Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Poste Italiane's Second Quarter and First Half 2026 Results Conference Call. In a few moments, our CEO, Matteo Del Fante, will take you through some opening remarks, including an overview of our key strategic initiatives.

Then our CFO, Camillo Greco, will give an update on the TIM transaction and deep dive on 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 contact the Investor Relations team, who will provide any clarification you might require. With that, over to you, Matteo.

Thank you, Giuseppe, and thank you all for joining us. Our first-half results mark another record for Poste Italiane and confirm, once again, the strength and resilience of our platform business model.

We're reporting record first-half revenues at €6.8 billion, up 6%, with healthy growth across all business units. Profitability reached a new high: adjusted EBIT of €1.8 billion, up 7% year-on-year, reflecting solid top-line growth and continued cost discipline.

Net profit came in at €1.2 billion, up 4%. Commercial momentum remains strong, with €2.7 billion investment net inflows, improving postal savings trends, and stable retail deposits, taking total financial assets to a remarkable €613 billion.

Our balance sheet remained rock-solid, with a Solvency II ratio at 303% and almost €900 million cash generated in the first six months. These results reinforce our confidence in the rest of the year.

We confirm our 2026 standalone guidance and dividend policy, supported by the consistent delivery of our strategy and strong business momentum. Moving to slide four, today is not only about record results.

We're presenting also—and this is very important—a clear roadmap for the next phase of our platform company journey. We have agreed the term sheet for the new 2027–2030 postal savings agreement with CDP, providing further visibility on this important revenue stream over the next three to four years.

Camillo will cover this in more detail later. With the creation of the financial hub, we're simplifying our group structure, reinforcing client-centric approach, and optimizing capital.

Yesterday, we have signed a landmark agreement with our labor unions on the reorganization of our physical network through a hub-and-spoke model, making it more flexible and effective for the million of clients we serve. We're adopting AI at scale to drive cross-selling and efficiency gain across the entire group, powering our tech-enabled omnichannel commercial engine, and rewiring the way we work through agentic and physical AI.

Finally, we continue to execute decisively on the TIM transaction. The tender offer started on July 20th and will run to September 11th.

On July 18th, TIM board unanimously deemed the consideration offered fair from a financial point of view, and positively assessed the rationale and business prospects of the transaction. Upon completion, we expect to present the combined entity business plan by the first quarter of 2027.

Let's move to group financial results on slide five. We have posted, for the fifth consecutive time, a record second quarter and first half, with revenue at €3.4 [billion?]

in Q2, up 4% year-on-year, and €6.8 [billion?] in H1, up 6%.

Top line drives profitability, with adjusted EBIT for the first half at €1.8 [billion?] , up 7% year-on-year.

Net profit, excluding the TIM stake contribution, was €1.2 billion in H1, up 4%. Moving to slide six, revenue momentum remains healthy across all businesses.

In Mail, Parcel & Distribution, growth was driven by parcel and logistics, with mail revenues supported by ongoing repricing. Financial Services revenues continue to grow in the first half to €3 billion, supported by a strong investment portfolio contribution and solid commercial activity.

Insurance Services deliver strong results across both life and protection, with revenues up 9% in the first half to €983 million, reflecting higher CSM stock and CSM release. Postepay Services have kept up with solid performance across products, underscoring the strength of the everyday platform.

Let's move to our key strategic initiatives, starting from slide eight. We're strengthening our client-centric approach and unlocking additional value across the organization through the creation of a single financial hub, bringing financial, insurance, and payments together, and moving from four to two reporting business units.

The project is structured in two phases. Phase one, by the end of this year, will bring together our banking, insurance, and payment activities into a single financial insurance service hub from a divisional and managerial standpoint.

Postepay will be demerged, and its payment business will be allocated to BancoPosta. Phase two, over '27 and '28, will see also the allocation of the Poste Vita stake to BancoPosta, subject to regulatory and legal approvals.

This reorganization will generate tangible value through both revenue discipline and cost efficiencies. On the revenue side, we will see higher net interest income thanks to the increase of BancoPosta regulatory capital, enabling additional leverage capacity.

We also expect higher inflows supported by stronger network governance and enhanced advisory tools, as well as enhance cross- and up-selling between current accounts and prepaid cards, fostered by a new digital platform to be launched next year. On the cost side, we will generate efficiency through the redeployment of up to 25% of the combined BancoPosta and Postepay workforces.

The new divisional reporting will be implemented from beginning of next year. Finally, we're proud to have been selected as a pilot PSP for the digital euro by the ECB, a recognition of our leadership and focus on digital payments and financial innovation.

Let's now look how we're reshaping our physical network on slide number nine. Today, each province—and we have 132 of them in Italy—on average covers around 100 post offices.

We believe this is not the most effective way to drive growth through our new proactive mode and capture the full potential of our network, as the 1-to-100 span of control limit the support we can provide to some offices. Many of our smaller offices operate in markets where traditional banks have withdrawn, leaving Poste as a primary financial presence.

