Grupo Cibest SA (CIB) 2007 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning and welcome everyone to Bancolombia's Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. With us today, we have the President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jorge Londono; the Executive Vice President, Mr. Sergio Restrepo; and the Financial Vice President, Mr. Jaime Velasquez.

At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Londono. Please go ahead sir.

Thank you. I wish to thank each and everyone of you for your interest and attendance to this conference call, which we have prepared to share with you Bancolombia's results. I would like to mention that, as usual, we have a slide presentation that has been made available on the Company's Investor Relations Web site. We very much recommend you to follow this presentation during this call.

At this time, I would like to ask Mr. Sergio Restrepo, Executive Vice President of Bancolombia, who is going to explain briefly the recent measures and other facts of the Colombian economy during the last quarter.

Thank you, Mr. Londono. As Mr. Londono said, I would like to explain and comment on the measures that, as you probably know, were implemented by Central Bank last weekend. Among other things, the Central Bank increased marginal cash reserve requirements from 13% to 27% in checking accounts, from 6% to 13% in saving accounts, and from 2.5% to 5% in 18 months or lower time deposits.

The recent measures are clearly aiming to control inflation pressure, which in our view is very important objective. The measure should have an impact in slowing down the current very high growth volume of credits. In accordance to our expectations, the increase in rates, which we project will have a low impact on the bank profits and probably positive effect because of our recovery in the net interest margin. It is important to highlight, though, that the Central Bank has made very clear that these measures are temporary.

During the first four months of 2007, and after some inflation pressure, the Central Bank has increased interest rates four times up to 8.5%. As of April, inflation for the last 12-month period reached 6.25%. As you can see in the graph, the Central Bank has been very successful meeting its inflation targets during the past few years. However, as of today, we believe it will be difficult for Central Bank to meet this year's target, which is in the range of 3.5% and 4.5%.

The performance of bond prices, as you can also see in the graph, was very weak, basically because of the Central Bank's interest rate hikes. The most liquid bond, the TES 2020, was traded at 8.8% by the end of 2006, 9.8% at the end of the first quarter, and today, it is at 10.17%.

Now, in terms of the economy, during the fourth quarter of the year, the GDP grew 8%, driven mainly by investment and consumption. Investment reached a growth rate of 24.2%, while household consumption increased 8.3%. From the supply side, the manufacture industry, retail and construction contributed the most overall output expansion, by growing 16.3%, 12.3%, and 8.9% respectively with respect to the same quarter of 2005.

Finally, I would like to stress our perception of the economic stability, despite the pressure on inflation. We have a healthy and well distributed among sectors GDP growth, but still have low interest rates and inflation, and a low fiscal deficit for the public sector at 0.8%. All these make us believe it's still a favorable scenario of the financial -- for the financial business. After this quick review of the Colombian economy and the capital markets, I will turn to Mr. Londono again, who is going to go over the bank's results.

Thank you, Sergio. As far as Bancolombia results, we would like to highlight the growth momentum that the bank is having, as we take advantage of the opportunities the economy has given us throughout the current expansion phase, as we are going to show during this presentation.

The bank's loan portfolio was very dynamic. Net loans increased 4.4% over the quarter and 35.4% on a year-over-year basis, with these very positive figures in all segments. Due to the rapid growth of the loan portfolio, investments in debt securities decreased 35.5% over the year. In a quarterly basis, they decreased 10%.

Let's take a closer look to the Bancolombia's balance sheet at the end of the quarter. The bank's assets grew 17.7% over the year. We would like you to notice that the process of asset shifting is still taking place, as the demand for credit remains strong.

In slide five, you can see how the growth of loans has allowed them to represent 68% of the total assets of the bank, when a year ago, they were only 59%. Additionally, debt securities went from representing 26% to represent only 14% in the last year.

In slide number six, we can observe a positive loan growth for each and every segment of the main activities of the bank, all of them increasing above 30% over the year. Corporate loans, as an example, were up 34.2%. Retail and small and medium sized enterprises loans continued to be the most dynamic in the bank loan portfolio. They grew at 42.9%. Financial leases to both corporate and the small and medium sized clients grew 33.5%. We do not believe so that the annual growth rate of the corporate loans is sustainable as it is -- its base has already expanded significantly in the last years, and even less with the recent measures that Sergio was commenting previously.

