UBS Group AG (NYSE:UBS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

UBS Group AG (NYSE:UBS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript November 7, 2023

UBS Group AG misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $-0.24 EPS, expectations were $0.23.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to the UBS Third Quarter 2023 Results Presentation. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. [Operator Instructions]. At this time, it’s my pleasure to hand over to Sarah Mackey, UBS Investor Relations. Please go ahead, madam.

Sarah Mackey: Good morning, and welcome everyone. Before we start, I would like to draw your attention to our cautionary statement slide at the back of today’s results presentation. Please also refer to the risk factors filed with our Group results today, together with additional disclosures in our SEC filings. On slide two, you can see our agenda for today. It’s now my pleasure to hand over to Sergio Ermotti, Group CEO.

Sergio Ermotti : Thank you, Sarah, and good morning everyone. During the third quarter and as we speak, we continue to see an evolution of the macroeconomic outlook with opinions, forecasts, and market changing at very rapid pace. In addition, we’ve witnessed an even further deterioration of the geopolitical landscape as a result of tragic events in the Middle East. Our thoughts are with those who are suffering and have been impacted by this violence, as well as our affected employees. While we have been very busy executing on our integration plans, our top priority is always to stay close to clients, helping them protect their assets and position their portfolios and businesses for future opportunities. Our wealth management clients remain cautious and defensively positioned.

And while some of our institutional clients are taking advantage of short term opportunities, many still remain on the sidelines. Our consistent dedication continues to be rewarded by their confidence and trust in UBS. This was demonstrated by another quarter of strong flows across GWM and P&C. In the third quarter, the first full quarter since the acquisition, we made strong progress and delivered underlying profitability. With respect to the integration of Credit Suisse, we continue to be encouraged by our achievements to-date, in both our planning and execution. In terms of the lessons learned from the events in March, we welcome the recent reports issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the Financial Stability Board, and the Swiss Expert Group on Banking Stability.

Their findings confirmed our view that the crisis was not a result of insufficient capital or liquidity requirements. Rather, the reports emphasize sustainable business models, risk adjusted profitability, and importantly, the critical role of robust risk management cultures and effective governance. We take comfort in these conclusions as they have been and remain core principles of UBS. Today, we are positioning UBS to be an even stronger and safer global financial institution. It is for this reason that we remain confident the acquisition will allow us to deliver significant value for all our stakeholders, notwithstanding potential macroeconomic or geopolitical challenges. Briefly summarizing our results this quarter, our strong underlying performance was driven by positive operating leverage at the Group level.

GWM, P&C, and Asset Management all delivered underlying PBT growth. IB performance was impacted by market conditions that were unfavorable to our business model and investments we expect to be accretive in future quarters. Our capital position remains strong with a CET1 ratio of 14.4% and total loss absorbing capacity of nearly $200 billion. We achieved these results while incurring $2 billion in integration-related expenses and making good progress running down non-core assets. Despite our reported loss in the quarter, we incurred over $500 million in tax expense and paid over $200 million in cash taxes in Switzerland. Our confidence in the ability to successfully integrate Credit Suisse and create substantial long-term value is supported by the strong progress we made in the third quarter.

We have now stabilized Credit Suisse and continue to grow our franchise through new client acquisition and share of wallet gains. In addition, our client retention and win-back strategy is working. Net new money in GWM was $22 billion and our strong deposit momentum continued through the quarter. The $33 billion in net new deposits across GWM and P&C also supported our ability to reduce quarterly funding costs by $450 million through the repayments of the public liquidity backstop and the ELA+ that we announced in August. We are pleased to see strong demand for UBS debt in the wholesale market, with transactions priced at similar levels to where UBS papers stood before the rescue of Credit Suisse. We have finalized the perimeter of non-current legacy and our efforts to actively unwind positions resulted in a capital release of around $1 billion.

