Poste Italiane Aktie

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Poste Italiane's First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. In a few moments, the CEO, Matteo Del Fante, will take you through some opening remarks as well as a short update on the TIM offer. Then our CFO, Camillo Greco, will cover the financials.

As usual, the presentation will be followed by a Q&A session where you can ask questions either via phone or through our webcast platform. For any topics we won't be able to cover today, please do contact the Investor Relations team, who will be happy to follow up.

With that, over to you, Matteo.

Good morning, everyone. Our Q1 2026 results highlight a very strong start of the year and confirm the strength of our platform model. We delivered a record first quarter with revenues of EUR 3.5 billion and a healthy 8% year-on-year growth supported by all business units. On profitability, we achieved a record adjusted EBIT of EUR 905 million, up 14% year-on-year, reflecting continued cost discipline in the current inflationary environment. Net profit reached EUR 617 million, up 3% year-on-year. Commercial trends remained solid with EUR 1.7 billion investment inflows, coupled with strong momentum in postal savings and stable retail deposits.

We continue to operate from a position of strength. The group balance sheet remains robust with our solvency ratio at 294% and a EUR 341 million improvement in our net financial position generated in the quarter, which is EUR 43 million more than in the first quarter of last year.

Finally, digital payments once again grew above the market, underlying the strength of our platform and its ability to generate sustainable growth. On the back of the strong start of the year and a better-than-expected interest rate environment, we have raised our full year '26 adjusted EBIT guidance to EUR 3.4 billion. We present our stand-alone 2026-2030 plan together with the Q2 results on July 24.

Let me move for a second on TIM and give you an update on the tender offer. Over the past few months, we have further strengthened our conviction on the strategic rationale of the transaction and its perfect fit with Poste Italiane platform business model. With our solid balance sheet and strong cash generation, we're uniquely positioned to support digital investment and accelerate strategic initiatives that will deliver growth. The merger of Poste Telco and TIM consumer businesses will create the #1 mobile operator in Italy, kick starting the next leg of domestic telco consolidation. Importantly, financial and insurance services will remain the dominant profit contributor within the combined entity, representing around 82% of domestic EBIT and approximately 64% of the overall EBIT, including Brazil. The financial profile of the proposed transaction is extremely strong with positive EPS impact from 2027, rising to double-digit accretion from 2028.

Our guidance implied '26 DPS is confirmed and the dividend policy going forward will be accretive compared to the stand-alone scenario. Pro forma leverage is expected at 1.4x by the end of 2026 and steadily decreasing going forward, thanks to the strong cash flow generation of Poste Italiane and TIM Brazil. The offer terms are compelling for TIM shareholders, implying a 17% through premium to the pre-announcement price and up to over 50% premium on unencumbered average prices with 40% value sharing from expected synergies and an attractive stable dividend outlook. The combined entity will have pro forma free float of around EUR 20 billion, enhancing stock liquidity with a highly diversified shareholder base. We are on track to close the deal by Q3 2026.

Let's go back to Poste and group financials on Slide 5. We have posted for the fourth quarter for the fourth consecutive time, a record first quarter with revenues at EUR 3.5 billion. Top line growth translates very effectively into profitability as adjusted EBIT for the quarter reached EUR 905 million, up 14% year-on-year. Net profit, excluding the TIM state contribution was EUR 617 million, up 3%.

On Slide 6, the healthy underlying revenue momentum across all our business segments continues into the new year. In Mail, partner and distribution revenue growth was driven by increasing parcel volumes. The anticipated decline in mail volume is effectively mitigated through ongoing repricing actions. In Financial Services revenue increased by 11% year-on-year to 1.6%, supported by investment portfolio strength and a solid commercial performance. Insurance Services delivered strong results across both Life and protections. Revenue rose 6% in the quarter, reflecting stable CSM stock, capital with higher release percentage. Postepay services delivered solid growth across payment and energy ahead of integration into the new financial hub. The telco customer base remains stable with the number of energy clients has now reached around 1.1 million clients.

Let's go to Slide 7 and look at EBIT evolution by segment. Mail Parcel and Distribution reported an adjusted EBIT of EUR 43 million for the quarter, in line with our full year guidance. Financial Services operating profitability is up 22% to EUR 318 million, driven by overall strong revenue trend. Insurance Services EBIT is up 4%, supported by both Life investment and protection. Finally, Postepay services, a double-digit EBIT growth to EUR 153 million is driven by resilient top line performance and effective cost management. We now look at some examples of how our platform business model is leaving tangible results.

We operate a scalable digitally enabled infrastructure, supported by in-house product visits and a unique combination of physical and digital distribution. The platform allows us to add clients and revenues are near 0 marginal cost while addressing structural everyday needs such as digital payments secure digital identities, energy and everyday services. You can see here a few examples highlighting the strength of the platform. We have become, in fact, Italy's largest payment ecosystem, reaching EUR 1.6 billion revenues in 2025 from EUR 0.4 billion in 2017 with transaction values growing at a 16% CAGR from 2018 to '25, increasing our market share.

Energy is another clear example of how we leverage the platform built on anyhow, cloud-native backbone were scaling customer base at near 0 acquisition cost reaching 1 million clients in 3 years since launch and becoming an increasingly meaningful contributor to group EBIT. Finally, digital identities address a systemic national need. Speed has [indiscernible] scaled to around 30 million users with monetization now accelerating as adoption deepen and upselling opportunity materialize. This is the foundation on which we continue to build the new Poste Italiane as the leading integrated platform company in Italy. I would like now to move to a more detailed update on the TIM offer. The slide illustrates why Poste Italiane and TIM represent a perfect strategic fit, enabling future growth.

Poste Italiane already operates a larger platform in Italy, combining financial insurance services, logistics and distribution, energy and digital identities supported by an unmatched physical and digital network. TIM adds connectivity and tech infrastructure leadership, completing the platform with an iconic market brand, a large retail telco client base, sovereign digital capabilities, enterprise commercial excellence and a market-leading mobile operator in Brazil. The industrial logic is very strong. Together, we serve the largest Italian client base, leveraging a unique distribution footprint made of post offices, digital channels, third-party networks and TIM outlets underpinned by critical physical and digital infrastructure, supporting the country digitalization, connectivity and data plans.

From an earnings standpoint, the combined entity remains firmly anchored to Poste Italiane strength with financial and insurance services accounting for around domestic EBIT and continue to present the bulk of the group cash generation. At the same time, connectivity and digital services to public administration and enterprises represent a powerful growth opportunity. And let me spend now a moment on our super app and why integrating the teen consumer offer is so powerful. With 17 million users and over 4 million daily active users, we already operate an unmatched national scale platform. The Super App is designed around everyday services from payment and banking to connectivity, energy driving higher frequency and greater stickiness than traditional e-commerce models. Today, close to 80% of our app users own more than one product, double the percentage of non-app users integrating TIM premium offering and broad customer base into the Super App accelerates engagement, unlock cross-selling and strengthens the flywheel effect. Important, this is belong on [indiscernible], not loosely assemble partnership.

The results is a unique trusted marketplace for daily essential services and long-term needs, enhanced by AI-driven orchestration and personalization across key life events supporting sustainable growth and multiple monetization levers over time.

To summarize, it is much easier to sell one more product to an existing client than winning a new client. And this is thanks to our digital plus physical seamless assistance to our clients.

Let me now hand over to Camillo for the financial aspects of the proposed transaction as well as a detailed overview of our Q1 '26 financial results. Over to you, Camillo. Thank you.

Thank you, Matteo. Let's briefly focus on the shareholder value creation, which is a key pillar of the transaction. Our ongoing analysis confirmed initial assessment of circa EUR 700 million synergies, which EUR 100 million coming from cost efficiencies and a further EUR 200 million EBIT from incremental revenues. From an earnings perspective, the transaction is EPS accretive from 2027 with double-digit accretion in 2028 compelling pro forma 2028 PE multiple of 8 to 9x. On dividends, we reconfirm guidance implied EPS with dividends paid also the new shares issued as a result of the TIM offer with an accretive dividend policy going forward. .

Leverage remains low at around 1.4x net debt-to-EBITDA after lease by year-end 2026 and declining thereafter with current credit ratings as of today confirmed by all 3 rating agencies.

Let's move to a more detailed overview of expected synergies. On the revenue side, with TIM, we will add a premium connectivity offer to our platform and unlock powerful cross and upselling opportunities through Italy's large distribution network and our 4.2 million Super App daily active users. We will also accelerate growth across enterprise and public administrations as we expand the tech services offer of cloud, cybersecurity, IoT and Agentic AI as well as integrated one-stop shop for financial insurance, sovereign solutions and other services. Overall, we confirm more than EUR 200 million of EBIT from incremental revenues. On the cost side, the in-debt analysis confirms around EUR 400 million efficiencies. The merger post the telco and in consumer enables OpEx and workforce rationalization.

The deal will generate efficiencies from digital and technology integration optimization of the distribution networks and real estate footprint as well as economies of scale on advertising and procurement costs. Additionally, the relaunch of our in-sourcing program will provide further structural benefits. Positive investment grade rating will allow for an optimization of the combined entities funding cost. We expect one-off integration costs of around EUR 700 million per tax, mainly over 2026-2027.

Moving to Slide 14. This page illustrates how we see the true premium offered to shareholders and why we believe our value proposition is compelling. Consider both the cash component of the deal as well as the expected value of the shareholders' share of the combined entity, including synergies, the true premium embedded in our offer is 70%, calculated on a pre-deal spot basis. The embedded premium rises up to 50% if calculating an unencumbered average price as TIM shares have written by around 110% since our first investment in February 2025. Importantly, our offer to TIM minority shareholders embed a 40% sharing of the value of the synergies in line with the market standard 50-50 split when considering Poste Italian already owns 20% of TIM share capital. Overall, this transaction structure delivered an attract premium, transparent value sharing and long-term upside to all shareholders.

Let's move to Slide 15 for an update on the transaction time line. We announced a deal on March 22, followed by the filing of the exchange and cash offer documentation and regulatory submissions on April 10, both completed as planned. On June 18, we will hold an EGM for the capital increase proposal. On July 24, we will present Poste Italiane stand-alone 2026, 2030 plan alongside with Q and H1 2026 results providing full transparency and enabling a more informed assessment of the value of the equity component of the consideration. By the end of July, we expect Banco Italian concept approvals along the offer period start with closing targeted for end of Q3 2026. Overall, execution is progressing roughly and in line with our stated time line.

Let's now move to our Q1 financial results from Page #17. In Mail Parcel and Distribution, revenues totaled just over EUR 1 billion, up 6% year-on-year. Net revenues, EUR 505 million are down by 3%, in line with the trend that we anticipated for full year 2026. Parcel revenues accelerated a remarkable 15% to EUR 453 million driven by market share gains across the diversity of customer base and cost of logistics development. On the logistics front, we announced a JV with Benetton logistics, leveraging our logistics and e-commerce leadership to create a scale platform capable of attracting new customers and supporting profitable growth for the group. Distribution revenues from other business units are up 7% in the quarter driven by strong commercial momentum and active portfolio manager concentration in Q1 '26. Adjusted EBITDA EUR 43 million in Q1 '26 is one in line with the year guidance.

Let's look at volumes on tariff on Slide #18. Parcel volumes were up 15%, supported by continuing market share gains across customer segments. 43% of items are now delivered via the postal network, up 3 percentage points versus last year. Looking at parcel pricing, the average tariff remains broadly stable as volume growth is spread across customer segments and growth in lower price items comes with a lower unit cost to deliver. Moving to mail. The volume trend is in line with expectations down 8%, whilst the higher mail average tariff reflects ongoing repricing actions across both regulated and market products. Moving to Financial Services in gross revenues for the quarter at EUR 1.8 billion, up 8%. Net interest income came at EUR 658 million Q1 '26 reflecting lower rates on variable portfolio versus Q1 '25, while marginally ahead of 2026 guidance as a result of an improved interest rate environment towards the end of the quarter.

We expect this will provide more meaningful support to NII in the coming quarters. The EUR 166 million active portfolio management revenues realized in the quarter represent most of the capital gains expected for the year. Postal saving distribution fees are stable at EUR 440 million and supported by improved net inflows. Consumer loan fees reached EUR 66 million. Asset management revenues are up 27% to EUR 55 million in Q1 benefiting from higher assets under management. Finally, adjusted EBIT came in at EUR 318 million, up 22%, reflecting the positive revenue trend.

Moving to Slide 20 [indiscernible], up EUR 5.3 billion in the 3 months from the end of 2025. Looking briefly at each component, we reported strong EUR 1.7 billion net inflows in investment products, confirming the positive trend in life insurance with significant contribution from multi-class products as well as in asset management. Deposits were up, benefiting from higher balancing from PA clients and resilient deposits, retail deposits at EUR 59 billion, confirming the stickiness and loyalty of our customer base. improved postal savings net outflows were driven by higher flows in postal bonds.

Moving to Slide 21. Insurance service revenues amounted to EUR 469 million Q1 '26, up 6% year-on-year. We continue to have positive net flows in Q1 '26 with a significant contribution from [indiscernible] products. Our improving lapse rate down to 7% is driven by normalizing market environment and lower client portfolio rebalancing activity in Q1 '26 at around 13% -- around 35% of our lapses have been reinvested into new life products. Life Investment and [indiscernible] were up 6% to EUR 43 million in Q1 driven by growing CSM and higher EAs. Protection revenue were up 9% in the quarter, supported by higher gross ripen premium, up 6% to [indiscernible] and the market-leading combined ratio. Adjusted EBIT of [indiscernible] is up 4% compared to Q1 '25, supported by both Life investment and protection. Net profit of EUR 265 million reflects the lower free capital yield due to the additional remittance to the [indiscernible] company and the temporary higher Europe tax rate.

On Slide 22, we showed the CSM evolution in the quarter. Normalized CSM growth is positive at 2.9% annualized with a strong increase in new business value and expected return more than compensated in the quarterly release. Group CSM at the end of the quarter is at EUR 13.8 billion, providing strong visibility on the division's sustainable profitability going forward. Importantly, both the CSM and the equity of our insurance business have grown in the quarter. [indiscernible] group Solvency II ratios was [ 294 ] at the end of March 2026, well above the managerial ambition of around 200% through the cycle. This ratio already embeds the accrual of the 100% net profit remittance to the parent company. The ratio remains solid with the movement mainly driven by negative impact from economic variances due to higher risk-free rates and spreads, while the turn capital generation of the business fully covers the foreseeable dividend impact.

Moving to [indiscernible] on Slide #24, where solid revenue and EBIT progression continues ahead of integration into the financial hub. Revenue rose by 7% year-on-year to EUR 4 million to EUR 5 million in Q1 as our unique everyday ecosystem continues to drive top line and profitability growth. Strong payment revenues at EUR 297 million, up 5% in the quarter, supported by higher transaction value, up 10% year-on-year and growth in total number of ecosystem transactions, up 14%. Telco revenue was stable in Q1 at EUR 82 million, thanks to solid client acquisition nights. The immigration to the TIM network infrastructure has been completed in April. Energy revenue reached EUR 46 million in the quarter driven by the expansion of the customer base now 1.1 million clients. Top line performance and effective cost margin drove a strong 15% adjusted EBIT growth to EUR 153 million in Q1.

Let me now give you a brief overview of Poste Italiane Telco business, launched as an MVNO 2007, the Telco business is now the fifth player in Italy with a total of 4 million customers with a 6% market share in mobile. Our [indiscernible] is extremely loyal with a 6% to 7% churn rate well below market levels. 2025 revenues were EUR 3 million to EUR 8 million, while in Q1 '26, we reached EUR 82 million. Profitability is meaningful and improving contribution to gross EBIT implying a 25% margin. The business operates with a very lean structure, leveraging our nationwide physical distribution network and digital channels, including the Super App. Against this backdrop, the envisage possible combination of posted Telco business within consumer carries the #1 mobile operator in Italy and effectively staff the next leg of domestic telco consolidation.

Since the end of 2025, the average head count has fallen to just over 119,000. Importantly, the value-added per FTE continues to improve by 7% [indiscernible] per FTE. HR cost per FTE are up 2% to [indiscernible] per FTE as a result of higher variable compensation and labor agreement salary increase.

Moving to Slide 27. HR costs increased marginally by 1% to over EUR 1.4 billion, mainly driven by EUR 23 million of additional costs from a variable compensation and labor agreement [indiscernible] in this quarter, ordinary charge cost revenues are down to 39%. Non-HR costs increased by EUR 116 million year-on-year. Fixed costs were up due to the concentration of marketing and advertising costs in the quarter. Variable costs are up EUR 66 million, reflecting business growth dynamics. D&A are up by EUR 18 million, in line with the increase in investment driving our continued transformation. In general, our focus on cost and CapEx discipline across all divisions remain [indiscernible] sharp and protecting the bottom line profitability is a priority.

Thank you for your time. Let me hand over to Matteo for [indiscernible].

Thank you, Camillo. To conclude, Poste Italiane is delivering record results with healthy growth, rising profitability and a very solid balance sheet, validating the strength of our platform business model. Looking ahead, in light of our strong Q1 results, and an improved interest rate environment, we have raised our adjusted EBIT guidance to EUR 3.4 billion for the year. Against this backdrop, we're even more convinced that the TIM transaction is the natural step in our platform evolution. TIM [indiscernible] and technological leadership completes our offering with an iconic premium brand and enables us to fully lock the value of our physical digital ecosystem. The deal is financially disciplined EPS and DPS accretive, also thanks to material expected synergies and is fully consistent with our capital and dividend framework.