The mortgage business keeps having a very positive evolution. Mortgage loans increased approximately 10.9% over the quarter and 41.2% over the year, in a normalized basis, excluding the effect of mortgage securitizations.

On slide number seven, you can see that the average of monthly disbursements during the first quarter of 2007 amounted to COP130 billion. This was four times as much as the COP33 billion from the first quarter of 2006. This is of course a result of the bank's aggressive commercial strategy that you very well know.

Regarding this strategy, it is important for you to know that the fixed rate mortgage loan offer at 12.7% was increased at 14.1% a year, as a result of the interest rate increases implemented in the Colombian Central Bank. This increase took place about a month and a half ago. We are very comfortable with the exposure that we have gained in this business. Mortgage loans still represent less than 10% of the total loan book of the bank even after normalizing for the effect of securitizations. However, we keep a close eye on analysts studies of the evolution of the real estate price in Colombia, which as of today conclude that real estate prices are still below the level that they reached ten years ago. Also, we have been and plan to continue being very active securitizing most of the new mortgage loans originated. In 2006 (inaudible) with total securitization was 90% of total disbursements.

As shown in slide number eight, you can see that despite a strong growth of loans in every business segment, the bank asset quality remains under control. As of March 31, 2007, past due loans as a percentage of total loans, reached a level of 2.7%, with a coverage ratio of 130.4%, in line with the high growth in retail segment. Additionally, the ratio of allowances to loans classified C,D and E was at the level of 130.5%.

We will also like to highlight an aspect on our balance sheet and it's the increase of over-the-night funds sold. As you can see in the balance sheet, they increased more than $500 million and this is derived from the deposit of the escrow account for the payment of Banagricola acquisition.

We would like you to see in slide number nine, how the bank's average weighted cost of deposit mix has been quite stable, below 4%, despite the interest rate hikes determined by the Central Bank during the past quarters. In terms of volume and compared to the first quarter of 2006, savings accounts increased 48.5%, while time deposits increased only 20.7%.

In slide number ten, you can see the bank's consolidated ratio of technical capital to risk weighted assets. This increased from 11.05% to 11.14% and is well above Colombia's regulatory capital ratio of 9%.

Regarding income statement, you can see in slide number 11, net income for the first quarter of 2007 amounted to COP200 billion, decreasing 6.6% compared to the first quarter of last year.

In slide number 12, we want you to see the net interest margin breakdown. It is important to highlight that the overall cost of funds was stable at 4.4%. The loan portfolio margin compressed slightly during the first quarter of the year at 7.8% as compared to the previous quarters. Nonetheless, due to the weak performance of bonds prices, the net investment interest margin was the one that decreased and it decreased 1.8% -- to 1.8%. As a result, the total net interest margin decreased from 7.4% to 6.8% during the quarter, but increased 20 basis points from 6.6% to 6.8% over the year.

During the first quarter, net provisions for loan and interest losses amounted to COP74 billion, increasing almost 16% compared to the first quarter of last year, and approximately COP14 billion from these provisions correspond to the new provisioning regulation. The hike in provision from the previous quarter is explained by the recoveries of the fourth quarter of last year, which amounted to more than COP[50,000] million, as we announced in the last earnings conference call.

During the first quarter of this year, net fees seem to have presented a weak performance, amounting to COP214 billion, which represents an increase of 7.7% over the year and 3.9% as compared to the figures presented on the first quarter of 2006. However, taking into account the bank's divestiture in Almacenar, net fees decreased 1% over the quarter, and posted a positive growth of 14% as compared with the first quarter of the previous year.

In slide number 15, you can see the fast growth of the bank's business of private label credit cards previously mentioned, outperforming the number of regular credit cards. The private label credit card business is growing rapidly in terms of both billing and outstanding cards. We believe this business is a source of opportunity, which we know was costly during the past year. On the other hand, in the regular credit card business, the billing increased 27.7%, resulting in a 21.7% local market share compared to 20.6% from the previous quarter, and 21.5% from the first quarter of the year 2006.

So, we basically caught up some of the market share we lost during the last year, and the number of outstanding credit cards increased 22.9% resulting in a 14.7% local market share. We also want to highlight before leaving this area of net income that the income or profit before taxes grew slightly on a year-over-year basis.

