ASR Nederland N.V. (ASRNL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our Annual General Shareholders Meeting at a.s.r., and I wish you all a very warm welcome. Well, the last 2 years, we had to meet virtually. So this year is a very special year for us, and we're very happy to see you all back here at the offices of a.s.r.. We decided to offer this meeting in a hybrid form as well. We wish to optimize the interaction with all of our shareholders. We believe that it is extremely important to have all shareholders be maximumly involved with a.s.r.. However, the opportunity to participate virtually was not taken up. It was made possible, and there's going to be a webcast as you are accustomed to so that people can follow what is happening. Again, a very warm welcome to all of you here in our office building, and welcome to those listeners at the webcast. Let me now tackle a couple of formalities. On behalf of a.s.r., the following people are attending this meeting. A delegation of the Supervisory Board, consisting of Herman Hintzen, the Vice President in attendance here; Ms. Sonja Barendregt-Roojers, the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee of the Supervisory Board; then Gisella van Vollenhoven, Chair of the Remuneration Committee and I am President to Joop Wijn, Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Furthermore, the full Board of Directors is present. You know your Spartan, obviously, the Chair of the Board; and Ingrid-de Swart, our COO or CTO; and Ewout Hollegien, our CFO. I would also like to welcome representatives of the Works Council seated at the right-hand side in the middle of the audience here. Glad to have you here. We have a couple of members of the senior management represented as well. Moreover, representatives of the media. We're very happy to welcome you as well. On behalf of the auditor, KPMG, we have Mr. Ton Reijns and Peter Smith. Ton Reijns is going to speak under agenda item 3 on financials and dividends. He will give a presentation with respect to the audit and answer your questions. Diane de Groot is acting secretary to this meeting, and we have a notary public, Mr. Paul van der Bijl, a tape recording is made of the entire meeting, by the way, for the purpose of taking the minutes, those minutes or then adopted and signed by Chair and Secretary. Finally, civil law notary, Paul van der Bijl is present, and he, of course, is going to supervise the proper conduct during this meeting, specifically of the voting procedures. He is also present as a proxy for shareholders who have already voted by proxy before the meeting. I would just like to point out that there are agenda items that can be voted on. They are agenda item 2, the remuneration report over 2021. This is an advisory vote. Then agenda item 3, the financial statements. This is an approval, agenda item 4, discharge; 5 extension of authorities of the Executive Board and Agenda item 6, the possibility of cancellation of chairs and agenda item 7, composition of the Supervisory Board because today, we are going to put to the vote a reappointment proposal. For those present in the room, voting will be done by way of a ballot form. You receive that when you came into the meeting, it is connected to your button. If you haven't received such a form, please get one from one of our assistants in the course of the meeting. After all agenda items have been discussed, we would like to ask you to hand in your filled in form to the notary. We're going to take a brief break to then process the votes. I also note that the meeting has been convened in accordance with law and the Articles of Association via an announcement on our website as well as via the publication of a press release. The meeting documents have also been made available via a.s.r. Nederland website. I also note that the meeting can take legally valid decisions. I also note that shareholders have not submitted any proposals for consideration. Then before we continue with the most important topic for today, Spartan's presentation on the state of affairs, I'd like to give you a couple of housekeeping announcements. First of all, I kindly ask you to turn off your cell phones, turn them to silent or off so that there's no interference there. I've already indicated that the meeting can be followed via a webcast in Dutch and English on our website. And you can also view this meeting there later. We have received a couple of questions in advance. We will address those under the appropriate agenda items. And finally, with respect to organizational issues, I would like to inform you that there will be a lunch in the lounge outside of this meeting room. And I would like to ask you, if you have questions as a shareholder, which don't have shareholders character, but if you have questions as a customer or customer-oriented questions, you can indeed ask those questions of one of the assistants hosting here because after the meeting, we can then bring you in contact with the right person because we wish to answer all your customer questions, but that may be in the course of this meeting too much, and we would like to give you the appropriate person to discuss them with after the meeting. I would now like to finalize the first agenda item the opening and move forward to the second one about the annual report 2021. This is [ 2a ] your spartan is going to give a presentation, the annual report is quite a thick book. Your spartan on behalf of the Executive Board is going to discuss the results, the financial ones and others as well as the dividend policy, Jos?