Execution is on track and the closing is expected by Q3 '26. We are entering a new chapter of our journey, shaped by the progress we achieved and driven by a clear long-term ambition. On July 24, we will be unveiling our strategic 2026 to 2030 stand-alone plan alongside our Q2 '26 results. I look forward to seeing you there or even before in our road show. Thank you, and over to Giuseppe.

Thank you, Matteo. We are now ready to start the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] The first question we have today is from Antonio Reale at Bank of America.

I've got a couple of questions and one clarification, if I may. The first one is you've upgraded your EBIT guidance for the year up to EUR 3.4 billion and I understand you'll be presenting your stand-alone plan targets in Q2. But if you could give us a bit more color around sort of the moving parts driving this and where you think see better commercial momentum within the group. That will be my first question.

My second one is a follow-up, a clarification on, I think, on your dividend remarks. I think if I remember back in February, you guided for a net profit of EUR 2.3 billion with a payout that was at least 70%, which in your existing share count, it implies something like EUR 1.3 dividend per share or so which will still be up year-on-year. And I think this is broadly in line with consensus expectations. Now I also think you've said that you expect this number to be growing consistently with the accretion that would derive from the deal. I just want to make sure I've understood this right. You're sticking to a growing DPS even after accounting for the new share count, which you need to issue to fund the Telecom Italia acquisition. Did I understand that right? And if you could elaborate, I think it's an important point.

The last question is really on your synergies on the Telecom Italia deal. You've talked about EUR 700 million pretax, of which EUR 500 million cost synergies from year 2 and EUR 200 million in higher revenues from year 3, if I look at your Slide 13 correctly. You've given us good details on this slide. Maybe you can sort of walk us through and tell us where you would see any relevant upside that is not included in these numbers.

Thank you, Antonio. I'll take the first question and then hand it over to the CFO. I think we have a strong momentum in our core business, the financial business. We have posted the first quarter with strong retail investment flows. And I think this is the to stay for this year. And obviously, it will be a target for a plan. I would say that the -- over the plan up to 2030, the also energy business will also finally give a very meaningful contribution to the EBIT base of Poste and then I think the other very important direction we're taking is with the consolidation of our payment business into BancoPosta and the ambition to present to the market a unified financial services segment, including insurance. We have started more than a year ago, journey given on the 3 segments, a unified leadership that will break some of the normal internal segment dynamics and will allow us to present a real client center offering for financial services.

And finally, before I hand over to Camillo, we will keep the evolution of our logistic presence. We reach almost 50% of our parcels delivered by Letterman. The '28 plan was targeting 2/3 so I'm curious to see where we will be able to commit for 2030, but that's another big transformation step allowing our lettermen that day by day has less mail to deliver to be busier and busier with parcel. And this quarter, 15% growth on Parcel give us a lot of confidence that we are in the right direction. We're gaining market share in B2C for the first couple of years. So we started gaining market share in B2B. And finally, we have never seen it in Poste. We start to see a meaningful growth on outbound products since we did our strategic agreement with DHL. Since 2 years, we have a product. We have put together a commercial focus on this. And finally, we start to see numbers coming through -- please, Camillo on dividend.

Yes. So I'll start with 2026, and then I'll comment on the second part. With regards to 2026, yes, we had given guidance of EUR 2.3 billion for 2026. And we also said at the time that the expected dividend was going to be within the range of [indiscernible] I think that the guidance that we gave, the increased guidance we gave to [indiscernible] profit level gives us pace to be very confident to be at least at top end of that range. With regarding [indiscernible] the second question, which is a dividend policy going forward if the transaction goes ahead, the CEO did guide towards single-digit accretion for EPS and double-digit accretion is for 2027 and 2028, respectively, and we expect the dividend to follow that same direction. And then there is the third question on synergy.

Yes. And now we talk about -- so with respect to synergies, the number that we gave on the 22nd of March was EUR 700 million. That was the result of some outselling work that we did within post with a very small group of individuals involved. I think that since then, we have done a massive amount of work internally with different work stream involving both the revenue side and the cost side involving every corporate function of the group. And at this point, we can say that we feel very comfortable of our ability to deliver that level of synergies. Obviously, there is marginally different mix compared to what we expected initially, but the total is the total is confirmed at least as a base.

The next question is from Alberto Villa at Intermonte.

The first one is again on the guidance, just to be to understand correctly, if the upward revision was only related to the, let's say, financial segment. And if you can provide us with your underlying assumption in terms of guidance for 2026 from investment portfolio. You also had a target of around EUR 200 million of active portfolio management that you basically did most of capital gains in the first quarter. Can we assume that you are basically done there and for the rest of the year is mostly coming from the better environment in terms of interest rates that is boosting the investment portfolio and the guidance?

The second question is on the announced agreement with the Benetton group in logistics. If you can expand a little bit on that and let us understand better what are the implications and potential positive coming from this agreement that would be helpful. And finally, curiosity, since you launched the offer on TIM, I was wondering if you can give us some color on what was the reaction by the different stakeholders on the offer the, let's say, the positive and pushback comments you have been gathering from the different side, let's say, investors and also inside of the company and so on, that would be interesting to hear.

I will let -- I will follow the order and so you, Camillo start and then I...

Yes. So with regards to the guidance upgrade, I think that the key point which has led us to increase the guidance is the evolution of the NII. I think we said that in the speech and the script in the presentation. The backdrop to this is that we have guided in February to EUR 2.7 billion of total portfolio return, which was in line with the year before 2025 whereas in [indiscernible], we had no capital gains, and we were planning to do something between EUR 100 million and EUR 200 million in 2026. We have reached that level. So first of all, there should be not much more in terms of capital gain compared to what we have already done. But overall, we are increasing our guidance to total portfolio return to EUR 2.8 billion as we are going to have EUR 100 million more of NII compared to the initial guidance of EUR 2.7 million.

Yes, and -- just to be -- just to top up -- just one word on the answer. The capital gain, we recorded in the first quarter, we had already anticipated. I think the market was aware it. But please bear in mind, as you see in our appendix that we still have -- if you look at Page 34 of our appendix, we still have EUR 1.5 billion of gross unrealized gains. So that's our historical buffer that we use if and when need be. The agreement with Benetton is basically A very important step, we're creating new companies starting from their warehousing facilities in [indiscernible] Northern East Italy. They basically spin off their premises into Logistics 360, that's the name of the company. We will own 51% of this company.

So we will consolidate the business. We will start serving obviously, the Benetton Group, but the strategy behind the transaction is that the warehousing system is unsaturated. And therefore, we have already started offering that platform for warehousing to other prospect clients and that obviously has a very interesting marginality because the warehousing is already amortized in the new co. It will give us additional revenues, some EBIT contribution. We will have to do some CapEx to upgrade premises but more importantly, it will allow us to go up the value chain. We have follow-up for the last 9 years. We started at the end of the line. And today, we are at the top of the logistic space in Italy, mainly driven by B2C, but we started already 3 to 4 years ago, a journey achieving more value-added services that's obviously the B2B space, which will be coming also out of this and will be the warehousing.

The third question is TIM offering of March reaction and push back -- the reaction overall, even though we are clearly pushing the envelope from some standpoint because obviously, we are asking a different client base to learn the ops of the financial institution domain, which is where we belong, is overall positive. Clearly, there is always, as in any transaction, some price objectives and tensions on you could have offered more. Our page today and what we call the true premium, I think is a good answer to that push back. I'm referring to Page 14, where we show that on a true premium basis, looking at the value that the TIM shareholders had the Friday before the tender and comparing that value with the value that they will have after the transaction is completed and synergies are brought home.

There is a 17% to the TIM shareholders, but we didn't mention in the presentation, there is a 10% for the post shareholders. So I think we have made an effort to be on the TIM side of investors. And as Camillo reminded on the call, these numbers are assuming an unencumber assets, the reality is that, obviously, we were with them for more than a year now. And so if you look at it on a longer time frame, and it's -- I think we can debate as long as we want, whether on the 22nd of March, when we launched the offer on the Sunday TIM was in [indiscernible], but certainly, certainly, it was not a totally unencumbered asset. If you look at it on a longer time frame to reach as much as 50% through premium.

I think the most interesting trend we are seeing, the more time we spend on the road, mainly with obviously post investors is that our strategy, the more we detail it becomes clearer to investors. It's clearly a long journey. We have 3 months more to go before there is the final launch of the offer, and this is a time that we will spend explaining the opportunity to all investors. And at the end of this period, you will have also the opportunity like the first question of Antonio pointed out of our catalyst strategic plan stand-alone on the 24th of March. And let me add finish that, that plan will be a stand-alone plan plus obviously, we'll have, as we did today, the optionality that we will show an update to investors of the TIM transaction.

Back to our next question is from Tommaso Nieddu at Kepler.

The first one is on payments revenues given we are ahead of its consolidation in the financial half. In the quarter, [indiscernible] at 5%. The underlying KPIs were materially stronger because if you look at transaction volume, value is plus 10%, total transaction plus 14% and that's like a 6 to 10 percentage point gap, and we shouldn't have any more the headwind from the instant payments. So my question would be, if you can help us decompose what is happening on the take rate. I understand you shouldn't follow closely. But [indiscernible] would be highly appreciated. .

And the second one on guidance, sorry, it's a follow-up. You have raised the adjusted EBIT guidance, but not the net profit guidance. And should we read this as a flagging some offsetting headwinds below the line? Or it is just a matter of rounding when it goes down and you expect as well a positive even at smaller upgrade on net income?

Thank you, Tommaso. I will let Camillo dig a little bit on payments as you required, and remind everybody that on Page 48 of the 47 and 48 of the appendix, we have some very strong data on our payment growth since 2018 when we created our payment division.

Yes. So thank you, Matteo. So we are indeed pleased with the performance of the PostePay Services division within what we call payments, there a number of subset of revenue contributors, which are grossly divided in 2 categories. One are card payments and the card payments has enjoyed strong performance. And then we have another group of contributors, which are called either payments. And within other payments, there are also things that have been, as we planned, performing a bit less strong as an example, payments related to [indiscernible] been going down. So if you average out the 2 digits, this is where you get. And overall, the transaction metrics and underlying trends in payments are indeed very strong as also you can look at in the appendix of our presentation.

With respect to the second question, we have indeed upgraded our guidance at the operating profit level. We have not done the same at net profit was implicit in what I said to Antonio as we had 2.3 and 2.3 is EUR 100 million, let's say, corridor. And with the upgrade. We are now in the upper end of that 2.3% compared to where we were at the presentation in February.

Next question is from Andrea Lisi of Equita.

The first one is on the parcel segment, where we saw a strong acceleration in volumes and that transmitted also to revenues that is stronger than the past quarter. So what should we expect going on. But also on this point, what are the actions you are putting in place to see some more transmission of the higher revenue is also to higher EBIT level on the division. The second question is [indiscernible]. We have seen a small decline in the card stock quarter-on-quarter. If there is any reason or something you have observed on that. And really last one on the GDP in Life business, 7% year-on-year decline. Can you provide some more color on that and which trends are you experiencing [indiscernible] going on?

I'll start with [indiscernible] and then let Camillo on the second question. Yes, I mean we keep our focus on parcel that is created future or logistic space. the game 9 years ago was to be able to go on the field and play because to be entirely honest, 9 years ago, we were not even in the top 5 players at home, forget about the international or the outbound. Now we're clearly at the lead of that game. So the market share game has worked. And Andrea, you're totally right saying when will you be able to extract margins out of this position. To be entirely honest, I think it's still a bit premature because the market is extremely competitive from what we hear nobody is really smiling out of our competitors, and our competitors are all foreign on giants, the likes of the FedEx, UPS, DHL, GLS and Bertolini owned by La Poste.

So I think there is still a very strong competitive environment that at least on the B2C and to some extent, on the B2B, doesn't leave a lot of value for increasing pricing and margin. The way we're trying to address this, as I mentioned, is going up the value chain, we did the Plurima acquisition 4 years ago to move into health care logistics, where we took a leadership and we keep growing there. We launched a contract logistic company that has started making some meaningful inroads in contract logistics. So that's the first time in history that Poste entered the warehousing business in logistics and clearly, Benetton is an evolution of that model. So the way we think we can extract margins out of the logistics space in the next 2 to 3 years in summary, is more out of moving up the value chain then the pure B2C or B2B.

And let's not forget, that's one very important item that is paying off very, very, very well. The Pudo market, so the delivery in location. So everything which is not home delivery, we have an absolute leadership there with today, almost a quarter of all our B2C volumes going into a Pudo place. That's a staggering number and that applies to our network and that applies to our network because other than our post offices, which are 12,000 enabled to do parcels. We are adding to those the [indiscernible] Poste, which is our clear part network, which is another 20,000 points that we launched 3 years ago, the [indiscernible] JV with DHL, which is also going very well. We have an intermediate target of 3,000 lockers. But the objective is 10,000.

So that space, which is extremely important in terms of covering the ground because if you look at developed markets, when retail finds convenient to be delivered in a pod that habit becomes relatively sticky. So if you gain that space, you gain that client and you gain the fact that you have efficiency because, obviously, every time we stop and refill a [indiscernible] or give our path to a third-party agent, we can do multiple of 10, 15 items as opposed to the home delivery item, which is obviously a trip, one drop as opposed to 1,310 drops.

Okay. So I'll take the other questions. So the first question is around the evolution of the stock of cards. I think that on this point, we are where we want to be. If we look at I think you are comparing the stock of cards to fiscal year 2025. We are up on posted pay evolutions, which are the cards which are the ones which have been investing more in terms of capabilities. We are also up on debit cards. We are down on posted a standard, but only the portion of cards which is associated to government grants or government payments. So that stock of cars have been going down as the funds being transferred to Italian citizens on the cards have been going down progressively too. So that is what has led to that evolution. But the cards with which we work the most have been growing as we expected.

With respect to the second question, which I need to address, which was with regards to the lapse rate, it has indeed gone down to 7% below where it was last year, it's still above our historical trend levels. And hopefully, we'll manage to control that also going forward. Certainly, at this level, we are in line with the budget levels for 2026, despite being ahead of where it was in the past. Let me also forget, as I said in my script, that part of this lapse is self-induced as we are effectively rotating portfolios to different products within our product suite. So if you isolate that impact the true lapse rate is around 4.5% as opposed to 7%.

Next question is from Giovanni Razzoli at Deutsche Bank.

One question and one clarification. I've seen that you had EUR 2 billion of outflows in the postal savings in this quarter. In the previous conference, I'm not mistaken, you mentioned that this year, there will be a concentration of redemptions of this product. Can you please confirm if we have already at the peak of outflows in redemptions in 2025 or if you would expect it more in '26 and '27? And second question is a clarification as the line was pretty bad. On your response Camillo about the dividend per share, you mentioned the range of EUR 1.3, EUR 1.5 of dividend guidance for 2026? Or did they...

No, I didn't say that, Giovanni, I stop immediately. I said that I said in February, EUR 1.25 to EUR 1.3. And what I'm saying now is that the result of the upgrade of the net profit, we feel very comfortable getting at least at the top end of that range.

So there is another question left.

And the first question on postal bonds, I can tell you that '27 is lower redemptions and that we had a very good year so far on postal savings. So we continue the positive trend of reducing the net outflows and that's thanks to our focus on one end, our changing distribution model in the making and the fact that we keep enjoying sort of honeymoon with our colleagues and shareholders of CASA deposit [indiscernible] will keep providing us a very appealing, very [indiscernible] products for our clients. And one thing that I mentioned few times in the past few years, but I take the opportunity to repeated postal savings being in the hands of 35 million Italians and having meaningful redemptions every year are an engine in the engine of the platform.

In other words, if you have a nice and good offering of postal savings, on the shelf that you can offer to your clients. The dynamics with your clients across products is a positive one and that allows you to get the client going to redemption to reinvest in postal savings. If risk parameters allowed to start a diversification trajectory into risk and into multiclass insurance products. And that's the basis also for our strong performance in protection because that comes together with often an embedded offer in life products, and that drives many of our products. And when we talk about the flywheel effect when we talk about the platform, when we say that it's much easier to sell a new product to a client that you already own then go out and win a totally new client, that's exactly what we mean.

Postal savings working is a new client is a client satisfied with the performance of the product that has -- is in the perfect mood to receive a new offer on a product. And that's really in a nutshell the -- if you allow me, kind of the secret weapon, we're trying to put on the table every day with our 30,000 tellers and 9,000 consultants facing retail on the physical side and our more than 4 million daily average users. We have shown in February an increasing participation of the postal savings sales on the digital platform.

We have one more question from Michael Huttner at Berenberg.

Yes. And it was really a very light question. So -- well, actually 2. One is on inflation and the other one is on solvency. I did ask you one fly TIM and they said no inflation is like nothing, EUR 10 million or something. But I always worry a little bit about potential disruption to the cost part of your business. So that would be one question. What's the outlook there? And then the second is on solvency, so 294%, the managerial guidance, 200. I know you're doing this EUR 1.5 billion cash extraction from PosteVita, you've done EUR 500 million. And I think in this number, you've already deducted EUR 1 billion. Is there more to come out of this? Or how should we think about it?

Please, Camillo, if you start with the inflation impact.

Yes. Michael, I do to worry about inflation. So we do ensure that message is passed to our divisions. And with regards to 2026, we did have in the first quarter some inflation-related cost I think to the tune of around EUR 20 million in the quarter, and that has to do mainly with variable cost growing with inflation and also some of that EUR 20 million related to transportation cost where I also add that we are systematically transferring extra potential transportation costs related to energy to our customers to the extent we can.

