DWS Group GmbH & Co KgaA

XETRA:DWS

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Natalie, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the DWS Group Q3 2022 Results with Investor and Analyst Conference Call. [Operator Instructions].

I would now like to turn the conference over to Oliver Flade. Please go ahead.

[Oliver Flade, executive]

Yes, Natalie, thank you very much, and good morning, everybody, from Frankfurt. This is Oliver Flade from Investor Relations, and I would like to welcome everybody to our earnings call for the third quarter of 2022.

As always, I hope you're keeping healthy and safe. And before we start, I would like to remind you that the upcoming Deutsche Bank Analyst Call will outline the Asset Management segment results, which have a different parameter basis to the DWS results that we are presenting today.

I'm joined by Stefan Hoops, our CEO; and Claire Peel, our CFO. And Stefan will start with some opening remarks, and Claire will take you through financial presentation afterwards. And for the Q&A, please could you limit yourself to the 2 most important questions so that we can give as many people a chance to participate as possible.

And as always, I would also like to remind you that the presentation may contain forward-looking statements, which may not develop as we currently expect. I therefore ask you to take note of the disclaimer and the precautionary warning on the forward-looking statements at the end our materials.

And with that, I will now hand over to Stefan.

[Stefan Hoops, executive]

Thank you, Oliver. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our Q3 2022 earnings call. Today, Claire and I will highlight our key developments in the third quarter, and we will provide some insights into what you can expect from us going forward.

Before we get into the details, allow me to quickly recap on Q3. Our strong franchise continued its focus on delivering profitable disciplined growth, despite the adverse environment. Obviously, markets remain difficult for the asset management industry as well as for DWS.

Last quarter, we called it a perfect storm as we hope this turbulent period would pass like most storms do. However, there have been no signs of this happening, which reinforces our assumption that we are entering a new era in which markets across asset classes will either trend sideways or continue to go down.

Quite simply, we're entering a no-beta world where active asset managers will be tasked with creating alpha. Creative sector ETFs will outperform broad index replication and private markets will continue to strive. In this context, DWS continues to progress forward and weather the current environment, reaffirming the strength of our firm.

Our people franchise remains strong without senior or key talent departures. Our coverage team is actively helping clients to navigate difficult markets, and with success, as you can see in our flow performance compared to the wider industry. This has been enabled by our strong investment performance with 76% of our funds outperforming the benchmark on a 5-year basis.

This stability is also reflected in our financial results. Obviously, our stable AUM have been helped by the strong U.S. dollar in the third quarter. And yes, most of our quarterly net inflows have come from cash.

However, inflows into high-margin Alternatives have contributed to an increase in our management fee margin. And we've generated stronger revenues in the quarter and year-to-date, enabling us to report a record adjusted profit before tax of EUR 804 million in the first 9 months of 2022, up 5% year-on-year.

In addition, our year-to-date adjusted cost-income ratio was 60.8%, in line with our expected ratio of around 60% for 2022. This quarter, we've also made strategic progress centered on our guiding principle of clients, markets and investing.

Regarding the well-known ESG investigations, we are nearing the final stages of our internal investigation and can confirm that we continue to stand by all of our financial disclosures and prospectuses.

We do, of course, learn from our experience and continue working with the authorities to resolve the investigations as a top management priority. As part of these efforts, we announced a refined sustainability governance structure last week, including the introduction of our sustainability oversight office. As I said last quarter, our main goal is to restore our credibility in ESG as we remain committed to being one of the flag bearers for ESC in Europe.

In addition, we made a number of organizational changes to ensure DWS is well positioned for future growth. We welcomed Karen Kuder and Angela Maragkopoulou to the DWS Executive Board to help shape our future as a stand-alone asset manager. We announced that Dirk Goergen, our Global Head of Client Coverage will relocate to the U.S. to lead our Americas business and oversee an ambitious growth plan for this key part of our franchise.

We reconfigured our Investment Division to become more efficient, agile and scalable, including the promotion of Bjorn Jesch to Global CIO. And we've established a digital products team as part of our ambitious plans for digital asset management.

These efforts form part of our broader strategy to ensure we are ready to capitalize on opportunities with continued discipline and to solidify DWS' position of strength as we enter an era of no-beta. I will outline more about how we plan to achieve this later.

But for now, over to the one and only Claire to explain our results.

[Claire Peel, executive]

Thank you, and welcome, everyone. Today, I will present the results and activities for the third quarter of 2022, starting with the key financial highlights.

Adjusted profit before tax stood at EUR 252 million in Q3, supported by stable revenue growth, including strong management fees. Adjusted cost-income ratio of 63.5% reflects higher costs due to the inclusion of an extraordinary cost item in Q3. Net inflows totaled EUR 7.7 billion in the third quarter, primarily driven by cash and further contributions from Alternatives, ESG and new product launches.

