Allianz SE (ALV) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, as the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, I hereby open the Annual General Meeting 2020 of Allianz SE. On behalf of the Supervisory Board and the Board Management, I would like to welcome all the shareholders following us today on the Internet. The Board Management and the Supervisory Board together decided to seize the opportunity created by the regulator for the extraordinary situation this year to perform an AGM without the personal presence of shareholders. And this gives us the opportunity to stick to the previously announced date of this year's AGM, and you can therefore also decide about our dividend proposal. We all understand that with this type of AGM, there can be no true discussion. And that's why we've decided to take out 2 items of the agenda compared to the initial invocation to this AGM in today's virtual AGM. These are the agenda points dealing with the compensation systems of the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board, we've postponed these 2 agenda items to next year's AGM because we don't want to leave these topics aside without any discussion with you. With this, we still stick to the legal framework for the approval of compensation systems through the AGM. Ladies and gentlemen, let me now just briefly explain some organizational remarks regarding today's agenda. First of all, I can state that the AGM was invoked on the 9th of April 2020, in due time and form using a [ brevent ] convocation period according to the law to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and civil and solvency and criminal law. So the invocation was published in the electronic Federal Gazette. The minutes of today's meeting will be taken by notary public, Dr. Tilman Götte, who's with us here in the room. For our shareholders, we will broadcast this AGM in its entirety on the Internet. This transmission, this broadcast has been offered by Allianz already for quite a few years. My initial remarks and the speech of the CEO will also be broadcast live on the Internet to the general public and will be made available as a recording following the AGM on our website. Shareholders registered to today's AGM had the opportunity until day before yesterday to enter their questions through our online service. The Board of Management will answer these questions on its own discretion when dealing with the agenda items following the regulations of the law. Voting right in today's virtual AGM can only be executed through absentee votes or by appointing proxies that -- which were appointed by the company. Your absentee votes or the instructions to the proxies of the company can be changed through the online service until the beginning of the ballots. I will remind you of that shortly before the beginning of the ballots, but I would ask you to do so in due time because there can be time delays on the live stream. The assembly room is the auditorium of Allianz SE room Munich here at Koeniginstrasse 28 in 80802 Munich. The details about the voting process, I will explain to you following the answering of the questions by the Board of Management. If you as shareholders want to exercise your voting right through absentee ballot or by appointing a proxy, you will also have the opportunity to enter your objections against resolutions of the AGM through our online service. Please note that entering objections will only be able until the end of today's AGM, not following it. For this in the online service, you will find a button on which you can enter your objection. If you press this button, you can then enter the text of your objection. The objection will then be received through a mailbox which is directly administered by the notary public and will therefore be sent directly to the notary public. In order to have an orderly sequence of this AGM, I would ask you not to wait until the very last moment with any objections because, as I've mentioned before, there could be technical delays on the live stream. All the documents and reports required by law for the AGM were published on the website of Allianz SE under Investor Relations AGM in the documents center. You can access these documents also on the online service, and we also have the documents present here on site. The list of participants as required will be presented here in the meeting. And as usual, I will let you know about the attendance later on. Our shareholders also have the opportunity to view information about attendance in our -- on the online service. As the Chairman of this meeting, I would also like to announce that recordings of the online broadcast of our AGM are not permitted. I would ask you to note that this is an AGM and such a meeting for our shareholders, which is not meant for the broad public. So much for the organizational remarks. Ladies