Julius Bär Gruppe AG (BAER) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome to today's interim management statement and the update to our strategy. As announced with our full year results, I will be providing an overview of our headline numbers and our strategy, looking ahead until the end of this decade and very specifically on what we will envisage for the '23 to '25 strategic cycle. I'm joined by our designated CFO, Evie Kostakis. It's her first presentation to this audience today, and I'm very pleased to share the floor together with her. She will take you deeper through the financials before we wrap up with a Q&A session. Let me start by diving into the interim management statement we released this morning. During the first 4 months of 2022, Julius Baer has showcased the strength and resilience of its business model. We have delivered an outstanding gross margin of close to 85 basis points, a very strong result both in quantitative and qualitative terms, with continued strong recurring fees and a rise in client activity-driven income. While the Fed's rate increase in March came too late to have a meaningful impact on revenue generation by the end of April, we remain excellently positioned to benefit from a higher interest rate environment. Our cost-to-income ratio at 63% remains significantly below our target of 67%, thanks to our ongoing cost consciousness and the structural changes and cost management measures introduced since 2020. The pretax margin is going strong at 30 basis points, up from 24 in the second half of '21 and again above our target range of 25 to 28 basis points. Assets under management are down to CHF 457 billion due to negative market performance and client deleveraging in the first months of this year. Let me give you some additional color on the development of assets under management. The net new money outflows of CHF 2.7 billion we report today were driven by pronounced deleveraging of credit positions by clients, especially in Asia. This deleveraging occurred in line with our cautious investment stance of ensuring clients preserve financial firepower for further reinvestment. And these outflows were partially yet not completely offset by continuous positive inflows in Europe, particularly in Germany and the United Kingdom. The deleveraging was concentrated among a small number of very large clients. We lost no clients and no relationship managers. Looking at the latest developments, we see that the deleveraging has peaked in March and accelerated since then. And with the business dynamics we're experiencing in many of our geographies right now, we currently expect that flows will return to a normalized pattern in the second half of the year. Also affecting our overall assets under management, but not net new money, were the divestment of Wergen & Partner, a small independent wealth manager in Switzerland; and the reduction of our stake in NSC Asesores in Mexico in the first quarter. The effect of this streamlining on assets under management was CHF 5 billion. And furthermore, we have reclassified CHF 0.8 billion of assets under management to assets under custody in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, about which I'm going to talk right now. While we are observing the many implications of the war in Ukraine with a very deep level of concern, I want to reiterate the fact that Julius Baer is operating in a very stable and in a very safe manner. With regard to client relationships, we have been enforcing all applicable sanctions across the group, and this led to the reclassifying of assets under management I was just talking about. The AUM related to Russian persons not entitled to residency in the European economic area nor in Switzerland amounts to 1.6% of our asset base. And for some time now, we have not been accepting new business with Russian clients. On the business side, the collateral value of Russian and Ukrainian assets was reduced to 0, resulting in absolutely no Lombard credit losses to date. We have only a very limited mortgage credit exposure to a single-digit number of sanctioned clients, as conservative lending values and any settlement risk with counterparties has been fully mitigated. And let me close with the local activities. We are entering into a wind-down process for our local advisory subsidiary, Julius Baer CIS Ltd. in Moscow. Local activities have already been reduced significantly, in line with contractual agreements; the net asset value of this was only CHF 0.4 million on the 31st of December, 2021. And we reiterate that we have no presence in Ukraine or in Belarus. Shifting to strategic achievements. The 2020-'22 strategic cycle saw us solidify the foundation from which we will launch the next phase. And we delivered on each area of our strategic program despite a very challenging environment. And we are on the last leg now of Shift, Sharpen and Accelerate, and have achieved very important milestones again over the last 4 months. Firstly, we further strengthened revenue generation with continued focus on mandates and on value-based pricing. The rollout of our group-wide relationship manager compensation program has been finalized, with a new compensation model now also implemented in the intermediary segment. And the strategic Chief Risk Officer road map has also been finalized, further upgrading our risk-related processes and systems. On the client side, we have further refined our ultra-high net worth value proposition by extending access to experts, in line with our value proposition. We have made strong progress in private markets, with a broader pipeline of opportunities in private equity and with the integration of KMP and our mortgage activities in real estate. We've also moved the needle on sustainability, publishing our ambitious new sustainability agenda, launching our new climate strategy and creating new investment opportunities in private markets and education opportunities for client-facing staff. And 2022 has seen us again accelerate our investments into technology to enhance the scope of our digital channels, upgrade our rebanking services and capabilities, especially in Asia. In-house staff development continue to be strengthened, including Agile [ HIB ], a pilot that we're running with more than 500 employees. A lot has been accomplished, and it's only appropriate for me to thank our staff for getting us to where we are today and filling me with a lot of confidence when looking into the future. Let me now shift the gaze forward to what we can expect in the future. What are the changes with the strongest impact on the wealth management industry today. I am convinced that our industry today is at an inflection point. We're entering a new era for wealth managers. You may ask why now? First, because the backdrop has changed radically. From a macroeconomic perspective, we have entered with light speed into an inflationary environment now for the first time in 50 years, and are today walking a very fine line between exiting ultra-expansive monetary policies and entering a cyclical bear market. Geopolitically, bloc building east to west has massively accelerated and ESG requires enormous efforts on the environmental side still, but especially on the social side, where the digital divide in society has been now compounded by the pandemic divide and is getting compounded by the inflationary divide. I believe wealth management has to rewrite its playbook, and only those players with solid foundations and the capabilities to adapt fast will be able to create value and emerge as winners. In this world, client needs are changing faster than ever before. Wealth preservation and transfers are more complicated as families are increasingly multigenerational and international. It's more complex to deliver holistic advice in a polarizing world. There's demand for new sources of investment performance and 24/7 service. And now more than ever, both eyes are required to be firmly fixed on the needs and on the experience of our clients to remain relevant and add value. Wealth management remains a growing market, and wealth is being created across the globe, yet the industry still suffers from a very high degree of fragmentation, structural cost issues, high client acquisition costs and a significant amount of pent-up investment. This is compounded by new players entering the perceived attractive arena, including technology-driven entrants. I believe we are getting much closer to the point where the wealth management industry needs to consolidate and focus on sustainable profitability. It's not a question of if, but rather of when. On the business model side, commoditization and margin pressure, about which we've talked before, continue. Rising rates will provide some leverage in our industry -- and there we will come back on that later, what it means for Julius Baer -- but the benefits of higher rates may actually come at the cost of lower transactional, traditional, transactional-based income. Scale is therefore becoming more important, as is the diversification of revenue sources. Pricing is key, and profitability management over the cycle. And lastly, digital is here to stay, but the role of technology within wealth management is also changing as we speak. Substantial front-to-back investments are needed, not just at the client interface, but especially to make the human factor more scalable. All eyes are currently fixed on those incumbent players that have been making fintech acquisitions, but this is only [ providing ] successful in highly scalable markets such as the U.S. and implies a shift towards catering to affluent or retail segments, so-called downmarket expansion, from the high net worth and ultra-high net worth segments we focus on. It remains to be seen whether or not there is value in this strategic redirection. We believe Julius Baer is excellently positioned to meet these challenges with a unique and differentiating business model and positioning. Let me reiterate the cornerstones of this. Firstly, our proven and innate ability to form personal connections and create human touch points. We excel in establishing trusted long-term relationships with our clients, providing them with individualized, with bespoke advice, no matter where they sit across the globe. This, paired with our relatively flat organizational structure that enables speed in decision-making, means we're both big enough to matter but also small enough to care. Secondly, we are a pure wealth manager. We are truly focused on what we do. Our business model is straightforward, sharp and manageable, yet we do not compromise on our offering. It's holistic, it's comprehensive, it spans investing, financing, wealth planning. We have a deep and strong balance sheet that we put to use with our clients. I believe our capability range is among the broadest in our industry. Our internationality is also a great asset. We have a global presence in 25 countries and more than 60 locations. This enables us to follow our clients and their families, who have increasingly global footprints. But we don't just go broad, we also go deep, complementing this local proximity with international centers of experience and a global network of experts. And last but not least, our foundations are rock solid. We have a very strong balance sheet and capitalization. We have a deposit-driven funding model. Our business model is strong, reliable, cash generating for shareholders. We invest continuously in robust risk management and strengthening resilience, and this has proven itself highly valuable in the last few years. Before I talk about the next strategic cycle, I want to paint a broader arc, starting with a bit of history and projecting beyond the next cycle. This is because I want to contextualize the next 3 years so that it's clear that the steps that we will take during this period are, on the one side, what's needed to meet near-term requirements, but also what's needed to grow and develop in the long term. You all know we have been in business for 131 years, a young company. Our ability to innovate is what has driven our consistent story of growth and innovation. With roots as a family business, Julius Baer was actually the first Swiss private bank to go public in 1980, becoming fully transparent through that process. In 2005, we started our real growth process and story with the acquisition of the 3 private banks from UBS. Spinning off asset management in 2009 focused us exclusively on wealth management. And then, over the next decade, we really grew our assets under management through successful acquisitions and organic growth at an annual compound growth rate of 12%. The last 3 years have seen a shift from asset-led growth into a sustainable profit growth mode, creating the foundation, the best foundation possible for what we are facing as an industry. You can already see the outcome. 2021 was concluded with the best-ever annual result for Julius Baer, with a record net profit of well over CHF 1 billion. And now we are entering the next stage, one of development and even more profitable growth for Julius Baer. To provide you with the full picture, I want to first look ahead to around 2030, which is clearly beyond our strategic planning horizon. There is no doubt that we will continue to be the world's leading international wealth manager for wealthy private clients. How could our company look at the end of the decade? Let me explain this using 5 key areas: size, profitability, earnings quality, alternative assets and our growth model. Size. In approximate numbers, we think we can and should reach more than CHF 1 trillion of assets under management by around 2030. This represents our ability to grow organically and inorganically, plus the increased need for scale in our business. Profitability. Focus on bottom line and efficiency will be key as wealth management evolves. We are a leader in this already, and I believe we can one day break the sound barrier of a 60% cost/income ratio in the very long term. Quality earnings are the foundation to make profitability sustainable across different market cycles given that asset and transaction-based income is subject to fluctuations. This means it will be key to increase recurring revenue, we believe, by more than 5 basis points from today's level. Alternative assets will play a bigger role in the asset allocation of our clients. We believe the share of alternative assets could increase to up to 10% of our AUM by the end of the decade. And finally we will need to transform elements of our growth model, in particular shifting from concentrating our recruiting efforts on the external acquisition of relationship managers to thinking about client-facing staff much more holistically and of filling ultimately more than half of these critical roles internally by growing our own talent bench. Let me stress that these are not targets against a clearly defined deadline, it is an approximation of what Julius Baer can reach within this decade, depending also, obviously, on market developments we cannot foresee at this point in time. Equally important as the beacon we sail towards are the principles which we pursue in our business. We want to deliver value in and through wealth management by growing, protecting and helping to pass on wealth. This is what we have done so well in the past 131 years, and we will continue to do so over this decade and beyond. What does this mean? We will stick to what makes us strong today, pure wealth management, pursuing a business model that pairs manageable complexity with steady and predictable returns. We will continue our strong focus on high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients and on serving intermediaries. As I mentioned earlier, personal connections will always play a lead role at Julius Baer, but this will be enriched by technology and digital advancements. The magic of Julius Baer's business model will lie not in the competition between personal connection and technology, but in the integration and combination of these factors. We want to drive critical mass in our business, not just overall, but actually at an individual market level. The bar for critical mass keeps rising in both the onshore and cross-border business. Therefore, we will aspire to offer both relevant onshore setups for optimal client access and strong hubs from which we can service cross-border relationships. Access to best solutions on the market is what clients are and will be looking for. Our open solution architecture provides access to the best solutions in global markets. At the same time, we are proud of our deep in-house solution capabilities in those areas where we can add value to our clients, and we will continue to combine and expand it too. These principles, along with our proven safety and stability as a bank, lay the foundations for our future strategic development and our core business for this decade. Our purpose is to create value beyond wealth. We have articulated this a little over a year ago with renewed clarity. Managing wealth sits at the core of our purpose, but our purpose extends way beyond that. We place particular focus on enabling families and new generations, helping them beyond just managing of financial needs. We help our clients to understand and shape the future and to be part of the amazing developments there are in technology and in ESG and in other areas. And this is something we also prioritize for ourselves. And we are committed to taking responsibility as an institution and being a responsible citizen in the societies where we are present. Our purpose is a long-term lighthouse for and beyond the next decade, but it is also reflected in the nearer-term strategy. Let me now shift the perspective to the core of this presentation, to the concrete 2023 to '25 strategic cycle, to our specific ambitions in this defined period and to the qualitative and financial targets that Julius Baer will deliver during this period. The strategic program for the coming 3 years can be summarized with 3 words: focus, scale and innovate. Focus is about keeping our eyes on the client, as I mentioned earlier, and on delivering value to them through our pure wealth management model. Focus also means both eyes on sustainable profit generation. Driving high-quality revenues and managing efficiency and cost are 2 top priorities for this next phase. Scale is about driving the next phase of our growth and development. We are positioned to benefit from attractive opportunities for both organic and inorganic growth in our most important markets. Scale is also about moving from a linear to an exponential profit growth model in key markets, and this is only possible with critical mass. I will speak more about this later. And innovation will be in the spotlight. How we live our lives and conduct our business is changing rapidly, and innovation is needed for us to remain relevant. We will drive the digitalization of our business and innovate further the scope of wealth management itself, benefiting both our clients and our shareholders. Let me dive now into our specific priorities. We want to create value for clients, and the trust they place in us and the revenues we