Poste Italiane SpA

MIL:PST

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Massimiliano Riggi, executive]

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Massimiliano Riggi here. On behalf of Poste Italiane, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our Third Quarter 2022 Results. I'm sure you have all had a chance to review the documents, which are available on the IR section of Poste Italiane corporate website.

I'm going to turn the call over to our CEO and General Manager, Matteo Del Fante for some opening comments and then our CFO, Camillo Greco, who will cover the financial details of the quarter. Following the presentation, you will be able to ask questions either via phone or through our webcast platform.

Over to you, Matteo.

[Matteo del Fante, executive]

Thank you, Massi, and good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. In these times of uncertainty and market turbulence, we're all learning to adapt and I'm proud of how Poste has been successfully performing. We remain focused on implementing our 24SI Plan resulting in strong third quarter results. Overall, group revenues are up over 4% with all segments contributing and in line with our strategy. Our ability to effectively manage our cost base is becoming even more relevant in the current market environment. We are managing inflationary pressures on non-HR cost thanks to our energy hedges and ongoing efficiencies leading to a new record high EBIT level at EUR 2.05 billion in the 9 months. overachieving our original guidance for the full year. These achievements are a tangible sign of how Poste Italiane's proven business model is continuing to deliver sustainable results.

The combination of recurring revenues and flexible cost management track record allows us to upgrade our 2022 EBIT target to EUR 2.3 billion, more than twice the 2017 level proving our successful transformation journey. As a final remark, we confirm the distribution of an interim dividend of EUR 0.21 in November and that's more than EUR 270 million and is up 14% compared to last year interim. This is 1/3 of the original commitment for the full year dividend. The dividend increase mirrors our solid performance as well as our commitment to reward investors with a visible recurring and competitive remuneration. Let's look at group financial results in detail on Slide 4. We continue to adapt to a difficult macro environment as certified by our strong results. EUR 2.05 billion EBIT up 27% is a record accomplishment for us supported by positive contribution across all segments. I think that that says it all.

Overall, revenues are EUR 8.7 billion, up almost 4% from last year supported by recurring components in all business divisions. Our cost transformation continues with total expenses down 2% year-to-date reaching EUR 6.7 billion on the back of FTE reduction and lower unit variable costs leading up to a net profit above EUR 1.4 billion in the first 9 months of the year. On Slide 5, we show EBIT for each segment. The positive contribution from all our businesses have boosted our operating results by EUR 439 million year-on-year. In Mail, Parcel & Distribution, the recovery of parcel volumes in Q3 and lower cost are contributing to a positive EBIT for the third consecutive quarter reaching a total of EUR 13 million, pointing to an improvement of our original 2022 EBIT target. Financial Services also benefited from positive EBIT progression year-on-year thanks to an increased contribution from our investment portfolio.

Higher interest rate have enabled us to reap rewards from our successful BTP portfolio management with increasing and sustainable NII resulting in a better-than-expected operating profitability for 2022. Insurance services are up in the third quarter as well as year-to-date driven by continued positive contribution from both Life and PSC businesses slightly ahead of 2022 targets. Payment & Mobile continues to outperform with EBIT exceeding EUR 100 million in the quarter and EUR 270 million in the first 9 months thanks to a solid top line organic growth and supported by nonorganic growth from LIS, which will further accelerate the business unit growth trajectory. On Slide 6, you can see our solid profitability progression since 2016. This clearly demonstrates how Poste's resilient and diversified business has delivered long-term sustainable value also in the face of challenging environments.

Looking back, our Deliver 2022 EBIT target was back in 2018 originally set at EUR 1.8 billion. That was a reasonable target for us at that time. Since then, we have constantly improved our business and operation, gaining visibility for an upgraded target to EUR 1.9 billion back in March 2021 as we continued our transformation during the pandemic. Earlier this year, we further upgraded our guidance to EUR 2 billion for 2022 just after a war in Europe changed our lives once again. And here we are with our diversified business model adapting to market changes with a further upgrade of our EBIT target to EUR 2.3 billion for 2022. I'm proud that we have emerged even stronger with profitability above previous levels. If you remember, that was our aim of never letting a good crisis go to waste. As an anti-fragile player, we have built a strong track record in diversifying our revenues and improving the quality.