Lastly, we continue to execute our plans to reduce costs in non-core and legacy, restructure Credit Suisse’s Investment Bank and remove duplications across our operations. We have already delivered around $3 billion in annualized exit rate gross cost savings. We expect to make further progress in the fourth quarter. Slide six summarizes well how quickly we have stabilized Credit Suisse and the confidence of clients in UBS. Credit Suisse Wealth Management’s quarterly net new money has now turned positive for the first time in a year and a half, with $3 billion in the third quarter. UBS Wealth Management’s $18 billion in net new money is the second highest third quarter result in over a decade. In addition, it was satisfying to see that our efforts to win back client assets resulted in $22 billion in net new deposits from Credit Suisse clients across GWM and P&C.

Following our decisions to integrate Credit Suisse Schweiz, we reached out to our clients to reassure them that we remain committed to delivering the best capabilities of both institutions. In addition, we reiterated that their credit limits across both banks will remain in place. To-date, client retentions have been broadly constructive and – reactions sorry – client reaction have been broadly constructive and net new deposits in P&C were positive in both Personal and Corporate Banking client segments. We are particularly pleased that this was also the case in September, the month following our decision to integrate both franchises. In non-core and legacy, we also made strong progress this quarter. 80% of the sequential reduction in NCL’s credit and market risk risk-weighted assets was driven by actively running down positions executed above marks.

Non-operational risk-weighted assets have now been reduced by nearly one-third since Q1, ‘23 and the expected natural runoff profile has improved by $3 billion. While we have some credit risk exposure in certain local emerging markets and other more complicated bilateral positions that resulted in CLEs this quarter, the key risks across the portfolio are well understood, actively managed, and in most cases, well hedged. The majority of our credit risk exposure is with high-quality borrowers. Over 75% of the exposure is rated investment-grade. This provides us with the comfort to continue to pursue our strategy to accelerate the disposal of these assets in a way that optimizes value for our shareholders, while also protecting our clients and counterparties.

The finalized perimeter of non-current legacy contains $30 billion in operational risk-weighted assets. As a function of the natural decay across the portfolio, we expect a reduction of around 50% by the end of 2026. Todd will take you through this in more detail. Returning to the integration, let me reiterate that the complexity is not just from managing two GC fees banks. Our immediate priorities since the transaction was announced and closed had to be on stabilizing and restructuring Credit Suisse. This will continue to be the case until the early part of 2024. At the same time, we are executing on our integration plans at pace, and on the left side of slide eight, you can see a selection of our recent achievements. Notably, we have established management responsibilities and operating models across business divisions and legal entities, including in our Swiss franchise.

You can also see some of our key priorities through the end of this year and beyond. This includes the merger of our significant legal entities, client migrations across all of our business divisions, and executing on our technology decommissioning plans. Last but not least, we are also working towards finalizing our three-year strategic plan, which we will present in early February. As we continue to progress our plan, the main focus has been on delivering synergies for the combined group. We remain confident that the 2026 goals that we presented last quarter are achievable. But, as I say then, it will not be a straight-line journey. We are pleased that the first phase of gross cost savings has already been executed in 2023. But I am sure we all appreciate the significant costs associated with running and combining two GC fees, one of which is still structurally unprofitable.

From an operational standpoint of view, it is clear that 2024 will be a pivotal year. Completing the merger of our significant legal entities before the end of next year is a critical step to enable us to unlock the next phase of our cost, capital and funding synergies, which we expect to realize in 2025 and 2026. Our enhanced scale, leading client franchises and increased future earnings power will position us for growth. Disciplined execution will continue to be an important driver for our performance, and we are on track to deliver on our plans. We are optimistic about our future as we build an even stronger and safer version of the UBS that was called upon to stabilize the financial system in March, and one that all of our key stakeholders can be proud of.

With that, I hand over to Todd.

