Van Lanschot Kempen NV (VLK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, good morning, all. A very warm welcome here in Amsterdam in our home, but also all the people that worked digitally and live. So it's good to be here today, and thank you for joining. Today, it's about growth. It's about upping up our game. It's about ambition. It's about being up personal with our clients. And it's also about one team, one dream. And I'm extremely proud to present today with my colleagues of the management board and also Thomas Vanderlinden, our CEO in Belgium, our story today to you. And -- but before I start, 2 colleagues of the management board will not present today, but are present and also will join the Q&A afterwards. Arjan Huisman, our Chief Operating Officer; thank you, Arjan Ian. And Damla Hendriks, our new Chief Risk Officer. Welcome, Damla. Thank you very much, started June 1 and made our team complete again. So I'll start with an update on our strategy, and then I'll hand over to Wendy Winklers for an update on the Private Clients Netherlands. Then we will have a break and then the other colleagues will continue. Having said that, moving to our strategy. One of the great joys in my work is that I'm able to work with a lot of clients and being the trusted adviser of our clients with many colleagues is something that is really special. In this room, we have many events where our clients join and the rooms, you see also on the same floor Private Bank has joined. And for example, one of the things I really like if one of the clients sells their business or family business, and then we have our investment colleagues presenting our own investment engine, solutions to them. Those are the moments that really make me proud. And we don't do that for one transaction. We do that for generation and across the generation. So if we go to our strategy and the key points in our strategy that we also presented today in our press release, it's our ambition to be the leading wealth manager in Western Europe with a solid foundation in the Netherlands and Belgium. Next to that, and Wendy will explore that in more depth, we really capitalize on the momentum in private banking in the Netherlands, we see in the last few years and also unlocking new growth engines there. Third, we reap the potential after the acquisition of Mercier Vanderlinden, a real partnership for growth in Private Banking Belgium, which we now consider our second home market or maybe even our first home market and then Netherlands our second home market, but 2 home markets. And also very important is that we positioned investment management and also investment banking for renewed profitability and enhanced support of private banking, and that is key in our model as a wealth manager with unique capabilities. And after break, you will hear more about that. And we combine that, you've seen that this morning with new, ambitious but also realistic targets for 2027 to underscore our growth strategy. And if we go to the next slide, I think this is the key of our business model. And I talked already about some of the examples with our clients. A couple of weeks ago, I met a family that sold a family business that was looking to invest about EUR 50 million into really impact solutions, but then also really wanting to move into philanthropy, also giving back part of their family money, and they do that with 3 generations of people. Those are the conversations that are staff and our bankers and our investment advisers are great in. But it -- the family came to us in a really excellent cooperation between the people at Investment Banking and Private Banking. Those are the things that we really, really like to do and that I enjoy a lot in my work. Private Banking is the foundation of our business. And we offer those services for families and foundation entrepreneurs and we see that, that momentum is there. It's about growth. We are operating in a growing market, and we are gaining market share in that growing market. That's basically the story. We're also very proud that we have an in-house investment management. We don't insource it from external providers. Now it's our own proprietary in-house investment engine with capabilities that we offer to both institutional and Private Clients. A lot of solutions we offer to institutional clients are also very valid for, for example, the high end of the Private Clients. So this is the core of our business model. And of course, also Investment Banking has to be profitable and contribute to our targets on their own. If we go to the next slide, I think this is very important. It's not about numbers. but it's basically the core. Everybody can copy the brand. You can copy your products and financial services, that's not too difficult, takes a couple of weeks or months. But you cannot copy culture. And some people say, copy of a culture eat strategy for breakfast. But it is about who we are. We go for the long-term relationship. My first meeting with the client, I think I told it before, was a family in Rotterdam, 3 generations at the table and really talking about what their family needs are, what the family business needs are. And the banker was already 24 years the banker for the family. She was the trusted adviser. Being close to our clients, that's part of our DNA. It's also what makes us really distinctive. And of course, those are other values that are extremely important. I would like to take out decisive, we can act very fast. Really fast. And we have all kinds of launches with clients who are sitting to an entrepreneur, a woman. She had sold her businesses and then her bank asker her to -- told her that she couldn't be in a [indiscernible] situation, an overdraft situation on our current account because she was no longer an employee, now she sold her company. So she was so angry that she decided on the same day to go to one of our offices in [indiscernible] in this case. And said, okay, if you can open an account for me within a week, then I will transfer all my money, which I got from the sale of my company to you. That is -- and we were, of course, able to do so with good CDD, et cetera. So that is how we really make the difference to our clients and part of our growth as well. But I also like is the entrepreneurial side. We are close to our clients, but you also have an entrepreneurial culture. I think it's also part of our heritage from an entrepreneurial family. But it's also the fact that 70% of our employees are also owners of our stock in total, about 10% of our stock is with employees. So they feel the ownership also of the firm. So this is about culture, and I think that's very important. I want to share some thoughts about it. Now if you look at some of the fact that we did in some of the performance over the last couple of years, and I've only witnessed the last 3 years. So this is also a destiny to my colleagues and predecessors. But I think we see -- we have seen quite some strong growth in assets under management, an improvement of the cost income ratio since 2016 and a very limited balance sheet growth, which, by the way, is our strategy to grow in a capital-light way. And that also enabled us that performance improvement to return to our shareholders, about EUR 800 million in capital and dividends and excess capital since 2016. In addition to that, we said, as you all are very much aware, new targets 2 years ago. And by the first quarter of this year, as you have seen in the trading update, we met all those targets. That was one of the reasons to organize this investor update because, yes, then it's, of course, logical that you look at what is the next ambition level. But I'm proud of all the colleagues that we were able to have this journey deliver on that, and I think that's also very important that you're consistent, and we see the continued momentum there. So if we then go to the slide about growth, I also would like to share that it feels like we just started. We just started with, like I already said, in a market that is growing and with a very good positioning in the markets where we are to continue our path of gaining market share and gaining the trust of our clients. So the market is expected to grow and as my colleagues will explain in much more detail in the different segments, we also see a number of levers for future growth. For example, the high number of companies that is being sold by families liquidity moments as we also call them, but we also expect the market to consolidate further, and we have quite some experience over there. So more about that later, but we see a couple of growth engines that we will be able to capitalize upon. Then, and I think we shared that this morning. Like I said, we also felt it's necessary to up our game and to up our ambition level. And what you see here is that we have set new targets. I will not dive into them because my CFO, Jeroen Kroes, can do that much better. But I think the story is actually quite simple. We continue to grow. We keep the margins. We improve our efficiency further. We increase our returns. We increase our dividend payout ratio, a testimony of our capital-light business model, and that, as a consequence, will lead to higher expected dividends for our shareholders. Much more on that later, but this is the synopsis. And not only the short-term targets are important, but also we are part of society. And I always get a bit of goose bumps of this picture. You see a beautiful green valley. We actually own that valley. There might be a surprise in the presentation as a bank, you don't want a lot of surprises, but this is maybe a surprise because one of the initiatives that our colleagues and investment management took is to establish a farmland fund together with a couple of pension funds, but now also family offices are invested. So we are the owner and one of the largest operators of sustainable farmland in the world. And this is one of the examples of the investments by the funds. That's about impact investing, but next to impact investing, which you would like to grow as a total of the EUR 135 billion that we invest for our clients. We also have targets on our way to net 0. We want to navigate our clients through the climate transition, but 2050 is quite far away for net 0. So we also said, and at the beginning of the year, we sharpened our targets for our own footprint. We do that in a navigation and in a dialogue with our clients. But we are very committed also to reduce the footprint of our own organizations, aiming to be net 0 in our own operation by 2030. So also there, we -- on the nonfinancial target side, being part of larger society in the climate transition, we want to contribute. But once again, especially in Scope 3. Most important is the assets we manage for our clients and we do that in a dialogue, focusing on the transition. So if we return to the growth target, and also here, Jeroen will explain more. We expect -- you've seen we had a track -- we have a track record of growing faster than 10% in the last few years. We think, of course, our total assets under management increased. So in absolute terms, 10% is more than in 2016, for example, almost double. So we think this is quite an ambitious target that we also think it's realistic. We have proved it in the past. We see that we have the momentum, and we see three levers there: market performance, inorganic growth and organic growth. Very important, and I'll get back to that later, is also having the right talent on board because we have a very personal business model to keep an attractive talent that's able to serve our clients, but also the new clients. So if you look about -- talk about growth, I would like to talk about a couple of ingredients, let's say, of that growth like technology, trust acquisitions and also our talent. So let's go there. First of all, the acquisitions. You see here, and now I feel a bit like the weatherman, but you see here the acquisitions since 2016, One of the things when I joined 3 years ago, what I really like is that I noticed that there were many clients, and I think before that, we have even credit and [ effective ] bank. But that I really met a lot of clients and also staff that joined with one of the acquisitions over the past. So, and I think that's important because private banking is about a personal approach. It's about being close to the client. So if you're able to keep the staff, then you're also able to keep the relationship with the clients because they have not chosen for us, they've chosen for this company. And this is also very important in moving forward in terms of acquisitions because it has to be a cultural fit. That's very important. For example, with Mercier Vanderlinden, and Thomas is here and will tell also his personal story why they decided to join for Van Lanschot Kempen but also Accuro, our most recent acquisition in Belgium, they really wanted to join us as a partnership as moving forward, also being able partly to pay in shares. So being part of the future success of the firm. I think that's extremely important. We'll continue on this path. And next to the cultural fit, of course, also the financial discipline is extremely important in acquisitions, but we have the integration track record. We have one platform, I am build at for the Netherlands and Belgium, where we can add the clients in a very efficient way. So that about the -- and Jeroen will tell more about the dynamics also in relation to our capital. That about the growth. Then tech. If you give Arjan the floor, he will talk for 2 hours about it, so I'll try to do it in 2 minutes. But actually, 2 hours are a bit more fair probably. A lot of people talk about GenAI. We talk also about it, but we also implemented it. And as one of the first organizations in the Netherlands, for example, Microsoft is a partner in GenAI, amongst others, we were the first one to be live with Microsoft Copilot. We have 6 cases live in the business right now, where they improve our investment research, where they improve our processes and I think very important, where also GenAI already led now to 20% productivity increase with our developers. So this is really helping to become more efficient, what I also want to say is not only about GenAI. It's also about moving our data and software to the cloud with a more flexible and variable cost model, like I said, the track record of swift integrations and reaping the benefits of that. But also combined and Jeroen is very fierce on that as well, but we all are, as a team, very tight cost control. But we continuing to invest because we believe that over the next years, there is an enormous benefit of the investments in technology and especially also in GenAI to make us more productive. But always, as something on the back of our very personal approach to clients. So the digital part and that has to be very good, but serves our personal approach to clients, not the other way around. Moving to another part of growth and also very important. I think another client story. A couple of weeks ago, also sitting next to a lunch was a man, an entrepreneur that sold his company, and I asked him why he joined us. Answer was, he said, maybe you don't like the answer, but I don't hear anything bad about you. And you have good people, yes, and you have good products. But that was, for me, a sign -- once again, hey, trust and reputation are extremely important as a wealth manager, that's something that we maybe underestimated sometimes, but trust and reputation are extremely important. And that's also where risk management comes in, clear limits to manage our capital and liquidity position, conservatism there, compliance really embedded in the organization. And with all the regulation, that's not an easy thing to do. We now have Dora coming up and new AI regulations that absorbing that, but always absorbing it also there from a client perspective. I believe that, for example, all the regulations, AML and CDD, actually helped us acquiring new clients because we integrated in the client experience and for a lot of companies, that was very hard to do, and clients felt not treated right. So this is, I think, a very important aspect, but risk being part of the core of what we do because we think trust and reputation are extremely important. And also here, mistakes are made, we learned from them, but always within the risk limits that we accept. And this is not only important for the first 283 years. It will also be supported for the years to come. Then finally -- but I would say maybe even most important, the talent part. And I thought about sharing, but you see the bullets here, but I do it a bit differently. A month ago, I had a farewell lunch with [indiscernible]. This evening, we have our old staff party in Nieuwegein. I hope you will be there as well. But a very senior banker that retired after about 30 years. And what really struck me in that lunch in Leiden was that he said, yes, Maarten, I'm going to retire, but I will remain part of the networks in Leiden. I will remain part of all types of people entrepreneurs that I meet and I always will be an ambassador for you. And where I see an opportunity, I will relay those prospects to my successor, where I handed over my clients. And that for me was like, okay, this is really somebody who worked so hard over a long time and is still so dedicated and a friend of the family of the house. But yesterday, at lunch with -- a client asked me to meet her with a lady and just a young graduate at the same university as I studied, the Vrije Universiteit. And she was really very, very, I would say, passionate about investing and -- but also for investing for women because you said there are so many men in investment and not enough women. And I would like to make a difference because women think different about investments as you wrote a thesis about [ GenZ ] and investing in a difference between men and women. And she had 3 offers. I didn't know that, by the way, when we started the meeting, but one was here in the company. And that's what I really hope that, well, that somebody like her will choose, maybe she's watching, I don't know, but we'll choose to work for us, but this is so important to get a new generation on board working with 5 generations in a workforce and supporting the existing clients but also the new clients, but we are able to attract that kind of talent. And that is, I think, something extremely important. But I also would like to mention, and I talked about the partnership between Investment Banking, Investment Management and Private Wealth Management. 3 years ago, we also established a partnership to connect the dots and to work more together, get more ownership in the organization, and that also really helps with furthering our and implementing our strategy. So that about talent. I think it's crucial and also how the labor market's development crucial for our success, crucial for the one team, one dream. So before I would like to hand over to Wendy to talk about what we see in the Netherlands and the momentum we see in Private Clients in the Netherlands. I would like to show a short video of 2 colleagues, 2 bankers talking about their work and then my colleagues will first, Wendy, and then Thomas on Belgium will talk about what's happening in their respective markets and how also talent is interacting with our clients over there. So thank you very much so far. You will see me back later with the Q&A. Thank you. [Presentation]

