ageas SA/NV (AGS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and Ageas colleagues, welcome on our Investor Day 2023, midway our strategic cycle Impact24. And this slide, of course, I do not have to present to you anymore. We have announced this in June '21, 2 years ago. And remember, it was a long term sustainable growth strategy. At that moment, we said every word matters. So that means it is a strategy that does not look next at the current cycle of 3 years, but that also prepares Ageas for a longer-term future, even up to 2030. And what I want to do this afternoon with you is a little bit where we stand today. Also how with this strategy, we face a new economic environment there because when we presented this, it was still, I mean, I was alone and I was in confinement and whatever, and we are still in COVID. Since then, of course, we all know the world have changed. And at the end, I would like to share also with you a few insights towards our future. Remember, Impact24 had different components, starting with the core. The core and the DNA where we have said we are in a place of strength. We are not bringing a strategy from a crisis situation even if the world was in crisis. We said we were -- we are not just more with the philosophy how can we continue that sustained performance that I think also under the leadership of a [indiscernible] we have been enjoying for so many years. What is the plan to continue this performance going forward, knowing that, of course, we also had the financial and strategic flexibility with the litigation behind us. We had a footprint with leading positions in 14 countries. And the first conclusion was that footprint is good. We still have a lot of untapped potential in the core that we can unlock in this strategic cycle. And in that area, we had topics about the market development, the market growth as such, the distribution development, the commercial development excellence and distribution and also just pure efficiency helped by data and tech, which we thought and we see today is going to know a breakthrough also in our industry. And then we looked at what we call these new opportunities, these growth engines, maybe not immediately profit contributing, but preparing Ageas for the future, and we had identified health protection life which in the context of the COVID environment, I think, were very logical growth areas, but also the digital platform world, we said that our direct digital distribution is still very, very limited, except, of course, the digital tools that we implement with our distribution partners. We're also now developing digital platforms as a distribution channel by itself. And we have added Reinsurance. And because we have set Reinsurance for us is an optimal way, a flexible way to diversify our capital base and the usage of our capital. We reconfirmed our model with a strong core, but with a strong local autonomy. And I'm even more convinced that's maybe one update I can give you already, on the geopolitical world of today. I think that is a very strong model that we leave that local autonomy, but that we combine it with an even stronger center. And there, we have, of course, created the CDSO office to make sure that all this flow of expertise of innovation of knowledge goes in an optimal way. And I must say, since COVID, I have visited now all our operations around the world, at least already 2 times. And I can tell you the ties and the sharing between the partners, I think, has never been as strong as it is today. And I think the creation of the CDSO office and all the work streams below that has absolutely helped on that. On new opportunities, we believe that we have enough potential organically. So we look at these businesses organically. We have said that we could also consider inorganically the fintech players. But of course, as I said, there is a new focus on the investor trends. It is more about cash, about remittance about dividends. So we said, okay, let's further build these new opportunities out of our own organic capabilities, because this would be long-term investments with probably very late remittances coming to the group. And then we have indeed these options for the new markets. No real change there. So we are still open for in-market consolidation in case our partners would like to do that or diversification, if they are in one business line, and we should go in another way, and you will hear a case about this opportunity, today. And of course, we also look at rebalancing of the group. But maybe with that more moderate growth in Asia, it's maybe a little bit less urgent. While at the same time, we have seen that prices being paid for M&A in Europe are, I would say, sky high of deals where we have participated, where we've also seen going to other groups. So we are open for this addition to rebalance the group but with the financial discipline that we are already known for. And it's a little bit the same conclusion rain reinsurance as well. We have now a solid team. [indiscernible] has recruited more than 30 reinsurance experts. So we have ample organic potential to develop our own reassurance activities and at the same time, helping our reinsurance joint venture with Taiping Reinsurance. So where do we stand today? Well, I'm not going to talk to you the whole afternoon. We have 3 core speakers here who know a lot more about all this than I do. First, we will have Filip, Managing Director Asia, all well known to you already because he will talk about China. We have run an investor's lens over the last few months, and we have really captured the feedback and one of the most frequent feedback coming is China? So we have asked Filip to share with you our conviction on the continued growth potential in China. Then we have U.K., another topic that is very often on top of your mind, where we have said we are focused on a turnaround, a focused turnaround on Personal Lines to make U.K. fully within the core and Ant Middle is here with our CEO, U.K., to share his views but also his outlook for the coming years with you. And then we have Heidi on stage Heidi about strengthening, I would say, the core of our core, the foundation of the group Belgium setting up a very big party next year for 200 years celebration in Belgium, and it has gone from strength to strength. And I think Heidi will also share with you, I think, how this role for the group will further evolve. And then there will be breakout sessions. There will be 2 breakout sessions for you. We are not going to talk plenary about the growth engines, but we want to share with you 2 updates, one on data analytics and AI. We have Thomas Quirk and Frederic Crecco, which are, I would say, 2 experts at that topic, which is becoming really alive in our industry, and we have a track and breakout session where [indiscernible] will talk to you about what are we doing and how is it going in Reinsurance. This is something we also know very well. We started in '21 with EUR 900 million. And we said we have a plan to come with 6% to 8% earnings growth, bringing us up to a profit by the end of 2024 of EUR 1.1 billion to EUR 1.2 billion. And let's not forget that at that moment, we have also quantified that 80% of this delivery would come from the core, from unlocking the intrinsic potential that we are still having in the core. Our footprint, one country less. We do not call France anymore. France is from now on only a holiday destination for us, not a business anymore. But you know the reason, I do not have to repeat the sale of France. So we are today in 13 countries, which is not an ideal number. So we maybe should add a country that we can go back to the 14. But that being said, it is a footprint which is still very strong and which is still able to deliver that core. Even in times when we have geopolitical tension, where we have reshoring or french shoring of global trade, but we are not in global trade and the topics within the countries, which is aging population are even there. And I would say they are even stronger than ever before because in many of those countries, the governments are more in-depth than ever before. So developing these long-term solutions for aging with the private industry, and that's us. Mainly Life Insurance and Pension companies is still very likely. And that is something I want to say on the geopolitical part. We operate in China, in Thailand, Malaysia, in Turkey with the Chinese with the Thai, with the Malay, with the Turkish in our model of local autonomy and we develop it for the Chinese, for the Thai, for the Malay and for the Turkish people. So we developed the local autonomy. So we are not subject to all these geopolitical issues on trade and export. We develop it within the countries. And in many of the countries, believe me, aging and finding solutions for aging is high on the political agenda. And so those countries welcome international expertise that we are bringing to the table. So we are actually very confident that our model can continue to thrive under the current geopolitical circumstances. And here is this element of sharing. One of the questions I read regularly in your reports is, is there synergies in such a model? Is Ageas being able to realize revenues and cost synergies, well, I'm convinced that we do. And we make local leaders, local players in their market and it's maybe -- is it cost synergies, yes, sometimes. I think this is about when we set up a cloud for all our operations around the group. Sometimes it's revenue synergies when we learn about bancassurance in one country and we bring it to another country. But I call it mainly management synergies mainly in expertise and innovation. And so all our operations around the world very often can fall back on an innovation or an efficiency improvement or expertise that is already available elsewhere. And that model, we are very much convinced it does have added value. Because on the other hand, we say insurance is a domestic business. And the way you implement that expertise and innovation, that is local anyway. And so I think we combine a little bit the best of both roots. And here you have some of the areas where it is very lively. Banca is how it started. Then we went to Asia because we had this expertise in Banca and very often, we found banking partners to develop that. But we have now added agency to the table because agency is still the main distribution channel in that region, with SPROUT we developed digital solutions because digital platform sales with other third-party suppliers in a partnership model. And when we hear the partnership -- the word partnership, we always love to be active in that business is something. But even ESG's products, ESG, believe me, it is not a European story only. We share a lot of expertise and insights and developments because this is still, I would say, a steep learning curve with our Asian entities. Technology, I would like to mention the combination of data and AI and generative AI. All these people collecting data, I was not really worried about because I really saw a company that could really deploy the data into an operating model. With AI and gen AI, this is going to change. And I think a lot of our efficiency improvements, propensity to buy underwriting fraud detection, you name it on an operational level, we will be able to start unlocking that if we can combine those two. And the Valley later on will talk to you about this. And this -- we developed the expertise for a big extent at group level or in an opco in the lead, so that it is available for everybody. Finance and risk the last two is also from the very first day is there risk management, investment management, active product design. We have shared that to all the opcos. I think now we have added IFRS 17 to name one. With the support of Wim, we have IFRS 17 for all our key operations around the world. And in many of those operations in Asia, that go-live date for IFRS 17 was later than ours. It was sometimes 25, 26. Well, those companies to a big extent already. Because we have helped them also for our benefit, of course, to deploy IFRS 17 early in the process. And as the investors plans have shifted to cash generation, capital and performance management is also a topic that has come high on the agenda. What are solutions, and I think Filip will give some great examples when he talks about China on capital management and how as a group, we can help our partners in that respect. So a model that does deliver real synergies. But of course, the world has changed. COVID has taken longer in some areas than anticipated, and I look mainly about, of course, the economic recovery in Asia because the economic recovery in Asia came together with a war and a war with geopolitical tension, a war that impacted global trade, and that global trade is, of course, impacting the economic recovery of many of the Asian countries where recovery is fairly short. And we see this a few elements in this post-COVID recovery that required us to update to fine-tune our strategic focus under Impact24. And then, of course, became this inflationary environment. It came first with supply chain issues coming out of COVID, and then, of course, as a consequence, the uncertainty with the war and geopolitical situation and then the interest rates started going up and we got in the situation seems to be stabilizing a bit, but we got in the situation where we are today. But here, again, it is the strength of our diversified model. When COVID was hitting in Europe and Asia at different times, we are always able to absorb the effects. When I now look COVID was positive on the Non-Life side. Less motor accidents, less workmans come, but it was maybe more than negative on the Life side because the investments were significantly under pressure. Now the world has changed. Inflation is the opposite. Inflation is negative on the Non-Life side, but as with the rising interest rates, giving opportunities on the Life side. And it is the balance that we have in the group that has allowed us to give a consistent performance. And so we are a resilient group based on the model that we have and the diversification that we have deliberately constructed in our model. And then at the bottom, and I first said, yes, you put the picture upside down, but that was intentional. In Europe, the interest rates are going up. But in China, the interest rates are low for longer. We do not know yet how long, but at least low for longer. So sometimes we have to switch our mindset debates we had with Ageas 5 years ago are debates we are now having in China. How do you deal with a low for longer interest rates. But where -- and that's, I think, one fine-tuning we did. Where Impact24 was a lot a story about growth. We said, okay, this is also a story about margin improvement and cash remittance of the business that we have because that's how the investors lands is shifting in this world of no more cheap money. Let me look a little bit about the KPIs because that's one of the topics you are here for. Let me first look at the Non-life side. Well, strong growth in Non-Life. 8% over '22, but plus 16% at constant FX over the first 9 months of this year. And that is a combination of absorbing inflation and rate increases as well as pure business. We were and we'll talk about that in the U.K. section, I think we were a fairly early mover on absorbing inflation in our premium setting. In Belgium, for 2/3, that happens automatically in the U.K. and we'll talk about. And so we see the benefits of this 16% growth over the first 9 months. And a combined ratio Impact24 scope. Remember, if you follow us in the half yearly reporting, this is still Impact24 scope. That means consolidated entities of a combined ratio around 90%, 91%, in which you have approximately because I hear you're thinking there is a discounting effect from IFRS 17. Yes, there is approximately 2.1% discounting effect from IFRS 17 in those numbers. So even if you would add it up, yes, we are still, I think, well comfortably within the 95%. And also group-wide, and that's included the NCPs we can deliver quite solid combined ratio, thanks to strong underwriting performance, anticipating inflation, higher interest rates, but also business growth, thanks to very high customer satisfaction scores. If I look at Life, growth is more moderate. We talk about plus 3%. And there is a combination of 2 important trends. The first trend is China. Strong growth in China coming out of COVID. We have already announced that in the 6 months result, but we can actually confirm that going forward in the 9 months results, even if you know that the interest guarantee has dropped on 1st of July. At constant FX, we still see plus 11% growth coming in China. But that is partially offset by 2 of our home markets, Belgium, and Portugal, where bancassurance is less sexy today, not for the clients, but for the bank. The bank makes nice margins on the savings deposits. So the interest to move into fee business is less. We think it's a temporary issue Belgium, by the way, has already found some good solutions to mitigate that effect and to drive the investment performance back up. In Portugal, where also families are more hit by the rising interest rates than in Belgium, we see that there is some delay in the recovery of bancassurance. So there is 2, I think, moving elements there in opposite directions. But rising interest rates helps on the margins, so we can deliver attractive margins. We are at 105 bps for the first 9 months. Of course, remember, specifically in Belgium, there is always a little bit of seasonality on the cap gains of real estate, the ambition is 85, 95. That is the ambition that we give. And also on the Unit-Linked, we are well above the target. And then a question that sometimes is in your mind, I know, is what's coming from real estate. But I think we have a very resilient portfolio in real estate, which, over the years, by AG has been well diversified over different activities. So it's not only offices anymore. And do not forget our real estate is almost not leveraged. We are not a real estate fund. We invest in real estate with the pension liabilities of our customers. So these are the financial KPIs, strong solvency also helped partially by rising interest rates, but a comfortable solvency on the balance sheet with 220% under Pillar 2. And we see a holding free cash flow of [ 965 ]. That is an approximate number. What we have done is the first year, so the remittances over the results of '22 minus the holding cost of '22 and half of '23. So this is a fairly stable outlook halfway Impact24. So that should be at least half of the total number. Conclusion, this is a number that we are well on track to deliver within the range of EUR 1.7 billion to EUR 2.1 billion. But more importantly is also at the bottom where we have said that the cash flow will be supported by capital generation, so that it is sustainable for the future. And that is also something we can confirm in the old scope, the capital generation over the same period is EUR 1.76 billion, meaning consolidated entities and for the NCPs, we take the dividend. Remember that we have switched definitions. We have implemented the capital model in all our operations. So if you would take full scope, the EUR 1.76 billion is even a lot higher. We talk about EUR 1.660 billion. So that means we're well above the free cash flow that we bring to the group. And that has allowed us to also deliver on our dividend commitment with a payment of already EUR 810 million. The result in June results, I mean, in August, we have given you a guidance that's subject to weather conditions that we would aspire to the EUR 1.1 billion to EUR 1.2 billion for the year coming from EUR 599 million over the first 6 months. As well, at this moment, almost end of November, I can reconfirm that ambition. We have taken into account the effects of the storms, which is approximately a EUR 40 million impact for Belgium and U.K. combined, but that is compensated by a very strong Non-Life performance, specifically in Belgium, where we have very good Non-Life performance and also the recovery that we start to feel the turnaround that we start to feel in the U.K. business. Then we have a tailwind on the Reinsurance side in our first year also of external reinsurance, but do not forget a big block of the profit of reinsurance is still coming from the capital management. So there, we mirror the performance of the opco at the Reinsurance level, but we're also looking forward to very attractive Reinsurance results for the year. And the operational performance is actually quite solid everywhere in Asia, but specifically, I think to highlight also Belgium and the effects of the turnaround of the U.K. Conclusion, EUR 1.1 billion to EUR 1.2 billion. We are delivering on our Impact24 ambition 1 year early. We have set that ambition for end of '24. We are now looking forward to realize that by the end of '23. Then let's look a little bit about cash remittance. I said that the world have changed. There is no more cheap money, and you are all looking where the money is and how the money can potentially be distributed. Well, over '22, so the remittance in '23, we have given you the number end of June of EUR 713 million expected Asia is slightly higher. So there is a EUR 7 million extra coming from Asia. So we are now looking forward to a remittance of EUR 720 million. But we also have 2 exceptions. The top one, you know already, EUR 185 million from the sale of France. But we have also asked AG to launch an interim dividend to the group. Remember that we have started an interim dividend as Ageas 1 year ago. And that brings us with 2 reportings in June and in December, a little bit of volatility in the cash position. Because we get all the dividends in before June, we paid half a dividend, so high cash position end of June and then we pay a second half -- in the second half of the year, but no remittance anymore. So then we drop in the cash position. We want to give you a more solid view a more stable view on the cash evolution of the group and that we do by asking our opcos Belgium in this case, to start with an interim dividend. That is something we expect to continue in the future. And so this week or last week, I think AG has upstreamed EUR 200 million interim dividend over '23 in our cash position. For next year, upstreaming of this year, we expect approximately EUR 750 million to EUR 800 million upstreaming coming in, of course, can only be fixed when the full annual results are known. And we have, I think, a very clear pattern to continue that in the future, meaning a progressive dividend and then, of course, taking into account the holding cost capable to take the cost as well as the dividend that we pay out to our shareholders. The remittance from Belgium and reinsurance is growing in line with the evolution of their profit. You will also see that the dependency of the noncontrolled participation is still fairly low. And that is related to a question you sometimes have on China. If China would pay a lower dividend, while the overall dependency of NCP is not all. We are a diversified group in business but also a diversified group in remittance. So we will not fall apart in case China for a year would pay a lower dividend. And then you see on next year, so 2024, we also have a one-off that we can already announce to you. There is the internal sub debt on land to AG which comes at the first call date in the first half of 2024. AG has today a very strong and solid solvency. So this funding at this moment is not needed so we can add that back to the cash position of the group next year. Dividend, I want to tell you something about dividend in the closing of this afternoon. But for the Impact24 cycle, I can tell you that at this moment, we are still fully on track to deliver on our commitment to which, as you might remember, we have strengthened. It was EUR 1.5 billion to EUR 1.8 billion. We have said it will be the upper range of this, and that is also a commitment I can reconfirm to you today. If I then look at the cash, one of those other topics that I occasionally hear in interactions with some of you. Well, we have brought this extra remittances in that I have just shown you. And that means that we have actually replenished the cash after introducing that interim dividend of the group, which was like half a dividend more than we have paid if you look on an accounting year basis. We have replenished the cash, we started at the end of '22 with EUR 624 million. We have that EUR 720 million remittance France and the AG interim dividend, minus an expected holding cost of EUR 175 million for the year and the dividend we have paid being EUR 540 million. So that means we will probably end the between EUR 900 million and EUR 1 billion of cash, also bringing back comfort, I think, that we have an ample buffer for dividend and holding cost for at least 1 year. Next year, we think that payout and upstream will be in balance again. So that's why you see a small line from '23 to '24, but then we will add the additional EUR 350 million coming from the debt on land to AG that should bring us comfortably above EUR 1 billion, of course, assuming all other things being equal. So these are my key messages before we go into the deep dives. I think Impact24 was built on a very sound foundation preparing for our future. Delivery on growth and on earnings, but I want to add that also delivering on the cash remittance, and the biggest part of that is coming from our core business. We have that model of a local winner, local winners with local brands, but having access to expertise and innovation, and that does give us revenue of that gives them actually our businesses and our partners' revenue and cost energies, and that model is, I think, resilient in a world of growing protectionism and geopolitical tension. And altogether, when we bring that business then back into Ageas we have been able to show, I think, a very balanced performance, a resilient performance based on growth as well as on margin improvement and on cash remittance. So that's all I wanted to say you as an opening of this afternoon. I'm happy to give it now to Filip, who will take you to China.

