Jean Pierre Mustier, Chief Executive Officer of UniCredit S.p.A. :
"Thanks to our very strong capital and liquidity positions, we will continue to support our customers whatever the environment. UniCredit was primed and ready for increased client activity as lockdowns eased across Western Europe, and we are here for our communities now in the face of the emerging Covid-19 second wave.
We continue to benefit from the successful execution of Transform 2019 as well as our Team 23 initiatives, and thanks to the acceleration of business model changes we have improved our gross savings target for Team 23 by 25 per cent to €1.25 billion. We are on track to meet our FY20 underlying net profit target of over €0.8 billion and confirm our FY21 target of €3 to €3.5 billion.
Conservative provisioning and strict underwriting discipline based on realistic assumptions are trademarks of our Group. We reconfirm our FY20 stated cost of risk of 100 to 120 basis points, thanks to our willingness to conservatively anticipate future impacts [4] as well as seasonality in 4Q20. We also confirm our FY21 stated cost of risk target at the bottom end of our 70 to 90 basis points range with underlying cost of risk [5] close to 60 basis points.
We remain fully committed to reinstating our Team 23 capital distribution policy, which combines 50 per cent of underlying net profits as a mix of cash dividends and share buybacks and a gradual distribution of excess capital starting in 2021 subject to receiving regulatory 'green light'.
Culture and values are fundamental in times like these, and we will continue to always "Do the right thing!" for all our stakeholders and always put the health and safety of our employees and customers first.
I want to thank each and every one of our employees for their commitment, resilience and continuing hard work in these exceptional circumstances. Together we make sure UniCredit is a pan European winner."