Amundi Aktie

Good morning to all. I'm Cyril Meilland, the Head of Investor Relations at Amundi. It's a real pleasure to welcome you to our third quarter results video conference broadcast via Zoom from Paris, where it's actually very sunny today, although we are underground because the building is undergoing some refurbishment.

I'm joined by our Deputy CEO, Nicolas Calcoen, who will lead the presentation in full as our CFO, Aurelia Lecourtier will not join us today. She is expecting, as we say in French, [Foreign Language] A Happy Event.

Nicolas' presentation will last approximately half an hour and will be followed by a Q&A session. If you want to ask a question, please raise your hand virtually, and we will take questions on a first raised, first served basis. I already noticed that we have a few raised hands, so don't worry. We will keep the ranks as they are. Please, can we ask you that you open your mic and your camera to add a more engaging dialogue.

Before we get started, a short disclaimer as always. Throughout the presentation, we will make a number of forward-looking statements and mention forecasts. We call your attention to the fact that Amundi's actual results may differ from these statements.

Some of the factors that may cause the results to differ materially are listed on our Universal Registration Document. Amundi assumes no duty and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements.

I also wanted to highlight a few changes to our disclosure for you to have in mind. Having completed our stake building, ICG's contribution to our adjusted net income in the equity accounted contributions will be consolidated at 9.9% of our net income versus 7.7% in the second quarter.

You can find a full technical note on how ICG is integrated into our financial communication, including the lag in contribution on our website, and we are happy to answer any questions. I won't go into any details so far.

Next, our first 9 months P&L will be compared with the first 9 months of 2025, as if Amundi U.S. had been equity accounted at 100% in Q1 2025. You are now familiar with this pro forma comparison, so I won't go into any more detail.

Another point to bear in mind for these results is the impact of transfers relating to a very large institutional mandates in India, managed by SBI FM, our local JV. EUR 39 billion of assets were transferred to other asset managers following a reallocation of a mandate.

Given the negligible margin on these assets, the transfers will have no impact on SBI FM's revenues and earnings, let alone Amundi's. We therefore exclude these transfers when commenting on our net inflows, while the full figures, including the transfers, are provided in our disclosure for you to have a look.

And finally, I remind you of the other key client disclosure simplification, which were already in place since the beginning of this year. Retail, institutional, excluding Credit Agricole and SocGen Insurers, and Credit Agricole and SocGen Insurers, as well as the employee savings and retirement business has been transferred from institutional to retail.

And now, I leave the floor to Nicolas.

Thank you very much, Cyril, and good morning, everyone. I will begin, as usual, with some key highlights before taking you through our activity and results in more detail. So the story for both the 9 months and third quarter was one of record inflows, strong earnings growth, and strategic progress.

First, business momentum was obviously strong. 9 month inflows exceeded EUR 100 billion, including almost EUR 46 billion in the third quarter. This inflow was almost all in medium and long-term assets, with a particularly strong contribution from retail. As Cyril explained, these figures exclude transfers relating to the large institutional mandates managed by SBI FM, our JV in India.

Alongside these strong inflows, the third quarter also brought an important extension of our partnership with Banco Sabadell, taking the agreement through to 2035. This extension reflects the strength of our partnership model and the commercial momentum it continues to generate, with EUR 30 billion now managed through our joint platform, up by half since the partnership started in 2020.

This business activity translated into strong earnings growth, with Q3 net income up by 20% year-on-year. Thanks to very positive jaws, the cost income ratio improved to 50%.

And looking briefly at our GAAP accounting P&L, so without the adjustment we make to better reflect our underlying performance. The net income is materially higher at EUR 675 million. This includes a large EUR 300 million capital gain we booked from selling SBI FM shares at the IPO in July.

We also continue to make real progress across all of our investment for the future 2028 ambitions, with over EUR 100 billion of inflows across the strategic axes year-to-date. It was also an active period in terms of capital deployment, finishing our ICG stake building, and completing our share buyback.

Let's now take a closer look at some of our key strategic developments in the period. Starting with clients, we are converting our strategic ambitions into commercial wins.

First, we generated EUR 4 billion of inflows with digital players in the third quarter. We established 2 new relationships and extended existing relationships with BoursoBank on Scalable Capital. For BoursoBank, we are now their ETF and retirement savings partner, and we also provide their clients with educational tool for investing. On Scalable Capital, we have expanded into short-term cash management through an Amundi money market solution.

Retirement next, where we generated EUR 12 billion of inflows. At the third quarter, we highlighted the significant long-term opportunity created by pension reform in Germany. Having signed 2 distribution agreements in the second quarter, we added a further third pillar retirement agreement with an IFA platform in the third quarter.

And we are in active discussions with other distribution partners on digital platforms with a healthy pipeline of opportunities.

And the same is true in France. I already highlighted our extended partnership with BoursoBank. In France overall, over the past 12 months, we gathered EUR 4 billion in PER retirement product [ Plan d'Epargne Retraite ], almost double the net inflows of the previous 12 months.

Separately, on retirement again, we won 2 institutional retirement mandates during the quarter, one with a German regional authority and one in Asia.

Geography is next, where we saw strong net inflows across our priority regions. EUR 18 billion came from Northern Europe, well-diversified across countries, clients, and solutions, with many highlights, including digital distribution in the U.K. and Germany, an institutional mandate in Ireland, and third-party distribution activity in the Netherlands.

I would like to particularly focus on our business in the U.K. The business has thrived since we presented it to you with our first quarter of '25 result, and we now manage more than EUR 110 billion on behalf of a broad range of U.K. clients, financial advisors, wealth managers, charities and endowments, local government pension schemes and partnerships, and across the full range of our solutions.

Asia now. Asia generated EUR 8 billion of inflows, excluding the transfer from the mandate in India, and this includes EUR 5 billion from direct distribution and the rest from joint ventures. China was the largest contributor this quarter, supported by both joint ventures and direct distribution.

Finally, Invest for the Future included a focus on expanding our reach into high-potential regions. This quarter, the Middle East contributed a further EUR 2 billion, thanks to institutional mandate and third-party distribution.

Turning to solution next, starting with active management. Active management inflows were driven by fixed income and multi-asset strategies. We saw, for example, strong traction in Japan, where our Material Innovation Fund was a leading thematic fund by net inflows in the year-to-date and fourth across all fund categories in Japan.

Victory Capital Strategies, distributed by Amundi in Europe and Asia, gathered close to EUR 3 billion, demonstrating the continued commercial momentum of the partnership. And it was also another good period for the performance of all flagships, including global fixed income and emerging market bonds.

ETFs next, with EUR 17 billion of inflows in the quarter. We were also the leading gatherer in European equities ETFs, reflecting the strength of our platform across the region. As I said earlier, Germany is a particularly strong ETF market for us, with more than EUR 100 billion of ETF assets with German clients.

Innovations remain central to our strong ETF position. During this quarter, we launched 8 new index ETFs, including several with technology and transition themes, and 3 active equity ETFs, combining quantitative and fundamental approaches across global, European and Eurozone equities.

Our ETF-as-a-service offer, which allows our clients to launch ETFs under their own brand, continues to gain traction, and we now support 8 clients, including one new win in the third quarter, and we recently launched a new equity ETF for Laiqon.

Private asset next. The main milestone here was the launch of Amundi ICG Global Private Equity Secondaries, the first evergreen fund developed through our partnership. In the meantime, Amundi Alpha has also gathered EUR 1.3 billion, supported in particular by 2 multi-management infrastructure mandates, one in France and one in Germany.

And finally, in responsible investment, we launched Arbora Nova, a new institutional fund which aims to mobilize EUR 200 million for reforestation project across Europe. The strategy is designed to improve forest resilience, biodiversity and carbon storage, while supporting local forestry and timber businesses.

Efficiency now. Building on the example we shared with our second quarter result, here is another example of how we are using AI to improve efficiency. As you will know from our various workshops, the Amundi Investment Institute is in charge at Amundi of our macro research and set the framework for our global asset allocation.

They have developed an AI-powered model, trained on decades of data around crisis, as well as the institute methodology. It can therefore think like its analyst. This allows macro environment analysis that is twice as fast, meaning more agile asset allocation, and greater conviction in investment decisions.

And this technology also already generating interest from a variety of external clients, including institutions, wealth managers, and banks.

I will now take you through our third quarter and 9 months' activity and results in more detail. At the end of September, our assets under management totaled EUR 2.6 trillion. It is up by 11% year-on-year, and stable quarter-on-quarter, reflecting the transfer related to the large mandate in India on a negative market effect due to the long-term rate hike, completely compensated by positive inflows.

The year-on-year growth was boosted by a strong market and FOREX effect of EUR 172 billion, mostly thanks to the equity market, and EUR 6 billion from the integration of our shares in ICG, shown in the chart in the scope effect flows.

And most importantly, we gathered net inflows of EUR 123 billion in the past 12 months. In the third quarter alone, we gathered EUR 46 billion, which represent an annualized rate of 7%.

Let me now go into more detail about our flow performance, which originated from all client segments, asset classes and geographies. If we take a step back and look at the activity over the first 9 months, net inflows went above the EUR 100 billion mark for the first time since the creation of Amundi.

This was driven by record inflows in medium to long-term assets at EUR 94 billion. The high level of 9 months' inflows was reflected in ETF, with EUR 45 billion, in active management with EUR 29 billion, including EUR 24 billion in fixed income, and EUR 5 billion gathered in private assets, thanks to our multi-management business, Amundi Alpha, and the first commitment in ICG strategies by Credit Agricole Assurance.

More specifically, in the third quarter, net inflows into long-term assets were also high and accounted for EUR 42 billion of the total EUR 46 billion. ETF and active management posted similar contribution to this growth as highlighted earlier.

For active management, this corresponds to an acceleration versus the previous quarters. Treasury products posted net outflows reflecting ongoing client reallocation from low-duration treasury funds to higher-yielding long-term strategies.

Investment performance next. You are now used to this slide and its message, which is that Amundi investment teams deliver high and sustained performance.

On a 5-year basis, 78% of our funds outperform their benchmark, despite the very volatile macro environment. While open-ended funds only on Morningstar ranking, approximately 3 quarters of the assets in our fund are in the first or second quartiles over 1 year, 3 year, and 5 year periods.

We have now 270 Amundi funds that are rated 4 or 5 stars by Morningstar. This sustained high investment performance clearly supports our sales performance.

Looking next at our client segment in the third quarter, let's start with retail, which accounted for roughly half of the net inflows in both the third quarter and over the first 9 months. Retail inflows indeed totaled EUR 21 billion in the quarter, almost all in medium to long-term assets.

Third-party distribution again contributed the lion's share of this, with inflows of EUR 20 billion. This is equivalent to a 17% collection rate on an annualized basis, and these inflows were almost entirely in medium to long-term assets.

Outflows from UniCredit networks were EUR 4 billion in the third quarter, while total assets with these networks stood at EUR 71 billion at the end of September, including EUR 50 billion in Italy.

We did not experience outflows from UniCredit insurance entities this quarter as we did in the second one. However, we expect EUR 9 billion in the fourth quarter due to the re-internalization of the management of their assets.

But as you know, the margin of this mandate is similar to the one of the mandate we manage for Credit Agricole and SocGen Insurers.

Moving to institutional clients, where net inflows total EUR 20 billion, of which EUR 25 billion in medium to long-term assets, thanks to gains from multiple mandates. The 3 subsegments contributed positively, insurance, institutional and sovereigns, corporate, as well as Credit Agricole and SocGen Insurers. The last one benefited from the sustained demand from traditional life insurance in France, with long-term flows of EUR 5 billion.

Finally, associates contributed close to EUR 5 billion, with EUR 2 billion from our share in the U.S. distribution of Victory Capital. This is a material increase compared to the previous quarters, and EUR 3 billion from the JVs, thanks to positive contributions from all 3 Asian joint ventures.

India, excluding, of course, the transfer, China, and Korea, the 3 together collected EUR 5 billion in long-term assets while experiencing treasury outflows.

Now, let's turn to our results for the quarter and the 9 months. Starting with third quarter revenues. Total revenues were up by double digits year-on-year. As in the previous quarter, business-related revenues drove our performance. Net management fees were up by 13% compared to last year, thanks to the strong cumulative net inflows over the last 12 months, as well as the positive market effect.

Guarantee fees from structured products returned to normal from the high levels seen in the second quarter. Despite this element, total management fees were still up on a quarter-to-quarter basis.

Technology revenues now were up by 17% at EUR 34 million, and this business line clearly continued to grow in line with its strategic plan trajectory to double its revenue between '24 and '28. And in particular, during this quarter, 2 new clients were signed, demonstrating this sales momentum.

Net financial income, now it is up compared to the same period last year, mostly thanks to the rise in the euro short-term rates. The lower level compared to the second quarter of this year reflects the high level of seasonal dividends on carried interest in the previous quarter as well as the negative mark-to-market effect of rising long-term rates on part of our portfolio during the third quarter.

Turning to cost now. We were up by 4% compared to the third quarter of '25, but importantly, with 7 point growth below the top line growth. You can also see that costs have been constantly flat over the last 4 quarters thanks to our relentless efficiency effort. This has been achieved against the backdrop of the continued ramp-up in investment across our strategic priorities to drive future growth.

Third quarter costs also includes a charge related to the capital increase reserve for employees. At EUR 17 million, this charge is equivalent to that of the same quarter last year, with no material increase of our cost base quarter-on-quarter. As a consequence of the large positive jaws effect, the cost income ratio was, during the third quarter, 50%.

Finally, our net income topped EUR 400 million for the second quarter in a row. It was up by 20% year-on-year, reflecting our record activity levels, combined with continued excellent cost control.

It also included strong growth in the contribution from our associates, which is up by 23%. This came from ICG first at EUR 14 million, up versus the second quarter, thanks to our increased stakes from approximately 8% to 10%.

It is coming from Victory Capital, which is up by 10% to EUR 36 million, thanks to an acceleration of their business. It also factors in one-off charges in the third quarter related to the attribution of shares to management.

The contribution from our Asian joint ventures was down 6% versus the third quarter of '25. This reflected the sale of 10% of our stake at the IPO and the drop in the Indian rupee. And in fact, at constant rupee and constant stake in SBI FM, the joint venture's contribution to net income would have been up by 7% compared to last year.

Please also note that, I would say as usual, the net income includes the tax surcharge in France of EUR 10 million for the quarter. As a reminder, this figure was EUR 9 million last year, so no direct effect on the growth of net income. All this resulted in an EPS of EUR 2.04, once again above EUR 2.

To be noted for the first time, this EPS takes into account the accretive effect from our share buyback program, which we completed mid-September. Indeed, close to 6 million shares were canceled by the Board, which represent roughly 3% of our share capital, and this again, was reflected in full in our Q3 EPS computation.

Let's finish by quickly looking at our financial performance in the first 9 months of this year. The trends here are very similar to those of the first half of the year and the third quarter.

Indeed, net income rose by 22% year-over-year to an all-time high of EUR 1.2 billion. As in the third quarter, this growth was driven by revenue, which are up by 13% compared to the first 9 months of '25, driven by business-related revenues.

Management fees up by 12%, performance fees by 50%, and technology revenues up by 21%. This strong growth in revenues and controlled costs, up by 28%, resulted in a positive jaws effect of 5 percentage points. As a consequence, the cost income ratio improved further to 49.7%.

To mention again, the tax surcharge in France total EUR 66 million, broadly equivalent to the amount it represented for the same period last year. All this resulted in a 9 month EPS of EUR 5.82.

Before we start the Q&A, let me conclude with some key messages. We have delivered strong earnings growth on both 9 months on third quarter basis. This performance was underpinned by record activity on broad business momentum across all client segment, investment solution, and geographies. And importantly, this growth reflects the successful execution of our Invest for the Future '28 strategic ambitions.

This strategic progress is also underpinned by our strong financial position, having successfully completed our stake building in ICG and our EUR 5 million share buyback. We now have retained more than EUR 1 billion of surplus capital, giving us continued strategic flexibility going forward.

Thank you for your attention, and I will now take your questions.

Thank you, Nicolas. So it's now time for the Q&A session, and we will take, as I said, questions by order of raised hands. So we start with Hubert from Bank of America.

I've got 3 of them. Firstly, can you talk about your exposure to France, I know 44% of your assets come from French clients. But I was wondering how much exposure do you have to French assets such as bonds, equities, et cetera? First question.

Second question is on costs. So costs have been remarkably stable over the last 4 quarters. Wondering if this can be sustained, just given your investment plans, or we should expect this to tick up over time?

And lastly, I guess related -- sorry, last question on M&A. Just given your strong organic performance, does this raise the bar to do anything inorganic with your billion of surplus?

Thank you, Hubert. So on your question on exposure to France, as you know, Amundi is a very global asset manager. We are present in 34 countries, I think, extremely diversified in terms of assets.

And indeed, we manage significant amounts on behalf of French clients, but these clients are themselves very well diversified in terms of investment. So at the end of the day, our exposure to French assets at large, equity, bonds, corporate credit, represent roughly 16% of our total assets under management.