and gentlemen, not all the members of the Supervisory Board and the Board of Management can be present here in the room today. Against the backdrop of continued restrictions and to minimize health risks of the Supervisory Board, only myself and Mr. Hainer are present and of the Board of Management, in addition to Mr. Bäte, we have Ms. Wagner and the gentleman Terzariol, Dr. Thallinger and Dr. Röhler. Mr. Hainer was appointed by the standing committee for this year's AGM as my deputy should I be incapacitated during this Annual General Meeting. All the members of the Board of Management and Supervisory Board who cannot be present today follow the AGM through our online service. Before we enter into the agenda, I would like to inform you about changes on the Board of Management and Supervisory Board of Allianz SE since our last AGM. There were 2 changes on the Board of Management since May 2019 that have happened on the 31st of December 2019, Dr. Helga Jung left the Board of Management and retired. Ms. Jung actively played a role in Allianz for more than 26 years, 8 years of that on the Board of Management of Allianz SE. She was responsible for participations and takeovers and has made important contributions in a large number of complex transactions, to name but a few of them, for example, the purchase of PIMCO or the sale of the participation in Dresdner Bank. Just as valuable for Allianz where her work as Head of the Controlled Functions, the building of our data protection department and the further development of our HR department. The Supervisory Board explicitly thanked Dr. Jung for her successful work, and she will continue to support us with her expertise and abilities as a member of supervisory boards of some of our OEs. On the 31st of March this year, Dr. Axel Theis, left the Board of Management on the occasion of his 62nd birthday. Dr. Theis for more than 33 years worked for Allianz, the last 5 years of that as a member of the Board of Allianz SE. With his extraordinary skills and experience in the property and casualties business, Dr. Theis was a driving force in the segment and made a contributed -- a sizable contribution to the global set up of the business strategy of the Allianz Group. On the Board of Management of Allianz SE, he was responsible for the insurance business in the German speaking countries and in Eastern Europe. The Supervisory Board also thanked Dr. Theis cordially for his longstanding and successful work for Allianz. The Supervisory Board appointed as new members of the Board of management Ms. Renate Wagner with the fact of the 1st of January 2020; and Dr. Klaus-Peter Röhler with the fact of the 1st of April 2020. Ms. Wagner, who's worked since the beginning of 2013 for Allianz and has been -- and was responsible as the regional CEO for our Life/Health business in the region of Asia Pacific, will take over the responsibilities on the Board of Management of Dr. Jung. Dr. Röhler has worked since 1996 for the Allianz Group and after his work as a CEO in Switzerland and Italy, he lastly was responsible as the CEO of Allianz Germany AG for the German insurance business. Dr. Röhler will take over the responsibilities of Dr. Theis. And Ms. Wagner, I would now kindly ask you to present yourself to the shareholders.

Thank you very much, Mr. Diekmann. Dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure to present myself personally today as a member of the Allianz Board of Management. My name is Renate Wagner, I'm 45 years of age. I studied mathematics and have worked since 2013 for Allianz. Before I joined Allianz, I'd already worked in the insurance and financial sector, amongst others as a Risk Analysis Analyst for Westdeutsche Landesbank, as an adviser for the auditing company, KPMG. And had many -- had functions at Zurich Insurance Company in Switzerland. In the year 2013, I first took over the heading of the office of the -- of our -- then CFO, followed by other functions at the Allianz SE in 2015 and then went to Singapore as the Regional Financial Head and Head of the Life and Health Insurance for the Asian realm. Later on, I took over the position of the CEO in this region. After 4 years in Asia, I returned as the Head the HR Department of Allianz SE here in Germany. Since the first of January of this year, as a member of the Board, I've been responsible in addition to HR also for the area mergers and acquisitions or M&A, legal, compliance and data protection. When it comes to my private life, I'm married and a proud mother of a daughter. Dear shareholders, I would cordially like to thank you for your trust, and I will do everything that's in my power do bring ahead your Allianz together with my colleagues on the Board of Management. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Dr. Wagner. And now I would ask Dr. Röhler to also introduce himself.