Right. Thank you, Hans, and welcome, everybody. I assume this just goes further on to China. I just arrived from China to London, now I will take you back to China. It's obvious that China has become a very material part of Ageas right. And that 2023 has been a very complex year for China as well. So the geopolitical and the macroeconomic situation has been the -- has colored many debates throughout the year all types of levels. And from my perspective, it may have blurred even a little bit on the view of investors on what is really happening in the Chinese market. So we chose today to focus only on our core entity Taiping Life and how that is developing. So I'm going to elaborate and allow us to say that after 22 years in China, with China, for China, as Hans said it, we should be able to give you some deeper insights on what we feel that is happening there. So I'll elaborate a bit on the financial performance. First, the commercial then the financial performance, and I'll spend more time on the solvency situation because I know that is a lot of questions related to that. And we give also a bit of an outlook on longer-term development cycles that we see in that market. Let's kick off with the commercial update. And let me start with saying that coming out of the COVID period, 2023 so far, has been a very strong year actually for Taiping Life. Of course, here, you can see the main KPIs showing the performance over the first half of the year. And all figures I present here will be in RMB. So at 100%, that gives you the best view on how the business is really faring without the distortions of FX fluctuations. All these top line indicators are in the green, and with very high, I would say, double-digit numbers for new business inflow both in terms of volume and value. Now the context, obviously, is relevant. Interest rates in China, as I said, has evolved very differently from what we've seen across the globe. They state at a relatively lower level. Current bond rates 10 year is zooming and hovering around 2.7%. And first, maybe a look at what we have on the balance sheet there in terms of the book. About 60% of our business in China is participating. That means there, of course, you have some flexibility in absorbance of margin fluctuation. And the yield spread versus on the asset side versus the guarantees that are really offered there on the participating book today is still around 2%. On the nonparticipating book, which represents about 27% of our balance sheet there, that yield spread is around 1% for the existing book. Now important event throughout the year, and that was obviously end of -- beginning of August is the lowering of the pricing interest rate on the non-par book where the guaranteed rate was -- or the pricing rate because to be specific, the pricing rate was reduced from 3.5% to 3% to safeguard the margins. Now this led to very high sales, as you may have noticed over the first half, and I'll come back to that. But it was also the expectation of the market that after that repricing all of a sudden, market would dry up, right? You say everybody is going to anticipate the lowering of the interest rates, and then we'll see a dry market afterwards. Now that is absolutely not the scenario that we saw unfold for Taiping Life at this moment. These are the top lines for the first 9 months. Of course, we have a spike in June, July. But August and September, we see decent growth rates. Of course, there is little or less new business in there, but look at the new business separately. Of course, these spikes 185% and 120% in anticipation of the lowering is very, very substantial. But the drop in September was only 6% in new business in comparison to last year. And their Taiping Life is doing actually quite a bit better than what we saw from peers. The reason is, if you ask me that for many years, and I've made that point a few times at the Investor Day, the Taiping Life, we've been focusing on getting more quality and professionalism in distribution. And that seems to have paid off. If we look at the distribution channels and how they are currently faring , of course, the main distribution channel remains agency. We have about 300,000 agents at this moment, 50% of the new business comes from that channel. And the other main distribution channel, as you know, is bancassurance, it's about 41% of the new business. The other channels, marginal, maybe 6%, but growing. And there, you will find an ounce into the bit of it, the digital platform games. We sold this year roughly about 340,000 policies already through distribution partnerships and financial on Tencent to WeChat and a bit less now on telemarketing. That's getting out of fashion, I would say. But the digital platform games in Asia is not only in China, they get some traction. We see the same happening in India, in fact, with this Sprout initiative. Now the number of agents, and we know that in the industry has been under pressure in recruitment for quite some years, and COVID has not helped them to convince people to start agency in the middle of not being going out of your house. That was not beneficial. But the decline we saw here was actually not that much a quite resilient with Taiping Life. I mentioned already that we had this deliberate focus on quality and productivity improvement in that channel. And you can see here actually proof of that. It's paying off quite significantly. The regular premium first-year regular premium agents with over RMB 1 billion, call it the Chinese version of the MDRT type of concept, strongly increased with 57% over the year of COVID, helped by the fire sales, but still. And the other point, obviously, there are monthly regular premiums went up quite a bit per agent. This in combination, of course, of more than offset the, should I say, the drop in the number of agents. In bancassurance, we have a similar pattern or a similar strategy, focusing more on quality rather than on quantity. But here, the network stays stable. Taiping Group or Taiping Life, in this case, distributes roughly to 70,000 bank branches in signed up agreements. All these bank branches, roughly 10% is active on a monthly basis because you know they circulate. They're serviced by about 12,000 bank agents, what we call Banker agents. And here also, you can see the effort that was put in getting more productivity out of these agents. All these increases are at 6 months were 80% up. That is a lot. And some of you may be aware about upcoming regulatory changes and focus on expense control in bancassurance channels. This will be very helpful in that respect, because it will allow us to manage the expense overrun reduction more effectively. So if we look at the top line growth, of course, it benefited from high new business growth, but there's this other thing where Taiping Life really stands out. The persistency rates are extremely high. Compared to the market, they've always been in the top tier. We've always been focusing to embed persistency KPIs throughout the whole distribution channel from the front end to the back end. They all share it. It's a minimum requirement persistency ratio they have to make, otherwise, bonuses are forfeited. We're quite vigilant on it. It has paid off. You see a little dip in '22. I agree. That's because the agents couldn't go out to collect, but in fact, we've always been running extremely high persistency rates. I would say nowhere seen in the region. And even in China, they are extremely high. Now that's drove growth in inflow obviously translates also in a strong growth on the liabilities, right? The balance sheet is still growing at 13%, and this is for the first 9 months only. This is not year-on-year. This is still a young balance sheet. There is still profit growth underlying this for the future. It is not a mature balance sheet. Now over the year, there's also been a lot of stories and worries, let's call it like that, about quality of assets in China. So I want to just make a few observations because first and foremost, do not forget that from day one, we have put a lot of expertise from Fortis at the time from the banking side, actually into Taiping Asset management, setting up their risk and credit risk models. Even today, still, the CRO of Taiping Asset Management is an Ageas appointee running these models. So we have been able to steer away from too low-risk exposures. Most of the fixed income is AAA be it on a local rating basis, but that's what it is. And the segment where everybody is worried about is the local government financing platforms. We've actually not participated in any material way. I think it's less than 3% of the fixed income portfolio. We only focused on the provincial and government -- central government-related vehicles. So we have no accidents in that area. Second thing in equity, yes, it's a high percentage. But also there, it has come down a bit. I don't know. Some of you may have seen these figures before. It hovered around 18%. We have brought it down to 15%. There is some derisking that happened. And a substantial part and that we -- for 2 years, we already talked about it, is high dividend stock as more considered by and hold for the dividend yield. And the other point is we have very little exposure on property. Most of the direct properties actually just own buildings. It's less than 3% of our balance sheet. And in that context, specifically the concern on not on direct property, with property developers in general, the overall exposure of Taiping Life to property developers in any form of instrument whether it's direct initiatives or reaching in debt or equity is less than 4% of the portfolio. And also there, we have not seen any material accidents. We have not been involved in any of the major defaults that have been. So the quality of that asset book is actually quite well managed. Now let's have a look at the new business value metrics, I think that's also important. You can see here, and this is on 6 months, the new business value growth, which was 28%. Yes, and 32% in agency. Agency really leads their charge in bancassurance, it's less. Bancassurance has always been more campaign-driven. And that is also one of the reasons the regulator is cracking down on some of the sales practices there. So we are not against actually some of these regulatory changes from that perspective. But nevertheless, overall, 28% up. There is a little bit of squeeze on the margins because of the low interest rate. Keep in mind here may be 1 or 2 things. First and foremost, the margin you see here is the first half. The second half in China, margins are always higher. The first half is always impacted by the campaigns of the beginning of the year. Just to give you -- it's not on the slide, but the second half of '22, the full year, the 13.5% you see for the first half went up to 18.7%. And this year, obviously, we will have the effect of repricing in August also coming into the picture for the second half. It may lead to a bit less volumes that is possible. We're going to see -- we saw the 6% drop in September. We have a similar level of October. The figures have just been released, but it will be offset by margin increase. So we are not too worried about that at this moment. Other point, and that is more forward-looking, you will be -- I never thought I was going to say this, Thank God for IFRS 17/9 or the [ AIFB ] we are very happy with that as a group because it allows us to give consistent information about our activities in Asia on the same basis, the way we report on it for Europe. It will be comparable, and we will have the same metrics. And that is what Hans referred to, we took the effort to really help out the companies who were not yet moving in Asia into that metric, to get ready for it. So they're in the lead. But we will have this information. And this is the whole of the -- I think this is the whole of the Asian book because yes, no, this is China in itself, I'm sorry, this is Taiping Life. So you see here the new business, and this is over the first 6 months, RMB 9.1 billion was added to a CSM of RMB 195 billion. The amortization rate, which is the release is around 8%. That's maybe of interest, but it's about 8% is being released on a yearly basis. And together with the time value over the first half, about RMB 5 billion of CSM was added. Also, again, keep in mind that the first half of the year and the second half is not the same in terms of margin on new business. But most -- the message here is actually that we will have better monitoring and will provide investors analysis with more analytics now coming out of IFRS 17/9 that are comparable, what we have for our European business. It was always a challenge to be more transparent and consistent. This will surely help. So that's my summary takeaways on the commercial development, you see. I trust that I have been able to give you a bit of illustration that the commercial performance of Taiping Life has indeed been quite robust and that focus on getting quality in distribution has really been paying off this year. If you compare them with the top tier in the market, these metrics will probably be very much in the top of what you've seen or heard. If you look at some other players and no names, obviously, but the decline in September was between 4% and 10% on GWP. Here, we still saw a growth of 5%. That's a 9% to 15% gap. And I really attribute that to that constant focus on performance in the channels. So let's now maybe touch on a few aspects of financial performance. Obviously, for you, maybe even more important than the commercial one. Of course, we're not going to go into a deep dive on the results, right? I leave that for result presentations, but I do want to show a few points related to profitability, but more importantly, obviously, solvency, because I know that, that is where most concerns and questions are about. This is shown by the way, in Ageas share and in euro. And maybe the 2 points I want to share here with you is first, yes, the operating result and solvency, I'll immediately go to the next slide here. And so again, here, I would say Thank God for IFRS 17/9 For many years, I've been presenting in every investor call, an underlying result to try to explain where the unbalanced impact of valuation interest rates where -- it was only impacting the liability side and on the asset side that dichotomy didn't work, and we've been showing underlying results. That is over and done with. And what you can see here is the results for 9 months. So it's a scoop of 9-month results, but Taiping Group released 9 months results for Taiping Life in their solvency update. The net operating result on Taiping Life was EUR 383 million under IFRS 17. That's in line actually with that very strong underlying result we showed last year, right, very close. But please remember, last year, and I referred to end of year result announcement that last year was benefiting from a few things. Amongst the most important one was very, very low claims at the outside because of COVID. People didn't go to hospitals. This year, in the beginning of the year, I mentioned it also in the results call. It's a bit in reverse. There was a catch-up on the health side. We see that moderate and come back to normal levels in the second half. But that is one of the differences and the other one. And deniably, so is the weakness of the [ Europe ]. There is a big FX difference between the 2 components. But that's not the point of the presentation here. I would say this result is actually quite strong indeed. Now sorry I lost it in the bit. Right, solvency, I think this is also extremely important. So we say operating results are solid. Commercial performance is good. So where lies the challenge for China. And then we come to solvency and capital. And here, you note that there is a concern about that drop. So we are down now to 162% on the comprehensive and 81% on the core. So let me clarify here in detail maybe the situation. First and foremost, the minimum solvency requirements from a regulatory perspective are 50% and 100%. So there is still quite a bit of margin there. Of course, it has been very volatile, but there is still a buffer. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the year, the 162% was 194%. So it has been rapidly rolling down the hill. And so there are actions that management is taken. On the product side, I already spoke about actions that are being taken in terms of focusing on then getting the expense overrun under control because just operating profit is still the best source of core capital. But at the asset side, we also have been active in real derisking by trying to accelerate the closure of the ALM gap, but more importantly, also relooking at the risk/return characteristic of the asset mix. I pointed already to a decline from 18% to 15% in the exposure on equity. Obviously, that liberates capital. So we're really looking through the optimization of risk return characteristics of the asset mix to make sure that we have -- or should I say, an efficient use of risk capital. The second thing, and that is probably the most important one and material one is that we are launching the supplementary capital issuance, which is a core tier to an instrument. It's a perpetual debt instrument and Taiping is lining up a RMB 20 billion issuance of that instrument. This will be recognized in core capital and this ends in a very, very effective instrument given the fact that it will have a double effect because of the value future profit recognition that can be attached to it. The issuance of this RMB 20 billion could happen in 2 tranches, one maybe still this year or the beginning of next year and the second one in '24. This program on itself, the 2 tranches together would add 80% to the comprehensive solvency ratio and about 40% to the core ratio. So that changes that picture already quite significantly. Now the C-ROSS framework is still moving. We know that the current cap I was talking about on value of new business being recognized in capital is at 45%. It will go down further to 40% next year. That move has obviously also an impact on these ratios. And there, the impact on the core between around 7%. And on the comprehensive around 14%. So of course, the issuance of that instrument with far offset this impact. So, of course, the very positive impact of the debt issuance, but there's one other important component related to hidden sources of capital in China. And whether it's going to be immediately unlocked or whether it's going to be unlocked when IFRS 17/9 is introduced in mainland also as the accounting standard remain to be seen. But in the current solvency regime, the unrealized capital gains on these L2 maturity bonds are not recognized in the core capital. Whereas the valuation interest rate applied on the liabilities is. So there is a buffer, of, at this moment, about RMB 35 billion unrealized capital gains on these bonds at HTM, which is not in the capital. If you look at the portion of that, that is attributable to shareholders, right, but some will be attributed with par fund, about RMB 17 billion of that is attributable to shareholders. And that, in itself, is another, I would say, 35% potential impact on core and 70% on comprehensive. Whether that will be unlocked in the short term or in the longer term remains to be seen, but it's something that is actively being looked upon. It would bring, obviously, more balance in C-ROSS II recognition or valuation of assets and liabilities. So to conclude. Actually, my main point is that, yes, there are instruments available to the management to go to the cycle we see now, and they are quite substantive. But also important, and that is what we're showing here is the point that Hans made on the operational capital generation. These are figures for the whole of Asia region, but in this room and in many other rooms, we know that most of it obviously is driven by Taiping Life. Over the first 9 months, the operational capital generated was around EUR 1 billion in Asia region. The capital consumed operationally by the new business growth and various other actions was only EUR 210 million. So we see a very high operational free capital generation. The reason that the EUR 210 million is so low has something to do with what I mentioned before, there has been some derisking on the balance sheet. So we have been trying to optimize the risk consumption. So the consumption is a bit lower. But nevertheless, if you look at these ratios of operational capital generated to consumed last year, that was around 300%, and this year, it's almost 500%. What does that mean, obviously, that there is a substantial operational capital regeneration in case fluctuations of markets and the macro stabilizes, solvency ratios will recover quite fast. And moreover, it also bodes well for longer term, of course, dividend flows. That there may be short-term pressure depending on how they deploy these extra elements that we talked about on dividend, okay, we'll see. CTIH also needs dividends And once dividends, let's, I can assure you that we're very much aligned. And what we're also very much aligned on is that given all these instruments, we don't see no reason at this moment, why there would be any need for shareholder capital injections here. There is still ample instruments and the operational regeneration is very strong. So that is a concern we do not share at this moment with many of the investors. That is not on the agenda. So these are my main points on the solvency side. And let me just add a few points, which relate to our longer-term outlook on that future market trends. First and foremost, let's not confuse GDP growth and growth of Life Insurance market. You see here GDP patterns and Life insurance growth patterns of the Chinese market over the last years. Come on all these spikes and fluctuations have nothing to do with GDP. These are mainly triggered by exogenous events change in regulation opening of market distribution adjustments, the pandemic. But the real underlying -- and so -- okay, and there are quite a few, I want to add that regulatory developments in the pipeline. I see some concerns being raised of how will this impact the market going forward. But if you look at them, and they're all from this year, what is the regulator actually focusing on. They're focusing on initiatives that really drive pricing discipline that try to prevent aggressive commercial behavior like in the bancassurance channels where these margins are really, really thin. They try to avoid misselling and stimulate treating customers fairly and need-based selling, and they try to install more discipline on cost control. How can I not be happy with that. Yes, it may, in the short term, make it slightly different to make the transition. But from a structural professional perspective, looking at the longer-term outlook at this market, I think this is a lot better than what we see today. I think it will lead to more profitable, more disciplined market behavior going forward. But the real drivers are still the same, strong macro underlying. The real drivers come from the emerging middle class. We have the capacity to save, where we see by 2025. And you see our rapid it went up that the class who has access and surplus assets, which we call in this case, above EUR 6,000 is going to 86% of the population. We also see this extreme high savings rate, always been notorious in China, right? 45% it is now of GDP is household savings. This is [ EUR 1 trillion ] of wealth accumulation a year that is going to the savings market. And than you have to combine that with obviously the reality is that property markets are not very popular at this moment and a lot of money was going in there. And you see what has happened certainly this year on the investments in real estate group. Some of these are clearly going into insurance, and we still have a low penetration rate. So there is still ample room to expand on the Life market based on these fundamental market. And then obviously, and I think everybody in this room knows there is another driver in the making the pension challenge. China has entered this area of, I would say, aging, maybe 10 years later than a few other markets, but it is doing it quite fast. And the one child policy is creating in that society another challenge. For some families, there is one adult having to take care of 2 parents and sometimes 4 grandparents. That's not going to work. So the government has started to take initiatives to stimulate the development of the pension market. They opened up the third pillar. But they're taking a few others. And Taiping Life as one of the companies who has gotten a license to join the pilot in that third pillar. But in fact, like virtually everywhere, there is not one pillar behind the pension market. And the third pillar is in design and is the smallest one. In fact, there are the 3 pillars like everywhere and our sister company, Taiping Pension is licensed throughout all the pillars. They have a full license for building pension fund solution, Pillar 1, Pillar 2, and Pillar 3 and all adjacent services like trustee. So combine that with core expertise that we have in employee benefits, certainly in the second pillar. It is something where we think we can create a new engine for collaboration and growth. We have very strong capabilities and employee benefits. We have very strong capabilities in Health and Care, in Belgium, but also in Portugal. And we're looking how we can put them to work in combination with the access that Taiping Pension has to the pension market. You may be aware or not, that there is an auction running on 10% on Taiping Pension. We are participating in that auction obviously. We don't consider that M&A, we consider that making sure that our product market footprint is going to be able to access the growth opportunities in the pension market. Now to give you comfort, it is a small amount. It's a 10% of Taiping Pension who's up for auction at EUR 140 million. But it will give us access to what we believe is a strong growth engine for the next phase in China with a partner we know, we will be well positioned and we can continue leveraging our capabilities as we did before. That actually sums up my main messages for today. So to conclude, takeaways from my presentation, say, first and foremost, despite the challenging macro environment and the uncertainties, we absorb, first and foremost, a very resilient Operational performance and excellent Commercial performance and top line growth. And actually also, if you look at it, sound margin development, up 28%, with before the repricing. Secondly, it's clear that in the channels, the focus has shifted and that happened before, but now you can see that the effect of that from a focus on quantity to quality and that is paying off and that is going to be important for the transition to a more cost-effective channel, what the regulator is driving now in bank assurance, that may also come for other channels. And thirdly, we see the IFRS 17 mine and strong profits and strong operational capital generation being there. They should provide sufficient support for future dividend. And there are enough instruments in place to get us through the current cyclical solvency pressure. And indeed, we are aligned there with our partner, that we are not looking at capital injections, and we feel there is still room for some dividend. May be a bit less than this year, yes. This year, Asia still paid EUR 130 million dividend. It's not that there was no dividend coming. And then finally, I think we see potential in the life market, but we see a shift and a huge market development in Pension, Health and Care, where we can continue riding our value at story. So from our perspective, China as the insurance market rate is far from run, and we are well positioned with our partnership and our company. Thank you so much.

