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

Management by 10% on average a year. Clearly, market performance in the first half of this year was negative for us at EUR 3.3 billion. I'm proud the organic growth remained very strong with net inflows of EUR 4.6 billion, enabling us to pass the mark of EUR 150 billion assets under management for the first time. To cater to our growing client base, we invest in our staff, as I just mentioned, but also in our branch network. The third component in our growth is inorganic growth. We successfully completed against planned integration of EVi and Robeco's online investment platform, enabling us to focus on attracting new clients in light of the pension reform in the Netherlands. Delivering on our M&A strategy of bolt-on acquisitions, we recently announced that Wilton Family Office will join us, strengthening our position in the highest segment of private banking as well as our presence in the south of the Netherlands. If we move to the next slide. If we then return to the results in our client segments, it's clear that growth momentum remains strong. In the Netherlands, we recorded a net asset under management inflow of EUR 1.7 billion, of which about 50% is from new clients. Pretax profit was down to EUR 57.5 million due to lower interest income. Private Clients Belgium continued its strong performance with EUR 1 billion in net inflows on the back of a growing client base and a larger share of wallet of existing clients. Pretax profits almost doubled to EUR 29.2 million. At Investment Management clients, results were more mixed. We had a net inflow of EUR 1.9 billion, mainly in our Institutional solutions. However, we saw outflow in our wholesale small cap and credit fund strategies and decided to discontinue our sustainable equity strategy. In Fiduciary markets and most notably in the U.K., we won several new mandates, also for our alternative investment strategies, leading to net inflows. Overall, pretax profits in IMC declined slightly to EUR 12.1 million. Here, we will maintain tight control over cost and constantly evaluate our strategies to ensure a distinctive and future-proof offering for our clients. Then turning to the fourth and last segment, Investment Banking clients. They had a good start of the year. Pretax profits almost doubled to EUR 5.3 million, thanks to higher commission income and trading results, combined with strong cost control. Before turning to Jeroen, let me wrap up with our nonfinancial targets, focusing on people and society at large. We continue to reduce the annual weighted average carbon intensity of our discretionary assets under management. That keeps us well ahead of our 7% average annual reduction target. We're also on track for our own operations to progress to being net zero in 2050. We maintain our focus on inclusion and diversity with targets on gender balance among our senior staff and corrected pay gap, and we are pleased to see that we are continue to be able to attract new talent and keep the talent we need to serve our clients in the best way. Jeroen will now talk you through the results in more detail, and I will be with you later. Jeroen, over to you.