And on solvency -- the EUR 294 million for the sake of clarity is including out of the -- sorry, EUR 1.50 billion special dividend upstream from PosteVita, EUR 1 billion. The last EUR 500 million will have around 11 basis point impact. What we will do from here, I'm sorry, Michael, you need to be patient, going back to the first question of Antonio Reale is going to be unveil on the 24th of July.

So that was the last question. So thank you all very much for joining us today.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Over the next hour, we'll be presenting our full year 2025 preliminary results as well as our 2026 strategy update. As you can see from the agenda on the screen, our CEO, Matteo Del Fante, will kick off with an overview of the main achievements to date, our strategic priorities and key financial targets for 2026. Then our CFO, Camillo Greco, will take the floor to deep dive into the financials. After some closing remarks from our CEO, we will open the Q&A session. For any topics we won't be able to cover today, please do reach out to the Investor Relations team, and we'll be happy to follow up.

With that, I think we can start. And Matteo, over to you.

Good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome to Poste Italiane 2025 Preliminary Results and 2026 Strategy Update. Today, we will be running through our record 2025 results, our '26 guidance and remuneration policy as well as our strategic priorities going forward. 2025 has been an exceptional year for Poste Italiane. We delivered the strongest results in our history with record revenues and profitability, sustained by a solid commercial performance, strong returns from our investment portfolio and continued cost discipline across the group. The strategic plan continues to make excellent progress with all key initiatives fully on track, including the deployment of the new commercial service model and the logistics transformation. We have further strengthened our digital engagement and omnichannel strategy with the successful migration to the Super App, which is now the #1 Italian app with over 4 million daily active users.

During the year, we consolidated our position as TIM largest long-term shareholders, reaching a 27% stake of ordinary shares and launched several work streams to generate industrial synergies with TIM. Finally, we are proposing a full year dividend per share of EUR 1.25, up 16% year-on-year for a total distribution of EUR 1.6 billion, corresponding to a payout ratio of 73%. The balance of EUR 0.85 per share equivalent to EUR 1.1 billion will be paid in June '26. These achievements confirm the strength of our platform business model, and we continue to execute our long-term strategic road map.

The new '26 guidance points to an EBIT higher than EUR 3.3 billion and a net profit of EUR 2.3 billion, excluding the contribution from the TIM stake, which instead will be fully additive to our shareholder remuneration policy on a cash-for-cash basis, as you will see later in the presentation. Our new multiyear strategic plan with updated guidance and targets beyond 2026 will be released later on this year.

Let's move to Slide 7, please. We pride ourselves in being Italy's largest digital platform, connecting the country through our extensive network of almost 13,000 post offices and 49,000 third-party touch points. Overall, we manage 27 million phygital daily interaction with our 46 million clients, 19 million of which are digitally enabled. We are Italy connecting tissue, a platform built on trust, scale and nationwide proximity, committed to generating value for all stakeholders and delivering consistent financial returns to our shareholders.

Let's move to Slide 8, please. In 2025, revenues reached EUR 13.12 billion and adjusted EBIT rose to EUR 3.24 billion, underscoring the strength of our strategy and flawless execution. Net profit of EUR 2.22 billion comes in at the high end of the updated guidance that we released in July. Shareholder remuneration growth is fully aligned with profitability. With the proposed EUR 1.25 per share for 2025, our dividend has increased at an average annual rate of 15% consistently since 2017.

Moving to Slide 9. With the obvious sole exception of the COVID year, we have a proven track record of consistently outperforming our initial EBIT guidance. This highlights the strength of our diversified business model and the consistency of our execution. Let's move to Slide 10 on shareholder remuneration. Since 2016, we have returned EUR 9 billion to our shareholders. Over the same period, our market capitalization increased over 3.5x from approximately EUR 8 billion at the end of 2016 to around EUR 30 billion today. This means that our total shareholder return has materially outperformed the Italian market index by 2.5x. With a record net profit of EUR 2.22 billion, dividends for 2025 will amount to EUR 1.6 billion or EUR 1.25 per share. This represents a remarkable 21% average annual growth since 2020.

Moving to Slide 11. In 2025, we further strengthened our platform by delivering across all our strategic priorities. We completed the migration to the Super App the single AI-powered access point to our entire ecosystem. We acquired 27% stake of ordinary shares in TIM, and we're working together on initiatives designed to unlock tangible industrial synergies. Finally, we expanded our role in Italy's digital transformation with the acquisition of a 49% stake in PagoPA. We consolidated our position as the #1 parcel operator in Italy with record net revenues. In Financial Services, we reached record investment portfolio revenues at EUR 2.7 billion, while in insurance services, we posted a solid growth in protection with gross written premium up 21% year-on-year to EUR 1.2 billion.

Finally, we have reached a milestone of 1 million energy contracts and launched TIM Energia powered by Poste Italiane with very promising early commercial results, reinforcing our confidence in the strong growth opportunities ahead of us. Let's move to Slide 12, please. Let's now look at some KPIs demonstrating the strength of our digital platform, which is the largest in Italy today. In recent years, we have made substantial investment in our digital platform, expanding our footprint and strengthening customer loyalty across all business lines. This platform is at the core of our strategy and remains a key enabler of sustainable growth. We continue to scale our digital infrastructure. Since 2017, we have deployed EUR 6.7 billion in technology with more than 70% dedicated to transformational projects. We have also strengthened our capabilities with 2,500 IT specialists, enabling us to accelerate time to market and support the evolution of our business.

At the same time, we have moved decisively towards a multi-cloud architecture with around EUR 200 million in cloud consumption in 2025 alone and approximately 90% of initiatives being cloud native. This infrastructure gives us flexibility resilience and scalability while reducing cost over time. Our platform is increasingly AI and data-driven with more than 4 billion transactions analyzed in 2025, improving customer insights, operational efficiency and product personalization. Our goal is to fully unlock the platform effect by starting with a simple premise, a satisfied digital client is for Poste a lifelong client. Moreover, hybrid clients seamlessly using our digital and physical channels show a cross-selling ratio roughly 2.5x higher than single channel users. And bear in mind that each additional cross-selling points generates a threefold increase in revenues per client.

Moving to Slide 13. Our Super App is the core of our omnichannel strategy. We have successfully completed the migration from our legacy apps to a single unified platform that now serves 16 million users. It has already become the #1 Italian app with 4.2 million daily active users, more than the combined total value of all our previous apps together. The Super App is designed as an AI-driven gateway that strengthens our omnichannel capabilities, boosting digital sales while also increasing post office sales initiated through digital engagement, a dynamic we like to refer to as drive to the post office effect. In fact, in 2025, 44% of our total sales involve a digital contribution. 26% were completed through direct digital channels and 19% through the drive to post office effect. Overall, this represents a 19% increase year-on-year. The clear success story is in postal savings, where digitally induced inflows accounted for 45% of the total with a 29% year-on-year increase.

In 2025, hybrid or omnichannel buyers generated 35% more sales per customer than offline buyers and grew 18% compared to 2024, a clear sign of moving in the right direction. This is only the beginning of our journey as the Super App is still far from reaching its full potential. Let's move to Slide 14. Sustainability continues to be a key strategic enabler of our long-term value creation. With the Polis project, we're supporting greater social and territorial cohesion while strengthening our local presence. The project is fully on track, providing public administration services through more than 4,800 offices already transformed. We have the largest eco-friendly fleet in Italy and continue to invest in energy transition project with the goal of improving network efficiency and reducing environmental impact while generating cost savings. We are proud to have earned and maintained a solid ESG reputation as underscored by our inclusion in leading ESG indices and ratings.

Let's move to Slide 15 for a closer look at our people strategy. Our people, as we always say, are the most important asset of the firm. And I would like to thank them for their continued hard work and dedication and commitment to Poste Italiane long-term success. Our workforce has consistently evolved since 2017. And 8 years, almost 9 down the roads, our people on average are 3 years younger. And this is clearly a clear sign of the transformation we enable. And we also have today a much higher level of education, as you can see. Women are a driving force within the organization, representing 53%, more than 50% of the population and holding 46% of middle and senior management position. HR cost per FTE is up double digit since 2017 and will grow more for the agreements we have with the stakeholders, underscoring our commitment to reward our people for their exceptional contribution. The [indiscernible] accelerates investment in training and reskilling has become essential.

Our in-sourcing program has enabled us to reskill 2,000 employees in the past 5 years, delivering around EUR 40 million in run rate cost savings while preserving employment levels. Finally, let me highlight that Poste Italiane has been certified as a top employer for the seventh consecutive year and an award that recognizes excellence in HR policies, focusing on employee well-being, inclusion, training and development. Let's move now to our key strategic priorities from Slide 17. These are the initiatives that will be at the center of our new multiyear plan that will be released before year-end.

AI will be a key growth accelerator of our strategic plan, helping us serve customers better, grow revenues and reduce cost in a sustainable way. AI powers the personalization of our Super App, boosting digital sales and generating drive to post office effect. And at the same time, is able to provide smart sales recommendation to our financial advisers in post offices. It is also reshaping our logistics network. Predictive models now support planning, warehouse management and routing of our 1 million -- over 1 million parcel every single day. This means fewer kilometers driven, faster deliveries, lower operating cost and a tangible reduction in CO2 emission. In customer services, the implementation of AI tools has brought our cost to serve down by 30% compared to 2020, and we expect to see around EUR 30 million additional savings on a run rate basis over the next 4 years.

In IT alone, the use of AI for requirements gathering and new product development will massively reduce time to delivery of new products and solutions. Thanks to AI, we will optimize external professional services and maintenance, generating EUR 1 million recurring cost savings over the next 4 years. And importantly, AI is also empowering our people. Tools such as Copilot are helping teams to work faster and smarter. Thanks to higher employee productivity, we have reduced 2026 corporate center new hirings by 15% compared to the average of the past 4 years. To make AI truly scalable across our digital operations, we must create a digital brain for the entire organization by digitalizing all corporate knowledge and implementing an agentic AI framework, supported by our robust and efficient hybrid cloud infrastructure. In summary, AI is elevating Poste Italiane, unlocking the new revenue opportunity, enabling smarter and more efficient operation, empowering the next chapter of our growth.

Let's move to Slide 18. Let me give you a brief progress update on our strategic initiatives with TIM. We have now launched around 10 work streams designed to unlock synergies. With these projects are work in process, and we will take time to mature, the direction is very clear. The foundations are solid and early results are encouraging. In the meantime, our initial EUR 1.3 billion cash investment has more than doubled in value. This is a powerful sign of market confidence in TIM transformation and the new long-term industrial rationale. Let me briefly walk you through some of the key initiatives already underway. The migration of Poste Italiane to TIM Mobile infrastructure is undergoing and will generate around EUR 25 million annual rate cost saving for Poste.

TIM Energia powered by Poste Italiane has seen a strong initial customer response. We have also launched our consumer and SME protection insurance products across TIM retail stores and online with encouraging early traction. In parallel, we are progressing towards the in-sourcing of selected TIM services, a move that could generate up to EUR 100 million additional revenues for Poste Italiane while also advancing several work streams on joint procurement and cost savings opportunities. Through the JV with TIM Enterprise, we aim to create a national champion with best-in-class capability across cloud, sovereign cloud, AI, open source, IoT and cybersecurity. In parallel, we are also in discussion to acquire a 20% stake in Polo Strategico Nazionale where TIM already owns 45%.

Polo Strategico Nazionale or PSN is a national strategic asset whose key mission is to create an innovative, secure and sustainable cloud infrastructure for all Italian public administrations, central and local. This is without question a multiyear journey. Benefits will materialize progressively as projects reach maturity and the execution steps are completed. We're building a partnership designed not for quick wins, but for durable long-term and sustainable value creation for the 2 groups.

Let's move to Slide 19. We take always pride in operating the largest network in the country, serving 1 million customers every day in communities all over Italy, a number that has remained stable even as our digital channels continue to grow. Today, thanks to recent legislative and regulatory development, our post offices are finally being recognized as a fully fledged market network. The 2026 budget law has extended the universal service obligation to 2036, allowing us to leverage on third-party networks to provide the service, freeing our post offices to focus on our -- on higher-value services. As a result of the 2024 amendments to the 1990 antitrust law, we have no residual obligation to grant access to our network to competitors' products.

Finally, relevant Italian and EU authorities have confirmed that our USO compensation is not linked to post office network cost. The implementation of the new commercial service model is progressing as planned. This transformation is strengthening the way we serve our clients by improving the quality of our coverage and deepening the relationship we build with them every day. For our premium and affluent segments, we reached a 69% specialized coverage today, and we're heading towards our 80% target in 2027, 1 year ahead of plan. A key enabler of this transformation will be the post office network reconfiguration towards a more efficient hub-and-spoke model expected to be in place in 2027. This change will deliver better network governance, stronger engagement from small and medium offices and more options for our clients. Poste is a unique network, by far the largest in Italy, able to provide the broadest distribution and service capabilities.

Let's move to Slide 20, please. Let me now discuss briefly what will be a key pillar of our new multiyear plan we will announce by year-end. We have launched a small group reorganization process to create a new financial hub, a strategic step that will further strengthen our client-centric approach and platform effect. We're bringing together our payment business with our broader financial services activities to unlock cross-selling opportunities, harnessing growth and potential of Postepay clients. Over the past decade, the number of Postepay cards has grown at an impressive 7% compound annual rate with IBAN-backed Postepay evolution cards reaching 11 million at the end of last year. This reorganization will be a key step towards maximizing and extracting the value of our client base, enhancing selling -- cross-selling by better addressing our clients' everyday and long-term needs.

The new setup will ensure stronger network engagement on our key strategic priorities and significantly improve time to market. Capital optimization will generate additional revenues for the group already in the short term. This integration is also a driver of efficiency. By streamlining group functions and capturing scale and scope advantages, we expect to deliver cost synergies effectively redeploying 25% of current Postepay and Banco Posta emerging employees to support the anticipated growth of the overall group. The reorganization is expected to be completed by the beginning of 2027, subject to regulatory approval from Bank of Italy. More to come on this with our new plan, please stay tuned.

Let's move to Slide 22. Let's briefly look at the key drivers of our 2026 guidance by business unit, starting from Mail & Parcel. In Mail, we will continue to use repricing to mitigate the volume decline. Going forward, the new USO service will enable efficiencies, thanks to more relaxed level of service requirements such as the elimination of the J+1 deliveries. Through our participation in PagoPA, we will ensure a seamless integration of physical and digital public administration notifications. Moving to parcel. We will reinforce our leadership, leveraging our unique asset such as the unmatched PUDO network and long-standing customer relationships. The internal courier network will be 80% completed in 2026, generating efficiencies and operating leverage through parcel insourcing expected to reach 50%.

Let's move to Financial Services on Slide 23. In Financial Services, the focus will be on increasing net inflows of customer assets and cross-selling. From a product perspective, we will continue to introduce new solution to attract additional liquidity across savings and investment products and add a market-leading player as a new partner for salary-backed loans. Our financial advisers will be empowered by AI-driven front-end tools that provide smart sales suggestions, guiding them towards the next best action for each client. They will also leverage a Super App powerful drive to post office effect to enhance client engagement and conversion.

Moving to Slide 24 and turning to insurance. We're seeing a positive and supporting environment in the Life segment with steady growth of client assets. Net inflows are recovering across the sector and improved portfolio returns are giving additional support to the business. We remain focused on our life insurance business to attract fresh liquidity. Protection, where we have doubled our market share in the past 4 years, will continue to serve as a key growth engine for the group. We see substantial untapped potential within the existing client base and across the Italian market, which we aim to capture through our omnichannel platform. In addition, third-party networks will provide a meaningful contribution to the growth of the business.

Let's move to Slide 25. Ahead of the creation of the new financial hub, Postepay services will continue to generate revenue and profitability growth for the group in 2026. In payment, we confirm our above-market growth driven by e-commerce leadership and enhanced customer experience. In telco, we expect stability of customer base and revenues, while the transition to T-Mobile infrastructure will deliver cost savings already in '26. Finally, energy growth will be further boosted by the TIM partnership. We are confident to reach 1.4 million contracts by the end of the year.

Let's move to the key financial targets starting from Slide 26. We expect organic revenues to continue to grow steadily, reaching EUR 13.5 billion in '26 with a positive contribution from all segments and increasing exposure to growing businesses. The growth trajectory will continue into '26 with an adjusted guidance of more than EUR 3.3 billion and net profit excluding equity accounting of the TIM stake at EUR 2.3 billion. We will update this guidance and provide visibility beyond '26 in our multiyear strategic plan before year-end.

We are further reinforcing our dividend policy, committing to a payout greater than 70% applied to the net profit, excluding the TIM stake, to which we will add the dividends received from TIM on a cash-for-cash basis. We expect to receive approximately EUR 100 million in cash dividends from TIM in '27 in addition to stake accretion from the recently announced TIM share buyback of up to EUR 400 million. With Poste Italiane as the largest long-term strategic shareholder, TIM governance has been stabilized, unlocking long-term strategic priorities and paving the way for future earnings and shareholder remuneration growth in the firm.

Let's move to Slide 27. Let's look at what underpins our full confidence in the reinforced dividend policy. It is backed by a diversified dividend stream from our subsidiaries with a solid coverage ratio of around 1.7x in '25 and '26. The group cash generation remains strong with the net financial position improving on an underlying basis, factoring in competitive shareholder remuneration and continued investment in business growth. At the end of '26, post EBITDA Solvency II will land at a solid 290% Solvency II ratio on a pro forma expected basis. And this includes the EUR 500 million additional remittance to be accrued in 2026. Our leverage remains low with around EUR 4 billion of untapped debt capacity and growing EBIT. Finally, distributable reserves at the parent company level projected around EUR 4.4 billion by the end of '26, a EUR 1 billion improvement from EUR 3.4 billion level at the end of '25.