Moving on to the financial performance snapshot for the third quarter. Starting at the top left, AUM remained stable at EUR 833 billion supported by favorable FX movements and positive net inflows in the third quarter.

On the top right, adjusted revenues grew to EUR 689 million, up 3% quarter-on-quarter and 4% year-on-year, with increases reported across all revenue categories.

On the bottom left, adjusted costs increased to EUR 437 million, including higher carried interest compensation related to future performance fees. This resulted in an adjusted cost-income ratio of 63.5% in Q3 and an adjusted profit before tax of EUR 252 million in the third quarter and EUR 804 million year-to-date, a 5% uptick year-on-year.

Let's recap on the market environment. After turbulent first half of the year, we saw volatility levels come down at the start of Q3 amid better-than-expected economic growth, together with lower oil prices and reduced levels of inflation in the U.S.

However, volatility began to increase again in mid-August as central banks confirmed their resolve to fight inflation even in the face of recession. This led to even larger declines across all major equity indices in the third quarter, while the U.S. dollar continued to strengthen against the euro.

At the same time, interest rates continued to rise in Q3, leading to sharper increases in European and U.S. government bond yields. Altogether, all of these developments had a wider impact on the asset management industry as well as DWS as reflected in our AUM, which I will now outline.

Despite the challenging market environment, assets under management remained stable at EUR 833 billion in Q3. Ongoing industry pressures, such as higher interest rates and volatility in global equity markets continued to have a negative impact on market performance, but we were able to compensate for this through favorable FX movements and quarterly net inflows, which I will now highlight.

In the third quarter, we continue to see investors respond to the ongoing economic uncertainty by making asset allocation changes to de-risk their portfolios. This behavior is reflected in our quarterly flow performance of EUR 7.7 billion of total net inflows in Q3, marking a reversal from Q2 net outflows.

As previously outlined, there are a number of ongoing industry pressures that continue to weaken investor sentiment, which we see across both retail and institutional client types. This can be seen in both Active Equity and Active Fixed Income as we have observed DWS.

The exception this quarter was cash, which reported EUR 17.6 billion of Q3 net inflows, mainly from U.S. institutional clients, but with continued volatility. In addition, our strong focus on investment outperformance continues to pay off, enabling us to report net inflows into our active retail flagship funds in Q3, mainly in EMEA, which we reported inflows into our Multi Asset offering Concept Kaldemorgen, and our Top Dividende equity fund.

Overall, our global and diversified business model is serving us well in the current market with sustained inflows into higher-margin products in the third quarter. Notably, Alternatives continues to attract strong client interest, recording EUR 1 billion of net inflows in Q3 as investors increasingly turn to such strategies to diversify their portfolios and generate higher returns in response to inflationary pressures.

In the third quarter, our Alternatives net inflows were driven by both flows into liquid real assets and real estate funds across all 3 regions. This helped us to offset quarterly net outflows in Passive as investor appetite for ETFs remains weak, in line with the continued decline of ETF flows industry-wide.

However, our Passive ESG offerings continue to attract positive net inflows, reaffirming the sustained investor demand we see for ESG ETFs, enabling us to report differentiated growth in the asset class.

Overall, ESG products are still performing well and reported EUR 1.4 billion of net inflows in the third quarter, and we continue to receive further flow contributions from our new product launches, which I'll now explain in more detail.

Since our IPO in 2018, new product launches have attracted EUR 48.7 billion of cumulative net inflows at an overall fee margin of 36 basis points. This includes EUR 2.5 billion of net inflows from new fund launches in the third quarter, primarily from ESG funds.

The success of our new product launches is a testament to the commitment we have at the start of this year to identify new opportunities that meets our clients' investment needs. And we're pleased to say that we are progressing well on this front. Over the past 9 months, we have launched several thematic funds across all asset classes with a particular focus on climate.

Our Alternatives business continues to build on its strength as we expand and enrich our range of offerings in line with client and market demand. And in Q4, we plan to launch the DWS Invest ESG Real Assets fund as part of the broader strategy to offer higher returning solutions to retail investors.

We've also continued to accelerate our ETF product launches to further scale our Passive business, all of which now have stronger focus on sustainability. This includes our planned ESG ETF launches in the fourth quarter, helping us to remain on track to double our ETF offerings by the end of 2022 as targeted.

Overall, new product innovation is extremely important for DWS to sustain positive flow momentum and to support top line revenue growth. As we look to 2023, we remain committed to innovate new product offerings that meets our clients' ever-changing investment needs as we enter a new era for the asset management industry.