Thank you, Maarten. Let's look at the numbers in a bit more detail now. Like Maarten said, we achieved solid financial results in the first half of 2025. Our AUM inflow amounted to EUR 4.6 billion with strong inflows in all segments. On an annualized basis, our inflow amounts to 6% growth in our AUM, and that shows that our commercial momentum remains strong. The strong inflow was partially offset by negative market performance of minus EUR 3.3 billion. But on balance, our AUM came in above EUR 150 billion for the first time. We reported a net profit of EUR 67.8 million, which is down compared to last year. And on the next page, I would like to break that down. Commission income rose by 11% or more than EUR 28 million. This growth is directly related to the higher AUM base compared to last year and due to continued inflows across all segments. At the same time, our commission income came under some pressure by the fall of our market and negative market performance in the first part of the year. Interest income fell in line with our expectations as previously shared with you. This decline was mainly due to lower interest margins after ECB rate cuts. As we lowered interest rates on savings and deposits at a slower pace, this has put pressure on our interest margin. Other income declined mainly from lower income from securities and associates, while continued investment and inflation led to a 5% higher cost level. As said, as we continue to invest in further growth and because of salary indexation, on balance, this led to a cost/income ratio of 71.8%, which is above our 2027 target range. And therefore, we keep focusing on cost control to support scalable growth. So let's now move to the segments and go to Private Clients Netherlands. Private Clients Netherlands had a strong first half of 2025. Net AUM inflows were strong with EUR 1.7 billion. Inflows in the first quarter were EUR 1.2 billion and included the seasonal effect of clients reinvesting money that they put on the savings account during the last quarter of 2024. In the second quarter of the year, we also had strong continuing inflows of EUR 0.5 billion. The inflows were 50% from new clients and 50% from existing ones. And the net inflow was balanced between discretionary and nondiscretionary portfolio management. And here, we see that our focus on the discretionary portfolio management is paying off with a higher percentage than the percentage that we saw in inflows of last year in this segment. Private Clients Netherlands grew its commission income by 10%. However, the operating result before tax was lower at EUR 57.5 million due to lower interest income in this segment. AUM at EVi decreased slightly to EUR 7 billion caused by market performance and some consumption. Evi results continued to contribute to our bottom line. And we are pleased that we now successfully completed the integration of Robeco's online investment platform into Evi. From Netherlands to Belgium. Commercial momentum in our Belgium business remained strong with EUR 1 billion inflow in the first half, of which also here 50% came from new clients. This brings total AUM close to EUR 16 billion. Commission income grew by 23%. And net interest income in Belgium, which is a relatively small part of total income of this segment, also increased due to growing balances in savings and loans. The operating result before tax grew strongly to EUR 29 million, and the cost income ratio improved to 49%. As Maarten already said, we saw mixed results in investment management clients. Net inflow for the total segment amounted to EUR 1.9 billion. And the inflows were strong at fiduciary management and alternative investment strategies, but we saw outflows to liquid investment strategies. As Maarten already mentioned, this has to do with outflow in our small caps and credits strategies, but also for by and large part with the discontinuation of the sustainable equity fund. The inflow of almost EUR 3 billion in fiduciary management came from several new clients in both the Netherlands and the U.K. An inflow at alternative investment strategies that amounted to EUR 0.3 billion came from an increasing interest for these products that we saw from existing fiduciary management clients, which we think is a very good sign that these clients are also interested in the alternative investment strategies. Important to note is that the majority of the negative market performance that we saw in the first half of the year was within the fiduciary management part. IMC as a total and certainly the fiduciary clients have a lot of exposure to fixed income strategies. And with the rising long-term interest rates, this negatively impacted especially these portfolios. Operating results before tax in this segment declined from EUR 13.7 million to EUR 12 million. Commissioning grew 6%, thanks to the net inflows in fiduciary management and also the inflows in the alternative investment strategies. Costs at the same time increased by 11% as we expanded our team to support the growing client base. Our focus here is on maintaining tight cost control, and we are constantly evaluating our strategies to ensure a distinctive and future-proof offering. Let's zoom in on the margins. Margins in the segment remained largely stable. Looking a bit deeper into the margins of Private Clients in Netherlands, we saw a slight increase at Evi due to a mix effect with a relatively larger share of AUM in our discretionary products. At Investment Management, the overall margin remained stable, but underlying, we saw some shifts. The margin at investment strategies declined due to some outflows from the liquid investment strategies that changed the product mix. The margins at fiduciary management, at the other hand, they improved from 5 to 6 basis points. A relatively large part of the clients pay a fixed fee that is indexed on a yearly basis. Our total AUM remained stable. This translates into a higher margin. We spoke about Private Clients