What an overwhelming introduction that was. Thank you very much, I'm going to need a little bit of that. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Ant Middle. I'm CEO of our business in the U.K. And I've led our U.K. business since 2020. I'm delighted this afternoon to be able to share with you the progress of our U.K. business today, illustrating the progress of our strategic transformation, that we set out on back in 2020. What I'd like to cover this afternoon are 4 main things: a brief look back at the U.K. business over time. Just a reminder of where we've come from. Secondly, I'll just run you through the really significant choices, we've made actually in 2020 to reposition the Ageas U.K. business. Thirdly, I'd look at our progress against those choices. Against the strategic objectives that we set for ourselves and how we're making a step change, as a newly focused business in the U.K. And then lastly, how all of that transformation comes together and how it's converting into results and an ambition for future years. So that's what I'd like to cover in the next 30 minutes or so. So as I said, first, a quick look backwards. So back in 2020, I guess, a change of leadership just gives a natural opportunity to take stock. And on the left-hand side there, I think some pretty familiar characteristics for anybody in the room that tracks the U.K. market. The U.K. market, as you know, has very unique demands. It's price sensitive; is deeply technical, rapidly evolving in terms of the regulatory environment, and it's always obviously been highly, highly competitive. And generally, inconsistent returns delivered as well and to be able to deliver respectable returns, you really do need to outperform. And where, on average, people don't. They certainly are -- and as we look at things in 2020, we look really closely at those insurers that do outperform and have done so over time. And in particular, looks at the winning characteristics of those winning insurers. And it kind of, for us, boiled down to those 3 things in the main. Those businesses that win and win over the long term are generally very focused, insurance models. Secondly, build on deep, strong technical foundations. And thirdly, they've got fantastic cost bases, effective, efficient, competitive, cost bases, all of that adding together to be able to deliver outperformance over time. Looking back at the Ageas U.K. business over time from that point looking backwards. I think we would reflect now and say that we have become quite a complex business. A business that was operating across a very broad waterfront of business models, distribution channels, products and brands and with relatively limited integration. And in terms of results over that time, I think we would describe that the results over that period is actually average for the market overall. But clearly, at those kind of operating ratios, not good enough in terms of the expectations of a normal shareholder return on what we would expect of ourselves. So average performance, simply not good enough, outperformance required to offer the necessary returns. So whilst there is definitely lots of work to do, we could certainly reflect at that time on some really solid foundations for the Ageas U.K. business. There was already work being done to simplify the business and restructure the business. And we've always had real strengths in a number of areas, and I would just point to these 3. Our customer service reputation has always been incredibly strong. We've got a caring and delivery focused culture in the business, and that certainly continues. And we've got an incredibly strong broker distribution franchise, something that's been built over time and certainly been maintained and built upon in more recent times. So some really strong foundations to build from. So having taken stock, it was very clear that we needed to make some bold decisions to transform the fortunes of the U.K. business. Enable the business to compete and deliver sustainable and attractive performance over time. We needed to sharpen the focus of the business. In particular, we needed to narrow the field of investment and be able to focus our investment to be more impactful and to be able to create differentiation, where that was going to be important to drive results for the future. So as this slide here illustrates, we've kind of reflect now in terms of 3 different decision areas. First, where we would play, as a business, which market segments would we participate in for the future. Secondly, just participation clearly isn't going to drive outperformance, differentiating capabilities will. So I'd be really clear about what those capabilities are, what should be invested in to make sure we're in a position to win over a long time, having focused the business in our chosen areas. And then make sure that we are set up and structured to transform successfully. So those were the 3 particular decision areas, and I'll just take you through each one of those now. The first set of choices were the market segments that we would focus the business on. And here's an illustration of broadly the areas that we were participating in. We considered this performance over time, the prospects for performance in the future and our own capabilities, from which we could build a successful business for the future. Firstly, I think I'd reflect on probably the toughest decisions we made, which was what not to do. Which business lines would we discontinue and exit from. And the bottom part of the chart here illustrates those 3 areas, where we haven't performed well enough over time and we didn't think the prospects for the future were good enough for us to continue to invest capital and continue to operate in those areas. The first was Personal Lines Affinity and particularly where we were running white label solutions for other brands where we had built the operational infrastructure and the customer interface. Put simply, that was simply too high a cost base for us to be able to operate successfully and deliver performance over time. So we decided to discontinue our operations in the Affinity arena, where that was the operating model. Secondly, nonstandard business in Personal Lines. This is largely where in niche areas, authorities delegated to brokers to operate schemes on behalf of an insurer. We had some of that business, and that just was not performing for us, where we didn't have direct control of all the technical elements of managing performance and critically, having the data flows to us on a daily or intra daily basis, as is required to operate successfully in this market, that wasn't working for us. And therefore, again, we decided to exit. And third business area, Commercial Lines. Actually, what we considered a really good business. But hadn't particularly performed for us, but largely because we were subscale in the Commercial SME arena. It needed significant investment. It needed scale. And we just simply concluded we probably weren't the best owners of that business. And therefore, decided to run the process that we did last year and sell the renewal rights for our Commercial business. So those were the areas we decided to remove ourselves from. And that was around about 1/3 of all of the premium that we wrote in the U.K. business from 2020. So where would we focus the business for the future. And that's at the top of the chart here, areas where we've certainly done very well. And the first of those are absolute heartland Personal Lines business, written via brokers. The vast majority of our business always written there. It's where we've performed best over time. It's where we've got the deepest skills, heritage and critically data, and that has always served us well. Our products, our pricing technical management across the entirety of the insurance value chain and data instantaneously available to us to be able to really actively manage that portfolio. So that absolutely was an area we wanted to double down on and we have. Secondly, Personal Lines direct largely via price comparison websites, same characteristics of that business in our direct control data flows running well. As you can see, isn't a bright green there. It was a growing business. It was suffering some growth strain. And in particular, we have been investing in marketing, brand strength and direct marketing. So actually, the underlying fundamentals of the profitability of that business was sound. We just needed to rationalize, particularly the marketing expenditure to put it on to a solid footing. So those are the areas we would focus the business on Personal Lines, exclusively via brokers and price comparison websites. That would be the focus for the business, for us to deliver a more consistent sustainable results over time, where we have performed best over time. As I said, just choosing participation arenas isn't good enough. We need to make sure that we're in a position to compete in the market, I described earlier, highly competitive as it is. And we needed to be really clear about the areas, where we would need to focus our investment. And these are the 4 areas, that we have chosen and have focused on developing over the last 3 or 4 years. Fundamentally, making sure that we've got a fantastic data set of capabilities, a functioning data asset, data modeling and analytics capability to support pretty much everything else actually on this slide. So that's fundamental because it feeds so much of what we have done and will continue to do as a business. Technical Insurance capabilities, having those outstanding core skills, brilliant basics, within the business, the second major priority. Making sure that we are at least top quartile in terms of our underwriting and pricing, claims, including supply chain management, fraud prevention, actuarial skills. That's the second area of major focus for us, where we have invested heavily over the last little while. Make sure that we've got the technology to support the business, both core administration platform, that is fit for the future, but also a front-end digital estate to make sure that we're serving customers in the way that they wanted to be served. And what I do consider, as a core capability for our business is having an efficient business, a truly competitive cost base that does require investment to deliver it, but making sure that we're driving towards a top quartile position, in terms of our cost effectiveness, the fourth of the major differentiating capabilities that we've identified and are developing rapidly. Individually, each one of those 4 components operating on a top quartile basis actually won't make us, to my view, a differentiated business in our market. It will, when they all operate at top quartile in combination, that is where it creates a differentiated position for us, and we're well on the way to getting there on our -- with our progress so far. So choice is made, capabilities very clear for the business. There's a lot of work to do to manage this transition. So we needed to make sure that we were set up for excellent execution. To do that, we engaged a large number of leaders across the business in the development of the strategy. So they were joint architects of the strategy that we were setting out. They were invested in its success, has designed many of the underpinning initiatives, and therefore, we're able to get to a really fast start, when we launched the strategy back in 2020. We established a broad and flat operating structure, that gave us maximum control and agility, as we went through the transition. And we added specific skills to our team to make sure that we could manage the transformation effectively, in particular, a newly deferred transformation to make sure that we oversaw the entirety of the program, with real discipline and rigor. And secondly, we created a specific function for the noncore businesses. So the Affinity business runoff, the nonstandard business runoff and the sale of the Commercial Lines business, that was dealt with in a specific unit so that, that could be focused on and delivered well. Whilst the rest of the business could get on with developing in the areas that we have chosen our core Personal Lines business. And we've got a management team that's steeped in the U.K. market, steeped in the U.K. Personal Lines market, with decades of experience and a range of deep technical actuarial, data transformation and leadership skills. So I think we were really well placed and still are, really well placed with this team to spearhead the turnaround that we were setting out upon. So this was the strategy. Put really clearly, this is what it all adds up to, I think, a clear, very simple but incredibly focused strategy that set a new direction for our business in the U.K. Focused on our historic strengths targeting much more meaningful capability investment in those 4 areas I've talked about and aiming to deliver for all of our key stakeholders and in particular, turn around our financial performance, creating a baseline for better and more resilient returns by 2024 at the latest. Okay. So with the strategy set, let's just fast forward to today. And also set out now, how we're delivering against those strategic transformation objectives. So this is pretty much where we are today. We are a very focused business in those areas, that I've just identified with far less complexity. We are just managing those 2 Personal Lines products, Motor and Home with reach into pretty much the entirety of the whole Personal Lines market, with the distribution channels that we have chosen. Motor is our largest line. It's about 80% of our business, it shows there on the corner of the slide. And we do have pretty much full market reach, through our distribution, as I say. And we're growing in what has proven to be really resilient distribution channels. I think brokers in U.K. Personal Lines have been written off the year after year in terms of their ability to sustain a competitive operating model in this market. Well, actually, they've proven to be as ever incredibly entrepreneurial, super resilient. And in fact, over the last 2 years have been winning market share, in terms of U.K. Personal Lines. And we've been growing in a really healthy way with them. Also growing in our direct personal PCW business as well. And then in terms of those specific capabilities. Critically, as I said, making sure that we've got a fantastic data foundation for the business, was really important. And actually right at the start of this transformation process, we decided to accelerate the development of our data architecture. We developed a single cloud-based data platform. So one version of the truth from which we can feed all of our other data work and capabilities. We develop the software tools in the cloud to make sure that our data scientists had the right tools available to them to develop and train the models that we needed. We established a Data Science Center of Excellence led by Tom [ Kirk ], who's in the room here today and will run the value that you'll go to later on. There, we've crawled together all of the expertise within the business and added to it, in terms of data science, data modeling. And not only have they been able to create their way of working, allowing innovation, allowing freedom of thought. They've also worked brilliantly with the rest of our business, to make sure they're enabling a whole host of use cases and the utilization of data, AI and now GEN AI, right the way across the business. We're delighted with the progress we've made there. And we've really engaged the whole business in our data journey. We've got nearly 2,000 people in the Ageas UK business, just under about 1,000 of our employees now have been through our data literacy development program. So making sure that the whole business is engaged in our data journey, making sure that we're capitalizing on the opportunities that we have here. There's been a number of benefits that we have seen from accelerating our data development. I will just point to one that I'm going to come back to a little bit later. And that is that thanks to this capability, we were able to spot the inflation acceleration at the start of last year. I think very, very early. And looking at the market, I think the earlier than the vast majority of the market, we have developed our own proprietary model that was able to identify inflation, look through all of the distortions that you can see in terms of claims information to see the really true economic inflation in our portfolio, spotted early and put the business in a position to act which has certainly put us on a really sound footing as we've managed our business over the last couple of years. So data really important for us, continuing and accelerating our investment in our core technical skills, as I said, across underwriting, pricing, claims and fraud. One area, again, I'll just point to on this slide, whilst there's lots of examples here of some great work undertaken, particularly in terms of underwriting and pricing. We've moved to a new phase in terms of our sophistication of deployment of our underwriting and pricing capabilities in the U.K. We've spent about 2 years developing a range of machine learning models to add sophistication and precision to our pricing, for our business, blending that range of machine learning models, actually with our more traditional ones. But we couldn't unleash the full power of that to the market in our pricing. We released a new real-time pricing software last year. And that's in Motor. That's enabled us to unleash all of that power in terms of our pricing. And we've now got that deployed across the entirety of our Motor portfolio. We'll be doing the same in Home, next year. And in terms of technology, really important that we have got the technology to support the business for the long term. We've taken some important decisions here. We are moving from 2 legacy platforms to 1 single cloud-based, next-generation, digital native platform. And we think that's going to give us the opportunity to leapfrog competitive technologies to genuinely digitize our business for the long term. It will allow us to deliver a much broader range of customer propositions, make us fit for the future, able to deploy new propositions for customers, particularly in things like Embedded Insurance and Parametric Insurance, that now becomes much more possible and readily able for us to deploy for the future, when the system is rolled out and much faster speed to market as well. And critically, this is a huge efficiency lever for us. Clearly removing the duplication gives us a real potential to further improve our cost base. We've also been developing our front-end digital capability, being able to serve customers in the way that they want to be served by us. This has been developing rapidly. I won't go through all the statistics here, but just as a one illustration of our progress. In our direct business now well over 90% of all of our new business transactions are entirely digitally transacted. And that is what customers want of us. It's clearly helping us, in terms of the effectiveness of our the way that we can operate really efficiently. So that's working well. I would say that we still do offer the telephone to any of our customers should they want to call us. That's really important, when there are more complex queries or when we're looking after our vulnerable customers as well. So the range of solutions, but making sure that our digital front end is attractive to use for customers is driving the ease of use and the efficiency into the business that we need. So on to efficiency, to deliver the top quartile cost base that we need, and we're well on the way to getting there. We've already delivered GBP 55 million worth of operational savings since the start of the strategy. We've delivered that through the various areas, outlined on the slide there. We've engaged the whole business in this effort. We talk about having real pride in being a low-cost business. And increasingly, everybody in the business is understanding just how important this is. It's not a scary topic, is one to get excited about because getting this right, improve the competitive position of our pricing. We can reinvest in the business and winning capabilities. And obviously, it also supports our financial performance. So GBP 55 million worth of savings already delivered. And actually, we still haven't rolled out our new system to remove the duplication of our technology estate. That is still to come, and that rollout starts next year. And going through such a significant transformation, obviously, we needed to and still need to make sure that we're managing the key skills in the business and the resourcing profile in the business incredibly tightly. And as we've gone through kind of the simplification effort, as we focus the business and as we've developed our efficiency, we need to carefully manage all of that and the resourcing profile and reduce, we've been able to reduce our FTE over time as well. And as you can see on the slide there, we've managed to reduce overall head count by about 30%, since the start of the transformation. And we've done that while still retaining strong employee engagement and also incredibly strong customer service delivery. So really pleased with the way that has been able to be managed. And just to underline that point, I'll just throw a load of statistics that you hear. In terms of deepening stakeholder advocacy, we've got in, as of today, an even more engaged workforce, our employee NPS has increased quite rapidly from the number I showed you earlier on. In terms of customer service excellence, our service reputation has only been enhanced over the last 3 or 4 years. Our Net Promoter Scores are even stronger than when we started in 2020, and we've got simply more customers, over 4 million of them now. So delighted with what we've been able to do in terms of serving our customers. Our Broker Distribution franchise certainly appreciates the support that we are offering them. We've been named the Personal Lines Insurer of the year in each of the last 3 years of the British Insurance Awards, and that's a real indication of the support that brokers are giving to Ageas in the U.K. and how much they appreciate the work that we are doing. And also, we've remained steadfastly committed to the sustainability targets and objectives that are set out in the overall Ageas Group strategy impact '24. So I think we can all be, within the business incredibly proud of the transformation we're undertaking but also making sure that we're doing the right things, in terms of our key stakeholders. So, what does all of that mean for our results? I think first, I just wanted to take a step back, actually and just look at the U.K. Personal Lines market overall. And I guess this will be stuff that you're very familiar with. But with real pressures in recent history across a range of different market dynamics, I do think there's reasons to be slightly more optimistic now in terms of the outlook. Many of the market fundamentals, do seem to be improving. I think we now better understand post pandemic claims patterns and frequencies, and they are certainly settling. Inflation appears to have peaked, and I think the outlook there is positive. I think the market clearly has been repricing really strongly, particularly over the last year for the new economic environment. I think the regulatory expectations are now better understood and are now embedding. And I think that's healthy for the market. And I think the impacts of things like the pricing practices changes will ultimately lead to less customer churn and a more predictable market and investment returns certainly have improved as well, as you all know. So actually, what have we done, in terms of performance. Here's some information in terms of our Motor portfolio. This is 80% of our business. We were able to spot inflation really early. You can see on the bottom left of the chart, in spring last year, we could see that things were changing. We prioritized technical discipline, prioritized profitability over volume and started to price ahead of the market. These are Pearson Ham statistics on the market tracker. And you can see pretty much consistently all through the period last year, we were right -- we were repricing at least in line with the strongest repricer and then ahead, through the back end of last year and through the early part of this year. Overall, up to the midpoint of this year, we added around about 50 points of the rate strength