Thank you, Joop. Great to see such a turnout here today. Over the past 2 years, we held digital meetings and that way you talk to your shareholders in a bidimensional way. Now it's -- this is a tridimensional meeting, and it's great to talk to shareholders because usually, you just address the camera, you have no idea who's watching you. So I'll briefly comment on 2021, what happened, and our performance and -- but it might be a good idea to just touch upon the topical matters. The world and particularly Europe is facing a very difficult situation. Nobody would have imagined a year ago that we would ever be faced with a war, so close to home. But we're dealing with that. We see people fleeing from Ukraine to the Netherlands. And we are hard to minds with the victims of the war in Ukraine, and we truly hope that the war will come to an end shortly and that these people will be able to start rebuilding their lives shortly. And as company, this has affected -- this has affected us in several ways. We've got people here who work here, who come from Ukraine, also people who have the Russian nationality work here, hasn't led to any attention. There have been many, many initiatives across the company to see what we can do to help out there. And that can vary from offering insurance coverage in that area because people want to bring relief goods to Ukraine ordinarily, you can't get insurance for that. And also offering financial relief. When we see that the financial markets as a consequence, have become very volatile, if we look at share prices and fluctuations, I mean, one day, they will increase 3%, 4%, and the next day, they will drop just as much. And that has an impact on our financial institution, obviously. And so far, if I can summarize this very briefly, we see that we are a well-diversified company and rather resistant to all these fluctuations. And we keep a close eye on it from day to day. It doesn't lead to any great concerns anything our CFO would lose sleep on. But we do see that this is his first time attending an AGM, and that may worry him, but he is not worried because of financial markets. And this brings me to a question that was just asked. There was someone here who said -- you used to have a great team with Mr. [indiscernible] and what about the team now. And I said, ask that question at the AGM and then the shareholders [ have not ] asked that question, but I'm going to solve that in a different way. I'm going to tell you, when our previous CFO decided to move to a different company, I'm really so pleased that we were able to nominate someone from the company to the AGM and to appoint Ewout as CFO. Ingrid and myself have been running the company -- the company, just the 2 of us were the previous CFO. And I can assure you, this is a team that is really great. It's great to work and the team. We're extremely serious. But we laugh a lot, and we're very serious. I think 55% were very serious and 45%, we just have a great time. And that is expressed by getting together at our homes, we take turns and then someone is in charge of preparing the meal, cooking the meal and then we try to find out who's the best cook. So that's about the dynamics in the team after 2021. And looking back on that, and we have a slide for that. Do I have to operate that? Or well, there we go. I just said a few words about financial markets and the Ukraine. And it seems that the topic that is -- that we've been facing over the past 2 years as a society is more or less faded away. You hear very little about a number of infections of COVID-19, sometimes the numbers go up and down a bit. But this is something we've been very much involved with over the past 2 years. And just zoom in on the impact that it has had on us. First of all, our customers when all this started in 2020, we were very worried, what would happen? Are people going to rescind their insurances. And from the very beginning, from the word go, we try to really support people, for instance, by expanding the coverage that we offer people restaurants, for instance, that started to offer takeaway but also payment arrangements because people could no longer afford to pay for their mortgages. And if I look back on that and the way customers evaluate it and assess that, I see that during the COVID crisis, our customer engagement has increased, and we're very, very pleased with that. Our colleagues who deal with our customers on a day-to-day basis, have been able to pull that off. And that brings us to our employees. All of a sudden, we changed from a great building, working a great building and great teams. All of a sudden, people stuck at home had to homeschool their children. So we looked at well-being for our employees. We still measure that on a weekly basis. People get an e-mail with 3 questions in order to give us an idea of how our people are doing. Over the past 2 years, we've seen that their will being is stable, 7.5% on a scale of 10, and that has really helped us. And we were used to working from home a.s.r. employees could already work from home. So that has really helped us, and [ that sort ] of situation. Third component, perhaps important to highlight. What has the impact been on our financials? We were quite worried about that because as a financial institution, if something like that happens, you start developing scenarios where an insurance companies and insurance companies always more or less start to think about doom and gloom, things can go terribly wrong. And all those -- if you look at those scenarios, I mean, there was every reason to believe that things would go terribly wrong. And the first year, 2020, things were not as bad as you could expect. And 2022 -- 2021, 2022, you saw that our performance -- our financial performance overall, I'll be zooming in on parts of that was even slightly positive, and that was [indiscernible] because there was less traffic, less traffic accidents and injuries, and that is a great portion of claims. So we're looking back on this period of time, I really hope it won't come back, not as virality as we've seen it, we really see that our employees have done a great job. And also financially speaking, the COVID crisis has not affected our company in such a way as to really worry us. Now with that, I'd like to proceed to the next slide and just -- and share a few words about strategy. In 2008, we were nationalized. And since that point, we really use the time to develop our strategy to learn from the financial crisis and to really establish what the [ resonates ] of an insurance company. And since then, it became very clear to us that we want to be a stakeholder customer. Our shareholders are incredibly important, being 1 of the 4 important stakeholders that we have as a company. Now the big challenge we face is to balance things to do good things for our customers, our employees because they decide whether or not we can be successful and to do a good job for our shareholders because you want to engage with your investors because they provide us with capital. But at the same time, we want to be a company that society considers to be a useful company a company society is really happy to have. So that is at the heart of our strategy. Internally, we have a number of targets. Now we want to be the best financial services provider for our customers, and we want to be the preferred employer for our employees, for our shareholders, we want to be a reliable share with a predictable dividend flow so that they can count on the returns on their investments and comment of mike from the audience. There's a comment from the room, the interpreters which I can't hear -- that's fine that someone here is looking at his screen while I'm giving the presentation, says the CEO. But as I said, for society as a whole, we want to be considered to be a useful company. Now over the past 10 years or actually since 2007, but it's become more visible over the past 10 years. We're really focused on sustainability. We really believe that if we want to make sure that we can continue to live on this planet, you need to deploy all financial instruments that you have to contribute to that in a positive way in order to offset any negative impact we have. In the meantime, a.s.r. has been included in a large number of national and international ratings in terms of sustainability and to be quite honest, we are quite proud. If you look at the 8 most important ratings in the world on all 8 ratings, we have ended up in a wonderful position, sometimes the top 3, sometimes top 5. And that means that nationally and internationally, there is an increasing acknowledgment that this is important -- an important topic to a.s.r. and that we are making headway. So we will continue to work on this topic over the next few years, and we'll continue to invest in this. Recently, this was confirmed in a topic that fortunately is getting more and more attention, biodiversity. There's been a report in the Netherlands about what financial institutions are doing in terms of diversity, and we scored 10 points. Next slide, a.s.r. is a brand that is becoming increasingly known in the Netherlands. And