Netherlands, Belgium and Investment Management Clients and that is now time to go to the fourth segment, which is Investment Banking Clients, where we saw an improved result. Investment Banking Clients recorded a pretax profit of EUR 5.3 million, and both commission income as well as trading results were higher than a year ago. Costs remained stable and well under control in this segment with -- also on a nominal basis, no cost increase. A transaction I would like to highlight is this is a great example of how we can create synergies between our segments is the acquisition of Forum Estates by Cibus Nordic Real Estate. Our investment bank, as far as the buyer, so Cibus, and in close cooperation with the private banking colleagues in Belgium and Switzerland, we signed an innovative transaction structure. The shareholders of the target were onboarded as clients and received payments for the transactions in shares of the buyer. So this led to an inflow of approximately EUR 200 million in assets under administration within our private bank. Then it's always good to look at the recurring securities commission. And as you know, this is the level of securities commission that we would get in a year if our assets under management would remain stable during the whole year. And as you can see, the combination of strong inflows but also the negative market performance led to a steady growth in this number, which increased to EUR 508 million. Then it's time to zoom in into the interest income. And the interest income Maarten already said it, and I mentioned it before, it came down compared to the first half of 2024. The ECB lowered interest rates over the last 12 months in several steps from 3.75% to 2%. This decline was only partially passed through to clients, which led to a declining margin. Our balance sheet developed in line with expectations with the conversion from cash to AUM and a shift from term deposits into savings. If you look at the NII for the total year, we expected decline in NII, we expect it to have bottomed out and expect a higher NII in the second half of the year. Our full year guidance remains unchanged at EUR 155 million to EUR 165 million. And we expect the upward trend that we will or expect to see in the second half to continue in 2026. From interest income to the other income. Other income consists of income from securities and associates and results from financial transactions. Here, we recorded a decline, and this was mainly due to a negative revaluation of one of our minority interest at Van Lanschot Kempen Participaties. All the other components of other income developed in line with usual business patterns. It is good to say that the sale of the company called OGD was announced and we have a minority stake in this company. This transaction is set to close in the third quarter, and that will result in a book profit of approximately EUR 4 million. Then a bit more about our cost level. We want to grow in a scalable way and therefore, continue to focus on cost control and efficiency improvements. Total cost increased by 5%, mostly due to staff cost. And next to regular salary increases, we also expanded our workforce to accommodate growth. It's visible from this slide most of the colleagues are in client-facing roles, such as relationship managers in the private bank and colleagues managing our alternative investment strategies. We remain focused on cost control and efficiency improvement. And as mentioned, a good example is the segment Investment Banking where we kept costs at the same level as last year. Moving forward to our loan portfolio. We saw modest growth in the loan portfolio with a 1% growth in the mortgage group and 5% growth in other loans. The impaired ratio was 1%, and this was down from 1.4% last year, and it shows the quality of our loan book. And also important to say, it led to the good quality that were released from the loan loss provisions, as is visible in the next slide. We released EUR 3.1 million from the loan loss provisions in the first half of 2025. And as mentioned, a good quality loan book, we have a weighted average LTV of 58% for our Dutch residential mortgage portfolio, which, as you know, makes up more than 2/3 of our total loan book. Let me take you through the capital developments. In June, we returned EUR 1.40 per share to our shareholders. After this capital return, our CET1 ratio now stands at 18.2%. The acquisition of Wilton Family Office is expected to reduce the ratio by approximately 0.25 percentage point. Our capital strategy remains unchanged. We see here at a ratio of 17.5%. If we expect that this ratio will be clearly above 17.5%, we intend to return the capital above 17.5% to shareholders. And I said clearly above, what do we mean by that? By clearly above, we mean a surplus that is significant enough to justify a separate capital return. And towards the end of the year, we will forecast our capital position for year-end. And if this forecast indicates that the ratio will be only marginally above 17.5%, we could use our regular dividend distribution to return capital to shareholders. As you know, DNB has imposed a risk weight floor for residential mortgages, and this floor is included in our current ratio. Should DNB decide to remove this floor, and the first moment that I could make that decision is December 2026, this would positively impact our CET1 ratio by approximately 1.5 percentage points. Summing it up, we are on track to reach our financial targets as we continue to deliver on our strategy. Yet, we saw a negative market performance in the first half of the year, and it impacted also our ratios. But underlying, we see good developments. The first half year shows strong autonomous growth. Our NII is in line with expectations. And with good prospects for the second half of the year, our costs are under control amid the ongoing investments. So with that, we remain on track for the 2027 targets. And with that, I would like to hand it back to Maarten.