we have continued to rate strength -- rates strengthen over the third quarter as well. And that's put us in a really strong position to make sure we've repriced appropriately, and we can look ahead with confidence, in terms of the fact that we're writing at the margins we want to be. We've increased average premiums by 28%. You might -- for the [ eagle eyed view ], you might see the average premiums there are lower than market averages. That's very much a reflection of our portfolio. Lower-risk vehicles generally and more experienced drivers. That's what drives the lower average premiums that we have. We've carefully grown our policy counts by keeping more customers. Our retention rates over the last year have improved by about 5% and clearly winning more customers as well. And overall, we've grown our Motor premium by 42% year-on-year to June. I've talked a lot about being top quartile. How do you prove it? Well, we use lots of benchmarks and tests of ourselves. One of the benchmarks, that we look to is the Ernst & Young review of the Motor market. They, in their analysis, have identified Ageas in the U.K. as a top quartile performer in terms of Motor insurance. Noted as outperforming the market in terms of combined operating ratio. And you can certainly see that coming through over the last 2 years. The white line being the market average, the purple line being the Ageas UK performance. So great to have been ranked as a top quartile player over the last 5 years. And I think that's really a testament to the technical capabilities, that we have built contributing to that outperformance. I think that -- and we can also be confident about 2023. All of that underpinned by a very consistent reserving approach, over time that always stands us in very, very good stead. So that's Motor. On to Home. Home has been a slightly more challenging market for us and the market overall, actually, weather events, inflation coming slightly later. Certainly demanded strong pricing action. And we've taking the same approach, actually as we did with Motor last year, prioritizing technical discipline, making sure that we have got the portfolio priced in the right way, we have put around about 30 points of rate through that portfolio to strengthen our pricing position. And again, average premiums have gone up significantly. Over the last year, September to September. We have sacrificed policy count and premium, but we will always prioritize the technical discipline, making sure that we are managing the business to a reasonable return. So what about the outlook? With all the progress that we've made with the developments that we've undertaken the strategic transformation we have delivered so far. I think we are now far better placed with our Ageas UK business to offer resilient results, to be far more competitive as an organization and to be positive about growing profitably for the future. In terms of our original 2024 targets, that we set out in our transformation strategy, I think we can expect to achieve those financial objectives in 2024. We expect to be a far more profitable business, achieving the group expectations. Whilst we'll continue to prioritize margin and technical discipline, I think there is still headroom and plenty of headroom for growth compensating for the business that we have exited over the last 2 or 3 years and generally just offering a much happier home for capital in the future. And we've also looked out to 2027 and what we should have as an ambition for this business given the trajectories and the run rates that we have been able to deliver. And for 2027, the ambition we have, as a business is to exceed GBP 1.5 billion in premiums to continue to improve our combined operating ratios. These are on an undiscounted basis, just so you can compare to history, but we think there is still room to improve our combined operating ratio. And really importantly, I think, be in a position to deliver over GBP 100 million of profit, within the next strategic cycle. So some clear ambitions for the business, building on the progress we're already making, looking out to 2027. So to conclude, the overview of the work we've done to transform our U.K. business and turn around our performance. I think we're now able to confidently say we are moving from the turnaround phase to become a really core contributor to the Ageas Group. We do provide around 25% of nonlife premiums, enabling obviously, a better balance right the way across the group -- group in terms of portfolio. Our U.K. business, as Hans talked about earlier, is sharing expertise, the expertise that we've built in the U.K. and developed over time. We're now sharing much of that expertise with our owned entities, as well as our joint venture partners and particularly in these areas, in terms of our customer experience, expertise, data management, data and analytics, pricing, machine learning, all areas where we are leading on the sharing of expertise right the way across the group. So I think we can be confident about our short-term delivery, supported by our focus on our chosen markets and the capabilities that we've built. And I think we're very well positioned for longer-term resilient performance, better positioned to offer a stronger return on capital over time. So that's our U.K. story. Thank you very much for listening. I'm now going to hand to Heidi.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. In the last 13 minutes before the [ boost ], I will zoom in on the Belgian operating entity, AG. And I hope that the slide should come or -- it's yes, it was my fault. So my presentation will cover 4 topics. First of all, I will share with you the outperformance of AG, as a market leader in Belgium in a mature Belgian insurance market. I will also take you with me to illustrate the strategic fundamentals, what are really the strength behind AG I will share with you some market dynamics. And at the end, I will share with you that we still have untapped potential as Hans mentioned before. So first of all, AG is known in the Belgium market, as a leading company. We were already during several years, market leaders in Life with a market share of 28%, followed by second only 11%. The market concentration for the top 5 is 64%, top 10, 88%. But what's new is that in 2022, we are, for the first time, also market leaders in online? So it's closed with AXA, but we are a market leader, and the market concentration in Non-Life is more or less the same as in Life. Some numbers. We have less customers than Ant, about 2.7 million customers. Our total inflow at 100% is EUR 6.6 billion, 2/3 is Life, 1/3 is Non-life. Net profit above EUR 600 million. Our assets under management covering our Life business and almost at EUR 60 billion, high solvency ratio and our staff [indiscernible] counts more than 4,000 employees. To give a flavor of our footprint, we are insuring 1 out of 2 families in Belgium, 1 out of 4 companies in Belgium. One out of 7 cars, and you can read on the slide for the others, but we are really present in the Belgium market, of course. And in the title, 200 years of [ expertise ] almost, but next year, we will celebrate our 200th anniversary. So if we have a look at the past, we were able to deliver a strong and sustainable growth in a mature market. For Non-Life, for example, we were at par at the longer horizon with the sector. But since 2019, we are outperforming the market in terms of growth, 5% annual growth, compared with 4% for the market. For the inflow in Life, there we were all this year at part on average with the sector, but we were growing at double speed and unit linked. That's for the inflow for the technical liabilities, the most important driver for Life Insurance, the most important driver is more the technical liabilities. For the same horizon of time, we doubled over -- we outperformed the market with the double of the growth of the market in terms of technical liabilities. Growing faster than the market is not difficult, but growing in a profitable way. That's the spirit. And if you have a look at the slide, you can see, before 2014 we had a combined ratio above 100%. Since then, we are structurally under the 95% with an exception for 2021. But that was, of course, linked with the floods in Belgium. Also a very stable Life operating margin for unit-linked. You see very stable margins, also in guaranteed high margins. Even despite a low interest rate environment, we were able to generate stable markets. Our net profit was growing with 2% on an annual basis. If we removed the impact of the capital management action, the quota share. It's even an annual growth of 4%. And since 2016, we are upstreaming 100% dividend. We put a lot of efforts to invest in efficiency, leading to top and best-in-class cost ratios in Life and in Non-Life. So what are now the strength of AG? So first of all, it's very important that we have a diversified portfolio, product mix, but also our investments. The multichannel distribution, also very important, we were very consistent in our strategy towards the brokers commitments we did and we supported them. But I will come back on that and we have also a strong capital positions. So first of all, and the diversification of our company with all the products, I said already, the inflow 2/3 Life, 1/3 in Non-Life. If we zoom-in on the inflow for P&C, 1/3 Home, 1/3 Motor, 1/3 Accident and Health. So very diversified for our Life business. We have 35% in Group Life, the Supplementary Pension Plan. 44% of the Life retail inflow is coming from the bank. And 21% is coming from the broker channel. We have also a unique multichannel distribution approach. We keep really the focus in keeping all the time the channel piece. It's very important, and we are able to outperform in both channels. So let's have a look at the market distribution in Belgium. You can see for Non-Life, that the market distribution is very stable with a dominant position for brokers. brokers have 60% of the market. Maybe also important to stress that direct insurance in Belgium is not evolving, just 20% in 2010, and now it's more or less the same. For Life Insurance, there, you see that brokers are still gaining market share. So the bank is decreasing and direct is more or less stable. AG is selling products in both of the channels, all the products are available. And for direct business, we are allowed by our distribution partners to go direct. So for the large corporate, for Health Care and for supplementary pensions, we go directly to the large corporates. But we try also to test small products to invest in capabilities, digital capabilities, but also marketing capabilities, if once the distribution model would change that we are ready to go a step further. But that is only done with small products that we offer also to the bank and the brokers, but where they are not so interested to sell them. Here, you can see what is the market share, that we have in the segments in broker. We have 22% in Non-Life. And in Bank, we have a market share of 32%. You can see for Life, it's surprisingly the same. So we have a dominant position in each channel. So if distributions would switch a bit, we can further grow without any problems. And that's linked with our organizational structure. So our organization is structured towards the distribution. We have 3 business lines: 1 for the distribution at the Bank, 1 for another for the distribution towards the Broker and 1 for Employee Benefits and Health Care. Of course, we cannot double all the capabilities. So there, we have some synergies, where the development for the Non-Life product is done for Bank and Broker by the Broker Channel and the opposite for Life. And of course, all the transversal functions, investment, finance, risk, HR, IT, et cetera, are done in a transformational way. And we are really known in the market for our expertise. Our strategy is, of course, aligned with Impact24, at ageas level. And so we have 3 important strategic priorities. We want to outperform the market, and I will come back to it later by offering a great customer experience, for AG, that was a stretch because we are a B2B company. So we don't have a natural relationship with the end client. So to be able to serve the end client, we really had to set up a program and train our employees to acquire these capabilities. And the third strategic priority is sustainability, but I will come back to it as well. But there, our ambition was at the end of 2024, to be in the top quarter. To be able to deliver on these 3 top priorities, we had -- we have 3 important levers: people, [indiscernible] and partners. People are very important, of course. And so we want to be a growing, a learning organization and invest in our people to train them on their capabilities to be able to follow all the evolutions because the world around us is changing very fast. And we want to be the reference as an employer. We have very motivated people and we were also glad as and -- to see that our Net Promoter Score and the employees was increasing this year and that we are again in the top quarter. Tech and Data, I will come back on it and partners, we are not a direct insurer for the most of our products. So we have the -- we are used to work with partners, not only for our Insurance products, but also for the more beyond Insurance, extra services that we deliver to our clients. We have clear ambitions to further strengthen our leading position, and we see that there is still potential to do so in Non-Life and in Life. For Non-Life, we will continue to outgrow the market by detecting new brokers. We see still brokers where we don't have our natural market share. So we approach them to see how we can improve our relationship. And that is the case for retail, small enterprises and bigger enterprises. We will also strengthen Bank Insurance for retail clients and business. There we see that for Non-Life, there is still untapped potential a lot of cross and upselling possibilities at the Banking side. And so we don't -- we give support to our partners, to be able to increase the Non-Life in this segment. Enterprise segment was also a bit untapped because we were not present in the Corporate business in Non-Life anymore. And so we are now building up again these capabilities, and there we see that there is also already a very nice growth, but we can go further for the future. For Life, there, we have some difficulties in the retail market. linked, of course, with the higher interest rates and certainly with the inversed [ youth ] curve. So there, we see that the inflow is going down a bit. But on the other hand, with the large, the high inflation, salaries are going up. That is giving a boost in our Employee business. So our technical liabilities are more or less stable, thanks to, again, the diversification in our portfolio with Life retail and Employee Benefits. Employee Benefits has a very large position in the Belgium market and they are a global venture player, so they are adding as well other services to the client, where we see a lot of potential as well. That's for the pure Insurance, but of course, we are investing in innovation and other services, to build some building blocks and ecosystems. But the lesson that we earned was if you do so, you have to stay close to the core. If you want to be successfully have to add services that or close to the core. And so we are developing a lot of services in several domains. Mobility, Health, Home, Save and Invest, self-employed and SME and Pension. I don't have the time to zoom-in, of course, but more -- we offer products, services, that we start to integrate in Insurance products as well. For disability, we provide return to work, and we offer now also well-being programs in the prevention as a prevention, but we integrated it in the Insurance products. So that's first easy to scale up. And on the other hand, it's less easy to compare prices. So that's the way we are going forward. Then we -- in the mobility domain, we acquired Touring in the first of July this year. And Touring is a very strong brand in the Belgium market and the mobility sector, and that will certainly increase the credibility of AG and the mobility domain. So we will have boots on the ground and the servicing of assistance products. So the services that we can add to our Insurance products. And I don't see anything as, okay, it's soft. And so here, you see some numbers. So it's a quite big company, with more than 500 FTEs, with a lot of annual intervatious -- inter ventures. So their footprint is very big in Belgium as well. The third strategic priority that I mentioned earlier was sustainability. We want to be top quartile in the Belgium market at the end of 2024. And therefore, we took a holistic approach in the different roles that AG can play, as an Insurer, an investor, an employer and as a responsible company. For Insurance, we adapted our products to stimulate our clients to opt for a more sustainable behavior. The target was to reach 25% of the products, we are already at 28%. We are also the biggest Institutional Investor in Belgium and we want to put forward an example, and we came with ambition to invest at least EUR 10 billion in sustainable assets, we are already at EUR 10.5 billion. We subscribed as well the net 0 owner asset alliance. And there, we committed to the market to decrease our CO2 emission towards 2030 with the whole. As an employer, we have already for 11x the label of top employers. And for the glass ceiling index, we are now at 68%. The aim is to reach 70% in there, we have to catch up to do. And as a responsible company, we are now very proud to have the golden label of Ecovadis, a label that is very important for our corporate clients. And since 2019, we are also CO2 neutral. Maybe one thing still to mention for these slides is, I said we want to have a holistic approach. So we want to take all our stakeholders in this journey also our brokers. So we launched a platform go for impact where we give to the brokers and platform, where they can measure their CO2 emission and take actions to decrease it. And it was a big, big success. And really appreciated by the brokers. Tech and data, very important. Last year, we did a replatforming project, where we migrated more than 80 million lines of goods from our mainframe to Windows service. That's together with another project, our new data platform, where we are moving all the data to a new platform. These 2 projects will give us a totally new IT architecture that is more open, more -- it will be more easy to do the link with new technologies. So we are, therefore, the replatforming, the migration to the data platform, will end at the end of this year. And then we really built the foundations for to become a data-driven organization. Of course, Cyber risk is very important for us to be measured and actions are taken. We have already the ISO 27000 certificate, since 2019. And it is renewed each year, since. I said that our organization is act towards the distribution partners. So we are very intimate and our proximity towards the partners is very strength -- strong for Bank channel there, we are main partners, BMP Pariba Fortis. And there, they had a lot of reorganizations and each time, we adapt our organization to be able to support the partners. Also, we train them we give all the support they need in order that to motivate them to do more business for us. More or less the same for the brokers, there, we have a decentralized organization. We have 7 commercial centers because the strength of the brokers is their proximity towards the end client and end client the same count for us, the proximity with the Broker is so important, if we want to outperform the market. And for Employee Benefits and Health Care, there strategy as client intimacy. So they know the clients, they have a dedicated Account Manager for each client. So there, they are in the front line to see if they can do some cross and upselling. So that's very important for us. We see as well if we measure the satisfaction of our brokers or of the banking partners or the clients of EB that the net promoter score are very, very high, what is certainly a condition to be able to further grow. And all of this is supported by a solid capital position and risk management. I mentioned already the strong solvency position. Our asset mix is very diversified. And also, our asset liability management is very strong to limit the risk -- interest rate risk that we have, and that was certainly proven during the low interest rate environment, that we were able to provide continuity and stability towards our clients and also towards the shareholders. Then some market dynamics. I only took 2, but the first is not surprisingly the inflation and the fast raising interest rates. For P&C, we are monitoring the claims costs, of course, of the P&C business. But I think Hans mentioned it already 2/3 of our premiums is protected by an automatic indexation mechanism. And we see in the marketing, everything -- every competitor is applying this indexation as well. For Motor business, it's not the case. But there, we have the discipline to increase on a regular basis or premiums to be ahead of inflation. And we are also helped by the agreements that we have with the body shops. And practices, we see not so much impact of inflation on our Motor claims. And that's why our results and our combined ratios are very good. For Life, there with what's happening, we see that the dynamics and the competition changed. The dynamics with the Banking products because linked to the [ inversed youth ] curve, Bank can guarantee at a shorter term, higher rates than Insurance products at -- with a longer maturity. So there, it's a bit more difficult, but we had this year a perfect timing to launch and campaign, where we guaranteed 3%. It was before the launch of the government bond. And there, it was successful, and we were able to keep the technical liabilities more or less at the same level. And of course, I mentioned already the support of the employee benefits as well. Second trend is legislation. On the Belgian level, but also on European level, I have to say that it's putting a lot of stress and pressure on the organization. And we are also the first in line to be controlled by the supervisors. On the other hand, we have the skill to be able to adapt to all these changes, and it's becoming advanced compared with competition, but also towards new [ entrants ]. So it's putting a lot of pressure. But on the other hand, sometimes we have the benefits as well. And so I say that there are still untapped potential. So we have a strong fundaments to go further and to stay as a frontrunner in innovative products and services. We know our clients, and we were able since [ 200 ] years to adapt our products to the customer needs that are evolving. And with everything that the customers see around them, the expectations of the client are really rapidly evolving. And we adapt also our tooling to help them. We launched [ My AG ]. [ My AG ] is a portal where the client can have an overview of all the contracts with AG. But what is more important is that we add also services. If we go to the end client, then the services has to be 100% digital. Otherwise, it's not possible to serve these clients. But we are adding more and more services to satisfy the client. And this platform will able us in the future also to facilitate cross and upselling with respect of the distribution partners, of course. We have a lot of data that we can explore better and better. And certainly, with our new infrastructure, we can incorporate new technologies and know the knowledge of the client to have more qualitative leads. And we see that there are still niche markets where we are not present, so we can think about buying capabilities or maybe do a small M&A. So we see still potential to grow in an organic or inorganic way. So that was the story. Some key takeaways, so we have seen an accelerated profitable growth, where we were able to face all the challenges in the past, and we have really the fundamentals to do the same in the future. We have a lot of strength in our company, and we are able to evolve. We have also a strong solvency position and risk management. We were able to reimburse -- we will be able to reimburse our sub debt. And we can really deal with all the volatility in the market linked to the diversification that exists in our products, in our investments, in our distribution channels. And we will continue to look for new opportunities to continue to outperform the market. Thank you.