In slide number 17, you can see the increase in operating expenses. Due to the quarterly instability that you can observe in last year expenses, we believe that it is more adequate to compare this quarter's operating expenses with the quarterly average of last year, considering the sale of Almacenar. The result of this comparison is an increase of 7.8%. We are in a process of expansion and modernization that demands investments to improve the bank's infrastructure and the IT platform.

And in parallel, we are working in different fronts, in order to control the growth of expenses that should deliver results in the medium term. As a result, the bank efficiency measure as operating expenses over average total assets was 5.4% during the first quarter of 2007. Additionally, operating expenses to net operating income efficiency ratio was 60.9% during the first quarter.

Just before closing my presentation and having your questions, I would like to mention that the acquisition of Banagricola is running up very well. We expect to do the final transaction on Tuesday next week, and we are happy to say the total percentage, which has been acquired is in line with our best expectations and is close to 85% of shares acquired. We are very, very happy with the outcome of the process.

At this time, I would like to thank you for your attention, and we will be happy to take any questions and comments that you might have.

(OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS) Your first question comes from the line of Mario Pierry with Deutsche Bank.

Good morning. I have a couple of questions. First, as you showed on slide -- on page 12, your loan interest margin has been trending from a peak of 8.9% to 7.8% now. I just wanted to get a better sense from you where can this net interest margin trend, especially now with the increase in reserve requirements in Colombia?

And then, second question is related, as you said now, the bank is going through an expansion and modernization phase and has required investments, and should expect then costs to continue to trend higher at this levels that we are seeing, a 15% pace year-on-year? And also, if you could discuss a little bit how do you feel that your fees are growing following the acquisition of Conavi and Corfinsura last year. For me, it seems like fees have been growing less than expected. So, I just wanted to hear your views also on the fees growth. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Yes, it's interesting. On the first topic that you asked, the loan interest margin, as a matter of fact, as we mentioned and we illustrated in slide number 12, there is a slow decline in the net interest margin, but [I believe] stabilization in the last couple of quarters. We look with a lot of interest analyzing what could happen with the new reserve requirement that has been set up by the Central Bank. Sergio was mentioning at the beginning these could place us in a nice scenario of increasing interest rates, and we believe that the financial sector in general and the bank has good possibilities of doing well in a scenario of increasing interest rates.

As you could remember, we had been stressing for the last quarters that we were not expecting the very strong trend of growth of loans to persist, to continue. So, we have already assumed a decline in the rate of growth of the loan portfolio and the scenario of the growth of [world] rates could benefit and we believe that will slightly benefit our results. So, we are not pessimistic in the performance of the net interest margin as the result of the recent measures. We still -- it's still too soon, we have to wait and see, but expect that you will agree that our argument is in line with what we are thinking.

Okay, just if I can interrupt, we have seen interest rates in Colombia, going higher since early '06, right, market rates. But, at the same time, though, your net interest margin has been compressing. Are we then to expect further compression in net interest margin, given that interest rates are still likely to continue moving higher? Basically, what I am trying to get to is what is the sensitivity of your net interest margin to market rates?

Right. If you look again at the picture that you are referring to, what we observe is that this slight increase in interest during the first part of the year what brought to us was stabilization on the slight drop of the net interest margin. But, we have to analyze what were the reasons behind the prior increase in rates, and that was the increase in the expectation of inflation. Therefore, the cost of funding at that time was increased significantly, and the net interest margin was not benefited.

Right now, with this increase in reserves, we believe that we have a lot of opportunities to increase, therefore because we have a lot of resurces, we have a lot of deposits at fixed rates, and our assets -- most of our assets, the high proportion of our assets, mainly all our corporate assets are priced at a DTF rate. Therefore, they re-price every quarter and should re-price very quickly from now on. So, I insist that in our current analysis, we will find that the scenario of growing interest rates are not negative for the bank.

Now, going to the other two questions, on investment, we have been and will be doing investments in our infrastructure for the future. But, we shouldn't say and I don't want you to believe that this is going to send our expenses even higher. We are going to keep that level of investment, we have to modernize the bank in the sense that the recent acquisitions give us the opportunity of introducing to the bank a most modern platform in technology and in operations, and at the same time, we have to grow some of our infrastructure. But, that is similar to what we are already seeing in the bank, and we believe that there is a lot of improvement that should be gained and we are trying to gain a lot of improvement in the normal course of operation to the bank and we are keeping in doing efforts to get that.

Okay. Also, if I could interrupt on this question then, these investments in infrastructure, are these more related to the Conavi and Corfinsura branch network or is it just the overall Bancolombia branch network that you needed to make these investments?