And as far as French sovereign assets -- French sovereign assets in particular are concerned, it is less than 3.5% of our total assets under management.

Your second question was about cost. This, as you notice and the very strong quality of our capacity to control cost is linked to all the effort we make constantly to improve our efficiency. And in particular, you remember, we mentioned 1 year ago an optimization plan covering several dimensions, a merger between CPR and BFT in France, the organization of our multi-asset platforms and other streamlining on the optimization aspect.

And we are, during this quarter, fully benefiting from this effect. And we have, of course, and we are reinvesting this effort in continued investment in our long-term priorities. And going forward, our intention remains the same, to work on our efficiency and reinvest the gains that we are making into investments in the future, whether developing in Asia, investing in technology, developing new solutions.

As far as your third question on M&A, well, our approach hasn't changed. Priorities on organic growth. We are very confident that we can grow organically. I think the last 12 months since we announced the medium-term plan as a clear demonstration of this capacity, and we are fully confident our capacity to continue.

M&A is an opportunity, will continue to be an opportunity as long as we find opportunities that make sense, that help us to develop even more rapidly along these priority areas. As far as it makes sense financially, remember our financial criteria, return of investment above 10% over 3 years.

And as long as looking in detail in every opportunity as we are convinced that we have the capacity to integrate, to execute the deal. So again, we are looking at opportunities if they represent, if they arise, but we don't need to do M&A, and we will continue to grow, whatever happens.

Thank you. So we now turn to the next question. Michael. [Operator Instructions] Michael Werner from UBS.

I've got 3 questions, please. I guess the first one is just on the Sabadell agreement. I was just wondering if there was any change in the underlying economics with regards to the new distribution agreement or the extension to 2035?

Second, I guess going back to kind of Hubert's question in terms of surplus capital; 3 quarters into your 3 year plan, you've got more than EUR 1 billion of surplus capital. Is there any consideration of returning that to shareholders earlier than waiting for the end of the 3 year agreement, especially since it's certainly much more front-end loaded than where we were during the previous 3 year plan?

And then finally, just your thoughts on the German pension reform. We heard from a competitor of yours yesterday that they expect a decent amount of flows, but maybe not so much in terms of revenue generation. I was just wondering what your thoughts are in terms of the opportunity there over the next 12 to 24 months?

Thank you. So on Sabadell, as you can imagine, we don't disclose the detail of our agreement. What I can say is that this sanction, including economic change, in the interest of both parties.

As far as the second question was about the surplus capital, again, no change in our approach. We are rebuilding our capital position, so we have this EUR 1 billion at the end of September. But the priority remain to deploy it in accretive, value-accretive M&A.

We keep the flexibility at the horizon of the plan if we don't find opportunities in terms of M&A to return it to shareholders as we did in the past. But the priority now remains to find opportunities, if we find them, to do M&A.

And as far as the German pension reform, we believe that it's a strong opportunity. We have the experience of a similar reform a few years ago in France, and it creates a lot of value. I was mentioning the inflows we got on the last 12 months of EUR 4 billion, and we really believe that the reform, which will be implemented next year in Germany, will represent also a strong opportunity, and we have all the ingredients and the capabilities to take advantage of it.

We have a strong presence in Germany, and we already have EUR 190 billion of inflow -- of assets, sorry, in Germany. We have, in particular, the connection with digital players, which already play a key role in retail distribution in Germany and will have a key role in the distribution of this retirement product.

We have the ETF capabilities, will be a key component of, again, these products. As I mentioned, we already have EUR 100 billion of ETFs distributed in Germany. We have also the capacity to build solutions, and we are leveraging on what we have done in France and in other countries.

So we are very confident it will be a strong opportunity. That said, Germany is a very competitive market, but we are assured that what we will be doing will be profitable for Amundi.

Thank you. Next question from Nick, Nicholas Herman from Citi.

Three questions from me as well, please, on passive private markets, private assets, and retail. So on passive, you are clearly taking market share. Just was interested in which channels and regions that is occurring. And broadly speaking, which players you see yourselves taking share from?

On private, encouraging to see inflows into private assets. I guess, can you just give us some more details behind this? How much of the EUR 2 billion is from Evergreens and other private wealth offerings? And I guess relatedly, you've now launched your joint offering with ICG. Just interested in any feedback you can give us, and a sense of engagement from the networks related to that launch.

And then finally, sticking with retail, it looks like you have had decent retail inflows outside of third party and the UniCredit outflows. So just anything you can say to give us a sense of the composition of the rest and the level of engagement there?

Sure. So in terms of passive, and you probably had in mind, in particular ETF, we are indeed progressing well and since the beginning of the year, gaining some market shares. It's very diversified. It's coming from all client channels, all geographies in Europe, in Asia to some extent as well.

In term of channels, I can, of course, mention particular digital distribution, where I was mentioning the inflows on the quarter. It's not exclusively in ETF, but it's mainly in ETF. So it is very, very diversified.

In term of private asset, we are looking at the third quarter or since the beginning of the year, the majority of inflows coming from our multi-management platform, so Alpha Associates, the acquisition we made close to 2 years ago now, which is very successful.

It remained in majority with institutional clients in Europe, but quite diversified in Europe. I was in particular mentioning during this quarter, 2 mandates we won on infrastructure, but multi-management in infrastructure, one in France and the other one in Germany.

But we have also, and we start to see a contribution from retail, Evergreen or purely retail, private asset product have a positive contribution, but which is lower. But you have, of course, and you understand it, we just launched a few weeks ago the new Evergreen product with ICG.

So at end of September, we don't have inflows on this product, but there is a good traction and a good level of interest from our distribution clients across many geographies. And I forgot the third question.

The flows.

The retail -- the flows. So of course, very strong contribution from third-party distribution. But indeed, you are right, if we exclude UniCredit, also a good contribution from our other retail partners, whether in France, in Italy with Credit Agricole Italy, or with Sabadell, with whom, as you have noticed, the relationship is excellent. And maybe I should also mention Crelan in Belgium.

Thank you. The next question comes from Angeliki Bairaktari, JPMorgan.

Can you talk a little bit about the dynamics in French retail, also considering the recent demonstrations in France and sort of the cost of living pressures, how is that segment performing for you, and what is the outlook for flows there?

And then if I can just come back to the cost outlook. There used to be sort of a psychological floor around the 50% cost income ratio level historically. Now you are slightly below that level for the 9 months.

And could further cost efficiencies, for example, with the help of AI, push the cost income ratio materially below the 50%, or is that 50% kind of like threshold that we've had always in mind for Amundi historically still apply, and we shouldn't really expect to see material improvements in the cost income given investments in the business?

And maybe just one last question on the retail flows. How much of the EUR 21 billion is passive and how much is active?

So on French retail, we see positive development. I think if we add the French partner networks and third-party distribution in France, it's something around EUR 5 billion of inflows during the quarter. I will check this number.

Despite what you can see in the environment, one point of the current environment, what we see in France is households saving more, which is positive for development.

In term of cost outlook and cost income, there is no magic number. There are no rule according to which it could be above or below 50%. What we should keep in mind, if you look at the first 9 months of the year, is that we obviously benefited from our strong efficiency.

But we also benefited from a very positive market development, helping to grow the denominator of the ratio, and we also benefited from a high level of performance fees during the first quarter.

Your third question on retail flows, how much is passive? I will check, I think it's a majority, but clearly not all the flows, because we are positive in passive management and ETF in particular, in active management and in private assets.

We'll get back to you on this, Angeliki. Okay. The next question comes from Arnaud Giblat from BNP Paribas.

I've got 3 questions, please. First, could we start with real estate? So your real estate funds have had some really challenging performance and understand the SCPI format makes it very difficult and costly for clients to exit. So that's why we haven't seen any inflows.

But I'm just wondering if Amundi are considering offering liquidity solutions to clients there given the performance?

And -- second question is on ICG. You've talked about the retail Evergreen product that you launched. Sounds good, I'm just wondering if you could give us a bit more in terms of how the economics of that product and future products will be shared?

And my final question is on UniCredit. Just wondering, out of the EUR 71 billion, I think, of AUM that's left, I'm just trying to figure out what the duration of that assets will look like? Or maybe could you give us the level of gross inflows and gross outflows on a quarterly basis that you've been seeing, just like gauge the duration?

So first question on the real estate fund. As you probably know, I think you know there are 2 kinds of retail real estate funds in France. There is the OPC, and there is the SCP, which have a different feature.

OPC are funds that incorporate a strong liquidity bucket and that offer liquidity to a client. So OPC, we manage an OPC called OPCIMMO, and it does offer the liquidity to the clients as expected. We also have SCPs and in that case, that the inflows that allow meeting redemption request.

So obviously considering the market context and the challenges or one performance there's no inflows. But we have set up a redemption fund to finance some request under a limit, under a cap, for request for redemptions on our 3 SCPs.

The question regarding ICG, economics of the sharing fees. Obviously, I won't disclose the detail of our agreement, but I can assure you that both ICG and ourself are remunerated on the management and distribution of this fund, and it's profitable for both ICG and Amundi.

Regarding UniCredit, we -- so indeed, now we are seeing quarter-after-quarter outflows -- net outflows. I don't have the detail between gross outflows and inflows, but we are seeing some inflows in some expertise, but clearly more than offset by the gross outflows.

And then no specific duration for these funds, they are open-ended funds, so clients can redeem, and advisors can advise the clients to redeem when they want for the amount they want.

Thank you, Arnaud. Next question from Jude from RBC. Jude?

Two from me. Number one, in Germany, how quickly do you expect inflows to start coming through from the distribution agreements you have signed for the Pillar 3 pensions? Is that something we should expect to be gradual next year, or is it more of an on switch, and do you have any sense of the pipeline that those distributors have potentially started to build from their clients?

And number two, on the technology business, anything to call out in Q4? Obviously, normally an important quarter for revenues, and so anything to say there to help our thinking?

On Germany, so I guess you are referring more specifically to the retirement reform. I have no specific data. It's something on no specific projections. It's a new reform. It is not yet into place, so it's too early to say. We see -- we believe there will be a strong potential, and that's what we hear also from the market, but I cannot provide any specific projections in that regard for something which is not yet in place.

Regarding technology, there is no really regular pattern in term of seasonality of revenues. It can vary from one quarter to another due to the fact that a part of these revenues, that what we call build revenues, project revenues, project which are when we are onboarding a new clients.

And this can create a little bit of volatility from one quarter to another, but no specific seasonality. During this quarter, we had approximately 30% of our revenues, which are billed revenues, and 70%, which was run revenues, recurring revenues.

Okay. Thank you. Next question from Russell from Morgan Stanley.

I wanted to ask a few questions around ETFs given...

We can barely hear you, Russell. I don't know if you can try and improve your sound.

I will try shouting. So I just wanted to ask a few questions around ETFs. Firstly, are you seeing any evidence that pricing pressure in ETFs is intensifying, particularly given the moves further into Germany? Obviously, a very competitive market right now. Keen to understand what you think is the sustainable competitive advantage of Amundi's ETF product beyond just pricing and distribution?

And then also connected, I wanted to ask about active ETFs. Does that represent a meaningful margin enhancing opportunity for you guys? Is it more on the equity side or the fixed income side? Just wondering what your product pipeline looks on the active ETF side.

So on ETF, in general, indeed, there is a pricing margin pressure. It's not new. We know it. We are accustomed to it, and it will continue and we are completely able to face it, because it's much more than compensated by the growth in volumes.

And we are very confident that we have all the ingredients, the innovation, the connection with the clients to continue to grow very rapidly. And continue also our efficiency, our cost income ratio. We are completely able to face this pressure, which will continue as it did in the past.

Regarding active ETF, clearly the margin are higher. They are somewhere between the average margin you can find on passive ETF on traditional active fund. The opportunity is meaningful, both on the fixed income and on the equity side.

We launched, I think, 5 products in the first half of the year, which were all fixed income. The 3 new ones that we launched during the quarter was on the equity side. So as you can see, we are progressively building a more comprehensive offer in that regard. And today, active ETFs represent close to EUR 2 billion.

Thank you. Next question from Vanessa. Vanessa Guy from [ Bloomberg Services ].

I had a question on the mix and the margin. So you said retail flows were mostly passive and institutional inflows came across multiple mandates. So my question is, is the stable fee margin coming from pricing or from mix effects such as market gains in active equity offsetting the shift to passive? And what margin are the 3 quarter inflows coming in at relative to the group average, if you can disclose this?

So want to quantify. We will try to find the number. So in retail, it's not all passive or ETF. It's passive on ETF. I was mentioning, for example, the fund we manage -- the thematic fund that is growing very rapidly in Japan, and is very dedicated to innovative materials, which is very successful, in Japan.

It's with retail, it's with distribution, it's active management, and it's high margin. So both the institutional business and the retail business are successful in passive and in active management.

In term of evolution of the margin, margin is -- the evolution of the global average margin we have at Amundi is a consequence of the evolution of the various businesses we are seeing. And the stability, it's not a rule, but the stability we observe is a consequence of this mix.

We have on one side, the strong development indeed in passive management, but we are also developing active management. We have private asset that start to grow. We have a strong contribution from retail. All this explains the more or less stability we have been observing over the recent period.

Thank you. Next question from Oliver. Oliver Carruthers from Goldman Sachs. Oliver?

Oliver Carruthers from Goldman Sachs. Two questions from me, please. Number one, I'm just taking a step back. If we look at inflows for the market into European domiciled ETFs on the passive side, it has obviously been building for years, but 2026 has really been a step change, a really big acceleration.

Just as Europe's biggest passive ETF manager, could you just give some perspective on what you think is driving the real step change in acceleration this year? Any perspective would be appreciated.

And then the second question, specifically on digital distribution platforms. I appreciate there will be a lot of jurisdictional and geographical nuance here, but could you give us some insight into your distribution fee economics with these digital platforms and really the kind of net fee margin economics? Just trying to get a sense of how attractive this growing flow is to you?

On the growth of the ETF market, it's driven -- it's indeed accelerating. It is pushed by the increased penetration of ETF in all client segments, in particular in retail. It's probably what is really driving this acceleration, it's increased penetration in retail through digital platforms first, because as I said, with digital platforms, majority of inflows are on ETF.

It's not exclusively on ETF, it's a majority of the flows in ETF and it's generally where it starts when these platforms start to go to propose saving solutions. And it also starts to develop also with more traditional players who start to offer access to ETF or to propose solutions built using ETF. That was for your first questions.

On digital platform and economics, we clearly don't disclose any of this. Be reassured, as always, at Amundi, this development are profitable and this business is profitable for Amundi.

Thank you, Oliver. The next, and apparently last question is coming from Sharath from Deutsche Bank. Sharath?

So most of them have been answered. Just have one pending on associate, particularly the India performance, since its listing has not been very encouraging. INR depreciation continues to rise.

So wanted to understand what you are seeing on the ground, and the outlook for near-term flows as well as if you have any justification for the underperformance versus other Indian peers since your listing?

So on India and the activity with SBI FM, we continue to see a positive development. Since third quarter the flows were positive, despite some outflows in money market fund, but on active management it was positive.

Maybe not the same level of inflows at some very good quarters in the past, but again, positive and you have also to take into account that in the recent period, the teams at SBI FM have also been mobilized a lot by the successful IPO.

So we are very -- so again, continued positive development and going forward, we are very confident because the market opportunity is huge. I think it's less than 10% of Indians that do invest or have access to saving solutions.

The penetration of saving solution and asset management is still very low. The economy is growing very fast and we -- SBI, can rely on a very diversified distribution capabilities. Of course, the strength of the SBI network, which is the first bank in India, but also a lot of other channels, so they have all the ingredients to continue to capture the upcoming growth in the years to come.

As far as the performance of SBI FM, since the listing, I think it's in line with peers. So no worry on that front at all.

Okay. Thank you. I don't think that we have any further questions, maybe we will leave 1 minute to any second thought. No? Okay. So if you have any concluding remarks, Nicolas.

Looking forward to discuss the new developments in one quarter.

Many thanks. And we are obviously at your disposal if you have any further questions on the figures or the results at the IR team, Thomas, Annabelle, and myself.

Thank you very much. Have a good day.

Good morning. I'm Cyril Meilland, I'm Head of Investor Relations at Amundi, and it's a real pleasure like every quarter to welcome you at this video conference to present our first quarter results. We are here in Paris, where it is sunny and gorgeous. And we shall have a presentation by our Deputy CEO, Nicolas Calcoen; and our CFO, Aurelia Lecourtier. Presentation should last approximately half an hour and will be followed by a Q&A session.

If you want to ask a question, please raise your hand virtually as you are online, and we shall give you -- we should open your mic. And there will be a slight delay. We have changed slightly the setup. So before you can start talking, you will have to accept being a panelist, open your mic, open your camera and then start your question. Otherwise, we won't be hearing you from the very first moment you start talking.

Before we get started, sorry about this again, a short disclaimer. Throughout the presentation, we will make a number of forward-looking statements and mention forecasts. We call your attention to the fact that Amundi's actual results may differ from these statements. Some of these factors that may cause the results to differ materially are listed in our Universal Registration Document, which we published on the 31st of March. Amundi assumes no duty and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements.