Thanks, Heidi. All right. Before we go into Q&A., I think we have given you a lot of messages and a lot of interesting information. So I see now the clock. The question is, do we take a break now? Or do we take the break after Q&A? Do you want to have a break first? We can have a break first. Yes. All right, now we take a 15-minute break, and we come back. [Break]

All right. Thank you. Welcome back after this short break. I still want to quickly take one topic with you. But before I do that, I would say, the key -- the 3 key takeaways that I think we wanted to bring to you is, first of all, the Ageas model is still standing, it is resilient under the current, I would say, world circumstances. And I hope that you have seen also when you link the 3 presentations, maybe a little bit less in China, which was more numbers-driven, but also U.K. energy, there is synergies happening. And it is the lead in often data insights because that's of high importance already in the U.K., you see other one that is picking that up. And I can do that on each and every topic that I have shown on the slides. So we do have a solid resilient model with synergies and the joint venture that is part of our group, we will benefit from that. Secondly, we have been resilient in performance, whether it is COVID related, inflation related, interest related. We have shown that resilience thanks to a great diversification, but we have also fine-tuned Impact24, which was, I must say, almost fully focused on the growth story. We also talked about the margin of our businesses as well as the cash remittances coming from our businesses. And that's my last point, we are still running on a very solid solvency base comfortably above 200%. You have seen that we replenished the cash position with an outlook actually by the end of '24 that should bring us above [ EUR 1 billion ]. And I want to make a final statement on dividend. First of all, Impact24, I have already said, we are fully on track to deliver on our promises of -- we said 6%-10% DPS growth that we actually said it would be in the upper range, EUR 1.65 billion to EUR 1.8 billion over the cycle. But I hope you also see that of the presentations we have seen today that we have a very diversified remittance to support that dividend because it all starts, of course, with emittances from our business units. And this is a footprint that will stay with us beyond Impact24. And this is a long-term positioning we take. We have the continued strong remittance coming from Belgium. We -- you have seen the U.K. recovery in the last 2 slides and also in numbers, what it is going to mean in numbers. And the Portugal performance is also very strong. So we do have this growth outlook on the earnings in Europe. Reinsurance, we have not spoken a lot yet, but you will have the breakout session with the [ Jorgen ] later. We have a careful development on external reissuance. But do not forget, a big part of this is still the capital management, and that follows the flow of this underlying operating entities that [ quite ] performs also from Reinsurance. We see a stable dividend contributor upstreaming to the group. And then last but not least, Taiping Life. There, I think the key indicator to look at is the operational capital generation there to support those future cash remittances. And I think with the story of Filip, you can -- I can confirm it is there. And at the end of the day, the dividend that we pay to our shareholders is a combination of the 4 and of course, also the way we control the holding cost. So with this, I want to close with one final outlook that is that we feel confident that the current footprint assures us to give an attractive dividend growth in line with Impact24 ambition, also beyond that strategic cycle, and we are starting to make our plans. We will come with our plans somewhere mid-next year on the new strategic cycle. But the philosophy we follow for the design of that new financial -- the new strategic cycle, sorry, is that we can continue dividend expectations in line with what we have said with Impact24 ambition. And that's, I think, the final statement I wanted to make. And now I'll leave it for Q&A.