Furthermore, we have demonstrated a strong ability in managing expenses, a significant buffer against the contingencies. Our shareholders will obviously benefit from this outstanding performance with a DPS of EUR 0.63 planned for 2022, which is 7% year-on-year. Over Slide 7, I would like to briefly focus on LIS, the largest M&A transaction in Poste's 160-year history. It is another building block in the implementation of our omnichannel strategy. This deal is a step forward in increasing our market share in the high growth payment segment strengthening Postepay as a leading paytech company. We will leverage on this technology know-how to expand the current product offering, including solutions available for the small business segment. The newly rebranded PuntoPoste points of sale will be an unprecedented reach across the country with almost 1 point of sale for every 1,000 Italians. Just to give you a feel; for every supermarket in Italy, there are 2 PuntoPoste points of sale.

All of this is coupled with around 1 million daily transaction and 7 million to 8 million visitors daily. LIS also provides a full B2B suite for franchisees managing all back and front office activities such as e-billing, inventory management as well as top-ups, prepaid cards issuing and so on. Looking at the economics, LIS revenues are up 20% to more than EUR 200 million year-to-date with EBIT standing at EUR 28 million. In the last quarter of the year, we see operating profitability further accelerating.

Let me now hand over to our CFO, Camillo Greco, for a review of the financial details.

[Camillo Greco, executive]

Thank you, Matteo, and good afternoon, everyone. Let's start the quarter review with Mail, Parcel & Distribution on Slide #9. This is the third quarter of consecutive positive EBIT, a remarkable achievement bearing in mind the structural dynamics of this business. Thanks to lower costs, we reached positive EBIT of EUR 13 million. This figure represents a EUR 50 million underlying improvement when excluding the rebate from active portfolio management. More in detail, Mail revenues fell 3% year-to-date ahead of the 7% long-term market trajectory embedded in our plan. The structural decline is mitigated by the pricing actions. Parcel revenues increased 4%, recovering year-on-year thanks to B2C volume growth. Let's now look at mail and parcel volume and pricing on Slide #10. As expected, parcel volumes were up 7% in the quarter driven by B2C whilst year-to-date volumes are down 7% as the first half of 2021 benefited from lockdown restrictions.

Looking at pricing, the average parcel tariff was down 3% in the quarter. This is a pure mix effect with volume from lower tariff B2C contributors, especially China and secondhand resellers, having increased more than average. Year-to-date the tariff is up 4%. Moving to mail, volume fell by 6% in the quarter and 3% year-to-date whilst mail tariffs are up 3% in Q3 thanks to repricing actions put in place in July of this year. Moving on to Slide 11, let's take a closer look at the parcel business drivers. The macroeconomic environment remains volatile as we face the threat of a potential recession and ever rising inflation. Lower consumer confidence as well as disposable income for discretionary consumption could result in a cyclical slowdown of e-commerce growth. However, parcel revenues are well above pre-pandemic levels supported by structural trends.

Whilst e-commerce in Italy has recorded an annual growth of 22% since 2017, the market is still underpenetrated with only 16 parcels per capita per year, lagging a European average of 21 items. Finally, we are not solely relying on industry tailwinds as we are proactively pursuing additional growth opportunities, transforming the business into a fully-fledged logistics player. The acquisition of Plurima is an example of how we can broaden the scope of our logistics business. Moving to Financial Services on Slide 12. Gross revenues were roughly flat in the quarter at EUR 1.4 billion. A strong NII recurring contribution offset the negative impacts of other business lines. Net interest income increased by 35% year-on-year as we continue to realize benefit from upward rate movements. We booked EUR 35 million of active portfolio management in Q3 achieving our full year target for 2022.