And this makes me really proud because it's not only Maarten and [indiscernible] that speak with our clients with such dedication, it's all of us that are really focused on our clients. And I'm very happy to tell you more about how we do this within Private Clients. This attention to our clients that we're giving is also reflected in the client satisfaction that we see. We are so focused on our clients. We are very much into them, really interested, and that is reflected in how they perceive us. And also our potential clients reckon our strength. And I think this all boils down to being a pure-play wealth manager. Private Banking is the essence of what we do. And this has brought us over the last couple of years, consistently strong inflows, over EUR 1 billion a year. And already in the first quarter, we have seen EUR 900 million coming in. And Maarten already referred to with this strong starting position and strong momentum, there are further trends that are very positive and will help us grow further. First of all, we're active in a growing market. Market is expected to grow by 4.5% on an annual basis, and there are underlying elements that will strengthen this growth to take a closer look on one of them, is the increase in number of companies that will be sold. We have been doing research, and we see that roughly 30% of family-owned companies is considering a sale to a strategic party or a private equity player. And that is a real different number than what it used to be. And this will, as Maarten already mentioned, be a liquidity moment for them. And another interesting trend is the great wealth transfer, which, of course, simply follows from the demographic that we're in as a country. But we have organized ourselves in such a way that we can really play into this trend. We have dedicated family and next-gen bankers, that are well capable of having a conversation across generations to have a conversation about a wealth that sometimes even the children, and then you have to think next-gen is sometimes already a person in his 50s is not aware of the wealth that the family is having. And then a whole new world open up and helping a family to have a conversation about this and determine what the values of the companies are and how they want to hand over the wealth and how they want to invest it is a very important moment for the client. And I think when I look at where we are today, we have 3 key differentiators to benefit from these trends to continue the strong momentum. Being personal, I think Maarten already made reference to that as well. We are so close to our clients, bringing a unique client experience is very important to us. We are relevant throughout the client life cycle. In every stage of the client's life, we have these very powerful conversations and can really add value to them. And thirdly, we have our in-house investment capabilities, which makes that we can offer very attractive and interesting investment solutions. Let's have a closer look on each of them. First of all, we're close to our clients and not only physically close but also mentally close. And physically close, we currently have 24 branches throughout the country. And it's really from [indiscernible] we recently strengthened with some senior bankers that really want to join us as a house. And we can meet at every office, but we can also meet at the office of the clients or at their house. I recently had in the evening meeting with [indiscernible] actually with a client, at his house, his partner and the little baby was there. So close, that is who we are. But we're not only physically close, I think it's even more important to be mentally close. And based on, well, the extensive experience that we have, we can be really of added value to the clients. We group our clients based on similar needs. And for instance, if you're working at a low firm or a private equity firm and you become a partner, well, then the business professional team is there to support you. As they have seen a lot of partners people becoming partner already, they know what will come on your path, and they can already advise you on what will happen, how you can best structure and what your -- even your spending pattern will look like. They have fast experience, and I think that is very valuable. And also for family members and the next generation, we have a lot of knowledge and a good example of this is the academy for succession within a family. And I would like to introduce you to [ Ilsa Evans ] who is the CEO of the confectionery factory that is producing the well-known Dutch brand [indiscernible]. [Presentation]

