for brokers. And today, I would like to show you how AI is also helping us to scale our core platform business. I brought 2 examples and [indiscernible] first example is contract transfers. And in 2023, we processed fewer than 400,000 transfers. And this year, we are expecting about 720,000 transfers. In other words, we are processing almost twice as many transactions as before. And not only has the team managed this without any additional staff, but we even have reduced the number of FTEs by about 15%. So -- and overall, as a result, our personnel cost per unit has declined by almost 50%. So I will tell you the technical details on how we did this. But one important thing is that whenever we use AI solutions, they are not stand-alone tools in the back end. They are fully integrated. And I guess this is also why they deliver technical results. That's about the contract transfer the next topic that I brought with you is also something very nice. It's the rate of straight-through processing, or dark processing, or Dunkelverarbeitung, as we call it in Germany. It's a little bit the holy grail of the operations. So that means that from end-to-end, there is no manual interference. The entire process is completely done in a fully automated way. So when in 2023, our processing ratio was with documents 88%, which is already a very high number. And now in just a few years, we have raised this to 94%. And obviously, you can imagine moving from 0% to 20% automation is relatively straightforward, but improving from 88% to 94% is a completely different challenge as every additional percentage point requires a very high level of sophistication in the automation capabilities. So we are very proud about that development and happy to proceed further in the next couple of years. So before I hand back to Sebastian, I'd like to thank our colleagues across the entire group because behind every number we have presented today are people who work very hard and very diligent and embrace all the new technologies that we have and the new way of working. So thank you guys very much for your work, and it's a pleasure to work with you. Now back to you, Sebastian.

Yes. Thank you very much, Ramona. As everybody can hear, as she's not only Chief Operating Officer, but also Head of HR. Thank you, Ramona. Yes. Coming to the guidance, obviously, we have an ambitious guidance out there. We still expect turnover to reach EUR 300 million to EUR 330 million and therefore, EBITDA to grow to EUR 35 million to EUR 38 million. I think we are still on track, especially against the backdrop that we see this rebound in the new business. We see that quarter-on-quarter, we will have more new business. And then in Q4, when all the marketing euros come in, not only will this profit benefit FMH directly, we expect their best months to come, especially November, December when all these marketing campaigns are in full force, but also this will have a positive effect on the rest of our sales channels, especially the broker channel because the overall appetite for financial products, especially retirement planning products will come back if this is in the news in all kind of advertising campaigns. People will think about their pension plans, especially in the months which are focused to these topics, especially November, December. So we think that especially this drive towards return-oriented investment in ETF products will give all these retirement markets a strong boost. And even if these -- some of the market share goes to standard products, as you might know, the state made a regulation that for every kind of product, there has to be a standard product with a very low commission rate. But this is only like the start of the advice or advisory job because then obviously, as Ramona pointed out, the client has to decide whether the old Riester regime is better for him or the new AVD regime is better for him that depends mostly on the number of kids you're subsidizing. But then also the standard product is very simple and basic and basically ties you into a very low key investment product as compared to other products that give you also cover longevity risk where the payments do not just stop at 85 years, but give you payments over until your lifetime, for example, or give you a guarantee on your payments that you pay into the system. So we think there's a lot of demand for advice ahead, and this will benefit all kinds of sales channels, especially also the broker channel. So this is why we think we can stay with this guidance, and we just like run through these a little bit drought times that we see now. And then we're looking forward to have a really good and thriving year in business 2026. Right now, we are at the end of our presentation, but we're happy to take all questions that you might have. And I could see Mara, that there were some first questions already.

Yes. There are also a lot of risen hands right now. So first of all, thank you very much for your presentation. And ladies and gentlemen, now it's your turn. We are opening the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] I would say we are starting with Mr. [indiscernible]. [Operator Instructions] Can you please say something because we cannot hear you at the moment.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Fantastic. Yes. I have a couple of questions, if I may. First of all, I would like to discuss a little bit the contribution of FMK. Is my interpretation correct that the new segment rating comparison and business lead business, is that the contribution of FMK then in the first half of the year? Or is it...