Postal saving revenues are at the floor level of 2022 remuneration resulting in EUR 400 million in Q3, down 7% year-on-year. Postal saving books were impacted by lower capacity to save, which is expected to continue while postal bonds were affected by redemptions. Following repricing actions taken by CDP early in July, the trend of postal bonds gross and net inflows promptly reverted. Transaction banking fees increased year-on-year to EUR 201 million in Q3 with structural decline of payment slips more than offset by repricing of current account fees. Even after the repricing, our current accounts remain very competitive. Loan and mortgage volumes remain flat with a stable market share while volumes recorded an upturn of around 9% in October. However, due to higher funding cost from our banking counterparts coupled with the impact from accounting changes, revenues were down year-on-year.

Given the turmoil in financial markets, asset management revenues amounted to EUR 29 million, 5% lower year-on-year. All in all, EBIT was up 36% year-on-year supported by lower intersegment costs. Moving to Slide 13 with the drivers of net interest income increase to EUR 525 million. In just a single quarter, revenues increased by 20% with rising interest rates contributing the most across both the BTP portfolio and public administration accounts. Looking at the quarterly trend, the retail and corporate portfolio including both tax credits and BTP investments positively contributed with EUR 16 million NII increase while revenues from public administration deposits rose by EUR 88 million as it is entirely remunerated at a floating rate. The other item mainly includes interest expenses. We expect to further benefit from rate effects going forward. At the same time, net interest expenses will increase on specific nonretail accounts so that Q3 net interest income can be regarded as representative as a quarterly base for 2023.

The overall portfolio yield increased to 2.15% year-to-date. For every 50 basis points increase in the swap rate, NII yield would increase by 13 basis points on a yearly basis. Moving to Slide 14. TFAs reached EUR 562 billion, down by EUR 24 billion since December impacted by negative market performance. Net inflows remained positive at EUR 100 million year-to-date along with EUR 5.9 billion of net investment and saving flows supported by our solid commercial proposition with 93% of clients TFAs not exposed to negative market performance. The remaining 7% is experiencing a limited impact as our products have a gradual market exposure keeping the trusted relationship with our customers intact. Looking at each component. Postal savings negative flows amounted to EUR 9.5 billion mitigated by positive EUR 4 billion market effect related to accruals of interest and postal savings.

The outflows were impacted by around EUR 1.5 billion lower cash-in related to the end of the early pension payment scheme, which was put in place during COVID. An additional EUR 1.5 billion is related to lower balances in postal saving accounts by some institutional clients. Year-to-date outflows were impacted by lower cash inflows and higher cash outflows in postal saving books as well as early redemptions in postal bonds. Since July, the trend in postal saving bonds net flows has significantly improved supported by increasing rates. Net technical reserves benefited from positive net inflows of EUR 5.7 billion, but the stock was impacted by the market effect related to higher interest rates. Deposits grew by EUR 3.6 billion driven by both public administration accounts and sticky retail deposits. Lastly, there were positive net savings and investment flows supported by insurance products and mutual funds, but were more than offset by negative market effect.

Moving to Slide 15. Insurance revenues were up in the quarter to EUR 500 million and year-to-date to almost EUR 1.6 billion driven by strong volumes along with higher investment margin benefiting from inflation-linked bonds. Life net inflows remained positive year-to-date despite a volatile market environment performing better than the market with the product mix adapting to changing material conditions. The lapse range remained at around 3% in Q3, well below the market average thanks to our loyal customer base. Life gross written premiums in the quarter are up 8% to over EUR 4 billion. The share of multi-class products on gross written premiums was at 40% in Q3 compared to 49% in Q2 driven by the current account -- the current market environment. Looking at the P&C business, revenues continued to grow at a healthy rate with higher gross written premiums driven by welfare and modular offer benefiting from stable combined ratio.

Our protection business is poised to further accelerate with the proposed acquisition of Net Insurance. Q3 '22 EBIT is up 30% in the quarter to EUR 305 million benefiting from positive revenue trends. Finally, we are continuing to work on the adoption of IFRS 17 from Q1 '23. Based on the latest results of the Life business in H1 '22, we continue to expect a positive or neutral impact on P&L results versus IFRS 4. Let's now look at the Solvency II ratio evolution on Slide #16. Poste Vita Group Solvency II ratio is in line with 200% managerial ambition even in the new market scenario. The Solvency II ratio is down 15 percentage points to 207% net of the foreseeable dividend, which Poste Vita is expected to upstream to the parent company. The internal capital generation accounted for an increase of 4 percentage points net of the foreseeable dividend thanks to a positive contribution of both the new business and the in-force portfolio, also helped by the significant increase of risk-free rates.

