Mr. Treichl: The bank was founded in 1819 and grew into one of the largest institutions in the country. In 1997, we bought GiroCredit, the central institution of the savings bank sector, and merged it within 8 months in what was the fastest merger ever completed in the country to form Erste Bank, the second largest bank in the country. Right after the merger, we did the largest IPO ever done in the country to date, with the result that the foundation that previously owned 100% of the bank reduced its shareholding to 43%, 10% was then owned by the savings banks, some by the strategic banking and insurance partners, and the rest is widely traded. We are the first large, truly private sector bank in this country. Our core markets are private banking, retail banking, the SMEs, and everything that has to do with asset management and mortgage banking. We have three key strategies: the first being to improve the efficiency of our core businesses in a market that is probably the most difficult banking market in Europe. In this way, we concentrate on what we do best, which relates to the business segments I have described above. The second, since we are the central institution of the savings bank sector, is to redefine that position into being the production and servicing entity for all remaining savings banks in the country. There are about 69 savings banks left, and they all keep part of their liquidity deposits with us. We are linked with them through common IT system, and we're in the process of establishing a franchise system with all savings banks. This is one of the strongest parts of our strategy, and one that investors look at with great interest, because it's a pretty unusual system. We are I think, very, very successful with regards to that. The third strategy has to do with the fact that we believe that with all the distribution channels that we have to supply our clients - branches, Internet, phone banking - the country is too small in the long run. So we want to create a broader client base that will allow us to remain competitive in supplying all the distribution channels. That is why we have moved East establishing networks in Hungary and the Czech Republic. Those are our three basic strategies to build up a supra-regional retail-oriented financial services provider for a market of 30-35 million people.
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