Mr. Diekmann, dear shareholders and shareholder representatives, dear colleagues. I'm delighted and I would like to thank you for the opportunity to present myself here at this virtual AGM of Allianz SE as new member of the Board. My name is Klaus-Peter Röhler, I'm 55 years old. And I've been with Allianz since 1996. Following my law studies and an MBA, I started as an assistant of the Chairman of the Board of the Department for North Rhine-Westphalia in Cologne, where I received experience in guiding positions in, sales positions, for bank distribution and others and underwriting in P&C from 2003 on I headed the office as the CEO. Then I switched directions in Southern Europe and the neighboring countries Austria and Switzerland first as the head of the business department insurance Europe 1, which is responsible for this region and then as CEO of Allianz Italy. Then I headed 3 OEs of Allianz from 2012 to 2013 Allianz Swiss from 2014 to 2017 Allianz Italy. And since the year 2018, I've lived here in Munich as the CEO of Allianz Germany AG here in Munich, together with my wife, my 3 daughters and my son. For 5 weeks now I've been a member of the Board of Allianz SE and I'm responsible in my new function for the insurance business in the German-speaking countries in Central and Eastern Europe. For the trust that you've brought to me, I would like to thank the Supervisory Board cordially just as well as you, dear shareholders. I've taken over this position in the new -- in a time at which the world is in an unprecedented crisis. And with all my force together with my colleagues on the Board of Management, I will -- we will do our utmost to see Allianz gone in a strengthened way through this phase and to continue to be successful in the future.

Yes. Ms. Wagner, Dr. Röhler, the Supervisory Board feels sorry that you have to start in such a difficult time. But nevertheless, we're glad about your appointment, and we wish you and your colleagues, the best of success in dealing with this crisis and going through the change processes that Allianz is in right now. To keep the number of people present in this room as low as possible. Dr. Röhler will leave us now again. So thank you and all the best to you. I would also like to inform you that the Supervisory Board has extended the Board terms of Jackie Hunt, Ms. Jackie Hunt, and Dr. Thallinger by 3 and 5 years, respectively. There have been no changes in the composition of the Supervisory Board since our last AGM in May 2019. Ladies and gentlemen, at this point, I would like to announce our attendance right now, 44.24% of the capital stock are present in this AGM that is -- we have proxies given to the proxies of the company, which are represented by 176,753,896 shares of that is amounts to an [ attendee ] of 42.37% of the capital stock. In addition to this, we have absentee votes which were handed in for another 7,792,803 shares. No power shares. Dear shareholders, we will now enter into the agenda. I call upon agenda Item 1, the presentation of the approved annual financial statements and the approved consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2019, and of the management reports for Allianz SE and for the group as well as the report of the Supervisory Board for fiscal year 2019 and the other reports by Board of Management and Supervisory Board. Let me first present to you the financial statement documents. The financial statements of Allianz SE and the group as well as the according management reports were audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft and deemed in good order. The auditor's issued unqualified audit opinions for both reports. The Board of Management and the auditors presented the financial statement documents, both through the Audit committee as well as to the plenary session of the Supervisory Board and explained them in detail. The Supervisory Board approved of the financial statements after thorough examination and the annual financial statements of Allianz SE are thus adopted. This takes me to the report of the Supervisory Board. The plenary session or the plenary of the Supervisory Board met for 6 sessions in the fiscal year 2019. In addition, there were a total of 18 meetings of the Supervisory Board committees. You will find a detailed explanation of the work of the Supervisory Board and the committees in our group reports on Pages 4 and following. Let me just present some of the focal points of our work. In all supervisory board meetings, the Board of management explained in detail the business situation in the individual segments and regions and also explained on a regular basis, the adequacy of our capital base and of the solvency ratio. A special focus of our Supervisory board work was put on the business and risk strategy of the Board of management. In this, the Supervisory Board and its committees dealt intensively with the investment strategy and the life insurance against the backdrop of our low interest environment. Just as well as with IT strategy, IT security and the handling of customer data. Other topics comprise the Allianz custom model and in close connection with this the start or the launch of our European Direct Insurer, Allianz Direct, just as well as the strategy of the Allianz Group in China, where Allianz as the first foreign insurance company received an approval for a holding license. In addition to this, we discussed, together with the Board of Management, the strategic developments in the segment asset management and in global health insurance business. And we also talked about capital measures like, for example, share buybacks. In addition to this, the Board of management gave us a regular overview about our activities in the field of participations and takeovers but compliance issues and about the treatment of ESG topics, ESG being the abbreviation for environment, social and good governance topics. Topics that Allianz has dealt with for quite some time proactively, and you can read details about this in the sustainability report, which was published last week by the Board of Management. Let me just quickly talk about the compensation system of the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board. You can find detailed explanations on this in the compensation report