Moving on to revenues. In Q3, we reported stronger total adjusted revenues of EUR 689 million, up 3% quarter-on-quarter and up 4% year-on-year, with increases reported across all revenue categories. Management fees and other recurring revenues were up EUR 7 million in the third quarter, driven by sustained client demand for high-margin Alternatives and further supported by favorable FX impacts and an additional calendar day within Q3.

Performance and transaction fees increased by 19% from Q2 due to recognition of stronger real estate performance fees in Q3. And other revenues were also up in the third quarter, supported by a number of factors and also include EUR 13 million contribution from our Chinese investment Harvest.

The management fee margin remained resilient in Q3, growing to 29 basis points, up from 28.4 basis points in Q2. By year-end, we expect the management fee margin to remain broadly flat year-on-year.

Moving on to costs. Total adjusted costs increased to EUR 437 million in Q3, up 10% quarter-on-quarter and 11% year-on-year, resulting in a higher adjusted cost-income ratio of 63.5%. This increase is mainly due to higher adjusted compensation and benefits costs in the third quarter.

Similar to the first quarter of 2022, we accounted for approximately EUR 25 million of carried interest in Q3 related to future performance fee recognition. Excluding carried interest, our adjusted compensation and benefits costs would be in line with Q2, and our adjusted cost-income ratio would be approximately 60%.

As a result, we are in the process of restructuring the fund vehicle to enable us to better align the recognition of mismatched carried interest and performance fees going forward, and we expect to see our credits to costs in Q4 as a result.

In addition, we saw a slight increase in adjusted general and admin expenses in the third quarter as we continue to invest into growth. Taking all of this into consideration, our 9-month total adjusted costs are up year-on-year, but with an adjusted cost-income ratio of 60.8% year-to-date, supported by stronger revenues and in line with our expected ratio of approximately 60% for 2022.

As a reminder, the total adjusted cost base excludes EUR 19 million of investments into our infrastructure platform transformation in Q3 in addition to other nonrecurring expenses.

To conclude, despite continued difficult conditions, DWS successfully weathered market volatility as reflected by the stability of our financial performance in Q3. Adjusted revenues continued to grow in the third quarter and in year-to-date, supported by strong management fees.

And although flow performance is mixed, we remain encouraged by continued client demand for high-margin Alternatives and active retail flagship funds, enabling us to generate top line revenue growth.

This is all a testament to our global and diversified business model as well as our strong 3 and 5 investment outperformance of 74% and 76%, respectively.

Looking forward, we know that we must retain a disciplined focus on cost control whilst continuing to help our clients through this period of uncertainty. We remain committed to delivering profitable, disciplined growth and continue to expect an adjusted cost-income ratio of around 60% in 2022.

Thank you, and I'll now hand over to Stefan for closing comments.

[Stefan Hoops, executive]

Thank you, Claire. Our solid Q3 performance clearly reinforces our position of strength as we enter a new era for the asset management industry.

As explained earlier, we strongly believe that we are shifting into a world in which markets will either trend sideways or will continue to go down. Therefore, we have to assume that we will not see positive market beta for the foreseeable future, neither for our clients on the performance side, not for our shareholders and us on the revenue side.

So what is the winning strategy for asset managers in such an environment? To help us find the answers, we've been assessing our franchise through a variety of lenses across client types, products, asset classes and regions. And we've been asking ourselves 2 key questions, who trusts us for which capabilities where in the world?

And where our competitive strength, assuming that only the top quartile of asset managers will create alpha in terms of performance for clients, inflows, scale, and that's a compelling cost-income ratio, which all helps to create shareholder value.

The outcome of this review taught us some valuable insights. Firstly, our global and diversified business model is serving us very well, enabling us to remain stable for our clients even when markets are not.

Secondly, we still have a lot of potential to unlock if we harness our capabilities and capitalize on our state. Thirdly, and quite honestly, there are parts of our platform where we're not as competitive as we would like. In some cases, because we lack of scale, in others because of the mediocre track record. This, obviously, provides self-funding opportunities without a tangible impact on our clients.

Looking ahead, we will continue to build on our strong franchise while positioning DWS for the future. It goes without saying, clients obviously come first. Our fiduciary responsibility is more important than ever to help both retail and institutional clients to navigate a no-beta environment while seeking alpha.

We feel we understand retail buying behavior very well. As an example, we are seeing a greater drive towards embedded distribution channels. This is one area where Angela and our new digital team will be impactful.

In this new era, we expect a lot of alpha-generating opportunities in private markets. One example I already mentioned in Q2 is providing risk capital for the European transformation.