No, as a matter of fact, it is derived from the new growth perspectives and the opportunities for the bank that are as a consequence of the new organization. Just to illustrate to you, we have -- we are in the process of opening about 1000 non-banking correspondents, which are small offices that are going to increase our reach to all the areas of the country that were unbanked previously. We have already opened close to 70 of those, and we will be opening at a very higher in the coming months.

But, we are also improving our infrastructure of ATMs and improving our infrastructure of traditional branches and so on and so forth. We are in a process of [bankarization] in the country, and that is the result of the new opportunities that the bank has gained from the growth and mergers of the last year.

Okay, now, on fee income, if I may go to that, we are expecting a recovery in the trend of course. First quarter was weak, as you mentioned, because the brokerage fees, if you look at the brokerage fees from the first quarter, this was a difficult quarter for Bancolombia's brokerage fees. That was a consequence of the situation of the market, the moving of interest in the investments and so on and so forth. That should be overcome in the coming quarters and we are optimistic that the brokerage firm is going to return to its average fees that it were making during the last year, and that will bring us to a good level of fees.

Do you have a target for fee growth this year?

We are expecting in 15%.

Okay. Thank you very much.

You are welcome.

(OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS) You have a question from the line of Rusty Johnson with Harding Management.

Good morning. This question is about your bond portfolio and whether you can basically anticipated the rising trend in the interest rate, whether you had moved the duration, and whether we should expect the losses -- the magnitude we had seen in the past, and how are you basically positioned currently?

Okay. Yes, the loan portfolio as you probably have observed is being reduced dramatically and we have also reduced -- we have also changed the structure of the portfolio in the sense of what we have classified as held to maturity and we have -- and what we have classified as a portfolio that is going to be priced on a daily basis. We still could have an impact for the re-pricing of our portfolio. But, just to give you an idea, a drop of 100 basis points will -- in the interest rate will reduce the profit $20 per million -- $20 million. So, I think that to the future that shouldn't be something that happens and that is going to be much lower than that -- the impact in other words is not going to be as the one that we have experienced during the previous quarters.

Okay, thank you very much.

You are very welcome.

Your next question is from the line of Ben Laidler with UBS.

Hi, good morning. Two questions if I may. First thing, could you just be a little bit more specific on the cost side? Are there any specific programs, specific measures you are taking to restrain costs And the second issue is just on Banagricola, improvement in profitability there, I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about the operating trends of -- at Banagricola and the improving profitability level?

I am not certain if I listened to you correctly, but you want us to talk a little bit more about our activities in cost reducing and the impact of the corporation of Banagricola on this aspect of efficiency and cost control, right?

I mean, the two questions are separate. On Bancolombia's Colombian costs, just what specific measures you are taking to restrain costs? And then separately on Banagricola, if I look at the El Salvadorean Superintendency numbers, there seems to be a fairly significant pickup in profitability there. I just wondered if you can give some color as to what was driving that?

We -- apart from the investments that we are doing in increase of our infrastructure that of course will keep showing in our expenses. We believe that the current expenses of the bank are going to be significantly reduced. We are taking steps to that direction. We have mentioned in previous conference calls that we are in the process of adopting Six Sigma program of controlling costs, and we have launched since last year a team -- an internal team of analysts of each specific line of costs that what it is doing is trying to interact with each one of our departments to show the differences in the costs and utilization of services that are determining higher than expected in each area of the bank. That is like a team that is trying to promote the extension of best practices among each one of the units of the bank. That is an activity that we have been doing since last year and that has been very promising and is giving us good results. But, obviously, the -- in the near future, the initiation of our Six Sigma is going to be more powerful in the reduction for the midterm.

Now, on Banagricola, actually Banagricola has a very efficient operation. We have to learn a lot of the culture of cost control and the culture of simple operations of Banagricola. We believe that one of the assets that we have in this integration is to try to leverage the culture of keep the operations simple that has Banagricola. We are already talking to them and trying to grab the know-how they have and that efficiency. We believe that the incorporation of Banagricola should not deteriorate. On the contrary, it should improve slightly the average efficiency of the bank and we are optimistic that, because of the structure of the acquisition, the profitability of the bank, as we mentioned from the beginning, is going to increase. In other words, we are absolutely convinced and we can share with you the analysis -- we will be happy to share with you the analysis that we did at the beginning that the acquisition is going to be accretive.