those people who watch TV very old-fashioned or listen to the radio, they may see commercials. But even on social media, you see more and more of a.s.r.. Let me just briefly highlight the rationale behind this. On the one hand, we are a company that consists of a large -- always is a result of a large number of mergers. We have many, many brands, Ditzo, Ardanta, [ Royals ], a.s.r.s our main brand. And for some of these brands, we have decided and we also had the [ Amesara ], but we decided to migrate towards one single brand also because that is better internally and it's a better way to spend your marketing money. And so we've integrated a lot of these brands. And organizationally, is also important, we will also do that for Ditzo and Ardanta. So that means that you will see more of these brands as being part of one bigger brand. The philosophy behind us, and you'll see this expressed in our commercials is that we always keep an eye on what is going on in society. Sometimes we see an issue. And we think, okay, in that issue, there's something we can do there, we analyze the issue at hand and then we see whether we can offer a solution, [ presence ]. With respect to sustainability. We see that for the people in the Netherlands, it's sometimes very difficult to invest in the sustainability of your home. We see this as a problem. And then we say, okay, we're going to see whether in our mortgage sector, we can do something, find a solution so that people can borrow extra money in order to make their homes more sustainable. This is a philosophy that is behind our campaigns, that we run and something we will increasingly do. I see that the clock is running. And so I will proceed very quickly to the next slide. These are the financials for the past year, particularly 2021, 2021 for us, in a recent history, financially speaking, was the best year ever and operating income in excess of EUR 1 billion and at the same time, solvency that is very stable, remained very high, a combined ratio that remained at a good level, very good level and our nonfinancial targets with respect to customers, the investments that we make in -- or that we committed to in terms of sustainability, but also measuring our carbon footprint, we actually achieved all our footprints with the exception of one. We also had a target that said that our employees would be able to put a lot of time and energy in helping society, which was not possible over the past 2 years because we're all stuck at home -- because of COVID. Let's proceed very quickly and look at the performance in our non-life business. And I highlighted it just now that we, at the end of the day, had an excellent year, EUR 84 million higher performance than the previous year in non-life despite the fact that in Limburg, we had major flood problems and we paid out about EUR 20 million to our customers as a consequence of those floods. And internally, we always say this is precisely the reason why we are in the insurance business. So it's not that bad. I mean, it's bad for the people, but we're not bothered by the fact that we have to pay out because that really is the reason why we exist. And then if we look at the growth of nonlife business. This is not something that grows very fast in the market. Every year, we grew a couple of percentage points. We saw this last year. Our target was 3% and 5%, and we achieved that. Let me briefly take a look at the Life business with you, very important also with respect to operating income. And here, operating income increased with EUR 33 million. And despite the fact that we have a shrinking portfolio, we saw that the margin on our investments has increased, the returns have increased. [ So ] if your portfolio shrinks a bit, you don't have to keep as much capital for your life portfolio and the interest that you have to reserve in order to pay to your customers will always decline. And we were able to improve the performance of our portfolio. So the amount you had to reserve for interest and the difference between what you reserve and what you had to pay out that difference became larger. And therefore, the result in Life business despite the shrink improved. We saw good growth. Our pension DC position did very well and a run up to a new pension system is good to see that we have a good positioning here and the impact of COVID in the life business was rather limited this past year. Wherever we saw a financial impact, it was due to the fact that in a number of areas in our company, the rents were lowered in our property business because we wanted to help entrepreneurs and in some companies that we invested, those companies did not pay out dividend. So those were the reasons. But all in all, we're very happy with the [indiscernible] business, overall operations, asset management and distribution services -- and here, we also see excellent growth. The target was 5%, and we grew significantly more and faster. In 2015, these 2 businesses didn't explicitly contribute to our operating income. Last year, they added EUR 64 million to operating income. So here, every reason to be satisfied. And then we'll take a look at a topic that is quite relevant to you. Dividend this past year has been established based on a dividend policy that we pursued up to 31st December 2021, which was a dividend payout of between 45% and 55% of the net operational income after deduction of our hybrid charges, the rent, the interest that we have to pay on outstanding loans. And so we had a substantial increase of operating income. So that means that dividend also increased by almost 18%, almost 19%, and we will be suggesting a EUR 2.42 dividend to you. A part has already been paid and I'm happy with that because I'm also a shareholder of EUR 1.60. It's an excellent dividend. And we've also said that part of the capital will be used to pay back to shareholders. We also announced a share buyback of EUR 75 million in the first quarter. This morning a press release was issued in which we confirmed that we have concluded the share buyback, EUR 75 million has been bought back. So later on, you will be able to cast your votes on this item. Let's proceed quickly. In December, we gave a presentation to all our shareholders, in which we discussed the target of a new period of time, 20 -- up to 2024 -- up to 2022 to 2024. I'm not going to go through all this should you have any questions, you can raise them. Just good to highlight one thing. We just talked about dividend. In the meantime, we have decided in view of the introduction of IFRS 17 and therefore, it will be uncertain what the definition of the IFRS results will be, all this is moving as we speak. So in theory, there could be uncertainty in terms of what the dividend basis would be. So we said, let's make sure that there's no uncertainty and let us take as a promise, the dividend that we pay out in 2021. And by way of new dividend policy, let's be progressive. And let's say that it is our goal to make sure that dividend increases by 2% to 3% on an annual basis. And you must keep in mind that we're doing that from quite a high reference because last year it was a very good year in terms of dividend. Over and above that, we said that we intend to buy back EUR 100 million in shares. And some people sometimes say, I would prefer that you would invest it in acquisitions or takeovers. We would prefer to do that, to be quite honest, we did formulate this with the condition that if we see opportunities to grow inorganically, we would prefer to spend our capital on this inorganic growth and rather than using the money for share buybacks. So we're going to do the share buyback under the condition that we don't see wonderful opportunities that would, in the long term, be important for the company strategically. And then we also have a number of nonfinancial targets that we disclosed on December last year. We are really going to focus on our customers feel about us, it's important that our brand be recognized and that will be appreciated. That's our focus. Because at the end of the day, it's the employees that make the difference. And also customer experience is very important. That is also a target. We want to be very open about how our employees see the company in the context of sustainability we said we want to reduce the CO2 footprint of our entire investment portfolio. We'll talk about the entire investment portfolio and not part of it. So this vis-a-vis 2030 starting from 2015. So reduce CO2 footprint with 65%. And this applies to all our mortgages, all our property offices, residential property and investments. And finally, we said the impact investments that we've got on the balance sheet are going to be extended to EUR 4.5 billion. So as far as I'm concerned, this is the last slide. So we look back on 2021 and are quite pleased with what we achieved what we have achieved for our employees, for customers, for society at large. We have a strong balance sheet. And I think we're offering a wonderful dividend here at this meeting and also for the future, we are -- we really have a positive outlook. And I think we've expressed this in ambitious targets. Thank you.