Market effects negatively impacted the ratio by 28 percentage points mainly due to a higher lapse rate risk related to the application with Solvency II standard formula and the widening of the BTP spread. As a proactive management action, the parent company has allocated EUR 500 million to Poste Vita as a restricted Tier 1 to mitigate the impact of adverse market conditions thus increasing the solvency ratio by 9%. Transitional measures account for an additional 20 percentage points, which would support the ratio in case of extreme market headwinds. As of yesterday, the ratio was between 210% and 225% with a BTP spread on EUR o swap at 135 basis points and the 10-year EUR o swap at 294 basis points. Moving to Slide 17 on sensitivities. We can see that Solvency II remains above our risk tolerance under all simulated scenarios with key sensitivities to rates and BTP spreads in continued reduction.

In particular for 100 basis points of BTP spread widening, the Solvency II ratio will decrease by 34 percentage points as a result of declining allocation to Italian government bonds in our portfolio, high risk-free rates and the triggering of the country volatility adjustment. This is a significant achievement if we consider that back in 2020 under the same simulated scenario, the impact of solvency ratio was 129 percentage points. Moving to Payments & Mobile on Slide #18. Payments & Mobile reported a record revenue growth of 35% year-on-year reaching EUR 297 million in Q3 supported by all business lines. Card payments were up 37% reflecting a structural shift to cashless transactions. In particular since 2018, the annual transaction value growth rate reached 22%, double the market rate. This business segment was further supported by the LIS contribution, which were consolidated on the 1st of September adding EUR 29 million in revenues in Q3.

Other payments more than doubled in the quarter driven by increased transactions directly managed by Postepay as payment service provider. Telco revenues were resilient in the quarter thanks to our low churn customer base. In June we successfully launched a 100% green electricity and gas offer to Poste's current and former employees reaching 40,000 contracts. This offer will be extended to the public early next year. EBIT continues to grow at a remarkable rate of 37% in Q3 thanks to higher external revenues as well as the savings from the new Telco wholesale contract, which is providing efficiencies since Q4 '21. EBIT has been affected by the launch of the energy project, which we expect to reach negative EUR 20 million in full year 2022.

On Slide 19, you can see the continued evolution of Poste Italiane's workforce from the start of the year. Over the course of 2022, our average headcount decreased by around 2,300 to about 119,000 FTEs. This is the result of reduction of 7,600 from the FTE turnover and subsidized exit while we have hired 4,500 FTEs year-to-date compared to 3,200 hired last year. The LIS and Plurima consolidations are changing the parameter adding 600 FTEs. Our people transformation program is progressing well in terms of quality with the value added per FTE up 7.2% year-on-year reaching EUR 75,000 per FTE while the HR cost per FTE remained stable year-to-date. On Page 20, you can appreciate our effective HR cost discipline. The year-on-year increase is just 1% with salary and variable compensation rise almost offset by EUR 19 million cost reduction related to lower FTEs.

Meanwhile, the consolidation of LIS and Plurima brings in an additional EUR 8 million. Moving to Slide 21, we can see the dynamics of non-HR costs. The cost of goods and services is up by EUR 13 million with a manageable cost step-up related to inflation mitigated by Telco efficiencies. D&A increased by EUR 5 million. The bulk of the increase is related to a change of perimeter accounting for EUR 20 million as we are now consolidating LIS and Plurima, net of which non-HR costs are up 2% despite an inflationary environment. The cost efficiency trend is confirmed with variable cost and variable revenues down to 63% in Q3.

That's all from my side. Let me hand over to our CEO, Matteo.