Thank you very much, Jeroen, for the clear explanation. And Laura, let's now move to the questions that might be based on our first half results.

[Operator Instructions] I will now take our first question from Benoit Petrarque of Kepler Cheuvreux.

So the first question is on the investment strategies and especially the outflow. Just wondering if you managed to stabilize the outflow into the third quarter. And also, maybe could you recall us a bit what is the long-term strategy for the investment strategies because clearly, there have been a lot of consolidation in the sector, a lot of margin pressure as well in the sector. And yes, the question is whether you are the best owner for that asset? And also linked to the final question on investment strategies, is that fair to assume that the outflow of EUR 1.3 billion is linked to roughly 53 bps margin? So is that 53 bps margin on EUR 1.3 billion a good estimate on how much fees you will lose from that? Then the next question is on net interest income. So thanks for the, well, slightly updated guidance. Can I conclude that you expect NII in '26 to be higher than '25? And could you maybe be a bit more specific on that if possible, because the implicit NII in H2, I think is definitely well above H1 based on the guidance. It's at least 4% higher in H2 versus H1. So that's a very strong momentum in H2. And I was wondering what the trend could be in 2026 as well? And then maybe on the OpEx of 5%. Could you maybe help us to understand how that will trend into the second part of the year and also maybe in '26? It sounds like you are hiring people still. So cost growth will still be there in H2, but what about '26?

Okay. Benoit, thank you and good morning to you. Of course, I'll take your first question, and Jeroen will take your questions 2 and 3. Regarding investment strategies, the outflow, roughly the EUR 1.3 billion, you could say half is in small cap and credits, and half is in sustainable equity strategy. And that is a decision we took ourselves to close that strategy because we consider to be subscale and not sufficient for the future. So half, it was due to our own decision and the half was in especially small cap because of tactical reallocation towards large caps by our wholesale partners. That translates into your second question on the margins, the 53 bps. Now, that's too high because -- sorry, Jeroen, do you want to add?

Yes. Maybe to say on the outflow, yes, in fact, I think it's a relatively good estimate because this is the kind of business that has relatively high margins. So I will not give you the exact details, but it makes sense that it would be an okay estimate to use this.

So it's the average basis points on the outflow. With regard to the near future, we do expect that the large transitions, technical asset allocation changes of our wholesale partners are behind us, but we still might see some smaller movements out or in those strategies in the second half. And with regard to the future of investment management and especially our own strategies, we do believe that this is a very important part of our proposition as also many of our private clients are invested in those strategies. So we are fully committed to that segment of our business, but obviously also working to further improve our proposition and strategies as we develop further. Moving to you for the NII, Jeroen.

Maybe one small addition to what Maarten said, it's also good that the outflow we saw was from clients that not step out of the strategies totally. So they reallocated but they were not lost as clients. I think that's also important to say. Then on NII, yes, can we say that NII 2026 will be higher than 2025. Let's recall what I said. We keep the guidance the same, which means that we expect a better second half than first half. We say that the positive trend will go further in 2026. That being said, the logical conclusion is that we expect a better 2026 than 2025. And then you asked, can you give more guidance at this moment on 2026? The answer is no, not yet. We will come with guidance on 2026 when we present the full year figures. Then the cost level, yes, we grew cost 5%. What do we expect here? It is that we want to invest in the further growth. So if we're growing like we do in assets under management, we also need to accommodate that growth with client-facing people. And yes, if we are growing, we will keep doing that. At the same time, in parts of the business where things go slower than expected, we need to steer. And I gave the example of the investment bank where we had some tough years and where we really kept costs under very tight control. And so we will do that in the parts where it's needed. And in the part where we are growing fast, we will certainly also keep attracting people to accommodate the growth.

We will now take our next question from Cor Kluis of ABN AMRO ODDO BHF.