generate is how we are rewarded for this value. In the next strategic cycle, our focus will be on the quality of those revenues. This is why we set a very clear target of 25% by '25, to have our discretionary mandate penetration at 25% of assets under management by the end of 2025. We will bring even more clients into the mandate type that is right for them and support delegation wherever it is appropriate. We will double down on the scalable customization of discretionary mandates, to complement our market-leading advisory office and give clients even more options to choose from. Especially in cross-border relationships where financial advice is heavily regulated, delegated solutions will actually increase convenience for the client but also simplify our setup. Beyond discretionary mandates, we will focus on our product mix, strengthening what clients are prepared to honor with recurring fees, for example our competitive in-house fund range, private markets or real estate. We'll also continue deepening our offering shelf along the value chain, expanding our manufacturing capabilities to in-source larger shares of the proceeds from the solutions we provide. Last but not least, we will continue to extend the scope of our highly successful pricing initiatives by strengthening the balance of recurring and transactional fees in line with client requirements and also enhance the toolkit for our relationship managers. These actions will drive the top line with a very specific focus on quality. While controlling the top line is key to drive profitability, so is cost management, especially in a very dynamic and volatile environment. We will continue our success in strategically managing costs, primarily through 3 focus areas: first, by streamlining our geographic footprint and market coverage model; second, by utilizing digitalization and agile working, not just for revenues and time to market, but also for efficiency; and last but not least, we'll continue to optimize our organizational structures and legal entity portfolio. These measures should result in CHF 120 million of gross run rate expense savings by 2025, with a linear buildup over the strategic cycle '23 to '25. These savings will create the room for selective reinvestments, especially in technology, something I will discuss in a minute. At the same time, in line with our longer-term outlook, we aspire to return to net positive growth of client-facing staff. That includes an increase in relationship managers, but also client-facing experts to maintain and enrich the high service quality that is fundamental to our value proposition and our ability to grow. When we say scale, what we mean is growth to scale in key markets. This is a continuation, an extension, an acceleration of the strategy that we have been pursuing for more than 5 years now. We are focusing on a small number of core markets, as you know, driving critical mass and ensuring exponential profit growth and superior value propositions for our clients in these markets. This slide provides just a selection of core markets and hubs. It indicates markets we believe hold particular growth opportunities for us in the coming years. Our footprint in Europe is outstanding, and we have benefited from very high net new money from European clients over the last few years. Our business will shift increasingly onshore, with Germany and the U.K. offering particularly interesting potential from here. In our home market, Switzerland, we've already communicated a clear focus on specific client segments, such as entrepreneurs, and we are on track in making the upgrades to our offering. We've already established a very strong presence in Iberia, with strong growth on the intermediary side, too, and it's time there to move on to the next stage of organic growth. In Asia Pacific, we are firmly positioned among the leading international wealth managers, a position we'll continue to reinforce via our 2 regional hubs. In Singapore, we'll focus on continuing the inflow of Chinese business and are also driving growth with our Southeast Asian markets. In Hong Kong, we'll continue investing in sharpening our local value proposition, believing that further growth opportunities will exist once the pandemic calms. Now Julius Baer has always been present in growth markets. Let me put the spotlight on 3 of them for this strategic cycle. In Brazil, the JB Family Office, and now the JB Advisory Office, give us phenomenal starting positions as the leading onshore foreign wealth manager, and we will continue to strengthen this. In the Middle East, we have a very strong regional cross-border business out of Dubai, and soon out of Qatar, and we're going to expand on that. And we serve Indian clients through an unmatched global franchise, with dedicated teams around the world and locally in India, as the largest international wealth manager in the country. In most of these markets, we rely not just on our direct access to wealthy private clients, but also on the multiplying effect provided by our intermediaries business. By giving them access to our toolboxes and to our expertise, they act as a catalyst to our market share and to our brand. There are 3 building blocks we will use to unlock our potential in these markets and beyond. First, it's about hiring the right talent. We will continue our successful strategic recruiting, focused on senior talent but also harnessing the next generation of up-and-coming relationship managers. We will use our strong employer brand to attract top professionals in these markets. The second area is about pushing the development of our in-house talent bench, which will become increasingly important. We have great talent and are adding to it through our apprentice and through our graduate programs. And we see the opportunity to increasingly fill a significant share of client-facing roles internally. Our investment into upskilling will continue through our well-established in-house Julius Baer Academy. And we are constantly looking at how to meet tomorrow's needs with the creation of new role profiles and career pathways such as junior RMs or account managers. And M&A is the third area. We have a proven track record and a very clear view on how to continue to grow through a disciplined approach to M&A. Our approach will be strategic, it will be repeatable, and driven in-house. The execution will take place over multiple years beyond the '23 to '25 cycle and follow a consistent playbook. What targets are we looking for? Transformational deals or bolt-ons, provided they are strategically and culturally consistent. We will concentrate on earnings accretion to achieve a return on investment that clearly exceeds the cost of capital, and will take into consideration asset quality. Once acquired, we will integrate the new business, leverage synergies where they are available, learn from each other and exploit operational improvements just as we have done in the past. Let me now shift to innovation. Digital innovation will keep gaining momentum, bringing both great change and great opportunities. With the role technology plays in the life of our clients nowadays, we have an opportunity to rethink what wealth management is, without diluting our value proposition and remaining true to ourselves. Let me show you what I mean by that. As you know, in the past decade, we have made a huge amount of effort to improve efficiency in the back end. We have upgraded our core banking system in Asia and Luxembourg and partially in Switzerland, but it will not stop there. Further innovation is needed in data and to bring payments to T+0, just to cite 2 examples. The middle part, which I'm particularly proud of, highlights how we have scaled the human factor at Julius Baer. We have talked many times about the digital advisory suite, our platform to scale regulatory compliance and advice quality. We are also leading the market with our mandate solution designer in the discretionary space and will expand on this position, for example with a digital credit offering. This is all part of making us one of the most digital banks for the relationship manager, which remains our ambition for the long term. The third area highlights the massive investments we've made over the last 3 years in state-of-the-art client delivery, supporting our clients not just via mobile and e-banking, but also with digital signatures, digital onboarding and digital delivery of investment insights. Omni-channel connectivity and increased availability continue to be the key themes of the future. When we talk about the next stage in our digital evolution, we base it on the firm belief that there is also a client segment of tech-savvy, high net worth individuals, not affluent or retail clients, high-net-worth individuals, that is not being addressed by the digital offerings that are available today in the market, nor that are fully addressed by our traditional wealth management offering today. I am talking about a digital first: a hybrid service model with access to human expertise. I'm talking about a service that covers discretionary mandates, tailored at scale, plus digitalized wealth planning, something that no one masters today, and leverages many of the capabilities we built over the past years and that you see on this slide and that create a completely different client experience and interactivity. I hope I have piqued your interest. And towards the end of the year, latest at the beginning of next, we will be able to give you more details on that. Let me also mention technology partnerships. These complement our in-house capabilities, ensure we have the right insight needed for the digitalization of wealth management. Partnering with external accelerators will drive new business cases and advance the client experience. For example, we are part of the leading F10 fintech incubator ecosystem, and have recently invested in the Israeli Wealth Manager One Zero to drive, together with them, new use cases in digital wealth management. Clearly, everything you see on this slide requires investments. And so over the next strategic cycle of, respectively, 3 years, we foresee in total an additional technology investment of about CHF 400 million on top of today's budget to drive and accelerate the required digital evolution. As I mentioned before, alternative asset classes are an inherent element of today's asset allocation, they will be even more so in the future. And if I step back, we have made already great strides today in building our offering in private markets, and we will continue to do so in the future. For example, we are building our successful track record and extend our fiduciary private shelf with a new vintage program and new funds in private credit and impact investing. And when it comes to giving our clients direct access to private markets, we have firmly established ourselves in bringing together capital seekers and investors in the USD 50 million to USD 200 million niche, with notable deals, for example, in alternative foods and medtech. Or in real estate, the acquisition of KMP has marked a new dynamic in our capabilities where we plan to extend the offering from transactions, advisory and financing into fee-based real estate investment management, focusing first on Switzerland. But today, we look further out beyond what it is already within an arm's reach of our clients. Yes, I'm talking about the emerging area of digital assets. And I do realize what has been and actually is happening in crypto markets just these last couple of weeks. But it could well be that, at this very instant, we are witnessing a bubble-burst moment of the crypto industry. And we all know what happened after the dot-com bubble burst 30 years ago. It paved the way for the emergence of a new sector that indeed transformed our lives. I believe digital assets and decentralized finance hold that same potential. They will transform the financial sector over the next 10 years. And it is important for us to gain a strong foothold in this area. And that's why it's exactly the moment for us today to invest in the long-term potential of digital asset technology. While crypto coins are just first-generation applications, things are set to accelerate quickly. Consider, for example, that central banks are working to create their own digital currencies. If anything, the recent market route involving coins and exchanges will only accelerate the regulation and create a level playing field with the world of traditional finance. A lot of talent is flowing into attempts to tokenize traditional securities, but also illiquid assets, such as real estate, art and intellectual property. Many of these ventures are still immature or only partially blockchained, but real breakthroughs are both possible and likely. And last, there is enormous hype today about decentralized finance, or DeFi. It's especially in this area that untamed innovation clashes with regulatory reality. But on the other hand, it's also where traditional cost-heavy and complex parts of the old banking system are today just rewritten with a few lines of code. Think about cross-border payments or think about escrow services. As tech and traditional finance ultimately will converge, there is huge potential to really transform our value chains. As the market develops in these 3 areas, we want to take 4 distinctive roles for our clients. First, we want to help them understand and navigate the new universe with research and, ultimately, also with regulated advice. Second, when clients are ready to enter this space, we want to give them access to it within the trusted framework of a regulated bank. Third, we want to be the partner of choice for digital asset entrepreneurs, serving them at the interface of digital assets and fiat world in a fully compliant way. And last, we want to be ready to transform our own value chain with new applications that emerge and participate in a broader ecosystem of players in the future. For this, we need to build talent and connections today. To drive progress in all these areas, Julius Baer is already today running a number of pilot programs covering the entire value chain, from token booking to trading to compliance, reaching as far as into regulated advice. And next to providing immediate value for selected clients, these pilots allow us to test, to learn, to develop our vocabulary and toolkit and, ultimately, to create value. In this context, let me remind you that we have been among the early investors in SEBA, 1 of the 2 crypto banks to obtain a FINMA license. And we will continue to invest more broadly in this space to ensure we're linked closely to the technological advances and the ecosystem of players emerging in this area. Within our strategic program of focus, scale and innovate, we cannot discount the importance of sustainability, which will only increase in the coming years. I'm very proud of our engagement-led sustainability strategy, which focuses on 2 pillars: acting as responsible wealth managers for our clients, but also being responsible citizens in the places where we operate. For our clients, our focus is very practical. It centers on creating transparency for them through client reporting, investment choices, offerings; it centers on impact investing and philanthropy. Julius Baer will be in a leading position here, especially on the transparency side, something clients will increasingly value as the world gets more complex and polarized. Our pragmatic and results-oriented approach is also guiding the priorities of associations such as the Association of Swiss Wealth Managers to define a more concerted action plan in the industry. ESG is now deeply embedded also in Julius Baer's risk management framework. And I'm especially proud of our new climate strategy that will result in a reduction of business travel by year-end 2025. In that context, you will also find a very innovative internal market-based carbon pricing mechanism. We've also set ambitious targets by 2025 for net-zero, to also decarbonize our treasury and proprietary portfolios. The other dimensions of responsible citizenship such as diversity of inclusion have also clear targets, like increasing our female representation at senior management level to 30% by the end of 2023. Underneath all of this, what keeps our business stable and successful is strong risk management. It's the foundation on which our business is built, and we have invested enormous amounts of manpower and more than CHF 200 million since 2017 reinforcing this foundation. We will continue to concentrate on standards, on processes, plus invest further into capacities such as KYC and AML. Julius Baer has always had a low-risk credit book and outstanding credit risk management, and we'll continue on that path with an unchanged conservative risk appetite in our operations over the coming strategic cycle. And we will also continue to actively pursue the resolution of legal cases as part of our process of resolving legacy matters. Let me now shift to introducing our financial targets for the next strategic cycle, which are very ambitious, in line with our strategic aspirations. We are aiming for a cost/income ratio lower than 64% by the end of 2025. This will be an industry-leading figure, and we have built the strength and the momentum needed to drive the revenue and the cost factors required to achieve this. With this comes a pretax margin within a range of 28 to 31 basis points, combined with the specific focus on the quality of revenues that I've mentioned before and that Evie will talk about more afterwards. And as we did so far, over the next 3 years we are again, from a higher level, aiming for above 10% growth in our profit before tax, and we leave our superior RoCET1 target of over 30% unchanged despite sharpening our capital distribution policy. All these targets assume no meaningful deterioration, obviously, of market conditions and exchange rates, and are subject to update in the event of a large M&A transaction. Let me conclude my section with an update on the capital distribution policy, which we introduced with the presentation of our full year results in February and our dividend policy. As laid out with our last results, 50% of adjusted net profits will be distributed via dividends, and dividends will at least match previous year's levels unless justified by significant events. In terms of capital distribution, in the past, we have worked with a general floor for our BIS CET1 capital ratio of 11%. We are now moving to a much clearer target, to distribute all capital meaningfully in excess of a 14% BIS CET1 capital ratio through share buybacks unless we see material M&A opportunities that are strategically consistent and financially attractive. And now I hand you over to Evie for an update on our financials. Evie is officially starting as our CFO on the 1st of July, but has already been instrumental in defining this program for our next strategic cycle. The Executive Board and I look very much forward to benefit from her experience that she has gained and brought into Julius Baer in many of the transactions and transformational initiatives that have brought us to where we are today. Over to you, Evie.