These communities represent a significant growth opportunity, provided we can deliver stronger commercial focus and advisory support. That is why we're introducing a hub-and-spoke model, an initiative shaped through years of planning and constructive engagement with the union representatives and the stakeholders, reflecting both the scale and the complexity of the transformation, and leading to a signing of a landmark agreement with the unions just yesterday.

Under the new structure, province offices will oversee around 10 hubs each, and each hub will coordinate approximately 10 spoke offices. This reduces the span of control from 1-to-100 to 1-to-10, creating a much more effective management model.

The benefits are clear: stronger governance, better training, greater accountability, and more consistent execution across the network. We're also aligning incentives at hub level to encourage collaboration and improve performances across all offices.

This model also accelerate the rollout of our specialized advisory model. Our dynamic advisors, almost 3,000 of them, serve affluent clients and must be highly productive.

Our personal advisors, over 5,000, serve the mass market in a more reactive way across a larger book. The combination of these two initiatives is particularly powerful.

The hub structure provides the local leadership and support needed to fully leverage advisors' specialization across every office in the network, improving governance and productivity with the ultimate goal of delivering growth. Let's zoom for a second on our platform, on slide 10.

The slide captures the essence of what we're building: a connected and trusted platform, a client-centric ecosystem focused on our client needs rather than products. We have built a connected and trusted ecosystem that serves both customer and businesses, combining physical and digital capabilities under a single platform.

We support clients across everyday banking, daily services, and long-term wealth and protection needs. For businesses, we provide a comprehensive suite of solutions spanning financial services, logistics, welfare, and IT operations.

At the center of this ecosystem sits PostePass, the single, unique access point to our platform that will seamlessly connect our clients to our full suite of solutions, facilitating onboarding and cross-selling. This will make our platform truly unique: one trusted relationship, one point of access, meeting the full range of client needs, generating engagement, cross-selling, and long-term value.

Moving to slide 11, this chart shows how we're evolving our unmatched platform, to be further accelerated by, potentially, the TIM, upon transaction completion. Today, our consumer platform includes a logistic and distribution B2B2C model, and financial and insurance services which are more on a B2C operations model.

TIM Consumer will add an upmarket connectivity offering to our consumer platform, as you can see on the slide. The platform is underpinned by Italy's largest integrated physical and distribution network, comprising, today, 13,000 post offices, the country-leading app with 4.2 million daily average users, and 49,000 third-party network points.

TIM will further enhance this footprint with approximately 4,000 retail outlets, including premium locations, highly complementary to the post office network, while also providing opportunities for further optimization and rationalization. All of this is powered by best-in-class intelligent IT infrastructure and by an AI-powered omnichannel commercial engine, which I will present a little later.

The more connected the ecosystem becomes, the greater our ability to deepen client relationship, increase revenue per customer, accelerate cross- and up-selling, and, finally, expand customer lifetime value. To ensure successful execution, strong leadership and clear accountability are essential.

This is why we will entrust, shortly, the responsibility for coordinating the entire consumer platform to one of our most experienced senior leaders. Let's see how data and AI power our omnichannel model, because harnessing AI effectively is no longer optional, in our opinion.

It is a key driver of competitiveness and growth. We think about AI, like everybody else, on two fronts: AI outside, to boost commercial efforts; and AI inside, to improve operations.

It starts with PostePass, on the left, the single access key point to our platform. Everyone of our 27 million daily interactions feeds our knowledge of the client.

Everything flows into the AI orchestrator, at the center of the page, intercepting client needs and managing traffic. This is where data, algorithms, and customer relationship become monetizable.

The model is future-proof. The same orchestration is ready to govern new form of e-commerce, such as business-to-agent, where AI agents, not people, do the shopping.

This is important to highlight: our channels work as one integrated system. We encourage everyday transactions on digital channels, while generating post office visits when human advice matter most, especially for wealth management and long-term needs.

The proof is that post office footfall has, in fact, stabilized, with branches now focusing on higher value-added and advisory-led activities. We use AI to power our omnichannel model, while the super app is an AI-powered commercial engine generating direct digital sales and drive-to-post-office effect.

The same intelligence enriches our financial advisors' tools, with smart recommendations, real-time insights, and live support during customer conversations. Omnichannel sales penetration reached 46% in H1 '26, supported by a growing base of 14 million hybrid customers seamlessly engaging across both physical and digital channels.

Let's zoom on the super app on slide 13, which is evolving into a true agentic AI-powered commercial engine. In practice, this means using AI to make every client interaction more relevant, from personalized offers and smart recommendations to next-generation search, conversational support for purchase, and location-based engagement at the right moment.

This is not just a product evolution. It is the foundation for a broader business-to-agent model, where AI-enabled marketing will serve both our retail and business ecosystems, in a world where AI agents will increasingly support client choices.

Our app operates at an unmatched national scale, with 18.2 million users and 4.2 million daily active users in H1. Recent data shows a further increase in our app users, reaching 4.3 in June, and in a single day peaking over 5 million in July.

This is further confirmation of its relevance for our clients, and the powerful role it plays as an engagement and commercial tool supporting future cross-selling and business growth. 78% of our app users hold two or more products, up 330 basis points versus last year, compared to less than 40% for non-app users.