on Pages 23 and following in the management report of the group. The compensation system for the Board of Management had been thoroughly revised with the fact of the first of January 2019, and we had presented it to the AGM last year to -- for approval, which had found with a large majority of 92.11%. The existing compensation system has remained basically unchanged compared to the version proposed last year. And let me just remind you that for simplification, we stuck to 3 compensation elements, which means that, in addition to the basic compensation, we only have 2 variable components left, a short-term variable component in the form of an annual bonus and a long-term variable compensation, which is share based. When looking into the compensation report, you will realize that we further increased our transparency in presenting compensation significantly. You will also realize that the Supervisory Board and its assessment of the individual contribution factor for the assessment of the annual bonus of the individual board members has taken the leeway it has regarding this factor, to a large extent. In order for our compensation system for the Board of Management to be aligned to the regulations of the New German Corporate Governance Code in its version of the 16th of December 2019, the Supervisory Board has taken the following corrections over the course of last year. First of all, we've eliminated completely the special severance payment regulation in case of a change of control. And secondly, in alignment with the new code, we've introduced the regulation that in case of a contractual restraint and competition as severance payout -- payment that might happen if the term of office on the Board of Management ends early on, that this has to be calculated against any compensation for noncompetition. And these corrections haven't been taken for the future but already implemented in the existing contracts of the Board members. In addition to this, the Supervisory Board has included a new sustainability goal into the goals of the Board of Management, which is measured against the progress in reducing the CO2 emissions. The Supervisory Board deems the compensation system as fair and adequate in internal and external comparison. Compensation of the Supervisory Board has remained unchanged compared to the previous year and is a pure fixed compensation, memberships and committees, then, of course, leads to different compensations. As announced at the beginning, we will present these compensation systems for the Board of Management and Supervisory Board for your approval in next year's AGM, dear shareholders. Part of the work of the Supervisory Board is also to take care of standards of good governance, and you can find details about the development of corporate governance in the Allianz Group in our declaration, the declaration of the company management and in the corporate governance report, which you will find in the group management report from Page 12 onwards. The Board of Management and the Supervisory Board have signed the declaration of conformity to the recommendations of the German Corporate Governance Code in December 2019 and have published this declaration to the shareholders on the website of the company. In summary, we can state that Allianz has followed all the recommendations of the code in its version of the 7th of February 2017, and has also followed all the suggestions. And we already announced that we've adapted the compensation of the Board of Management to also follow rules of the new code. Ladies and gentlemen, Allianz, in the business year 2019 again posted a very good result. Financial goals were reached in all business segments and our capital strength remained on a very high level. Of course, the Supervisory Board in the ongoing business year 2020 has dealt intensively together with the Board of Management and discussed the topic of COVID-19. Since the beginning of the ongoing business year 2020 alone, there have been 4 meetings of the Supervisory Board in which we also discussed the facts of the pandemic onto the economy as a whole and specifically onto Allianz. The Board Management and its connection reported on the maintaining of the business operations, the IT security and stability, and the precautions taken to protect our employees. The employee representatives on the Supervisory Board also confirmed from their perspective that our management has taken a prudent approach in this crisis. Other topics were the effects of the current situation on to the AGM and our dividend payment. As the rules for Allianz SE according to this situation require that an AGM has to be held within 6 months after the end of the business year. We didn't have any other choice than seizing this newly created possibility of a virtual AGM without shareholders present. When dealing with the topic of dividend payments, the Supervisory Board discussed with the Board of Management about the regulatory recommendations to pay out dividends for the business year 2019, only if the overall situation of the company allows that against the current backdrop -- against the backdrop of the current challenges. After detailed discussions about the solvency and liquidity situation of Allianz also against increased stress scenarios, the Supervisory Board once again, assess the dividend proposal and confirmed it. We are convinced that Allianz also under these worsened circumstances, Allianz is still able to pay out the dividend that was generated in the business year 2019. In this decision we've taken in the -- both the global discussion about the role of the insurance industry as well as in this pandemic situation as well as the reduction of our profit forecast for the business year 2020 on the 30th of April. I would like to seize this opportunity to thank all employees and the whole Allianz Group for their extraordinary and tireless efforts, not just in the past year, but especially in these difficult days and weeks. The Board of Management and the employees that a whole team Allianz proves on a daily basis that it can work also in the crisis. And has taken a cautious approach to the customer needs. So much for the report of the Supervisory Board. And now I would like to ask the CEO, Mr. Oliver Bäte, for his report.