Thank you, Philipp, and good morning, everyone, from my side. Welcome. I'm very happy to see some of you here, and I'm happy for those of you who are joining us today over the phone. Since I've been Deputy CFO, and even before that, I have been working very closely with Dieter Enkelmann, whom I would like to thank for the terrific work for the group over these past many, many years, and equally for his ongoing support in the handover of the role. I very much look forward to taking over as CFO on July 1. On Page 30, I would like to kick off with how I see the current market and macro backdrop. On the left-hand side of the page, you see the substantial downturn in both equity and bond markets in the first 4 months of the year. It goes without saying that the war in Ukraine, the additional COVID-related restrictions in China, supply chain disruptions and the significant increase in realized and expected inflation and interest rates all took their toll, as central banks across the world withdrew liquidity and switched gears to inflation-taming mode. In the middle of the page, for the first 4 months of the year, we saw a pronounced strengthening of the dollar against the Swiss franc and a more muted weakness of the euro. More importantly for us, on the right-hand side, you see a snapshot of the current interest rates and changing expectations. For illustrative purposes, we show here the Julius Baer Economic Research U. for dollar, euro and Swiss franc, as well as the Bloomberg consensus and the market implied policy rates 1 year from now across these 3 major currencies. In March, we saw the first 25 basis point increase by the Federal Reserve, followed by another 50 basis point hike in early May. The current expectations are for significant further rate hikes in the U.S. and possibly also the first rate hikes by the European Central Bank later this year. Julius Baer is well positioned to realize the gross margin benefit from these rate hikes, but I will come to this later. We have successfully executed on our strategy over the last few years, as Philipp mentioned before, in spite of the market's volatility in recent years and challenging environment in recent months. On this page, I want to highlight that we are well on track to reach the targets we set back in February of 2020. This means protecting the gross margin above 80 basis points despite the significant headwinds from close to zero or negative interest rates; a cost-to-income ratio below our target of 67%; and a pretax margin, so far, even above the high end of our 25 to 28 basis points target range. These achievements have mainly been the result of: one, a strengthening of our recurring fee base as part of our strategic revenue measures; two, our ability to capitalize on higher client activity; as well as, three, the successful execution on our strategic efficiency improvement measures. In brief, we are well on track to achieve the targets we set for 2022. Philipp already mentioned our new ambitious targets for the next strategic cycle starting after this year in 2023. Over the next slides, I will focus on the 4 key drivers we see as particularly instrumental in achieving these targets by 2025, namely: A, our favorable positioning related to interest rate sensitivity; B, our ambition to further enhance recurring revenues; C, our drive to continuously focus on expenses and efficiency; and D, our outlook on the pathway for RWAs in light of upcoming regulation and business growth. Now let me provide you with the details, starting with respect to our sensitivity to rising interest rates. Julius Baer's balance sheet puts us in a good position to realize a sizable uplift in gross margin from higher rates. Just as the gross margin suffered when rates went down, the benefit on the ride back up could be quite meaningful. Here, we show the annualized impact on RoA of an instantaneous parallel hike in rates, based on our balance sheet and assets under management as of the end of April. Starting with U.S. rates. 100 basis points higher rates would add around 5 basis points of the gross margin and around 8 basis points for a 200 basis point move, which, as you see from the graph, will in the P&L show up partly in net interest income and partly in income from financial instruments at fair value to profit and loss, or more commonly, trading income. Based on our historic experience, we have assumed a 30% shift from dollar current accounts to call or time deposits in the case of a 100 basis point rate hike, going up to 40% in the case of a 200 basis point rate hike. On the euro side, we now expect around 3 basis points gross margin uplift from a 100 basis point rate increase. There, we have assumed, again based on historic experience as well as the currently still negative rates, a lower shift to time and call deposits for the first 100 basis point rate hike of around 10%. And finally, on the Swiss franc side, the first 100 basis point rate increases would add very little. And this is mainly due to the reference rate for credit being anchored at 0 and the SNB deposit threshold for charging negative rates, i.e., we would benefit less from SNB rising rates from the currently minus 75 basis points. In all this, the rate increase assumes a parallel shift to the rate curves, within which the short end of the curve is by far the most important part for us. Let me now move on to our ambition to further enhance our recurring revenues. First of all, I would like to highlight that we have made good progress under the strategic revenue measures over the last years under the auspices of the Shift, Sharpen, Accelerate strategy. We increased our recurring income as a proportion of assets under management from 35 basis points in 2020 to 37 basis points in 2021. Our focus was particularly on a shift to higher value mandates by growing our internal funds and through smarter pricing. As you all know, increasing the recurring fee base is very, very important for us as it provides an even more stable base for forward investment planning and is, of course, also attractive for our shareholders. Philipp already spoke about the initiatives in this area. In terms of what it means for our targets, our aim is to grow the recurring fee margin from 37 basis points in 2021 to close to 40 basis points by 2025. With that, let me move on to the cost management side. You all know from our recent history that we have managed our cost-to-income ratio relatively dynamically. That means, to a certain extent, flexing our cost base and our reinvestment projects depending on market circumstances and revenue generation. For 2022, the target was to reach a cost-to-income ratio of below 67%. Going into this year, we have, of course, the tailwind from the successful execution of our strategic revenue and cost programs over the past 2.5 years. But I think most of you will probably concur with me that the year so far has been far from normal, and the visibility we have on the rest of the year is somewhat foggy. Still, from today's standpoint, we believe reaching a cost-to-income ratio in 2022 in the mid-60s is a reasonable starting point. From that starting point, we expect to benefit over the next years from further scale and business volume benefits as well as our doubling down on recurring revenues, partly offset by inflation. This, we expect to yield a benefit of around 1 to 2 percentage points in cost-to-income ratio terms. We will also run another expense saving program starting next year, which will yield gross cost savings of CHF 120 million by 2025 on a run rate basis, with a more or less linear buildup. This will more than finance the P&L impact of our current ambition to allocate CHF 400 million into incremental technology investments over the '23 to '25 cycle. Now to be clear, that CHF 400 million is the total incremental cash spend over the next 3 years. In any given year, we typically capitalize about 2/3 of the investment spend of the corresponding year and expense the remainder. Even so, the CHF 120 million in run rate cost savings by 2025 should more than compensate the P&L effect of the additional technology investment spend. This should help drive the cost-to-income ratio structurally below 64% by 2025. As you can see, over the last few years the RWA density has decreased quite substantially, from 20.1% in 2019 to 17.4% at the end of 2021. This partly reflects optimization measures, but, for example, also a decline in the mortgage book, which runs at a very high 35% credit risk density. Going forward, we expect the 17% to be a floor for the medium term, with the upper end still somewhere around the level of 2019, i.e. roughly 20%. Now let me explain the expected drivers for higher risk density as well as our continued measures to control our RWA. Drivers for higher-risk density are; first, continued growth -- credit growth beyond Lombard, i.e., growth in mortgages and structured finance at sustainable margins; two, there will probably be a limited risk-weighted uptick from the finalization of Basel 3, particularly as it may have some impact on market risk weights through the fundamental review of the trading book. At the same time, we will of course continue to work on mitigating optimization measures, such as reallocating balance sheet to return on CET1-accretive opportunities and enhancing tools for our balance sheet management. I have strong conviction in our ability to continue to manage our risk-weighted assets, and I will continue to update you on this, especially when we can draw more precise conclusions following further model refinements and regulatory clarifications. Finally, let's move on to capital distribution. In February we announced an increase in our dividend payout ratio from 40% to 50%. And as a reminder, that is in principle a progressive dividend payout policy, i.e., we would normally expect to pay at least the same ordinary dividend per share as in the previous year even if that means having to go to a higher than 50% payout ratio in certain less profitable years. We also announced a further substantial buyback of up to CHF 400 million, which is currently being executed. So far, we have purchased 987,000 shares at a cost of roughly CHF 50 million. If I look back at the past 8 years, between dividends and buybacks we have returned around CHF 3.2 billion of capital to our shareholders. Now going forward, on share buybacks, we want to refine our capital distribution framework around the expected size of future share buybacks, and as such, we will set a target of CET1 around 14%. That means if, at the end of the year, based on the audited accounts, we have a CET1 ratio that is meaningfully higher than 14%, then the Board of Directors will allocate the difference between those amounts to a buyback to be executed in the following year. As Philipp mentioned before, you can also hear -- see here that we will execute such buybacks unless there is an imminent M&A opportunity that is financially attractive, with sound industrial logic, and that is consistent with our strategy. In such a case, we probably still see the 11% CET1 ratio as our floor we never want to go below. On that note, I hand back to Philipp for some final remarks.