In addition, we recognize that there's an ongoing shift away from global beta, making local market expertise even more relevant. While we have a large global footprint, we understand that we can't be everything to everyone. Instead, we need to capitalize on our strength and focus on what really matters to our clients, investing with fiduciary care and with strong investment outperformance.

This will be particularly important for the expected renaissance of active asset management, which requires a strong performance culture. Furthermore, we will reinforce our leading position in bespoke Passive solutions with our Xtrackers brand. More details will follow at our Capital Markets Day in December.

Of course, we will continue to listen to your valuable feedback on how to make our stock more attractive. Our Investor Relations team continue to share your suggestions on how we might achieve this. Without going into too much detail, some referred to providing more detailed disclosures, others to our relationship with the biggest shareholder. We're listening to you, and we're working on ideas to show that we, as a management team, are confident in the DWS stock and have skin in the game.

I am personally convinced that our capabilities should drive higher AUM over time. Some may even say that we've punched below our weight and that the organization is able to deliver more. You will see us address this and implement elements of our game plan with a sense of urgency.

With our competitive cost-income ratio and available capital, we want to capitalize on the current turmoil in the markets. At the same time, we will remain laser-focused on costs, just like we've demonstrated over the last few years. We look forward to updating you on December 7. In the meantime, we will continue to do what we do best: focus on clients, markets and investing while creating shareholder value.

Thank you. I will now pass over to Oliver for Q&A.

[Oliver Flade, executive]

Thank you, Stefan, and operator, we're ready for Q&A now.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And the first question is from the line of Arnaud Giblat from BNP Paribas Exane.

[Arnaud Giblat, analyst]

My 2 questions are going to focus on costs, please. So firstly, I'd like to look at the adjustments in costs. You've had a big step-up over the past 2 quarters. I'm just wondering if you could outline for us whether the -- I mean, the nature -- perhaps a bit more detail and the nature of these costs and the quantum to be expected in the future. I mean broadly, should we expect these adjustments to eventually trend towards 0?

And my second question is on the cost-to-income ratio target of 60% in 2022, if it makes sense. I'm just wondering whether that is a target that still stands for 2024. And notably, with your assumption of a no-beta world, how can you get there? Essentially, if there is a bit of fee pressure inflation in the cost base, it looks a bit challenging. So how -- what sort of levers can you action to get to a 60% cost-to-income ratio, please?

[Claire Peel, executive]

Thanks for the question. Arnaud, I'm happy to take those. On the first question regarding the cost items outside of the adjusted costs, and there's 3 items that I would point to there. One is the transformational charges, which is related to the IT transformation project, and we saw EUR 19 million in the third quarter, which indeed has been the highest of the quarterly spend we've had against that project and demonstrates that it's very much in its execution phase. So we would expect to see those costs continuing as we go through next year, and we will give some more information on that, of course, at the Capital Markets Day.

Secondly, we have severance and restructuring, which is, to some degree, an ongoing business activity that can have ups and downs. So we did discuss the need to self-fund activities as we go into 2023. And so I think severance and restructuring is a continued expense that we would expect to see.

And the other cost item, this one relates to litigation charges, of which we've had one expense predominantly provided for in Q2. And we also have the legal expenses associated with the ESG matter. So we have seen those expenses peak in the 9-month period in 2022. We expected decline in those costs in Q4, but some amount of cost going into 2023. That addresses the adjusted costs.

On the second question around the cost-income ratio. We do continue to guide to a cost-income ratio target of around 60% for this year for 2022. We have good visibility of that at this point in the year. So I think assuming that we can complete our effort on the fund vehicle restructure, which I referred to, which we're confident we can do so, then we would expect the 60% cost-income ratio for 2022.

And then moving into the medium-term horizon, we continue to be focused on a sustainable cost-income ratio target of 60%. But we've indicated in the past that we do consider that to be nonlinear. And in the current outlook and environment that we're going into in 2023, there is a likelihood that the cost-income ratio can increase before it decreases in that medium-term window.

[Stefan Hoops, executive]

Arnaud, allow me to just add 2 points, because I suspect that not just you, but also your colleagues are very focused on cost. So the first, and I think Claire is too nice to mention that. But I as a German can say that, we have a lot of our infrastructure functions in Germany, and you correctly pointed to inflation on select labor expenses. But I think that it's more prevalent in New York and the U.K.

So I think one advantage we have like built in inherently is that a huge chunk of our cost base is in Germany, where I think the labor market is simply less hot than what we see in the U.S. and the U.K.

And I think second point, because I'm sure that all of you pay attention to whether it's just the CFO talking about cost or also the CEO. I mean what I did over the last couple of years is not dissimilar to today, right? So in the corporate banking, we definitely had revenues go down massively, and we essentially had inflation in a sense of a lot of fintechs competing in the tech space. So we had to invest more in tech than maybe otherwise we would have.