I also wanted to highlight a few changes to our disclosure that you might have to keep in mind when reading our results. There will be no contribution to -- from ICG in the adjusted figures. There are a few moving parts in the accounting P&L, but no impact on our adjusted results. We won't give any details about our JVs because SBI FM, as you know, is in the process of being listed, and therefore, we cannot give you any details, sorry about this. As long as this IPO process will be ongoing, we cannot publish any disclosure about this JV.

And we have simplified the disclosure by clients with only 2 major client segments, retail and institutional. Finally, we have transferred the employee savings, AUM and net flows from institutional to retail because we consider that it's a better depiction of these client segments.

And now I leave the floor to Nicolas for the presentation.

Thank you very much, Cyril, and good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to share our financial results for the first quarter of 2026 with Aurelia. I will present our key highlights before Aurelia takes you through our activity and financial results in more detail. So to start in the first quarter, we delivered a strong activity with net inflows for the quarter totaling EUR 32 billion. Inflow was positive across all client segments and came almost entirely from medium to long-term assets. Third-party distribution, in particular, reached a record inflows at EUR 22 billion. As a consequence, our assets under management were EUR 2.4 trillion at the end of March, up by 7% on a year-on-year basis and around 1% quarter-on-quarter.

Second point, this activity translated into strong growth in profit. Net income for the quarter was EUR 349 million and earnings per share at EUR 1.69, both up by 15%. And third main point, we made good progress against our invest for the future ambitions. I'm going now to share some more detail on the positive commercial momentum seen across clients and solutions.

But before technology revenues increased to EUR 31 million, up over 20% on a year-over-year basis. This was mainly driven by license revenue growth, up 27%. And finally, in terms of geographies, Northern Europe stood out once again with EUR 13 billion of inflows. And these inflows were very well diversified by country with the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium or Sweden, all demonstrating the positive effect on our strategy to grow our market share in the region.

Let's now take a closer look at the strong momentum we have seen in the 2 priority client areas we highlighted at the Investor Day. The first is retirement, where we have created a new business line. Total retirement-related inflows in the first quarter were EUR 5 billion. We won in particular, several new retirement-focused mandates across institutional and corporate clients as well as retail partner starting to generate recurring inflows.

We were also selected for 2 major DC mandates, the first with a large German company and the second with the South Korean Chaebol, both not yet funded. We also further expanded our partnership with true potential in the U.K., and we will manage its growth aligned fund range, a core building block of its retirement offering. We also saw some initial inflows from Ireland's new enrollment pension scheme, a mandate we won in the first quarter, and we already mentioned. And finally, in Italy, where we are already a retirement leader, we launched a web-based pension investment advisory platform called PensioNEXT to capture structural growth in defined contribution savings.

Moving now to digital distribution, which represents one of our fastest-growing client segments, we saw inflows of around EUR 2 billion in the first quarter. During the quarter, we established a new pan-European distribution partnership with Bitpanda, the largest digital asset trading platform in Europe with 7 million users. Here, we are supporting the diversification of the platform into ETFs, and we are strengthening our own reach across digitally native retail investors. The first quarter saw also strong inflows and continued innovation across all solutions.

On ETF, first, we gathered EUR 16 billion in the first quarter, supported by continued market share gains in European ETFs. We also secured 2 new clients for our ETF as a Service proposition, one in Germany, the other in Belgium with both mandates focused on creative active ETFs. We also launched new products, including an active ETF that provides diversified exposure to investment-grade euro corporate bonds. Here, we are clearly drawing on Amundi's established euro credit expertise, where we manage around EUR 360 billion. On last Friday, you probably noticed we launched a Bitcoin exchange traded product. Listed on Euronext, this ETP relies exclusively on European partners and is compliant with the European regulatory framework.

In private assets, now we generated EUR 3 billion of inflows in the first quarter. This includes a EUR 350 million multi-management mandate from CCR, the French public reinsurance company, as well as investment from Credit Agricole Assurance, including initial commitments into ICG strategies. Aurelia will provide a quick update on our ICG stake building, where we expect to reach our target of 9.9% in the third quarter.

Moving to active management next, where we posted EUR 7 billion of inflows driven by multi-asset strategies on fixed income, including EUR 1 billion in securitization inflows. During the quarter, we were also recognized as the preferred brand among fund selectors in France and the highest ranked European brand in Europe.

And finally, responsible investment. Last week, it was announced that Amundi will act as a sole asset manager for the global green bond initiative, a European-led coalition designed to mobilize private institutional capital for climate and environmental projects, particularly in emerging markets. The fund targets EUR 3 billion in assets and aims to code in private capital alongside development finance institutions. In the meantime, our responsible investment and engagement policy continues to scale, reaching close to 3,000 issuers in 2025. These figures has doubled over the last 5 years and now covers 95% of the MSCI World Index.

With that, I will now hand over to Aurelia, who will take you through the first quarter's activity and results in more detail.

Good morning, and thank you, Nicolas. Let's start by looking at our Q1 activity. So at the end of March, our assets under management totaled EUR 2.4 trillion, up 7% year-on-year and 1% over the quarter. Q1 saw both a negative market effect of EUR 13 billion and EUR 1 billion in FX impact, mainly due to the depreciation of the Indian rupee. The increase in our AUM was entirely driven by very strong asset gathering with net inflows of EUR 32 billion.

This reflects our ability to grow even in a tougher economic environment. Total net inflows in Q1 were driven by medium to long-term assets, which contributed EUR 31 billion. This represented growth of 7% on an annualized basis. These inflows are higher than Q1 2025, which, as a reminder, included the positive impact of a GBP 20 billion equity index mandate with The People's Pension in the U.K. As mentioned by Nicolas, Q1 saw high ETF and index solution inflows, continued positive momentum in active management and EUR 3 billion of net inflows in private assets.

Even when taking into account market conditions later in the quarter, our MLT flows remained positive in March across both ETF and actively managed strategies. Investment performance next. So the message here is consistency. On a 5-year basis and even when considering the volatile macro environment, 76% of our funds outperformed their benchmark. 3/4 of assets in our open-ended funds are in the first and second quartile based on Morningstar rankings. Let me now comment on our net inflows by client segments. Please note that we have transferred the AUM inflows of our employee savings and retirement business line from institutional to the retail segment.

While our direct client for this business are companies, we manage assets on behalf of their employees. It is, therefore, closer in nature to a retail business. This activity represents around EUR 100 billion in assets and 2025 figures have been restated accordingly. So let's start with retail, where net inflows totaled over EUR 13 billion. These were driven by record Q1 inflows of EUR 22 billion in third-party distribution. Outflows from UniCredit were EUR 9 billion, and the AUM stood at EUR 75 billion at the end of March. Credit Agricole and Societe Generale insurers delivered EUR 8 billion in MLT asset inflows.

This reflected continued appetite for euro contracts as well as diversification of Credit Agricole Assurance investments highlighted by Nicolas earlier. Finally, our associates also performed well. All of our Asian JVs posted positive inflows even when considering the market environment, the FX backdrop and the usual savings flows seasonality. Let's now look at our results for Q1. So before we start, let me just highlight that these pro forma figures reflect the usual restatements post Victory Capital closing.

So our revenue stood at EUR 902 million in the first quarter, up 10% year-on-year and driven by our management revenues, which were up 14%. Net management fees rose 6% to EUR 782 million, reflecting our strong asset gathering. Performance fees reached a very high level of EUR 87 million. Technology revenues increased to EUR 31 million, up 21% year-on-year and supported by strong growth in license revenues, their recurring components. Project revenues were seasonally lower at 22% of total revenues versus 40% in Q4. Net financial income was EUR 3 million, down year-on-year, and this reflected lower rates over 1 year due to the 1 point cut in the ECB rate as well as the impact of the decline in markets in the first quarter.

Turning now to costs. So adjusted operating expenses were EUR 455 million in the first quarter, up 9% year-on-year. This increase was slightly below revenue growth, reflecting the strong business momentum, our ongoing investment to support our strategic ambitions as well as our continued cost discipline. As a result, our adjusted cost/income ratio improved slightly to 50.4%.

Moving now to profitability. Gross operating income grew by 10%, driven by the growth of our business-related revenues. We also benefited from the strong contribution from our associates in the quarter, up 33%. The contribution of our Asian joint venture was up 4% year-on-year and would have been up 19% at constant rupee. The contribution from Victory Capital was EUR 37 million, reflecting the positive synergies delivered by this partnership.

Net income was then EUR 349 million, up 15% year-on-year. As in Q1 last year, this includes the corporate tax surcharge in France amounting to EUR 46 million. And adjusted earnings per share also increased by 15% year-on-year to EUR 1.69. Before I hand over to Nicolas, let me give you a quick update on our partnership with ICG. So in February, we obtained all regulatory approvals. This meant that as of 31st of March, ICG was able to appoint an Amundi nominated Non-Executive Director with CIO, Vincent Mortier, joining the Board.

From this date, we also technically began to equity account for our stake. As you can see in our adjusted P&L statement, ICG is currently only reflected through accounting adjustments. These adjustments do not represent ICG's underlying profitability. And from the second quarter, we will start recognizing ICG's actual contribution to adjusted net income. The final step is for ICG to issue nonvoting shares to Amundi to take us to our target stake of 9.9%. As a reminder, they will do so while buying back an equivalent amount of ordinary shares in the market to avoid dilution.

As of last week, our stake stood at around 6%, and we expect to complete our stake building during the third quarter. I thank you for your attention. And now we'll hand back to Nicolas.

Thank you, Aurelia. Before we start the Q&A, some brief concluding remarks. As you have seen, the first quarter represented a very good start to 2026 with high levels of activity and strong results. Momentum was strong across all client segments, asset classes and geographies, even in the uncertain environment seen in March. And the positive contribution from the strategic growth areas presented in our Invest for the Future '28 plan were particularly encouraging, demonstrating their relevance and boding well for the future. And I'm also pleased to confirm that our share buyback program is well underway.

We have executed almost 1/3 of the program as of today, representing just over EUR 150 million. We expect to complete the program around the third quarter as planned. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Nicolas. Thank you, Aurelia. We can now start the Q&A session. And as I said earlier, you can raise your hand if you have a question to ask. I will then put you in the panelists, you have to accept being a panelist, open your mic, open your camera and then start talking.

We start with Jacques-Henri Gaulard from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Am I supposed to ask a question now because it disappeared -- the whole thing disappeared for a minute basically. Just one question really. Well done for the results this morning. you end up now for the second time in a row with a cost/income ratio, which is much closer to 50% than the target, which I think is lower than 56% in '28. Have you been really been conservative in putting that target. Or is it still linked to UniCredit where you believe there is still a couple of basis points of percentage that you're likely to effectively lose in which case you're, I would say, happy with the guidance so far? Are you basically positively surprised versus what you were expecting?

Jacques-Henri, so on your question, we have 50.4% cost/income ratio, which is driven for the quarter by the very good performance in our revenues as well as our, I would say, day-to-day cost discipline. Coming to our guidance, no new guidance. We stick to the objective that we set in our Capital Market Day. So 56% of cost income, which, as it was said at the Capital Market Day is a cap maximum. And whatever the scenarios is on UniCredit, so we stick and no new guidance on this cost/income ratio target.

We can now move to Hubert Lam from Bank of America.

Hopefully, you can hear me. I've got 3 questions. Firstly, on ETFs, very good strong flow momentum you're having there in the last few quarters. Can you talk about what's driving that? And can you also talk about the mix within the ETFs flows? How much of it is from like lower-margin passive funds versus like higher margin like thematic funds? Second question is on retail flows. I know you don't really disclose anymore, but if you back out the retail flows, I think the French network had outflows in the quarter. Anything you can talk about around that?

And lastly, on -- a question on the outlook for your private credit products with ICG and into the retail channel. Just given the concerns of the market on this asset class, any change in terms of thinking about when these products could be launched and any change in appetite from your client base on this.

You start with the flows in French.

Yes. Hubert, starting on your question on French networks. Actually, flows were positive in the quarter and positive especially on MLT, so medium to long-term assets. Positive flows in MLT driven mainly by very good business momentum on unit-linked life contracts, so in active management and as well as passive products. Whereas we saw outflows on structured product due to the maturity of product that we had launched in 2022.

Maybe on the other question. So on the ETF momentum, it's quite diversified. So it remained mainly passive management. And even if we launch new funds, as we mentioned, it remained mainly passive ETF flows, but quite diversified. So in terms of the margin, I would say, in line with the average margin of the business line. And regarding your last question on the outlook with ICG. As you remember, we are working to launch 2 evergreen funds based on ICG expertise. The first one is a fund in equity secondaries, and it's progressing well, and we plan to launch it in the third quarter.

On the second one regarding private debt, we are still working to -- on the optimal structuration of this fund, also taking into account the Generale context, but working well with ICG to design these new products. And in parallel, we are also considering other initiatives and looking at other expertise managed by ICG. And as we mentioned earlier on, Credit Agricole Assurance has already committed to investment in ICG strategies.

We move now to a question from Arnaud Giblat from BNP Paribas.

Hopefully, you can hear me. I have got 3 questions, please. Firstly, can you come to the EUR 9 billion of outflows in Q1 at UniCredit. That's quite substantial. I'm just wondering what the outlook there. I mean, should we think about that rate of outflows in the coming quarters? And are UniCredit then paying you penalty fees for the fact that they're probably not delivering the share of revenues that they're committed to.

My second question is on retail generally. I mean, if I think about -- you've disclosed EUR 13 billion of inflows into retail, EUR 9 billion out coming out of UniCredit, EUR 20 billion or so coming from ETF and passive. I'm just wondering what the incremental revenues from these flows are because I'd assume that the outflows from the revenues coming out of UniCredit more than compensate the inflows coming from ETF.

So I'm just wondering what we should be thinking about revenue margins given the negative mix shift that's probably happening there? And my third question is on technology. I mean, ALTO is quite lumpy. I'm just wondering what the ARR or the ACV, so the recurring revenues are growing at.

Arnaud, so on your first question, UniCredit saw EUR 9 billion outflows for the quarter. As you recall, we committed to full transparency on the flows. So at the end of the quarter, our AUM with UniCredit stand -- stood at EUR 75 billion. No guidance for 2026. On penalty fee, same, we do not comment on specific conditions with our partners. Then on your second question, on the retail, actually, yes, as we said, so we don't disclose any quarterly margin, and we don't steer our margins.

One thing is maybe that the clients -- both the client mix and the product mix is, I would say, in the same trends as what we saw in the recent quarters. So probably a slight impact on our margins with more flows into passive than into active, obviously. But as we also recall each time we speak about the margin is that our operating margin is at one of the best in the industry at 50%.

So all our expertise remain profitable when it comes to our bottom line. And on technology, so technology overall, the revenues grew by 21% year-on-year. This growth, as I mentioned earlier, is mainly driven by license fees that were up 27% year-on-year. When we look at project fees, there is a bit more of seasonality on those fees. They were very high in the fourth quarter, as you can remember, because we onboarded a lot of new clients. There is no material changes, I would say, in our clients in this quarter. That's why our project revenues are stable year-on-year.

But all in all, still a good increase of our tech revenues, and we stick to our objective for '28, which is doubling the level of revenues versus '24.

If I can just try again on the penalty fees. Normally, I mean, if I understood well, the contract with UniCredit that's been going on for some time is they pay penalty fees if they don't deliver the vast majority of flows and otherwise, it's penalty fees of gross flows. Is that how it works without commenting on whether there was penalty fees or not? Is that how the contract works?

As already explained, I think you can understand that considering you are talking about confidential information between ourselves and the partner, we cannot disclose that.

The next question will come from Michael Werner from UBS.

Two questions from me, please. First, thank you for the disclosures going back last year in terms of the change in AUMs and flows based on ESR. Can you just provide a little bit of color as to how or if there's any change in the retail management fee margins versus institutional management fee margins now that, that, let's call it, about EUR 100 billion or so of AUMs have migrated over. And then second, with regards to the Credit Agricole Assurances investment in the, I guess, it was EUR 350 million, I believe, in the ICG strategies. Is that something that Amundi is monetizing directly?

And if so, I mean, I don't need specific details, I'm sure you're not going to provide that. But just from a high-level perspective, how does Amundi benefit that from a P&L perspective.

Michael, I will take the question on ESR. So we moved our ESR expertise from institutional to retail because we feel it's more close to the retail business. And this is also true for margins because the margin of ESR are much more close to the average margin of our retail business. So the impact of this movement actually is about less than 1 point of decrease in our total retail margin.

And looking at institutional business, there, the impact is of less than 3 points of decrease also on the institutional business. And as I remind that the margin -- the overall margin of Amundi, of course, is unchanged and at 15.9%.

And regarding your second question, which was related, I think, to the investment from Credit Agricole Assurance in ICG expertise. As you know or maybe you don't, but we are the selectors and manager or selectors of -- for the investment made by Credit Agricole Assurance. And so we are the one selecting the expertise on making the due diligence on account of Credit Agricole Assurance when they invest in expertise managed by specialist providers. It's a case, generally speaking, it's a case with ICG. So as for any investment made by our Credit Agricole Assurance in external -- in installed managers, we are involved.