And thank you now, and over to Camillo for a deep dive into the financials.

Thank you, Matteo, and good morning, everyone. I too, I'm pleased to report that Poste Italiane delivered an excellent set of results in both the fourth quarter and full year 2025. These were the strongest Q4 and full year results ever reported by the group in terms of revenues, EBIT and net profit. Focusing on the full year revenues came at EUR 13.1 billion, up 4% year-on-year. Adjusted EBIT at EUR 3.2 billion and net profit at EUR 2.2 billion, both up 10%. In Q4, we posted record group revenues of EUR 3.5 billion, up 4% year-on-year. Adjusted EBIT reached EUR 729 million, while net profit increased to EUR 447 million, both up 7%.

On Slide 30, you can see how our profitability growth continues to be supported by sound top line progression and cost discipline. Looking ahead, we are guiding for 2026 revenues to reach EUR 13.5 billion with adjusted EBIT higher than EUR 3.3 billion and net profit, excluding the impact of the TIM stake up to EUR 2.3 billion. Our healthy profitability, visibility on cash flows and capital generation give us the confidence to commit to a payout ratio for 2026 higher than 70%, while going forward, we see upside from TIM dividends. In the next slide, we look at 2026 guidance for all our businesses. In 2025, Mail, Parcel & Distribution revenues were up 3% to EUR 3.95 billion, with Parcel delivering strong growth across all customer segments. Mail revenues were in line with guidance and supported by favorable business mix and repricing measures. We expect these trends to continue to 2026.

Mail revenues will be supported by repricing actions, partially offsetting structural volume decline. Parcel & Logistics revenues are poised to reach Mail revenue in 2026, driven by sustained parcel growth across all customer segments and contract and Healthcare logistics revenues up more than 20% year-on-year. Overall, we are looking at EUR 4.1 billion external revenues for 2026, while EBIT is expected to be at around EUR 0.1 billion. In Financial Services, revenues grew 4% to EUR 6.7 billion in 2025, mostly on the back of strong investment portfolio revenues, up 4% to EUR 2.7 billion. For 2026, we expect the top line at around EUR 6.8 billion with investment portfolio revenues remaining resilient in a normalized interest rate environment. Our active portfolio management component is already secured for the whole year and the gross unrealized capital gains currently amounting to over EUR 2.5 billion give us ample flexibility to achieve our targets.

Postal saving fees will remain stable, benefiting from a renewed product offering and strong commercial focus. Our consumer loans business will continue to be supported by the strength of our multiyear -- multi-partnership model. Finally, higher assets under management will drive higher fees. We have a strong visibility on 2026 investment portfolio revenues and absolute confidence in achieving at least the same revenues as 2025, only with a marginally higher active portfolio management component, which has already been secured. Our rate sensitivity remains broadly unchanged versus last year, a 100 basis point downward parallel shift of the swap curve would lower fiscal year '26 NII yield by circa 20 basis points, less than EUR 200 million, while generating EUR 1.9 billion additional gross unrealized capital gains.

Insurance service revenues reached over EUR 1.8 billion in 2025, up a remarkable 11% year-on-year, driven by both Life and protection. Life investment and pension technical reserves reached EUR 170 billion in 2025, up from EUR 165 billion. We expect our insurance assets to further grow in 2026 and our margins to improve, leading to life revenues of EUR 1.7 billion. Protection gross written premium grew 21% year-on-year to EUR 1.2 billion, and we see this trend continue also in 2026, where we are targeting EUR 1.3 billion and a further improved combined ratio at 83% or less. This will lead to protection revenues contributing by more than 10% to total insurance revenues. Finally, we anticipate resilient profitability supported by positive top line trends and a slightly lower free capital returns due to the additional remittance to the parent company.

Solvency II ratio at 304% remains solid and well above the managerial ambition. In line with what we have announced last year and thanks to the strong capital buffer, the solvency ratio embeds the second EUR 500 million tranche of additional remittance to be paid by Poste Vita to the parent company this year on top of 100% of net profit and the repayment of the EUR 250 million Tier 2 loan done in October 2025. Impressively, over the 2024-2026 period, the total cash remitted by Poste Vita to the parent company will amount to EUR 5 billion, EUR 600 million more than what was originally planned. The pro forma Solvency II ratio embedding the final EUR 500 million additional remittance tranche to be accrued at the end of 2026 is at around 290%. 2025 saw a 5% revenue growth for Postepay services up to EUR 1.7 billion with strong adjusted EBIT up 11%. In 2026, we are looking at revenues of EUR 1.8 billion, with payment revenues sustained by organic growth in transaction value at 7% and total number of transactions up 8%.

The energy business will continue to grow in 2026, supported by an enlarged customer base as well as the contribution from the TIM distribution. Finally, we can confirm solid EBIT growth also in 2026. In 2025, we continued to work on our people transformation, driving higher productivity with the value added per FTE reaching EUR 90,000. In 2026, we will further renew our workforce and will focus on our hiring efforts on expanding business activities, leading to 120,000 FTEs by year-end. In 2025, total HR cost came in at EUR 5.73 billion, driven by higher salaries as per 2024-2027 labor agreement and variable component and a variable component linked to commercial targets. These improving trends are confirmed with ordinary HR cost on revenues down to 39%. 2026 HR costs are expected at EUR 5.9 billion. Total non-HR costs for 2025 are EUR 4.71 billion with variable cost trends reflecting higher business volumes. We expect these trends to continue also in 2026 with non-HR costs landing at EUR 5 billion.

Variable costs and variable revenues are anticipated to improve to 60%. Let me remark that over the 2024-2026 period, we have achieved EUR 900 million of cumulative cost savings, thanks to around 50 different cost reduction initiatives across in-sourcing, cloud optimization, process automation, energy efficiency and contracts renegotiation. As always, our focus on cost discipline remains razor sharp and protecting our bottom line remains a top priority for the group. At the same time, we continue to increase our capital expenditure in key areas of development to support the business transformation. In 2026, we expect EUR 1.1 billion CapEx, excluding Polis, with the lion's share of investments in the hybrid cloud transformation and IT platform, coupled with the logistics evolution. All the above investments are at budget and subject to approval of the investment committee, which has a specific return threshold for each project.

That's all from me. Over to Matteo for some closing remarks.

Thank you, Camillo, and thank you, and thank you all again for joining us today. Our strategic execution is accelerating and momentum continues to build. We delivered record results again in 2025 with adjusted EBIT of EUR 3.2 billion and net profit of EUR 2.2 billion at the upper end of our upgraded guidance. Performance was strong across all businesses, driven by solid commercial progress, disciplined cost management and healthy investment returns. On the back of these results, we're proposing a full year 2025 dividend per share of EUR 1.25, up 16% year-on-year and corresponding to a 73% payout ratio. This is a clear confirmation of our commitment to delivering sustainable and attractive shareholder return. EUR 0.85 per share balance will be paid in June this year. Our leadership in digital, supported by continued investment in AI and data remains central to our long-term strategy and enable us to innovate continuously to anticipate and meet our client ever-evolving needs.

The reorganization bringing together our payments and financial services business is underway. The new financial hub will strengthen client centricity, accelerate time to market, optimize capital and boost cross-selling, efficiency and growth, maximizing the value of our platform for sustainable value creation. All of this is supported by our unmatched network, now fully operating at market with unparalleled distribution and service capabilities. We continue working closely with TIM to unlock long-term synergies. As TIM largest strategic shareholder, we have helped stabilize governance and unlock strategic value, supporting future value creation and sustainable remuneration for TIM shareholders.

Looking ahead, our 2026 guidance points to an adjusted EBIT higher than EUR 3.3 billion and net profit of EUR 2.3 billion, excluding the TIM stake. We have reinforced our dividend policy going forward, committing to a payout ratio greater than 70% applied to our net profit, excluding the TIM stake. To this, we will add dividend received from TIM on a cash-for-cash basis. We remain fully confident in our long-term strategic trajectory which we will outline in detail in our next multiyear plan by year-end.

Please let me say a few final words in Italian [Foreign Language]

Thank you, and over to Giuseppe for the Q&A session.

Thank you Matteo. We will take your questions now. [Operator Instructions]

The first question we have today is from Gian Luca Ferrari, Mediobanca.

So the first one is on Page 32 on Financial Services. I was wondering if you can remind us why EUR 130 million higher revenues is not translating into higher EBIT? The second question is on the EUR 832 million negative operating variances in the CSM in Q4. I think there is a foot mark explaining different cash flows, lapses, claims. Again, I thought lapses were improving. So why you got negative operating variances in the quarter? The third is on postal savings, postal products, there is a tremendous improvement in net new money there in Q3 and Q4. This allowed you to reach EUR 1.8 billion. If I recall properly, you had the upper end of the range at EUR 1.9 billion, assuming certain level of gross flows. Given the results reported in Q3 and Q4, what is needed to get there to the EUR 1.9 billion, assuming this performance is maintained in 2026? And if I may, last one, would you ever consider investing in data centers together with TIM?

Thank you Gian Luca. I'll start with the final one. We will not invest directly from our balance sheet in data center with TIM, but we are aware that TIM is looking at doing those investments on the real estate side with specialized funds that are focusing on the specific asset class. On financial services, I will ask Camillo and then...

So on financial services, it has to do with our intra-group relationships and the additional cost of selling the product due to the distribution. So it has to do with intra-group arrangements.

Okay. And on the operating variance...

Yes. On the operating variance Gian Luca, as we discussed previously, the higher lapses we had in 2025 were for half of it pretty much self-induced by the activity of the network that worked on client portfolio to rebalance those portfolios. As we anticipate to continue this activity to a lesser extent also in the next 2 years, we increased our lapse assumption on the existing portfolio, especially for the next 2 years, effectively taking upfront the impact of higher self-induced lapses with the benefit of new production that will only come when it materializes in 2026 and 2027. The impact on the P&L of this is not negative. I mean the P&L is resilient because the effect of higher lapses is a lower liability duration and therefore, a higher percentage release to the P&L with the CSM staying stable after release.

And on parcel I think...

There was a point. It was on [indiscernible] postal sale.

Yes. What do we need to get to EUR 1.9 billion.

Well, I mean, the first thing I would say to sort of frame the conversation is that last year, we made EUR 1.75 billion on postal savings. This year at EUR 80 million more because we're at EUR 1.805 billion, and we are above budget. So I think that we should, first of all, take note of the fact that 2025 has been an exceptional year with respect to postal saving performance to also the extent we had positive net inflows of EUR 600 million in the last quarter of the year. Having said that, we are getting into a next leg of that relationship. We are clearly doing what we are supposed to do. So at some point, there will be a conversation about how further up the performance can improve. As far as 2026 is concerned, we have a budget another EUR 1.8 billion, which I remind everyone is EUR 1.751 billion, EUR 1.849 billion. So there is space to go possibly above also what we did this year. But this year, we did make EUR 80 million more than the year before.

Do you see net inflows in postal savings in 2026 overall?

In postal savings in 2026, we won't see net inflows. I think that historically, what we have done is we have tried to sort of compensate for net outflows with accrued interest on the remaining portfolio. And I think this is a strategy we see also for next year. This year, we had net outflows of EUR 5 billion compared to EUR 6 billion in 2024. So we had a net positive performance of EUR 1 extra billion.

The next question is from Sofie Peterzens, Goldman.

So the first question would be around the new payments and financial services hub. How should we think about the impact on your telco subsidiary? And how should we also think about your stake in TIM kind of longer term now that you have kind of home product subsidiary or hub left, do you plan to expand into other products? And then my second question would be around your Solvency II ratio, which is exceptionally strong. You still have a 290% Solvency II ratio, which includes EUR 500 million of additional remittances in 2026. How should we think about the solvency ratio going forward given that you target closer to 200%.

Thank you, Sofie. That's a good question on the financial hub because technically today, both our energy and our telecom business are sitting on the Postepay, which is merging with Banco Posta. As a result of this merger, we will hold the energy business and the TLC business at the parent company at the holding level, which means that it would be basically a distribution agreement with the network from external third party or directly from our Poste Energia or Poste Mobile specifically. And with relation to our new shareholder position of TIM, we are clearly working at potentially having some of the TIM products hosted in our networks, but that's work in progress. And at this point in time, we cannot comment more specifically on this.

Solvency II ratio at 290. I will leave it to the CFO.

So we are obviously, as you have seen also in the presentation, always figuring out ways to make our capital structure more efficient. And I did say it in the script, I'll repeat it, we did get out of the insurance business, EUR 1.9 billion this year between repayment of intra-group debt, dividend, extraordinary dividend, which totals in the period 2024, 2026 should total to EUR 5 billion. We are clearly hence, looking into what's next, that's really going to be part of a capital markets session, which will happen later in the year as the CEO already mentioned, but it's clearly something that we are very focused on.

The next question is from Farooq Hanif at JPMorgan.

Just firstly, on your AI initiatives, when you talk about the EUR 100 million annual cost savings, is there going to be like a big cost to achieve? Or is that already in your CapEx? And will you get that down to the bottom line? So should we expect EBIT to benefit by some portion of the EUR 100 million? My second question is on the TIM benefits. So you've very kindly given us the EUR 100 million kind of revenues and the cost savings. But you mentioned kind of energy and insurance. I mean from your initial kind of work into this, what are you seeing here as the potential and the time line of sort of delivering that? I mean I get that you will talk about this later, but just to get a sense for now for our forecast.

And maybe if I can just slip in a very -- a quick third one, apologies, but your deposits in Q4 in Financial Services were really quite negative. Just wondering whether we can read anything to any trends here and what you expect going forward in net inflows?

Thank you, Farooq. On the first question on AI initiative, we mentioned EUR 100 million of cost reduction within 4 years, which means being cautious, I'm sure it will be before 4 years and will be certainly a reduction of our cost base by EUR 100 million. If you look at Page 17, we mentioned specifically AI for new product development and requirements gathering. It's a product we call storyteller that will save us a lot of money and a lot of time in the multi-thousand product that we generate for internal purposes from our IT department. So I think that's a cautious estimate both in terms of time and impact on our cost base, which Farooq, doesn't mean that we'll have EUR 100 million better EBIT because maybe we'll reinvested again in transforming our company. But on the current cost basis, we will have that saving.

On TIM, giving you a feel, is -- some we will see certainly in 2026, and it will be around energy, around insurance for consumer and preliminary insurance for SMEs. I believe that it will take more time to see the full impact of getting the 2 networks together. But historically, TIM is the SME and public administration and the corporate commercial company of choice in Italy, the same way Poste is the commercial company of choice on the consumer. So you're talking historically the 2 best commercial platforms across client basis. You're talking at this point of a lot of products that are in-house within the, call it, Poste/TIM framework. So the exercise now is to get this broader platform at work, and that's why we're spending a lot of time on industrial. And these are more revenues work stream that we're working on, but there is also a lot of cost savings that will come down the road. And some of the 10 work stream mentioned in the presentation are also focusing on cost savings, more, I think, this year on our new plan presentation. And on deposit, I think there is a specific...

Yes. So on liquidity on our bank accounts, I think the first good news is that if you look at the beginning of the year, we had EUR 84 billion of liquidity within the retail, public administration and enterprise. And at the end of the year, we have EUR 87 billion. The liquidity, which is the stickiest of all, which is the one of the retail deposits has gone up. We had a specific PA account, which has taken away some liquidity at year-end. That's typically the part of the liquidity in which we earn less because it's more volatile throughout the year, but we have ended up the year actually above where we plan to be in terms of budget, and we see no trend that could affect the trajectory at this point.

And already beginning of 2026 in the first few weeks, we have seen a significant reversal. So there is some seasonality related to public administration deposits.

Next question is from Antonio Gianfrancesco at Intermonte.

Two from my side, please. First one is on dividend policy because the dividend policy was supported by additional remittance from Poste Vita in the period '24, '26. So growth has been very strong. But looking beyond 2026, can we consider the year-on-year growth seen over the last 4 years to be a valid integration also for the future? And in this sense, what should be considered the drivers that could replace the current additional remittance of EUR 500 million per year from insurance division?

And second one is on payments [ leaps ] because -- we have seen recently that the national social security system has stopped sending payment [ leaps ] for domestic workers, so accelerating the transition to fully digital payments. So taking into account this, how should we view the structural decline in revenues from payments in general? Do you expect this decline to be accelerated in the future?

Okay. Thank you for your question, Antonio. The dividend policy is totally independent from the remittances. So we pay the 73% this year of our net profit. Page 27 showing our coverage ratio is also -- is only -- sorry, reassuring investors that there is ample scope to support from a cash standpoint because we're showing that both in '25, and we expect in '26, the underlying cash generation by the company is positive in the range of EUR 600 million to EUR 700 million. Two, on a capital strength because of the level of capitalization of Solvency II of Poste Vita. On a leverage -- lack of leverage basis because we have around EUR 4 billion of untapped debt capacity. And finally, as the CFO mentioned on Page 27, we also have EUR 4.4 billion distributable reserves. So we have the cash, we have the profit. We have the distributable reserves. We can pay the dividend no matter what we will have an extra dividend from Poste Vita.

The second question on payments, I leave it to the...

Yes. So with regards to payments, it is fair to say that this year, we recorded a 3% top line growth compared to a healthier level in the past. However, as mentioned in previous quarterly updates, this lower level was expected as this year, we have a step to absorb, which is the equivalence between the cost of an instant payment with a normal payment. And our assessment is that within the P&L of payments, this change of launch affected the entire market had a cost in the neighborhood of EUR 30 million. If we look at only card payments, so excluding instant payments, which are part of the subset of payments, that growth for the year was actually at 6%. In other words, if you take payments, the growth of the division was at 6%, which is a level more consistent with the past.