Let's turn to AI-inside strategy: the infrastructure that powers the orchestrator, the super app, and the advisor tool we have just presented, and at the same time, it is reshaping our processes and the way we work. We have built an intelligent infrastructure based on our universal knowledge base, Poste Italiane's digital brain, and on hybrid cloud and AI computing capabilities.

This allows us to use AI at scale in a cost-effective way, keeping control of our data, supporting productivity, sovereignty, and low latency. We are reinventing the software life cycle, applying AI across development, maintenance, and procurement.

This means faster delivery and lower IT and customer operations costs. Finally, we're bringing AI into the way our people work: individual productivity tools, personal agents, and enterprise agents redesign around end-to-end processes.

The objective is not to replace people, but to increase productivity and redeploy skills towards higher-value activities. Thanks to AI, we will generate savings of around €150 million in annual IT opex and capex and €50 million in customer operations costs within the next four years.

At the same time, we're targeting to redeploy up to 20% of our overhead FTEs to higher value-added tasks within the next five years. Let me now hand over to Camillo for an update on the TIM transaction and deep dive on the financials.

Thank you, Matteo. Let me start with a few self-explanatory numbers on slide 15.

The market has given a strong endorsement to the TIM transaction, and the clearest evidence is the share price rerating since we announced the deal. Since announcement, the implied value of our offer has risen 21% to €13.1 billion, and the implied offer price has risen from €6.35 per share to €7.66 per share.

As a result, the premium embedded in our offer has expanded materially, reaching 31% on the spot price and 43% on the six-month VWAP, compared with 9% and 18% respectively at announcement. All of this has taken place while TIM Brasil's share price fell by around 10%, meaning that the implied market value of the TIM's ex-Brazil has doubled, while the European telco index has lost around 4% over the same period.

The combined entity will have a market cap of circa €45 billion, of which €23 billion free float, ensuring substantial stock liquidity. The market is recognizing the strategic and financial merits of the combination and the value that can be created through this transaction.

On slide 16, we have an update on the timeline. On July 11th, the TIM board unanimously deemed the consideration offered fair.

The tender offer period started on July 20th and is scheduled to close on September 11th, with a potential reopening period between September 21st and 25th. We target transaction closing by Q3 '26, allowing us to accelerate integration and start capturing value creation opportunities as early as possible.

This timeline enables us to present the combined entity business plan in Q1 '27, providing a clear strategic roadmap and visibility on the full value creation potential of the deal. Let's now move to the detailed financial overview of our Q2 and H1 2026 financial results.

Starting with Mail, Parcel & Distribution, revenues in Q2 were at €1 billion, up 7%, whilst in H1, they totaled just over €2 billion, up 6% year-on-year. Mail revenues, supported by repricing actions and a favorable mix, reached just over €700 million in Q2 and €1 billion in H1.

This is a 3% decline, in line with the trend that we had already anticipated for full-year 2026. Parcel revenues accelerated 11% to €453 million in Q2 and by 13% to €908 million in H1, driven by market share gains across a diversified parcel client base and a continued logistics expansion, including a small initial contribution from Logistic 360, our Benetton joint venture consolidated from April.

Distribution revenues are broadly stable, reflecting lower active portfolio management revenues versus last year. Adjusted EBIT is progressing in line with our 2026 guidance.

On slide 19, parcel volumes grew by 11% in Q2 to 90 million items, and by 13% in H1 to 179 million. In Q2, 48% of parcels were delivered through our postal network, up 5 percentage points year-on-year, allowing for a more efficient absorption of fixed costs.

The average parcel tariff benefited from repricing and mix. On mail, volume trends remain in line with expectations, while the higher average tariff, up around 3% in the quarter, reflects our ongoing repricing actions.

Moving to slide 20, Financial Services gross revenues were stable at €1.7 billion in the quarter and up 4% year-on-year to €3.5 billion. Net interest income benefited from an improved rate environment, reaching €676 million in Q2, while opportunities to generate active portfolio management revenues for the first half were concentrated in Q1.

Postal savings fees were roughly stable and in line with full-year guidance at €443 million in Q2 and €883 million in H1. Transaction banking reflected lower traditional payment slips volumes, with Q2 revenues at €169 million and H1 revenues at €342 million.

Consumer loans fees, impacted by higher rates, reached €65 million in the quarter and €130 million in H1. Asset management revenues grew on a higher assets under management to €56 million in Q2 and €112 million in H1.

Adjusted EBIT reflects top-line trends at €265 million in the quarter and €583 million in the first half. Moving to slide 21, TFAs reached €613 billion, up €13 billion in H1 '26.

Looking briefly at each component: we reported strong €2.7 billion net inflows in investment products, excluding the Cronos run-off—Cronos is the ex-Eurovita—confirming the positive trend in life insurance, with significant contribution from multi-class products, as well as asset management. Deposits were up, benefiting from higher balances from PA clients and stable retail deposits at €59 billion, confirming the stickiness and loyalty of our customer base.

Postal savings net outflows continued to improve thanks to product innovation and strong commercial focus. Moving to slide 22, as Matteo mentioned earlier, we have agreed the term sheet with CDP for the new postal savings distribution agreement covering the 2027–2030 period.