Thank you very much indeed, Evie. And I want to very quickly wrap up before we head to Q&A, just with a very brief summary of today's key messages. Firstly, Julius Baer is today and will remain the leading international wealth manager. The bank operates from a position of strength, and we have a unique and client-centric business model. We are now really moving into the next period of growth and development marked by scale, by profitability, by earnings quality and by the evolution of our business model. And to get there, we have set very clear and ambitious targets for '23 to '25. We will strive for an industry-leading cost/income ratio of below 64%, reflecting a further increase of our revenue margin and especially the quality of our revenues. Our pretax margin will be in the range of 28 to 31 basis points. We will stick to our very ambitious target of exceeding 10% growth per annum in profit before tax and deliver a return of over 30% on BIS CET1 capital. The strategic cycle '23 to '25 has the pillars of focus, scale and innovate. Focus is about growing our revenues qualitatively and quantitatively and driving efficiency as basis for reinvestments. Scale will concentrate on select core markets where we'll be creating critical mass through strategic recruitment, internal staff development and disciplined M&A. And innovation is about bringing together the world of wealth management and digital technology. All of this will be embedded in a very strong sustainability framework and underpinned by robust risk management. Through these actions, our emphasis on focus, scale, innovate, we will create value for our shareholders during the coming strategic cycle, committing to clear standards on how we will return capital to them going forward, and we will create value to a broad array of stakeholders. Thank you very much for being with us on this journey.