Not totally, but most of it, yes. Yes, we have some other -- the turnover of MORGEN & MORGEN and our software fees that we are also included. But as mentioned in the first half year, we have around EUR 22 million of turnover from FMK.

Can you also say something on the EBITDA contribution?

Yes, I did it during the presentation. But again, EBITDA contribution in the first half year is around EUR 7 million. And in Q2, turnover contribution was EUR 12 million and EBITDA was EUR 3.5 million.

Then I admit I have a little bit of difficulties to understand the guidance. So you say that it will probably be at the lower bound of the guided corridor. At the same time, you say, I think with all good right that you expect a positive effect from the government-sponsored retirement product. Is that because of these accruals that you will not book this year that you lowered the guidance a little bit? Or is it really that you see here the risk of, as you alluded to, the macroeconomic climate, et cetera. So the question would be, is it because of the accruals or more technical item or is it because of overall climate, et cetera?

I think the important point is that we did not lower the guidance, right? It's just that we give the expectation that we see this a little bit slowdown in the new business. But as you said, right, we do hope that the performance fees come in, and there's a very strong now, yes, also sentiment that this will all go right here, right? So if the world capital markets stay as they are, there will be a higher single-digit number of millions coming in as turnover and also almost EUR 1 million in EBITDA from what we see right now. But obviously, right, I don't want to hear end of the year, if something goes wrong, that how could you book it in the first half year if it was not a done deal, right? So it's just a number of -- yes, just a question of precaution, as Ralph said, and we'll get there eventually. And also, we think that, yes, the new business will come back, as we said, due to the regulation. So yes, happy to keep the guidance as it is. But obviously, like if we have now EUR 143 million out of EUR 300 million to EUR 330 million, right, then we want to be cautious and say like, well, it might not be in the upper end.

But maybe, Sebastian, let me add to the question that if you calculate very easily with the rule of 3, the best rule and you use the pro forma figures 2025. So on the deduction of the EUR 4 million turnover and EUR 600,000 EBITDA, you end up within the guidance. So there was another question in the chat if we think that it would be now more difficult to reach the guidance. We are still confident to reach the guidance because of this easy calculation, of course, and the effects that we explained. The first is we see new businesses coming back. We have this big Altersvorsorgedepot at the end of the year that will drive the business. And we have all these possible performance fee that we did not accrue now in the first half year, and that's the reason why we still keep the guidance.

That's understood. And my last 2 questions were probably for Ramona. The first one on AVD, on the AVD product. You outlined 2 scenarios where how customers can get to this product. Which scenario would be the better one for JDC, is the traditional broker model? Or the one over the bank and then using FMK for this route to the market? And second question on that, the strong performance of the FMK portals in AI searches, how sustainable would you think that is? I mean we learned from the search machines, Google, et cetera, that this can change very quickly. How sustainable is that now this very strong performance of FMK and AI portals?

Thank you very much for your questions. As I said, we are very open to both lines of business. And it very much depends on, let's say, on the marketing budgets of the large Neo banks. We think that they are going to invest a lot of they are going to invest a lot to get the entire like first wave of [ AVDs ] into their portfolio. So it's not really -- like for us, it's both sides, it's okay because both sides are one-off business in the insurance as well as in the banking segment. So I'm actually very -- I don't have a strong preference on what the customer decides to do. And in the end, it's also -- it's very hard to steer a customer towards a certain channel. CHECK24 has tried to do that for a very long time and still like less than 10% of German insurance business is online. So in my -- if you ask me, what I think is going to happen is that the customer behavior is very steady in Germany and customers are afraid that they live longer than they have money, and that's one of the big pluses for the insurance company side. So I don't think that customer behavior will change drastically. So I feel that the majority of the business will probably go to the insurance business and banking business is an add-on. But we will see in the future how the customer decides. That's for your first question. And the other one, how sustainable is the AI progress. Right now, the LLM business is a little bit like. So of course, there can be changes. However, I don't think that the -- the progress and the advanced stage that FMK is in right now, it's not very easy to go there. And as I said, FMK is operating under brands like [indiscernible] and [indiscernible], and they have a very long journalistic reputation. And it's very hard for a newcomer to get the same reputation as the largest economic newspapers in Germany. So I'm pretty sure that they do have an advantage here, and it's very difficult for any other newcomers to get into the business in that way.