This is an important milestone as it provides enhanced visibility on this significant revenue stream. Thanks to continued product innovation, effective management of maturities, and enhanced inheritance solutions, we target €1.9 billion of average annual revenues over the period covered by the agreement, compared to €1.8 billion over the past three years.

The framework also includes higher capacity for more attractive new liquidity offers. This further reinforces the resilience, visibility, and long-term quality of our Financial Services revenue base.

Let's now move to Insurance Services on slide number 23. Insurance Services revenues amounted to €514 million in Q2, up 11% year-on-year, and €983 million in H1, up 9%.

We continue to have net inflows in life, both in Q2 and H1, with a significant contribution from multi-class products. Lapse rate is improving, down to 6.6% in Q2, driven by lower clients' portfolio rebalancing activity.

In both Q2 and H1, around 35% of our lapses have been reinvested into new life products. Life investment and pension revenues are up 11% to €455 million in Q2 and up 8% in H1 to €878 million, driven by a growing CSM and higher release.

Protection revenues are up 13% in Q2 and 11% in H1, supported by a strong growth of retail GWP, which have a higher marginality. Please refer to appendix for further details.

The resulted combined ratio of 82% remains amongst the best in the market. In Q2, adjusted EBIT was up 6% at €436 million, and net profit up 5% to €312 million, both reflecting top-line trends.

On slide 22, we show the CSM evolution. Group CSM reached €13.8 billion, providing strong visibility on the division's sustainable profitability going forward.

Normalized CSM growth of 1.5% annualized is driven by strong new business and expected return, more than offset the period release. Poste Vita Group Solvency II ratio was at 303% at the end of June.

This ratio already embeds the accrual of the 100% net profit remittance to the parent company. Over the quarter, the ratio benefited from a capital generation, more than compensating the foreseeable dividend and a positive impact from lower rates and spreads.

Moving to Postepay Services on slide 26, where solid revenue and EBIT progression continues, underscoring strength of our everyday ecosystem. Revenues rose by 8% year-on-year to €435 million in Q2 and by 7% in H1 to €860 million.

Payment revenues at €314 million, up 6% in Q2 and up 5% in H1 to €611 million, supported by higher transaction value, up 8% year-on-year, and total number of ecosystem transactions up 13%. The telco business continued to be supported by ongoing client acquisitions, with the client base reaching just over 5 million by the end of June.

Revenues were stable with €84 million in Q2 and €165 million in H1. Energy revenues were strong, both in Q2 and H1, reaching €38 million and €84 million respectively, driven by an expanding customer base, now at 1.2 million clients.

Top-line performance and effective cost management drove a strong 10% adjusted EBIT growth in the quarter to €158 million, while H1 EBIT at €310 million is up 12% versus last year. Average headcount stood at just over 119,000 in Q2 2026.

Importantly, the value added per FTE continues to improve by 5% at €92k per FTE. HR costs per FTE are up 1% to €48k per FTE, reflecting labor agreement salary increase.

Moving to slide 28, HR costs increased by 1% in H1 to almost €2.9 billion, with additional costs from labor agreement salary increase partially compensated by other items. In H1, ordinary HR cost on revenues were down to 39%.

Non-HR costs increased by €140 million year-on-year. Fixed costs were up due to a concentration of marketing and advertising costs in the first half.

Variable costs are up €138 million, reflecting business growth dynamics. D&A are up by €56 million in line with increasing investments driving our continuous transformation.

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. Thanks for your time.

Let me hand over to Matteo for the wrap-up.

Thank you, Camillo. Today's results clearly demonstrate that Poste Italiane is delivering on its strategy, with the fifth consecutive record first-half result, confirming once again the strength and resilience of our diversified platform business model.

What is most encouraging is not only where we stand today, but also how far we have progressed in building the Poste of the future. Over the past few years, we have transformed Poste Italiane from a portfolio of businesses into a truly integrated platform company: increasingly client-centric, technology-driven, and powered by data and AI.

We're now embarking on the next step in that journey. We have agreed the term sheet with CDP on the new postal savings agreement covering '27 to 2030, providing long-term visibility on an important revenue stream.

We're simplifying our group structure, creating a financial hub, and strengthening our commercial model through the hub-and-spoke network thanks to a landmark agreement signed with the union yesterday. We're scaling our AI capabilities across customer journeys and internal operation and accelerating the evolution of our unique consumer platform.

At the same time, we are accelerating on the TIM transaction. On the back of strong market endorsement, TIM gives us the opportunity to further enhance the strength of our platform, creating an even more powerful ecosystem that combines connectivity, technology, financial services, logistics, and distribution.

We're looking forward to proceeding with this transaction and welcoming the very skilled and valuable management team of Telecom Italia into our ambitious and exciting project. We're entering a new chapter, one that we will be built on record results, on a strong standalone trajectory, that is accelerating and momentum continues to build up.

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

Thank you, Matteo. We're ready to begin the Q&A session.