Now I would like to open the floor to any questions you may have, and will have, I'm sure. We will do it in the following way, we will take first questions here in the room before we will take those joining via webcast, and microphones will be passed. Would we start here in the first row, please?

It's Hubert Lam from Bank of America. I've got 3 questions. Firstly, for your cost/income target for 2025, below 64%, how many interest rate rises are -- do you assume in that in your assumptions for your target? And -- or how many -- what's the interest margin do you assume for 2025? That's my first question. Second question is also on your targets for cost/income and as well as PBT growth. What are your asset return assumptions for those targets? And lastly, for relationship manager hiring, can you talk -- do you have any targets for RM growth per year or over the next few years to 2025? And also, can you talk about RM inflation costs? The costs -- has there been any meaningful change in terms of cost for retaining RMs or hiring RMs?

Hubert, I'll take the third question and ask -- with Dieter, I have the pleasure to share the financial assumptions now this time with Evie. In terms of RM hiring, we will not disclose any specific hiring targets quantitatively. We said we want to go already net positive now in the near term, and we'll obviously continue doing that moving forward. We're operating, I believe, a very strong pipeline across the globe, and I'm looking forward to developing in this field in addition to the other thrusts. In terms of inflation, I believe the way how we've set the compensation model and that we have really attuned now the RM personnel cost and the compensation with the economic performance generated with the PC3, we have seen this already beautifully over the last year and with the 2021 result. And I believe that we will have a very congruent development of frontline staff cost with the profitability that is delivered by the group. And so in that sense, I think that we will have a controlled level of inflation of frontline costs moving forward.

Thank you, Philipp. Thank you, Hubert, for the question. On your first question with respect to the cost-to-income target of 64% and the assumed interest rate hikes, I will refer you to Page 30, where you can see on the right-hand side of the page the interest rate outlook and Julius Baer's research which informs our assumptions. On the second question with respect to asset return assumptions, we generally apply growth assumptions in line with our macroeconomic research, just as with interest rates. And looking at where our research is and where consensus macro research is, I would say that in some regions, our research is slightly higher than consensus, and in some countries, slightly lower. On balance, across the group, I would say that we are probably around consensus. Obviously, things are changing very fast in this environment and -- as do analysts with their estimates.

This is Izabel Dobreva from Morgan Stanley. I would like to start with a question on the 25% by '25. If we look at the implied mandate penetration, it's 7 percentage points in about 4 years. which implies quite a fast ramp-up compared to what we have seen historically. So what are you doing differently this time around? And also, how should we think about the timing? Are you planning a linear increase in the penetration, or will there be a little bit of a lag effect as we need to wait for these IT investments to really bear fruit? So that's the first question. Then I had a question on your gross margin assumptions. If I sort of back them out from your other numbers, I get to a range between 78 to 86 gross margin. And my question is, what is driving the difference in that range? Is one without U.S. dollar rate hikes? Is it a difference on the trading performance? What are you assuming in the low end to the top end of that gross margin range? And then my final question is just on the capital target of 14%. I wanted to clarify how you arrived at that target? And also, is this the relevant number for 2022, or as we go through 2023 and the balance sheet relevers, should we expect for that target to come back down?

Thank you very much, Izabel. Let me start with the first question, 25% by '25. I think what's different today is 3 things that are really coming together. On the one side, there is a real client demand for these kind of solutions that we have seen growing in the last few years. And we still have a significant amount of unmet needs. Second, we see regulatory developments that will further push the adoption of discretionary solutions, especially in the cross-border business. And the third element is key, we're today prepared in a completely different way, on the technology side, on the business model and the business process side, to actually deliver a unique and new experience to our clients. And we have to make a few more steps in this, but we're today at a level where we can really push ahead. I think this all starts with the client, and we really need to think about having the right clients in the right models as we've done in the past. Conditions are moving, market conditions -- client needs are moving, regulatory framework is moving, and that gives us a chance to capitalize on this. And obviously, combined with a very strong conviction and strong management action on our side. And then to conclude, I think we've done it in the past. When we look at the very rapid onboarding of clients into advisory mandates, we have demonstrated in the last 5 to 10 years that we are able to actually transform business in a very proactive way and on a very strong time line. And I'm convinced we can do it this time again in the discretionary mandate space. Evie?

Thank you, Izabel, for the questions. On the gross margin range, as you know based on the targets we've provided, you can probably do the math, specifically our cost-to-income ratio target and pretax margin, and imply a certain margin. We don't disclose our gross margin assumptions, but I'm sure, based on the math you would do, you will imply some gross margin assumption a bit north of 85 basis points. On the CET1 targets, can you repeat the question, please? Whether it's still 14% for 2022 and how we drive that...

[indiscernible].

Okay. The targets for 14% applies for 2022. And we intend to run the business at that level, unless, of course, as we said in our opening remarks, there is a compelling imminent M&A opportunity, which would require us to dip to a lower threshold of 11%.

It's Daniele Brupbacher, UBS. Can I come back to the NII sensitivity -- and thanks for the disclosure, that's very useful -- and also the assumption behind it. Could you talk a little bit about the Lombard lending book? And how you would think about penetration and growth there in an environment of rising, particularly U.S., rates? How would you expect clients to react to this? And probably also linked to this, you mentioned structured credit, some initiatives there, new products, private markets. Can you just give us a bit more color around how significant these things already are and a bit more in terms of specific initiatives or hiring initiatives? And then on -- second on capital. The CET1 ratio, I think, it was down 70 bps year-to-date. Can you give us a bit more details? I mean, there's pluses and minuses in there, of course. But I'm a bit more focused on the treasury book and how changes in the bond portfolio probably impacted this, so just the gross number there. And linked to this, how is the treasury book now positioned in terms of duration and profile?

Thank you, Daniele. I think in terms of Lombard, a few thoughts. I mean, the first element, obviously, is that we have an imminent potential for releverage. I think after the deleveraging that has happened now very -- in an accentuated way in the first few months of this year, we've seen this in the past, and we would expect with the return to, let's say, more predictable market environments, clients' risk appetite returning there, especially also in the Asian space. And more in the long term, I believe, Lombard remains a growth area. And as you know, we have a very well-diversified Lombard book with also a very large part in low-risk categories. We intend to grow this and to make this very accessible to clients. When I was talking about the digital credit solution, it would happen mostly in that space. And then on the other side of the risk spectrum, structural lending, I think this is almost project-based today and don't expect that to become a broad-based activity with massively increased volumes, certainly not with the massively -- with an increased overall risk appetite. I think we will stick to the way how we've been looking at overall credit risk appetite in the past. But it's an important tool for us to work with high and ultra net worth clients and to support them in very specific endeavors.

Maybe if I can add to that, Philipp, I mean, if you want to quantify a bit our structural credit exposure, it's around the CHF 1 billion mark today. Should I take on the other 2 questions? Okay, on capital. So at the end of the year, we were at 16.4% CET1 ratio. From that, you can add another 190 basis points of net profit. Then you would subtract 90 basis points of dividend accruals associated with the increased payout of 50%, another 20 basis points from the 50 million share buyback we've executed on so far, another 20 basis points from the change in RWA. And then you've correctly pinpointed it, there's about 120 basis points that you would subtract that's mainly related to unrealized OCI losses on the treasury book investments. Now I want to say a couple of words about that. At the end of the year, our treasury book was CHF 13 billion. As you know, all of it is classified as fair value through other comprehensive income. About 30% of that treasury portfolio matures within 1 year, and the duration of the portfolio is around 2.2. We have also started to classify new bonds as all bonds roll off the book into held to collect to reduce the volatility of capital going forward. Overall, I think about 50% of the treasury book matures within 2 years. I hope that's helpful.

Pass on one more question in the room, and then let's go to 1 or 2 questions in the virtual space. Please?

This is Daniel Regli from Credit Suisse. I have 3 questions, if I may. First is on the disclosure about the Russia and Ukraine exposure, and thank you very much for this disclosure you gave. You're talking about 1.6% of AUM which is related to Russia clients not entitled for residence in Switzerland. Why is this entitlement for residents in Switzerland so relevant? I think sanctions could also affect people which are actually living in Switzerland or the EEA or am I wrong? Then the second question is about client activity and client behavior during the last 4 months. Can you maybe shed some color how your clients feel and how your clients acted through the whole market correction, market volatility? And then especially how this compares to the correction we saw in 2020. And then the last question is a relatively broad question. What is, in your opinion, the biggest risk short- to mid-term for Julius Baer's profitability and balance sheet?

Let me start with Russia/Ukraine. I think there are 2 elements. We have disclosed CHF 0.8 billion reclassed due to sanctions. And I think that's the focus on sanctioned clients. And obviously this is a dynamic space, and we'll see how sanctions evolve, which might lead to the further reclasses as this goes on. I think the disclosure of the Russian assets help the Russian nationals who are not entitled for residency in those 2 areas. It's related to how many of the sanctions are formulated today and in a broader way -- and is also in line with how other institutions in Switzerland have been disclosing this. And this is why we have chosen this approach. Obviously, we'll observe how sanctions evolve, should they further evolve, and in that sense, also, adapt disclosures. When it comes to client activity, I think client activity in the first 4 months have been going a bit through a cycle. We've had periods with very high activity. We have periods with relatively low activity. I think the -- this situation is quite different from the beginning of 2020 when you had sort of a pandemic shock, which was one discrete shock and then sort of the fog started to lift a little bit. I think this time it's a combination of different factors that are coming together. It's the event of the inflationary environment on the one side. It's a continuation of pandemic still, especially in Asia, where the sort of how this plays out with the global supply chains, I think, is casting some unknowns. And then there's the fog of war that is over everything that also creates a lot of uncertainty. So I think this time around, clients have a bit less clarity on where things are going. And I believe it will in the near term influence their activity. Still again, I think with big, big swings in the market that we are experiencing right now, I could also imagine that clients are actually taking opportunities. So it's very hard today to really predict a stable trajectory of client activity. There's light -- there's a lot of shadow but there's also a lot of light.