Cor Kluis from ABN AMRO-ODDO. A few questions. Maybe the first question on the [ fourth ] home market. Since you became CEO, you've talked quite a few times about for the [ fourth ] home markets. Can you give updates on that? You made already a comment like the prices are quite high, especially in Europe, at this moment for life companies but also Non-Life companies. Could you elaborate a little bit more on on that? Second question is about the U.K. In the U.K. [Technical Difficulty] in direct retail, you've got 2% market share, which is not too much. What's your view on that? Is that self-sufficient? Do you want to boost the size of that? Or is it sustainable with 2% in the direct channel? So that's a question. And last question maybe as a reminder for China. It's been quite fast when you talked about the solvency ratio. For the core solvency year, we started with 81. And then you mentioned a few figures, which we could add to that. 7% for debt issuance, 35 for unrealized bond...

I'll summarize for you.

You add it all up, [ first step ].

Okay. Thanks, Cor. Maybe first on the [ fourth ] home market. Well, the plans, I must say, the ambition has not changed. It has maybe a little bit [ finer ], I'll come back to that first. But first of all, we always keep availability for in-market consolidation or diversification and [indiscernible] pension, could be one of those options in that context. We still feel that we want to rebalance the group between Europe and Asia or maybe rebalance is not the right word, keep in balance between Europe and Asia. Asia, growth is a little bit more moderate, so that means it is also maybe a little bit less urgent. Remember also at the beginning of Impact24, we said it does not have to be done within Impact24. And this is really preparing for the future. We have been looking at quite some opportunities. But as you say yourself, prices that we have seen being paid in Europe are very high. We also see banks active in the segment because this [ data ] is compromised, is prolonged, so they are also hungry. So we will remain financially disciplined. Criteria are not changing. We would prefer Non-Life because Non-Life gives us nice capital diversification benefits. And secondly, we want to have a market where we can have a material impact on that growth market. So it should be a sizable, scalable business in the market that we got. But we do not plug -- I would not plug there by the end of Impact24. This has to be delivered. This is supply and demand and financial discipline. Some areas that we indicated that we say, "Look, it could maybe also happen in the -- beyond the insurance or it could be happening in the fintech," with a focus on the cash remittance on the investor's lens, we have said, "Okay, that is probably not what we're going to look at into right now." We are not going to take a big sum to do a sizable deal for something that I would say, which for 5, maybe 10 years would not be dividend accretive. That is not something we want to do today. And there was also some noise on Reinsurance M&A opportunities left and right. What I see on the names that I hear flying, it's not always easy to find a buyer for these Reinsurance activities. And again, I've said we have a solid team, more than 30 Reinsurance experts, who get strong credits, I must say, when I talk to people from the Reinsurance world. And I think with that team, we can realize the gradual organic growth ambitions that we have given ourselves. So I think that we will also focus on organic growth.