And what I can tell you when you can look at the cost development of the corporate bank of Deutsche Bank that we simply took many, many hard and tough decisions. So that doesn't make me as like favorite in our Executive Board, but you will definitely see us make tough choices. And when I alluded to self-funding opportunities, that's kind of what I -- what we're trying to get across.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Hubert Lam from Bank of America.

[Hubert Lam, analyst]

I have 2 questions. Firstly, on the fee margin. What drove the big uptick in the fee margin? I know Claire mentioned Alternatives helping, but any technical factor that drove it higher? And what would you say a sustainable rate or the exit rate going forward?

Second question is for Stefan on the ESG greenwashing investigation. I know it's probably Board answering this question. But I'm focusing on the external one, not internal. Any update on possible timing or type of resolution or just generally your interaction with authorities?

And I also saw there was a recent -- another recent lawsuit that was made in the news. And then anything you can say about that as well?

[Claire Peel, executive]

Thank you for the questions, Hubert. I'll take the first one on the fee margin. So yes, in the third quarter, we saw an uptick in our management fee margin to 29 basis points. That compared to the 2Q result of 28.4%. You're right that there is a technical effect in the third quarter. We often see smallish technical effects in the calculation, which smooths out over a full year. But the third quarter, that was more notable given the volatility that we saw in the average AUM over the period.

And I would say that, that technical effect is about 0.4. So on a normalized basis, it would still be slightly higher than the second quarter because of the positive effect on the alternative side, that 0.4 is what we'd expect to normalize. And that's why for the full year, I would point to a flattish management fee margin compared to the previous year, which would be around 28 basis points.

[Stefan Hoops, executive]

And Hubert, thank you for your second question. You're right. I mean I don't get tired of it, but I do get the question quite a bit, obviously. So look, past, present and future of ESG, obviously, we'd love to talk about the future, but your question was like past and present.

So we cannot really comment on the ongoing investigation. So therefore, I cannot really give you a time line by when we'll have result of the ongoing investigations, right? I mean, we're so like a take of time as opposed being able to really drive the time lines.

However, I think what you probably noticed, between Q2 and Q3, we've now confirmed that we have nearly finished our internal investigations. And last quarter, we said that we stand by all of our disclosures. This time, we also emphasize that we stand by all of our financial disclosures and prospectuses. And so I think that so probably indicate that we have progressed and so I feel confident about that statement.

Also when it comes to the past, you mentioned the lawsuit, which was launched conveniently a couple of days before our quarterly earnings. In that case, it's not really about disclosures, but about, I think, what they would call us like boating colorful marketing. So in that case, and obviously, we take those consumer protection groups very, very seriously. I think they do a very important like job task for the overall market.

They've been going or they have had these sorts of discussions with a variety of our competitors. And in that case, it's really about getting us to maybe tone it down a bit, I think that's their intention as opposed to filing a complaint or a lawsuit on disclosures or prospectuses.

I think like last point, when it comes to the present, so obviously, as I also said in the little intro that we learn, right? I mean it's -- we're continuously reviewing our processes, procedures. And the announcement that we made last week about essentially organizing ourselves in 3 parts, I think also shows, you can call it, lessons learned.

So we have is the strategy for ESG remains under the CEO, that we give a lot more accountability to the businesses. So they really have to drive the ESG delivery but also on the controls. And then we introduced a sustainability oversight office, which reports up to Claire, which is really a second line of defense control function because we obviously had control functions involved before, legal, compliance and so on. But now we have a dedicated sustainability oversight office focus on that. Thank you, Hubert.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Mike Werner from UBS.

[Michael Werner, analyst]

Two questions. First, it appears that your employee base grew by about 6% in the quarter. I was just wondering if you can let us know if there's anything inorganic there? And what we should think about in terms of the headcount growth as we look out over the next couple of quarters?

And then second, kind of going back to the fee margin. Look, I know you guys have quite a large cash and money market business as well as the fixed income business. Given the rising yields in the world of fixed income, do you see any latitude or any room to increase some of your pricing on some of your products within fixed income and cash?

[Claire Peel, executive]

Thank you for the question, Mike. I'll take the first one on the FTE number or headcount numbers. So we did have a technical effect in our third quarter whereby we have -- we're progressing on in-sourcing a lot of activity and also from entries that sits outside of our DWS entity perimeter. And this included in the third quarter, 130 people from our Philippines platform.

So these people have always -- very important -- the franchise that's always been part of our cost base, but the headcount is now a reported headcount as opposed to an external headcount. So really its very much a technical effect on the headcount. Obviously, outside of that number, which is approximately 130 people, there is a second effect just in terms of general growth, which is also continued in-sourcing attached to our IT transformation projects and investments into growth areas.