If we go forward and we see what we are expecting for 2026, what you will see, Antonio, is that we put it in the slides which are commented by the CEO, which is that we expect transaction value in euro terms to increase 5%, '26 versus '25. And as far as Postepay, we expect to continue to outperform the market with an increase of 8% of overall transactions in numbers and 7% in euro terms, which will translate in -- for the first time of the group, exceeding EUR 100 billion of transaction of our cards vis-a-vis EUR 95 billion -- of around EUR 95 billion this year. So we are positive on the division going forward. And this is on a stand-alone basis without taking into account the possible additional opportunities identified with the aggregation with financial services.

Yes. And sorry, let me just add. I think that we should look at payments more and more in the context of our platform has a tool to increase our cross-selling. So we today gave the 19.4 million digital clients, of which 16 million are Super App clients, okay? And the 16 million super app clients have 4.2 million daily average users is by far the largest Italian app number of daily users. And out of the 16 million, there are 14 million digital payment wallet. which means that our Super App now for 14 million out of 16 million clients is use as a payment tool.

So now that the client is inside the firm has a payment client, the game becomes in selling other products. And that's the rationale behind the financial hub aggregation. We gave the number that every extra product we managed to sell, we have a multiple of 3x the revenues. So if I go from 1.5 cross-selling index to a 2.5 cross-selling index because I've sold one extra product to a client, the value of that one extra point is 3x the value of the previous client before the additional point. And that's the game today. The game is cross-selling, upselling within the platform across products, across channels.

Very clear. And if I can, just a brief follow-up on Slide 19 on the USO and the use of compensation because it is no longer linked to the cost of postal network, postal offices. So how structurally transformative is this change for your distribution model? I mean, should we view it primarily as a potential lever for cost efficiency with, for example, a more selective network positioning?

No, I think it's more -- first of all, we are a company which is owned 65% by the state that has a universal service obligation related to mail and had 13,000 offices that were somehow related to the universal service obligation. So we always use the network as a market network for all the products we already distribute, but there was a thin legal link to a public domain of the network. What is very important is that from now that network is purely a market network. So honestly, as a shareholder, obviously, given the value of this network, I should assign a lot of value to the fact that today, it is a fully fledged market network, which doesn't mean that we will change our strategy. We remain present in all small offices and small cities. We push ahead with our Polis project. We will have just our hands-free to do it in the most easy way with this concept of drive to the post office, and I think it's very -- it was very remarkable.

We didn't mention it today, the fact that in 2025, the traffic, the number of people that enter post offices in 2025 is stable versus '24. And in a world that is becoming more and more digital and in the previous years, this was a negative 2%, 3%, 4%. So we stabilize, we have more people and those people, as we have shown in my presentation are coming to the post office, thanks also to the warming up, we call it done by the digital contacts that we do for our clients by our call centers. And you will see in the presentation, we will deliver this year increasingly by the third-party network, the 49,000 third-party network that will also support our drive to post office targets.

Thank you, Antonio. Let's move to the next question from Daniel Wilson at Morgan Stanley.

Some broader ones today. So on the EBIT guidance for 2026 to greater than EUR 3.3 billion, I'm just wondering what are your -- the main levers in your head when thinking about whether EBIT could land at EUR 3.3 billion, EUR 3.4 billion, et cetera? What are the main levers you think could move up within that range? Beyond that as well, slightly related, Poste has had an expanding EBIT margin as a staple of this business for the past several years. It feels like that might be slowing down a little bit over the next year or 2. I wanted to know how you see the EBIT margin expansion evolving over the next -- beyond the next year, over the next 2, 3 years or so? And what are the key levers in that?

And then kind of finally, it's kind of been asked in different ways today. But if we look back to -- regarding Poste Vita and the solvency ratio there, if we look back to 2023 or end of 2023 when you announced this EUR 500 million additional remittance, we're kind of back at the same solvency ratio we were when you announced that policy. So I'm wondering to what extent do you think that policy could be extended from here? And could you continue doing additional remittances from Poste Vita for longer than you've previously stated?

Okay. I'll start with this last question and then let the EBIT upside space to the CFO. I think it's a very simple logic we are applying to all our -- all the companies in the group, but they need to have more than ample capital to run their business, but not more than that. It's as simple as that. So when we see that there is a space as we saw in 2023, we will intervene and this applies to all the companies in the group. In terms of the operating margin, to be entirely honest, Daniel, it might be at the percentage level, if you're talking, but what we are trying to do is to grow the euro EBIT margin and keep the pace we had in the last few years. Whether this will come -- will keep coming from a mix of higher revenues and lower cost and what kind of mix we will have going forward, I think, is a bit premature.

But overall, I don't feel that going into the new plan we will present this year, I really don't feel that the company has lost momentum. I think we try today to give you the feel that everything we invested on in the digital space in the last 9 years is finally paying off very well. And so when you have the products, you have the digital presence, you have the trust -- sorry, you have the physical presence. You have the trust if you are blending this with a strong digital evolution and transformation of your relationship with clients, I think you have today with what is happening in technology and the tools we are starting to use to manage the space, I think there is a lot of upside.

Can I go ahead? So elaborate on what the CEO just said, David (sic) [ Daniel ]. If we -- I mean, we would talk for hours about top line growth. But I think that the key single element that I would point to in terms of incrementally positive performance for the group is the ability to continue to cross-sell. And that's why we refer to this index that cross-selling point equates to 3x revenues per client. If that materializes also in a small part in 2026, that will have a pent-up effect throughout the P&L of the group. So that is on revenues, but CEO more -- he keep to talk about that. As far as costs instead are concerned, which I certainly do manage with care, we do believe that we have put forward, as an example, in our fixed costs, some impact of inflation. I'm referring to Slide 39 of the presentation.

We have the non-HR cost overall, they are going to around EUR 5 billion. We don't say exactly what's that number, but we have the part in blue has grown by EUR 110 million. And then we have also variable costs which are related to business, which are also growing. We certainly want to be more efficient there on both sets of costs, i.e., driving more our machine in a more efficient way. And if you look at HR cost, there too, we have an important step upwards, which has to do with the new -- I should say, the new leg of the 2024 contract came into place. But there too, we have some margin for maneuver in terms of how we manage mainly new individuals joining the firm. What you can see on Slide 37 that we plan to hire 5,000 new FTEs throughout the year. Obviously, depending on our performance, we might accelerate or not that number. So we have at least 2 macro categories of layers on the cost side, which we can activate to ensure that we get where we want to be at the minimum.

Next question is from Elena Perini, Banca IMI (sic) [ Intesa Sanpaolo ].

The first one is about your contractual service margin release, which was above my expectations. What can we expect for next year and going forward, should the trend be maintained or could revert in the future? Then the second question is about some press articles coming out in the first part of the year about on the SPID. Can you elaborate a bit on the potential contribution coming from such an initiative?

Okay. Thank you, Elena. I will let Giuseppe answer the first question, and then I will pass it on to Camillo for SPID. Please, Giuseppe?

Yes, sure. Elena, the reason why the percentage of the CSM released to the P&L has gone up is what we were discussing earlier, i.e., the revised assumption on lapse rate. So if you assume higher lapses on your existing portfolio, the duration of the liabilities of your portfolio goes down and therefore, you release more to your P&L every year. But as I said earlier, the other side of the coin is higher new production related to these lapses and therefore, a stable CSM as a result. Now for 2026, we expect our numbers, our budget includes a coverage unit that is pretty much in line with what we reported in 2025. And going forward, it will depend on how we're going to revise the lapse assumption at the end of next year, but it's too early to say.

With regards to SPID, first thing I'd like to remind everyone is that not everyone pays SPID, which is a source of great discussion. But whoever is an Italian resident abroad minors or individuals over 75-year-old are excluded from the fee. The fee materializes upon a year passing from the existing contract. So it doesn't run from the 1st of Jan, but depending on when in 2026, your contract expire, then you will be asked to pay a fee provided you want to renew the service. This, in other words, means that for 2026, we do expect a contribution from SPID for around EUR 25 million, which should double up at EBIT level in 2027 as at that point, the impact will be for 12 months.

Okay. Just a follow-up, if I may, on the insurance business. As regards the protection, it seems that your protection for this year was especially in some segments more concentrated in the first part of the year. Can we expect it to be the same for next year? Or is something going to change?

Yes. No, Elena I think you might be referring to the fact that if you compare the full year growth to the growth we reported in Q4, clearly in Q4, it looks like we have a slower growth. The reason for that is seasonality in some areas of our protection business. For example, the collective policies, the collective corporate policies. Last year, Poste Assicura booked an important contract in Q4. And therefore, you have a higher Q4 base. That's why the growth rate Q4 to Q4 seems lower. But it's only a matter of seasonality in the booking mainly of the corporate welfare business.

The next question is from Michael Huttner at Berenberg.

So I had 2 questions, and they're really, really simple. Can you remind me of the split of net investment margin between the capital gains and the recurring and you did say it, but I wasn't quick enough to write it down. And then the other thing is I noticed the parcel volume growth accelerated in Q4, a little bit what I had hoped. But can you give us a little bit more of a feel for how far we are in the growth trajectory of this business where you've invested a huge amount?

Yes. So with respect to the question on NII, we do report what we call portfolio return. And this year, the return was EUR 2.7 billion with a very marginal contribution from active portfolio management. So it was basically 99% NII. As we expect next year, the net yield on the portfolio to go down by 10 basis points from 3% to 2.9%, we do expect a marginally higher contribution from active portfolio management, which we have estimated at [ 02 ] and the amount that we quote has already been secured as we speak today as we have completed forward sales on bonds.

With respect to the second question, which is what to expect going forward on Parcel, we continue to be very optimistic with that business. And to the extent that we think that next year, the amount of revenues generated in Mail is going to be equivalent to the one in Parcel, which we expect -- is expected to continue to grow. And specifically, we do assume that the overall Parcel division should grow around 10% year-on-year in revenue terms.

Fantastic. And may I just ask a little question.

Yes.

I didn't understand. You invested 20% alongside TIM in something which was it? It was a business which is the strategic...

Yes, Michael. This was a NextGenerationEU initiative from the European Commission basically is a company that is in charge of signing contracts with public administration, both central public administration or local public administration to support their digital transformation. The shareholder -- the key shareholder of this company is TIM. And this company, the moment that they sign the contract with, let's say, the Ministry of Health, just to make one simple example, the company has no technical capabilities. It is sort of a quasi-shell company turns to TIM and say, please allow the Ministry of Health to move from on-prem data center to cloud data centers.

And given one of the shareholders is a financial shareholder is Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, which is our shareholder, we are going to buy the stake from Cassa Depositi e Prestiti is the capital is a few million units -- euros. So it's a small investment, but that would help us support TIM in the ongoing process of moving the Italian public administration into cloud. The third shareholder of this company, which is focusing on mainly in cybersecurity aspect of the process is Leonardo.

Okay. Thank you, Michael. We now have a few questions from our webcast platform. The first question I'm going to read is from Can Benning at Citi. Can is asking, given the fact that we reached 1 million clients in energy, what's the trajectory we see going forward in terms of customer growth? And secondly, he is asking how do we measure the Super App contribution to cross-selling.

I think we already discussed, but maybe you want to clarify.

Okay. We are ahead of plan on the energy and '26 started very well as a product that to our surprise has more than 50% of new clients on our contract -- new contract we sell, which is kind of a surprise for us because we have a lot of clients. And to think that there is one new product that is bringing clients that we didn't have before is very, very positive because it means that it is a product that is really welcome and liked by clients. Telecom Italia launching TIM Energia in their offices has started very well. The product has been really appreciated by their network and volumes are interesting, and that allows us to say that we are targeting the 1.4 million clients before year-end.

The second question was...

How do we measure the Super App contribution to increase cross-selling?

If you go to Page 13, we have the -- on the top right-hand side of the chart, you have this hybrid or platform buyers percentages. Let me explain how we measure it to answer your question, Can. Basically, if you try to measure the value of the Super App contribution on all clients, you are, in our opinion, not getting the right picture because you need to focus on clients that have actually bought a product. So we measure all the clients that bought products from Poste in 2025. And then we say, let's do 2 different groups. The one that have only bought it through offline, purely physical experience is group one. And the second group is the one that either bought it digital or it was a drive to post office situation.

So they had a warmup online and then they went to the post office. So you have 2 groups within the buyers of products. And then you look at the numbers and you see that the ratio of cross-selling of the digital clients to the offline clients is 35% higher. So it's 1.35, which means that we're selling 35% more products to the digital clients than to the physical one. That 35%, if you stay on the previous page, tells you that I'm increasing significantly my revenues because every point is 3x extra revenues.

The second thing we measure that 18% in -- again, in Page 13, upper right-hand side is those clients that have bought digital or have been warm up digital, how much do they grew year-on-year, and they grew 13%, which means that the one that are only physical decrease by a different percentage. But if the total amount of clients that are coming to our offices is stable, but the one that digital are increasing and the one that are only physical, they are decreasing, it means that we are in the right direction for educating our clients in leveraging on the Super App. That's a clear message that is coming through this analysis.

Okay. So the next question from the webcast platform that I will read is from Paola Sabbione in Barclays. Paola is asking if we see any meaningful competition from Revolut. And the second question she's asking is whether we believe that AI will, over time, help us reduce variable costs in the parcel business.

I can start with this one. I don't...

I don't think so.

I don't think so significantly. On the first question, and thank you for your question, Paola, of Revolut, certainly, yes, they reach a significant amount of clients in Italy. They are gaining market share. And so yes, we see them, no doubt.

Okay. Close to learning from them. The next question we have from the online platform is, again, Farooq from JPMorgan, who wants to ask a follow-up question. Farooq is asking, given that we have done a lot of M&A, clearly have financial flexibility, what part is going to M&A play in our new strategy, the next leg of our story?

I don't want to create expectations our style. But certainly, we have -- we are in a very strong capital position and cash generating position and overall relatively cautious dividend policy position. So we certainly have ammunitions to grow inorganically. I think that the area -- sorry, I think the area where we should focus and we will focus is the logistic space. Reality is that in the last 9 years, we managed not only to become a player of the logistics arena in Italy. And Farooq, you remember the data of 9 years ago, we were #6 in Italy. There was -- at the time, it was BRT, the top market share. There was DHL, there was UPS, there was FedEx and there was GLS and then there was Poste with DACH. So we were #6.

Today, in the ranking, we are #1 out of the 6. We have the strongest momentum of the lot. And so we are in a position of strength in logistics that probably we have never experienced. And that's when you might want to try to consider. It's Italy, mainly nothing that we have -- obviously, we always monitor opportunity, but nothing that we have seen at the moment. We know the space very well. So nothing that you should expect to see anyway over the next, let's say, 6 months, nothing in the cards.

Okay. We have one last question from [indiscernible] Capital. [indiscernible] is asking if the creation of the new financial hub will also generate capital optimization for financial services.

Camillo, please?

Yes, sure. It will. We are assessing as we speak, what's going to be the exact level, and that's something we will disclose with the market in the Capital Markets Day. That is something which will benefit the P&L as of 2027.

Okay. We have no further questions. So thank you very much for joining us today.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you for your time and attention to Poste.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Poste Italiane Third Quarter and 9 Months 2025 Results Conference Call. Shortly, our CEO, Matteo Del Fante, will take you through some opening remarks, and then the CFO, Camillo Greco, will cover the financials.

As usual, the presentation will be followed by a Q&A session where you can ask questions either via phone or through our webcast platform. And for any topics we won't be able to cover today, please do contact the Investor Relations team. We will provide any clarifications you might require.

With that, over to you, Matteo.

Thank you, Giuseppe. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for our Q3 and 9 months 2025 results call. As we celebrate 10 years since going public, we're proud to report another record-breaking quarter, reflecting sustained growth as we approach the end of 2025. The positive momentum established in the first half of the year has continued in the third quarter. We remain focused on executing our strategic plan, and we're fully on track to achieve our updated '25 guidance.

In the first 9 months, we delivered record results across group revenues, adjusted EBIT and net income. Each business unit contributed to a robust 4% year-on-year increase in top line, reaching EUR 9.6 billion in total revenues. Adjusted EBIT grew by 10% to just over EUR 2.5 billion for the period and net profit reached EUR 1.8 billion, representing an impressive 11% compared to the previous year. Since the start of the year, we have seen solid net inflows in investment products, confirming strong commercial performance in insurance product and improved net inflows in postal savings.

I'm pleased to report that the migration of our clients to the Super App has been successfully completed. To date, the app is used by 15 million clients with 4.1 million daily active users in November '25, which is more than our previous apps combined and the highest level among Italian apps.

Our balance sheet remains extremely solid with our insurance Solvency II ratio at 312%, well above our stated ambition of 200%, providing us with significant financial flexibility. On November 26, we'll pay a record interim dividend of EUR 0.40 per share, totaling EUR 518 million, up a remarkable 21% from last year.

I'm pleased to share that our initiative to unlock synergies with TIM are currently underway. At the end of September, we launched TIM Energia powered by Poste Italiane in more than 750 TIM retail outlets. This marks a significant step in combining the strength of both organizations, expanding our retail customer reach through TIM's network and Poste Italiane trusted energy offering. In the coming months, we will continue the strengthening of the strategic partnership and roll out additional joint initiatives to deliver synergies and value creation for all stakeholders.

While our investment in TIM remains strategic, we are also pleased to note that the value of our stake has nearly doubled, now at EUR 1.1 billion. These results underscore the strength of our business model, flawless execution and our ability to adapt and grow in a dynamic environment, all while maintaining strict cost discipline.