And this was clearly a transformational moment for this family. And this type of moments are there for every client in every stage of their life. And this is just a nice slide, but actually, it's about people, because all these clients, they will experience moments that are really relevant, and we will be there for them. Always. If we take a look, for instance, as a growth entrepreneur. And what we have experienced is that they start with a start-up, they grow further, to scale up, they have 30, 50 people, and all of their employees can get a mortgage because -- well, they have a stable income, they are employed. But if you are the entrepreneur, that's much more difficult. You don't fit the system because it's based on stable income. And what we have experienced and what we have learned over the years, we really understand their business. We dive really into their business, understand what the dynamic is, what will be the cash flow, what will be the valuation at some point. And on the basis of that, we are able to provide a mortgage to these clients. And that's really an important moment because, well, if you are a successful entrepreneur and you want to buy that larger house because you want at some point, we help you to make that possible. And also at the other end of the spectrum, the client that has sold this company or the family that has sold our company, there, we have very in-depth conversations and this could be a family that has already built up wealth because they have been able to pay dividends to their -- from the company toward their personal holding, but sometimes you also see companies or families that have been continuing to invest in their company. And then the sale is really the moment where the wealth becomes liquid. And then all the dynamics come into play, because as an entrepreneur, you know very well how you run your company. Every day, you can make small and big decisions, and you feel really in control. And then there is this wealth. And then what are you going to do? How are you going to preserve because preservation of wealth is then really #1 topic that they want to talk about. And we sit down with them. And we -- as Maarten also mentioned, talking about products, that's not how we start. We start with the client and have a very extensive conversation. What is your goal? What do you need for daily living? How do you want to organize for your children? And if you want to invest, what are you looking for? Sometimes they still have to own the real estate of the company, for instance, what you want with -- how liquid do you need once the investments to be? Do you want to be in private equity? The very broad conversation and even as Maarten referred, philanthropy could be of interest to these clients. And I think these are really valuable conversations. And only at the end of it. And when the client is ready and says, okay, now it's time to start investing, we then move to our investment solutions. And also there, we have a wide variety of solutions. Currently, we have for Private Banking in the Netherlands, EUR 37 billion of AUM, which is nicely spread across discretionary management and advisory services. And the discretionary solution is really the one for the preservation of wealth, having a diversified portfolio. That is a starting point. But from a certain level of capital or wealth, clients choose to do more, probably have specific teams. They want to pay more attention to. And then we can have a combination of discretionary management and advisory. And we have made a product out of it and that we call discretionary management with a personal touch, and we build on the strong expertise we have within our investment manager and the specific themes and knowledge they have and Erik will touch upon that later. I also want to pay a bit of attention to our advisory solutions because that's also quite a unique offering in these days. I think that's an important one to add to our spectrum because we see that entrepreneurial clients will still want to have control. Some don't want to hand over all their wealth. They don't -- they're not yet comfortable with that. So having an advisory solutions where they base themselves on our advice, but ultimately take their own decision is very important to them. And of course, we do this in an efficient manner. We start with a model portfolio and on the basis of the appetite of the client, we can make adjustments. And we also make sure that the investment adviser have the right tooling, some supported by AI to be very efficient in the way they operate. So having this investment proposition despite a variety of optionalities is really valuable to our clients. And then if we look into the trends and combining this where we are today, I see multiple engines for further growth. Well, we already touched a bit on the market share and how the market is growing. So 4.5% of market growth, we currently have a 15% market share. And with the growth that we have seen over the last couple of years and the position that we're in, we are confident that we will be able to outgrow the market and increase our market share. The great wealth transfer, I already referred to with our dedicated family and next-gen bankers. And the entrepreneurial clients, I think that's also a topic that we already discussed where we really see an increase of companies coming to the market. I haven't touched upon yet Private Clients, Switzerland, and it's good to spend some time to that as well. We are the only Dutch financial institution that has a banking license in Switzerland. And also the other way around, we're the only Swiss operation that has a significant operation in the Netherlands. And that really helps to build bridges and to facilitate clients for which -- for whom Switzerland could be a right solution given privacy, the asset protection or their wish to have some money moved out of the eurozone due to geopolitical situation. We currently have EUR 2.7 billion of AUM in Switzerland, and we catered there for Dutch and Belgium clients. And the market, our expectation is that it's roughly EUR 20 billion with Dutch clients at the moment. As we see a lot of opportunities for Switzerland, we recently strengthened our activity there by hiring well experienced bankers. And we will continue the cooperation between the Netherlands and Switzerland to help our clients that want to move some wealth to Switzerland. Then moving to the ultra high net worth segment. And Maarten also made a small remark on this already. And what I like about this one is that here, we now have the opportunity to really put all our activities to work together. We have a dedicated private banking offering. We have our investment management expertise and investment banking. And this segment or the ultra segment in Private Clients can really benefit from -- of the combination because this segment, for instance, from an investment perspective, is much more like an institutional or even already a small pension fund like character and then bringing in the fiduciary knowledge and capabilities that we have built up will help us to expand our position in this segment. And finally, Evi, the other end of the spectrum, moving from the ultra to the affluent market. There, we are making progress as well. We have the ambition to be the platform of [indiscernible] for the affluent clients. And you will be aware that we acquired the Robeco platform in 2023, and we are making good progress on integrating the 2 platforms, which, of course, will lead to skill benefits. We have reintroduced a savings offering for the Robeco clients, which is very important as this type of clients, the affluent clients, is a bit more sensitive to market volatility and having an investment account and a savings account, make sure that when they decide to step out of the market because they are uncertain that their wealth stays with us. And of course, we will approach them and tell them more about the market. And thirdly, we have launched our new Evi pension product, which, of course, plays into the trend of more individual pension solution given the Dutch pension reform. And by the end of Q4, we stood at EUR 6.6 billion of AUM with Evi. And I'm happy to say that we will be able to have a positive contribution by 2025, which is earlier than we expected when we did the acquisition of Robeco. Well, to conclude, yes, I'm very happy with the position that we're in, a very strong starting position, an interesting market where there's a lot of positive momentum supporting trends. And given our personal approach and our strong client experience, I'm confident that we will be able to grow further, and we have identified the relevant pockets to do so. So I'm -- yes, I think we're in a good place today. And now it's time to look at Belgium. I'm very happy that I can introduce you to Thomas Vanderlinden, the CEO of Van Lanschot Belgium or well, better known under Mercier Van Lanschot. Over to you.

Thank you, Wendy. Good morning, everybody. I'm thrilled to be here today. As you've heard, Belgium has been named the first home market. So it's very nice to hear that. So as an introduction, maybe let me give you a little story or a little -- how did I get here? What's the reason? So it's more like a personal story. It's a very simple one, don't be afraid. So I founded Mercier Vanderlinden in 2020 together with Stéphane Mercier. And that was out of the family mandate. So we both come out of a family -- an entrepreneurial family. And we sold the business in the second half of the '90s. And so the family entrusted us and decided to invest our whole like really the whole investable family assets in one equity fund, and that was the start of Mercier Vanderlinden. And that's where our slogan, investing together, comes from. So we have always said to our clients, what we do for you, we do it for ourselves. And that has made -- I think it's really very distinctive. No one was doing that. And that made us capable to really have a very nice growth traject until like 2020. We're still growing at that moment. But we realized we were an asset manager, not a bank that we needed to be a bank. And so we had a choice. So we go for a banking license or should we look for a partner? And you know the results. We found the partner. The only one actually was not an analyst was [ financed ], but we were immediately charmed by the quality of the people here and certainly because having the same vision. So we crafted the deal. So the first deal, and it has changed since. But the first year was like a 70% handover of our shares and we kept 30% and this 30% would have been handed over in, I think, '26. We quickly realized that maintaining like 2 different brands in Belgium was kind of complicated and maybe more importantly, not very clear, not clear to our clients, not clear to our colleagues, not clear to the market. And so in December '22, we made this huge decision, and I think it really made us gain like 4 years, 4 years further than anticipated. We handed over those 30% in an accelerated way, and we decided to create one company, one brand, Mercier Van Lanschot, staying through to the Van Lanschot Kempen values, but also very adapted to the local market, to the Belgian market, it's Mercier Van Lanschot. It's a service we are doing. So people are really always linked to their private banker to a local story. That's the reason why we chose for Mercier Van Lanschot. So that means that we have been working like really hard, very hard in 2023 to realize everything you see, we have really integrated the 2 companies. It's one company, it was launched 1st of January this year, but that means like legal integration. We merged the solutions like we have one very clear solution now for our clients. We onboarded all the clients. So like really a huge effort. But for me, the main message on this slide is on the right side. I think for you, it's the right side; for me, its -- yes. So on the right side, it's in what you could call like a transition year. A year where you look at yourself, we have managed to keep on the momentum. We have managed to grow it, and I even feel this growth accelerating now. And for me, that's really amazing. I think it puts us today in a position where we are really very confident to make through our ambition to be the private banker in Belgium, like the reference for people. To give you an example, today, I think we opened like 9 accounts every day. So it's huge. It's really an acceleration in our business. So I think when you look at the beginning, 2 houses that were looked as to, okay, like in size. Today, the size we have, I think it has been a transformational deal. So let's look at the markets. Maybe just have a little look, you have like 3 kind of players. You have the big universal banks, you have like the specialized private banks where we want to be part of, where we are part of and then you have like the smaller players. A bit the same as here in the Netherlands, but surprisingly, the Belgium private banking market is a bit taller than here in the Netherlands. We do grow also in Belgium. That's what the market tends to do. And we tend to take market share. So that's very important. But for me, the most important is actually like that green part, 50% of the Belgian companies will hand over not to the next generation, but sell their company. And that's where our focus lies. Very importantly, we have always tried to capture new clients by focusing on what I call new money. Why? Because it's much easier when people have like a capital moment in their life being it the dividend, being it selling the company. It's way easier to convince those people to come over rather than say to someone, you should come off from your bank to my bank, et cetera. So we have always focused on that and why? That's what you see downside there because Belgium people, I think they must be the most loyal clients in the world. So -- but it's very -- also like an advantage. So this means we're having a strategy to -- if you can go to the next slide, please. We want to be the top-of-mind private bank in Belgium. And when we looked at the Belgian market, so I just told you, Belgium clients are very loyal. The first thing we have to do is to deliver an impeccable service. How to do that? For me, the key word there is simplicity. Always keep things simple. So you see, we have discretionary offer, we have advice. The discretionary offer is really designed about investing together. We invest in 6 funds together with our clients, depending of the mandate the client gives us, very simple, investing together. We have investment advice in there, we benefit from what happens in the Netherlands. When they talked about it, the investment manifesto. So we don't going to reinvent the world, keep it simple. And of course, we have the wealth planning, and we try to give the best digital service to our clients. Keep it simple because if you don't keep it simple, you will never be able to give a good service to your clients and have their loyalty. The second pillar, very important one. We want to capture the growth. We want to capture market share. And I think to capture the growth, you really have to be distinctive. People have to see what do you stand for. I see a lot of banks, and I couldn't tell the difference if I was a client. I think if you see our story today, we are different. First of all, we have this brand. I will give you a look later on at the end of my presentation, so we can have a feel. What does that mean? This brand, but we really developed a local brand in the philosophy of Van Lanschot Kempen. Very important, you have to have like USP's unique selling proposition. They are very simple. The partnership we invest together, we're really standing out with that one. The expertise, logic of Van Lanschot Kempen, 1737. So we have built up through all these years, a lot of expertise. That's what people are looking for. We are the specialists, they need comfort, so bring that expertise. And in Belgium, I see no other player with that expertise. Lastly, conviction, and I think very important. And this conviction is built, of course, on the 2 other -- other 2 previous USPs. Conviction means we are able, thanks to our expertise, thanks to being invested ourselves, to invest in a certain way. If you look at the market today, most players are what I call active, passive investors. We are not that. I could call them like index huggers. We are conviction investors. We are like having a fundamental investors. That doesn't mean we are going black or going white that we are growth valuers -- growth investors that we are value investors. Now, we look really for the golden mean, people need to have comfort. So what's our strategy or our investment philosophy is, first of all, people want peace of mind. So don't complicate it too much, look the best worldwide companies, look for dominant companies, look for companies that have a good shareholder anchor ship, I think is very, very important long-term. That's what we call a quality company. But secondly, and that's the most difficult part in our job, look at the valuation. I think that's the best margin of safety you can have towards the future, we don't know is, okay, go for a quality company, but never pay too much. And we all make false, we have made -- we all made errors. But if you take this margin of safety and don't pay too much, you will better protect the assets and trusts. So then I come to what I see as the growth enhancers, geographically, the south of Belgium. As you may know, it has always been more difficult for Dutch-speaking banks or institutions to capture that market. I think we are ideally positioned to capture that market. Why? First of all, we have a great base there. It's our fastest-growing office in Belgium. We started there in 2018. Myself, my partners, like Stéphane Mercier, we both and others had a bilingual education. So we understand these people, we share the culture. It's about culture, Private Banking is culture. So we have the base. We speak the language. And today, we see there's a lot of things happening in the Belgian private banking market, as you know. And I see people really looking for solutions and they come to us, to give you an example, Mercier Vanderlinden has seen like a very nice boutique, and wealthy families gave us like what I would call a ticket like maybe 10% of the world, maybe 15%, 20%. What I see today and accelerating this year, it's really amazing. We get like 50% or even 100% of their wealth that they want to interest to us. So this is really an enhancer for growth and makes this very ambitious for the south of the country. Very important for me also is, of course, the capabilities we have here in the Netherlands and is to leverage what we want to give and offer to our clients, especially to the ultra high net worth. We want to have like this whole scope of offering to give them, and we're working on that together with the Netherlands, together with Switzerland. And finally, of course, attract talent, the war of talent. I'm very confident on that because I see a lot of people who are attracted by our story, a distinctive story. They come to us and -- so looking forward, I see a lot of new talents coming to us. Looking at this, you see we have like a really strong base -- we have like a place open there for the south of the country, working on that like in the west of the country, that will certainly follow something also. But mainly here, what you see is in Belgium. They made my task very easy. I only operate the front. And for the rest, I give it to Arjan and you all, and you work for me. My job is really easy. So no, thank you for that. But it really works. So that's what I call making growth on a scalable way. And I think in Belgium, we're really, really positioned to do that. So to wrap up, we have worked very hard. The integration is done. There is a new brand with a local touch. And I think we really can make true the ambition, to be the top private banking player in Belgium, to be top of mind with our clients. Our profile is really distinctive. People say, okay, that's what they stand for. It's really important, and we leverage the capabilities of the Netherlands. That's it for me. I think we head to a little break. But before going to the break, I would like to give you a little feeling of the branding we have launched in Belgium. Thank you. [Break]