Todd Tuckner : Thank you, and good morning everyone. As Sergio highlighted, we are executing on our plans at pace. In our first full quarter since the Credit Suisse acquisition, we have delivered underlying profitability and maintained strong client momentum with impressive net new money inflows in Global Wealth Management and net new deposit growth in our Swiss franchise. We also made substantial progress in de-risking our non-core and legacy portfolio, reinforcing our balance sheet for all seasons. Before I move on to discussing details of our financial performance, let me describe the reporting changes we implemented this quarter and the ones we expect to introduce soon. Today, for the first time, we are presenting the results of our performance segments on a combined basis, reflecting the way we are managing our businesses and engaging with clients.

In addition to Global Wealth Management, Personal and Corporate Banking, Asset Management, and the Investment Bank, we are now separately reporting non-core and legacy, as well as group items, all of which reflect the combined performance of UBS and Credit Suisse under IFRS and in U.S. dollars. As I said during the second quarter earnings call, our aim is to be clear and forthcoming in explaining the financial reporting of this complex transaction. Therefore, we’ve introduced underlying performance metrics that primarily strip out the PPA-related pull-to-par effects from revenues in our core businesses and adjust for integration-related expenses across all performance segments. Regarding the pull to par effects in NCL, in the quarter we reclassified most of the positions that Credit Suisse’s Investment Bank and capital release unit historically accounted for on an accrual basis to fair value through P&L, as those positions in NCL are now held for sale.

As a reminder, those positions gave rise to the $3.1 billion in future NCL pull to par revenues that we flagged last quarter. Given that NCL generates revenues in various ways, whether from early unwinds of positions and other disposals, mark-to-market on its fair value book, or from pull to par effects, we don’t distinguish among the various accounting classification types. Accordingly, in the quarter and going forward, all sources of NCL income, gain or loss, will be treated as part of its underlying performance. As last quarter’s disclosed IFRS results reflect only one month of Credit Suisse’s operating performance, to improve comparability, we’ve prepared estimated underlying results that reflect all three months of the second quarter. As I go through my remarks, unless otherwise stated, I will compare our underlying third quarter results sequentially to this estimated performance in the prior quarter.

We’ll focus on sequential developments until the third quarter of 2024, when we’ll resume year-over-year commentary. Now, onto our plan changes. In the fourth quarter, we will expand our Global Wealth Management asset flows disclosure and enhance comparability with U.S. peers. We will report net new money plus dividends and interest, as well as disclose net new fee-generating assets for the combined franchise. We intend to introduce a growth target for net new money plus dividends and interest when we present our integration KPIs and targets as part of our fourth quarter results early next year. Additionally, starting from the first quarter of 2024, we expect to push out to our business divisions substantially all balance sheet and P&L items that were previously retained centrally in group items.

The only exceptions will be for group items that are not directly attributable to divisional activities, including deferred tax assets, cash flow hedges, own credit, and their associated P&L effects. Our business division equity attribution framework will also reflect these changes, whereby the average levels of equity across the business divisions will more closely align to our current group capital targets. Moving on to our financial performance on slide 12. The quarterly profit before tax was $844 million, a $1.4 billion increase from the second quarter, as we delivered strong positive operating leverage with $0.6 billion higher revenues and $0.5 billion lower operating expenses. Additional CLE declined by $0.4 billion sequentially to $0.3 billion, which mainly related to Credit Suisse loans within P&C and NCL, which I cover later in more detail.

By comparison, CLE in the second quarter of $0.7 billion included more than $0.5 billion of charges, primarily related to the take-on recognition of ECL allowances on Credit Suisse’s lending portfolios. On a reported basis, the third quarter net loss was $785 million. As $526 million in tax expense arising in profitable entities could not be offset by tax benefits from losses primarily generated by certain Credit Suisse subsidiaries. We expect our effective tax rate to remain elevated until we merge and restructure our most significant legal entities. After that time, the effective tax rate should gradually return to a level below 25%, absent the effects of any remeasurement of deferred tax assets. Moving to slide 13. Revenues increased by 6% this quarter to $10.7 billion, driven by lower funding costs within group items and gains in non-core and legacy, as the team accelerated the unwind of certain positions at attractive prices relative to book values.