[Matteo del Fante, executive]

Thank you, Camillo. On Slide 22, you have an overview of our 2023 key growth drivers. We're all well aware that we're in an uncertain environment, but positive business trends are supporting our growth strategy. Moreover, our flexible cost base provides an additional buffer to meet our commitments. Looking at each business. In Mail & Parcel, the weakening of the economy may impact consumption. Nevertheless, low e-commerce penetration in Italy provides structural support to parcel growth. Focusing on mail, the decline is systemic and we see it continuing over 2023 mitigated by repricing action, which are starting to show results. Moving to Insurance Services. We see steady growth in the Life business thanks to a strong in-force business and higher margin new production. Our protection business will continue to grow both organically and through the proposed acquisition of Net Insurance.

That will give us a leading position in the insurance of salary-backed loans also outside our captive distribution network and will open up a third-party distribution channel for our penetration business -- protection business. Financial Services is expected to continue to benefit from higher interest rate while our service model will continue to evolve to improve our customers' portfolio allocation. Moving to Payments & Mobile. The ongoing structural shift from cash to card transaction is expected to more than offset lower consumer spending in a weak macro environment. The LIS acquisition will accelerate our proximity payment business growth. We will launch our retail energy offer to the public in Q1 2023 after a successful pilot with the Poste employees. Overall, let me also highlight that at group level we continue to look at our cost base very closely. Our HR costs are expected to increase in line with the labor contract agreement as per the 24SI Plan.

At the same time we continue to reduce FTEs, but of course as expected at a reduced pace as we have already gained a significant part of our plan efficiencies. Non-HR costs are benefiting from the hedges set up back in 2020 as well as introducing mitigating action reducing our energy consumption. Our in-sourcing program will provide with upskilling and reskilling of more than 2,000 colleagues in order to adapt the skills to the evolution of our business. Finally, let me also comment on the capital optimization initiatives that we are planning. The key focus is to support the growth of our businesses while optimizing capital absorption in line with our plan 24SI. With all these pieces in the puzzle in place, we are confident that our dividend policy will continue to be safe and compelling also going forward supported by conservative payout and a substantial amount of available distributable reserves. All subsidiaries will contribute to the diversification of dividend upstream sources while Mail & Parcel have significantly reduced losses.

And let me now conclude with some final remarks. Thank you again, everyone, for joining us this afternoon and for your continued interest in Poste Italiane. Our third quarter performance is a direct result of our commitment towards serving our customers and the community in the backdrop of stressed market conditions. We don't just rely on market tailwinds, but continue to create our own momentum. We had another outstanding quarter. Revenues grew over 4% and we enjoyed a record high 9 months EBIT with underlying growth in all businesses, positive impact of rates and continued tight cost control. We have demonstrated consistent progress in delivery. As a result, we are upgrading our EBIT target to EUR 2.3 billion for the full year 2022. I firmly believe that the best of Poste Italiane is ahead of us. We are all committed to delivering the power of our unified platform to benefit our customers, our employees, our communities and our shareholders. The interim dividend of EUR 0.21 to be paid is a tangible sign of our commitment to deliver.

And let's now please move to the Q&A session. Over to you, Massi.

[Massimiliano Riggi, executive]

[Operator Instructions] And the first question is from Farooq Hanif from JPMorgan.

[Farooq Hanif, analyst]

Congratulations on some really good results today. 3 questions, if I may. First question on the rationale for the RT1 in the Insurance business. It seems to me that you are very close to 200% ratio without it so I was wondering is it a permanent capital feature? Do you intend to have it paid back soon? So if you could just talk to your thinking. And can you confirm that the level of insurance dividend that you should expect to the holdco going forward shouldn't be surprisingly bigger or lower than what we would be expecting given your history? Second question, you talked about the BTP spread widening. What is the sense to spread decline in BTP going forward, if I may ask this question? And then my last question is on actually also insurance. So the investment margin in Insurance is a big jump. I can see that some of your peers have shown this too. Can you tell us if there's any one-offs in those numbers?

[Matteo del Fante, executive]

Okay. The RT1 rationale is clearly a one-off and if you go back to our presentation, you have a capital generation of 4 points on Page 16 of solvency, but you also have a negative 28% for economic variances and other. So we believe that in the unique increase in interest rate, you can see in the same page that for example 10-year swaps in 1 year move from 16 basis points to 308 basis points so plus 3% in 9 months is clearly one unique event and that weighs on the 28 points of solvency negative. So given we believe that this market movement was historically unique, we decided to counterbalance it with the RT1 EUR 500 million transaction. And that allow us to be even more comfortable to keep our 50% payout strategy in place, which I remember is different from the one we have in the other 2 subsidiaries of the group being closer basically at 100% in BancoPosta and in Postepay. So this is the explanation.