Let's move to group financial results on Slide 4. Poste delivered a very strong performance in the third quarter and first 9 months of the year. These were the best Q3 and 9-month results ever reported by the group in terms of revenues, EBIT and net profit. Focusing on the 9 months, revenues at EUR 9.6 billion, up 4% year-on-year, adjusted EBIT at EUR 2.5 billion and net profit at EUR 1.8 billion, up a remarkable 10% and 11%, respectively. In the quarter, we achieved record group revenues at EUR 3.2 billion, up 4% year-on-year. Adjusted EBIT reached EUR 856 million and net profit is at EUR 603 million, up 8% and 6%, respectively.

On Slide 5, the strong revenue momentum across all our business segments continues into the year. In Mail, Parcel & Distribution, revenue growth was driven by higher parcel volume and supported by increasing client diversification. The anticipated decline in mail volume is effectively mitigated through ongoing repricing actions.

In Financial Services, revenue increased by 5% year-on-year to EUR 4.2 billion, supported by NII and solid commercial performance.

Insurance Services delivered strong profitability in both Life and Protection segments. Revenues rose 10% in the 9 months, reflecting stable CSM and higher release. Postepay Services' unique and integrated ecosystem of everyday services delivered sustainable revenue and profitability growth. The telco customer base remained solid and stable, while the number of energy clients has grown to approximately 950,000 on track to reach the target of 1 million clients by year-end. TIM Energia powered by Poste Italiane launched on September 29 will provide an additional boost to this business.

Let's go to Slide 6 and EBIT evolution by segment. Mail, Parcel & Distribution reported an adjusted EBIT of EUR 137 million for the 9 months, in line with our full year guidance. Financial Services operating profitability is up a sound 23% in the 9 months to EUR 790 million, driven by NII and overall strong revenue trends. In the 9 months, Insurance Services adjusted EBIT is up 9% to EUR 1.2 billion, supported by both Life Investment and Protection. Finally, Postepay Services EBIT growth of 9% to EUR 416 million is driven by resilient top line performance, significantly outperforming the market.

On Slide 7, let's take a closer look at what we're building through our strategic partnership with TIM. Several work streams are underway to maximize synergies between the 2 groups. We have signed a contract that will allow the migration of Poste Mobile MVNO operation to the TIM mobile infrastructure starting in Q1 2026. On the commercial front, we have reached the first significant milestones with the launch of TIM Energia powered by Poste Italiane now available through more than 750 TIM retail offices with very encouraging early results.

Looking ahead, we're actively working on additional cross-selling opportunities on both retail and SME customers, including in the areas of insurance and payments. At the same time, we're exploring cost efficiency initiatives through joint procurement. We will communicate these developments to the market in a phased manner as relevant agreements are finalized.

Poste Italiane is taking a decisive step forward in digital innovation through a new joint venture with TIM Enterprise dedicated to cloud-related IT services. This partnership will drive Italy's cloud transformation, harnessing the potential of generative AI and open source technologies. Our mission is to accelerate the nation's digital evolution, empowering public administration and private enterprises with secure and advanced solutions. The joint venture will deliver services across both leading public cloud platforms and sovereign national infrastructures.

With that, let's look at the detail of the financials. Over to you, Camillo, please.

Thank you, Matteo, and good morning, everyone. Let's move to Slide 9 on Mail, Parcel & Distribution. Revenues amount to EUR 934 million in Q3 and EUR 2.8 billion in the 9 months, up 3% and 2%, respectively. Mail revenues for EUR 180 million in Q3 and at EUR 1.5 billion year-to-date are in line with our fiscal year '25 guidance presented in February. Parcel revenues were up 10% to EUR 420 million in Q3 and up 8% to EUR 1.2 billion in the 9 months, supported by all customer segments, which continue to improve our revenue diversification. Distribution revenues from other business units are up 3% in the 9 months, reflecting positive commercial trends. Adjusted EBIT at EUR 137 million year-to-date is in line with the guidance provided for the full year.

Let's look at volumes and tariff on Slide 10. Parcel volumes are up a solid 14% in Q3 and 12% in the 9 months to 245 million items. In Q3, we also increased the portion of items delivered via the wholesale network to 45%, up 5 points versus last year, leading to a positive contribution to the overall profitability.

Looking at pricing, the average tariff was impacted by higher volumes with lower pricing and unit costs as we continued to have high volumes in secondhand items and boxless returns. On Mail, the volume trend is in line with expectations, showing a slower volume decline in Q3 compared to the first half of the year. The bulk of the volume decline remains concentrated on lower value items such as direct marketing and registered mail. We continue to compensate anticipated volume decline with ongoing repricing actions across both regulated and market products.

Moving to Financial Services on Slide 11. Gross revenue for Q3 landed at EUR 1.6 billion and just shy of EUR 5 billion for the 9 months, up 3% and 6%, respectively. Net interest income came at EUR 669 million in Q3, up 3% and at EUR 2 billion year-to-date, up 6%, benefiting from higher average deposits and lower cost of funding. Postal saving distribution fees amounted to EUR 443 million in Q3, up 3% and EUR 1.3 billion, up 5% year-to-date, supported by improved gross inflows driven by commercial initiatives as well as longer maturity of products sold. Consumer loans distribution fees reached EUR 63 million in the quarter and EUR 203 million in the 9 months, both up 15%, driven by higher margins, confirming the strength of our multi-partnership model. Asset management fees came in at EUR 47 million in Q3 and EUR 136 million in the first 9 months, impacted by a different product mix with lower upfront fees, while AUM continued to grow, thanks to positive net flows. Finally, adjusted EBIT came in at EUR 262 million in Q3, up 16% and EUR 790 million in the 9 months, up 23% compared to 2024 on the back of strong revenue performance.

Moving to Slide 12. TFAs continued to grow, reaching EUR 601 billion, up EUR 10 billion from the start of the year. Let's look at each component. We reported strong EUR 2.3 billion net inflows in investment products, confirming the positive momentum in life insurance where net inflows totaled EUR 1.2 billion. Postal savings net outflows improved in Q3, supported by strong performance of 100-year anniversary postal bond. Deposits were up, benefiting from stable retail balances at EUR 58 billion and higher, though more volatile balances from TA clients.

Moving to Slide 12 -- moving to Slide 13, sorry. Insurance Services revenues amounted to EUR 446 million in Q3, up a strong 12% year-on-year and EUR 1.4 billion in the 9 months, up 10%, supported by both Life and Protection. In Q3, we continue to report positive Life net flows driven by strong GWP, up 7% year-on-year with an increased share of multi-class products now with over 70% of Life investment and pension GWP. Our advisory offering built in the context of the new commercial service model is leading to proactive rebalancing of our clients' portfolios, resulting in a lapse rate of 8.3% in the quarter, more than 50% of which have been reinvested into new Life Investment & Pension products. Life Investment & Pension revenues are up 11% to EUR 393 million in Q3 and up 10% to EUR 1.2 billion year-to-date on the back of stable CSM stock and higher CSM release.

Protection revenues were up a solid 11% in the 9 months to EUR 147 million, supported by higher gross written premium and up 14% in the quarter. Combined ratio stood at 83%, while we confirm our fiscal year '24 guidance of about 85%. Adjusted EBIT of EUR 1.2 billion in 9 months, up 9% compared to 2024 and up 11% in Q3, reflecting top line trends.

Our stock of CSM is stable at EUR 13.7 billion, driven by strong new business and positive financial variances. This provides us with strong visibility on the future profitability of the business. Normalized CSM growth stood at 3.5% on an annualized basis, up from 2% in 2024, with strong increase in new business value and expected return more than compensating the release.

Let's look at the solvency ratio evolution on Slide 15. PosteVita Group Solvency II was 312% at the end of September and well above the managerial ambition of circa 200% of the cycle. This ratio already includes the impact of foreseeable dividend based on 100% net profit remittance. The marginal reduction in the ratio was mainly related to economic variances such as higher risk-free rates. Our Solvency II ratio currently stands between 305% and 320%.

Moving to Postepay Services on Slide 16. The Postepay ecosystem continues to represent a sustainable engine of growth, innovation and customer engagement for the group. Revenues rose to EUR 409 million in Q3 and EUR 1.2 billion in the 9 months, up 3% and 5%, respectively. Payments are up 1% to EUR 298 million in Q3 and are up 2% to EUR 878 million in the first 9 months, supported by transaction value growth of 10% in the quarter and 9% year-to-date, offsetting shortfall due to EU law change. We are significantly outperforming the market and growing our market share in a competitive environment. Net of instant payment shortfall, payment revenue growth is at around 5% in both the quarter and the 9 months.

Telco revenues are stable in the quarter and are up 1% in the 9 months to EUR 247 million, supported by our resilient client base and the fiber offer.

Finally, energy net revenues totaled EUR 86 million in the 9 months, reflecting an increased customer base that now stands at around 950,000 clients and comfortably heading towards our 1 million client base target by the end of the year. Adjusted EBIT grew a robust 6% to EUR 140 million in Q3 and 9% to EUR 416 million in 9 months, underpinned by solid top line performance and in line with guidance.

Since the start of the year, our average workforce has remained just under 120,000, consistent with the level of full year 2024, with hirings broadly offsetting exit of circa 6,000 FTEs. Our workforce productivity improved year-on-year as the growth in value-added per FTE exceeded the increase in HR cost per FTE.

Moving to group HR costs on Slide 18. At the end of September, ordinary HR costs increased by 2% to just under EUR 4.2 billion due to higher FTEs. The new salary increase effective September 1 as part of the latest collective agreement and variable compensation. In the 9 months, ordinary HR costs on revenues are down to 39% with improving operating leverage.

Moving to Slide 19. Non-HR costs increased by EUR 168 million year-on-year, mainly driven by EUR 112 million additional variable COGS, reflecting higher business volumes. Fixed COGS are basically flat, while D&A are up by EUR 54 million, in line with increased investments driving our transformation. In general, our focus on cost and CapEx discipline across all divisions remains sharp and protecting the bottom line profitability as well as cash flow remains our top priority.

Thank you for your time. Let me hand over to Matteo for a wrap-up.

Thank you, Camillo. Following 5 straight quarters of record performance, we have once again achieved outstanding results with 9 months revenues of EUR 9.6 billion, up 4% year-on-year and adjusted EBIT rising 10% to EUR 2.5 billion. On the strength of these results, we can confirm that we are absolutely confident of hitting our EUR 3.2 billion adjusted EBIT and EUR 2.2 billion net profit for 2025 guidance. We continue to build on solid momentum with a clear commitment to creating long-term value for our stakeholders. Our focus remains on driving revenues growth and diversification, further improving our cost and capital efficiency and maximizing the potential of people, technology and data.

We continue to maintain a robust balance sheet with low leverage and a Solvency II ratio at 312%, well above our managerial target. This strong financial position provides us with ample flexibility and underpins our confidence in a competitive dividend policy. As a result, we're distributing an interim dividend of EUR 0.40 per share, up 21% year-on-year, totaling nearly EUR 520 million to be paid to shareholders on November 26.

I'm pleased with the progress of our collaboration with TIM, which will generate meaningful synergies for both groups. The first of several projects, TIM Energia Powered by Poste Italiane was launched in September is now available through more than 750 TIM outlets. This partnership will deliver significant value for all stakeholders in the future.

Once again, these excellent results are a testament to the dedication and professionalism of our people whose daily commitment remain at the heart of our success. With that, thank you for listening, and Giuseppe, over to you for the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Tommaso Nieddu at Kepler.

The first one is on the Super App. So the migration of the Super App has now been completed with 15 million users and over 4 million daily active users, which is kind of impressive. So could you elaborate on the next phase of that in terms of cross-selling across all your main verticals, I don't know, like payments, insurance, energy. And any more color would be highly appreciated.

Then on the SPID, you currently manage almost 30 million digital identities and it's still growing. So if you can give us any update on a potential introduction of a fee-based model similar to other providers. So basically, if you could update us on your latest thinking around SPID monetization. And just a third one, very, very quick on insurance.

If you can give us more color on the negative operating variances that impacted the CSM evolution this quarter. So was it mainly different lapses assumptions?

Thank you, Tommaso. I will take the first 2 and leave Camillo for the third one.

Yes, so we're very proud that moving clients and users from one app that you close into a new app is a risky exercise because there is an attrition percentage of clients that don't get used to the new app. So doing this migration process in a smart and organized way is crucial in terms of not losing business. And 4.1 million daily active users, which is almost the double of the second Italian player in our -- on our data is a level of daily active users that we never reached in the past, not even adding the daily active user or a single app we had in the past. So that's good.

In terms of the revenue and the business impact of the new app, we have basically an increase of the diversification and cross-selling that is coming with the use of the app. And that cross-selling is increasing in a very meaningful way our revenue and margin figures. So we don't disclose our cross-selling indices, but I can tell you that one additional product, so moving by one, our cross-selling index creates a multiple of revenues additional to the firm. So this is really the way forward. I'm very happy with that.

Second question on SPID, yes, since several months, several key identity provider under SPID have started asking a limited amount of money to users on an annual basis, something in the range of EUR 6 to EUR 7 per year per user. And that's something that we are observing in the market and we'll make our consideration before we announce the plan in 2026. But we're a strong believer of SPID. We believe that SPID not only is serving over 1 billion cases of utilization per year in public administration service providers. So that has become the standard and very effective standard with very good use cases for public service provider. But as you know, there is also the use of SPID by private service provider. That is increasing. It is also creating meaningful and increasing revenues to post, but we believe that there is a huge potential in the system to double up from public to private service providers.

With respect to the last question on operating variances, they were driven -- the amount was driven by 3 different factors. The first was a higher degree of lapses, where, however, I want to remind the audience that half of that amount is of self-help as we moved customers to more sort of market-oriented products, i.e., multi-class. So there is half of that lapse rate that is associated to that around 4.3%.

The second point that impacted operating variances is an update of the mortality tables. And the third point was a time value of money related to the upfront payment for the insurance provider of stamp duty tax.

Next question is from Alberto Villa at Intermonte.

A couple of questions from my side. One is regarding the trend in card stocks. We have seen some decline there, especially for Postepay cards in total number, but then transactions and all the other metrics are positive. I was wondering if that's related to Reddito di Cittadinanza or other events that impacted the number of cards issued.

And the second one is if you can help us modeling for the financial income 2026. So in terms of -- we have seen some different indications from banks regarding the evolution of NII. Obviously, you have different levers. But in order to understand what we can expect in terms of evolution of financial income next year, what to bear in mind?

I -- on the first question, you have half of the answer related to the Reddito di Cittadinanza. But don't forget that we have started already 5 years ago a trip to replace our prepaid card, the yellow card without IBAN migrating into our Evolution. So you have and you have -- in the past 5 years, you had a very meaningful increase of the Postepay Evolution that actually increased in the quarter by 3%. We're now EUR 10.7 million Evolution. And Evolution is clearly for us, producing EUR 18 per year of revenues and giving to our clients the best proxy to a current account because with the IBAN, you can have your salary credited and you can do basically everything you do with a current account.

On the second topic of NII. Obviously, we will disclose our targets in 2026, but we see clearly a slightly lower interest rate environment, especially on the short term of the curve. And that means for our floating rate portfolio, lower net interest income. As we said since ever, basically since March '18, we will always compensate lower NII with higher capital gains. And this, I can make the statement today, will remain our objective also for 2026 and onwards. And to that respect, I'm pleased to report, and this is really the market coming this way that for the first time, we have our investment portfolio that has a positive mark-to-market. It's around EUR 700 million as of yesterday. And on a gross basis, we have over EUR 2 billion of positive capital gains that we can use next year and onwards to sustain our investment returns with a slightly lower NII scenario.

Our next question is from Gian Luca Ferrari, Mediobanca.

Two for me. The first one is on the EUR 1.8 billion revenue guidance on Parcels. Even if I take a low end of this number, so EUR 1.75 billion, it would imply kind of 15% increase in Parcel revenues in Q4, which seems to be implying a strong acceleration versus Q3. So I was wondering if the EUR 1.8 billion is confirmed or not?

The second is on the role of net insurance in the mandatory cat coverage for SMEs. I think net insurance will be your company dedicated to explore this opportunity. And can you confirm that you will not retain any cat risk and net insurance and Poste Group will outsource to reinsurers all the cat risk?

And sorry, the final one, if you can give us the impact on the revision of the standard formula in 2027.

Okay. I will start with the first 2 and let Camillo go on the last one on the standard formula. Revenues. I mean part of revenues grew 7%, 9% and 10% in Q1, Q2 and Q3. Q4 is the peak year -- the peak quarter, sorry, Gian Luca. And that's where we usually more than outperform the market. So it's clearly ambitious. But if I look at the volumes, we have 12% growth in 9 months and 14% growth in Q3. So certainly, Q3 has shown an acceleration. And if I combine the acceleration of Q3 to the positive commercial momentum we have to the peak, hopefully, we will get broadly in line with our EUR 1.8 billion. We might be short a little bit if things don't go well, but we're broadly in line.

The second question was net insurance. Yes, it's correct. One, net insurance is the company in the group that will take care of the new cat insurance product. Two, it's correct the fact that it will be fully reassure. Three, I can tell you that it's not a big budget product at the moment, but there is a strong focus and all I can say at this point is that I'm relatively optimistic that this will give us some additional growth in protection from '26 onwards.

On the third question on solvency regulatory changes and the standard formula, please.

Okay. So we do expect from 2027 a marginal improvement, think about mid- to high single-digit impact on our Solvency II ratio. That is driven mainly by 2 factors. The first one is the reduction of cost of capital for the calculation of the risk margin and the second is the changes to the volatility adjustment. Mid- to high single digit can mean up to 10 points.