As a reminder, please press *1 to put yourself into the queue, and to remove yourself from the queue, *2. The first question we have today is from Antonio Reale, Bank of America.

Please go ahead, Antonio.

Morning all, it's Antonio from Bank of America. Just a couple of questions and perhaps one clarification from my side.

My first question is on data centers and the investment needs that come with it. If I take a big-picture view, Italy and Europe as a whole are probably behind the curve here relative to peers globally, I think we can say that, which is both an opportunity, and I think having the state behind you clearly helps, but also a challenge, as that implies that you've got to put a lot of money at play to keep up with investment needs.

I think it's quite clear that the new Poste-TIM combination is going to be a key player here. Can you just help us a bit to get a better sense of the opportunity for your shareholders and how do you plan to fund the capex cycle ahead?

That would be my first question. My second question is on the outlook for NII.

I think we've seen short-term rates move up. We've seen a bit of flattening of the long end, I'd like to hear how the outlook for NII looks like for you here and maybe the mix between interest accrual and capital gains, possibly if you can comment beyond this year just conceptually, the direction of travel.

Lastly, a clarification, really. You've dropped the standalone plan and accelerated the timeline of the offer period for TIM.

Maybe you can sort of explain a bit more about the rationale for that, and also what are the implications and timeline after receiving the endorsement from TIM's board? Does that change your strategy on take-up levels in any way?

Thank you.

Thank you, Antonio. If Camillo wants to answer on NII, then I will take the other two questions.

Yes. With regards to NII, we had committed back in February to a total portfolio return of around €2.7—€2.7 billion for 2026, which was going to be obviously predominantly driven by NII, but there was a small component driven by active portfolio management, which is the one we booked in the first quarter, €166 million.

Then with the sort of macro environment evolving, rates went up and that led also to revise our guidance upwards to €3.4 billion operating profit for the full-year 2026. One of the key components of that upgrade was indeed the rates environment.

We are now looking, for 2026, at a total portfolio return, defined as active portfolio management plus NII, at around €2.8 billion versus €2.7 [billion?] which was the starting point.

With regards to what we can say going forward, I may say a couple of words on what was described by the CEO with regards to the combination of our everyday business and financial services. We do expect there's going to be at least in the first phase a pickup in NII there, too, and that's going to be starting from 2027.

That, when I say phase one, I mean the phase that entails the combination of Postepay Services and BancoPosta, but does not yet include the contribution of Poste Vita. More in general with respect to our expectation for 2027 and onwards, we will comment on that later on, but obviously the outlook, let me say, has improved compared to the beginning of the year also for what is beyond 2026.

On data center, I think, Antonio, you certainly have a point. Italy is behind the curve versus core Europe, and there we have started already supporting TIM on one specific project that has started a few months ago, is a 20 megawatt initiative that will be obviously run by TIM, and we will help from the capex side, which are not too large given the size from the Poste side.

The real estate component of this initiative, the data center, is now a very liquid market, populated and supported by all the largest private money funds globally, so that they will absorb a meaningful portion of the capex element of the next projects. Then we started working on a much larger project.

It would be in a location in the region of Lombardy. The first tranche of this project is as large as 70 megawatt, so that's the land has been identified, the energy supplier has also been identified, and there we have the support of all the large Italian financial institution and, for that matter, corporate that could join forces and create a large hub where we could run both training model and inference model at scale.

Last question on timetable. We committed to, pending obviously the TIM transaction, to present a combined plan for Q1.

If things go in a dream scenario, very, very, very well, we might be able even to do it faster. We were basically ready with our standalone plan, and you have seen it today because we announce three cornerstone of the multi-year plan of Poste: namely, the CDP agreement; the reorganization of our network with the hub-and-spoke; and the agreement with the unions supporting this reorganization, which is clearly a multi-year project; and three, the reorganization of phase one and phase two of our financial hub that has also capital release element.

On our side, we're ready. TIM was also ready, we could go even faster if there is the window.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Antonio. The next question is from Alberto Villa at Intermonte.

Go ahead, Alberto.

Hi, good morning and thanks for the presentation. I have two questions.

One is back on the group structure simplification, and back on the phase one and phase two. I was wondering if you can elaborate a bit more on what is the NII opportunity of both phase one and phase two.

I guess phase two is related to also obtaining some, let's say, sort of leeways on capital absorption, and sort of Danish compromise for the insurance activities within the financial hub, so that could be quite material, and maybe you can explain a little bit better what is the opportunity. The second one is on the announced union labor agreement.

If you can give us some more details on what is the content of this agreement and how it could really support the evolution of the group going forward. On slide eight, you put the indication that you expect 25% of the combined workforce of BancoPosta and Postepay to be redeployed, this seems a pretty big number.

I was wondering if you can give us an idea of what that entails for the business going forward. Thank you very much.

Okay. Camillo takes the first and I take the second.

With regards to phase one and phase two, as I want to re-clarify, there is also a note in the presentation that phase one is already being implemented, whereas phase two is subject also to relevant regulatory approval. I'll stick on the first one, and with regards to the first phase, only on NII, we see a benefits of a couple of tens of million, that is the order of magnitude, I don't want to say more at this stage.