The U.K.?

Yes. Yes, 2% is relatively small. As you saw from the charts there, we have focused this initial phase of the transformation very much kind of where we've got the greatest strengths. Our broker business is certainly where we've got the data, the greatest level of sophistication and confidence to grow. And so therefore, we have done that. We're adding sophistication all of the time in terms of our [ out and about ] direct business, there's clearly headroom for us to do more there. I think what we'll do is pragmatically manage the mix between our distribution over time. We've got kind of that overall revenue and profitability objectives that we'll manage in combination. And we will be agile in terms of managing the market in terms of where we see the best place to develop that growth from being the short-term broker as our heartland is where we have focused [ ourselves ].

Filip?

Just to repeat maybe and to sum up, there are a few things I said. First and foremost, we start at 9 months, and I'll just use one of the ratios because the other one is just half of it, right, at 162% comprehensive ratio. Taiping Group, every time they publish their comprehensive ratio, they also give one quarter forward outlook, which was put at 150. That raised some questions, put them aside around what if it falls below 150 to 75% rule and so on to answer those because I got some of them. It's not so problematic one. And for most, it's only focused on digital channel new business constraints. And two, we don't see that happen because of the things I'm going to mention now. Then, the supplementary capital bond issuance, on the comprehensive side, would add up to 80% in the ratio, potentially in 2 tranches, so assume 40-40. Probably the first tranche still coming before the end of this year or early beginning next year and the second chance to be issued in the course of '24. But the EUR 20 billion in total would allow for about 80% additional. And the other thing that is unavoidably there is till further notice until -- the regulator will not change his mind, I presume. The 45% cap is going to drop to 40%. That will consume about approximately 15%, let's say. I said probably correct. I mentioned 14%, but assume 15%, yes. That is going down from the 45 now to the 40. And then I said there is still one hidden pocket of potential solvency capital to be unlocked for by IFRS17, 9 transition [ '25 ] or by reclassification. That is the unrealized capital gains within the current regime, are not recognized on the all-to-maturity books. Where the liabilities are valued with the [ VIR ], the assets are at HTM. That shareholder portion of that unrealized capital gain would add another, I think I said, up to 70% at this moment, given current unrealized capital gains to the core -- to the, sorry, comprehensive ratio. Whether that will be there or not, let's see. But it is there economically. What I did not mention, and I cannot comment on it now, and we will come back on that when we see at year-end; is what is the effect of current market volatility, [VIR ] rolling forward, I did not mention that, right?

Ashik Musaddi from Morgan Stanley. So first of all, thanks a lot for providing all this information on China. It's very helpful for us. All three questions I have is on China. So I mean, the more information we get, the more questions we have, but still for good, I would say. So first of all, what is the visibility on this RMB 20 billion cap -- debt within -- debt that is looking to be raised in China? I mean, what's your confidence level that it will be raised, there is no uncertainty on that? So any color on that would help. Second thing is, can we get some color as to what moves Chinese solvency ratio? I mean, I'm not sure if you would be willing to give sensitivities, direct sensitivity, but any indicative, qualitative color would help to us to think about what we need to track to understand the comprehensive solvency ratio. And thirdly is you showed a very interesting chart about the liability split of China, which is 60% participating, I think, 30% or 25% nonparticipating. How should we think about the equity assets and the nonstandard assets, the other nonstandard assets being part of participating business? What I'm trying to understand is, how much of equity market risk and nonstandard asset risk can be passed on to policyholders rather than all going to shareholders?

Okay. I surely cannot answer all your questions in all the stages because I don't have the information and certainly not there at end. Let's talk with the first item. Our trust level on the issues of the RMB 20 billion is quite high. And our, and I mean CTIH, [ "red line" ] versions are with the regulators, and 2 other market participants just finished their issuance. So as far as we are aware and as far as the latest information I get on that, we're still expecting it to do it before the end of the year. In fact, some of our colleagues of Taiping group are running already selective road show and book building. So I'm quite confident that it will happen. Could it be that it is not closed before the year-end? Yes, but the confidence level is quite high. On the solvency ratio sensitivities, there, I do not have the data. In all [ honesty ] and certainly, I don't know it by heart. The fact is that indeed, and it relates to the third question, the biggest volatility comes from equity markets because the movement on equities, if it's part of the shareholder portion or it's in par, non-par, it depends a bit; immediately, it's core Tier 1 capital. And that is what is creating this huge volatility, I would say, from 1 quarter to the other, even more so than the interest rate movement. Interest rate movement is a drag on a longer term, and it's a quite stable drag. But it's equity volatility that really -- it makes the wired swings because it's core Tier 1, and the cap system is all percentages of that core Tier 1, you see. So it has this huge volatility that comes from that. I gave an indication that it is about 15% of the balance sheet. I cannot do the math from my mind, but that gives you an indication of where the volatility comes from. I, honestly, do not know by heart the split between par and non-par of that equity position, I should look into it. But it is, I think, more or less evenly spread over the 2 portfolios. That would be my best guess, if top of mind. I don't know. Wim, whether you know?

No, I never had information that it's differently spread.

No, I think it's quite homogeneous, is that exposure over the 2. So that gives you a feel, right?

Michael Huttner from Berenberg. One question on the dividend, one question on U.K. capital and one question on Belgium. On the dividend, you mentioned just now the China dividend might be -- I don't know what the word to use, but clearly not [ in line ]. And I just wondered if you can give an idea of what your thinking is there. On the U.K., can you say how much capital you're using at the moment either, I don't know, with the reinsurance or without the Reinsurance, just to give us a feel? And then on Belgium, so you're remitting or you're reimbursing -- I just wondered if you could give us the numbers for 100% to give you a feel for how much capacity you do have to make acquisitions, investments or whatever. What your solvency would go down to if you -- once you've remitted all this money? The thinking I have is that certainly in Germany, there's a very active market by brokers. And I just wondered whether you couldn't instead of giving the money to your parent, just buy a lot of brokers.

So maybe on the remittance, what I said is we have, I think, a strong mix of remittance between, let's say, the 4 segments, Belgium, Europe, Reinsurance and Asia. We have spoken a lot about solvency in China, and Filip has also explained that actually that is the only item potentially impacting dividends because capital generation is strong, profit is strong, retained profits, by the way, in China is also very strong. The message I want to give is even if that would maybe not grow in line with the business for a while, that should not -- thanks to the good diversity of our upstreaming, that should not immediately negatively impact our ambition. That is the message I wanted to give. And that's also to [ react ] sometimes on some of the reports I read, which put a very high weight on the upstreaming out of China for the feasibility of our capital management at group level, and there a the message I want to give. We have a very diversified pool. And that's why we are also confident to stay on our Impact24 ambition. Maybe on the U.K. or you want to do first, Heidi?

I've seen scrabbling around on an iPad over there, so I know I can outsource this question to the CFOs in the room, so I've been saved.

Maybe Jonathan, maybe first introduce yourself?

Yes. So I'm Jonathan Price, I'm the U.K. CFO. So I came for these questions. Yes, in terms of the U.K., so that is the retained element in the U.K., which is the 60% of the business. The owned funds level is at about 550 million. So I think broadly, if you gross that up for the quota share, you get a pretty sensible number.

So our solvency position is around 240. And if we reimburse the sub debt, we will lose 20%, so we stay about above our target solvency ratio. And yes, can we invest? We acquired, for example, [ Turing ], but that was not feasible to U.S. So we can do it with the normal activities without hampering the dividend upstream.

And also there, Michael, I can add, in case Belgian comes with a sizable opportunity, but that would strengthen our position in Belgium, we have the group cash available to do M&A. That could also be applied in Belgium. We do not exclude that to Asia or to a new market.

Iain Pearce from BNP Paribas. First one just on Chinese solvency level. You sort of run through the moving parts there, which is really, really useful. Just thinking about what you view as the internal level of solvency you'd like to run within China, what the target levels might be [ ready as one ]? And whether you include that 70% of unrealized gains when you're thinking about that? Secondly, just on the internal -- sorry, the agency numbers. We've seen agency numbers obviously fall a lot, 2021, 2022. Your numbers are down 2023 when the market has sort of stabilized a little bit. Previously, Taiping was more stable than the market. So I'm just wondering if you could explain those moving parts, whether that's Taiping catching up or they're seeing something different in the market? And then on the U.K., you talked about the broker market taking share in the U.K., actually in the last couple of years, where there's obviously reversal of some of the longer-term trends we've seen. So if you could just talk whether that's a reflection of pricing practices, something different going on in the market, and what the level of share of broker is in terms of distribution overall in the market?

Filip?

Yes. I mean I'm thinking about the fleet...

You want them to...

No, no, no, it's more like I'm thinking about the first question, actually. But on the -- let me start with the agency numbers. Yes. But if you look at a longer time scope there, they did not come down a lot over the last 3 years, if you think about it. And this year, there is a shift because we've been focusing more on the new recruits being higher performers. So there was a lot of effort going into training and productivity improvement and retention of high-productive agents. From now on there, this year, there is definitely a shift in putting a lot more emphasis on the productivity of the new recruits, which makes a recruitment hurdle to jump over for new candidates higher. I have some figures that cannot be immediately [ felt ]. But that is the main difference between previous years and this year.

Filip, some cleanup of dormant agents as well?

But that kind of happens every year, but it's mainly the focus on getting a higher-quality level of new recruits, which is coming into play. In my speaker notes somewhere, there is a mentioning of it, but I'm aware it's that. On the target capital level, I will not answer. Almost, this is a target capital level that we normally, by OpCo, do not disclose, first and foremost. And it's also something that our partner is not disclosing. So I have to leave it to that. Obviously, we are, at this moment, slightly below it, I would say, in the long run.

Okay. Ant?

Yes, in terms of brokers taking market share, you asked how much of a share of the overall market they have, it's just over about 1/3 of the overall personalized market, is controlled by brokers. They have been gaining share. It's single-digit share that they have been gaining, but still an important reversal of the longer-term trend, as I said. And the reasons why I'd probably place it into 2 main categories in terms of how they have been taking that share and acquiring customers, one would be an acceleration in terms of their pricing sophistication and certainly in the work that we're doing with brokers, that marriage in terms of the data assets of 2 businesses coming together to bring the power of that into pricing sophistication into the market. That's certainly been something that's helped brokers and helped us help brokers. And also product innovation, I think they've been really quick to market in some of the various responses to customer needs, particularly in the cost of living crisis. They've been amongst the most nimble to bring new products to market and attract new customers in areas such as EV evolution as well. So I'd probably put it down to those two main factors.

Farooq Hanif from JPMorgan. Three questions as well, please. Going back to Taiping Pension, so you mentioned an auction, I think, of EUR 140 million for 10%. I mean I just wanted to understand some of the valuation around that because that implies kind of a value of that business that's almost half of the market capital of China Taiping Group, probably. So I'm just kind of thinking, what you would view as the kind of the profitability of that? Because obviously, it's a big growth opportunity. Second point is on -- just going back to your cash remittance. So obviously, with the interim dividend, with the internal debt repayment, you've got a gigantic headroom on your cash. It's not really a concern short term, but it's always been a persistent concern of the market likely that your sustainable cash remittance is still below central costs and dividend. But the bar that you show in 2025, obviously, there's no number on it, but it seems to sort of grow. And I'm just wondering what -- when you see that inflection point coming through? I know there's a temporary issue in China, and that will solve itself, hopefully, over time. But do you see that as something that would be in the frame for the next plan? And the last question is more of a technical one. So is the VIR decline with low yields in China a big drag on comprehensive solvency? Or is it quite manageable, given you're raising debt?

Okay. First, on Taiping Pension. You're right that maybe that valuation has reached. This is actually a greenfield type of valuation, right? We think this is a really emerging type of market segment. And you can say that it's a bit reaching multiples, but multiple on what? And the second thing there, do not forget that this is a very capital-light business. This is not insurance in essence. The main activity is pension fund management and/or adjacent services like trustee business, et cetera, et cetera. So it is, in fact, pension fund management business -- fee business. So solvency of that entity, that is public because they also publish it every quarter, right, is at 234% at this moment. So it's not that the company is craving for capital. So for me, this is really creating optionality for us, right, to participate and not miss the boat on the pension and [ elder ] care and potentially build adjacent product lines in the employee benefit space, right? And then I think that is a fair market entry price. It's not so easy to get into the top tier of the pension fund market in China, by the way, for referring it, I can guarantee you that. So on the VIR impact, I think maybe the indication you have now in the forward-looking solvency projection that they made for the quarter is not a bad indicator because, obviously, it's based on that, so -- and the VIR impact at current interest rates, it will obviously die out after the 750 days, right? So that is a 2-year story all, depending on how rates move. It's a bit around your question, but you know what I mean, yes? So they're now at 161, they project the 150, if nothing moves forward. So that gives you a feel.

On the remittances versus our dividend, Wims, maybe...