Welcome back after the break. Timing is everything they say. So we're keeping a very, very good time management here. We're with 3 speakers left. It is up to me now to give you a little bit more perspective on the journey of investment management clients that we have embarked upon after obviously, the Investor Day that we had 2 years ago. Let me kind of start with the main message, and then I'll get back to the main message at the end and a little bit more color. But just like Thomas said or Toma, I should say, but the last 2 years, we've done a lot to work on our promise, the promise that we made 2 years ago, to really position the investment management for sustainable, profitable growth. And I think we're well underway on that journey, and I'll give you some of the evidence to kind of show that point. But what I wanted to do today first is to kind of start with the strategic rationale. I mean, why as a wealth manager is this investment engine important? Well, for starters, it's a little bit different than what most of our competitors have, right? They don't have the same type of investment engine that we have. So if you look at IMC, it's really 3 pillars that we recognize. It's on the institutional fiduciary management side, it's our own investment strategies on the wholesale side and then as talked about by both Wendy and Toma, the solutions that we have for our private clients. Where is the strategic rationale in all of this? Well, let's start with fiduciary management and fiduciary management in the Netherlands for pension funds, so highly institutional. It's a franchise that we've been building within the firm over the last 20 years. So it's been some time doing. But today, we're recognized as the leader or a leader in this space, maybe one or two -- one of two. And with that, that means that we have in-depth knowledge of how to manage the asset base of these pension funds. How to advise, how to implement and how to manage these large pools of assets. And they're not only invested in the Nvidias and the Microsofts of this world, right? These are sophisticated organizations that go deep in what we call very, very specific asset classes. So it could be natural resources or something like European direct lending. So quite sophisticated sub-pockets of financial markets. That's where we have developed a very, very deep expertise over the course of these 20 years. And where we have a lot of also happy clients in a way that have that kind of a relationship with us developed over the last couple of years. Why is that important? Because this is exactly the same engine that we need for the growth business that we see and the growth opportunities that we see in the U.K. where we're more of a challenger, but where we continue on the back of the same engine in order to also service more and more clients in the U.K., back to an example a little bit later on in the presentation. Why is that important? Because it's the same engine and of high-quality professional quality that increasingly, we are able to also translate into solutions for private clients, both in the Netherlands and in Belgium. And it has to be of institutional quality in order to also serve the segments that we recognize within private clients. So if you kind of add all of that up together, then all of a sudden, fiduciary management -- going to say a few words about it on the segment in itself a little bit later, but becomes the engine of a wealth management organization. It becomes the engine of Van Lanschot Kempen. And in that, you will find, I think, a lot of strategic rationale as to why, as a Board, we find it is so important to be successful in this particular segment, but with all of the cross-collaboration, cross-fertilization that, that brings. Okay. Let's move over to investment strategies and kind of go through the same exercise there. First and also very much in line with what Toma said, let's look at our signature. What kind of an investment manager are we? Well, we only have high conviction concentrated long-term quality like strategies. That's our signature. And we sometimes say to clients, we know what we invest in. We don't invest in a broad index, and let's see which company comes through the screen and then we invest in that. Every company that we invest in or every project like Maarten showed the picture, by the way, that was [indiscernible] in Portugal. But we have in-depth knowledge of these companies, and that is important. But because we also do that in areas like small caps or real estate, real assets, but also increasingly in private equity, where actually clients expect us to understand what we are investing in. And that signature is also something that our clients really want to interact and have a discussion with. They want to know why we are invested or not in Nvidia or in a small cap company. So the dialogue is also supported by the fact that we have people sitting behind screens, trying to make some sense of what happens in the world and what happens to a particular company and actually taken the investment decision based on that. Internally, we call that touching money. They actually understand. It's different than selecting a manager which is important as well. But here, we have people that actually have the experience and are constantly looking at how to translate developments in financial markets. So it's very, very clear that whilst we are selling this by itself in wholesale markets, the crossover to both the institutional space and also the private client space is almost evident, right? It's a real benefit to have your own portfolio managers. By the way, and I'll show you a little bit later, these portfolio managers are first class. Their performance is first quartile, and it comes with kind of a recognized investment culture that clients see when they think about Van Lanschot Kempen. Having said that, I think it's also fair, it's not on the slide, but this cross fertilization that we're talking about, and we started to talk about it 2 years ago, we're making steps, but we're not there yet. There's so much more possible and so much more to come. So from a situation where these columns were kind of less operating independently, we are now putting them together and are increasingly putting them together. Okay, strategic rationale. I spend a little bit more time on that than the next slides. But let's move on and kind of look at what investment management clients, what it is. You see here, just kind of read the slide, but it comes back to fiduciary management, investment strategies and all. But I wanted to pay a little bit of attention here to what we call alternative investment solutions. The point there is that increasingly, and you see this in all kinds of external studies and you probably read it in the paper as well, the world is moving to illiquid solutions. There's reasons for that, that I won't go into right now, but it's there. It happens to be the case that this is something that we have already been doing for these large institutional pension funds in the Netherlands. To basically advise them and guide them on how to invest in real assets; in private markets, less private equity; in alternative fixed income, very, very important asset class as well. But also, for example, the regenerative farming example that Maarten also showed way in the beginning. So we have the capability. We have a lot of knowledge and expertise. We think that we can build on that or we kind of know because we see the flows and we see the pipeline and the interest in the segment. It includes, by the way, impact investing that is becoming more and more important. There's going to be a lot of traction there. Even though it's from a smaller base, we expect growth in all 4 of these engines, but particularly with alternative investment solutions. Okay. Just a few words on the journey because 2 years ago, if we kind of look at where investment management clients was at that point of time, while the cost/income ratio, that was really not too compelling. That's kind of a euphemism, I think, but work to be done. So what we did and obviously, with the help of lots, lots and lots of colleagues and kind of mirroring or echoing what Toma said, we worked really, really hard on basically what I call getting fit for future. It was fit for purpose, but let's get fit for future, which means building the house that you can further expand upon, and that comes with kind of redirecting where we have our people. So we actually invested in operations and IT and we went through kind of a very difficult but had to be done reorganization in the rest of the business of IMC or the people of IMC, the departments, whilst at the same time, really deliberately focusing on the value chains, how the things operate and work together from the front-end client relationship to the back-end operations and IT, getting the handshakes right, reinventing processes, redesigning processes, making it, again, fit for future. It was a big change program with many, many different tracks under the umbrella of accelerate but we've made fantastic progress. And the thing that I'm really, really proud of is what I call kind of the velocity of change. What we've been able to really -- and the kind of the normal words for that as we got a lot of things done. But it's been amazing, especially because of this cross collaboration in the value chains that we focus on so heavily. With that, we're addressing legacy, scalability, flexibility, profitability and also kind of a journey towards the future. With that, it's not only in these value chains, but we also had a couple of commercial tracks. Because it's one thing to make sure that the foundation is more solid, but we also need to be commercially more savvy. So for example, with the wholesale segment, we now have presence on the ground. So relationships, people, the salespeople in the U.K. We're covering the Nordics, Germany, France, and I think I'm forgetting Switzerland, but selected European markets where we now have a presence and a game plan. Whereas in the past, we were kind of focusing on the Benelux market, but that's not the playground for investment strategies, right? It's kind of Continental Europe plus the U.K.. I think, again, the foundation has been thoroughly improved, getting fit for future, but also we see now the momentum with respect to the commercial side. So if I look at kind of the last couple of quarters for IMC, the results and also the pipeline are very promising. So with the momentum and our strong belief that we can continue that momentum, we will get into kind of the cost income ratio that I'll conclude with. Let's have a brief look at the 3 different segments in a little bit more detail. Investment strategies. You read paper, you talk to people and kind of the first thing that you hear is the whole world is moving to passive. It's a myth. It's at best only partially true. Because what is actually going on is what we call an asset management bifurcation. It's a move towards passive, but it's also a move towards much more concentrated fundamental long-term strategies. That's what people are asking for. And Toma actually used -- we didn't practice this, by the way, but you said benchmark hugging strategies. That's the big block in the middle that is being squeezed out. There's no future there. Margins are depressed. That's not where you want to be. Unfortunately, not for us, but for other competitors, that's where most of the people are. We are not. We are at the fringes. We're on the other side. We're in boutique type of strategies with high conviction. That sounds like good news. Well, it is kind of good news. But, there's a but, in order to be successful there, your performance needs to be first quartile. It's winner takes all. And you can kind of see that, on average, that's where we are. We're consistently beating what we call stretched out performance targets. That's one, plus you need to have distribution capabilities. You need to know which client or which prospect could be your next client. And that's where we invested both in terms of the people, but also kind of the intellectual knowledge, the commercial savvy of how to approach that. So big steps, I think, when it comes to investment strategies. The big financial kicker here is that the marginal cost is very, very low. We already have the teams. We already have the funds. We already have the infrastructure. So an additional client, an additional fees almost translate, almost -- I see some people kind of looking, okay, what is he going to say now, but almost translate one on one to the bottom line. So the scale here should be also the main driver whereas in the fiduciary side, it's more about controlled growth and also making sure that, that's profitable. So that on our active strategies. Let's move to fiduciary management. And also start with a myth there. Consolidation, where is the business 5 years from now, low fees. All of that is true, I think, but the fact that the assumption that you cannot make any money in this segment is a myth. There's other examples that prove that, but we are convinced about that as well. But you have to do it in a certain way. It means that you need to have scalability and flexibility in your operating platform. It means that sometimes you have to say no to specific demands that clients may have. We always provide them, by the way, with an alternative. We cannot do this, but we can do this and it may lead you to the same outcome. The consolidation is a fact. It also means that bigger schemes are coming to the market in the Netherlands. The consolidation is a fact, but it also means that the number of fiduciary managers has dwindled from 15 only a couple of years ago to 5 credible players today. So the market itself may not be growing, but the number of organizations getting a piece of that pie is much, much lower as well. So there's lots of opportunity also here on the back of pension reform, illiquid investing, which basically also increase the need for fiduciary management and advice to be optimistic also about this market, and it's a difficult market. U.K., all of the opportunity in the world. There's still 6,000 pension funds. There's a professionalization trend going on that also leads in the direction of fiduciary management. It's also important to participate kind of in the consolidation by being the fiduciary manager to the consolidator. And in the Netherlands, we have APF. We worked for a number of years, obviously, as the fiduciary management of [indiscernible] which by now, by the way, is the biggest consolidator in the Netherlands. So we're proud of that as well because it has been a journey and a partnership. And we intend to do exactly the same thing or we are doing the same thing with the first consolidated platform in the U.K. by the name of Clara. And I invited the CEO, his name is Simon True. We'll see him on the screen, just to say a few words on that.