The agreement with the unions is an agreement that doesn't touch any financial aspect, which were already signed last year, but enable Poste to do mainly two things, and then there is a third one answering your question. The first thing is page nine.

If you can go back to that page just for a second, as I said, we divide Italy in 132—we call them provinces, let's call them areas. Below these 132 areas, there are 13,000 offices.

In every single area, you have a head of the commercial unit for the province, okay? This guy today has to take control and follow 100, on average, post offices.

Any province, as you see on the page, has large, medium, or small post offices. Obviously, when you have 100 post offices to follow, your span of control is clearly too large, and so we basically geo-analyze Italy in terms of business opportunities.

We identified basically a layer in between the province and the office, okay, which is on page nine the 1,100 post office hubs. These are offices that are already there.

Obviously, these are large offices, okay? Those 1,100 large offices, where that they have obviously one person in charge, will take the responsibility of one area, what we called spoke, in this new hub-and-spoke model, that has on average 10 offices.

Then you will find, most likely, small offices and medium offices below. To do something like this, Alberto, you are creating new roles, you're creating new incentives, you're potentially also restructuring your province footprint.

You need to have a specific agreement. We've been working on this for one and a half year, and our target was to have it for the plan, and we were lucky to manage to sign at 5:00 a.m.

yesterday morning. The second item, which is also extremely important, we haven't heard any question, but it relates to our logistic and parcel business.

There is a big transformation there. The role of our employees is increasing.

The model works, because we're increasing consistently, for the last few quarters, our market share, and we have never been so strong in logistic like we are today. Doing that reorganization in logistic requires some specific changes that need union agreement.

Then you refer to the 25% BancoPosta-Postepay combined, which we have put in our plans, which is ambitious, I agree, but I think it's also ambitious the 20% overall reduction on the overall workforce non-operating—let's call it white-collar workforce—overhead over the next four years. That is also part of the agreement, all in all, we call it a landmark agreement.

This is a perfect opportunity for me to thank all the union representative for their work, for their support, and for their understanding of the company needs, and having made this agreement possible is extremely important. To clarify, Alberto, the labor agreement we're mentioning is not related to the 25% redeployment from BancoPosta and Postepay.

That's a separate situation. The labor agreement is about the hub-and-spoke model implementation, to be clear, and logistics.

Thanks.

The next question is from Andrea Lisi at Equita. Go ahead, Andrea.

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions.

The first one is on what should we expect for the future. Clearly, we know that you have not provided the guidances given the start of the offer on TIM, but just looking at consensus that is pointing on kind of €3.8 billion of EBIT adjusted 2028, clearly on a current perimeter.

How do you feel about this and so if the trajectory envisaged in current consensus is something that makes you comfortable? Especially with regard to the evolution of the NII, you have indicated that now you expect total portfolio return at €2.8 billion.

Clearly, we have seen the increase in rates that provides a positive contribution to NII. Just wondering is it possible to expect some kind of, let's say, capital loss on trading just to adjust the portfolio and have a further boost on NII over the next years?

Then the second question is on just to understand how many of the new clients that you are gaining in energy are coming from the network of TIM, to understand how this is working. Very last, if you can provide us more color on the strategy regarding Polo Strategico Nazionale and the opportunities that could come here.

Thank you.

Please, Camillo.

Andrea, hello. I'll start with your first question, which is around guidance.

Obviously, we cannot at this stage comment nor provide guidance beyond what has already been disclosed. There is a consensus out there which has been prepared independently by analysts.

If you were to ask us what we think about that consensus, I think how much we can stretch out is that we can probably say that we believe that that consensus broadly reflects a trajectory for the standalone business without getting specific on any year, but we feel it broadly reflects the ability of the business to grow.

That's I think the first point. Sorry, Camillo.

With the only caveat that that consensus obviously doesn't include what we have announced today, and specifically the CDP agreement and the potential capital optimization in the financial services. Yeah.

Separately, you had a question about active portfolio management, NII, and I think that you're saying whether the fact that rates are going to be higher might or might not translate into capital losses. I think, first of all, at this stage, that's not the scenario, but I just want to sort of re-emphasize that we run our portfolio on a total return.

If, as an example, rates go up by say 100 basis points, we have the portfolio that performs more in terms of NII, but we have the capital gains that go up and then there is the opposite trend obviously in the other direction. We think about it as total portfolio return, and we committed to investors and to equity analysts to a total portfolio return, then the mix is a function of where we are in the life cycle of the rates.

Then there was, yes, then there was a question about what's the contribution of TIM in terms of daily new intakes in terms of subscriptions on energy. Roughly speaking, we are any day between 2,000 and 3,000 net new clients, and around 500 or so are generated by TIM.

Then there was another question on the PSN. Did I get it right?

You had a question on Polo Strategico Nazionale?

Correct.

Yes. Can you repeat the question, please?

Sorry. It was just if you can provide some color on the strategy regarding the Polo Strategico Nazionale, and any indication you can provide on the opportunities coming from this could be helpful.

Thank you.