Yes. Thank you very much, Diekmann. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I would also like to cordially welcome you to our first virtual AGM. This is an extraordinary AGM. And we're living in extraordinary times in an extraordinary situation. For the very first time, ever since I took over this office, I'm not able to speak to you directly. However, your and our own health must be given priority in this situation. We are glad that the legislators have given us the possibility of a virtual AGM at short notice. Thus, we can stick to the originally envisioned date without endangering your health. In that, it was important for us that you can still exercise your right to vote and ask questions. So we offer you as much normal AGM as is possible in this situation. Particularly we're in a position through this virtual meeting to pay out a proposed dividend of EUR 9.60 per share in time and in full. So you can rely on your Allianz also in the current crisis situation. In many conversations with shareholders, we learned this planning security is very important for all of you. Even during this global crisis, we can pay out a proposed dividend because we conducted our business in a very solid way over the last couple of years. We're financially strong, and it is our goal, always keeping an eye on further developments that we can also hold the dividend for the next year and for the coming years or even increase it. This is no coincidence, but it's the result of hard work over the last couple of years up until today. In the meantime, our operations are continuing for the most part, unimpeded. We were technologically well prepared, some 90% of our global employees work from home, and that works flawlessly. In particular, the colleagues of Allianz Technology, our house internal IT service renderers, do an excellent job. I personally am thrilled by the commitment of our 147,000 employees. Even from home, they're always there for our clients and the same goes for our sales partners. In the crisis, we're all doing more than usually, the commitment is high, the loyalty of our colleagues is overwhelming. From a lot of personal feedback, to me personally, I've heard a new pride in our company, a new pride in what Allianz means to our clients. Our teams have interiorized our company purpose, we secure your future that drives us all particularly now. Let me give you a couple of current examples that show what we do for our clients specifically. For instance, together with politics, we work on helping small and medium-sized companies who survive this financially our credit insurer, Euler Hermes is very closely involved in that. We contribute to the solidarity funds of the French government for small companies and freelancers and Allianz Partners helps marooned holiday makers to come home safely. Our doctors help COVID-19 patients very often in their spare time. In the German travel health insurance and in the Turkish health insurance, we have increased insurance coverage also to COVID-19 patients now. In German, with the initiatives, strong through the crisis, we offer health quickly and free in case of psychological burdens via hotline. And that not only for Allianz clients, Allianz Austria had a similar offer via a psychological chat forum. Allianz France, finances an online COVID-19 test that has been developed by a start-up together with the doctors at the Pasteur Institute. And many Allianz associated companies offer telemedicine consulting, thus patients on the telephone or online can talk to a physician. In many countries, we've been donating face masks to medical institutions. And in Germany, we offer free of charge casualty insurance for children who are at home ever since -- who have been at home ever since the schools have been closed. And these are but a few examples, ladies and gentlemen. A heartfelt thank you to the colleagues in these departments. You're doing a great job. And this, from your writing desk at home, more often than not with kids at home that you also have to look after. What we cannot do, however, ladies and gentlemen, is insurance coverage for which no premium has been paid. That would basically rub the base -- rub our industry of its basis. And it would rub us far off the financial basis that we need in covering lots of day-to-day risks, that is our role, basically. There have been lots of discussions about possibilities and limits of insurance, systematic company closures, maybe you followed that in the media, in most cases, pandemics as a reason for state ordered company closures are not insurance covered. And that is something that many clients did not know about. This discussion shows us why it is so important that our products are simple and intuitive to understand that the performance spectrum is absolutely clear for the clients when -- upon conclusion of