Maybe with respect to what we see as the biggest risk, I mean, our house view is that we are sort of in the throes of a cyclical bear market. Obviously, if the facts change, and we experience a structural bear market, like global financial crisis of a decade ago, then things would obviously -- we would change our outlook. But I think that's...

Our base scenario. So for [indiscernible], I think we all have the same crystal ball in that sense, and -- yes, observing very closely.

Sorry, just one quick follow-up, if I may. Can you kind of quantify what the impact would be if you would talk about this exclusion about not entitled residents in Switzerland? So what is the exposure to Russian clients in general, including some people living here?

We don't quantify that. Let's take the first question. We have a few questions, I think, in the virtual space.

The first question comes from Jeremy Sigee from BNP Paribas.

Two questions, please. The first one, I'm afraid, is going back on to the NII sensitivity question. Just to ask it in a different way, a number of banks have, like you, quantified the parallel shift sensitivity, but have also quantified the impact of the forward curve realizing. Could you quantify that? So from the realization of the curve or from your own assumptions, what is the NII impact of that, please? And then the second question, I'm still a bit surprised by the outflows, which seems worse than your peers have experienced, both in terms of the outflows in Asia, but also the inflows elsewhere that it implies. So I just wondered if you could talk a bit more about that. I know you've touched on it already, but if you could talk a bit more about, was -- is there anything specific about your circumstances that would explain that flow outcome?

Let me take the second question, and thank you for that. I think, as I said, the outflows have been concentrated among very few clients, but also among very large positions. And there has been a strong Asian mixes to that. And obviously, with the economic near-term developments in Asia, I think we have been strongly affected by that. And I believe this explains the size of the move. There may have been a timing element, as we have seen in the industry deleveraging happening, not just in the last 3, 4 months, but actually in some players over the last 6, maybe 8 months. We have had very few elements -- or fewer elements of deleveraging still in 2021. And so I think the bulk of our deleveraging has happened now in 2022. I think that's to be taken into account when comparing those flows. Maybe, Evie, on...

Jeremy, thanks for the question. On the NII, if the impact of the forward curve realization, I think you can assume around just a little bit north of 8 basis points. So what we've shown for 200 basis points hike, that would apply a little bit more for the forward curve.

Next question comes from Kian Abouhossein from JPMorgan.

The first one is on Slide 34. If you can -- you highlight pricing as one of the key drivers for recurring income growth. What would be the drivers of pricing improvement, please? And -- can you just talk a little bit more about pricing environment currently? Are you seeing any pressure ex, clearly, interest rate improvement and the impact of that? And also geographically, do you see any differences? The second question is related to IT investments. Could you talk about your total IT investments at this point and a little bit more how we should think about the progression, because clearly we see IT expenses generally going up for the industry, and we expect it to go up for the industry over time. You clearly talk about the additional CHF 400 million. But just taking more of a longer-term approach, how should we think about IT expenses, either the cost -- percentage of cost base or revenue base in order to scale how it will look like long, long term in the future, from your perspective? And lastly, just in respect to Slide 35, you indicate you include cost inflation in your numbers. Can you just tell us briefly what inflation rate do you assume in your guidance?

Let me say a word about -- and thank you for those questions -- let me say a word about total IT spending. I think we've disclosed that previously that our long-term run rate of IT spending per annum has been in the order of magnitude of CHF 200 million. I think that has hold true for many years now. We have, in the context of Shift, Sharpen, Accelerate, the accelerate piece on investments been ramping up investments in an order of magnitude of 20% over that per annum. And now moving forward, so if you take the next 3-year cycle and do the math, we should be spending around CHF 1 billion on tech over -- in some -- over 3 years in the '23 to '25 cycle. We'll be ramping up this number, obviously. We do this with a big eye on not just on the absolute number, but on bang for buck or on effectiveness of spending. And we'll make sure that we ramp up capacity moving forward to maximize the value of this. In the very long term, I believe that is happening in our industry, what has happened in others, is that technology is playing a bigger and bigger role. I do think you need to have, on the one side, a focused approach to investing, and whether this is a bit higher or at the same level, you still need to be very disciplined. There is always more opportunities to invest than money available. On the other side, what's happening is a pronounced shift of personnel and of profiles from, let's say, traditional banking professions into technology areas. And maybe the area where this is most seen today is on trading floors. When I started on the Julius Baer trading floor in 2004, we had a few technicians. And when I left it, we had maybe a 1/4, maybe almost 1/3 of technology, [ affine ] or related staff working for us in this environment. And I believe we'll see a big shift of this generally in banking in the years to come.

Kian, referring to your question on recurring income growth drivers on Page 34, I think out of the 3 drivers we have outlined on the page, you should expect around 1 to 2 basis points to come from the increase in discretionary mandate penetration of the 25% by '25 and the remainder from product mix and pricing. As you know, during our Shift, Sharpen, Accelerate strategy, we set out quite ambitious revenue targets. We delivered over half of those through our efforts in pricing. I think in the next 3-year cycle, there is still some room ahead us. But we believe that there is more potential on the discretionary mandate side, and of course, and on the product mix. But of course, these things are to some extent interconnected.

Let me say a word about pricing. I think this -- under your leadership also, Evie, in the last few years, this has been one of the most interesting developments for me how far progress can be made in this area, where we've really created an institutional and systematic and a system-supported approach to pricing, and where we've entered into many dialogues with our clients about creating value and sharing it. I think we -- while we have obviously taken the low-hanging fruit, there is still opportunity also in mandate pricing and in looking at the balance between asset-based prices and tariffs and transaction-based income. And we will be actively looking into this and obviously work very hard to continue profitabilizing our business and make sure that we maximize the value of our franchise. I believe we have a very strong strategic lever in this.

With respect to your question on inflation, as you know, we operate in different jurisdictions, different regions with different rates of inflation. And the majority of our cost base is in Switzerland, where expected inflations, if you just look at the macro consensus research views, are probably lower than in other areas of the world. So if you want to factor in some global inflation assumption, I suggest then to look at our regional footprint and take the consensus macro inflation expectations into consideration associated with the mix of our business.

The next question comes from Anke Reingen from RBC.

The first is on the buyback. Just wanted to confirm the way you phrase it, "meaningful, exceeding 14%." This means in practice excess capital above 14% are not meaningful, exceeding? And I'm just a bit surprised, why do you think you need a 14% threshold. That seems to be very high versus your requirement and the target like [ buffer on buffer ]. And then on the recurring margin. Can you also give a bit more insight in terms of what regions are driving it or is it across the network? Is there any -- is it reliant on change? Or is it reliant on risk appetite by clients as a [ challenge ], certain products, or is there also a potential change in client profile baked into it? I mean, in the past, you talk about ultra-high net worth and high net worth. If you can maybe elaborate a bit more about the different drivers?

Let me just frame it overall and then hand back to Evie. I think in terms of the buyback, the 14% I think is a conscious choice that is for us an important point, that on the one side reflects the regulatory requirements and buffers, but also has a perception element, as an element of safety and stability, which is very, very important in our business. And client perception and counterparty perception here is an element that plays into this. Obviously, that's a choice by the Board. Meaningful, meaning that if we have sort of just CHF 50 million excess capital above the 14% CET1 ratio, probably you would not launch a full buyback program, do that at slightly higher amounts. And just a general statement in terms of segment and the relevance of ultra-high net worth versus high net worth, I've been able to report these at previous occasions. I think we've had a very constant distribution of clients in those 2 segments over the last 2 to 3 years, we would expect sort of a similar distribution in the next 3 years. We will continue to focus on both segments. We have clear levers for growth in both areas. And so there's no major shift in one or the other side, proportionately, expected in the years to come.

And maybe I'll just make an additional comment on the buyback. I mean, what is clear is that the timing of the execution will be dependent on the size. So if we were to execute the CHF 75 million or CHF 100 million buyback, we probably won't do that over 12 months, but over a shorter period of time. Now with respect to the second question on recurring margin and what regions are driving it, maybe I'll make a couple of comments. First of all, as you know, we've been growing quite rapidly in onshore U.K. and Germany and other European locations. These are primarily discretionary markets. So as we continue to grow in these markets, and you heard Philipp talk about focusing on scaling in these markets, we expect the proportion of discretionary mandates, overall, to increase in the group. Secondly, cross-border advice from Switzerland has become a very expensive business, and therefore we think there are regulatory tailwinds in that regard supporting the discretionary business. And thirdly, in Asia, which we have plenty of upside because discretionary mandate penetration has been growing very fast in our book but is at a very low level today.

The next question comes from Jon Peace from Credit Suisse.

So first question, please, is on M&A. What sort of deals do you imagine that you might look at under the next plan? And what sort of size as well? I think you've said in the past that it's not really worth your time doing small deals, but is that in a group context or in a local context? And then I have a second question, please, on rate sensitivity. Your guidance assumes that switch from current accounts to time deposits of 30% or 40% in that 100, 200 basis point scenario. I just wondered if your guidance on gross margin is basically a net of that number, could we get the gross and the net, i.e., what's the impact on the gross margin of that 30% switch in case the beta ends up being different?