[Stefan Hoops, executive]

I think your second question, and maybe I can team up on it, Claire and I. So I think when it comes to fee margin and it potentially increasing because of higher yields. That would be nice. A little bit wishful thinking, a little bit speculation. I mean, arguably, it yields 4%, 5% rather than at 1%, maybe paying an extra basis point wouldn't hurt us much. Unfortunately, we don't really see that yet. So right now, and Claire can confirm, we're still planning for a margin compression over time, even though we see that 1 basis point is probably conservative at this stage.

Now I think what you can say is, if we assume for a second that this thesis of a no-beta world is the way that the worlds like pans out and that you can find alpha in the bespoke Passive, somewhat broad index replication, but sectors, segments, algorithm-based indices and so on. Or that active asset management sort of experiences a renaissance, I see in that case, those would be higher-margin products for asset managers to offer, right? So again, a speculation and probably wishful thinking on my part. But I do believe that if people seek alpha, they will be willing to pay for it.

[Claire Peel, executive]

I could just add on the management fee margin for fixed income and cash. On fixed income, it's actually been very resilient over the years and including this year, fluctuating between 11.5, 12.5 basis points and cash, obviously, low margin fluctuating between 3% and 4%, and it can move above and below that, depending on where the yields are sitting on the cash funds. So it's obviously, they are portfolios that sit below the average of the management fee margin of DWS overall, and that's why the flow effects and the mix effect for the third quarter is also having a positive effect.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Bruce Hamilton from Morgan Stanley.

[Bruce Hamilton, analyst]

Maybe just looking at the kind of organic net new money growth outlook. Sort of 2 questions. One, on the near term, obviously, you mentioned de-risking, which has been an industry phenomenon, particularly through September. I just wondered whether you had any comments you could give on how Q4 is going?

And then perhaps more importantly, looking forward, your comments on sort of a no-beta environment, I think, very interesting. In terms of the alternative space, you called out energy transition, but how do you think across some of the other areas, so private equity, for example, in a world where there's no-beta but higher funding costs. Do you think those areas will still see sufficient sort of appetite from clients and deliver alpha?

And then on the -- I guess, on the active side, the challenge we've always seen is that the industry hasn't on any consistent basis performed above benchmark or below 50%. So and I see your 1-year performance has slipped a bit. So which areas within active maybe for your business, are you more confident that they can see growth going forward?

[Claire Peel, executive]

Thank you. Yes, I can take the first question just on the net new asset outlook. So as we've indicated, I think as we've seen across the results so far after the third quarter, there is certainly a de-risking of client attitudes in terms of where investments are being placed and much more discretionary.

In the early stages of Q4, difficult to give too much outlook, but it's been a little bit more muted, I would say, from the last couple of weeks of October of what we've seen. Certainly, on the ETF side, we continue to see a risk of outflow performance in ETFs. But again, as mentioned earlier, when you look within the composition of ETFs within some of the ESG funds, there's continued interest in that area. So overall, in Q4 quite muted so far. But I think for closing Q4 at the end of the year, we'd expect it to be a much cautious client reaction to flows.

[Stefan Hoops, executive]

And Bruce, so sort of really 2 questions, right? So one on private markets and there, I would have a more general observation. And then on active asset management, I will be quite specific to DWS.

So I mean I think the convenient thing about talking about no-beta is that you can define it in very, very different ways, right? I mean, no-beta, there could be no global economy, beta asset prices going up beta, I mean, obviously, beta would have different definitions.

I think the one thing we can probably agree on is over the last couple of years because you had a positive beta, you could become complacent, right? And certain things that really dependent on financial engineering kind of play out fine as long as markets like trending nicely upwardly.

So when it comes to private market, I think I am concerned with probably many of you that are following those markets about what could happen to private markets overall, if you see public markets be down 20%, why wouldn't private markets also move? I definitely am worried about PE. I mean, it's easy for me to say given that we're not in PE. But again, in that case, in many cases it simply depends on financial engineering. And with interest rates being much higher, I think that will be tough going forward.

I am probably a little concerned about direct lending or private debt originated in '19, '20, '21 because those were areas in which everybody had a ton of dry powder and probably the incentive to sort of lend. And given that a lot of private debt went into private equity-owned companies, I think it does beg the question of -- everybody's incentive to put on leverage, maybe there's too much leverage. So that's like general market comment.

I think we see opportunities going forward, again, high-level market, and then I can quickly comment on DWS. So what I call European transformation is actually broader than energy transition, right? So the reason why we call it transformation because yes, it does include a transition to a greener environment, greener economy. But it also includes components like fortifying or diversifying your supply chains, maybe depending less on faraway countries in Asia and producing more in, let's say, Eastern Europe. It definitely features much more R&D expenses. You see mid-cap companies without access to the equity markets wanting to invest and they need private debt. I mean they need funding.