contract. This is also proof for how right and customer-friendly our strategy, simplicity wins is. Dear shareholders, let me now come to fiscal year 2019, which is the purpose of this Annual General Meeting, even if this is some time ago, it was a year of records once again. The overall turnover increased by 8% to EUR 142 billion particularly glad. I'm about the fact that in the insurance company in saturated markets, such as Germany, we could again increase significantly that is by 15%, the remaining market, we could only increase by 4%. Also strategic acquisitions such as in the United Kingdom contributed to this plus and assets under management for third parties at EUR 1.686 billion achieved a new all-time high. Thus, we're creating also as far as the operating result is concerned, a new high EUR 11.9 billion. Thanks to our diversification, even a bad result, like industrial insurance AGCS could be compensated in the income statement. This is a record value that you, dear shareholders should be glad about because the result per share climbed by a substantial 8% to EUR 18.9. The net income attributable to shareholders improved by 6% to EUR 7.9 billion, thus we've created the leeway to increase the dividend per share for the seventh consecutive time. Our proposal is EUR 9.60 per share. This is justice to a substantial plus of 7%. The Solvency II capital rate achieved reassuring 212% by year's end. These are 10 percentage points more than towards the end of the third quarter with 2019. Solvency II is the regulatory work for European insurance companies, by the way. Also internally, we're very healthy. The Inclusive Meritocracy Index, shortly IMIX, achieved at 73%, a new record value. This number measures where we are in developing our leadership and performance culture. Motivated employees, as you know, are the foundation of our success. They are the face of Allianz vis-à-vis our clients. In all markets, and in all business segments, we continue to enthuse our clients. We work on that. And important measuring size is the so-called Net Promoter Score. It shows whether customers would recommend our products to our -- to their friends and family. 70% of our business was better than the respective competitors, but we want to achieve 75% or even more, and our competitors are not asleep. Thus, we're trying to get customer feedback even faster and particularly implementing it even faster. But I'm really glad about in more and more of our activities in the Net Promoter Score. In the meantime, we have become the leaders in the market. In 2019, also in other areas, we could do justice to our claim to be better than our competitors. For the very first time, Allianz, in the ranking of agency Interbrand has been the strongest insurance brand in the world. Under the strongest brands in the world overall, we gained 6 places and have moved up to place 43. Thus we're playing in the same ballpark as other large German markets such as Volkswagen or Adidas. The internationally leading rating agencies, such as Standard & Poor's, Moody's and AM Best gave -- awarded Allianz with the best grades, very often better than the ratings of other internationally active insurers. For the third consecutive time, our commitment for sustainability was awarded with the first place of insurers in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices. And we have shown the world that we're serious about climate protection. The limitation of CO2 emissions remains unchanged. One of the biggest challenges of human client despite of COVID-19. Therefore, together with The United Nations and together with other partners, we have found that the net 0 asset owner Allianz. This community of institutional investors, pension funds and insurers have committed themselves by the year 2050 to make their investment portfolio, greenhouse gas free. And as you've learned from the press potentially, this initiative has been -- has met a lot of agreement globally. We're one of the driving forces behind it. This is but one example that shows that we do not only accept change, but we also like to shape change and drive change. And this applies particularly to our core business, that is insurance and asset management. Here -- last year, I introduced simplicity wins last year. Now you're asking yourself whether there are any tangible results that make the success of this strategy comprehensible simpler means more efficient and more client friendly at the same time. This is not a contradiction because we focus on what is really important for our clients. Less important things we try to automatize or we scrap it completely. You also see that in our cost quota in Property & Casualty, it shows which part of EUR 100 insurance premium flows into administration and sales. This quota for the first time -- for the second time -- for a second consecutive