Jos, thank you for this presentation. Thank you for these explanations. We now open the floor for your questions. Last year, we saw a nice video, but now it's live, and this means that we can be more interactive. There are 2 microphones in the room. If you wish to ask a question, please proceed to one of them. I would like to ask you, first, to state your name clearly and also if you represent an organization, please mention that name as well so that we can minute it all accordingly. If you're okay with this structure, please stick to 3 questions each time it's your turn. If you have further questions, just come back in the second round because that will give everyone the opportunity to ask questions. Please keep your introductory words as brief as possible. It's not a problem for us, but it is a good for everyone who wishes to take the floor. We have #1, 2 and 3. And from then onwards, I'll check who comes first.

Well, thank you, Chair. I'm [ Gillian Ayar ]. I represent PGGM and a number of other participants, amongst others, [ ABHBG ]. I have questions about climate, diversity and inclusion. The climate-related goals for 2022 to '24, we just saw them on the screen, a reduction in emissions of 65% in 2030 compared to 2016 of the internally managed assets, which part of the total emissions of a.s.r. does this cover? And does a.s.r. contemplate to have its goals be checked by SBTI science-based institution? In diversity, a.s.r. writes that each year, you take a measurement of the progress of your organization to check whether the working surroundings are safe and secure for your employees. What is the state of affairs, specifically with respect to employees of underrepresented groups and which measures as a.s.r. taken after recent scandals with respect to sexual harassment and other instances?