Great, thank you very much.

You are welcome.

Your next question is from the line of Andres Jimenez with Invercol.

Yes, good morning gentlemen. I have three small questions, the first one is in reference to the actual law that is going to pass in 2008 to increase the reserve coverage of the loan portfolios. They are talking about taking that to 200% to the average of Latin America. Is the bank -- so the question would be, is the bank going to actually start increasing during the course of this year, or is they going to leave that 2008, that increase in provisions? That would be my first question.

My second question would be, are you going to provide pro forma, when you actually acquire Banagricola for us to actually look at the numbers going back? And my third question would be in reference to the actual issue of the bonds that are -- or the loans that you actually acquired to be able to acquire Banagricola, were you projecting that that's going to take the solvency ratio more or less to what levels we are going to see because we see that what you provided on the actual presentation is only to the course of the quarter, and that was after the quarter? Thank you.

Okay. In the first topic, in fact, you are right, there has been some ideas, which are being put for discussion in the page of the Superintendency of Banking. Actually, I am not aware of the fact that it comes up to determine 200% reserve coverage. But, it's certainly aiming at increasing the reserve requirements for the retail and consumer credit. But, I certainly am expecting that there is a lot of discussion to go on before those measures are to be in effect.

What happened is that the Colombian Superintendency is being very active in the modernization of the system of reserves in Colombia and is trying to adopt very quickly the norms of Basel II. Actually, when you look at the Colombia platform of legislation, we are quite well advanced on that and the Superintendency is trying to make it similar for the banks to put our own models to work as soon as possible. Bancolombia has been working in our models. We are already having our models in effect, the 20-F, which is going to be published in the coming weeks, actually show the results of the application of our predicting models.

So, in the future, we believe that in accordance with those models, we shouldn't have sudden changes in our reserve practices and reserve volumes. We are well above -- we are rather conservative in the way that the -- we make reserves, and we believe that that should be in line with the new regulations that are being worked by the authorities in Colombia. We are not expecting shocks in that area.

Now, about the pro forma of Banagricola, we are going to show pro forma figures when the acquisition actually comes to a close and we expect that to be in the coming weeks. We have enough solvency and enough capital for the acquisition, and we have plans to maintain the bank well above and we have no problems of solvency during the process. Obviously, this is a market of operations that are in the process of approval and we can now go further than that in our explanation of that at this point.

Okay. As a follow-up question, could -- can you maybe elaborate on the solvency ratio, that is actually going to go down a little because of the acquisition of Banagricola, is that going to cap your loan portfolio growth during the course of this year?

No, actually in accordance with what we have been working, there is not going to be restrictions whatsoever for -- regarding the growth opportunities that we are looking in the economy. We will be well above and with possibilities of growth during the coming months.

Okay. Thank you very much gentlemen.

You are very welcome.

Your next question is from the line Alonso Aramburo with Santander.

Yes, good morning. You mentioned a possible slowdown in loan volumes. Could you give us a sense of what that would be for the rest of the year?

Yes, actually, we have always made our predictions of growth very much below what was happening in the economy during the last year. We were not expecting that to hold and we were not considering that as a good path for the bank. Actually, what we have obtained during the first quarter, as we mentioned during the presentation, was a growth for the quarter of less than 4.5%, and that will be in line with the growth in the 20% for the year, which is very much in line with our original positions of growth. Certainly, there is going to be some impact from the measures that were announced on Sunday night, but I think that the result is not going to change in main line of development of the economy and the demand is still to grow and will allow us to reach those levels that has been our expectations from the beginning of the year.

So, you will be comfortable with that 15% to 20% loan growth year-on-year over the next few quarters?

Yes, certainly we do. That allows us to grow in the chapters and in the type of loans that we want to grow.

Okay, thank you. And just one final question, regarding your tax rate, I noticed that this quarter was higher than last quarter and last year, do you expect this level to remain for the rest of the year?

Well, unfortunately, we are running out of most of our tax shield that we had. We might find some additional coverages, but we believe that at this time, it will be reasonable to consider that the taxation level is going to be about the level that we are.

Okay, thank you very much.

You have a follow-up question from the line Mario Pierry from Deutsche Bank.