We are doing the due diligence. We are doing the risk monitoring of the investment, and we are remunerated for this activity.

And just to clarify on the fee margins. When you say by 1 point and 3 points, do you mean by 0.1 basis points or by 0.3 basis points.

Compared to the average basis point of the client segment.

The next question comes from Pierre Chedeville.

First question, you mentioned quite a good resilience in terms of net inflows in March. I was curious to know as you are a European asset manager, if you've seen in terms of risk appetite or risk aversion, some differences between some countries where you are particularly present or if it's a general behavior of your client or if you have seen geographical behavior institutional or retail?

Second question, I'm sorry to admit my ignorance, but I don't know what you mean by project products in Amundi Technology. I understand what is a license. But can you give me an example of what is a project, what you sell as a project, I don't see that. What do you mean there? And my last question is related to a report from Boston Consulting Group, which recently released its annual report on asset management businesses. And it was focusing on AI, of course, because it's a central theme and said that asset manager, generally speaking, were a little bit late.

And they said that they were seeing within 5 years, potential economies from 25% to 40% of cost base, which seems to be a very high number. I wanted to know what is your view on that, if it's just a stupid consulted number or if it's something that you imagine possible. And I thank you for your answer.

Okay. So on your various answers in terms of flows and what we are seeing, as we mentioned, we have been seeing a slowdown in March, but flows remain positive, in particular, positive including in long-term assets and including in active management. and preliminary data that we have on April are in the same trend, remain positive. That said, we see from some clients a bit more risk aversion to wait-and-see mode, at least from some clients and to come more specifically to your questions.

I would say it's not coming from a specific region or area, but globally, so trends that remain positive, but some wait-and-see mode from some clients. Your second question, just to explain very briefly, when we say project revenues, it's projects that are linked to, in particular, the onboarding of a new client or the deployment of a new solution for an existing client. You know the model of this activity. You have ongoing fees when the software, when the solution is running, but you have also project fees to implement the solution in a new client or a new solution to a client.

And regarding your last question on artificial intelligence, it is clearly something we are working -- and looking at very carefully and working very intensely. As we explained during the Medium-Term Plan Day, at the Investor Day, we had a progressive approach as the first step was to deploy a secured in-house proprietary platform to give access to this tool in a secure manner and to give it access to all our employees. It has been deployed for all our employees, I think, at the end of last summer. And build on that, we are combining a bottom-up approach, helping and incentivizing, I would say, every teams to develop new application, new use case.

And we are complementing that by a more -- and we are entering into that phase, complement this kind of, I would say, more bottom-up approach, more experimental approach to a more top-down approach focusing on key processes we want to transform. And that's where we want to have -- we say today, we have around 20 applications. The target is to have 50 applications by end of '26. And we will focus on the areas where we see the most potential gains either in terms of efficiency or in terms of quality of delivery or time to market for delivery. And for example, in the area of IT development, for example, we are making good progress to implement and to use this tool and to be much more productive.

So in terms of gain, where we will be deploying such approach, probably we can gain 15%, 20% of productivity gain. But as always at Amundi, we are constantly working on our efficiency, on our productivity, thanks to AI or thanks to other levers and redeploying these priorities into investment in our growth areas.

Thank you, Pierre. The next question will come from Sharath from Deutsche Bank. Sharath, I think that you can, again, open your mic and camera?

I have 3, please. Firstly, on the India IPO, I'm not sure how much you can comment, but would a listing by end June still be the base case if things go on track? And also on the sizable capital gains, any update on what it could be used for? Would it go towards your M&A buffer? Or are you thinking about distributing this? Second is on financial income. Could you clarify the reasons for the minus EUR 85 million reported figure within net financial revenues? Is it mainly related to ICG? Would it be reversed in the second quarter once you start consolidating? And also, what do you think is a sustainable run rate on an adjusted basis, assuming stable ECB rates? I know consensus is around EUR 10 million per quarter.

And finally, on performance fees, can you clarify if there was any front-loading of performance fees? I know Q2 and Q4 are typically more stronger seasonally. So anything there on the Q1 figure.

Okay. I will answer to the first question and let Aurelia take the following one. So SBI FM IPO, the project is well underway. As you probably know, the draft prospectus has been released published in March and is still under review by SEBI, by the market authority. And we expect to -- there's no precise date, but we still expect subject to market conditions to launch the IPO in the coming months. And in terms of the use of proceeds, no change there. It will contribute to rebuild our capital position. And the priority is to use this capital -- the excess capital to do M&A. But if we don't find opportunities during the plan, we keep the flexibility to return it to shareholders.

On your question on the financial income drop due to ICG mark-to-market. So it is not in our adjusted figures. All what's related to ICG has been adjusted, so not in our adjusted net income and only in accounting where we had several technical operations, I would say. The impact of ICG on our adjusted net income and the profitability of ICG will be reflected starting Q2 in our adjusted net income. And coming to your question on performance fees. So we had an exceptional level of performance fees at EUR 87 million over the quarter, thanks to a number of funds, basically coming from a global multi-asset strategy. But as you know, in terms of performance fees, past performances are not indicative of future ones.

Follow-up on the financial income. So I understood it is one figures. But what I wanted to understand that delta between tested and reported is only related policy available in the second quarter?

Sorry, the line is very poor. I don't know why, but -- we couldn't get your question, sorry. The line was not very good.

We couldn't get your question, sorry. The line was not very good.

I'll try again. Is it better now?

It's a bit better.

Sorry for that. So on the financial income, I understood that the difference was between your reported and adjusted figures. What I wanted to get to was the difference wasn't only related to ICG and will it be reversed in the second quarter?

If I understand well correctly, the question was, is the difference between the financial income and accounting revenues and adjusted revenues was totally related to ICG, then it's the case...

Because it's net financial income and other income, and it does include the amortization of distribution agreements, et cetera. So you have a full detail in the -- what we call the -- well, in the appendix, basically, you have the detail of everything that goes in that line. So you have minus EUR 68 million from -- out of memory from ICG and additional charges related to the amortization I was referring to. But you can find the slides as well as the press release for the detail or we can take it offline and run you through the details.

Thank you, Sharath. We will take the next question from Nicholas Herman from Citi. Nicholas, you should be able to on your mic and camera.

Can you hear me? Very good. I mean my camera is not really working right now, so you'll have to do without the video. Just most of my questions have been asked, but just 3 remaining. On alternatives, the multi-management mandate with CCR, is this kind of a one-off? I'm not talking about CCR specifically, but I guess, should we be expecting -- are you seeing more engagement from your institutional clients for your alternative multi-management products. Just interested in kind of trends there.

Sticking with alternatives performance, still seems pretty limited. Could you disaggregate some of the moving parts there across the different sub-asset classes, please, be it across real estate, private credit, other private assets and alternatives. And I guess within that, do you have commodity funds and assets in there as well, which I guess should have seen strong performance effect, if so?

And then finally, could you please just give us an update on the momentum and outlook for your BOC Wealth Management JV, please.

So on private asset -- first question on private assets. So CCR is not a one-off. It's a good example of a recognized institutional client going to Amundi and Amundi and Amundi Alpha Associates to delegate a fund. But we, of course, have a strong, I would say, engagement with many other clients. So no specific one-off, and we are seeing good traction for our expertise.

Looking back at the numbers of the first quarter, in terms of asset classes within the private asset space, if I understand well, it's quite diversified. There was good momentum in -- generally speaking, it was mainly multi-management. But within multi-management, a good contribution from private debt from insure clients, including Credit Agricole Assurance, but also some going to private equity and infrastructure. Momentum is not the same for real estate.

And we don't manage commodity funds. So I think it was another of your question. And regarding the partnership, the momentum with BOC, we saw some outflows in the first quarter because we had a lot of funds coming to -- still a relatively significant amount of funds coming to maturity. But I would say the outlook for the rest of the year is positive.

If I could just quickly have a quick follow-up on that. In terms of the performance -- sorry, apologies for not being clear, performance of the alternatives, I actually meant in terms of the market effects. So it did look like the market effects within private assets and alternatives was very muted. So I was just asking if you could provide some kind of indication of what's going on there, where you are seeing kind of the gives and the takes and what's kind of -- whether you're seeing any improvements within that?

There was no significant move in terms of market effect in the private asset space, still probably on some funds are expected negative on the real estate side. And I think I'm turning to Aurelia, I don't know if she has the detail, but neutral to slightly positive on other asset classes. Nothing significant.

Okay. Thank you, Nick. The last question so far will come from Johann Scholtz. I don't know if I'm pronouncing well, sorry, but you should be able to open your mic and camera.

Yes. Yes. Thanks for the good result to be honest. So I've got 2 to 3 questions. So first one, like recently, you have announced to the management -- to us that you have increased the exposure in the U.S. So like in the recent quarters, you have mentioned that 25% of your allocation is to the U.S. in the total AUM. So what's the current percentage? Is there any increase? Or is there any decrease. The second one is with regard to the technology business. So there are 2 businesses in that one. So I want to know the margin profile in both the business in the project business or in the, you can say, ongoing license fees. And yes, so that's 2 questions that I want to ask.

So your first question was related to U.S. exposure in general.

In general, the AUM deployment, yes.

If I may, in terms of clientele, as we know, following the transaction with Victory, we don't address directly any clients in the U.S. the clients are Victory clients. In terms of exposure in terms of the assets we manage, I think it's around 20% of our assets, the assets that we manage that are, I would say, U.S. assets.

Your second question was regarding the margin in license and build. We don't provide a specific detail. But it's obviously a positive margin, they intend to be a bit higher for license than build.

I think it was the last question, unless there is any second thoughts. Otherwise, we can turn to Nicolas and Aurelia for any concluding remarks or...

Just to thank you for your participation and looking forward to meet again in a few months to present our second quarter results. Thank you.

Have a nice day.

Hello. Good morning, all. I'm Cyril Meilland, the Head of Investor Relations at Amundi, and it's a real pleasure to welcome you today in the not so sunny London for a presentation of our full year and fourth quarter results. We are here in our London office, and this is a hybrid event. So we will have people in the room and people online via Zoom. We shall have a presentation by our CEO, who is here with me, Valerie Baudson; and our Deputy CEO, Nicolas Calcoen. Presentation will last for about 30 minutes. And as usual, it will be followed by a Q&A session for as long as it takes. So ask any questions. The questions can be asked obviously in the room as well as online. [Operator Instructions]

And unfortunately, before we get started, a very short disclaimer. Throughout the presentation, we will make some forward-looking statements and mention forecasts. We call your attention to the fact that Amundi's actual results may differ from these statements. Some of the factors that may cause the results to differ materially are listed in our universal registration documents. And Amundi assumes no duty and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. And after this task, I leave the floor to Valerie. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Cyril, and good morning, everyone, in the room behind the screen. We are very pleased to present our Q4 and full year 2025 results, which reflect both our record activity and the core elements of our Invest for the Future 2028 plan. So I will take you through some key highlights before Nicolas, as usual, looks at our activity and financial results in more detail.

First, our assets under management have now reached almost EUR 2.4 trillion, so up 6%. This is thanks to record total 2025 net inflows of EUR 88 billion from both passive and active management activities. In terms of clients, this performance was driven by positive inflows across retail, institutional and our JVs. Retail inflows predominantly came from our very fast-growing third-party distribution business. And on the institutional side, medium- to long-term asset collection tripled in 2025 with some major mandate wins in Europe and the Gulf in Q4. Our activity drove strong financial results with adjusted pretax income up 12% for the quarter and 6% for the year, while adjusted EPS reached EUR 6.58. This performance and our strong financial position allow us to propose a 2025 dividend of EUR 4.25. This represents a payout that is EUR 100 million above our 65% target.

And we are also delivering on our commitment to return excess capital to shareholders from the 2025 strategic cycle. So today, we are announcing a EUR 500 million share buyback, which starts tomorrow. So combined, the dividend and share buyback will return close to EUR 1.4 billion to investors, around 10% of our current market cap. And more than half of these figures will go to minority shareholders. So all in all, we enjoyed success across all our strategic growth areas in our Invest for the Future plan, making 2025 a strong start to our 2028 plan period.

So let's take a closer look at some of the key activities. Clients first, starting with retirement, which is, as you remember, one of the key strategic priorities in our new plan. We have established a dedicated business line to package our offer and capture new opportunities. And following from the people's pensions in the U.K., we secured another major mandate at the end of the year. Amundi is one of just 3 asset managers selected for Ireland's new auto enrollment pension scheme, which will serve the majority of the Irish workforce. Assets for this scheme are expected to reach EUR 20 billion in the next 10 years.

Our other major strategic client priority, you remember, is digital distribution. We saw EUR 10 billion in net new assets from digital players in 2025, almost half of our full year retail flows. New mandates included the retirement offer launched with Moneybox, an award-winning digital wealth management platform in the U.K. This partnership brings together Moneybox client-led product design with Amundi's global multi-asset and ETF expertise, creating 3 new Moneybox blended funds.

Now geographies next, starting with Asia. We continue to deliver strong growth powered by our direct presence and our successful JVs. Asian net inflows were EUR 33 billion for the year. Over 40% came from our direct distribution business with contributions well diversified by country and client type. And on the JV side, India and Korea were the main contributors and China showed a good momentum as well. Now closer to home, Europe continues to offer significant growth potential for Amundi and increasing our market share in Northern Europe is, as you remember, another strategic priority. Our 2025 activity reflects this with EUR 40 billion in net inflows from this region, including EUR 29 billion from the U.K. Germany contributed EUR 8 billion in net inflows with EUR 5 billion from digital platforms.

And as part of our new strategy, we will also reinforce our presence and build on strong client activity in new high potential regions. The Middle East is one of these. And in addition to strong business momentum, we also signed a new strategic partnership with First Abu Dhabi Bank to target Gulf investors at the end of 2025. This partnership combines Amundi's wide coverage of investment solutions and asset classes with First Abu Dhabi Bank regional insights and presence.

Solutions next, where innovation is key to future growth. So let's start with active management, where we saw good investment performance as we continue to widen and strengthen our offer. We launched 3 new UCITS funds in key strategies: global equity, U.S. large caps and U.S. mid-caps. These funds fulfilled via our Victory Capital partnership are the first from investment platforms outside of the former Amundi U.S. brand pioneer, demonstrating the clear potential to extend our range as promised. We have also launched in 2025, the first tokenized share for one of our money market funds. The fund is now easily accessible via standard distribution networks and/or the tokenized shares. This first class of tokenized shares is just the beginning, and we will gradually test and add new features to our offering based on specific business cases.

Smart Solutions, our another commercially successful innovation, well suited to the current environment. These solutions enable institutional investors to optimize their excess cash by capturing their premiums offered by top-tier issuers for their funding while maintaining low volatility and high liquidity. Assets under management for these funds reached more than EUR 41 billion in '25, representing additional inflows of EUR 20 billion. And this includes EUR 3 billion -- additional EUR 3 billion from a European public institution in Q4.

Now ETFs next, where we are further strengthening our position as the second largest provider in Europe and the #1 European provider, both in terms of assets under management and inflows. ETFs assets under management reached EUR 342 billion, up 27% year-on-year. In Q4, we achieved record quarterly inflows of EUR 18 billion and EUR 46 billion for the year. We are, by far, the #1 collector of European equity ETF inflows. This leadership is driven by our diversified offer, which includes products like [ Euro ] Stoxx Europe 600, the largest selling European equity ETF on the market. But innovation is also key to capturing ETF growth. So new products, including macro thematics like defense and strategic autonomy collected EUR 5 billion in '25.

Innovation is also key to adapt and grow our responsible investment offer. In July, we launched a new global green bond fund tailored for Zurich's Life Insurance clients seeking diversified access to Green bonds. And in December, we launched a Euro biodiversity credit fund available to both institutional and retail clients in more than 10 countries. This fund allows investors to participate in the preservation of natural capital through a euro credit allocation. So in summary, a period of strong innovation across our investment solutions that is supporting, of course, our growth trajectory.

Finally, I would like to highlight Amundi Technology. We are now a recognized technology provider covering the entire savings value chain and operating at scale in 15 markets. Revenues reached EUR 116 million in 2025, up 45% year-on-year, thanks to 10 new client wins, which also saw us enter 2 new markets, Denmark and Singapore. We talked about some of the great 2025 client wins at the Capital Market Day, including AJ Bell in the U.K. Since then, leading Dutch assets and wealth manager, Van Lanschot Kempen has selected our ALTO investment platform. We also signed Bankdata, a technology services consortium made up of 7 Danish banks that serve 1/3 of the country's population. Bankdata selected Amundi's ALTO wealth and Distribution solution to introduce comprehensive portfolio analytics and reporting into its ecosystem and obviously, for the clients of these banks.

We also recently launched our new Data-as-a-Service offer, leveraging our robust architecture, our data provider connectivity and our market expertise. We are now onboarding our first client, a leading global insurer in Asia. So our tech business is continuing to deliver growth while also serving as a key strategic enabler for the wider Amundi Group. It strengthens our investment solutions, creates durable long-term relationships and is a key differentiator for Amundi among European asset managers.