Well, thank you very much, Mr. [ Ayar ]. I remember you from last year's meeting, too, on behalf of PGGM. Let me ask Ewout to tackle your first question.

Well, thank you, if I've understood well, which part of the investment portfolio is with respect to the CO2 reduction that we've communicated. We communicated our goal, 65% of our assets under management in baseline 2015. All assets on our balance are going to be declared in scope. This is more than just the share portfolio, the credit portfolio. We're going to look at our real estate and our mortgages as well. This means that we are going to include all assets under management on our balance sheet in the scope.

Second question, are you thinking of following up and including SBTI?

We are quite a forerunner in our reduction of CO2 emissions. We wish to make that measurable. And objective SBTI is one of the developments to achieve that, and we are talking with them what this would actually mean if we were to take that on board. We have an intention to make it measurable and validatable and that is certainly one of the aspects we're taking into account.

May I follow up on the first part? I don't have the feeling that I've received an answer to my question. I'll reword it. The emissions 1, 2 and 3, which part in which in Scope 3, obviously, fall under your emission goal?

Indeed, you're correct here. This is Scope 3 emissions. We have the PFAS [ scope ] of standard as a goal here, where all companies we invest into, we are measuring Scope 1 and 2. Our Scope 3 measures, though, are in the scope of our goal of 65% reduction.