Clara Pensions was set up in 2018, and it was a brand new initiative. It was set up to be a defined benefit pension scheme consolidator or a super fund. And this was an exciting time for the business as we've tried to create something brand new. Now the journey took a lot longer than anybody expected. We had to go through a brand-new legislation and work through the pension regulators assessment process. And in 2021, we became the first and currently the only company to have been through that assessment process, which was a huge achievement. It did take us a little bit longer than we'd hoped get our first transaction done. But in November 2023, we announced the deal that we have done with the CS Pension Scheme and we took on GBP 600 million of assets and 10,000 members and became the first people to complete a superfund transaction, which was, of course, an exciting time for us. So when we chose our fiduciary manager some years back. We're really looking for a partner. And in a partner, we were looking very much for somebody who shared our common values to focus on member outcomes. But we're prepared to invest and innovate, knowing that this was going to be an uncharted territory for both of us. Our relationship with Van Lanschot Kempen has been all around them being a part of our wider team. And that's worked really, really well for us. There's no them and us scenario, and they've been prepared to invest emotionally as much as financially in overcoming the barriers that we found and working really closely with us on our journey. There are many hundreds of thousands of members who would benefit from coming to Clara, and we're just going to work through our opportunities to make sure that we do that in a very carefully considered way. But our goal is to have tens of billion pounds of assets under management, hundreds of thousands of members within our scheme, but we have to do it at the right pace, but I'm extremely excited about the future.

And as you can imagine, so are we. And I can just only echo what Simon just said, it's been a professional pleasure also working with him and his team. Yes, a journey, but I'm convinced that this is going to be also another example of a successful journey. Okay. The third segment is obviously an important one, the collaboration with private clients. A few things already mentioned, of course, but also how we put that into practice. So the discretionary proposition with personal touch as Wendy called it, that's where we give access to people for private markets impact megatrends, alternative fixed income. So there you see true examples of opening up the possibilities that we have created in the institutional space. The same thing with respect to our intent when it comes to private equity. It's of high interest, and it's a natural interest of these entrepreneurs that both Wendy and Toma have been talking about as part of an important part of their client base. They're interested in companies, and they're interested in the stories behind these companies. And that's what we have in our private markets, private equity franchise. So we have already decided to basically expand and to make sure that we have additional possibilities and propositions, both for our clients in Netherlands and our clients in Belgium. Another very concrete example. And let's briefly focus on what has already been mentioned as well. The high or ultra-high net worth individuals. The thing is, Wendy alluded to it, is that increasingly, that's the same institutional standard. A lot of times, they use kind of the same advisers that we'll find with the pension funds as well or at least of the same kind of intellectual and in-depth knowledge capabilities that they come to the table with. So there, you can truly leverage the fiduciary management process that we have for the pension funds in the Netherlands. It gives them access and also better rates when they go also into these deep asset classes because we already have the relationships there and also for this segment, meeting the specialist, again, touching money is really nice to have a bit of prerequisite. They want to see people that are able to make sense out of developments in the world or with respect to particular companies. And here, I'm also very, very pleased and proud on the colleagues, both in private banking, but also in my own organization, that we have been able to onboard a number of new clients over the last 6 months and that we have a promising pipeline. Okay. In short, we've done a lot of work in order to get to a position where we are now fit for future with now an increased focus on growth, basically selling the things that we have, on the back of an accelerator of working much, much more closely together with our partner segments within [indiscernible], to do that with a focus on profitability of these individual segments by themselves. Again, looking at the cross collaboration kind of as an accelerator by applying tight cost control and using automation linked to the presentation before. And that really puts us in a position to go for and to commit to a cost income ratio of 70% by the end of 2027. And to contribute also profitability towards the bottom line of Van Lanschot Kempen. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Wendy, next chapter, Investment Banking. Thank you.

Thank you Erik. And very nice to also be able to talk about investment banking today. And for me, this is where it all started more than 20 years ago. So good fun to be here. Also for investment banking, I think we have a very strong position with our specialized sector-focused investment bank. We are a clear market leader in our European real estate and life sciences sectors. We are active both in M&A and ECM and really leading in this area. We are a challenger in infrastructure and tech and FinTech. And by being active in these sectors, we play into the trend of increased focus on sustainabilities and the maturing of tech companies. And we are active across the whole spectrum of investment banking, leading to a diversified revenue mix. And what is very important to our model is that we do not provide lending to corporate clients, which makes that we have a capital-light model but also can provide truly independent advice to our clients. And what I'm very excited about is the cross-sell and the cooperation with investment banking. And over the last couple of years, we became really more connected to each other, which pays off. If I look into our model and how we run our business, as mentioned, we are active across all the activities of investment banking and having sector knowledge really helps in that respect. Whether we are talking to a corporate or whether we're talking to an institutional investor, we know everything about their market. From a company perspective, but also from what's happening in the markets, where do investors look like? What are the trends? Where is the appetite? And this is really beneficial because if I look at transaction that we did, some examples, we build long relationships. For instance, Galapagos. We were involved in the IPO of Galapagos in 2005, and since then, have been involved in 15 transactions, both capital raisings as well as M&A. And the most recent one is when we introduced a buyer for one of the business units. But also in the real estate sphere, we have been, for instance, involved in transactions for the Belgium logistic player, WDP, already since 2012 and have been doing 17 transactions since then. And what the CEO of this company told me recently is that we are the only bank in a syndicate that is not providing a loan. We have a truly independent position. And by being in this syndicate, what we offer to them is that we really know very well what investors are looking for, and we are able to get the placement done at the lowest possible discount. And a nice one to add, and that might be less familiar to you, is the debt advisory activities that we have. In 2023, this already amounted to 15% of our income in investment banking. And we did, for instance, a large refinancing of a syndicate loan for David Hart Group. And also there, it really shows that having an independent adviser helps a company to get access to a broader range of partners and ultimately to better terms. So I think these are really examples where we bring our expertise to our clients. I think that's very valuable to them. Looking at our results. There we see, of course, that 2023 was a difficult year. The rate cycle really hit our real estate and life sciences sectors. But please bear in mind that over the last 20 years, investment banking has shown positive results. The team took deliberate action in early 2023 already. They were really looking at cost, looking at the composition of the team and we were able to reduce the FTEs by 10% and the overall cost level by 6%. And when I look where we are today, I see momentum is clearly back. It already started in Q4 last year and also in Q1 was a much better situation than a year before. And our pipeline is filling. And also, when I recall the conversation I had at a recent real estate conference, you also see with investors that there have a positive stance on the market and expect more to come to the market in this area. So bearing that all in mind, seeing the pipeline and where we are today, the strict cost control that we're having, I'm confident that we will be in the black again in 2024 for investment banking clients. Before moving into how we cooperate between the private bank and investment bank, I would like to introduce you to our colleague Hendrik, who often works in these segments.

[indiscernible] which the entrepreneur had. We really work a lot with entrepreneurs. And so we really understand what drives them and what ticks them. So in this case, when we advised this entrepreneur, we could really understand and speak the same language with him. So we could understand what his motivations were. Now the entrepreneur was really focused on his own specific competitive field. However, we were able, with our expertise in the tech sector to think broader and really bring to the table companies and prospective buyers who were coming out from an adjacent strategy and looking at this business from a different angle. And as such, we were able to identify a real select, but right group of potential buyers for this company. It was a great feeling to be able to help and advise this client in this specific process where we were able to help him not only just from a financial perspective, but really also providing him with a partner which would be able to give him the personal and the business goals he was looking to achieve.