On BTP spread decline, I will leave Camillo to answer, please.

[Camillo Greco, executive]

Yes. I did say in my speech in fact that a 50 basis point increase translating to 13 basis point increase on the yield on a full year basis. You should assume, Farooq, that sensitivity symmetric also in the other direction as we have around 30% of our portfolio, which is pegged to variable rates and 70% of our portfolio, which is pegged to fixed rates.

[Farooq Hanif, analyst]

Sorry. No, I meant -- the reason why I asked that question about BTP spread was obviously you have the country's volatility adjustment kicking in if the spread widens. But I just wanted to understand if the spread declines, whether there's a better than 34 basis point -- sorry, 34 percentage point improvement because the country VA disappears, it won't be symmetrical.

[Camillo Greco, executive]

On the NII not on the solvency so my answer to you was on the NII. So I was talking about something else.

[Matteo del Fante, executive]

Maybe the best way to answer your question if you take the sensitivity of plus 50 basis point, which doesn't have the volatility adjustment and you multiply it by 2 obviously with the opposite side for 100 basis point decrease. On the third question, Farooq, of investment margin. There is no specific one-off. As we said in our presentation, we keep benefiting from this meaningful portfolio we had in place for a long time of inflation linked instruments. So there is no one-off.

[Massimiliano Riggi, executive]

And the next question is from Ashik Musaddi from Morgan Stanley.

[Ashik Musaddi, analyst]

Just couple of questions I have, maybe 3. First of all, can I get a bit more color on NII. Camillo, you have given the sensitivity. But just keeping things simple. EUR 525 million in third quarter, shall we just multiply it 4 for next year assuming interest rates remained where they are in BTP spread remained where they are? So would that be the assumption? So that's the first question. Second thing is could you give any color on what's going on in the lapses and how are you protecting yourself if, let's say, there is any increased lapses in the Life business?

I mean I see your lapse numbers have not gone up. It's still 3.1%. But can you give some color as to your liquidity, et cetera, if let's say, there are any increased lapses? Anything on that would be very helpful. And the third thing is I mean Slide #22 gives a very good color about qualitative aspect of your cost management and I mean you have done a phenomenal job on cost management this year itself. But how are you preparing yourself for cost for next year with the view of the current inflationary environment? Like what should we be taking in terms of, say, HR cost, non-HR cost keeping the variable business aside?

[Matteo del Fante, executive]

Okay. I'll start with, if you allow me, with the second question on lapse rate. We have run basically almost 15 years of backward analysis of our lapse rate so in very different rate environment and we don't see a lot of movement in the ratio. Actually as you correctly pointed out, this quarter at 3.1% is actually lower than the first 9 months. So in short, the answer is that we keep monitoring lapse rate very closely, but we don't see any meaningful change there. On NII, I think I will let Camillo answer in a second, please.

[Camillo Greco, executive]

Okay. So on NII, the short answer is yes, Ashik, your assumption that for 2023 as a starting point, we are looking at multiplying by 4 the EUR 525 million of Q3 '22 is correct. Going a bit deeper, we have been paying a bit of funding cost already in 2022, which is the one that you see in the fourth bucket of Page #13 what we call other those EUR 15 million in the quarter. We continue to assume that we'll have to have some funding costs for nonretail clientele. We also assume that the rates and the BTP spread, as you said, won't move as if they were to move upwards or downwards, we would have this 13 basis points additional of increase in yield or a reduction in yield based on the direction of the movement.

[Matteo del Fante, executive]

And on the last question on the outlook for cost. I mean clearly there is less protection on our electricity and gas in 2023 because the hedges we put in place in 2020 only cover a portion of next year whereas they were covering the full of 2022. So we are waiting to see best market timing to protect ourselves on that side on the non-HR. On the non-HR, you have also to consider that we have now a relatively advanced level of transformation of our fleet. So we have over 21,000 energy low consumption vehicles, of which 5,000 are purely electrical and that clearly at the end of the day helps also the bottom line. On HR, it's going to be tough so it's a good and bad news.