My first question is about the NII for H2. Basically, H1 was 76%, and you guide for H2 79% to 89%. So could you first confirm that it's probably going to be at the bottom end of the range? Because if you go from 76%, it's probably going to go up closer towards that 80% than the 90% for H2? And could you also elaborate why it's going to grow quite nicely in the second half of this year? What are the operational stories behind that? And second question is on FTEs. You grew your FTEs by almost 3% in H1. Can we also expect a continuing growth because your inflows remain quite good, continuing growth also for H2? Or is it more hiring in the first half than having done most of the year already, so FTE growth for the remainder of the year. My last question is about the loan growth, especially the other loans had a 5% growth. I think you mentioned it's partly due to Lombard loans, current accounts. What's exactly going there? Is this a change of strategy? Is it more the message from the Linde Belgium operations, which are doing more growth? Or this also more strategy driven that you do some changes there? So those are my questions.

All right. Then first, again, the NII, let's dive into that a bit deeper. We keep the guidance the same, Cor. I'm not going to say it's at the bottom or the top. This is the guidance we feel comfortable with. So this is where we stand. And what I can tell you is that, of course, things can change in the coming months, and that could easily have impact of several millions either way. So that's why I'm not going to give you some kind of a point, but I give you this range. Then why will it grow? It has to do with a lot of things. It also has to do with the portfolio that we have. When we manage that portfolio and we rebalance it, when interest rates started to behave, we also, let's say, change the portfolio, we change the hedging and the whole combination of the portfolio and the hedges leads to a situation where we expect that it will become more positive in the second half. Next to that, there are other things like we have now probably see most of the ECB rate cuts. So that also brings us to a situation that is more stable and more positive. And we saw that the yield curve is steepening, which in general, is positive for us. So it's a lot of combinations together that lead to this. Then on the FTE growth, it's a bit the same like I said to Benoit. So Benoit also said, do you see this cost increase? Are you going to grow further? What I just said is where we see the strong growth and that's certainly in private banking, there we also need to grow the client-facing people. And where we see things develop in a less beneficial way, we will keep a very tight control on cost, but also on FTE growth. So on balance, we will see some growth, but we will certainly keep it under tight control. Then on the loan growth, yes, you saw that the other loans grew by 5%, which is a bit more than before. And in fact, we're happy with it because in line with the growth of our portfolio and our client portfolio, we feel that the loan portfolio could and should move in the same direction, which means that we can do things like the Lombard lending and other lending to our clients. And that's what is happening. And yes, it's not only Belgium, but yes, Belgium is also successful in Lombard lending just like the other parts of the business. No further questions?

We have our next question from Henk Slotboom of The Idea.

I realize it's not the biggest part of your business, but a question on Evi. On the one hand, in your answer to one of the previous questions, you said there's a direct link between hiring people and growth in assets under management. Well, the cheapest way, I guess, to grow assets under management is by means of platforms like Evi. And moreover, because the integration with the Robeco assets has now been completed, you would have expected the emphasis to shift from the integration efforts to Robeco's acquisition growth assets and you now have the full time for it. And I was a bit surprised to see that the assets under management of Evi have dropped by EUR 0.2 billion. Can you tell me what's happening there and how you look at it? I noticed that when I switch on my B&R, having got to act the morning, the first thing I hear is Evi. So I guess, you're intensifying the commercial efforts there. But perhaps you could highlight what the plan is and what has happened in the first half year?

Henk, very good question on Evi. And like you said, we're on track, integrated and finalized the system transformation from both Evi and Robeco. As you can imagine that, that requires full focus to do that in a very controlled way. So now we have, let's say, a platform of about EUR 7 billion assets under management, which is really a good starting point for our access to this part of the wealth management and one of the largest in the Netherlands, and we also intend now to focus fully on the growth in that segment. If you look at the first half of the year, of course, markets were a bit against us. So that explains the small drop and plus we also in the process, of course, also look at closing smaller accounts, et cetera. But from actually now on or, let's say, the end of the second quarter on, the full focus is on growing that segment, attracting new clients also on the back of the pension reforms where Dutch citizens will have to invest more of their money into investment solutions, and I think Evi is very well positioned to grow there. And as you know, the Dutch are very thrifty savers. And one of the things that we really are discussing with our clients is also to make sure that you invest so that you can beat inflation and be ready, for example, for your retirement. So yes, that is absolutely now a focus to get that segment growing. And if I compare it to a couple of years ago when we had less than EUR 2 billion in the segment and now around EUR 7 billion, I think, yes, we are at a much better point, integration behind us, focus on growth.

