00:00It was an interesting environment. There was some volatility in the markets, obviously, that you needed to trade through.
00:06Corporate activity has clearly been chilled by the environment, the uncertainties around trade negotiations and what have you.
00:13And so we're seeing that a little bit in our corporate bank and also, as you mentioned, in the corporate finance wallets,
00:20where we're down year on year, reflecting really how we index, sort of where our strengths are and where the activity was in the quarter.
00:30We're still sort of optimistic about the path ahead for that business, but that was one area of relative weakness.
00:36And then looking at FIC, I think it was up 11%, beating kind of most of the estimates that we had there.
00:40I'd like to get kind of the topography, the texture of what did well within that.
00:44I think there was a bit of difficulty in the beginning. Did FX win out? Credit is something that others have been struggling with.
00:50What did it look like for you?
00:50Well, FX was actually very strong. It was probably the strongest point, and macro generally, so rates as well.
00:56Although, again, it was a complex quarter given the way it started. Credit was a little tougher in the environment, for sure.
01:06Our performance we're really happy with, a very strong finish to the quarter.
01:10And you have to remember in all our results that foreign exchange translation is a burden and a benefit for some of our competitors across the Atlantic.
01:19And a strong finish to the quarter going into the third quarter, what are you seeing?
01:22We're seeing good activity, good performance. It's obviously early in the quarter to talk about it in July.
01:28But in terms of both the FIC business, fixed income and currencies, and our origination advisory business, good start to the quarter.
01:36And that gives us some real confidence about what lies ahead in the second half.
01:40And what also may lie ahead is a buyback. I know it's sitting now with the ECB.
01:44Analysts are expecting something to the tune of about 400 million euros. Is that broadly in the right ballpark?
01:48We can't comment on size, but we're pleased to be in the position to have submitted, only a couple of months ago now, the application to the ECB.
01:57There's a process that we go through, so we can't speak to size at the moment.
02:01But we were pleased to be in the place of incrementing the originally announced buyback and executing, in a sense, throughout the year.
02:08And so your base case is to be able to deliver on that buyback by the end of this year?
02:12Absolutely.
02:13Okay. And in terms of tariffs, I'd like to get, I mean, you know, we've been talking about tariffs for a while now.
02:17We have.
02:17I'd like to talk to you about the idea that, you know, because you're talking about it's holding back corporates, right?
02:22But there's also this underlying kind of bullish sentiment within Germany, a lot of investment and a lot of private investment also coming in that we talked about a little bit earlier in the week.
02:30Is there a sense for me that there's a lot of pent-up business that's just sitting on the sidelines?
02:33Can you give us kind of an idea of what kind of volumes we're talking about and what it would mean for you?
02:37There is. Hard to translate into volumes because it's, you know, it's a bit of a gasp.
02:41But in the event of a deal, do you see just a huge flow?
02:43We do. I mean, it's, so, so this uncertainty, it's fascinating.
02:47Talking to clients, the impact on any given client's business of the tariffs, whatever the arrangement will be, can be very varied depending on the foreign content and what they sell in the United States,
02:59depending on where the manufacturing takes place, how much intellectual property and, you know, the supply chain underneath it.
03:04So it's a very varied thing. But as a consequence, until people see sort of what the final agreement is, it's very hard to make investment decisions.
03:12And so that is absolutely holding people back.
03:15In Germany, we have the, and to an extent in Europe, given the sort of knock-on effect of German fiscal policy changes,
03:22we have an offsetting benefit that we have an investment wave in Europe coming.
03:27So everybody's sort of positioning for how am I going to participate in that investment wave or be a supplier into defense, infrastructure spending, sustainability, digitalization,
03:38all the things that in Europe we need to invest in.
03:40And that's definitely going to be an offset to whatever the headwinds are that come from the trade arrangements.
03:45And then in terms of this sort of buy Europe trade, this is a theme that we've been talking about in the markets a lot.
03:49We picked up with it with Christian Zaving earlier in the week when he came in to speak with us.
03:53And he was talking about a large amount of client flows, a large amount of clients coming to Deutsche Bank, wanting more exposure to Europe, less to the United States.
04:01Can you give us some idea of what that actually looks like?
04:03Who are these clients? How much business are we talking about?
04:05Well, it's in essentially every conversation that we have.
04:09Obviously, corporate clients, where they're going to invest and how they build for the future that's shaping up.
04:15But as you mentioned, institutional clients, where to invest money.
04:18I was, for example, I had an extended trip to Australia earlier in the quarter where all of the superannuation funds,
04:25looking at their allocation of investments around the world, will say, well, we may be overexposed to the United States
04:30and think about reallocating to other parts of the world.
04:34And also, of course, hedging, looking at their currency hedges and what have you.
04:38Europe has a real opportunity to position itself as that alternative investment destination.
04:42Now, as we all know, there's a lot to do from a structural perspective, savings and investment union,
04:47making Europe as attractive as possible for the destination.
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