Thank you for that question. I think in M&A, it's really very simple. I think we've laid out the criteria for the deals clearly in the presentation. In terms of size, I think it must make a meaningful difference in one of our core markets. That's a very simple way of looking at it. And obviously, that's relative to existing size in the market. If you take a market with CHF 10 billion to CHF 20 billion of existing assets, maybe a deal in the lower single digits makes a very little difference, except, of course, if a range of additional capabilities might come with it and open doors. That's how we could look at it, but it should have a relevant impact on those core markets. But that can mean that it's a single-digit deals in some markets, double-digit deals in other markets can make perfectly sense. So we would look at these at both levels, obviously, for broader deals transformationally globally, but then market by market.

On the question with respect to rate sensitivity. If I understood you correctly, you're asking whether we have -- our targets are derived by taking into account rate hikes, right? Or can you repeat the question?

Yes. So it's on Slide 35, where you say 100 basis point dollar rise, that's 5 basis points to the gross margin. That assumes that 30% of your current accounts switch to time deposits. I just wondered what's the negative impact from that 30% switch, i.e., if there was no switching, what would the gross benefit be? Just so we can get an idea of if the switch ends up being a different number, what's your sensitivity.

I think you should be -- it's hard to give you that number off the top of my head, but I would assume maybe a couple of basis points more.

The next question comes from Nicholas Herman from Citigroup.

Yes. A couple of questions, 3 questions from my side, please. Just on the gross margin, first of all, could you talk about the marginal cost/income on high NII, please? And then second is also on the gross margin. It looks like you are given -- you're planning to embed higher NII and higher recurring revenue there, presumably [ as ] some kind of offset in terms of client activity and trading. Could you just talk about what kind of environment you've embedded in your plan on the client activity side? Secondly, on the self-help point. Just on revenue, -- just curious, first of all, what other manufacturing capabilities do you see yourselves developing? And also a bit on the cost side, you provided the breakdown of the revenue self-help. Did you do the same thing on the cost side across the 3 focus areas that you outlined? And then finally, on capital. Could you -- perhaps I'll just ask you, could you just provide a little bit more detail on the drivers of the risk density range that you provided? How much of that is FRTB? How much from mortgages, please?

Okay. That was quite a list of questions, Nicholas. Can you please -- let's start from the first one, which, unfortunately, I didn't quite catch. I don't know if you did, Philipp? Gross margin...

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, I can hear you.

So just curious on the marginal cost income allocated -- marginal costs allocated to higher NII.

Okay. Yes, I got the question. So you -- basically, the question is how much of that NII drops to the bottom line. I think you should assume around 80% of that should drop to the bottom line. Second question was on the environment. What kind of environment we're assuming in the plan? Correct?

Correct.

I think over a long-term horizon, we're assuming some sort of normalization in trading activity compared to the elevated levels that we've had in the last couple of years. And that's obviously notwithstanding the trading income contribution associated with the swap that we do. On the self-help revenue uplift manufacturing capabilities. Maybe I can talk a little bit about our funds business. Today, it stands at around CHF 13 billion. That excludes the supervisory business that we have [indiscernible] ManCo out of Ireland. And just to give you a sense of the pace of growth, 3, 4 years ago it was less than half that size. And it's a business that's -- brings a very decent ROA margin, obviously, depending on the mix of share classes. And the underlying asset class is around 90 basis points or so.

You would add to that the capabilities, the emerging capabilities and the established capabilities in private equity. I think we -- in the broader sense, part of the funds business, especially on the fiduciary side, you add to this the emerging service range on the real estate side, I think, which will be another source of income, will be service income. And then also investment-related income as we build the Swiss platform, as I said. You could add wealth planning to this, which has been a key area of growth where we've also increased massively the service offering over the last few years, and where more and more we get remunerated by clients for a long-term service provision, sometimes even independent of asset levels and certainly not based on transactions. And so the tool kit of manufacturing capabilities has actually been broadened quite considerably.

And maybe if you want, I can share some quantification of where we are in terms of private markets business today on the fiduciary side, you should think about our total committed assets, client committed assets at around 1% of our assets under management base. So there's really ample room to grow. And obviously, the margins are quite attractive and the revenues are sticky. On the capital points, what's driving our RWA trajectory or pathway over the next 2, 3 years? What I can say that perhaps would be helpful, given our business mix today and our balance sheet today and of course all the uncertainties that you have to pencil in with respect to the final rules because none of this is yet really finalized, particularly with respect to the fundamental review of the trading book, our RWAs would be higher, 10% to 15%, today if we were to bring Basel III final forward. Of course, one should take note that certain businesses that we're doing today, we might not be doing in the future if they're not accretive from an RoCET1 perspective.

That's very helpful. So did I hear you correctly? You said the RWA will be 15% higher if Basel III was finalized today?

10% to 15%. 10% to 15%.

The next question comes from Nicolas Payen from Kepler Cheuvreux.

I have two. The first one is on your financial targets. If I look at where you stand at the 4 months of 2022, your gross margin is 85 basis points, your cost-to-income ratio is 63% and -- I mean, we know that there is going to be some trading normalization, client activity normalization on the gross margin side. But at the same time, we have offset effect from higher recurring fee margin potentially and higher NII and also your [ clients ] on cost savings program. And still your target is below 64%. So you're already there. So I'm wondering what kind of -- I mean, what kind of deterioration we should expect maybe for the next couple of years? And why -- maybe why aren't you more ambitious actually on your financial target because you are already there in some way? And same kind of question on your pretax profit growth. You increased your adjusted pretax profit margin, your cost-to-income ratio, but not the pretax profit growth. So why is that? And the last question would be on your assumption regarding net inflows. You said that you are going to increase your number of RMs. So I was wondering if we should expect maybe an acceleration of the net inflows? And what kind of market performance you have included in your assumptions for your AUM growth?

Let me start with the first one. And thank you for those questions. I recall, and you'll allow me -- myself a little bit of a smile when I go back in 2020 when we gave the 2020 to '22 targets and the 67% cost/income ratio. It took a while, I believe, to convince the markets that we could ultimately get there. And when we were there the first time, the question was then asked, why haven't we already readjusted our targets. I think again, 64%, given the current level of uncertainty, given what's happening in the industry out there, given the convolution of different streams, of headwinds and of tailwinds, and looking at where the industry is heading out there also on the regulatory side, also on the technology side, it's a very ambitious target. And it's a very clear signpost, I would consider this a leading target. And obviously, this is not just about making it at one point in time. I think that's -- the easier part, is making it consistently over a longer period in time and having the structural prerequisites in place to manage these under different market conditions. And so I actually do consider this a very aggressive and ambitious forward-looking target, where a lot of work needs to be put in to ensure the delivery on a consistent basis. The PBT growth, I think, again, I mean 10%, it's always relative to your starting point. I think we did have one starting point when we started our cycle 2020 to '22. We have a completely different starting point now as we embark on the '23 to '25 cycle. And so having this growth target continued in the future is actually not getting easier, it's also getting harder. And we do believe that this has a lot of ambition embedded in it. Maybe, Evie, on the third?

Yes. I mean just to make another couple of points. Like Philipp alluded to, last time our target was less than 67%. Right now with the visibility we have towards the end of the year, we think we're going to land in the mid-60s. So that's well within less than 67%. And for our new targets, we are talking about less than 64%. Who knows, but I think you can draw the conclusion. Exactly. And the other point I would say is that we believe really we're leaning forward here quite a bit. And we're putting -- the target is quite ambitious, in our view. And we're putting quite some pressure on the organization -- the whole organization to deliver on these targets.

Your third question was relating to inflows. Could you repeat it, please?

It was net flows and market performance, I think.

Yes. What was the market performance assumption that you took in your -- maybe in your plan? And if we should see an acceleration of net new money given that you increased the number of RM?

I think I somewhat addressed this question. I think it was Hubert that asked it. On the market performance assumptions, I think we -- if you look at the current consensus, and I realize this is fluctuating in the current environment, that's probably a safe bet. We're, again, assuming that this year there's going to be a little bit of a dip, but next year things -- and the following 3 years, things are going to normalize.

The next question comes from Adam Terelak from Mediobanca.

I've got a couple. Sorry to double down on cost/income ratios, but if you kind of look at your FX support on the move of the dollar today, I think you're getting a couple of points of cost/income momentum from that alone. You're telling me the 20% marginal cost/income on NII, I mean, putting that all together, that's a macro tailwind through the ratio that is a few points. And you're talking -- obviously, only drifting down to 64%. So I just want to kind of understand that a little bit more. If markets collapse and equity markets are down, does that mean actually you've got revenues on a higher cost/income coming down as well? And so you could have NII fees down, but actually costs drifting down as a result. So what's your cost income flexibility? And how should we think about that going forward in the context of softer equity markets and then the NII upgrades going forwards? And then to move on to NII, which is the other topic. Can we just talk about what the NII or the NIMs look like into May and June and what it might look like into the second half of this year where you see a 50 basis point hike from the next Fed meeting? So what's the actual NIM experience rather than the sensitivity we're seeing?