I will now move on to our next follow-up question from Benoit Petrarque of Kepler.

Sorry, three quick questions. The first one on M&A. Just could you update us on the pipeline and any plans for the rest of the year and also on the contribution of the family office on the income and also the P&L. On the replicating portfolio, Jeroen, could you update us on the current duration of the replicating portfolio? And it sounds like you changed it a little bit, so it would be great to have an update. And then maybe on the fiduciary management business. How much are you cross-selling to your own funds because it seems that you've been crossing the private equity funds to fiduciary clients. So just wondering where you are on that cross-selling potential.

Okay. Let me take the first and last question and the second for you, Jeroen. On the M&A, yes, we were very happy to be able to announce the acquisition of Wilton Family Office as it really fits our bolt-on acquisition strategy. As I also mentioned in my introduction, we expect that to close in the fourth quarter. So we will see, of course, the commissions and other results and expenses coming into our numbers really in 2026 onwards. That will, of course, be a modest contribution because it's a smaller acquisition. If you look at the pipeline, I think, as what we do in our nonautonomous growth strategy, we continue to look at opportunities that we see in the market, especially in private banking in the Netherlands and Belgium. Of course, we also look at other opportunities, for example, private market type of solutions, enabling our clients to have access to those solutions. But we are and remain very diligent in that. Also because our autonomous growth is at the moment very, very strong, so we want to continue to focus on that. So we have, I would say, the luxury to really look at bolt-on acquisition targets that really fit our culture, really fit our financial discipline. Otherwise, we don't do it. We don't look at it. And we focus on attracting new clients via autonomous growth or, for example, by opening new offices, like we did in Belgium in Knokke-Heist. So we have different levers for growth. So it really has to fit, then we will do it. With regard to fiduciary management, that's one of the areas, and Jeroen also explained the focus and the winning of new mandates. For example, I want to highlight there, our association with Clara, a pension fund consolidator in the U.K. And we are increasingly also looking at through our -- and especially also our private market solutions to giving those, like Clara, access to those solutions. So that's increasing. We cannot give any specific numbers on that, but it's really a focus area to ensure that the pension funds, institutional clients also have access to our private market and nonlisted solutions. And I think that's a possible plus in our growth strategy. Jeroen?

Maybe I think what we could say is that we have EUR 5.6 billion in the alternative strategies within IMC. And around 1/3 of that is with our fiduciary management clients. So that gives a bit of a feel. And the fiduciary management clients have a very small stake in the liquid investment strategies. So that gives a bit more feeling for you. Then the question on duration. Like I said, we benefit from the fact that the interest rate curve is steepening, so that's end of the portfolio repricing. When you talk about the duration, we keep neutral stance there. So we did not really make a very big move in the duration strategy, Benoit.

There are no further questions in queue. I'm handing it back over to you, Maarten, for closing remarks. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And to wrap up the excellent conversation of this morning, we will continue to execute on our growing further together strategy. And you also heard, Jeroen saying, very confident to deliver on our 2027 financial targets. We continue to invest in excellent staff and also our technology and AI capabilities to deliver really superior solutions to our private and institutional clients. And I think extremely important, we see continued strong commercial momentum in our foundational private banking segments and continue to focus on profitable growth and cost discipline in the Investment Banking and Investment Management segments. I would like to thank you for your attendance and excellent questions that always is a pleasure to discuss with you. Looking forward to future interactions. And I wish you a great day.

Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.