And, if I may add, it's important to understand that disadvantage is not capitalized yet because ChatGPT does not offer advertisement in Germany. LLM advertising is now beginning all over the world. And we hope someday in the future, maybe this year, the ChatGPT will open the advertising in Germany and then FM will be there. And the high ratio of being the source with 70% will be the reason that we will make relevant turnovers there.

We have another raise in hand by Mr. Fuhrberg. I just sent you an invitation to [indiscernible].

Yes, I hope you can hear me.

Yes.

Another question on guidance, please. You mentioned that the performance fees that you have not accrued for in H1, but can you clarify whether those are already included in your guidance and by how much?

Good question. Yes, they are included in the guidance. And they -- I think we calculated in the business planning at a comparable level of the last year. No. We have calculated them lower, but I'm not sure. Sorry, Marius. I have to deliver this afterwards. I can give you the detailed numbers later on.

No worries. Second question on the AVD as well. I also see a big shift here when it comes to pension savings. And you mentioned that you probably will see a lot of it going to insurances. Do you have already an idea on monetization from those AVD accounts that we will see? Do you think that you will get a one-off fee once the customer signs a contract? Do you plan to participate in the ongoing payments? Or what is your view on that?

It's very hard to tell as the market is marveling what's going to happen. I think there will be some market share for all the new brokers and the new banks, especially the younger clients, obviously, right, because they are agnostic whether they buy insurance or a capital markets product, and they will rather turn to ETFs, but that's not a client yet. So I think that's rather, as Ramona said, an add-on to the existing business. So it doesn't really matter if insurance companies cannot conquer a lot of these new clients' businesses. And then if you look at the insurance side, then the big question is how much will be covered by a standard product that is really low in cost and therefore, does not give you big one-offs. We rather think that, as Ramona pointed out, that people want to go -- if they want to go to insurance products, they do not want to -- the payments to end at age 85. I think that's a threat to especially a lot of female clients because obviously, if you're young today, you can expect to live 90 plus, and it will be very hard to have a pension system that cuts you off when you need it most, when you have the most expense for your health build. So I think that people will rather go to one guaranteed or 80% guaranteed product and then longevity products that also pay 85% plus. And in these products, and that's important to know, the commission is not capped or limited or the costs are not limited. Therefore, we expect that on the advisory side and the broker side, maybe 75% to 80% of all business will go into quite conservative or similar products as we see in the markets today. And only like a small portion will go to standard products and a small portion will go to capital markets or sole capital markets products. But obviously, all these views are very difficult as they are far out in the future, we will see how it comes out. But on the other hand, we talked about this, we are not expecting this huge big party where turnover triples next year. We don't see this either. But in the end, having more market because there's more consumers asking for retirement plans and have a little bit lower market share, I think this will give like a decent plus development for the broker markets.

Sebastian, could you shortly state on commission issues regarding the R4D. There was a question in the chat that commissions, are they going down with the R4D or not?

Yes. So we expect that the -- on the -- obviously, the standard state product has a lower cost base, right? And if you see a 1% cap per year in the cost base, there's not much one-off for commissions left. But obviously, in an advisory world where most of the products are not the standard product, but are products that are, let's say, more modern life insurance products, we expect the commission rates to go down a little bit, let's say, 15% to 20%, but then there will be a lot of more market that overcompensates for a little bit lower commission. That's our best guess here.

All right. And do you expect this to be a more recurring fee or a one-off fee?

It will also -- so what we could learn from the last reforms is that the -- especially the broker market is very, very lazy to change. And this is what also the insurance companies learned and now what in the talks we have with them, what they offer is that the model is quite the same, only that the commission rates are slightly lower. That's also what we're expecting.