Revenues in group items increased sequentially, primarily due to the reduction of around $450 million in centrally held funding costs from the Credit Suisse-related liquidity measures that were repaid and returned in the middle of the third quarter. For the fourth quarter, we expect an additional $100 million benefit from these actions. It is worth noting that the cost of replacement funding is being absorbed by the core businesses and is reflected in their sequential NII performance and guidance this quarter. Total revenues reached $11.7 billion, including $958 million that we’ve stripped out of underlying revenues. This amount consisted of $764 million in pull to par effects, as well as $194 million of NII in our core businesses, benefiting from the merger date elimination of the unrealized loss balance associated with Credit Suisse’s cash flow hedge program.

On slide 14 we showed the details of pull to par and similar effects that we expect to recognize in future quarters. The pull to par starting balance as the transaction closed was $9.3 billion, excluding the $3.1 billion reclassification in NCL that I described earlier. Considering the pull to par accretion of $1.1 billion recognized since the merger date, including $0.8 billion this quarter, the remaining balance that will accrete into income over future quarters is expected to be around $8.2 billion. We expect the majority of this balance to accrete into income by the end of 2026, barring the impact of any early unwinds, with $500 million expected next quarter. We also expect to recognize around $900 million of additional NII in GWM and P&C, relating to the eliminated cash flow hedge item I mentioned a few moments ago, with $150 million expected in 4Q.

As a reminder, these effects are stripped out of our underlying revenues, with about half being CET1 capital accretive. I would also point out that we continue to expect total pull to par revenues, including the reclassified NCL and post-2026 recognized portions, to broadly offset the cost to achieve the greater than $10 billion in gross savings we described last quarter. Having said this, like in the third quarter, we expect there will be timing mismatches in the recognition of these reported revenues and expenses, resulting in headwinds to our reported results, particularly in the fourth quarter and throughout 2024. Moving to slide 15. Operating expenses for the group decreased to $9.6 billion, down 5% as our cost savings initiatives take effect, partially offset by reinvestments to help grow our core businesses.

Progress on our restructuring actions led to $2 billion in integration-related expenses. Roughly half of these expenses was related to personnel costs, including severance payments, salaries of employees fully dedicated to integration matters, and the cost of retaining key personnel. The other half was related to non-personnel matters, including real estate impairments and depreciation, onerous contract charges and consulting and legal fees. For the fourth quarter, we expect integration-related expenses in excess of $1 billion, although certain additional costs to achieve may arise if we see opportunities to accelerate savings. While we manage our integration to achieve overall cost reductions without specific headcount targets, I would note that our combined workforce fell by over 4,000 in the quarter, bringing year-to-date reductions to 13,000 or down 9% versus the workforce of both banks as of the end of 2022.

Across our cost savings initiatives, we’ve achieved around $3 billion to-date in gross run rate cost saves, with further progress expected in the fourth quarter. Turning to slide 16, in the quarter we maintained a strong capital position with around 200 billion of TLAC and a CET1 capital ratio of 14.4%, mainly as we reduced RWA from the active rundown in our NCL portfolio, which offset reductions in our CET1 capital in the quarter. Our CET1 leverage ratio increased to 4.9% at the end of the quarter. As we previously guided, we expect to maintain a CET1 capital ratio of around 14% throughout the integration timeline, even if our reported performance over the coming quarters remains affected by the costs of winding down the NCL unit and the work needed to achieve cost synergies in our core businesses.