So that's all for me for now. Let me hand over to Nicolas to take you through our Q4 and '25 activity and financial results in more detail. And I will be back, of course, for some closing remarks ahead of the Q&A.

Thank you, Valerie, and good morning, everyone. I will now comment on our activity and the financial results. Starting with our assets under management, which reached EUR 2.38 trillion at the end of December. This is again a new record for Amundi. Assets were up by 6% over the year. Almost 2/3 of the growth is coming from net inflows at EUR 88 billion of 4% of AUM, and the rest come from a positive market and ForEx effect of EUR 62 billion despite the depreciation of the U.S. dollar and the Indian rupee. On the fourth quarter, our assets rose by 2.7% with similar trends.

Moving now to our net inflows. As I said, they amounted to EUR 88 billion. They are sharply up versus 2024, which already showed a strong increase compared to the previous year. In other words, we have enjoyed strong business momentum in the past 3 years. Furthermore, this business momentum was driven mostly by medium- to long-term assets from our 2 client segments, retail and institutional. Long-term net inflows indeed more than doubled at EUR 81 billion for all these clients. Long-term flows were positive in both active and passive management. Passive management was very successful at EUR 76 billion, including the EUR 46 billion in ETFs, as Valerie highlighted. And active management gathered EUR 13 billion, almost double the net flows of the previous year.

Fixed income was again the main driver, but growth also came from the return to positive net flows of active multi-asset management. Conversely, treasury products posted net outflows largely related to the ECB rate cuts and a slightly more risk on approach by our institutional clients. Turning to our joint ventures. They collected EUR 20 billion. I will come back later on with more detail.

And finally, the U.S. distribution of Victory Capital for the share we own in this partner posted net outflows of EUR 1.4 billion. However, the strategies managed by Victory Capital that Amundi distributes to its clients in Europe and Asia gathered EUR 800 million despite a lower appetite for U.S. strategies last year. I will not comment in detail on the fourth quarter because it is, in fact, very much in line with the full year trends with some acceleration in areas like long-term assets in general, in particular, ETF, but also active management.

Coming to performance. Our investment management teams delivered sustained performance in 2025 as illustrated on the slide. Close to 3/4 of our open-ended funds were in the first and second quarter over 1 year, 3 years and 5 years and 233 Amundi funds are rated 4 or 5 star by Morningstar. The investment performance is particularly good for fixed income and multi-asset flagships. For example, in multi-assets, global -- multi-asset on its more conservative versions, global multi-asset conservative ranked in the top 5 and 10 percentile of the category. On the fixed income side, global aggregate, our main flagship outperformed its benchmark by more than 300 basis points on our Euro subordinated strategy by more than 600 basis points. And beyond this particular highlights, I think the main message from this slide remains sustained consistency at a high level of investment performance.

Looking next at our client segments, starting with retail. Retail flow was positive at EUR 22 billion over the full year. These flows remain driven by third-party distributors, which continued to post very healthy inflows of EUR 33 billion with EUR 27 billion in ETF and positive flows in active management. Flows are also very diversified by region. In Europe, first with EUR 23 billion with a high level of activity, in particular in Northern Europe, in U.K., in Germany, in Netherlands, but also in Spain and Italy. Asia continued its healthy momentum with EUR 6 billion of net flows. And in addition, we gathered material flows from high potential regions like the Middle East, Canada and Mexico in line with the strategy -- our strategy to conquer these new markets.

Beyond third-party distribution, our Chinese joint venture with Bank of China also enjoys strong momentum with EUR 2 billion gathered year-to-date.

And turning now to our international partner networks. The net outflows totaled EUR 14 billion, as you can see. They are fully attributable to UniCredit, where outflows totaled EUR 16 billion in the full year, of which EUR 4 billion in the last quarter. Finally, the French partner networks in France are showing positive net inflows of EUR 1 billion. The fourth quarter net inflows in this segment are entirely due to treasury products, in particular due to corporate clients of these networks, where the long-term assets are positive.

Moving to the institutional segments now. In '25, net inflows were EUR 48 billion with a strong performance in long-term assets at EUR 61 billion, triple the level of '24. Passive management accounting for large share EUR 44 billion, of which almost half coming from the mandate won with people's pension. But we also gathered close to EUR 20 billion from active management for the most part in the Smart Solutions Valerie highlighted. If you look at by subsegments, institutional and sovereign posted record levels, thanks to a series of mandate wins in Europe and the Middle East, with in particular sovereign funds, central banks or stable relative entities.

Employee and savings and retirement business that we presented more in depth last quarter posted a high level of long-term inflows once again. And finally, Credit Agricole and Societe Gennerale, the long-term inflows of EUR 17 billion benefited from the renewed interest in euro contracts in France. The short one maybe on the outflows from treasury products. They originated, as I indicated, from the rate cuts implemented by the central banks and the resulting share for our clients for better yields. An illustration once again of the success -- of this is the success of the Smart Solutions we mentioned. Again, I will not comment in detail on the fourth quarter. As you can see, the trends are very similar to the one we saw for the full year with EUR 13 billion in total.

Finally, our Asian joint ventures posted net inflows of EUR 20 billion over the full year with good performance in all countries. South Korea posted EUR 6 billion, mostly in long-term assets, and we saw some outflows in the last quarter, which are purely seasonal and linked to treasury products. China with ABC continued its recovery with EUR 2 billion inflows over the year. And our Indian joint ventures posted more than EUR 10 billion of inflows. The decrease compared to '24 is partially explained by the decline in the Indian rupee versus euro. And for the rest, it was driven by lower inflows from institutional clients in a less favorable markets. However, net inflows into savings plans in retail continue to grow in a very healthy manner.

Moving now to our net results. You are now very familiar with the pro forma restatement that we made to 2024 quarters to make the series comparable after the clubbing -- the closing, sorry, of our partnership with Victory. So I will not detail them again, but you have, of course, all the details in the appendix of the slide deck and in the press release. All my comments will refer to adjusted data and year-on-year variations refer to '22 pro forma figures -- '24, sorry, pro forma figures.

So let's start with the review of our fourth quarter and in particular, on revenues. As you can see, total revenues were just shy of EUR 900 million in this quarter. They were up by more than 8%, thanks to a healthy growth in all business-related fees in asset management and technology. First, net management revenues were up by 7% compared to the last quarter of '24, of which 4% for management fees, thanks to our strong asset gathering in the past 12 months. And performance fees were very elevated, thanks to the performance delivered by our teams across a large range of expertise. Technology revenues were up by 37% at EUR 35 million. This reflects both healthy growth in license revenues and a high level of billed revenues, thanks to the launch of new client projects.

Finally, a short word about our financial income. It's stable compared to the end of '24, but this reflects contrasting elements. On one hand, the decrease in euro short-term rates resulted in a material drop of the return we get from our voluntary placement of our cash. However, on the other hand, this was offset by better mark-to-market valuation and carried interest from our private asset investments.

Turning now to our cost at EUR 450 million. They were up on the quarter by 6%, more than 2 points below the top line growth in the context of very healthy business development. This good cost control over our cost was achieved, thanks to our continued efficiency efforts, including the first savings from the cost optimization plan we announced in the second quarter of last year. This allowed us to continue our investment in our strategic priorities to nurture our future growth. And approximately 1/3 of the year-on-year cost growth originate from investment, in particular from technology. As a consequence of this large jaws effect, the adjusted cost-income ratio was 50%, 51.5% to be precise on this quarter.

Finally, our adjusted pretax income topped EUR 500 million for the first time in a quarter at EUR 519 million to be precise. It was up by 12%, thanks to, again, the healthy growth in operating profit, up by 11% and the acceleration from our associates up by 21%. It's further contribution from our Asian joint ventures, which was up by 20%, driven mainly by our Indian joint venture. And despite the decline in the rupee and the contribution from Victory Capital, which was up by 19%, reaching EUR 35 million, thanks to the synergies and again, despite the currency headwind. The adjusted net income was EUR 376 million, almost the same level as in the fourth quarter '24 despite the exceptional items in the tax charge.

First, of course, the tax surcharge in France, which represented around EUR 11 million in this quarter. And second, the resulting tax on an exceptional dividend we received from our Indian JVs, which represented a cost of EUR 12 million, sorry. This exceptional dividend was paid out in preparation of the IPO of SBI FM, which is, as you know, scheduled for the first half of this year. And we received indeed EUR 130 million as exceptional dividend. But as the joint venture is consolidated according to the equity method, this dividend does not contribute to our results, but only to our cash position.

Finally, let's get a look to our financial performance for the full year. The trends, as you can see, are very similar to those of the first quarter. The pretax income rose by 6% to an all-time high of almost EUR 1.9 billion, EUR 1,858 million to be precise. And this growth was driven by an equivalent growth in revenues, 6%, driven by business-related fees, of which 4% for management fees, which represent 2/3 of this growth, 20% growth for performance fees to EUR 173 million, and 40% of growth for technology revenues reaching EUR 116 million, including a full year of aixigo. But organic growth and technology again remained very solid, excluding aixigo, 30% of growth in revenues.

Our revenue margin, asset management revenue margin, of course, was 15.9 basis points pro forma again of the deconsolidation of Amundi U.S, like in the first half of '25, but down by 50 basis points from full year '24. We already commented on this decrease in the previous month -- previous quarters. It is entirely due to the strong growth we have enjoyed in the Institutional claimant segment, in passive management and as well as in active fixed income. So both the clients and the project mix have therefore weighted on our margins, but the growth has been profitable on a bottom line basis, of course.

Finally, on the revenue side, contrary to business-related revenues, net financial income was down by 5% due to the rate cuts by the ECB and partially offset by the positive mark-to-market as for the last quarter. On the cost side, costs were controlled, again, 6% growth, in line with revenues, reflecting again the investment we made in our growth drivers. And more than half of the cost growth is related to an increase in investment in particular, again in technology. As a result of this good cost control, our operational efficiency remained best-in-class with an adjusted cost income ratio of -- sorry, 52.1% for the full year.

This good operating performance for our fully controlled business was complemented once again by strong contribution from our associates. Our Asian joint ventures contributed EUR 135 million or 10% of our net result and up also by 10% despite again the currency headwind in India. And the contribution from Victory Capital was EUR 95 million for the first -- for the last 9 months only, up by 12% over the profit contribution of Amundi U.S. over the same period in '24. As a consequence, excluding the tax surcharge in France that totaled EUR 74 million, our adjusted net income would have been over EUR 1.4 billion. And including the tax surcharge, it was EUR 1,354 million, and the earnings per share was EUR 6.58.

This good level of profitability only strengthened again our financial position, as you can see on this new slide. We are probably the traditional asset manager with the largest tangible equity base globally. Indeed, it reached EUR 4.9 billion at the end of '25, up by 10% over a year. As Valerie announced, the strong balance sheet allow us to propose to the general assembly next June, a dividend per share of EUR 4.25. This represents a payout of 74%, EUR 1 billion over what it would have been if we had applied the minimum 65% target. This decision is part of our disciplined capital management.

If we can move to the next slide. Our final surplus capital at the end of December '25, the end of our previous plan and before distribution on ICG was EUR 1.4 billion. We will appropriate this amount for 3 purposes in line with our commitments. First, M&A. The acquisition of our stake in ICG is likely to use EUR 700 million to EUR 800 million for the final 9.9% share we target. Second, the ordinary dividend, the EUR 100 million above the minimum payout I just mentioned. And third, additional capital return. The Board has indeed decided on a final amount for share buyback of EUR 500 million, well above the minimum EUR 300 million we had committed at our Capital Market Day in November. This will represent an earning accretion of around 3% at the current share price.

And this share buyback will start tomorrow and is likely to span over a full year given the share liquidity and the regulatory constraints applicable to such an operation. It's worth noting that if we combine the total ordinary dividend for '25 around EUR 900 million and the share buyback, we will return to our shareholders this year just shy of EUR 1.4 billion, almost 10% of our current market capitalization.

One last word regarding our partnership with ICG and the equity stake we are in the process of building. As you know, we have acquired via a structured transaction 4.64% in ICG on November 19, the day after our Capital Market Day. So we own the shares with full voting rights. However, the structured transaction is still in the process of being unwound. The next milestone is for us to get the mandatory approval from various authorities. We should obtain them in the course of the second or third quarter. And by that time, we will be allowed to appoint a director to the Board of ICG and to start equity accounting for our stake, the 4.64% I mentioned. This will also allow ICG to start issuing new nonvoting shares to us for a total economic interest of 5.3%, taking our final stake to the target 9.9%.

They will do so while at the same time, buy back an equivalent amount of ordinary shares on the market and canceling them to avoid dilution. This process is expected to last several months, depending, of course, on ICG share liquidity. And it should be completed early '27, at which point, we shall equity account for the full amount. I hope this clarifies the process. Of course, ICG will be integrated on our reporting as an associate in a similar way to Victory, and Cyril and the team at your disposal for the detail.

I will now hand back to Valerie for concluding remarks before we take your questions. Thank you very much for your attention.

So thank you, Nicolas. 2025 has been a solid start to our new strategic plan period. We saw higher activity across our strategic growth areas, which supported our strong results. In terms of strategic initiatives, as Nicolas outlined, we are now building our stake in ICG. Our wider partnership has kicked off, and we have already seen some very promising and fruitful cooperation. We are both excited by the significant long-term value it will generate, both in terms of enriching our investment solutions and delivering return on investment for Amundi. We are already working on the funds we are planning to launch with ICG and expect to offer them to our wealth investors soon in H2. And finally, with our proposed EUR 900 million dividend and our EUR 500 million share buyback, we are delivering shareholder returns of more than EUR 1.4 billion, fully demonstrating our disciplined capital management approach.

And with that, Cyril, I think it's back to you for the Q&A.

Thank you, Valerie and Nicolas. Many questions. We'll start from the room. [Operator Instructions] Let's start with the front row, Arnaud.

Three questions, please...

To make sure that we can hear [indiscernible]. Is it okay?

Three questions. Firstly, can I ask about ALTO? So a big step-up in Q4. You did say that there was a lot of build for new clients going on. I'm just wondering, how we should be thinking about the coming quarters. Does that build continue -- the revenues from build continue into the future quarters? Or does it step back down to recurring revenues in Q1?

My second question is on SocGen. So the contract you announced was renegotiated, I think, in the press release, no material impact because I think Societe Generale as a percentage of the total group has been diluted. I'm just wondering if you could give us a bit more specifics. Has the conditions in terms of share of flows changed with that renegotiation? Has the headline rates changed as part of that negotiation?

And my third question is on the Irish DC pension. I think during the presentation; you mentioned EUR 20 billion flow potential over 10 years. Just wondering, how that splits across the 3 partners and what sort of products, the fee rates? I mean, any more details you can disclose that could be helpful.

I will let you on SocGen and I answer on ALTO and the Irish into enrollment. On ALTO, Arnaud, as mentioned, new clients -- I mean, in tech, you have the build part when you win the client and that you have to build the project and then you have the recurring fees. So obviously, everything built means more recurring fees for the future. But of course, according to the number of clients you won in the quarter, you can have some plus or minus.

So this last quarter was a very good one because new clients. By definition, the sale process in the technology area is a long one. So we are working today on clients that we hope will be onboarded in 2026, but I am unable to tell you today what will be the exact figures for 2026.

What I'm absolutely comfortable and happy about is the fact that we are onboarding more and more clients, which means that we are building more and more recurring revenues, which do not depend on the markets or on the geopolitics or whatever for the future and which are reinforcing our position.

And we -- another point which is really important with ALTO is that we deliver growth and new clients, both on ALTO investment or investment platform and on ALTO Wealth. So the 2 lines of -- main lines of products and clients are really up and running. And last but not least, we managed to open new countries because when you get your first client in one country, it means that people around look at it and it's also a source of growth for the future.

Regarding the Irish to enrollment by which -- you know that this is a brand-new scheme in Ireland. And by definition, there is no history on which we can count. But we shared is that, that might represent EUR 20 billion, of course, shared between the 3 players. So for the time, it's really just starting.

We are thrilled -- I mean, we wanted to focus on that one. It will not change the P&L of Amundi in 2026. It's a very long-term mandate, but we were thrilled about it because it's recognition of the capacities and the expertise of Amundi in the retirement area.

And as we are absolutely certain that the move from DB to DC both in Europe and in Asia will go ongoing. The more we are recognized as a strong player in this area, the better it will deliver growth for the future.

And regarding the Societe Generale deal, so as you know, we don't disclose the specifics on our agreement. What I can tell you is that it confirms our position as a privileged provider of asset management with our funds or mandates for the -- our clients and for that networks, and it should not have any material impact on our P&L going forward.

Okay. Next question from Nick.

Nicholas Herman from Citi. Three questions as well, please. Firstly, is there any update you can give us on the SBI JV IPO, please? I guess, presumably, can you confirm if you're still on track for an IPO in the first half of this year? Any update on the process would be helpful.