And this is, of course, a very clear example how we work from a private client who has a need on investment banking services, which really strengthens the relationship that we're having with these clients and bringing additional AUM to our private banking base. And Hendrik is with his team -- I think he's in the car all the time with every private banking colleague who says, "I have a client who is considering to sell his company. Hendrik and his team are available to start having conversations and to find out how we can best serve them. I want to highlight also to other examples that might be less familiar how we connect private banking and investment banking. As you may recall from one of my earlier slides, is that we have an executive team in private banking. And there, we serve board members, management board members, supervisory board members with a dedicated team who pay attention to, well, everything they have to be careful of, all the compliance rules, for instance. But combining our network -- so the private banking expertise, but also the network of investment banking has led to introducing CEOs of companies to our executives network and becoming a client there. And then also on the investment banking side, we can help them out when they want to sell down part of their stake in the company, for instance, in a very smooth and careful way. Yes, for me, it's really another example of how we work together. And the third one. And I think this one is where I get most excited about, thinking about what kind of company we are and where we are really different from other houses that have these activities under one umbrella, but we are able to give our ultra high net worth clients access to capital market transaction that we do in investment banking. And this is really special. We provide an opportunity to our private clients. And in the meantime, on the corporate side, we give access to a whole different source of capital. And this really shows how we work together and Maarten referred to the partnership that we have established in our organization. And this has really helped to connect the different activities, get to know each other, work together and, well, have success together. I'm very happy to be there now. And well, I see a lot of opportunities to continue in this field. To conclude on investment banking, specialized investment banks really sector-focused, really deep knowledge and on basis of that, building strong relationship. We have seen that we are able to cope with difficult times and momentum is back and I'm very positive of where we are. And as I said, I'm having a positive feeling about 2024 to be in the black again. Thank you. And talking numbers, that's a very natural way to hand it over to Jeroen, who will dive into the targets much more deeper.

Thank you, Wendy. So you've seen my colleagues explaining about the opportunities for growth that we see. And this will lead to scalable and profitable growth. This will allow us to also present a set of ambitious targets. And I will now run you through these targets. First, the growth in assets under management. Annually, we want to grow by 10% on average. We want to do this in a scalable way because we want the income to grow with a positive jaw versus our cost level. And the cost/income ratio is a way to track this. We put our cost income target at a range of 67% to 70%, which is setting the bar higher than it was because it was at 70% before. We also want to grow in -- or we want to grow with a stable capital and high capital. We keep that at 17.5%. It is important to realize that this 17.5% on the face of it, it's still 17.5%, but this one is on the basis of Basel IV fully loaded. And that is the regulation that will be -- that will apply as of the 1st of January of next year. It is inclusive of the mortgage floor of DNB that is expected to apply until December 2026. Part or within our target, we have the possibility to also make use of an M&A buffer of 2.5%. This means that when we do M&A, we could temporarily be below the 17.5%, but we will not go below 15%. Growing with good cost control and strong capital but also growing in a capital-light way will lead to higher returns, also higher return on capital. And here, we see a big step. We go from 12% as a former target to now more than 18% for our 2027 target. So that's a big step forward. Finally, dividend payout. Growing in a capital-light manner also helps us to be able to distribute a lot of the profit to our shareholders. We were at 50% to 70%, and we will set this target to 70% to 90% of our net profit. I will now go through the targets and give you some more explanation on them, starting again with the growth in assets under management. Looking back at the last years, and Maarten also already explained this, we saw an average annual growth of 13%. And this growth came from organic growth from acquisitions and from the market. But as we indicate here, most of it was organic. Going forward, we have seen all the plans to continue this growth and to get to a target of 10% annual growth per year. This growth is distributed again through organic growth, growth through M&A and market performance. And all our segments will play their part, will play their role. It is not our intention to shift the mix of our activities. So then it is good to talk a bit more about M&A. We take a disciplined approach, and this means that we work with criteria. First one, we focus on bolt-on acquisitions, typically smaller companies that are active in our core sectors. So we talk about private clients, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and investment management clients in the Netherlands. That's our focus area. Then we focus on targets that are active with our company in assets under management and that typically do not operate a large balance sheet. We have good possibilities and good capabilities of integrating our acquisitions. Maarten showed that long list that we did in the past. But for a good integration, it is crucial that there is also a good cultural fit. This is, again, very important to us. And then when we make an acquisition, we feel that or we think that this acquisition should contribute to our financial targets after 2 years. But mind you, if it can be within 2 years, I'm even more happy. Then how are we going to fund our acquisitions? We will fund acquisitions with our own capital. But we have also the possibility of issuing new shares. For us, an acquisition is also about people. It is an opportunity to start a cooperation with a new group of colleagues and paying part of the price in shares is a really good way of having a mutual commitment going forward. Then let's go to the scalability of our business. I already talked about the cost/income ratio. We managed to get that cost/income ratio down. And for the ones that do not see this ratio too often, down is good. So we managed to get this one down from 80% to 70% and we set a target at 67% to 70% going forward. For us, it's important to reach that -- for reaching that target, it's important to focus on process optimization and scalable growth. I'm very happy that my colleagues spend a lot of time talking about how we did this and how we are doing it. Erik talked about the Accelerate project. Wendy gave the example of a project that is currently ongoing, where we are combining the Evi platform with the Robeco platform to have a scalable platform for further growth. And yes, they say they are working hard on this, and that is good also to hear as a CFO. Then, when market circumstances require, we will take extra steps also in cost control. And again, an example that Wendy just mentioned. In 2023, we did this at the investment bank. You have seen that we go from a target of 70%, we go to a range of 67% to 70%. And that is on purpose. Next to keeping costs in control, we want also to grow and make investments. And if you make investments, if you make an acquisition, if you acquire a new team, that will not lead to a better cost income at day 1. But we still feel that it's really important to make these steps. For this reason, we say that within this range, we think we believe that we can operate. Then the next slide is one that I would say it's good for you to check at a later moment because it provides more examples of cost control and efficiency gains and examples of how we can invest in future growth. But there is one example that I would like to tell a bit more about and it's an example of an efficiency gain. Client administration, that's the department that I would like to take as an example. Back in 2018, there were 66 FTEs in that department. Because of our own growth, our acquisitions, regulation and the fact that we also shifted tasks to this team, they got a lot of more work. So the workload increased tremendously, meaning that if they would work at the same efficiency level, they should have grown to 109 FTEs. What happened in practice is that they stayed more or less stable, 67 FTEs, a productivity gain of 60%. And how did they do this? It's a long list of things that they did to make it more efficient: automation, use of robotics, better workflows, better interfacing, adjustments in the processes and working with an optimal team set-up. This is just one example, but I like to give you this one to show you that we -- in all our teams, we are doing this kind of things to optimize it. All right. This was a lot of talk about cost. Cost/income ratio also has to do with income. So let's now look at our 2 most important parts of our income. First is securities commission. Again, a chart that shows what our securities commission did over the last years. You see that -- and this is, in fact, the annualized recurring fee level that it increased year-on-year by around 11%. And with EUR 451 million at the end of the first quarter of this year, we are in a good position for further growth. We expect that we can grow with the margins that we currently have and that are shown for our -- in this case, 4 parts on the right-hand side because we took Evi separate from private clients in Netherlands. The ones that have looked at these margins, and you see it here, they see Private Clients Belgium 80, Private Clients Netherlands 60. Why is that? It's because in Belgium, Belgium clients prefer more often a discretionary product. While, as Wendy already mentioned, our clients in the Netherlands more often choose for the advisory services and the advisory services come at a lower margin than the discretionary products. Then it's good to take a look at the net interest income. At the beginning of the year, I gave some guidance about how would this income develop going forward? And I said the level of the second half of 2023 would be a good level also going forward. If you look at the first quarter of 2024, we can conclude that the first half of this year will probably be slightly better than what I guided at that moment. However, for the second half of the year and for 2025, it's still a good guidance. So the second half of 2023 remains a good guidance for the period to come. Then external factors, obviously influence our results. Being a wealth manager, stock market levels are of significant importance, as you can see. But also the growth of the market, inflation and what interest rates are doing will have an effect. You can also see that a macroeconomic downturn would have a limited effect on our loan portfolio. And this is because we have a well [indiscernible] loan portfolio and our clients typically have financial buffers. So we talked about growth. We talked about cost/income and now it's time to really dive into capital. So I prepare you now for a slide with a lot of figures. So I like it. I hope you do it as well. Here we are. This is the slide showing our CET1 ratio. On the left-hand side, you see the current Basel III regulation. On the right-hand side, the Basel IV fully loaded. And as we mentioned, as our targets are based on Basel IV, I will primarily talk about the right-hand side. So you see 17.5% is the target. Then you have the 2.5% M&A buffer. And this M&A buffer represents around EUR 110 million. Should we go below the 17.5%, we commit to get back to the 17.5% within 2 years. And this might also impact our dividend payout. Then over the last years, we returned a lot of capital to our shareholders. That was because of winding down the corporate loan book. I often get the question, what will be your policy going forward? Let me tell you, going forward, we stay committed to return excess capital above the 17.5%. And for the short term, this means that we will take the position at the end of this year and we'll distribute the excess capital above 17.5%. And we will do that together with the regular dividend over 2024. So this distribution will take place together with the dividend in 2025. If you look at the excess capital as it stands right now, we can walk back here, and you see that it's -- we are currently at approximately 18.5%. So there's 1% excess capital. It translates into EUR 45 million. In case the DNB mortgage floor would be lifted -- and again, I said it's expected to stay in place until December 2026. But if it would happen, our CET1 ratio would go up by 2%. And then the EUR 45 million would be replaced and it would be EUR 130 million of excess capital. Let's now look a bit at the balance sheet. And we do that by taking a look at the total risk exposure amount, the TREA. And we currently operate with 4.4 at the end of 2023. I should say, we operated with EUR 4.4 billion in TREA. Most of that is in Private Clients Netherlands because there is where we have the mortgages and the other loans. Private Clients Belgium is only 5%. It is because in Belgium, we only provide lombard loans that come at a very low capital weighing. There you see Investment Management Clients and Investment Banking Clients, both are capital-light businesses, which means that also at a modest profitability, they already get to a high return on equity. Looking to the coming years, we do not expect a lot of extra investments in TREA. Of course, our business will grow. So the capital we need to take for operational risk will grow. And alongside with our growth, this level will increase. But we do not need to make a lot of investments in our balance sheet to accomplish our growth. And this brings me to the dividend payout. We have a story that is built up of growth in assets under management, 10% on average a year. Tight cost control, cost/income ratio that shows that we can grow scalably. Solid capital position and growth that does not need a lot of extra capital. This translates in profitability and the possibility to distribute a lot of this profit to our shareholders. For this reason, we have upped our payout ratio, the range goes up from 50% to 70% to now 70% to 90% of our net profit. And by doing this, we assure a high shareholder return for the years to come. And on that very positive note, I would like to give the floor back to Maarten.