During the quarter we issued $4.5 billion of U.S. dollar TLAC, attracting very strong demand and pricing at pre-acquisition spreads in a clear sign of fixed income investor confidence in our name. To further diversify our sources of funding, we successfully placed $3 billion in SEC registered OpCo and just after the quarter, CHF820 million in UBS’s inaugural Swiss covered bond issue, both attractively priced. Regarding liquidity, we maintain a prudent profile in the quarter with an LCR of nearly 200%, supported by $33 billion in total deposit inflows. I would note that these strong deposit inflows across global wealth management and personal and corporate banking increased our overall deposit coverage ratio. Going forward, we expect to continue to operate with a prudent LCR to comply with the revisions to the Swiss liquidity ordinance that will come into effect on January 1, 2024.

Regarding the Swiss national bank’s recently announced changes to its minimum reserve requirements and site deposit remuneration policies that take effect next month, we expect an annualized reduction of around CHF80 million to our NII, of which two-thirds will impact P&C and one-third GWM. Turning to the performance in our businesses, beginning on slide 17, in Global Wealth Management, we continued strong momentum with $22 billion in net new money inflows across all regions. We saw particularly strong inflows in both APAC and EMEA with $13 billion and $8 billion in net new money respectively. Importantly, our Credit Swiss Wealth Management Business attracted quarterly net inflows for the first time since the beginning of 2022. In the quarter, we also attracted $25 billion of net new deposits, including $17 billion from the Credit Swiss wealth side.

These impressive flows are a true testament to the trust our clients continue to place in us. They also reflect the success of our clear and decisive win-back, retention, and client acquisition actions, as well as intensified client engagement levels since the deal’s completion. We expect to further build on this momentum as the value proposition of the combined firm becomes more tangible to our clients. For instance, all of our clients now have access to the UBS House view from our CIO, and our wealth management product and solution offerings are being unified and aligned across the platforms. As mentioned, from next quarter, we will report net new money plus dividends and interest, as well as net new fee-generating assets for the combined franchise.

In the third quarter, inflows based on this new definition were $39 billion, and net new fee-generating assets in solely the UBS portion of our wealth business were $21 billion, with positive flows across all regions. Moving on to GWM’s P&L, profit before tax was $1.1 billion, over 40% higher sequentially, driven by a reduction in costs and credit loss expenses with roughly flat revenues. Excluding the impact of CLE, which included a significant acquisition-related ECL charge last quarter, underlying profit before tax increased by around 20%, supported by lower underlying operating expenses. This quarter, GWM revenues of $5.5 billion were broadly flat, as increases in recurring fees were offset by a decline in NII. Combined net interest income was down 3% on an underlying basis and excluding FX, reflecting continued deposit mix effects due to rotation into higher-yielding deposits and ongoing deleveraging.

This was partially offset by sequentially higher deposit balances that served to close the funding gap in the business and strengthen the structural profile of our balance sheet. For the fourth quarter, we expect a mid-single digit percentage decline in NII, mainly from continuing deposit mix shifts. Credit loss expenses in the quarter across GWM were $2 million. Operating expenses declined $0.2 billion to $4.4 billion, mainly driven by lower personnel expenses as reduced headcount levels, which we expect to continue sequentially, began to benefit our underlying earnings. Although it’s early days in terms of synergy realization in GWM, we are already seeing progress from our integration efforts. The division’s underlying cost-to-income ratio in the third quarter dropped by around 3 percentage points to 80%.

Turning to Personal and Corporate Banking on slide 18, profit before tax increased by $0.1 billion to CHF773 million, mainly driven by a decrease in credit loss expenses. Excluding CLE, P&C’s PBT was up slightly quarter-on-quarter. Revenues increased to $2.2 billion. With the announcement of the Swiss integration at the end of August, the business is highly focused on client engagement and deposit win-back. Early indications are encouraging, as evidenced by the stability of the revenue line, the resilience of business volume, and the commencement of deposit returns. Net interest income decreased by 4% despite the narrowing funding gap from net new deposit inflows, which mainly came from our corporate clients. A primary driver of the sequential decline this quarter was the additional cost of restoring the structural funding profile of the combined business to UBS’s NSFR standards.