Secondly, on passive inflows. Did I hear you correctly that you brought in EUR 5 billion from new passive product launches during the year, it's about 10% of your passive inflows. I guess could you just talk about the competitive environment within passive because it looks like you've been taking a lot better share recently.

But I guess also as part of that, and I know you don't disclose your passive fee margins. But I guess with such strong demand for funds like Core Stoxx 600, is it fair to assume that the margins on your passive inflows have been dilutive to your blended passive fee margins?

And then finally, just a technical one on the buyback. Just curious why you decided to upsize the buyback already 2.5 months after announcing the buyback of at least EUR 300 million. And I guess also part of that...

Why we increased...

[indiscernible] it before, I think when you announced it, at least EUR 300 million and now 2.5 months later you're saying EUR 500 million. So why stay? And what is it that drives the variance of the cost of the ICG stake between EUR 700 million and EUR 800 million because I understand that you've structured the transaction to kind of limit the variability. Is that an incorrect understanding? If you could clarify that please.

Okay. We're going to clarify. On the -- so on the SBI IPO, very simple. The process is on track. And as of today, but we're still only in January, we expect the IPO to happen by the end of the semester by the end of June. But 6 months to go, an IPO is not an easy process. So -- but for the time being, everything is on track.

Second topic on the passive side, I don't know if we have -- if you want to share any figures. I mean, honestly, regarding your question around the Core Stoxx 600, I think what is remarkable here is that Europe attracted by definition, a lot of flows this year for good reasons, of course, the performance of the index, but also the fact that the dollar decreased a lot, as you know. And for all these reasons, investors have diversified their position and all over Europe and Asia and especially diversified their position in investing into Europe.

So it's great news that our Core Stoxx 600 attracted so many flows. And I think it's the sort of evidence and recognition that Amundi is the largest ETF provider in Europe with the largest and widest range. Honestly, on the margins for me, it's -- I'm going to let Nicolas look at it or answer if any, but I haven't seen anything significant.

No, nothing significant. And what's important to see is that we have inflows on, I would say, very vanilla products, but we are also innovating and margins on more innovative products tend to be higher. So...

Yes, because at the same time, so we stress the Eurostoxx 600, but we launched a lot of EFT, thematic fund, [indiscernible], strategy [indiscernible], which have attracted a lot of flows as well. As you know, we launched our first active ETFs with by definition, higher margin. We also launched, as you remember, at the end of the year, our ETF as a platform service, which is another way to increase the revenues of Amundi.

I remind you, we offer our ETF platform, both to active asset managers who don't have one and who want to list their expertise on the market, and we act as a service provider, but we also sell this platform to distributors who want to distribute ETFs, can be passive or active under their own brand name. So all this is a sort of, I would say, virtuous circle on the ETF space.

And on your last question, I'm going to try to do it to make it very simple. On the share buyback, when we announced you this share buyback and said minimum EUR 300 million, it's because in early November, by definition, we did not have the figures at the end of the year. What we committed was to give you back the excess capital at the end of the 2025 plan. And when we add -- when we look at the end of 2025 and when we add the price of ICG, the dividend we are proposing to the -- we propose to the Board and the excess capital, the difference is the EUR 500 million. So we are committing to our promise.

On ICG, the reason why there's no precise number is as you have understood, there are 2 operations, one which is already done, and which is structured operation. But there's a second operation, which will be issuance of shares in the months or quarters to come by ICG to us, and they will buy back on the market. And we don't know at which price it will be done, and they are still probably something like a year before the end of the operation.

So we will know...

So we don't know exactly the price at which we will buy the full stake.

Okay. Thank you. Next question from Tom.

It's Tom Mills from Jefferies. I don't think you guys mentioned in your presentation about Fund Channel. I was just interested in how that business is developing. I guess we've seen some consolidation in the B2B fund services space in the last month or so. Just curious as to how you see that development in terms of your own competitive positioning. Is that something you object to from an antitrust perspective? Just curious on your thoughts.

First of all, we saw a very nice development on Fund Channel. I'm going to Nicolas or [indiscernible] to give the exact figures, but we won new clients, and the company is growing at the pace we were expecting budget-wise. And second, there was a very -- I'm not sure we discussed about that already. There has been a very important development this year within Fund Channel, we launched a specific money market platform, which is super attractive for all our corporate clients.

So it will be an additional source of growth for us in the future. So we are still totally committed to Fund Channel and are very happy to remain and to be a strong competitor on that market. For us, it's both a source of growth and also a very important way to go on delivering a good service to all our clients and to help them manage their open architecture.

[indiscernible] just a combination of...

Maybe we should use, mic, I think, for online...

Just the combination that we've seen elsewhere in the market, Deutsche Borse and all funds, is that something that you guys are fine with? Is there any some antitrust objection that you might have to that combination?

We never comment on the transactions of our competitors. I cannot -- only comment about the fact that we are very happy to have Fund Channel, and we are totally committed to go on having it growing and confident.

Assets under distribution are EUR 660 billion, which is above the target we had set to the previous plan at the end of December.

Jacques-Henri and then we will answer it with online questions from Claire.

Jacques-Henri Gaulard from Kepler Cheuvreux. I did something fun this morning. I didn't restate the Q4 2025. And when you don't do that, when you don't restate, you realize that imagine you don't have revenues as a reference from the U.S. You have the UniCredit outflow. So it's not exactly a great condition.

But despite that, your earnings pre associates remain flat, pretty much stable, which is quite incredible. The whole point being the resilience of the rest of the business versus that is quite big. Then you're also going to buy back 600 million of share, maybe more, you never know if we have an IPO. So when are you raising your EPS target for '28?

First, we take the good part of your comment. Jacques-Henri, thank you so much. And I'm very happy that you see through your spreadsheet, the reality behind Amundi, which is the incredible resilience, which is linked to something real, the huge diversification of our client base, our expertise of our services, et cetera, which makes us strong and growing day after day.

And as I told you during the medium-term plan, I'm very confident that for the 2028 plan, and I will -- and today even more. We have no plan to change the target. We were very clear by telling you that the earnings per share target was a floor on which we committed, and we stick to the strategy as of today.

Thank you. We move, as I said, to online questions. So I open the mic of Pierre Chedeville. Pierre, you should be able to unmute your mic and speak.

Jacques-Henri, asked the same question as me -- as I wanted to ask, but I wanted to ask, when are you going to lower your cost income ratio target?

Same answer. Same answer [indiscernible] question...

More or less the same question. So more or less the same answer. Other question regarding your digital development, I was wondering if you had any target related to Credit Agricole ambitions in this area. You know that Credit Agricole wants to develop strongly on the savings side with BforBank Bank and also in Germany, particularly with Credit [indiscernible]. And I wanted to know what is exactly the cooperation you are setting up with them, if you have any target there, it could be interesting.

A precision regarding the tax. Can we imagine that in 2026, now that we have the budget voted, we will see more or less the same tax impact in 2026. roughly, I would say, a tax rate around 31%, something like that. Is it reasonable to see that or not?

And maybe just to clarify regarding share buyback. As far as I understand, you said in your business plan that you were focusing on external growth, you privilege external growth. So I mean that if you are about to make over share buybacks operation, you will wait for the end of the plan? Or I'm not clear on that.

Thank you. Nicolas, I'm going to take the Credit Agricole, and I would be letting on somebody to other one.

On Credit Agricole, of course, I mean, by definition, Credit Agricole is an essential, okay, has always been an essential client of Amundi, and we are totally committed to all their growth prospects and thrilled that they are investing outside of Europe in the savings area. So we are working on that topic to answer very transparently this question. We are working on that topic with them, of course, as we would with any other clients, but of course, on that topic.

But also not only on this one, we are -- it would be very long to explain, but we are delivering every year new solutions. For instance, we just launched last year incredibly successful new DPM solution within the Credit Agricole networks, which is growing very fast. So we have plenty of new solutions that we launch on a recurring basis, both with [ Credit ] Regional and with LCL. We have been working a lot with BforBank already. This is not new for us. It's been a long relationship, and we are in the process of helping [indiscernible] in development in Germany right now. So no specific figures to give you and to release, but you can be assured that we are helping them, of course.

On the tax, Nicolas?

On the tax, indeed, as you have noticed in France, the tax bill has been -- the budget bill has been adopted or in the process to be formally adopted. It does include the same tax surcharge mechanism as last year with the same rule, the same way. So basically, it will have the same impact for Amundi, meaning tax surcharge, which should be around, let's say, EUR 70 million to EUR 75 million. By the way, accounted the same way as last year. It's based both on '25 and '26 results. So it will be accounted -- let's say, 60% will be -- around 60% will be accounted on the first quarter and the rest will be accounted progressively in the 3 following quarters.

And indeed, I would say, excluding our tax -- this tax surcharge, our tax -- average blended tax rate is, let's say, around globally for Amundi around 25% -- 25%, 26%. And this tax surcharge added close to 5% to this tax rate.

And the last question -- yes, was regarding share buyback. So let me reclarify the share buyback we are announcing the EUR 500 million is the implementation of fact of the commitment we took in the previous plan and the commitment was to use the excess capital to do M&A or to return it by the end of the plan. So that we are fulfilling our commitment.

Going forward, our approach has been, I think, developed during our last medium-term plan Capital Day. We continue to prioritize external growth for the use of excess capital. But at the same time, we don't want to accumulate capital on the balance sheet. So at the end of the day, we return the flexibility to return excess capital that wouldn't be used to the shareholders, but at the time in a way that will be determined during the course of the plan.

Thank you. We will take our next question from Hubert in the room.

It's Hubert Lam from Bank of America. Just 3 questions. Firstly, for ICG, I think you mentioned the first product is going to be launched in the second half of this year. Could you remind us again, like is it a private credit product, private credit or/and public credit product? Also who you can distribute it to geographies and maybe even what your outlook in terms of flows for that?

Second question is, I saw that the French networks had a good inflows into medium, long-term in Q4. So wondering if you see this as a turning point, just any dynamics around that?

And lastly, just a follow-up on the ALTO question earlier. Q4, we saw a step up. I think in the presentation, you mentioned 40% of it was due to project revenues. I'm wondering, how much of that was maybe a one-off? Or is this something that could be sustained in the near term, at least?

On the cost side or on the revenue side?

The revenue, sorry.

Can you repeat the last one, sorry?

Yes, questions on ALTO.

On ALTO, sorry. Okay.

I think it was EUR 35 million in the quarter. I think you mentioned 40% of it was due to project revenues or something like...

40%.

40% margin [indiscernible]. Is that a one-off, or is that seasonal one-off? I'm just wondering how would you think about this number?

It's probably higher than what would be the average.

Exactly.

If I had to give an answer, but it will depend on all the new clients we will get next year. But it's probably -- I mean, let's say it's a bit higher.

On ICG, so yes, we will launch our first 2 new common solutions. So we are in the process of building the SCA and package the solution in the new regulated format we have in Europe, as you know. We expect all this to be ready during H2, probably after summer. We're working hard to make it very efficient and quick and in an excellent collaboration and good project mode.

The 2 first solutions will be one on private credit and the other one on secondaries. And we're already preparing what will be the future. But at least these 2 are in the pipeline, and we will -- it will be under regulated European format. So obviously, distributed in Europe and in some Asian countries, which allow it.

On the second question was on [indiscernible] Nicolas?

French network.

I mean, french network, sorry. French networks part of the flows we saw is linked to the dynamic of the life insurance in France, which is, as you know, dynamic and which also explains, by the way, the very good figures we have on the insurance side for the euro contracts on the institutional side in our figures. And part of it is a share of the new solutions I was mentioning. Typically, the very nice growth rate on our new DPM solutions is part of what you see in Q4.

We take next question from Zoom. So Michael, I'm opening your mic.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

I have 3 questions, please. First, I think you indicated UniCredit channels saw about EUR 16 billion of outflows in 2025. Should we expect a similar number next year? And can you confirm whether any of the distribution -- if they are paying a penalty fee related to your distribution contract? That's number one.

And number two, we saw really strong performance fees in the quarter, and yet you still showed pretty good cost discipline. I was just wondering how much of the Q4 cost base was performance fee related, i.e., incremental compensation based on that?

And then finally, in terms of the share buyback, is this a buyback that will include your parent company? Or is the shares are going to be bought back from minority shareholders?

Good. I take UniCredit, I'll let you take the two other ones, Nicolas. So UniCredit, nothing new since the medium-term plan you attended. You know our partnership present in July '27, at which point it might not be renewed. We committed on targets to you which we will deliver whatever happens with UniCredit. We are obviously fully committed to service as we always done the networks and their clients.

The difference is that we give you the exact flows and assets on a quarterly basis to give you full transparency of it. So I remind them, minus EUR 16 billion with EUR 4 billion at the end -- for the last quarter. Obviously, I'm not going to speculate on what will happen in '26. What I can tell you is that UniCredit represents today EUR 86 billion of assets under management. Group-wise, among which EUR 66 billion in Italy. And that means EUR 86 billion out of EUR 2,380 billion, as you know, and EUR 86 billion is less than what we raised this year overall. I just wanted to remind the global picture on that front. Otherwise, nothing more.

On the second question regarding performance fees and potentially associated costs, there are no costs directly associated to performance fees as to any kind of revenues, by the way. Just a reminder, we have a variable remuneration policy, which is to basically, I would say, allocate something between 14% and 20% of the pre-variable remuneration gross operating income to variable remuneration, but it's appreciated globally, no direct cost associated to any particular kind of revenues in particular performance fees.

And the last question regarding -- yes, it was a share buyback. So Credit Agricole informed us that they will not participate in the share buyback. So it will be bought on the market.

[indiscernible]?

We never comment on our [indiscernible] on our partners and clients.

Thank you. Next question from Sharath.

Sharath Kumar from Deutsche Bank. I have 3 questions, 2 on India and one on digital flows. Firstly, on the India flows, I would say still not very encouraging. Do you think yesterday's tariff deal with the U.S. and Sunday's budget announcement could be the catalyst for the flow's recovery in India? So what is the outlook on the near-term flows?

The second one, sticking with India. From my calculations, assuming that we get a $14 billion IPO value for the SBI on the basis of what we hear from the press, I calculate capital gains of, say, $300 million, $350 million for the 3.7% stake that you would sell. So what do you intend to do with the proceeds? Would it go into the M&A pool? Or do you -- are you thinking about a special dividend?

And finally, on digital flows, how do you characterize the nature of flows? What does it do to your group margins? I imagine it would be accretive, but if you could clarify, that would be helpful.

On the digital flow...

On the digital flows -- so what sort of products are we getting at? And what sort of margins compared to the group margins?

Okay. On the first question about [indiscernible]. Sorry, SBI flows first before speaking about the IPO. Honestly, exactly as Nicolas explained it, we saw this year that the Indian rupee was down 15%, which clearly explained a material part of the decrease in flows in euros over the period. And the slowdown was driven by institutional clients, which were, I would say, less enthusiastic in this environment.

What is very positive and essential for us is the fact that on the retail side and on the rise of the individual savings plans, which is incredible source of growth for the future of this company. They have remained very dynamic. So the strong fundamentals are completely here, despite the fact that the rupee was really down this year.

So I am fully and totally confident in the future and the growth outlook of SBI MF just because this is a market which is still so -- which has such a low penetration compared to the penetration of the asset management industry, we can see in the U.S., in Europe and even in a lot of other Asian countries that the growth is going to be huge.

Second, regarding the transaction, of course, we -- it's much too early to give both the valuation and value for Amundi. And it's also too early to say whether it will depend on the decision of the Board when it will be done. We will discuss this topic later.

And on the digital flows, what is obvious is that distributing savings digitally means using a lot of ETF, and it is the reason why Amundi is so successful in -- it's one of the reasons why Amundi is so successful in this new market, which is the digital distribution of savings. It is not the only reason. It's also because it's a very different way of working with digital distributors than with traditional banks and that we really were able to adapt to everything in terms of marketing, in terms of technology, in terms of speed of answering, et cetera, et cetera. But at least it does explain.

So of course, a big bulk of this distribution is and will be done through ETF. But as I explained to you very often, the cost of production of an ETF is much, much, much lower than the cost of production of active management. And at the end of the day, selling ETFs for Amundi is very profitable and exponentially profitable.

Just a follow-up. Just on the India flows on the AUM mix, do you have -- what is it between Retail and Institutional segment?

I'm going to ask my CFO friends in the room to give you the exact figure. Can we come back to you later on the call.

We'll definitely get back to you, Sharath. I think there was a question from Michael.

Mike Sanderson, Barclays. Just a couple, please. First of all, the ICG product launch timings, you've obviously laid out the time line in relation to the corporate governance and the ownership piece. Are they directly linked? Does the regulatory piece have to come through before you can launch the product? Or are you happy to go separately?

And then secondly, you saw some strong institutional flows through Q4 that you particularly noted. And I'm just interested, first of all, the scale of them and whether there's any sort of margin dilution, particular margin dilution when you're talking sovereign wealth and central banks? And secondly, I suppose, the pipeline in those areas, how that's looking into the next year?