I think it's a bit premature, Andrea, but it's a good question because it is clearly an opportunity, and we will support TIM as the reference shareholder. We're in the process of buying the 20% stake of the PSN from CDP, and that project has been very successful.

TIM, Leonardo did a great job in moving almost 800 public administration into cloud, and we believe that that journey has to carry on, supporting those public administration using the data into cloud and change their processes, increasing process and operations, increasing efficiency. That's an important chapter and we'll try to support TIM in the evolution of the PSN.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrea. Next question is from Elena Perini, Banca IMI.

Go ahead, Elena, please.

Yes, thank you. I've got one question on AI because I think that you illustrated very, very well in your presentation all the opportunities that you see from an extensive use and basically the integration of AI in your platform and then business.

On the other hand, do you see any potential risks on this, also in terms of potential cannibalization on some clients of yours, for example, the low-profile ones? Then a further clarification because I heard from a previous question that the Danish compromise was mentioned, but I had a problem on my line, I didn't understood well the answer.

I suppose that in the footnote on page eight regarding the allocation of Poste Vita stake to BancoPosta, when you mention subject to change in law, you are referring to this, to the Danish compromise, due to the fact that I imagine that you are not willing to ask for a banking license. Is it correct?

How do you think to get it without a banking license? Thank you very much.

I'll take. The AI, maybe we can take this offline, but I need to understand better what you mean with the cannibalization of clients.

We see it coming, and with or without Poste, it will change a lot the habits of our client base. We want to be in the driving seat, in the flow of change.

Just to give you maybe a feel, and I referred in my presentation about agents taking more decision and supporting clients. One clear example is what is happening already outside Italy, where you have e-commerce supported by LLMs.

As opposed to go on an e-commerce platform, you have an interface in between you as a consumer and the different platforms that does all the services and product selection for you. Obviously, we start from a position of strength because we have the client, we have the digital client flow and connection.

We have payments, we have logistics, and if you put an engine talking to that client, and then on behalf of the client screening all the best options in the different marketplaces, you could probably see, in the next three to five years, a different landscape. Just one idea of how things can change in a very important digital space like the one of e-commerce.

No intention whatsoever on your second question of asking for a banking license. We're not a bank, and we will never be a bank with the banking license.

We're not even in the space of the Danish compromise. Basically, it's just a follow-through, a technical follow-through of the fact that if you put all the risk of your financial legal entities under one single umbrella, you clearly can show to the regulator—and we are subject to risk control by Bank of Italy—that become easier and more predictable from the regulatory standpoint.

That streamline risk management impact of our phase one and two together allows the regulator and allows the state to change the capital absorption parameters that we currently have. That would release additional capital, and that would allow us to basically take more risk on our balance sheet down the road and increase, obviously, our NII.

Thank you very much. Very clear.

Next question is from Michael Huttner, Berenberg. Go ahead, Michael.

Thank you so much, and thanks for a lovely presentation and lots of things to think about. I had quick three three questions.

One on the tender, and I don't know how to ask it, but I don't understand these things well, but TIM gave a fairness opinion, which was dated on a certain date and considered the share price, etc., on a certain date. Is there any sensitivity to that?

In other words, if the share prices of either entity changes a lot, can they revise it? It's just I have no idea how this works.

The second one is actually slight criticism. In your reorganization, instead of four divisions, you'll have two.

I'm really sad for the guys who are currently running four four divisions, and two of them would disappear. Are you going to lose a lot of kind of, what I would call, dynamism or whatever it is, by having more centralization, one person running three things, while one, three people running three things?

Because you have such valuable, wonderful people in your company. Then the last one is the 303% Solvency.

Can you give us a little bit of a forward-looking, I can't have forward-looking, but anyway, just on the 500 last €500 million payment, where would that be? Thank you.

Okay. On the tender, there is no correlation between price level and willingness to change our, we have stated the specific terms at which Poste is buying TIM shares, and paying those shares with a specific amount of a specific number of Poste shares plus cash, and that conversion rate and cash, which are the two only numbers that count, are fixed until the end of the offer.

By law, once we close the offer, let's assume we get to our threshold, we accept it, we close the offer, by law, for the following six months, Poste will not be allowed to buy shares in the market at a higher price than the one at which we close the offer, because if we do buy at a higher price, we would need to recognize to all participants in the tender the same increase in pricing, okay? That's called the best price rule that applies six months after closing of the offer.

Before I let Camillo answer on Solvency II, on your four-to-two, no, Michael, quite the opposite. It's a good question, but we believe that having one single leadership allows genuine client-centric drive into the firm.

At the end of the day, the two units that are folding into the banking one are an ancillary unit, payments. Payments are not to be considered and no financial institution actually is managing payments as a separate business unit.

We were quite unique when we created this business unit back in 2018, and it worked very well for the eight years we lived, but put yourself in the shoes of a client. You want to have a banking connection, and that banking connection is one, and that banking connection is to give you services, and services are made by a current account, are made by an app, are made by debit card, are made by prepaid card.

We want to serve that client in the best possible way. I announced in my speech that we will come up in 2027 with a new product serving clients in a combined fashion.

There are many, very good example in the market away from us. They are gaining market share with this approach, and it's I think is needed.