So when you look at European transformation, basically, every day, some government program is announced or you see certain needs where I think you would want to invest. And the role that we feel that we can play as DWS is really bridge that. So we feel that we can raise risk capital for Europe.

And we feel that in collaboration with our majority shareholders of the Deutsche Bank, we can actually deploy it, because sourcing risk is quite tough, right? I mean it's incredibly dispersed many, many companies. So sourcing risk through the corporate bank or the investment bank or Deutsche Bank would give DWS an advantage. Obviously, we would remain the fiduciary asset manager to actually manage that. So that's where I see upside in both infrastructure and probably direct lending.

Overall, I think real estate debt could be interesting if you understand real estate equity, which we feel we do. Because I think if you provide debt financing to real estate companies, you can't need to lend to potentially own so you might as well understand how it would feel to own the equity in real estate. Happy to go into more detail, but I'll just leave at that.

Now on active performance, I think your comment is quite fair, right? I mean so yes, we have a strong outperformance versus the benchmark in 3 and 5 years. I think 1 year basis. It's slightly more mixed. I am confident about our ability in equities Multi Asset and certain products like the liquid real assets to continue to outperform. I think it's fair to say that we have not done as soon as we would like in fixed income, and that's something that we're looking at. Thank you, Bruce.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Haley Tam from Credit Suisse Financial Services.

[Haley Tam, analyst]

Can I have a couple of quick follow-ups on costs actually and then more question on flows? Just on costs, can I confirm that the headcount increase that was referenced in the previous question, should we have expected, therefore, to see a fall in the run rate, general and administration cost as you've moved that Philippine headcount from outsourced headcount into internal? Or is that something still to come through in the future?

And then second, in terms of the carried interest credit for Q4, given you saw, I think, EUR 55 million of exceptional current interest costs in Q1 and Q3 combined, is that the scale of the credit we should look for in Q4?

And then on flows, you've talked a number of times about the reinvigoration of active management and your confidence in Multi Asset, I guess, in particular, you are still seeing institutional outflows from that area. And I wonder if you could help us think about whether that's just asset reallocation and should come to an end soon or if there's something more fundamental going on there in terms of your institutions rebalancing what they're holding?

[Claire Peel, executive]

Thanks for the question, Haley. So on the first question around headcount, yes, it's correct that, that expense as previously in the general and admin costs and now we'll get chance through comp and then costs. So you will see that movement going forward, but it's not a material movement.

On your second question on carried interest, yes, the 2 exceptional items that we've seen in Q1 and Q3 were EUR 30 million and EUR 25 million, respectively. So subject to the technicalities and details of the fund structure, that would be the indicator of what we would expect as a credit in Q4.

And on the flow performance, the question specifically around institutional, I think we've certainly had in the fixed income space some mandates that have come to the termination period. And of course, in the environment that we have seen in fixed income, those haven't always been renewed or reallocated within fixed income from those institutional clients. So we've certainly seen some more material-sized mandates from the institutional side of that kind of category.

[Haley Tam, analyst]

And as that relates to Multi Asset, because I think you said in the statement there were outflows there as well from institutions?

[Claire Peel, executive]

Multi Asset was -- is smaller in quantum. So the Multi Asset we've seen in the third quarter, inflows in retail and some outflows in institutional. But again, I would -- I can't give too many specifics on the institutional, but I think it's asset reallocations that we're seeing.

[Stefan Hoops, executive]

Thanks Haley.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Stuart Graham from Autonomous Research LLP.

[Stuart Graham, analyst]

I had 2, please. The first one is quite big picture. The housing boom in Germany is over, and we're likely going to see a lot of mortgage holders now settled with negative equity. How do you think that the bursting of the German house price bubble impacts the outlook for your retail net new money flows, please? That's the first question.

Then the second question is on Concept Kaldemorgen, is a bit naive, but Klaus has obviously done a great job delivering this average return of, I think, almost 5% in an ultra-low rate world. But investors can now get 4% on the U.S. 10-year, ECB is going to raise rates to 3%. So why would this product now lose its appeal with investors, especially given this relatively high fees?

[Stefan Hoops, executive]

Stuart, obviously honored to have you on our call. Thanks for your questions. Let me take the first and like try the second and then maybe Claire will have additional comments on the second.