Let me just give a strategic answer to cost/income flexibility. I do believe that if I take today's starting point and project into the next 3 years, I do believe that we have to work with a different set of scenarios, as we are actively doing. Obviously, as we stated to many times today, there is a convergence of different factors that makes it very hard to predict, let's say, a single scenario with a high degree of confidence on how the economy will be developing, how recessive sort of the current interventions of the central banks will be, how fast the pandemic will evolve, for example in Asia, and the recovery will set in. And so in that sense, we have to prepare for different scenarios in terms of interest rate hikes, in terms of where will the equity markets go and how fast they will recover. And we'll do this as we have always done, through strategic flexibility on the one side, having a very strong eye on revenues and having today much more sources and a broader set of sources of revenues transactional, where we've always proven that we can get benefits from high-volatility environments, and that's a great offsetting capability. On the other side, developing our asset-based revenue generation. which is important in less-volatile environments and then continuously flexibilizing the cost base. And I believe the running of a strategic cost program over the course of the next 3 years will again give us the platform and the environment in which we have a bit of leeway to work also on the cost side as one important side of this equation. I do believe that it takes this nimbleness and flexibility in this phase moving forward to be able to give targets, as we've done today, with a degree of confidence.

On the net interest margin question. I ask for your patience. Our half year results are just around the corner, where we'll provide you with all the details. But if I can maybe give you a little bit of qualitative if not quantitative color, we haven't really started seeing in the first 4 months of the year the effects of the 25 basis points rate hike from the Fed. Maybe just a little bit in the month of April.

Okay. Can I just follow up? The mid-60s cost/income for this year, how much NII upside should we be baking through to the cost/income benefit? So clearly, you printed 63% 4 months, you've got an NII tailwind to your cost/income. How should we think about that from this year's guidance rather than thinking kind of any further out?

Your -- so the question is how much of the cost-to-income ratio is associated with NII? It's not a large part of it.

Sorry, to be clear, you've got an NII tailwind in 2H this year. That's clearly accretive to your cost income ratio given only 20% [ drops through ]. Could you just give us a guide for kind of the moving parts on the mid-60s cost-to-income ratio for full year '22?

Okay. So we're at the starting point of 63% year to date. I think, first of all, we haven't seen the full effects of the 5% AUM drop in the first 4 months of the year because we charge clients on a quarterly basis. Second, we are assuming that over the summer months there is going to be much less trading activity from clients and also towards the end of the year. And those sort of dampening effects are going to be to some extent counterweighted by an uplift in NII.

Your next question comes from today from Stefan Stalmann from Autonomous Research.

I have a couple of questions, please. I wanted to come back to the assets under management growth and rephrase maybe the previous questions. You're thinking that you can more than double the assets under management over the next decade. So that's about 8% compound growth every year. Can you give us a rough sense of the structural components of this 8% growth in terms of net new money, market performance and maybe M&A that's embedded in this ambition? The second point goes back again to the rate sensitivity. Could you maybe disclose to us what deposit beta you embedded into your sensitivity for the first 100 basis points on the U.S. dollar rate side, please? And the last question goes back to the deleveraging impact that you have seen in the first 4 months. If I try to translate the net new asset experience into a loan decline number, I would get to something like CHF 5 billion, CHF 6 billion, best guess. That will be a decline of loans since the end of the year. And you're saying that that's only a very limited number of clients. So if I guess 10, that means that you would have a very large loan exposures, let's say CHF 0.5 billion each, to such a small number of clients. I was wondering how that is in line with a conservative approach to risk management. Those exposures look very large compared to the size of your bank?

Let me start with the last question. I think this was more than 10 clients, obviously. We don't disclose the number of 10 clients, but apologies if the -- the qualification has -- led to a misinterpretation of numbers. That would indeed not be in line with our risk appetite. The number of clients is clearly higher. Let me start with the first question. The long-term approximation we gave was as absolutely not the character of a target. It's just an illustration. And for that illustration, obviously, we've taken a few assumptions. You could assume in these, let's say, a long-term normalized market performance as we have experienced it over many, many years. You should assume very solid net new money as we've always exhibited over many, many years. You'll recall, we've been growing at sort of 4% to 6% net new money for many years as Julius Baer. And then obviously, exceeding CHF 1 trillion assets would include a sizable amount of M&A activity bolt-on and a bit of transformation. So that's the way how you can triangulate it.

And on the rate sensitivity question, I think what we're assuming is that over 12 months -- and I think this is quite a conservative assumption, if I look at our past experience -- 30% of our current accounts are going to shift into call and time deposits in the case of a dollar -- 100 basis point rate hike. And if I recall in the 2018 cycle, we took about 18 to 24 months to reach the peak shift from current accounts to call and time deposits. And depending on how you define deposit beta, it was around 0.4%, 0.5%.

The next question comes from Benjamin Goy from Deutsche Bank.

Yes. Just 2 questions left. So one, you want to grow your recurring revenues, and you mention mortgage growth. So I was just wondering why don't you move to an advanced IRB model, which would be much more capital efficient and probably also put you in a better competitive position? And then secondly, previously, you used to mention the core markets. Now one is obviously missing, another one was sold. That leaves Italy, which wasn't mentioned in your key markets. So I was just wondering whether there's any change in view on that country?

And obviously, the change of model is always something that needs to be looked at, which has advantages and disadvantages. Maybe Evie says a word about that. Let me talk about core markets. We've decided to talk about a selective set of markets and helps in the context of this presentation to illustrate you where we will be growing. This is not fully congruent with the list of core markets that we operate today, that we obviously also continuously review. I think we continue to be very active in Italy and have a strong franchise there, both onshore with Kairos, that has come now quite some way, and with our international activities -- and we will be continuing to serve that market moving forward.

And on IRB, if I may, I mean, we're continuously reviewing our alternatives to enhance our risk framework. We've done a lot in the past, in the last few years. We will continue to strengthen our risk framework and IRB could be one of the tools to do so. However, as you know, this is a very long-term project and requires substantial preparation and resource build up. And most importantly, we would very much want to seek the guidance and closely coordinate with our regulator in Switzerland. We think this is very important.

The last question comes from Amit Goel from Barclays.

I've got 2 questions, one a follow up. So just the first one, the follow-up. Coming back to Slide 34 and the comments you made as well, helpfully, on pricing. I was just kind of curious because, say, 3 years ago, in your presentation then you discussed -- or you anticipated industry-wide margin pressure. So I'm just kind of curious how you're seeing the competitive environment over the next few years. And -- where exactly are you seeing potential or why you're seeing better potential for improving pricing? And the second question, I just want to check whether you've got any kind of lending aspiration or target as well in your plan for the next few years?

Let me take the pricing question. I think 3 years ago we did have a very structural opportunity on the pricing side. And with the shift to sustainable profit growth, obviously our lens also on a desirable versus less desirable ways of working with our clients have changed. And we have substantial opportunities to work on fundamental profitability of some of our clients. And I think we've come a very, very long way in that. This work that -- I said the lower-hanging fruits should be more or less concluded by now, although there's always a changing environment that also changes the profitability parameters. I think today's opportunities on the pricing are obviously still in the question of how can we create more value, how can we cross-sell, how can we increase the substance -- the value creation between us and clients and how can we share that? What's the optimal mode of doing it? It's a question of balance between asset-based prices and transactional prices to optimize the pricing over the cycle. In some areas, it's indeed also a matter of price levels, and I think we'll be pursuing this moving forward. Margin pressure will continue. Maybe a bit slower than in the past with inflation kicking in. But I think in principle, the direction of travel, and it used to be 1 to 2 basis points per annum, maybe it's a tiny bit less, the direction of travel should continue. This is and continues to be a highly competitive industry. There are many entrants in there, many players who play a cost -- price-led game. And I think I also alluded to the need for consolidation in the industry. I think the moment will come. But until then, we will certainly see a very competitive environment. And that's why value creation is so important. It's not just it's not about squeezing a lemon. It's really about creating a much bigger pie. And that's how we continue on that path.

Yes. Maybe I'll just add a quick comment. Yes, as Philipp said, there are ongoing pressures on prices. But we've captured these in our targets. So we've reflected this point when deciding to set our 25% by '25 initiative. And the second question, I think, was on lending aspirations.

Yes.

Our credit penetration in the last couple of years -- obviously, this fluctuates a little bit -- has been around 11%, 10%. We don't assume a massive increase in that in the next few years, in keeping with our conservative stance around risk management.

Excellent. Thank you very much indeed. I think with absolute Swiss precision, we've arrived at 11:00. Is there one more question, please? We have 1 more minute, so that's brilliant. Please.

Okay. Thomas Pohl, awp. I just wanted to ask again about your efficiency program. If there is some reduction of workforce included? And if you could -- if you put a number to that? And maybe also what geographies do you want to reduce your presence, if there are any geographies defined?

We don't put up a number yet. Of course, I think any efficiency program in banking always involves also personnel expenses. I think in the long run as it has in the past. In terms of geographies, I think the immediate first step is announced with the closure of the advisory office in Moscow. And we have been in the past reviewing our geographic footprint, and we'll continue to do that moving forward. We'll announce this as we get closer into the '23 to '25 period. Good. That would conclude today's session. Let me say thank you very much indeed to all of you for coming here into our nice well-lit green room with a lot of forward-looking energy. Thank you, everyone who joined us virtually in today's session, and thank you to all of you for being part of our journey so far and also in the next 3 years, which are going to be 3 exciting years. Thank you, Evie, and looking forward to many more moments on stage together with you. And I'm looking forward to updating all of you, obviously, first about how our business will continue to go in 2022, and then about the growth and development that we are putting in place in the next stage over the coming reporting cycles and at future touch points. Thanks very much indeed, and have a brilliant day.