Thank you very much, Jeroen, and with a lot of numbers, as to fits a CFO. But I think we are going to reset it a bit for the Q&A right now. And just let me summarize and just really a joy to listen to my colleagues, but I hope for you as well. And I think we are confident of our growing further together strategy based on being very close to our clients, a unique and personal profile, but also translating into better returns and better dividends for our shareholders to come in a very nice alignment between the interest of our clients and our shareholders. And being a staff member, being a client and being a shareholder myself, I also like that, that all comes back together. And thank you very much, dear colleagues. This looks pretty heavy, by the way. It's impressive. So for the people at home, Q&A is about, of course, the questions. They can come both from our digital viewers, and I really invite you to share them with us. And Maud van Gaal, our Head of Communications and Reputation will be so kind to translate those and share them with us here live in Amsterdam. And of course, also here in the room, I expect some questions. And thank you for the stamina to listen for us in the last couple of hours. And I invite my colleagues to join here at the table. This is Maud van Gaal, welcome as well at the front row. And then the question is who is going to stand at which table right? [ Daimler and Ian ] as well, Thomas. so I think, we have a good -- yes, everybody, Erik, you're going? So thank you. And -- well, it's good to stand here. The screen, by the way, is pretty warm. So you probably also will feel that as well, but until the lunch, let's fire away and start. Who wants first? That's a very close finish. Benoit?

Benoit Petrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux. Yes, just on the -- the first question will be on the AUM growth. the 10%. I was wondering if you could provide a bit more detail in terms of splitting that between organic, inorganic and market impact. I think in most of your private banking markets, you expect at least, I think, 4.5% growth because the market will just grow 4.5%. You could outperform the market like you have done before. So just purely on, let's say, your capacity to grow organically, I will say it's going to be probably north of 4.5%. Then thinking about market effects, interest rates are pretty high to generate interest income for your clients. Market is also growing positively structurally. So it sounds like 10% could be even a bit light versus what you -- if you add up like in organic and market effect. So curious about also the inorganic impact you might expect. On operating [indiscernible], I wanted to come back on that, how much you have in mind in terms of your capacity to grow income faster than cost. And also whether you think it's going to be roughly stable over the period. So is there a more kind of cost growth short term versus income growth or is that kind of equally split across the time horizon. And then the other one was on the U.K. fiduciary, which is at EUR 6 billion. AUM sounds like subscale. So why do you stay in the U.K.? Basically, that's a bit kind of more strategic question. And then on the DNB floor, just wanted to know about your latest discussion with DNB, which postponed into December '26. Can we expect something about in '27, do you think? Or are they going to postpone it again, you think just curious about that?

Shall we start with you, Jeroen, for questions 1, 2 and 4? As a CFO, you have to work very hard. And then move to Erik for the question on the U.K. and fiduciary.

Yes, sure. Okay. First, a question on AUM. Let's say, Maarten rightfully said that if you grow your AUM with 10% every year in absolute terms that is raising the bar every year. Looking at the composition, we say that the market, over time, will do 3%. So the rest should come from organic and inorganic growth. We did, on purpose, not make let's say, a subdivision in this. We feel that it should come from both. Of course, market growth also implicates that the market performance is in there. So you have a bit that the market is really growing in a bit that we are going to gain market share. So that is really a big part of it. And yes, we are going to do the bolt-on M&A. But 2 things to say about it. It's bolt-on and -- so it's not transformational. And the second one is we go for the targets that have the right fit. And if there are many at the same time, then we can go fast. And if not, then, of course, we only take the ones that fit our criteria. [Audio Gap] Back the last 5 years, you see that we were a bit above it. I will not complain if that happens, but we feel that this is ambitious, but this is also something that we can reach. Then let's see, I remember your fourth question...

About the cost income jaw.

Yes, the cost income jaw. That's a very good one. Yes. You've heard me discuss about cost and income. And I did not say we're going to have big cost-cutting programs or -- because we're a growing company, we have to -- instead of cost cutting, its cost control. Cost control is key. Cost control through just the -- control the cost over the whole company. And then second to that is the scalability, the efficiency within all the teams. That is the key. Having that, we open the jaw for income growth. Then you say, okay, how do you think this income growth will come? Will it come at the beginning or the end? I mentioned, we see opportunities in all our businesses for income growth. And Thomas was clear that if you look at today, in Belgium, the momentum is really, really good. And so that's nice. But over time, maybe the momentum will turn to another part later on, but we didn't say we want to grow now and less going forward. It is -- it will be across all the segments. Then...

Just a follow-up, just because also like simplicity like Thomas, if you grow AUMs by 10%, your fee and commissions will just also grow 10% roughly because margins will remain [ stable? ]

That's what I didn't say directly because that would be a very broad statement. But what I said because of course, we have to see how it turns out. But we want to grow in each of our businesses. We expect that we can keep our margin. So if this all works out and over a long time. This will mean that we will do exactly what you're saying, over time, let's say, if in 1 year, one activity grows faster than another, there might be some effects. Over time, it's exactly like you say. And then the floor. It's not the case that DNB discusses this with us and says, Van Lanschot Kempen, what do you think? What I can tell you is that they came out with a view to the market, and that's -- that they wanted to keep this floor until the 1st of December 2026. And what they will do afterwards, it's very hard to actually -- to predict. What we can say is what was in the document that they provided is that they see this as a measure that they take as long as other measures are not ready enough to take over the measure that they took. And that has everything to do with the phasing in of Basel IV.

On to U.K., Benoit. Good question. As you know, we've been writing negative figures in the P&L in the U.K. last year. Let's look at kind of the strategic intent there. It looks very, very similar to where we were in the Netherlands, like 15 years ago with still a lot of pension funds and the trend towards consolidation and professionalization. So from a strategic perspective, we're quite confident that this is the right place to be for fiduciary management outside the Netherlands for pension funds. The big question is strategic plays are always nice, but when is it going to happen? Right? And the commitment that we have given to ourselves basically is to get it into black figures by the end of next year. The thing to notice there and the feedback to the story, I've tried to explain is the engine, lots of the infrastructure is there. So the relative cost income of new money coming in is fairly good. I cannot say any numbers, but -- so you don't need a lot of traction in order to move the dial with respect to P&L. That's basically what I'm trying to say. I'm quite confident. I mean, if you listen to the Clara story, for example, this year, 1.2, likely to do another couple of transactions in the year to come, and the pipeline also there is now strong. Next to that, we continue, obviously, to pitch for pension funds like we do here in the Netherlands for their fiduciary services, yes, that pipeline is building as well. So the commitment is there. This is not to me and not to the colleague something that we're going to be looking at 4, 5 years in order to really see whether we have the traction again, I'm confident that by the end of next year, we'll be able to round the P&L corner.

Cor Kluis, ABN AMRO, ODDO BHF. A couple of questions, I'll try to spread them a little bit for everyone. Maybe first on Switzerland. You -- I think it's a good part within the company, of course. Can you give us a little bit more comments on potential acquisitions there? How do you look to the market if you would go for there? Is it really the Belgium and Dutch clients, which you want to service? Or would you also like to expand into the local market? And especially also for Belgium, is it a fee for the Swiss business already? Or is that something that's really accelerating at this moment. So that's on Switzerland. Second question is on more on the finance side, the NII. Can you please repeat exactly for H2? What do you expect? And also for next year, if you use the forward rates, what would be more normal NII development of the -- based on the latest interest rate developments? Another question on Basel IV RWA. Can you please just give us the exact figure. What is the Basel IV RWA fully loaded for -- to work with? And last thing maybe on the risk side. the EUR 200 million stakes -- in equity stakes, you showed -- thanks for that 10% of the RWAs. Are you really committed to that size? Or would you like to change the size of that going forward as you become more and more of a fee model and there's of an investment risk kind of model? And maybe want to take on Belgium, from who are you winning market share? And you are clearly -- generally, we from an analyst point of view, we always hear that companies are winning market share in general, where do you think you win market share from?

That's, indeed, I think we get 4 questions and 4 different answers. Will you start with Switzerland, Wendy?

Yes. To start with Switzerland. We clearly have the view that we should be there for the Dutch and the Belgium Private Individuals. That's really how we are -- we have our setup. That's what we know and there we are very much aware of all the legislation that comes. That's relevant to that. So that's really the basis. Having people that have a link to the Netherlands or to Belgium. And also in the Swiss market, well, we want to grow both organically as well as inorganically and we take the same disciplined approach. So it's really about having a good fit, both in terms of proposition, a cultural perspective. And on the base of that, we are, as always, open to acquisitions.

Yes. For example, with Belgium Mercier Vanderlinden, that was, of course, more of a local operation, it's directly linked. So something like that is unlikely in Switzerland.

What -- with the base is looking for Dutch and Belgian clients. So that -- this is also the focus for if we would look into a Swiss operation, it should also focus on Dutch and Belgium clients primarily.

We would not focus on private bank, fully focused on either Swiss clients or offshore clients. That's what we absolutely would not do. Yes. Then move to the question on -- the NII question.

Yes. Take the H2 2023, there was the guidance. That guidance is still applicable for the second half of this year and for 2025. Then I also made the statement that the first half of 2024 will probably be a bit above the guidance because when we made the guidance, we were still at a different ECB interest trajectory than we saw. So that's -- then the other question, the answer is 4.7%.

This sounds like a, "hey we're going to push the button."

You joined recently. Would you like to say something on the investment portfolio? Shall we leave it here to Jeroen?

I will leave it to Jeroen. I mean -- also, that he holds the mic. It's...

And he's also the Chair of the Investment Committee.

And yes, you are rightfully so that still the 10% of TREA is in this part. We -- on a -- when you take it on a nominal basis, we do not intend to largely change our portfolio. It might become slightly smaller, but there will not be a big change. When it comes to the composition and the weighing, we are looking how we can optimize this so that the risk weight will be lower and the TREA will be lower. Then...

Market share Belgium.

All right. I understand your question, of course. But I'm sure you will understand, I cannot give particular names. What I could say is I've talked about like the 3 different private banking players. If I look at the market share we're gaining, it's more like in specialized private banks. That's where it comes from. There's a lot going on in our market. So it also depends which region. It's quite different, but we are gaining market share, and that's a good news.