Okay, let me ask you some more questions on the Banagricola acquisition then please. Can you give us the timing that you expect to do the equity offering? If you get the 85% of the company, what is the total price then that you will be paying for Banagricola and how do you plan on financing between debt and equity? Also, if you could give us some guidance in terms of the net income that Banagricola reported last year and what do you expect for the next couple of years, that would be very helpful?

Okay. I want to start from the end. Net income of Banagricola last year is -- actually, this year, Banagricola is running over the projections that they had. Last year, they had $62 million and this year, they were expecting to have $80 million, and these results of the first three months are well in line and even better than expected. So, we are optimistic that we are going to be able to maintain that track of growth.

Now, of the process of the acquisition and the way that we are going to do additional measures of the bank, we are unfortunately unable to present that because we have some legal restrictions of talking about operations that have not been approved yet for all the authorities. The payment of Banagricola, we already have clear -- we have the money as we mentioned during the presentation, raising an escrow and even the money ready for 100% success in the offering, and we are going to get to that. We are going to be below 90% certainly. So, we already have made that payment in some sense. I mean, the balance is already shown with the payment taken care of.

But, we are going to do additional operations and we can mention that as you learned in the past general shareholders meeting, there were some approvals for the bank's increase in shares and previously to that, we had announced that the Board of Directors has authorized to us the emission of bonds -- long-term bonds that we are going to use. But, please understand that we are precluded from going into this topic in more detail, because again, these are operations that are in the process of getting approved.

Okay. So, but -- let me follow up then, if you could also give us the ROE of Banagricola in '06 and on the expected for '07? Also, what are guiding here is almost 30% earnings growth in Banagricola this year. Can you just tell us a little bit what is driving this growth? And finally, then, should we start to -- should we consider though that this acquisition will be completed by the third quarter of this year, is that still the timeline?

I think that, obviously you are in the line of thinking that should be, but I wouldn't be able to give you such a precise answer you are requiring, but I hope to give you adequate guidance for you to worth it. Banagricola during last year was around 18% return on equity, that is below the return that we are obtaining at the bank. How come then that we said that this acquisition is accretive? And it's because of the way that we are in the possibility of structuring the acquisition.

We cannot at this moment say how we are going to do it, but as I was mentioning, we are going -- we already have in our hands an authorization by the Board to issue bonds and we know that the rate that those bonds could be issued will certainly be well below the rate of ROE that Banagricola has achieving. And therefore, we are going to be able to get a good acquisition. I mean, if we made an equity issuing, well, we -- the current prices give us a good money, a good price, for increasing our equity. So, if you play around with some of these possibilities that we have in our hands, you will probably see that we should be able to incorporate Banagricola with an accretive contribution to the bank.

Okay. And then, if you just could give us a comment why are you seeing such stronger earnings growth at Banagricola this year, what are the main drivers?

Okay. We are very happy with the strategic behind the acquisition of Banagricola. Central America is a magnificent -- an extraordinary region. The region is growing very fast. As a matter of fact, the first quarter of the operation of Banagricola is showing it, and I think that Colombia and our economy has a lot of opportunities in that region.

From the other hand, Bancolombia is becoming with this acquisition a regional bank and we have lots of opportunities to incorporate to Central America some of the know-how and some of the activities that we are seeing dealing with success in Colombia. What we are doing in the small and medium sized enterprise and what we are doing in new lines of credit, leasing for instance and factoring for instance, which are activities, which are very undeveloped in Central America, are great opportunities. So, we are convinced that in the acquisition of Banagricola, we are going to benefit from the entrance to a very dynamic economy, to a very dynamic financial stature, and we are going to be able to take those opportunities and increasing those opportunities at the time that we can take to El Salvador some of the products and lending technologies that we are applying with success in Colombia.

All right. Thank you.

You are welcome.

Sir, at this time, there are no further questions. Do you have any closing comments?

Okay, thank you very much. I want to thank you again for your attendance to this conference call, in which we tried to present the main elements of the performance of the bank during the first quarter, which was a good first quarter, even though it had some decline in the rate of interest of our portfolio investment, but the bank is producing good results. And also, we had the opportunity to comment in the recent measures of the economy and how they are going to impact the growth of the financial sector and the growth of the bank. We will be happy to answer any additional questions or provide any additional information through our Investor Relations division or through the names and telephone numbers that appear in the bottom of the press release you received yesterday. Thank you again, and good bye.

Thank you for participating in today's conference call. You may now disconnect.