Next question is from Giovanni Razzoli, Deutsche Bank.

Two questions. The first one is on the parcels. There is a lot of narrative on Italian press about the possible taxation -- fixed taxation on small inbound parcels. I don't know whether it is included in the budget law or is something that is rumored by the press as an idea. Do you think this is a challenge vis-a-vis your volumes of parcels inbound, especially from China? And can you share with us what is the perimeter of these activities, which could be potentially impacted? And in general, what -- how do you see the potential negative initiative going forward on the parcel volumes?

And the second question is on the postal savings. I think that the performance of the third quarter was very, very good, very strong inflow. You mentioned that there has been an ad hoc marketing campaign for the 150th anniversary of this product. Shall we take this as a reversal of the trend? For instance, you had lower redemptions in the Q3? Or shall we assume that this is a reversal -- structural reversal of the negative trend that we have seen in the recent past because of the redemptions?

Okay. Thank you, Giovanni. Very good question on taxation. I mean this is not, from what we understand, the national initiative, but it comes at European level. And it would be an additional duty today, the FTE was referring to EUR 1. I heard from other postal operator that it can be as much as EUR 2 per item import from countries outside the EU. The first order impact is clearly for those players that are more involved with delivering those items. And we have a meaningful distribution role of parcel coming specifically from Chinese platforms. So if this tax lowers the amount of items shipped from China, the first order could be a marginal impact. Usually, what we have seen in the past, it's not the first time there was already something on customs 18 months ago that the market readjusts and EUR 1 or EUR 2 will not really change the attractiveness of those platform.

There is also a second level of impact, which I think is positive or we should try to consider it and to play it on the positive side, which is this is making for the Chinese platforms less interesting to infrastructure theirselves in Italy. So you know that today, the largest platform in Italy is Amazon, and they have their own network. And looking forward and looking at what's happening around the globe, the Chinese platform are also getting organized with their own logistics. This kind of barriers probably put their investment appetite in any specific region a bit more distant.

On postal savings, there is no reversal on the net, Giovanni -- on the net funding because the amount of redemption that we face every year is extremely significant. It's only showing that the CDP that is issuing the product has done a very good job in providing products that are in line with the market that are attractive and that help us -- and it's no coincidence the fact that given the number of Italian, we counted them a couple of weeks ago when we celebrated 150 years of postal savings. There are 27 million Italians that own postal savings.

So our daily activities in the consultancy firms, in other teller on postal savings is very intense. And when we have a product, we have our salespeople being able to engage clients, not only on postal savings, but generally speaking, on all our products of savings and loan. So for us, the quality of the offer of CDP is extremely important to keep a positive dialogue with our clients. And I think, Giovanni, this is the most important news that we can take out of this positive trend.

The next question is from Andrea Lisi, Equita.

From my side. The first one, I was really interested on having more detail for what you can share about the joint venture with TIM for the cloud-based services. What should we expect here? Obviously, also the timing for the setup of this joint venture, the kind of services you expect to provide? And also, obviously, I know that it is really preliminary, but the kind of penetration and growth you expect to achieve here?

And the second is on dividend. You have indicated that you want to keep the dividend policy really appealing for shareholders. So also considering the interim dividend of EUR 0.40, what should we expect in terms of evolution of the dividend policy and the dividend payout?

Thank you, Andrea. The JV would require a bit more time, and I'm sure TIM will -- and Pietro will do his own care and [indiscernible] care and duty to explain it to investors along the road. What I can tell you at this point in time is that there is a clear process of migration to cloud, which is not only moving data from on-prem data warehouses to cloud. The beauty of moving to cloud is changing your operation and using that data in a more flexible way. So it's adding services to clients that are moving to cloud. So when you offer -- when TIM offers and the commercial responsibility of the work of the JV remains with the TIM that obviously has a commercial sales force dedicated to this offer to migrate into cloud. Increasingly, they will add products, services and value for clients.

When it comes to public sector clients, there is a couple of additional consideration that needs to be made. The first one is related to the PSN, the next-generation EU big effort, which has achieved a very meaningful result in terms of moving the majority of the public administration into cloud. And now is the second wave of increasing the services and the value of using that cloud for the public administration. And the JV will allow TIM to internalize some of the work and value-added integration of system that was previously mainly outsourced.

And the second consideration is the preliminary indication we received from core public sector clients, public administration clients that this initiative and the role of TIM in this space is very welcome because with our acquisition, we finally have in the country a national cloud provider. Think about the sovereign cloud topic, for example, with -- in the current geopolitical situation is clearly a very hot topic in the hands of the public administration. So finally, there is an Italian player that gives total confidence to the public administration to move and use data in a smarter way in the future. And this is the role that the JV will have to perform in supporting the commercial activities of TIM. And I think you will see more on this from TIM side, especially and also from our side with the announcement of the 2026 guidance in Q1 of 2026.

Dividend, you said it all. We always stated that we want our dividend policy to be competitive, which basically means we look at our peer group that is clearly in the insurance space, is clearly in the banking sector. We look at the banking sector, including the buyback programs that we don't do. So when the share performs, we have left some room in terms of dividend payout to follow and make the dividend in terms of dividend yield appealing and competitive to our investor base. This is the work that we will perform over the next 2 to 3 months and second half of February when we will announce the 2 preliminary results, 5 results, 6 guidance, we will also have our position on 2026 dividend.

The next question is from Daniel Wilson at Morgan Stanley.

Just 2, one on CDP and one on the Solvency II review again. On CDP, can you walk us through the kind of process of the renewal of the agreement with them whether there's any potential upside to the floor and the ceiling of the fees you can generate on postal savings?

And secondly, on the Solvency II review, I know you spoke about it just now. I thought the mid- to high single-digits benefit seemed a little bit lower than I was expecting, especially given that you guys have quite a high risk margin versus your solvency capital requirement. And I would have thought that the kind of risk margin changes would have been a pretty big benefit to you guys. So I'm wondering what are the offsetting factors from the benefits you're getting to bring you to that mid- to high single-digit benefit?

I will let Camillo answer both questions. Thank you, Daniel.

So the first question carries through until CDP agreement carries through until the end of 2026 with respect to how the agreement is performing. I would say that it is performing well. We guided for the year at a number of around EUR 1.7 billion in terms of revenues. We are going to be at least towards the high end of that, and we still have an additional year to perform. This was done in order not to have the agreement overlapping with the CEO change in potential change at the end of the summer. So that is the first point.

With respect to the second question, I confirm that at this point, the estimate is around 10 basis points from 2027. We have both positive and negative factors. But at this point, you should stick to what we advise, which is around 10 basis points incremental benefit, percentage points, obviously.

And finally, we have a last question from Michael Huttner at Berenberg.

Two. One is the EUR 1.1 billion TIM valuation. Where is that or the benefit of that, if you like? Where can I see it? And the second is on your lovely Slides 36 and 37, where you talk about Life net inflows and the mix between multi and segregated and all that. The feeling I have, but I'm more interested in what you're saying is you're not particularly interested at the moment in the big numbers, the volumes. So Generali this morning announced that their volumes went from EUR 3.3 billion in Q2 to EUR 4 billion in Q3. So quite an amazing number. Your numbers are lagging a lot, but it's not a criticism, just an observation. And the feeling I have is you're much more interested in transforming your portfolio, so moving your policyholders from the old segregated accounts into the multi-class. I wonder if you can explain how is that working? And what the benefit is, obviously, both for your policyholders, but also for investors?

Okay. Thank you, Michael. I will let...

Michael. Yes. Sorry, Michael, on TIM, to be clear, the current market value of the stake is EUR 1.9 billion, not EUR 1.1 billion. EUR 1.1 billion is roughly speaking, the amount invested.

And where is the benefit of that? Where -- does it boost your solvency or your capital or anything?

No, no, no. The stake is equity accounted, so we don't do any mark-to-market. So basically, the changes in the accounting value will follow the pro rata net profit and dividends of TIM going forward. So there's no mark-to-market. But obviously, the mark-to-market is important from a balance sheet valuation perspective.

Yes. Basically, if you want to be precise, if we have put EUR 1.1 billion, which we could have invested at, let's say, 3.5% in government securities, we have basically giving up around EUR 40 million of NII.

The strategy there is to extract 2 things. The first one is synergies. And we already signed the MVNO contract, which is making us saving versus the previous contract, EUR 20 million per year from next year. So that's already in the bin. I mentioned several times in my presentation, the Poste Energia contracts sold, that's additional value that is created by this partnership and this stake basically in our accounts. I spent a few words on the JV, and there is certainly more to come in terms of synergies. So that's the first block that will more than compensate the capital return that we would have had investing the EUR 1.1 billion in government securities, which is, as you know, the only thing we can do by law.

The second benefit for investor, Michael, will be once the company and is already in the strategic plan announced by TIM, we start paying dividends. So there will be a return on capital as an investor and that return on capital now has also the benefit of being on EUR 1.9 billion when we invested only EUR 1.1 billion. So it would be clearly more than compensating it would be with the leverage component. The second question, I leave it to...

Yes. So the second question was what are the trends towards shifting customer policies from capital guaranteed to partly noncapital guaranteed. And the answer is that in provided that the customers we do interact have the right financial profile, moving from capital guaranteed to noncapital guaranteed in an environment where rates are expected to go down, the expected return of a noncapital guaranteed product is superior. So the expected return for the customer should be to have a better return on the policy. And as far as we are concerned, we have different pricing between capital guaranteed and noncapital guaranteed with a different mix are sort of similar, but in the interest of customers, it's a more performing instrument in this rate environment.

And so is there a capital benefit to you guys from doing this in terms of less required capital?

There is a marginal benefit in terms of less capital for us, yes.

Yes. Sorry, just the last word, Michael. The capital benefit is marginal because the equity exposure embedded in our multi-class is residual. So our products always have -- even if it is a multi-class contract, there is always a minimum of 60% of Class I and the 40% has again a fixed income component. So at the end, we have less release than doing purely equity-linked unit products.

So that was the last question. So thank you very much for joining us today.

Thank you, everybody.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Poste Italiane's Second Quarter and First Half 2025 Results Conference Call. In a few moments, the CEO, Matteo Del Fante, will take you through some opening remarks, and then the CFO, Camillo Greco, will cover the financials. [Operator Instructions] For any topics we won't be able to cover today, please do contact the IR team, who will provide any clarifications you might require. With that, over to you, Matteo.

And good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for our Q2 and first half 2025 results call. It is great to have you with us today as we share another record-breaking quarter of growth and an impressive first half of 2025 as we continue to deliver on our strategic plan. We have delivered record second quarter group revenues, EBIT and net income. All business units contributed to a solid 5% year-on-year top line growth to EUR 6.5 billion. EBIT growth at 12% to over EUR 1.7 billion. These results are yet another demonstration of the strength of our business model, seamless execution, continued ability to adapt and grow in a dynamic environment, supported by relentless cost discipline.

Net profit at EUR 1.2 billion is up a remarkable 14% compared to the same period of last year. Since the beginning of the year, we registered strong net inflows in investment products, confirming our robust commercial performance in insurance products, coupled with record quarterly net interest margin. Our balance sheet remain extremely solid, supporting our upgraded dividend policy. Solvency II ratio remains well above 300%, including the impact of the first EUR 500 million of additional remittance from Poste Vita to the parent company paid in June 2025. The strong momentum across our platform and particularly in our financial insurance division give us the confidence to increase our EBIT adjusted guidance for full year 2025 to EUR 3.2 billion and our net profit guidance to EUR 2.2 billion. Dividend policy, a 70% payout is confirmed.

Let's move to group financial results on Slide 4. Poste delivered a strong performance in the second quarter and first half of the year. Let's focus on the first half with record top line at EUR 6.5 billion, up 5% year-on-year. Adjusted EBIT is at EUR 1.7 billion and net profit at EUR 1.2 billion, up a remarkable 12% and 14%, respectively. This is our best ever first half results since going public. And for the quarter, adjusted EBIT is at EUR 864 million and net profit is at EUR 572 million, up 10% and 9%, respectively.

On Slide 5, the strong underlying revenue momentum across all our business segments continues in the second quarter. In Mail, Parcel & Distribution, revenue growth was driven by increasing parcel volumes. The anticipated decline in mail volume is effectively mitigated through ongoing repricing actions. In Financial Services, revenue increased by 6% year-on-year to EUR 2.8 billion, supported by record level quarterly NII and solid commercial performance.

Insurance Services delivered strong profitability in both Life and Protection segments. Revenues rose 10% in the first half, reflecting growing CSM and higher release. Postepay Services unique and integrated ecosystem of everyday services delivered growth in both revenues and profitability. Payment revenues benefited from an overall increase in card usage by our clients. The telco customer base remains solid and stable, while the number of energy clients has almost doubled year-on-year, reaching around 900,000 clients.

Let's go please to Slide 6 and EBIT evolution by segment. Mail, Parcel & Distribution reported an adjusted EBIT of EUR 67 million for the first half of 2025, in line with our full year guidance. Financial Services operating profitability is up a sound 27% in the half to EUR 528 million, driven by record NII and overall strong revenue trends across products. Insurance Services EBIT is up 8% to EUR 789 million in the first half, supported by both Life investments and Protection. Finally, Postepay Services EBIT growth at 11% to EUR 276 million in half 1 is driven by resilient top line performance and effective cost management. Let's move to a more detailed review of the financials by our CFO. Over to you, Camillo, please.

Thank you, Matteo, and good afternoon, everyone. Let's move to Slide 8 on Mail, Parcel & Distribution. Revenues amount to EUR 960 million in Q2 and EUR 1.9 billion in H1, up both 1%. Mail revenues at EUR 516 million in Q2 and at just over EUR 1 billion in H1 are in line with the trend that we anticipated with our fiscal '25 guidance in February. In addition, the year-on-year comparison on Mail revenues is unfavorable this quarter as 2024 benefited from positive one-off items in Q2 '24, in particular, benefited from volumes related to the EU elections. Parcel revenues are up 9% to EUR 408 million in Q2 and up 8% to EUR 801 million in H1, supported by all customer segments with a strong acceleration versus Q1. Distribution revenues from other business units are up almost 4% in Q2 and H1, reflecting positive commercial trends. Adjusted EBIT of EUR 67 million in H1 '25 is in line with the guidance provided for the full year.

Let's look at volumes and tariffs on Slide #9. Parcel volumes are up a solid 14% in Q2 and 11% in H1 to 159 million items with growth in all customer segments from large e-commerce platforms to small, medium merchants as we are managing increasing volumes, gaining market share from competitors. In Q2, we also increased the portion of items delivered via the postal network to 43%, with a positive contribution to overall business profitability. Looking at prices, the average tariff was impacted by higher volumes with lower pricing and unit costs as we saw a strong acceleration versus Q1 of volumes in secondhand items and boxless returns. Moving to Mail. The volume trend is in line with expectations with the bulk of the volume decline concentrated in lower value items such as direct marketing and registered mail. We continue to compensate anticipated volume decline with ongoing repricing actions across both regulated and market products.

Moving to Financial Services on Slide #10. Gross revenues for the quarter came at EUR 1.7 billion and EUR 3.4 billion for H1, both up 7%. Net interest income came at a record EUR 671 million in Q2, up 3% and at EUR 1.3 billion in the half, up 7%, benefiting from higher average deposits and lower cost of funding. Postal saving distribution fees amounted to EUR 451 million in Q2, up 9% and EUR 892 million in H1, up 6% in the first 6 months, supported by improving gross inflows and longer maturity of products sold.

Consumer loan distribution fees reached EUR 69 million in the quarter, up 17% and EUR 140 million in the half, up 15%, driven by higher margins. A different product mix with lower upfront fees leads to Q2 revenues of EUR 46 million in the first half at EUR 89 million in Asset Management, while AUM are growing, thanks to positive net inflows. Finally, adjusted EBIT came in at EUR 268 million in Q2, up 23% and at EUR 528 million in the first half, up 27% when compared to the first half of 2024 on the back of positive revenue trends.

Moving to Slide 11. TFAs continue to grow, reaching EUR 600 billion in the half, up EUR 9 billion from the start of the year. Let's look at each component. We reported strong EUR 1.9 billion net inflows in investment products, confirming the positive trend in life insurance, where net inflows reached just under EUR 1 billion. Deposits were up, benefiting from resilient retail deposits at EUR 58 billion and higher balances from the PA clients, which, however, have a more volatile nature. Postal saving net outflows were driven by high maturities, mitigated by new commercial initiatives, resulting in strong gross inflows.

Moving to Slide 12. Insurance Services revenues amounted to EUR 464 million in Q2, up 8% year-on-year and EUR 0.9 billion in H1, up 10% and supported by both Life and Protection. We continue to report positive net flows also in Q2, driven by strong gross written premiums, up 20% year-on-year with increased share of multi-class products. Our new advisory offering built in the country of our new commercial service model is leading to proactive rebalancing of our client portfolios, resulting in a lapse rate of 8.9% in the first half of the year, 45% of which have been reinvested into new Life Investment and Pension products.

Life Investment and Pension revenues are up 9% to EUR 412 million in Q2 and up 10% to EUR 811 million in H1 on the back of higher CSM stock and CSM release. Protection revenues are up a strong 9% in H1, supported by higher gross written premiums, up 29% in the first half and a remarkable 43% in the quarter, also boosted by new corporate contracts. Combined ratio stood at 83% in the first half, while we confirm our fiscal year '25 guidance of about 85%. Adjusted EBIT of EUR 789 million in the first half is up 8% to H1 '24, reflecting top line trends.

