00:00We have constructive dialogues, at least from our perspective, since the beginning of the journey, so since September 2024, because
00:08Unicredit is an investor, an important investor, now the largest investor also, and we take that into account.
00:15So we had every quarter, we had bilaterals between the two institutions where we actually answered all questions Unicredit had,
00:25and we did not take up any feedback when it comes to our own strategy or to potential collaboration or
00:34something like that.
00:35And we always stated that we would be open for a dialogue when we see potential terms, potential ideas of
00:43a business combination agreement.
00:45And what happened after the announcement of the takeover offer is that we had some talks, some interactions about a
00:53potential business combination agreement.
00:55But for the time being, it's very clear that our, yeah, our opinions differ quite a lot, starting with the
01:05valuation of the two companies and to the banks and the exchange ratio.
01:11And there are also some disagreement, I would say, about the potential future business model.
01:17I want to go back to the ECB. If they start cutting, do you think that your margins will fall
01:21immediately? Do you have buffer when it comes to those instances?
01:26You mean, if ECB is increasing their rates?
01:31Yes.
01:32Yeah. Well, I mean, we have, I mean, for us, actually, given our model, we can cope with that pretty
01:40good.
01:41I mean, it's a question whether an interest rate increase will happen in April or in June.
01:47We both take that into account, but interest rate situation is still very stable.
01:54And with a minor interest rate changes, we can always cope and we can react to that pretty quickly.
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