I think it's good if you look at cash remittances and that we also include in -- when we do the performance management internally and the KPIs we're disclosing with you. You have on the one hand, the earnings capacity that you have and the distributable reserves that you're creating over time. We have shown today, I think, with the U.K. recovery, that will support the high earnings growth in Europe, going forward. So that's a source future growth that can be the base of cash remittances. That's important to say the continued earnings growth in Reinsurance by accounts mentioned, don't forget capital management in there. Yes, it's not only protection. Protection is growing steadily. But there's also the capital management, which is linked to the performance of the Non-Life businesses of the books we are seeing. That's important to do. And then Belgium, of course, the continued growth, which we saw also in the past, it will continue going forward. That's a bit the earnings base we're creating, which is the base of the regular cash remittances. The next dimension which is important is, of course, are we generating sufficiently free capital to be able to support that from the [ guardrails ] of the solvency, where we spent a lot of time today to explain the solvency situation in China to give you the view that there's other measures that can be taken to support that solvency, going forward? If we bring that all together, then we say that we have a very diversified book of earnings potential, diversified book of operational free capital potential and thus also diversified options of cash remittances, going forward. And that's what's underlying that trend, that growing trend of the recurring with potential from time to time to have nonrecurring ad hoc cash remittances within the group. That's a bit the view we wanted to share with you today.

Anthony from Goldman Sachs. The first question is actually, if I come back to China but more on the commerciality side, you touched on the channel, the bancassurance channel expense rule change there. What's your view on that, going forward? Do you think that could incentivize, say, the banks to sell more like single-premium products because I think that's kind of comments from some of the local Chinese peers? And then the second question is, could you -- not sure if you could give any color on, is Taiping Life preparing for the coming marketing campaign for 2024? And if so, are there any like change in product mix versus the campaign last year? And then the last question just on Belgium. Wim, could you give comments on any color on the pipeline of the -- like the potential realized capital gains because I think that used to be a key part in protecting your operating earnings margin?

On the bancassurance impact of that regulation, first and foremost, I think it will lead to some moderation in the campaign funding. Then, of course, high upfront commission product lines will maybe a bit more difficult or the incentives will have to come down. So I can imagine that it may lead to more single premium. Would that be a problem? Not necessarily Don't forget, and you saw that, in bancassurance anyway, the value new business signature is not the highest. It is -- it was about 6%. But this should actually lead to better margins, looking forward. But there will be a transition this year. They have to survive the regulation, so to speak. So I would not be too worried about it. We will see what the strategies are. But then in combination with your second question, there is still a high focus on having the right value new business or new business value signature in the book. So whether -- for the new year, there will be more focus on par versus non-par. I think they will always have to strike a balance because the nonparticipating book still has higher value new business signature than the participating book, where the participating book creates more optionality and flexibility into rate absorption. So I think that debate is still out there. We will see, obviously, with the lowering of interest rate guarantees on the non-par. The gap between the two has become narrower. It gives a little bit more incentive for par, but still today, the value new business signature of nonpar is higher. So I think it may rebalance that a bit because over the last years, most of the sale was only non-par from that perspective. I don't see that -- the debate is on where there will be a bit more par in the mix. Let it also be known that I'm not in the market there. So that is my view on that. So of course, our colleagues from Taiping would be better placed to answer your question in detail, without any doubt.

Capacity for cap gains.

At Ageas share, our existing unrealized capital gains after tax or now between EUR 1.2 billion to EUR 1.3 billion to see what is the potential for the future? I think the historical cap gains should be generated in the past will be a good guidance for the future.

I was a bit distracted, so apologies if it's already been asked, but can you talk a bit more about the real estate exposure and how basically that's developing? I mean, you have answered the question saying the cap gains are sustainable. But I had -- I think I had, in my memory, a very short discussion, where you explained that you -- in order to realize the capital gains now, you actually have to invest more cash to make the buildings more attractive, more green or whatever it is. So if you can give a feel for how that market is developing and what we could expect, whether it could hurt so on or have some material impact?

Maybe first on the realizations of this year, we see some impact on the speed of the realization but not on the realization themselves. So we are on track to deliver on plan. And so maybe there are less candidates in the selling process, but the prices at which we can sell are still at a very good price. So we already closed a large deal on the city center. And the other deals that were expected to do this year, we have a high probability to reach them. So that's fine. Of course, for the total portfolio, there, we can say that we are -- we have a well-diversified portfolio. So that's certainly something that is very important. I think Hans mentioned already that the leverage of our portfolio is also minimal if we compare with other real estate players, and that's only -- it's more the leverage funds that are suffering. We do a valuation on a recurring basis. There, we see some impact, but is acceptable, and it's not leading to major impairments because in a [ tour ] of balance sheet, they are accounted by at amortized cost. So there is not immediate impact. So yes, but I think the diversification is really key in this answer.

You asked about [ green ]. This CapEx is continuous every year, there is a certain amount going into the CapEx. It's mainly been playing in offices, correct me if I'm wrong. And offices need to be [ green]. And retail [indiscernible], et cetera, have been recently, completely [ available ].

Yes. So I think for a real estate, they invested already a lot in the past. So they had already very high-quality buildings, so -- and that's also an advantage if you have to sell buildings.

Okay. You have a question in the back.

Yes. Just a couple, Farquhar Murray from Autonomous Research here. Just a couple of questions really for Heidi on Belgium actually. The competition authorities in Belgium seems to have recently put out a report on the banking system. And one of the proposals they seem to be making is that, they're discussing actually unbundling products within the banking system. And so I wonder -- just wondered what your preliminary thoughts might be about that competition of authority reports? And also, could you give us maybe a sense of scale of how much significant product bundling might be in terms of your relationship with BNP -- Fortis?

If I well understood your question, you are referring to a new legislation, where for -- no -- the...

It's actually a competition authority report that came out a couple of weeks ago, where they were looking at basically product -- they've basically proposed introducing [ leeway ] for the banking system, which didn't sound so good. But also, they actually proposed unbundling products as part of kind of trying to enhance transparency within the banking system. And I just wondered if you could give us maybe a preliminary thoughts on that report and also maybe a sense of the importance of product bundling within the kind of product packages you do within the BNP-Fortis?

Is that MRTA with pricing to the mortgage...

It is not bundled in the sense that you have to buy a mortgage and your fire insurance or your term, you can come also with a different product. So to my knowledge, the bundling -- real bundling is very limited to like PA type of covers in your current accounts or things like that, but that's very tiny. But I would say, fire insurance, MRTA, there is no real legal bundling.

Legal bundling [indiscernible].

Yes. And the account packages is this, but that's -- I mean, I wouldn't even know the numbers. That's really minimal.

It's marginal.

It is marginal, then [indiscernible] premium of the bank channel or the Non-Life business and there's a combined ratio of...

The total Non-Life business, fire, motor -- I mean, should be -- the combined ratio that you see for our Non-Life business is a good indicator for that. So that was very positive this year. And the premium volume, I'm not sure we can disclose a premium number for the bank channel. It is material, let's put it that way. But it's not impacted by that. So if we look at the bundled business or the PA things start to account, I mean, a couple of million, max, that will be bundled.

But we don't disclose volumes and combined ratio by channel. So we don't disclose those numbers, yes.

Steven Haywood from HSBC. Just two questions, please. Can you give us an indication of the yearly cost of the new Chinese debt instruments? Can you indicate that as a percentage of the operating profit that comes out of these from Taiping? And the second question is on the U.K. and the restructuring. Can you give us an indication of the costs to restructure here? And you mentioned the 55 million of cost savings already delivered, how much more are you targeting in the U.K.?

Yes, of course. On the debt instrument, I cannot foreclose what is going to happen during a roadshow of a partner who's going to issue that debt, right? So -- but I can only refer to what similar instruments that have been issued over the last weeks, months by, amongst others, [ Taikang ], so give you an [ ID ]. But don't forget that the pressure of these instruments on the P&L is not the cost of that instrument, right? That money will be invested, so it's spread. And so I think Taikang issue, do you remember at 375, 380 or 80 bps on that instrument, which is a perpetual? So that cost pressure, depending on how they deploy the money, obviously, may not be so high, right?

The total transformation cost?

the Total transformation cost in terms of investment, restructuring and everything is going into the transformation program adds up to around GBP 20 million to GBP 25 million per year or each year of the transformation cycle. 55 million achieved so far. There certainly is headroom to go for. In terms of our overall cost ratio, we set ourselves the objective of improving that by 5% in total over the total strategic horizon. I think we're very much on target to achieve that number.

Yes. It's Benoit Petrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux. On the remittances, the 750 million to 800 million, I understand the moving part, but could you just maybe provide the breakdown between the different units for next year? I wanted to come back on [ ATS ], potentially highly political file. We have elections next year. But what is your kind of likelihood to get a deal on [ ATS ]? Is that something you still expect or you kind of forgot about it? I wanted also to look at on the mix, on the asset mix in -- at AG. I think your portfolio of [indiscernible] went down quite a lot in the past 5, 6 years. Loans went up at the same time. Equity is a bit up as well. And I think commercial real estate, a bit up as well. Overall, so what is your kind of strategic mix in the current interest rate environment, where do you want to go in the coming years on that? And on China, I was wondering what is your duration mismatch in China, and how does that compare to the competition just as a benchmarking exercise?

Well, thanks. On your first question, we do not disclose the breakup of our remittances over the different segments. That is not something that we make public. On your second question, [ ATS ], well, I think positions have not changed. We have always said that, that could be an interesting addition to our activity in Belgium because it is an alternative distribution channel that we do not -- mainly, that we do not develop at the moment. And secondly, AG is absolute leading in the private sector. [ ATS ] is a strong player in the public sector, so there could also be some complement. On the file itself, honestly, I do not expect any change. We have elections twice next year in Belgium in June and November. I don't think -- as you know, the 3 Belgian governments are holding almost equal parts of [ ATS ]. So I don't see anything happening before these elections. After elections, well, we know that the federal government and the Flemish government have always been rather positive against the disposal of [ ATL ]. They don't see it as the key role of the government. The [ Walloon ] government less, and they have always been holding on [ ATL ]. But of course, specifically after the floods, the debt situation of the [ Walloon ] government is becoming a main attention point. So the only moment that it might be discussed, it is very preliminary, is, I think, in the formation of a new government, then they need to discuss the budget. But I do not expect anything before elections.

On the duration mismatch on China, we will not provide any insight, I am afraid. It's not something that is published for [ CTIH ], nor by the competitors. So it's very difficult to compare with something that is not public. But that being said, otherwise, you would have had the answer already. But I see no reason why it would be very different because the similar products are sold in a similar market. Sorry?

I thought it was disclosed in the embedded value report.

Then I am not aware of it. I don't have it.

On the asset?

For the asset mix, the asset mix was integrated in the slide deck. If you compare with the past, you have to be aware with rising interest rates that our balance sheet was decreasing. So that's a bit wide real estate percentage, is higher than in the past. So there, we have a plan to come again within the boundaries and the shift from bonds to loans was to pick up the liquidity premium that was in the market. So I don't know if that is sufficient.

Just one question on excess capital. So can we just get a reminder of what's your view on excess capital? I guess your holding company cash has now gone towards 1.2 billion after what you get from AG. So is it fair to say you have got about 0.5 billion excess capital less whatever you spend for Taiping Pensions? And then leverage, if you can just remind where you can go on leverage? Because, I guess, under the new regime IFRS17, that's less of a constraint for you versus the previous one. But then we have Solvency II as well. So if you can just remind us what's your leverage capacity, how much you can raise debt? And is the understanding about 300 million to 400 million excess cash at holding companies, is that a good way to think about excess capital.

Well, first of all, on the excess capital, we just explained on the dividend that we look at recurring upstreaming and the relationship with the dividend. So for now, we deem the excess capital as excess. That means that it can go over in our inorganic opportunities, if we explore them. If not, and we have excess cash, then we have always said we do not exclude the share buyback. But remember that the 350 million I spoke about is only coming in towards the end of the first half next year. We might look at [ June, May ] or something, so not before that we reach the amounts that you are just mentioning. Debt capacity of 1.5 billion, I think, altogether, but I leave it to Wim to give you a little bit more...

I can you give you a technical answer Solvency II-wise. RT1, approximately 400 million. Tier 2 also 400 million. And then the question is with the new leverage ratio under IFRS 17, as you mentioned, we're more on the lower end for the moment. And then you come to levels that Hans is mentioning. But we said in the past, a total in senior loans of 350 million, I think we can go a bit higher at this moment, but I would call it 400 million to 500 million, yes. 1.3, 1.5 is the total....

And you would say that the holding company cash is all excess?

No, what we say is in the chart, the evolution of the cash, we assume that upstreaming covers holding cost and dividend. That means that the extras you have seen in the bar is indeed meant to be excess cash. And in that case, you would come at this approximately 1.2 billion, if I have the number in my mind, by the end of '24, and we have the position that we have always taken on excess cash or it serves to inorganic M&A opportunities. If we do not have the right opportunities, then we do not exclude [indiscernible]. [ Mika ]?

I wanted to close down here the Q&A session. We've gone a bit over time already. I want to thank the online audience for being with us until now and saying goodbye to you. And all the people here in the room, I would like to invite you to join us in the breakout rooms for the sessions on data and AI and Reinsurance.

And then practically after that, maybe?

Yes. Yes, after that, we will come back here for drinks.

And dinner is at what time?

7.

Okay. Thank you for your presence, and I hope you have still some two interesting sessions on data and AI and on Reinsurance. Then we can talk later over dinner, where we are well balanced between yield and our internal staff. So we are all available for you for the discussion. Thank you.