So I think when it comes to, well, kind of like the perceived net worth of retail and then their preferences for investing their money, that's obviously something which we are following, right? I mean, I guess, speaking globally, and then I will come back to Germany, that is obviously a concern we have. So when you look at the U.S., for example, where you have not seen retail selling equities really, I am worried that at some point, you reach a tipping point where the perceived net worth because of my select equity in housing is going down, my mortgage costs are going up, my cost of living goes up. And at some point, I'm worried about, well, if the -- whatever S&P 500 goes to X, they could become tricky, so let me just say now. So that's definitely something which we are following. We haven't really seen that in the U.S., but definitely risk. So you're right.

When it comes to Germany, I don't think that the house price appreciation over the last couple of years was quite as, let's say, extreme as we have seen in other countries. And I think the people usually have fixed rate mortgages, meaning there's no real, let's say, necessity or almost forced recognition of potential losses right now. And I don't think we've really seen people invest in markets because of perceived equity in the housing. So it's definitely something we are following.

We definitely expect cost for mortgages to go up. We obviously expect also costs for living to go up, meaning if you have less disposable income, less money to invest, and that should probably not be helpful for flows. But like I think at this stage, I think when you think about the type of clients we have in Deutsche Bank's Private Bank, therefore our clients, I think it's kind of tends to be the people that are slightly wealthier than the average. So I don't expect massive impact from that going forward.

I think the second question on why invest in Multi Asset if you can get 4% in select [ cavis ], I think the same question you could ask about hedge funds, right? I think what I think, historically, you will have seen is that most people in Multi Asset macro, whatever, we kind of have a, let's say, multiple of the market beta plus some alpha. And I think that it's probably also the ambition that Klaus and his team have set for themselves. So I think they've done very well this year, where I think some of their like early views that's on the market have played out quite nicely. And I would have confidence in an environment which you simply do not benefit quite as much from beta, but yes, you have higher absolute yields, but they will continue to see opportunities, mispricing relative value opportunities that, A, delivers proper returns for their clients and therefore, justify higher fees.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Jacques-Henri Gaulard from Kepler Cheuvreux.

[Jacques-Henri Gaulard, analyst]

2 questions for me. The first one is you've emphasized a lot the cooperation with your parent company. Does it mean that in the Investor Day, we're going to see increased leverage and synergies with Deutsche Bank. It's still a priority of your mandate?

And B, you might as well actually put that question to its end. Would you consider suggesting and considering the very dark portrait you've put of the asset management industry in the course of the call, would you consider taking the company private? Why not?

[Stefan Hoops, executive]

So the second one, I don't think that Claire and I have saved enough money to really buy out Deutsche Bank. So if you feel that taking private means buying 80% on Deutsche, that's looking fair. So your comment was, would Deutsche potentially buy back at 20%?

[Jacques-Henri Gaulard, analyst]

Yes.

[Stefan Hoops, executive]

I have no idea. I mean, I don't -- I mean, that's probably a question for them to ask. I think would be pretty tricky right, because you have one large additional shareholder with Nippon Life, which is well known. I think the other 15% are pretty dispersed. I think even if Deutsche wanted that, which I wouldn't necessarily know, I think, would be reasonably tricky to do. And I think the, let's say, experience that Deutsche had with squeeze-out when you look at what happened to Postbank, I don't think that they would love going through the same.

When it comes to the first question, meaning what is the -- like have we nurtured, have we leveraged all of the potential benefits of working with our majority shareholder? That is something that we will go into detail on December 7, right? So and really to the point you made, I just want to reemphasize the point you made.

We are fully focused on becoming independent. And that's what Karen will focus on when it comes to policies because we want to have the policies, the comp framework of an independent asset management company and what Angela will focus on when it comes to technology, operations and so on. So we are fully focused on truly becoming independent.

I think at the same time, I think we have a great relationship with the private bank and the international private banks or wealth management of Deutsche Bank. I think our leverage or our interaction with the Corporate Bank and the Investment Bank is spotty. Like meaning I think we have good interaction with people know each other, but it's not really an institutionalized, coordinated level. And it's something which we'll focus on, which I think particularly when it comes to sourcing private assets will feature on December 7.

And I think one thing to just to think about. I mean, the investment bank of Deutsche Bank, if you look at their private debt in the credit trading, they would be one of the largest private debt managers globally if there was an asset manager. And it's something which we haven't really leveraged. So we had one partnership with the Investment Bank on direct lending, but there's definitely a lot more scope for interacting with them, again, us as a fiduciary and them leveraging their sourcing ability.

[Operator]

So there are no further questions at this time, and I hand back to Oliver Flade for closing comments.

[Oliver Flade, executive]

Yes. Thank you, everyone, and for your questions and dialing in today. As always, if there are any follow-up questions, then please feel free to contact the IR team. Otherwise, I wish you a great day and a healthy time all the best. Bye-bye.

[Claire Peel, executive]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.