Question, you don't have an indication which part of all emissions that is that you now wish to reduce?

If I understand your question correctly, we're looking at the ambition we have. We then measure the Scope 1 and 2 emissions of our investment portfolio. That's where we have a 65% reduction ambition. We're looking into Scope 3 measurements, but it's not yet possible to measure those emissions. For example, for our mortgage portfolio, it's difficult to do so. We're now concentrating on the Scope 1 and 2 goals.

Your second question about D&I, we measure that in the Denison scan in March of this year. We saw an improvement, a couple of aspects it scored quite well. What we do believe is improvable is that we need to give everyone the feeling that they have the same opportunities for promotion. This is not yet at the level that we wish to achieve, but there is some progress. I believe that's the first step. If you look at the composition of the population at a.s.r., then looking back historically, we can indeed register whether someone is a female or male gender, but other features, characteristics or background aspects cannot be registered. We've also used the opportunity of anonymized data, which gives us an insight into the composition of our staff. In all employed staff, we have 23% of non-western background in the whole of the Netherlands in a.s.r., we've grown from 15%, 16% to 18% in comparison. This is a slow growth, but we do see that we are developing in the right direction. We always say we wish to mirror the society. We believe that we're moving in the right direction. Our staff is becoming a mirror of our customer as well, and that is exactly what we wish to achieve without achieving the absolute correct parallel numbers. Then with respect to harassment, mobbing, discrimination and other forms of undesirable behavior, there's a scale that we describe in our policy document on our website. This is not a topic that has gained more attention at a.s.r. because of various incidents because we've been very aware of it already. We believe, though, that based on societal developments, we need to improve all data that we can bring together based on our various services, our various organizational measures, the works council, et cetera. We believe that we need to collect all of that. And from [ definable ] data, we believe that sexual harassment or other transgressive behavior has not reached a problematic level. We also believe that we need to enable people to notify the relevant contact persons of such behavior, we also are looking into training, and workshops in enabling our staff to address these kinds of behavior as a bi-standard. Those measures have been taken. I believe it is important that we need to also lay it down in our policy that this transgressive behavior is not tolerated at all.

Thank you for the questions, Mrs. [ Hotland ].

[ Esther Hotland. ] I represent shareholders for sustainable development -- thank you and complements for the maximum score that you indeed publish in your -- on your website. My question, which actions does a.s.r. take to follow up on its obligations for sustainability. Second question, biodiversity. The sustainability of your company assets. How are you going to measure the impact of various initiatives? Are you going to use the index that a.s.r. is developing at this point in time together with other parties? And then climate adaptation during the last shareholders' meeting, you promised to more transparently report on the risks of climate change. We indeed appreciate your explanations in the annual report, but have the extreme weather conditions such as the floods in Limburg led to new actions?

Thank you very much for your very clear questions. Ewout, please tackle the first one.

I hope I can recollect that. The first question, which actions does a.s.r. take to define their actions with respect to biodiversity. It sounds simple. Indeed, the answer is going to be more complex says the chair. On 7th December, we've indicated that we're going to do more with respect to addressing the impact, EUR 4.5 million of our investments are going to be in the area of impact investments. We're looking at various sustainability, climate -- topics, climate change, biodiversity, et cetera. And we have to distribute and allocate. The reason is we wish to not take wrong decisions if -- under pressure, we do have the ambition with our impact investments to indeed cover all sustainability topics. That's how we look at it. We have a strong ambition. Biodiversity is one of the important areas. We have no specific goals there, but we do deliberate whether we cover all topics sufficiently.

Jos, maybe you can talk about [ TFND ] and how we look at that?

We follow the [ TFND ] developments with respect to biodiversity closely. And we look into whether we can implement [ TFND ], and we see, at the same time, a lot of new metrics in the market that help reporting on sustainability.

Are there possibilities to bring metrics together so that we can indeed comply with various standards?

We embrace the initiative, but we are analyzing whether we can bring that together with other initiatives that help reporting on sustainability and biodiversity specifically.

And do we use the [ OBI ], the open ground index, which is used for agricultural companies?