For the fourth quarter, we expect a low single-digit percentage decline in NII, mainly due to rotation to higher-yielding deposits. Credit loss expense in the quarter was CHF154 million, almost exclusively from two factors related to Credit Suisse’s Swiss Bank. First, we recognized CLE on loans, mainly to corporate counterparties that were already impaired on the merger date and deteriorated further this quarter, as well as newly defaulted positions. Second, we moved to Stage 2 and provisioned in line with UBS’s coverage ratio standards, all loans, including those as of the merger date, on Credit Suisse’s watch list, as well as those lending exposures that experienced a significant increase in credit risk during the third quarter. Underlying operating expenses were roughly unchanged at $1.2 billion on lower personnel and litigation expenses, with the underlying cost-income ratio down quarter-on-quarter to 57%.

Moving to slide 19. In Asset Management, the underlying profit before tax increased to $156 million on higher revenues and lower costs. Revenues were slightly higher at $755 million, with increases in net management fees driven by market performance and FX, and higher performance fees from our hedge fund businesses. Operating expenses decreased to $599 million, mainly due to lower personnel expenses. Net new money in the quarter was negative $1 billion, driven by Credit Suisse outflows, which continue to taper since the acquisition, with inflows expected to gradually return from proactive client engagement. It’s worth noting that the UBS side of the business attracted net new money inflows this quarter in a challenging environment for asset managers.

We saw strong demand for our money market, SMA, and real estate and private markets solutions, partly offset by client asset allocation shifts away from China, equities, and hedge funds in the current market dynamic. Net new money, excluding money markets and associates was negative $8.3 billion. Turning to the investment bank performance on slide 20. Since the UBS IB has taken on only select parts of Credit Suisse’s investment bank, and the latter saw little activity in the second quarter, we compare the results of the combined IB with standalone performance in the prior year’s third quarter. We will continue to offer year-over-year comparisons to standalone UBS IB performance in the quarters ahead, while also providing commentary on sequential developments until the third quarter of 2024, as with the other business divisions.

The operating loss of $116 million was a result of additional costs related to the retained portion of Credit Suisse’s investment bank, which was only partially offset by standalone profit before tax in UBS IB, as market conditions remain challenging for our business model. Underlying revenues, which exclude $251 million of pull to par accretion and other effects, declined 6% year-over-year to $1.9 billion amid muted client activity due to ongoing concerns around terminal interest rates and geopolitical events. Volatility across asset classes declined significantly from a year ago, and global fee pools remain depressed. Against this backdrop, global banking revenues increased 36%, with particular strength in leveraged capital markets and strong performance in EMEA.

Advisory outperformed the global fee pool and was further supported by revenues from the Heritage Credit Suisse franchise. Global markets revenues declined 15% from a very strong third quarter, reflecting lower revenues across macro products and equity derivatives. This was partly offset by growth in financing, supported by increased client balances. Overall, revenues generated from the retained portion of Credit Suisse’s investment bank were $113 million this quarter, primarily in advisory, as well as derivatives and solutions. Operating expenses rose 27%, predominantly from additional personnel costs related to the retained portions of Credit Suisse’s investment bank, as well as higher technology costs and FX. As we manage the investment bank integration, we remain disciplined in our resource management.

RWAs at 23% of the group’s resources, excluding NCL, were roughly unchanged sequentially. Looking ahead, as the majority of the onboarding of our colleagues and positions to UBS IB systems is planned for completion by the end of the year, we expect revenues to ramp up over the course of 2024. Given this timing, in addition to current market conditions and seasonality, we expect continued pressure on our underlying profitability in the fourth quarter. Moving to non-core legacy on slide 21. Excluding integration related expenses, NCL generated an underlying operating loss of $1 billion. Quarterly revenues of $350 million consisted mainly of gains from the early unwind of loan commitments, while the portion of the NCL portfolio that remains on the accrual method of accounting was left broadly unchanged this quarter, given recovery expectations on the underlying lending positions.

