Vontobel Holding AG (0QKE) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the presentation of FONTOBL's full year 2024 results webcast. I'm Sandra, the chorus co-operator. I would like to remind you that all participants have been listened on remote and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. the conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Georg Schubiger. Please go ahead, sir. Good morning and a very warm welcome from Crystal, Thomas and myself. We are pleased to share our very strong 2024 financial results and the clear strategic progress we have made last year. Let me first briefly recap the market context and how it played into our results. Equities continued to climb in the second half of 2024. The US market was particularly strong, fueled by Fed rate cuts, robust economic data, election-driven optimism, and continued strong momentum in tech and AI-related stocks. Bond yields primarily mirrored the consecutive rate cuts by the central banks. This includes the Swiss National Bank, which announced its biggest rate cut in almost 10 years in December. In FX markets, the US dollar was the strongest performer, driven by the superior growth of the US economy, a marginally more hawkish Fed, and anticipated supportive post-election policies. Overall, 2024 was a year of significant economic and geopolitical changes. Despite challenges like geopolitical and interest rate uncertainty, most asset classes delivered strong performance. In this context, Fontobel returned to growth and delivered the second best financial results in its history. Let me turn to our key messa...