The good news is that the new labor contracts kicks in 1st of July 2022 so you see it in the quarter and that's why quarterly results are slightly worse than the 9 months if you project it. So next year the bad news is that we'll have a full year of the new salary base. The good news is that it's still an increase of the pre-inflation environment. So you remember that we signed that contract in June or July 2021 so we're talking very, very mild increase versus what people are experiencing in everyday's life and what unions could be asking to the company and at the moment given we just recently signed the contract, they're not. So that's the good news. And the increase is obviously in the 24SI Plan that...

[Massimiliano Riggi, executive]

The next question is from Manuela Meroni from Banca IMI.

[Manuela Meroni, analyst]

The first one is on your upgraded guidance on full year 2022. Could you please share with us what are the main drivers? For sure NII is one of them, you also mentioned some positive results of Mail & Parcel ahead of expectations, I think that interest rates may also have a positive impact on Insurance. So my question is that all the divisions are performing better than expected, but I would like to have your consideration about that. And full year 2022 EBIT targets are already above your business plan EBIT for 2024. So when you're going to revise your business plan target for 2024? The second question is on Slide 13. The big jump in NII is mainly due to public administration deposit investment income. Could you please elaborate a little bit on that? You mentioned something related to the variable component so I'm wondering if we can assume that this is fully recurrent also in the next quarter or if there is some hedging impacting there. And third question is on Net Insurance. Could you please share with us the strategic rationale of the deal, the timing of the integration and the expected contribution to the non-life business group?

[Matteo del Fante, executive]

Okay. The first question 2023, I would say that you have 2 major items which are justifying the revision of the guidance. The first one is higher NII and the second one in terms of magnitude is lower cost. Then to the positive, we have also an outstanding performance of Payments & Mobile and again a strong performance of Insurance. All in all those 4 factors more or less in the order I gave you are justifying the increase in the guidance. As far as 2024 targets, it's certainly business of next year and we are in the process of planning our investor communication strategy for 2023 and we will let you know shortly.

Your second question about Page 13. The reason why there is a big jump on PA deposits is because the index that is used to remunerate our deposits with the government is a mix of short-term rates which have increased, but not a lot long-term rates. So in swaps land, it's kind of a CMS or a CMT, cost of maturity treasury, it's called [indiscernible] and when you basically move by 2% or 2.5% in 9 months the average yield of government securities traded in the market, you get on the following refixing the 2.5% increase 1 shot. So it's very sensitive both on the upside and downside and this time around we benefit on the way up.

On the third question of Net Insurance, I will let Camillo, Manuela, answer you. And thank you for your questions.

[Camillo Greco, executive]

So with respect to -- first of all, let's talk about the timing of the transaction then the rationale. We have announced the intention to launch a tender offer. We are currently waiting for the relevant approval from the antitrust authority and the U.S. authority in Italy. We do expect to begin the tender offer process sometime in the second half of January, which should lead to a closing of the transaction at the end of Q1 2023. That is with respect to the timing. With respect to the rationale, we always said that we wanted to increase within our Poste Vita business the weight of our P&C business. This potential acquisition would allow us to increase the P&C premium of around EUR 150 million in 2022, increasing going forward to above EUR 200 million along the life of the plan to 2024.

It would help us to create a competent center within the group for salary-backed loans business in addition to the JV that we have with BNL called Financeit, which is focused on the issuance of the loan. Obviously not insurance, focused on providing the insurance support, which is indispensable to have that loan issued in the first place. And with respect to synergies, we've obviously been thinking long and hard of this transaction. We identified a number of cost synergy items as well as potential revenue synergies we would come by cross-selling products of Poste Italiane within Net Insurance. But we would say more on that once the transaction has closed.

[Matteo del Fante, executive]

Okay. Massi tells me that there are no more questions so I thank you again for staying with us. And we now start the short road show and we keep you posted. Thank you very much. And for any questions obviously, Massi, as you all know, is very well present. Thank you very much.