On ICG, the answer is no. There is absolutely no relationship between these regulatory approvals, which are really linked to the accounting topic that Nicolas was explaining and the partnerships. We already started the raising, and we will be delivering it whatever the regulatory and financial process.

On the second point, Nicolas?

So no particular dilution. We had indeed a strong activity on the last quarter. And as for any of our business, the margins we can -- we get depend very much on the type of strategies we propose and not that much on the type of clients. So...

If I have to give you an idea, I think the institutional share of our business this year was particularly exceptional, but it will depend on our clients in 2026. So -- and once again, we are thrilled to see so many big institutional clients, especially in the retirement area, willing to work with Amundi.

We do not seem to have any questions from the Zoom video conference. Any questions left from the room? No. Okay. Thank you. I think that's done. Thank you very much. Obviously, we're at your disposal for any follow-up. Annabelle, Thomas and myself and looking forward to our next encounters at the very last Q1 results, which will be announced on the 29th of April, if I remember well. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Cyril Meilland, the Head of Investor Relations of Amundi, and it's a gorgeous day today. First, it's my birthday. So -- but I won't tell you how much of a senile old timer I am. But more importantly, it's -- we're here to present the 9 months and Q3 results for Amundi, and I'm here with Nicolas Calcoen, our Deputy CEO; and Aurelia Lecourtier, our CFO. We'll go through, as usual, the presentation of about 20, 25 minutes and then open for Q&A.

As usual, this is a video conference. [Operator Instructions] And sorry, but again, before we get started, we need to go through a short disclaimer. Throughout the presentation, we will make a number of forward-looking statements and mention forecasts. We call your attention to the fact that Amundi's actual results may differ from these statements. Some of the factors that may cause the results to differ materially are listed on our universal registration document. Amundi assumes no duty and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. And now I leave the floor to Nicolas.

Thank you, Cyril, and happy birthday, and good morning to all of you, and thank you for your participation in this conference to present our third quarter results. As usual, I will start this presentation with the main highlights, and then I will hand over to Aurelia, who will comment on the financial part more thoroughly before we answer your questions.

First of all, I would like to highlight a few key points of this results. I will start with the strong inflows since the beginning of the year and in the third quarter. Over the first 9 months, we have gathered EUR 67 billion in net new money to manage, of which more than EUR 15 billion in the third quarter. This comes mainly from medium- to long-term assets, which are positive in both active and passive, and from retail as well as institutional investors and our Asian JVs.

As of end of September, Amundi's assets under management reached a new all-time high of close to EUR 2.32 trillion. They rose by close to 4% since the beginning of this year despite the headwinds from a weaker U.S. dollar and Indian rupee. The financial performance resulting from this business activity is healthy. Our pre-tax income rose by 4% year-on-year to EUR 445 million in the third quarter. This growth originates from business-related revenues, namely management fees on technology. Our costs remain under control. Furthermore, Q3 was the first quarter where the contribution from Victory Capital started reflecting the synergies from the deal. Finally, we saw further success in our strategic pillars.

In the first 9 months of 2025, all three main growth engines gathered more than EUR 20 billion in net new assets. Third-party distribution first collected EUR 21 billion, mainly in medium- to long-term assets. Inflows were driven by ETF and positive in active management with a high level of activity in most countries and regions. Our partnership with Standard Chartered, for example, amplified its success and exceeded EUR 3 billion in assets under management. The strong commercial momentum with digital platform is accelerating, and a new long-term partnership has been signed with the South African digital platform, Satrix, resulting in strong inflows of EUR 1 billion in the quarter.

In Asia, inflows over 9 months reached EUR 29 billion, of which EUR 19 billion from the joint ventures and EUR 10 billion from direct distribution. All countries in Asia contributed to these inflows, which is -- which are also well diversified by strategies across active management and passive management as well as treasury products. ETFs collected EUR 28 billion over 9 months to total assets that exceed now EUR 300 billion for the first time. Amundi confirmed its second place in the European ETF market in terms of assets under management as well as inflows.

In the third quarter, two flagship products tracking major indices gathered the largest inflows, respectively, in European and in U.S. equities. First, the Core Stoxx Europe 600 ETF reached EUR 14 billion in assets under management, making it the largest ETF in European equities and the core S&P 500 swap collected over EUR 2 billion. Furthermore, we continue to innovate and new products were launched such as the S&P 400 U.S. mid-cap ETF or the Euro high yield ETF. Finally, Amundi Technology continued to record strong revenue growth at EUR 81 million, approximately the same level as for the full year 2024. It was generated by half -- it's an increase by half compared to the same period of 2024, thanks to strong organic growth and the integration of aixigo.

Beyond strategic priorities, Amundi is achieving commercial success in its core business. And today, we would like this quarter to put the spotlight on a business where Amundi is an undisputed #1, the management of employee savings schemes. Our dedicated business line, employee and retirement savings saw record inflows over 9 months with nearly EUR 4 billion since the beginning of the year. Today, we manage EUR 101 billion in assets with a market share in France of 45%. It services more than 12,000 corporate clients, multinationals and medium-sized companies directly, but also small companies via the networks of Crédit Agricole and other partners. This business in fact that Amundi is the only business where we have a direct access to the end client.

Our service to the 4 million employee clients is comprehensive from client servicing via telephone, mailbot, digital tools, including a transactional website and smartphone app to a robo advisor and glidepaths. We offer the full range of investment capabilities from employee share ownership to funds and individual pension schemes. This retirement product, in particular, are developed in partnership with Crédit Agricole Assurance. As you can see, all these initiatives are creating a lot of value for our clients and position us well in the retirement business in France.

I thank you for your attention, and now I leave the floor to Aurelia for the details of our financial results.

Thank you, Nicolas, and good morning, everyone. I will now comment as usual on our activity and financial results. Starting with our AUM, they reached EUR 2.32 trillion at the end of September, which is again a new record for Amundi. They were up over 9 months, thanks to healthy net flows at EUR 67 billion over the period, a positive market effect of more than EUR 100 billion, but that was partially offset by a negative currency effect of EUR 87 billion due to the depreciation of USD and Indian rupee. Year-to-date, indeed, both currencies are sharply down versus the euro, minus 11% for the U.S. dollar and minus 15% for the Indian rupee. As a result of these various trends, our AUM increased by 3.5% since the beginning of the year and by more than 2% in this third quarter.

Moving now to our net inflows. Amundi's net inflows amounted EUR 67 billion over the first 9 months with MLT net inflows totaling EUR 57 billion and a strong contribution from passive management and ETF at EUR 28 billion, as commented by Nicolas. This business line passed the EUR 300 billion milestone at the end of September, which is a very positive achievement. Flows were also driven by active management at EUR 8 billion [Audio Gap] decided to re-internalize the management of a EUR 9 billion bond mandate. So restated from this exit, net inflows into MLT assets would have been at EUR 18 billion, balanced between EUR 10 billion in passive and EUR 8 billion in active.

As in the previous quarter, our investment management teams delivered sustained performances in Q3. Close to 3/4 of our open-ended funds were in the first and second quartile, slightly up from the previous quarter. 242 Amundi funds are rated 4 or 5 stars by Morningstar and 82% of our AUM outperformed their benchmark over 5 years. Let me add a bit of color to this performance because this quarter, our fixed income flagship have done pretty good, such as global aggregate, corporate and European aggregate, and investment-grade credit strategies. They rank among the top of their peers.

Our multi-asset strategies also posted very robust performances as our emerging market strategies that performed well across both equity and fixed income. Beyond these highlights, the main message from this slide, as you can see, remains sustained consistency at a high level of investment performance.

Looking now at our client segment and starting with retail. So retail flows were positive at EUR 15 billion over the 9 months. They remain driven by third-party distributor, which posted healthy inflows of EUR 21 billion year-to-date, of which EUR 18 billion in ETF and positive flows in active and treasury products. Flows were also very diversified by regions with a high level of activity in Europe, namely in Germany, U.K., Netherlands, but also Spain and Italy. Asia continued its momentum with EUR 4 billion of net inflows, and we gathered strong flows from high potential regions like the Middle East.

We also signed, as Nicolas mentioned, a new long-term partnership in South Africa with the digital wealth platform, Satrix, resulting in a flow of EUR 1 billion ETF. In China, our JV with Bank of China also enjoy a strong commercial momentum with EUR 1.6 billion gathered year-to-date. If we turn now to our international partner networks, the outflows totaled EUR 4 billion in the last quarter and EUR 10 billion over the first 9 months. As you know, UniCredit is by far the largest of these networks and the outflows originate from this group. As you know as well, UniCredit wants to develop their internal multi-manager platform, which explains the outflows.

As many of you have asked, let me give you a few details about what UniCredit represents. At the end of September, UniCredit Networks represented a total of EUR 88 billion in assets under management for Amundi, which is approximately 4% of our total AUM. AUM are mostly, as you know, invested in active management. So you should assume that the revenue margin is above our average retail margin and around 40 bps. And finally, to end on the retail segment, partner networks in France are showing positive net inflows, particularly in the third quarter with a EUR 2.6 billion inflow.

If we now move to Institutional segment, net inflows were EUR 35 billion year-to-date with a sharp contrast between strong inflows into MLT that gathered EUR 46 billion and outflows from treasury products. As Nicolas already mentioned, employee savings and retirement expertise posted very strong inflows of EUR 4 billion over the period. In the third quarter, if we restate from the exit of the EUR 9 billion bond mandate I already mentioned, the MLT assets gathered EUR 11 billion with a positive contribution from all segments. And it is worth noting as well that our mandate with Crédit Agricole and Société Générale insurers have collected strong inflows since the beginning of the year, including EUR 4 billion in the third quarter, thanks to renewed interest in euro contracts.

Finally, our Asian joint venture posted net inflows of EUR 18 billion over the first 9 months with good performances in all countries. South Korea posted EUR 7 billion mostly in MLT assets, and China continued its recovery at EUR 3 billion, excluding the discontinued channel business. Coming to our Indian JV, inflows -- we had healthy inflows into saving plans that continued. However, the JV faced the impact of lower currency, high market volatility, and uncertain monetary policy, which all triggered a wait-and-see attitude from clients. But despite these headwinds, the JV gathered EUR 9 billion year-to-date and EUR 2 billion for the Q3.

As we have already highlighted many times on these calls, the expected partial exit from a big mandate with the Indian pension fund, EPFO, will now move forward. The outflow, as we already said, is likely to be between EUR 30 billion and EUR 40 billion and is expected to take place in Q4, but with no material impact on our net income. And finally, the U.S. distribution of Victory Capital posted smaller outflows around EUR 600 million for a share of 26%. But this is more than offset by the net inflows coming from the sales of Victory strategies to non-U.S. clients, which are booked in our retail and institutional segments.

Turning now to our results. So let me remind you of the pro forma restatements we have implemented since the closure of Victory in Q2. So to make comparison easier with 2025, as you know, we have restated the 2024 period. So Amundi U.S. is not included in the revenues and costs of the '24 period, and its contribution is equity accounted as for the contribution of Victory. So with that in mind, let's move now to our Q3 results on the next slide.

Starting with the revenues. So our total revenues in the third quarter amounted to EUR 815 million, up by 5%, thanks to healthy growth in business-related revenues. Net management fees were up 3% compared to the same quarter last year, thanks to a strong asset gathering in the past 12 months and despite the drop in the U.S. dollar. Our technology revenues were also up by 49% at EUR 29 million, thanks to both a healthy organic growth and thanks to the contribution from aixigo. Performance fees were also up year-on-year, thanks to the good performances I detailed earlier. And finally, our financial income is in line with the decrease in euro short-term rates.

If we turn now to the cost, so as you know, every year, Amundi offers to its employees the possibility to invest in new shares issued at a discount. We call this operation, WeShare. And this discount results in a charge in our P&L of EUR 17 million that will be accounted in Q3. Last year, this charge was booked in Q4, and therefore, the charge we booked in Q3 this year is distorting the comparison with Q3 '24. So restating for this impact, our cost would have been up by 4%, reflecting the integration of aixigo and our investment to nurture our future growth. It also reflects our best-in-class cost efficiency with an adjusted cost/income ratio at 53.5%.

This quarter, we also implemented our optimization plan that resulted in, first, the merger of Amundi affiliates CPR and BFT in France, which is effective since October 1; and second, the reorganization of our multi-asset teams across all Europe, which is underway. The restructuring costs of this plan are booked in this Q3 for an amount of EUR 80 million, and they are excluded from our adjusted P&L. Therefore, they do not contribute to the cost evolution of the quarter. As a reminder, the aim of the plan is to generate EUR 40 million in savings from '26 to be reinvested in our growth business.

Finally, our adjusted profit before tax was up 4%, as you can see on the slide, at EUR 450 million. Let me take you through the key drivers of this growth. So first, the contribution of our Asian JVs was up 3%, with China and Korea posting very strong growth in their contribution. And the contribution from SBIMF that suffered headwinds from the drop of the Indian rupee remains still healthy with management fees growing more than 20% year-on-year in the JV in local currency.

The equity accounted contribution from our U.S. operation was at EUR 33 million over the quarter. As a result, as you know, of the lag by 1 quarter in the recognition of Victory's results, Q3 contribution includes the first synergies from the partnership. And this contribution also benefited from the adjustment of EUR 4 million between the estimate used in Q2 and the publication of Victory's Q2 results. So all in all, the adjusted net income of Amundi was at EUR 340 million, including the tax surcharge over the quarter of EUR 9 million.

Let's have now a final look on our financial performance year-to-date. So first, our adjusted revenues reached EUR 2.5 billion. They were up 5% and driven by net management -- sorry, net management fees up 4% and technology revenues at EUR 81 million, an increase of almost half. Performance fees were also up 7% year-on-year. Second, this revenue growth, as you can see, was complemented by our operational efficiency with an adjusted cost/income ratio at 52.8% over the period. Expenses were up 5% if we restate from the employee scheme charge, as I explained earlier, and they are in line with the gross revenue.

Third, the contribution from our Asian JV was almost EUR 100 million, up 6% and the contribution from Victory Capital up by 8%. All this translates into the growth of 4% of our adjusted pre-tax income that reached EUR 1.340 billion. Excluding the tax surcharge in France that totaled EUR 63 million for the 9 months, our adjusted net income would have been over EUR 1 billion, up 4% versus '24.

I will now hand back to Nicolas for concluding remarks before we take your questions, and I thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you, Aurelia. To conclude, as you can see from our business and financial results, Amundi continues to accelerate alongside its strategic pillars. 80% of the net inflows over the first 9 months of this year, meaning EUR 55 billion out of the total of EUR 67 billion comes from the strategic pillars, third-party distribution, Asia, or ETF. Net inflows from these strategic pillars already exceed the full year 2024 total net inflows.

We are now reaching the end of our Ambition 2025 medium-term plan, and we can confidently look forward to the presentation of our next plan. In this perspective, let me complement what Aurelia told you about our distribution agreement with UniCredit. As you know, this agreement comes for renewal in July 2027, and we do not know whether it will be renewed or under what conditions. We are, of course, fully committed to continue serving UniCredit's clients with the highest standards, and we stand ready to remain a partner for UniCredit and to create value for all parties beyond 2027.

Our new strategic plan for 2028 will include a financial trajectory that will reflect this uncertainty regarding the contribution from UniCredit from '27 onwards as well as, of course, Amundi's healthy growth in all its strategic pillars. So we look forward to our Capital Market Day on November 18 to present all the ambitious growth initiatives that will underpin our future growth. We are now with Aurelia, at your disposal to answer your questions. Thank you.

Thank you Nicolas. Thank you, Aurelia. So now we are moving to the Q&A session, as Nicolas said. And we will start with a question from Hubert from Bank of America.

I've got three of them. Firstly, on UniCredit. So you talked about accounting for the UniCredit uncertainty in your strategic plan. Just wondering what are the different ways you can reflect this in the plan, just given the uncertainty and the exposure that you -- the significant exposure that you have in it and the potential impact that it can bring if the contract wasn't renewed. That's the first question.

Second question is on taxes. There's now likely going to be further tax surcharge in France in 2026. So any guidance you can have for us for this for next year? And lastly, on the French networks, it's good to see the medium long-term assets turning positive this quarter. Do you see this as a turning point? And also, like can you please give us also the breakdown of the medium long-term assets? Is it coming from structured products or passives or anything else?

Thank you. I will answer your first question and maybe let Aurelia answer the two other ones. So your first question was about UniCredit and how to take into account it in our medium-term plan. As we explained, there's a lot of uncertainty around the future of this relationship, even if we hope and we are convinced that we can bring -- continue to bring value to UniCredit. So the way we would look at -- but really, it's an uncertainty because we know that in Italy, asset turnover can be very high as it is illustrated by the rapid deployment of one market. And we do estimate that in an unfavorable scenario, the largest part of our assets could exit within 2 years. But as we said, we don't know if the partnership will be renewed or under what conditions. So what we will do is to commit to targets that will be achieved whatever UniCredit decision is about the future of this partnership.

Coming now to your question on the surcharge. As a reminder, we foresee an impact this year of the surcharge of about EUR 72 million. As noticed, indeed, in the budget proposal for '26, actually, the government proposed -- the French government proposed to renew partially this surcharge. But I would say no guidance at the moment as it is far too early to draw a conclusion as the budget is still under discussion.

