Dear illimity friends,
we present to you the Group's 2022 Non-Financial Statement, at the end of the Group's fourth year of operation.
We are highly satisfied with what we have done in these years, as we have been capable of expressing significant growth, while continuing to invest in the future and, since the beginning, fully integrating ESG issues into our values, our business model, and organisation and into company culture.
The year just finished was marked by unforeseeable events: from the war in Ukraine to the energy crisis, to the sharp increase in inflation.
We implemented a strong, effective approach and reaction to the changes around us. We remained faithful to our commitment: being a Bank that funds the growth of SMEs and works with them in restructuring situations, with the goal of ensuring that they prosper once again, also in specific moments of difficulty, intervening in complex situations that other financial operators might see as a restriction. A Bank that dialogues with entrepreneurs to finalize recovery plans and out-of-court agreements that speed up resolution times and contribute to the entrepreneur's recovery. This is the model we have conceived, which we are pursuing now more than ever: produce profits, but also be useful to the community that we feel a part of.
Significant results were also achieved this year. We achieved highly satisfying profitability, with a low risk profile, and launched new tech initiatives that we believe will create significant development and value for the Group in the medium term: b-ilty, the first lendtech offering for small and medium-sized enterprises, and Quimmo, the digital proptech for property brokerage. These initiatives join our joint venture with Banca Sella HYPE, a leader in the Italian fintech market for retail customers.
During the year, we successfully acquired and integrated AREC into neprix, giving rise to an operator – ARECneprix – which positions itself as a new, innovative end-to-end model for managing distressed corporate credit, covering the entire value chain.
We have completed our IT infrastructure, which will enable us to exploit new data and augmented and artificial intelligence technologies. On the positive results achieved to this point, we will continue to grow, remaining focused on supporting SMEs, to which we have disbursed loans for more than EUR 2.6 billion, and asset management of non-performing loans, specifically UTP, making our maximum effort to favour their return to performing status.
All of this has been made possible by a team of talents, now composed of almost 900 people from 300 organisations in different sectors and 22 nationalities. Varying professional skills which, joined together, manage to go above and beyond, with an approach strongly focusing on innovation. And thanks this united front and sense of belonging, the illimity Group was recognised as a Great Place to Work for the fourth year running, also at European level.
Our process of and commitment to sustainability issues are strong and deeply felt inimbued through the entire organisation, starting from the Board of Directors, to the management through to each illimiter. We are proud that this is reflected in the significant upgrades to our ESG ratings. But we are not about to stop: with the publication of this Non-Financial Statement, we present the new 2023- 2025 Sustainability Plan, which comprises the ESG objectives we set in the 2021-2025 Strategic Plan, to ensure even better alignment with the best practices in the international banking sector, also in response to the guidance from the Regulator and the increasing expectations of the financial market and the ESG ratings agencies, with which we constantly interface.
We have also committed to carrying out data collection which, this year, resulted in an initial quantification of indirect emissions (Scope 3) attributable to financing activities (financed emissions). A fundamental step in our journey, which will enable us to monitor the carbon footprint of our portfolio and define, along with the business structures, possible decarbonisation strategies.
With this same spirit, from this year we have added to our disclosure the climate-environmental reporting aligned with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD).
We have also renewed our full endorsement of the United Nations Global Compact, which, for illimity, is a commitment to help promote the Ten Fundamental Principles, through cooperation and partnerships with various stakeholders.
We are proud to have reached this point after four years of operations, creating a sound banking group that is useful to Italy, and we are ready to capture new challenges and opportunities, guided by our principles and continuing to create and share value.