On Slide 13, we show the CSM evolution in the first half of 2025. Our stock of CSM has grown to EUR 14.2 billion on the back of strong new business and recovery of financial variances. This provides us with strong visibility on the future profitability of the business. Normalized CSM growth stood at 3.2% on an annualized basis, up from 2% in 2024, with a significant increase in new business value and expected return more than compensating H1 '25 release.

Let's look at solvency ratio evolution on Slide 14. Poste Vita Group Solvency II was at 315% at the end of June 2025, well above the managerial ambition of circa 200% of the cycle. This ratio already embeds the 100% remittance net of profits for the period to the parent company as well as the impact from the first EUR 500 million additional remittance paid in June. The improvement was mainly related to the reduction of BTP spread over the quarter. Our Solvency II ratio currently stands between 305% and 320%.

Moving to Postepay services on Slide 15. The Postepay ecosystem continues to represent a powerful engine of growth, innovation and customer engagement for the group. Revenues rose to EUR 404 million in Q2 and EUR 802 million in H1, up 6% and 5%, respectively, with a strong recovery in payments growth in Q2. Payment revenues are up 5% to EUR 296 million in Q2 and up 3% to EUR 580 million in H1, supported by transaction value growth of 11% in the quarter and 9% year-to-date. The total number of ecosystem transactions also accelerated in the quarter with a 15% year-on-year growth, testament to our clients' increased card usage. This performance offsets the decline in instant payment revenues following recent EU regulatory changes.

Telco revenues are stable in the quarter and up 1% in H1 to EUR 165 million, supported by our resilient client base and the new fiber offer. Finally, energy net revenues are up a remarkable 68% to EUR 57 million in the first half, reflecting an increased customer base currently at around 900,000 clients. Adjusted EBIT grew 9% to EUR 144 million in Q2 and 11% to EUR 276 million in H1, underpinned by solid top line performance and cost discipline.

On Slide 16, let's look at workforce evolution. In the first half of the year, the average headcount was just shy of 120,000 with the increase aimed at supporting business growth, both at the holding company and subsidiaries. HR cost per FTE are up 2% to EUR 47,800, driven by increases linked to the new labor agreement and variable compensation to reward performance.

Moving to group HR costs on Slide 17. In H1, ordinary HR costs increased by 3% to just under EUR 2.9 billion due to the higher FTEs and variable compensation, as already mentioned. In the half, ordinary HR costs on revenues were -- are down to 40%.

Moving to Slide 18. Non-HR costs increased by EUR 120 million year-on-year, mainly driven by EUR 72 million additional variable COGS, reflecting higher business volumes. Fixed COGS are up EUR 10 million. D&A are up by EUR 38 million, in line with the increase in investments driving our continuous transformation. In general, our focus on cost and CapEx discipline across all divisions remains laser sharp and protecting the bottom line profitability as well as cash flow remains our top priority. Thank you for your time. Let me hand over to Matteo for the wrap-up.

Thank you, Camillo. I'm proud to say that 2025 is progressing very well with these results reflecting consistent strength across all businesses, achieving record first half revenues and profitability. We continue to build upon our solid momentum with a clear commitment to generate long-term value for our stakeholders. The strong performance to date give us the confidence to raise our full year 2025 guidance. We're increasing it at the adjusted EBIT level from the initial EUR 3.1 billion to EUR 3.2 billion and the 2025 net profit guidance from EUR 2.1 billion to EUR 2.2 billion, resulting in a higher shareholder remuneration in light of our dividend policy based on a payout ratio.

We maintain a solid group balance sheet with low leverage and an insurance Solvency II ratio at 315%, well above our managerial ambition, providing us with significant financial flexibility. Our unique model continues to position us well for sustained profitable growth in all market conditions and is fully supported by the strong diversification of the group. Finally, I want to thank again our dedicated employees whose hard work, commitment, and professional skills are key to the strong results we continue to achieve. Thank you for listening. And Giuseppe, over to you for the Q&A.

Thank you, Matteo. So we're ready to start the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] I ask you to limit yourself to two questions. The first question we have is from Gian Luca Ferrari, Mediobanca.

The first is on the news of the day. So the article reporting that you might be exploiting a Danish compromise to be applied to the group, and that would also bring a reorganization of your operations. Now the -- apart from the comments you can make today, my question is, in case of a significant benefit, would you ever consider taking a full banking license?

Second question is on the retail investment flows. Apparently, the number is not that high in Q2. But I think if my reading is correct, you made a very strong requalification of your Life business in Q2 with a big switch from G&A savings into unit and multi class. And if you can remind us what are the margins on those two products? And also on the postal savings, it seems that the net outflows are reducing quite materially, so much more gross flows. And will this lead to potentially more than EUR 1.7 billion for the year?

Thank you, Gian Luca. I'll take the first question and let Camillo take retail investment flows and growth, postal savings. The answer is very simple. I mean, technically today, as you pointed out, we don't have a banking license. This is a decision that lies with our shareholder, not with management. But as far as we know, there is nothing in the cards of changing the status of Poste Italiane. So there is nothing to focus upon on the Danish compromise space at the moment as far as we know. Please, Camillo.

Yes. So I'll start talking about the net inflows. First of all, I'd say that the net inflows are in line with our expectations. We have had an acceleration in net inflows in the insurance business. If you compare it to both the first quarter and second quarter of 2024, which objectively were unsatisfactory with EUR 900 million of net inflows. And we are, as I said, exactly in line what we expect to do for the full year, which is probably twice that amount.

Secondly, I'd also like to point out that we had also a very strong performance in terms of gross inflows, both on insurance and our postal business. So our retail workforce has been working very hard to convert the gross maturity that we had. And just to give you a number, all in the second quarter and is in the appendix of the presentation, we had EUR 1 billion more of gross inflows if compared to the same period of last year, a bit more than EUR 4 billion in Q2 2024 to a bit more than EUR 5 billion in Q2 2025.

With respect to the other question on postal savings, we had indeed a good first half. At this point, we do not intend to change the guidance on specifically this product or any other product for that matter. What we want to do is that we want to give you an overall feel of what's going to be the EBIT of the group, which we feel comfortable is increasing by EUR 100 million in terms of guidance from EUR 3.1 billion to EUR 3.2 billion. It is probably to assume that part of that outperformance will also come from postal savings like possibly some of the other stuff from NII or other division of the business.

You also asked a question around fees in capital guarantee versus noncapital guaranteed. Yes, we have marginally higher fees in the multi-class product that we're talking about, an amount which I would -- attend to 100 basis points order of magnitude. But obviously, what we are doing here is that we are moving our customer base towards products that are more competitive in the current rate environment.

Next question is from Alberto Villa, Intermonte. Go ahead, Alberto.

A couple from my side. One is, again, on the potential reorganization. First of all, just to understand if this is something that you are considering or not? And then if this will be eventually functional also to manage the let's say, reorganization of payments and mobile businesses and if it could eventually facilitate in the future, the combination of the mobile business with the TIM in the future, is that something that could be considered in the future?

And the second question is related to the revision of the guidance. I see that the NII is stronger than expected, and the first half was very strong. So I was considering whether the revision of the guidance is mostly related to NII or there are other parts of the business that are delivering stronger than compared to what you anticipated when you released the guidance? And finally, on the NII, the dynamics we have to consider in the second half of the year, also considering the resetting in September, please, just to understand. What are your expectations for the second part of the year in terms of NII?

Thank you, Alberto. I will take the first question and then let Camillo again to prepare for the second one. I mean there is -- first of all, at the moment, we are technically not yet fully authorized by the antitrust as owner of TIM. So we're still in the process of getting the final clearance. Having said that, assuming we will get the clearance sometime down the road, we will explore potential additional synergies on the cost side, for sure, and we will start looking at the revenue side of the income statement as well in the future.

But to do that, it doesn't need to -- at the moment, we don't think there is any reorganization needed to achieve within Poste to achieve those results. So we can carry on as the answer to Gian Luca, Alberto, with our current organization. And obviously, we're always trying to optimize everything we do. But at the moment, within TIM, we don't change.

So with respect to that to the other part of the question, which was what contributes to upgrade the guidance and secondly, NII, I'll start with NII. So when we presented the numbers in February, we talked about overall portfolio return of EUR 2.6 billion. The EUR 2.6 billion was a combination of around EUR 2.5 billion of NII and EUR 100 million of what we call active portfolio management, total EUR 2.6 billion.

What we are now saying is that we think that, that number will indeed be EUR 2.6 billion with probably a lower contribution of active portfolio management, as the business is performing in a way that we might decide also forward-looking to keep some of those gains in the base of our investments.

With respect instead to the guidance, I'll repeat what I said to Gian Luca, which is that we have indeed increased the EBIT of EUR 100 million from EUR 3.1 billion to EUR 3.2 billion. There are a number of drivers for that decision. One is certainly NII, but not the only one. Postal savings are also performing well as was highlighted, and also other parts of the business are doing too. So both the insurance and the payments business are performing strongly. So I think I wouldn't single out a single driver for that decision.

Okay. Next question is from Andrea Lisi of Equita.

The first one is on the trend we are observing on the Mail business, where there is an acceleration in the year-on-year decline of revenues versus the first quarter, especially linked to the trend in volumes. So just wondering to understand if this trend is the one that you were expecting and if we should expect it to continue also in the coming quarters?

The second question is on the Protection business, where we are observing a strong year-on-year growth in the corporate side. Is it already linked to the NatCat mandate recoveries? Or is it linked to something else? Are you positioned on this front? And the last one is still on NII, which benefited from higher volumes of investment and also on the asset yield side. The question is, do you have a further margin increase the size of the portfolio, also considering the leverage -- your leverage ratio, the position of your leverage ratio?

Okay. I'll take the last one and let Camillo prepare for the Mail revenue trend and Protection business. We do have marginal room for increasing the leverage, Andrea, and thank you for your questions. I wanted to take the opportunity to remind you and the other people on the call that we've been working on the stability of the return of our portfolio for the last 3 to 4 years.

So when rates back up back in 2022, we took the opportunity to try to immunize and get the highest possible return in our portfolio so that when rates eventually would have gone south, we would have had the maximum possible resilience. And that's what we are showing today, and that's what we have committed to when we launched our plan in March last year. So we are performing our plan. But the aim of the management is to try to keep the investment portfolio return stable year-on-year if possible, increasing it when the market allow us to do so. Please, Camillo.

Okay. So I'll start with Mail. So I guess that without going back in time, we have been quite transparent on the fact that the secular trend of mail was downwards as opposed to upwards. We had a positive year in 2024 with above expectation performance that was also driven by positive one-offs, and we specifically talk about one in Q2 '25, as in Q2 '24, we had European elections, which contributed around EUR 20 million to the performance of the quarter.

The performance of Mail business in the second half of the year is not expected at this point to be impacted by other one-offs. It's going to be down compared to 2024. But absolutely, and very thoughtfully, I reconfirmed, it's going to be at least in line with our expectations. And our expectations is that Mail business will contribute EUR 2.1 billion in revenues for 2025. So we are exactly in line with the trend. With respect -- sorry, I say a touch more saying that, that trend will be supported by continued repricing actions, including also repricing which is kicked in as of the first of April, and we had the benefit of repricing around EUR 15 million in Q2 and will continue throughout the year.

With respect instead to the performance of P&C, we were pleased too by that performance. First general point is that the strength of the business was throughout the different categories, both at Poste Assicura and Poste Vita, but also net, our business and net insurance. The things that would single out in Q2 are with regards to specific a couple of positive contracts that we won in the corporate world with two large customers, which started to contribute to the P&L of the business. Here, instead, we had given a guidance of the year of premium well in excess of EUR 1 billion. That's obviously where we will go, probably be shy of EUR 1.5 billion.

And with respect to the NatCat business, you're not seeing any revenues there because we have already started. But we are ready. We're not going to be big in the space, but we have the product, and we're starting to market it mainly to SMEs.

Okay. Next question is from Iain Pearce at BNP Paribas.

The first one is just on the lapse rate in the Insurance division. Just trying to get an understanding of if you see that lapse rate being driven by those commercial actions and if the 2-point increase that we've seen is something that you sort of expected and are comfortable with?

And the second one is just on the Postepay. I know there's been a quite marked decline in the total number of card stock at Postepay. If you could just give us some detail on what's driving that and if the expectation was that this card stocks will fall and that would be offset by the digital payments in the plan? Those are my two questions.

Okay. On lapse, Camillo, and I will be answering on card stock.

Yes. So as mentioned, I think to one of the previous questions, this year, we have been much more proactive in terms of commercial actions with our customer base, and we have tried in the benefit of our customers to migrate some of them towards a product is not fully capital guaranteed, but towards a product, there's some flavor of equity content. That has led to close to 50% in the second half of, let's say, induced lapse rate. Anyway, if you were to exclude that managerial action, you would have a lapse rate in there of 4%, which is much closer to what we had historically. You should assume that this managerial actions will continue as the strategy is to move more of our customers towards that type of product, which we believe that in this environment is more conducive to value generation.

And Iain, on the cards stock is correct. We decreased the number of cards, which is a specific evidence of the fact that the Italian government has stopped paying the minimum salary to citizens, and that was done in the past through a Poste card. So that's a specific technical aspect you see there.

What I think is more relevant for our business is that we look at the usage of the cards. So our market share of the transaction that are done with cards, both physical and digital, both on physical sites and on services, so online. And the first half of the year from the data we have a meaningful increase in our market share of the transaction with cards. So we restarted growing in 2025 after we were relatively stable for a couple of years after a big increase that we experienced from 2019 to 2021.

Okay. Next question is from Michael Huttner at Berenberg.

Two questions. One, you just mentioned increased market share. And it seems to come through, not just in cards, but in Mail, obviously. It feels like you're gaining market share in insurance and possibly also in deposits. So just wondering what's driving this? Is there a big campaign with a big picture of Matteo and Camillo at the front saying Poste is great? I know it sounds facile, but there seems to be a shift here. So I'd be interested.

And the second one is the FTEs is rising. Now I've always hoped or thought that part of the strategy would be to try and reduce or limit the growth in HR costs. And it seems to be the opposite trend, not just in terms of cost per head, but also in terms of number. My guess is this is linked to what I see as increased market share, but any thoughts would be helpful.

Okay. Thank you, Michael. I'll answer the first question and set the scene for Camillo to answer the second one. I think in the -- we're not winning market share everywhere, but we monitor market share very closely because for us, having a platform strategy based on often relatively low-margin products, increasing market share is extremely important. So we go for volumes, and we need to see those volumes coming through. So I think the fact that we are managing to win market share in relatively high number of products and industry is due to the fact that one, we offer to our clients the best service in terms of physical versus digital.

Let me take the opportunity to say that on the digital side, we are increasing our footprint today. We're doing 26.5 million daily interaction with Italians. Our unique app, the one that will combine all services of Poste Italiane, has reached over 9 million Italians linked to it, and we have another 6.5 million that will move by the end -- by mid-October of 2025. So last quarter, we'll have more than 15 million, 16 million Italians on one single app. That single app has 5x the conversion rate of any sales channel of the legacy BancoPosta and Postepay.

So when you go on that app, the UX is helping us doing the sale. And we also observed the fact that the clients that are buying more products and helping us increase market share across products are the ones that have a hybrid approach about the use of Poste. So they most of the time go digital, but every now and then when they need to they go to the office. And those are the clients that have more products of Poste and therefore supporting the market share. So I hope I was, Michael, clear enough. In one word, hopefully, this is the platform effect. Please, Camillo.

And with respect to FTEs, it is true that FTEs are up compared to year-end. This is also true that we said that for 2025, the FTEs would have stood around 120,000, we are slightly shy of that number. We have a business which is growing, and that requires additional manpower, not only at the holding company, but also some of our subsidiaries, as I mentioned. So that is in terms of number of adds in terms of labor cost. Our colleagues have a 4-year Union-negotiated agreement, which ends at the 31st of December 2027. It was specifically specific salary increase on a yearly basis. So that is within our numbers and planned.

What we show in the presentation also is that the people effect in terms of additional heads that we have weighs around EUR 37 million, whereas instead, we have EUR 46 million which are related not only to the salary increase, which is Union-negotiated, which I just mentioned, but also related to increased premium to the network to ensure that, in fact, our products are sold exactly as the CEO was saying. So we're basically paying more and more for performance.

Okay. The next question is from Manuela Meroni, Banca IMI.

I have two. The first one is a follow-up on the potential reorganization. Do you see from a theoretical point of view, any financial or industrial benefit from reorganizing all your financial activities under BancoPosta?

And the second question is on your active portfolio management. I noticed that the unrealized capital losses on the government bond portfolio has turned into capital gains. You said that you're not going to realize capital gains in the second part of the year. This is what I understood. So I would like to understand how we can -- let's say, what are you going to do with the capital gains going forward? Are you going to use it in an opportunistic way so you can -- if you can please guide us on that?

Thank you, Manuela. I'll take your second question. We haven't stated that we're not going to do additional capital gains in the second half. So we're still assessing the best market opportunity. And it will not certainly be more than what we had in the budget, which is short of EUR 100 million. So that, you can certainly consider it as a cap for the total year.

The capital gain that we now have in the portfolio has emerged as a significant amount on a gross basis, we basically reach EUR 1.9 billion. And we always stated since our first plan in February of 2018 that you have a sort of balancing effect of NII versus capital gains over time, depending on the interest rate environment. So we're probably getting to the phase where the capital gain component of our investment portfolio returns, we will, going forward, grow to balance what we are going to lose on the NII side of the investment portfolio picture.

So that's -- you could probably consider 2025 as a turning year, and from 2026 is probably going to be a different pattern. And on your first question, I think I don't have anything more to say. There is nothing in the cards at the moment.

Okay. There is no further questions. So thank you all for joining us today.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you for the time. Bye.