time, could be lower to now 27.5% after many years of consecutive increases. This is one example that our strategy bears fruit. This common success in autumn of this year will be honored by one Allianz free share for our employees. We've promised our employees to contribute in our productivity increase, a particularly vivid example of how we're creating change is our new product, [indiscernible] in Germany. In Germany, it has been bought by tens of thousands of clients already. It fulfills lots of criteria that we associate with our new Allianz client model. I introduced this model last year to you. It has 3 components: simple and thus, customer centered; digital; and third, scalable. In the new [indiscernible], 7 insurance groups are united. Instead of 24 rebate variations, we only have 3 now. In only 30 seconds, the client gets a first price information and innovations are regularly introduced into the product. In future, there won't be any old product generations anymore for which own processes and systems had to be kept alive, which made complexity and costs overwhelming. All that gives our clients a clear overview and this harmonization works across countries, borders. The next market launches are planned for Italy and France or are already ongoing. We're getting better in using the advantages of our size systematically. Currently, we benefit a great deal from driving digitalization early on with a lot of pressure. And we realized that the COVID-19 prices works as an accelerator here. Our virtual Annual General Meeting that was made possible at very short notice is just one more example for that. Digital and online very often are the only way now. Alone in the last 2 months, the number of German Allianz agencies that can also consult customers online increased by more than 60%. And these possibilities are used very intensively. The number of so-called virtual meetings in the German sales has tripled. And the interest in trainings via quality consulting with digital sales tools is going through the roof at the moment. We see the crisis, not only as a crisis, thus but also as a chance. Dear shareholders, let me tell you virtually from the Allianz center and headquarters in Munich, Koeniginstrasse, let me tell you, your Allianz will master this crisis. However, a record year, as we've already -- as we still predicted in February for fiscal 2020 -- for 2019, 2020 is not going to be. You've probably heard it in the press already last year, our original target range for the operating result of EUR 12 billion plus/minus EUR 500 million was reduced. This margin by EUR 500 million plus/minus would be a fluctuation of our result by some 4%. And that, whereas the ducts since the outbreak of the crisis has been fluctuating sometimes by 12%. The biggest daily fluctuations that we saw in 2019 in the ducts were only 3%. This framework in such a volatile environment, we cannot keep that would be like landing accurately to the millimeter in the middle of a hurricane. We cannot promise that. However, we're working on keeping the impact of the pandemics overseeable and estimatable, and we will give you the results in due course. Despite the fall in security, our basis remains very solid. We've got a strong balance, stable liquidity and very good solvency. This year, ladies and gentlemen, we're celebrating 130 years of Allianz. In all these years, we've gone through lots of grave crisis, even worse and usually, we've come out stronger. This is also going to be the case once corona has lost its horror because what comes afterwards -- whatever comes afterwards, we're prepared for it with simplicity wins, stay healthy and stay loyal, and thus, I'll give the floor again to Herr Diekmann.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bäte for your reports, which I think showed quite a bit of optimism. Thank you also for this, and the Supervisory Board wishes all the best to you, to your colleagues and the Board of Management, and to all the employees, good health and all the best to tackle the test you have ahead of you. Ladies and gentlemen, I've been informed that in the online service, the button to -- and to your objections has been made available since 10 a.m. Munich time this morning. If you've registered before that, if you entered before that you have to first click on one of the other buttons and go back to the initial menu, then you will see the button with which you can state your objections. The same holds true for your attendance information. That just is a technical remark. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of the public part of the broadcast of our AGM. From now on, only shareholders of Allianz SE, who've locked in for the Internet broadcast with their shareholder number and their password will be able to continue. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]