Jason Kalamboussis, ING. I'll probably picked up where we ended, so on Belgium is the first question. Could you -- I mean, one of the big players has been under pressure over the last years, but now they have been acquired. It's fair to say that they may go through the integration phase. But they do -- this eventually will come back, and I presume that they are quite also strong in the South. Is that correct, [ the whole ] of petrochem? That's the one. And if I may ask a second one is, as you're going to expand towards the South? I mean, do you find that [ Vanderlinden ] is also starting to pursue the same strategy? I mean I'm not fully -- I think they are opening or they opened actually a branch in Waterloo, and they are trying to go into the same direction. Do you find that basically you are in parallel road tracks, if you want? Or do you find that actually the focus that all of them have is not as strong? And they don't have, in any case, not the capabilities, but the strategy to go as strongly as you want to go in Belgium? Moving on to the Netherlands. I just want to understand the 15% market share. How has this evolved over the last 5 years? So are you gaining market share you find versus the other? So can you give us an idea of an evolution over 5 years, 10 years, so that we have an idea. Again, there, you may have benefited a bit and I would like to understand the quantum versus some weaknesses in the market, but also that is -- has maybe is coming to an end. So I would like to have your views on that. Coming back also to Switzerland. I mean if I understood well, you have EUR 2.7 billion AUMs. The addressable market is EUR 20 billion, did I understood that correct? So from there, I just want to understand, I mean, if you're trying to do an acquisition, you're not going to find someone who is specifically focusing on your segment. So I didn't understood how you can do an inorganic acquisition. I would have thought some more organic. In which case, the addressable market is EUR 20 billion, how fast have you grown over the last years. So here 2 questions if I may, on this. On the financial side, probably a couple of quick things. Essentially, the way you're viewing the payouts going forward, it is you're going to be at 70%, you will -- you can be at 90%, let's put it this way, and it will drop to 70% depending on the bolt-on acquisitions. So that would be a way to look at it over the next 3, 4 years. That's how I view it but just...

Let me give you the quick answer, yes? That makes a lot of sense. Okay. Yes, about 70% as the lower end of the dividend. If we do bolt-on acquisitions, we will probably be closer to 70%. If we do not do acquisitions, we probably will be closer to 90%.

And -- is it fair, I mean the Mercier Vanderlinden acquisition has been fantastic in any way you look at it. But it has been also a very pricey one, but it's strategic. So that was very important to do. Is it fair -- I mean, you're going to be doing smaller acquisitions. We're not going to have all the luxury of having a lot more of the details. Is it fair to say that going forward, you effectively are going to be doing acquisitions where you will be focusing a lot on extracting this 20% to 30% cost synergies, even if you don't mention them exactly because of size. But are you also looking now? Do you think that you have a better machine set up so that actually you can integrate at a faster pace and also with the cost benefit that we're going to be able to see?

That also the brief answer there is yes. So that's no transformational deals adding like the Accuro transaction, most recently, adding people to our platform, adding clients to our platform and have that positive jaw.

Fantastic. And the last thing is to understand the CAGR of 4.5%. So this is specifically for private wealth, Belgium and the Netherlands, do you make any distinction? And is it correct? And then with the 3%, the 3% is market. So you have 1.5% organic growth. And then from there on, the rest to the 10%, since 10% has also it's the whole group you effectively have inorganic and whatever numbers are coming out of the investment management?

Maybe start with who's finding a Waterloo in Belgium. Thomas, first started Belgium and then going to Switzerland and Netherlands.

Well, I don't think it's for me to comment on what others do. I think we are very confident in our strategy. As I said, there's a lot of things going on in the Belgium market. And we feel we are the benefactors of that. So yes, that's for sure. We feel people see us as -- today as really the alternative. That's what I can tell you. And yes, we want to open in the south of the country. We haven't said it -- will it be Waterloo, will it more to Nigel whatever we are in [ the edge ]. So these possibilities are open, but we do look at ourselves.

If I may ask just who has branches because, [ then let ] if anything, it is just a thought. Except the [ whole petrochem ],are there any others you are aware that have branches in that south part that you're targeting?

There are.

Let me start with the Dutch market. I indeed mentioned that we have a 15% market share by now and that we have been growing. And if you look at the market -- well, we all know, of course, that ABN AMRO MeesPierson is a market leader. And then we see that there are the large universal bank that do have a private banking activity. And we see smaller players and also a bit larger players with a specialist focus. But if you look across this all, you can see that we have been growing faster than others have been. It's always difficult to really pinpoint market shares. So I can't give you -- well, 5 years ago, it was this number, but what we see is that we consistently see strong inflows coming to us. And I think that's also seeing what ours are growing is a clear sign that we're gaining market share in the Netherlands. Your other question on Switzerland. So it's about what is the achievable market potential, if I understand you correctly. So we currently have the EUR 2.7 billion for our clients. The reference I made was to Dutch clients that are active -- that are banking in Switzerland. I think we still have a lot of potential also to grow with our now very strongly with Belgium to enhance our -- the number of Belgium clients having wealth in Switzerland. And from a broader perspective, there you see that that's -- it's not so much about what is currently the market share or what's the market size in Switzerland. That's only part of the equation. It's also about how do we really use our network, the combination of the Netherlands and Belgium and give clients actually the opportunity to move to Switzerland and benefit from -- well, the Swiss structure that we can offer to them.

So in Switzerland, is unlikely to be in organic, it's more -- targeting the Belgium and also those that possibly can benefit from moving, et cetera?

Yes. It's not so much that we will -- it will be a combination. It's not only looking at Dutch and Belgium people already banking in Switzerland. It will be a combination of this with people currently in the Netherlands transferring to Switzerland and the same for Belgium.

Did we deal with all your questions?

Yes, I'm pretty sure.

Yes. Any questions from our digital viewers?

Actually, indeed, we do have a question. And just as a reminder, for the online viewers, you can still post your questions in the chat. But we received one and that was about the mortgage floor, already answered. And then there's one on our CET1, our new CET1 target. Question is, should I interpret your new CET1 target as higher than before or simply the same in different words? Is it 15% plus 2.5% versus 17.5% minus 2.5% temporarily? And why temporarily? Because that would suggest from '26 onwards, a permanent increase in your CET1 target to 17.5% instead of 15%?

We all look at you.

I was processing the question because there's a lot of wealth in this question. Let's see. We -- it is correct that we said before, we have 15% and 2.5% buffer. And now we say we have 17.5% and we go -- can go below that. That's the difference, and that's on purpose. The 17.5%, that's the reference, and we can go below it if we do M&A. But if we do M&A, we will return back to the 17.5%. And yes, that is you could say that this is a change from the way we said it before. The other change is that this is the percentage under Basel IV and no longer under Basel III. And with Basel IV being regarded as maybe a bit stricter than Basel III, you could also say that it's -- yes, that we moved along with it. For us, it's very important to have a solid capital base and a high capital base. And this is the way that we put that in the target.

And it also makes sure that we operate in a disciplined way with regard to the acquisitions. This is also shared, which then always will be in the benefit for shareholders. Any other questions?

No further questions online. Thank you.

No. Thank you Maud. Anybody from the room here in Amsterdam?

One more for the rebound.

Yes. Jason.

Just a quick follow-up. On Slide 24, you have the split between discretionary advice and discretionary and advice. Is that a bit -- the discretionary are the -- an advice in terms of margins, should we consider the group a betting between the 2 in terms of margins? Or are they closer to one end or the other end?

Yes. That's a very specific question. What I would -- what I wanted to show with this graph is to -- that we see clients having both types of products. So we have clients that are only in discretionary, but we also have a lot of clients combining discretionary and advisory. And to really pinpoint where the relative margin is, I think that we should have a closer look on that for you.

Benoit.

Yes. Just a short one on the IT side and the change cost and so on. Because we had, in the past, we see before 2020, some big programs. Now you've invested also on the asset management side. Just wanted to know about kind of your programs and your plans for '27 in terms of IT transfer.

I've said this before, but probably good to realize a couple of things. We take all our costs through the P&L. So we're not activating any cost also when it's concerning big programs. Yes, we are running some bigger programs, particularly to do with integration. So we finished the Mercier Vanderlinden integration. We're now working on the Evi Robeco integration. But for the majority of our teams, 50 of the 60 our teams -- teams work agile. So we basically work more on a short-term basis. So in terms of cost impact, I don't see a very huge step change vis-a-vis what we're currently doing.

It all starts and ends with Cor. Not start. It was very close. Go ahead, please.

Maybe also on IT, can you give an update on how far the Belgium, the Swiss and the Dutch IT networks are on the same platform integrated in [indiscernible]?

Belgium fully runs on the group platform. So the Netherlands and Belgium are on the group platform. Switzerland operates completely independently, but there we have outsourced the majority of our IT infrastructure.

And you won't integrate that?

No, you can't. Given the Swiss regulation where the data of Swiss clients need to stay in Switzerland, that is a very difficult thing to do. if we would need to do that, then we would need to move all our Dutch and Belgian operations basically to Switzerland. That would probably be the only way. I don't see that happening in the coming years. I don't know, maybe 10, 20 years out, that's going to happen, but I don't see that happening in the coming years.

And to make the picture complete and we also said that before, also Evi is on a different platform than the private banking platform and also Robeco was on a different platform, and we are now integrating the two on to one similar platform, keeping the private banking, the group platform that I already mentioned for Private Banking, Netherlands and Belgium separate, and that's also how we like it because we can continue to add features for our private banking clients without them being bothered by the Evi Robeco integration. And with Evi Robeco, it's digital first followed by personal approach and with private banking, it's personal, followed by the digital approach. So that's also to add to your question.

This is on purpose, basically to keep the agility on both sides, and we remain agile not having too many people working on the same good basically.

Yes. All right. Then I think we are getting ready for lunch. Just to wrap up, thank you very much for -- and joining us either online or here in our house in Amsterdam. We are excited about of our Growing Further Together strategy. We're excited about new ambitious but also realistic targets. I'm not sure. And I think if I calculate right, that in 2 years' time, we can surpass them and give you an update. But at least by the end of '27, I would hope we are in the same situation and can discuss again where we go next for the next couple of years, we stay very close to our clients. And we make sure that with all the colleagues, we execute on our chosen strategic path, and we are confident in that. So thank you very much. And let's go for lunch.