Credit loss expense was $125 million. Additional provisions of $71 million reflect application of the same extended credit watch list approach I described earlier in the context of P&C. We also saw $54 million of charges from Stage 3 and purchased credit-impaired loans that deteriorated further in the quarter. Underlying operating expenses reached $1.2 billion, split roughly equally between personnel and non-personnel costs. Integration related expenses of $918 million consisted of onerous contract charges, real estate related expenses, and personnel costs linked to headcount reductions and retention. For the fourth quarter, we expect the underlying cost base in non-core and legacy to decrease further from additional staff reductions, whose costs are directly housed within or allocated to NCL.

As Sergio mentioned, in the quarter we took decisive actions to reduce RWAs. Five of the total $6 billion reduction resulted from active de-risking of exposures across the array of NCL portfolios. LRD was reduced by $52 billion, including $15 billion resulting from lower HQLA requirements and $12 billion from the accounting reclassification of loan commitments from accrual to fair value. During the quarter, we completed the initial impact assessment on our operational risk RWA from the final Basel III standard, which comes into effect on January 1, 2025. Based on this initial study, we expect Group Op Risk RWA to remain broadly unchanged at the current level of $145 billion. We also determined on the basis of our impact assessment, initial levels of RWA to a portion to each of our business divisions, including NCL.

The $30 billion of operational risk RWA assigned to NCL this quarter is expected to diminish over time as a function of two considerations, the rundown of the NCL portfolio and the removal of certain legacy litigation matters given the lapse of time. On the basis of natural roll-off in both contexts, we expect operational risk RWA and NCL to decrease to around $14 billion by the end of 2026. As a reminder, we continue to expect a roughly 5% increase from day one effects in 2025 from other final Basel III considerations, mainly FRTB. As we look ahead to the fourth quarter, we expect many of the drivers of underlying profitability to continue to progress. In particular, we expect underlying operating expenses to decline sequentially as our core businesses realize incremental synergies and NCL remains focused on actively running down its portfolio to release capital and accelerate cost saves.

In addition to the NII expectations that I described earlier, transactional activity may be affected by seasonal factors, as well as client sentiment in response to the geopolitical landscape. Despite these elements, we are executing on our integration plans at pace and remain on track to achieve our goals of around a 15% return on CET1 capital and a cost-income ratio of less than 70% by the end of 2026. With that, let’s open for questions.

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Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. The first question is from Stefan Stalmann from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

Stefan Stalmann: Good morning gentlemen. Thank you very much for the presentation. I have two questions and they may be linked. The first regarding outstanding SNB funding. I don’t think there’s any update in the disclosure material on where the number has moved to. I think the last disclosed number was CHF38 billion at the end of August. Could you provide an update here? And possibly related to this, it looks to me, looking at SNB data, that there has not been a lot further reduction of SNB funding after August in September. Is that a good interpretation of the data? And is there any connection here between your management of the SNB funding and the new liquidity ordinance that will come into place in January? And is it possible for you to give us the guidance on how your liquidity ratios will look like on the 1st of January under this new liquidity ordinance in Switzerland, please? Thank you.

Todd Tuckner : Hi, Stefan. Thanks for your questions. So, in terms of the outstanding SNB funding, no, we still have the – that funding levels are still unchanged at this stage. We are working through our business plans and as well as our funding plans, and we’ll consider the ability to repay some or all of that over the course of the coming months, but your read was correct. In connection with that funding and the liq ordinance, no, I’d say there’s no specific connection with that, and we’re not maintaining that funding, particularly in respect of satisfying the liquidity ordinance per se. That said, the LCR guidance that you’re looking for, as we say, will remain prudent, so you can expect it to remain at levels not terribly far away from where we finished 3Q at.

