Close Brothers Group plc (CBG) Q2 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning and welcome to the presentation of Close Brothers 2025 half year results. It's an honor to present these results for the first time as the CEO following my appointment in January. I'll begin with an overview of the first six months of the financial year. Then I'll provide an update on my priorities and recent developments in motor finance. After that, I will hand over to Fiona McCarthy, our Group CFO. She has been with us for almost six years and has done an excellent job overseeing the Group's financial planning and analysis function before her recent appointment. She'll walk you through our financial performance and then I'll return to update you on the businesses and wrap up on today's presentation. We'll be happy to take questions afterwards, both via the telephone conference line and over the webcast. You can submit your questions either during or after the presentation. Our performance in half one reflects the strength and resilience of our business model. In banking, we delivered robust underlying profit, continuing to support our customers while maintaining strong margins and resilient credit quality. We have made significant progress on our cost management initiatives, which are now expected to deliver 25 million of annualized savings by the end of this financial year, up from 20 million previously quoted. We also successfully completed the strategic sale of CBAM, which is estimated to benefit our CET1 capital ratio by around 120 basis points. The capital actions we outlined previously have largely been implemented, generating or preserving approximately 360 million of CET1 capital over the last 12 months. This reflects our commitment to resilience, ensuring we can navigate the current environment with confidence. At the same time, we are challe...