Looking at the second element of the insurance, the insurance from a client standpoint is a saving tool which sits next to postal savings, that sits next to funds that are managed by our asset management company. Is just one product that the bank offers in terms of saving options to clients.

One unique leadership is going to do us very well.

Very clear.

With regards to the question on Solvency, we accrue on a quarterly basis the dividend from Poste Vita to Poste Italiane, and remind everyone we have a 100% payout ratio there, whereas instead we only account for the capital distribution at the end of the year. The 303 does not reflect the last €500 million, which will be paid in 2027 on 2026 P&L of Poste Vita.

The impact of that should be in the order of between 10 and 12 percentage points on the Solvency, which need to be deducted from the 303, obviously. Thank you.

Brilliant. Thank you so much.

Next question is from Manuela Meroni, Banca IMI. Go ahead, Manuela.

Good morning. Two questions from my side.

The first one is on the investment flows and postal savings. The net investment flows materially increased in the first half of this year, with an acceleration in the second quarter.

Postal savings outflows was at the lowest level in the last five years, could you please elaborate on what are the drivers of such an acceleration are and what we may expect in the second half of this year ahead of the new distribution agreement with CDP? In relation to that, could you please provide some details on how this agreement works, what has changed compared with the past, allowing you to cash in €100 million of additional revenues?

What we should look going forward, the stock of the postal savings, or net or gross inflows, any detail would be very helpful. The second question is on the financial hub.

You clearly defined the scope of your new financial hub and provided some indication about the potential benefits in terms of NII. I would like to know if you can help us quantifying the potential benefits also in terms of cross-selling and capital that we may expect, and what is the timing of such benefits?

Yes, I'll start with the CDP agreement. Obviously, the terms are consistent in general, Manuela, with greater performance in terms of reduction of net outflows of Poste Italiane with the customer base that it manages, and the lower that net outflows are, the higher is the performance.

I would also say that there are a number of investments which are required also from a, say, technical standpoint and advertising and promotional standpoint, which would lead to that performance. The aim of both parties involved in the commercial agreement, both CDP and Poste, is to reduce as much as possible outflows throughout the time period covered, and there is, let me say, a degrading scale, whereas the more out you go in the contract, the lower are expected to be the outflows.

With regards to the second question, which was on the financial hub, yes, it is absolutely clear, and I think was partly answered by what Matteo said to Michael Huttner, that we believe that the benefit of the financial hub is first and foremost to serve better our customer base, and yes, we do have an expectation that that will translate into greater revenues for the division, as not to sort of say anything that is controversial, if we have more than 20 million cards and a bunch of guys who have the card with us don't have a bank account with us, it's pretty obvious to everyone that we want to take advantage of that customer base in a more comprehensive way. That's really what we're aiming there, and yes, there's going to be more on this initiative early in 2027.

Last point with regards to capital release or capital efficiency, however we want to call it, that obviously is what is going to drive in phase one a bit more NII, as there's going to be more capital we can put at work. I think I had answered to that question saying that we believe that the phase one associated upside only from NII was in a couple of tens of millions, but obviously, in addition to that, there is the impact of reduction of the combined workforce, which has been already mentioned, and then the upside on greater cross-selling should crystallize into greater revenues for the division.

Thank you.

We'll finish off with a few questions from the webcast platform. The first one is very easy to answer.

We have a question from Artur, or maybe Peter Khan, asking how we plan to finance the cash portion of the Telecom Italia deal. We have already secured financing from a pool of banks.

They've provided the cash confirmation letters in the context of the offering documents, and there is no planning for a hybrid bond. The second question is from Soraya Hussein at Schonfeld.

The question is if a DPS for 2026 in the range of 1.2 to 1.3 is reasonable. I think we have paid last year 1.25.

We will certainly have a 2026 dividend higher than 2025. The last question is for our CEO, I believe: "Can you comment on the importance of Poste securing an adequate take-up rate for the Telecom Italia offer, and whether this is a concern, given that the offer term reflect headline premium of only 9%?"

I think the 9% is the pre-announcement premium. If you go to page 15, yes, you find the 9% mentioned in the question, but I think Camillo explained very well on that page that the market has priced the transaction and the proposed transaction, and that 9% is now 31.4.

You see on the right the relative performance of TIM domestic versus TIM Brasil versus Telco, and even versus the Italian stock index. I think the premium today is certainly adequate, if not more than adequate.

It's very important for us to secure a very high take-up, no question. Having said that, the board has been appointed just a couple of months ago with a three-year time horizon, this is a journey for us.

We have started buying the first 10% from CDP back in February last year. We then increased our stake progressively.

We then launched the tender. By Italian law, if we reach the 50% threshold and we decide to accept a lower than 67%, we are allowed to buy in the market without any obligation to launch a tender, any amount, in any time, after the six months of best price rule limit that I mentioned before.

For us, we have all the time and patient to work on this, and as you heard today, the Poste standalone trajectory is extremely solid, and we will go ahead on our route anyway, and wait for the right opportunity and window to complete the TIM transaction over time. There are no other questions.

Thank you all very much for joining us.