And coming to the French network and your question, actually, yes, genuine inflows from our French network in the quarter, EUR 2.6 billion overall, of which EUR 1.8 billion coming from money markets and EUR 0.6 billion in MLT, driven by passive, active and also positive in real assets. So basically, it is a good and positive development, but maybe a bit too early to call for the end of risk aversion in our French networks.

The next question comes from Arnaud from BNP Paribas.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

I'm just wondering, since we're talking about the networks, could we go to the Société Générale networks? I think they're up for renewal pretty soon. Is there anything you can update us there? My second question is on ELTIFs. This has been live. There's been some traction in the market. I'm just wondering what that looks like for you in terms of AUM and flows. And thirdly, you talked at the beginning of your presentation about having a B2B2C connection to 4 million end clients. I'm just wondering if there isn't an opportunity for you to be upselling those clients. I mean, a lot of DC pension funds in the U.K., for example, do reach out to clients and actually consolidate various pension funds or other products they may have. I'm just wondering if there's not a longer-term opportunity for you to leverage the access you have to those 4 million clients.

Thank you. I will take your questions. First question was on Société Générale. Indeed, a long-standing partnership for Amundi, a partnership that date from 15 years now, renewed several times. The existing agreement is coming to maturity in a few weeks. It's too early to talk about the future, but what I can say is that I'm confident that we will continue to work with Société Générale in the future. Your second question was about ELTIFs, if I got it right. Indeed, it's an interesting development, an opportunity to create new funds and to give access to wealth -- retail clients, I would say, wealthy clients to private markets.

We have launched several of ELTIFs during the course of the year. To be honest, I don't remember exactly where we stand in terms of inflows, but it's the beginning. It's, I would say, a starting point, and we expect to see progressively more inflows going to this kind of products. And we think this regulatory evolution is something positive for retail clients, first of all, and for ourselves. And your third question was back to employee and savings scheme, and retirement scheme in France, where we do have really a B2B2C relationship. We have a direct access to the clients.

So indeed, this particularity in our business is really a big opportunity, first of all, to -- I would say, to learn how to talk directly to the end clients more and more, and to also experiment and promote offers to our clients. So that's something we are doing. But of course, as the end client who are the employees of the companies in which they work, we are bound by the contract that we have with the employers. But within the limit of the employer, it's indeed a good way to experiment and promote new approaches to give advice and to promote new solutions.

The next question will come from Sharath from Deutsche Bank.

I have three. Firstly, on India, the inflow seems to have dropped about 50% if I compare it on a year-to-date basis. So can you tell me the drivers? And how does this compare with peers? I know there are a lot of new entrants in the India mutual market space. Can you comment if you're losing market share? And sticking with India, can you tell us any reasons that you are aware of for the SBI management not being very keen to reconsider listing plans? So that's the first one on India.

Second is on alternatives. Other than real estate, I don't necessarily see alternatives being a key focus area for you. So can we expect this to continue? And how do you view the recent surge in partnerships between traditional and alternative asset managers and your willingness to follow a similar path? And lastly, a follow-up on the UniCredit relationship. Thanks for sharing more details on the AUM. But can you give us an indication of the bottom line contribution? Did I hear correctly when you said the revenue margin is around 40 basis points?

I propose Aurelia, you answer on the Indian questions, and I will follow up with the other ones.

Yes. So as mentioned in my speech, thank you for the question. We -- I mean, see that the Indian market is facing, I would say, many evolution. I mentioned the currency impact. I mentioned also a bit of volatility in the market and elements also on the monetary policy, which led to, I would say, a kind of risk aversion from the clients in the Indian market. Nevertheless, first, as you asked, our market share is stable and above 15% over the 9 months.

Second, we nevertheless, also gathered genuine inflows, almost EUR 9 billion since the beginning of the year. And when we look at, I would say, the JV activity and financial results, we can still see a very dynamic growth of the net management fees of the JV, more than 20% in local currency, obviously. So all in all, we keep very confident in this major growth driver for Amundi in the coming months and quarters.

As far as your question -- second question, there was a question on EPFO.

EPFO, I think.

Yes. EPFO, yes, as mentioned, we think that the outflows may come -- may happen in Q4. As you know, there has been a first RFP launched in the beginning of the year that was unsuccessful. The Indian authority relaunched another RFP that seems to be at that time successful. So as we said, the -- I would say, the rotation and reallocation from two -- three or four asset manager on this huge mandate of more than EUR 100 billion will take place in Q4 with two consequences. First, outflows, as I mentioned, for SBI MF, something about EUR 30 billion to EUR 40 billion, but very limited and insignificant impact on, obviously, net management fees for SBI FM and as a result, our -- on the result of the JV in our P&L.

Regarding your next question, which was about alternatives, I would say that private assets are a priority in terms of development for Amundi. We -- that's why we, for example, made the acquisition of Alpha Associates 1 year ago, and we count on this new acquisition to allow us to develop in this field. That's true that over the recent years, inflows have been limited because historically, the largest part of our business was on real estate. And as you know, real estate has been suffering a lot over the recent period. But on other private assets, we are developing and we can continue to develop. And for example, as mentioned earlier, to take advantage of the new regulatory opportunities and the appetite and the interest from retail clients to allocate part of their savings, at least in long-term savings in real assets.

Your last question was about the contribution to UniCredit in our P&L. You -- I would say you have the assets under management, EUR 88 billion at the end of September, you have the margin, so you can calculate the revenues. As far as the bottom line, the only thing I can say is that, as you know, Amundi is a global company. It's a very integrated model and therefore, costs are managed globally. So there are no direct or very limited costs that are directly allocated to UniCredit. What we do is to manage cost globally, trying to adjust them to the evolution of our revenues and at the same time to continue to invest in our future growth drivers.

The next question will come from the line of Angeliki from JPMorgan.

Just three from my end as well, please. First of all, with regards to the EUR 40 million of cost savings that you have given us as an indication on the back of these actions that you have taken and you have booked some restructuring costs this quarter starting from next year, in which areas are you looking to reinvest this EUR 40 million of cost savings next year more concretely? And could there be related to your answer that you gave before with regards to the UniCredit distribution agreement? I mean, if we take the worst-case scenario of losing this partnership, what is the leeway that you have to potentially reduce costs elsewhere in order to maintain the cost-income ratio below 53%?

Second question with regards to management fees. I noticed that the management fee margin actually improved a little bit quarter-on-quarter, at least on my numbers. What is the outlook for the management fee margin as you see it taking into account the asset mix for Q4 and potentially also for next year? Are you seeing some competition perhaps also within the same asset classes with the introduction of new products that you're launching? Or is that really not the case? And third question, I was just wondering if you can provide an update with regards to any potential special distribution of excess capital. Is that now more likely to happen next year as we get closer to year-end and we don't have any further M&A announcements coming from you?

Thank you, Angeliki. I will take your first and the last question and maybe let Aurelia answer on the management fees and the margins. So first of all, on the cost savings, the question was about where do we invest. Basically, it's in all our strategic priorities and areas of growth, whether you're talking about technology, development in Asia, ETF. But of course, we have -- we are meeting you in a few weeks to talk about our next strategic plan, and it will be a good opportunity to develop a little bit further our future areas of growth. As far as, again, UniCredit and the adjustment of cost, just I can repeat what I say. We -- again, we have an integrated model. So we manage costs globally and not directly. And again, the costs that are associated specifically to one client are limited.

But we look at it very -- and look at cost management very globally to ensure that we adjust costs when we see revenues moving and we preserve our capacity to invest in our growth drivers. And maybe before leaving the floor to Aurelia on management fees, regarding distribution, we are not yet at the end of our '22-'25 plan. So again, we can discuss a little bit more our intention in a few weeks during our medium-term plan. Keeping in mind that, first of all, our priorities in terms of capital allocation remain if we find value-creating opportunity to do M&A or otherwise to return the excess capital to our shareholders.

And yes, coming to your question on management fees, so they were quite dynamic since the beginning of the year at 4% increase compared to last year. When we -- coming to our margins, as you know, we don't steer properly our margin, and we are quite product agnostic. And what we can say and what we've tried to enlight in our Q2 financial communication is that we observed that there's obviously a rising pressure in the whole industry on margin due to, I would say, client demand towards passive fixed income and also, as far as we are concerned, this year, a very good success in the institutional space, leading to, I would say, low-margin mandates.

In addition to that, as you know, recorded an idiosyncratic effect due to the deconsolidation of Amundi U.S. So what we can say about our margin is that what we disclosed at the end of H1, which was more or less something like 16 bps is a good starting point for obviously, the 9 months and onwards. But obviously, this is a starting point that we reassess when -- due to -- in respect to the flows and to what we collect -- we will collect over the next quarter.

Next question from Mike Werner from UBS. We can't hear you, Mike. I don't know whether -- it seems good now. No, still not. Sorry.

We can't hear you.

We can't hear you, but apparently, it's not at our end. Mic is definitely open at end. Try again. No, still not.

Any luck. Sorry...

Better. That's better.

Excellent. Sorry about that. Still learning the Zoom thing. So on UniCredit, can you provide a little bit of disclosure as to how the AUMs are broken down by country between Italy, Germany, and Austria through the UniCredit channels? And second, apologies if you already covered this. But in terms of the financial and other income, we saw a bit of a decline in Q3. I was just wondering if you could provide a little bit of color there. Apologies if I missed that in the presentation. And then in terms of the excess capital, can you just update us on where that excess capital position is today?

We'll take the question on UniCredit and maybe let financial income and excess cap. I'll let already answer. So on UniCredit, as we said, at end of September, we have EUR 88 billion of assets managed for UniCredit networks in Europe, out of which the vast majority in Italy, a bit less than EUR 70 billion. I think it's EUR 69 billion in Italy, around EUR 10 billion in Germany, around EUR 6 billion in Austria and the rest in Central Europe.

So coming to our financial income, it's -- I mean, the decrease is totally in line with the decrease of the short-term interest rate. As you know, this is the main driver in terms of sensitivity for our financial income. And the excess capital, sorry, what was exactly the question?

At the end of September.

The excess capital at the end of September is very close to the one we disclosed in H1, which was EUR 1.3 billion. There's a slight impact, but not very significant due to technical reasons, but you should keep in mind EUR 1.3 billion.

Next question from Nick Herman from Citi.

Hopefully, you can hear me okay?

Yes, perfectly.

Super. So just a follow-up on your guidance around UniCredit. I guess, could you help the market broadly understand what proportion of any potential revenue loss you believe you could offset via cost takeout? And I guess, within that, what areas might that come from? And what gives you the confidence that you could execute on that within 1.5 years? So that's the first one.

The second one is a follow-up to Angeliki's question. I guess we're not conscious we're not too far now from your 2026 AGM. I guess, do you see increasing visibility on your M&A pipeline, which I know you talked about in the past is pretty comprehensive and robust. And then the final question is, we've seen net inflows for the first time in a number -- in a couple of years now in real and alternative assets. Just wondering whether there is -- you're seeing sentiment turning at all even at the margin, that would be helpful.

So on UniCredit, and, sorry if I repeat myself, as I said, the -- as we are a global competitive, very integrated with the same IT system, same operation, investment capabilities that are largely shared, what we -- the costs that are specifically, I would say, dedicated to one or other clients are quite limited. So when we steer and look at cost, we look at it globally, looking at the evolution of our business or need to invest globally. Regarding M&A visibility, you won't be surprised, nothing I can share. We are definitely continuing to look at opportunities. And of course, we will inform you if any materialize in due course.

And as far as your last question regarding real and alternative assets, what we are seeing is that outflows coming from real estate, which is -- which remains a very important part of our business are slowing compared to 1 or 2 years ago. And we have positive inflows in private market. In particular, we should have mentioned it. We launched a new direct private equity offering called Megatrends during the third quarter. And we are also seeing progressively even if they are limited, seeing inflows in our multi, I would say, multi-private asset offers in the ELTIF format we mentioned earlier, in particular, funds that are called Prima.

Next question from Jacques-Henri Gaulard from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Cyril -- sorry, call me unintelligent. I'm going to have to ask the question a fourth time, Nicolas, and I really, really apologize for that. I'm going to rephrase it. On the back of what you said about costs not being allocated into one client, does it mean that the cost/income ratio on UniCredit is materially lower than your current group cost/income ratio? And if this is the case, and if indeed the impact on the EPS from the deal being adjourned or canceled is important, would you consider an enormous buyback to actually offset the loss in EPS?

What I'm saying is that for UniCredit as for many clients, the marginal cost/income is, of course, lower than our average cost/income ratio, nothing more, nothing less, but I think it's quite clear. And -- so regarding your second question, again, we have an appointment, I would say, in 3 weeks now to discuss our medium-term plans. And I think we can discuss more thoroughly our trajectory and what we will do at that time.

Next question is a follow-up from Sharath from Deutsche Bank.

Sorry for following up. I asked this initially, but this was not answered. Can you tell us the reasons that you are aware of, if any, for SBI management for not reconsidering their listing plans in India? I also ask this in the context of India IPO market being very odd, being very conducive.

Okay. Sorry, we missed -- I think we missed the question, which was regarding a potential IPO of SBI FM. Well, the only thing is I can say is that listing its subsidiary is for SBI part of its plans. It's not new, but no decision has been taken yet.

Next question is from Pierre Chedeville. Pierre ?

First question is regarding your French networks. I would like to know what was the performance of structured products this quarter? And how do you see the evolution of these products that used to work very well, but it seems a little bit more difficult nowadays on these products, which remuneration is high. How do you see things evolve in the future?

Regarding the integration of AXA IM with BNP, I would like to know how do you see the game changer -- this game change, I would say, in France and also in Europe in terms of pressure on inflows, but also on margins or things like that. Where do you think this new competitor may be the most, I would say, dangerous for you for what types of products? Or if you think that you will continue as usual because this merger doesn't -- is not a game changer for you? And my last question is on UniCredit. I would be disappointed not to ask a question on UniCredit. But just to be clear because you said that you will give a financial target, whatever the result of the negotiation that you be off or you stay.

So do we have to understand that you will give conservative targets as if you were off this deal because I don't understand you are in or you're out, you can be both. You see what I mean. It's not very clear for me. So can we understand that you will give conservative targets? And in case you stay on board with UniCredit, then we will have good surprise.

Thank you for your questions. First one on French networks and structured products. Structured products, whether in the form of notes on funds, we believe, are something attractive and interesting for clients. They do suffer in the current -- they do suffer, again, I would say, from the competition from the traditional euro contract life insurance, which is gaining momentum, and you can see it on the inflows we get from the -- on the mandates we manage both for Crédit Agricole Assurances and Sogécap. And so I think the flows were slightly negative due to the increased competition.

Regarding your question on AXA and BNP, to be clear, I don't want to comment on operations that are taking place with competitors, but it's not a game changer for us. They were competitors. The combined entity will be a competitor, but no game changer as we see it. And regarding your last question on UniCredit, what I can say is that there is uncertainty. You are asking if we'll be in or out, we could be out, we could be in, we could be in various ways. So we don't know, and that's why we say to you what we can say, what we know, there are uncertainty and the targets we will provide, will take into the account this uncertainty, and we will ensure that we provide targets that we can deliver whatever the outcome is.

Next question from Mike is a follow-up again. Mike Werner from UBS.

Just a quick one, please. In your worst-case scenario, as you mentioned, with UniCredit with the -- if the contract is not renegotiated, you mentioned that you expect to take about 2 years for those assets to roll off. Are you still required to pay those retrocession fees to UniCredit if you do not renew that contract?

Rebates are paid on the stock of AUM. So yes, we will continue to pay rebates on the AUM as long as there are AUMs.

Okay. And we have another follow-up from Angeliki from JPMorgan.

Just two. Firstly, on UniCredit, can I please ask if you are currently sitting on the negotiating table with them or if it's too early to start discussing because are we in a stage where you're currently discussing various scenarios? Or are we in a stage where there is no communication and you will communicate with them closer to the termination of the contract, which I appreciate is not yet that close? And second question, just a follow-up on flows. Multi-asset flows were positive this quarter after several quarters of outflows. And I was just wondering which channels drove this? Is it retail, institutional and which geographies perhaps?

So on your first question, we obviously are partners of UniCredit, and we are constantly discussing with them on our partnerships. Let's say, the existing agreements are still alive for close to 2 years, a bit more than 1.5 years. So we are very well in advance before that. Regarding the multi-asset flows, if you want to...

Yes, Angeliki. The flows were positive over the quarter, EUR 2.6 billion. And what we can say is that it's very diversified in terms of client segments and geographies with small outflows coming from a bit everywhere.

Okay. Do we have a follow-up from Pierre or have you kept your -- no. Okay. So I think we are done with the Q&A session. Last chance to raise your hand if you have another one. No. So I think I can hand over to Nicolas and Aurelia for any concluding remarks.

Just to thank you again for your participation and to say that we are very looking forward to meeting you in 3 weeks on November 18 for our ambitious new medium-term plan. Thank you very much.