Stefan Stalmann : Great. That was very helpful. Thank you.

Operator: The next question is from Giulia Miotto from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Giulia Miotto: Yes, hi. Good morning. Two questions for me. The first one on capital distribution. I know it’s very early. I guess you will comment on Q4, but what are the stepping stones that we should look out for before you can resume a buyback? That’s my first question. And then the second question is with respect to costs. In the quarter, there was an excellent delivery on costs, and the $3 billion target by year end has already been achieved. So basically, where do we go from here? Can we assume that this steady path of cost saves can continue or will there kind of be a pause until there is the legal merger, because you have already basically extracted as much as you could of the low-hanging fruit? Thank you.

Sergio Ermotti : Okay. Thank you. So in respect of the capital distribution plan or capital return plans, as you pointed out, you’re going to have to be patient. For the time being, I just can’t reiterate that we are still looking to have a progressive cash dividend policy that will be implemented. And for the rest, what you need to see is the visibility with the plan. So we are finalizing the three-year plan, and that will allow us to really calibrate capital returns. I just want to reiterate that I still believe at this stage, although the plan is not finished, that capital returns and share buybacks is not a matter of years. In my point of view, it could be a matter of quarters, but without having the final plan, it’s difficult to really make a final statement.

But that will be addressed in February. And somehow, it’s linked to your second question, because of course, I’m not so sure. I would define the progress we’ve made so far as low-hanging fruits. But I think that it takes effort and time to go through this. I do believe that we still have costs that can be taken out during 2024, regardless of what you are pointing out being the critical issue, is the legal entity merger. The legal entity merger is the triggering point that allow us to go to the next level of cost reduction and synergy realizations from an operational standpoint of view, but also from an IT standpoint of view. So 2024, as Todd mentioned, and I also remarked, is a pivotal year. It’s probably the one time in which we’re going to incur the most cost in order to achieve the synergies that we’ll achieve in 2025 and 2026.

So, you see how the two questions are somehow linked.

Giulia Miotto: Thank you.

Operator: The next question is from Andrew Coombs from Citi. Please go ahead.

Andrew Coombs: Good morning. Two questions from me, please. Firstly, on the GWM net interest income trajectory, thank you for the commentary in your pre-prepared remarks. I think you said, after a 3% decline in Q3, you expected mid-single digit percentage decline in Q4, and that was an ongoing deposit mix shift. So that seems to be accelerating rather than decelerating. So can you give us any indication of how much longer you think that trend could continue for? Do you think now that we’re at peak rates. If anything that should slow as we go into 2024? And also, if there’s any implications from your broader deposit pricing that’s also influencing that sequential NII decline? That’s the first question. Second question, there’s been quite a lot of media commentary over the past week ahead of the “Too Big to Fail” review coming out in spring next year.

I think there’s been some explicit discussion around potentially introducing more exit fees or more notice periods around deposits. Is there anything you could say with regards to that? And also, what that means for your competitive positioning versus international peers? Thank you.

Todd Tuckner : Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Andrew. On the first, in terms of GWM NII trajectory, I think you captured it right in terms of guidance around the mid-single digit decline owing to deposit mix shifts and whether that seems like an acceleration. I’d comment that I think what we’re seeing is a bit of a broadening of that dynamic more across the globe. We saw in most of 2023 that dynamic being very significantly driven by moves from sweep deposits into higher-yielding deposits in the U.S., and we saw less of that in Europe in APAC, as well as in Switzerland. And so while we’re seeing the U.S. taper now, both in the current quarter and as we look ahead, we’re seeing a bit of an expansion of that dynamic in other parts of the globe, and that’s what’s sort of driving that.

As I look out into 2024, we’re doing that work now. We’ll come back with a view during February with a view on full year 2024. I would just conclude on the point saying, no, I don’t see pricing having an impact. I mean, this is just a response to the current rate environment as clients are undergoing cash sorting across our client base.