This indeed is a metric to monitor the health of the agricultural areas. These are numbers that we look into that we see as leading for improvement measures. What we see is that we try to support this by giving a discount to those farmers who improve their agricultural land and contribute to its health. We give a discount in that respect so that we can support improvements in this index, and we can help support these improvements. That's how we deal with the [ OBI ] index.

The last one, climate adaptation from the risk profile as an insurer. We've included various scenarios in our annual report. We're also members of a union of various other players, the University of Wageningen and the Climate Institute, KNMI in the Netherlands, the analysis and studies show where the endangered areas in the Netherlands are if there are hail and strong rainfalls, then we understand where that is, draft, et cetera, and risks are illustrated in such a way. How do you deal with all of that as an insurance company, you wish to offer people payable premiums to ensure themselves, but you also wish to minimize risks of one storm actually decreasing your baseline. Now we have given and offered cover in 2021 in the south of Limburg, which amounted to about EUR 20 million. Those were floods of secondary waterways. They are covered in a.s.r. policies. But if the sea were to inundate the country that isn't -- is a risk that one insurer cannot carry. As insurance companies were together talking at the table about such risks about tackling them together, and these are risks that we review on a yearly basis. We then establish which risks can we actually bear and which do we need to bear jointly. For example, solar panels on roofs, which have to be insured, various heating installations have now become insurable as well. These are risks that we review regularly where we cannot bear the burden, then we are in consultation with other Dutch players.

Back to TFMD. There are various initiatives in the biodiversity area. But if you then create overarching metrics, that will lead to a next and new initiative before overarching metrics are available, waiting, I don't think that's the right way forward.

I don't think that we're in a position of a waiting party. Now if TFND and TCFD were to come together, then you create new metrics, but you leave 2 behind. That's where we actually would like to move forward to. Our idea is not that we wish to wait until all of this is solved. We do try to take initiative to move it in that direction as Ewout already said. We do believe that we need to move towards TFND. I'm not sure whether the audience knows what TFND is, taskforce nature-related financial disclosures. That's the abbreviation.

Well, we'll take that up. And I see in your expression that you're quite happy with the answers. You said you got up earlier, but Mr. Stephens rose his hand earlier. And this time, it's [ Mr. Stephens ]. I give the floor to.

Thank you, Chair. My name is [ Dave Evans ], I'm from the Federation of Legal Protection of shareholders. I would like to discuss the results you achieved. I have a couple of financial questions there. First, the footprint. Shall I do the financial ones first?

Whatever you wish says the chair. You have 3 questions in the first round.

Now as we were talking about the footprint earlier on, our foundation has a different approach. I still have a farmer's heart. And I go for walks with my daughter-in-law, and during those walks, we have discussions. And my daughter-in-law says, when I was at school acid rain was an issue, and I haven't heard about acid rain since nobody talks about it anymore. And it's not such a problem for me because I believe nature will recover on its own force. But now we understand that with respect to forests, we're learning day by day. Now -- about farmers. I've understood that the farmers don't want to go into consultation with the government anymore. Only in some provinces, is there still a dialogue with the local government. I want to hear from a.s.r. how you see this locked situation. Then with respect to the climate and climate incidents such as storm, do you reinsure those risks? And can you not join those 2 storms and their effects in that reinsurance. I recall from the past that this happened once already. Then you've bought 32 of 82 windmills? Are you responsible for maintenance? And do you continue to purchase the electricity or who purchases the electricity? And then what's the business case of those windmills for a.s.r.. That's not very clear to us. Those were our 3 questions.

Okay. I had to qualify them as 3, I'll allow that for you. I'm good in math, but I'm bad in counting. Okay. Well, the sharpness of your questions was sufficient. I would like to now hand it over to Jos.

Well, let me start with your last question with respect to the windmills and the business case. Ewout, you’re the one who supervises our business cases, right?

Yes, indeed. And that's something that we really seriously look into. I have to get back to the first group of questions we had, and we're very happy to contribute to energy transition. So with the asset management portfolio we have, we also have an opportunity to play a good role here. That's the reason why we made those investments. The second reason is the financials. If we look at revenue models, the 32 windmills are quite high, they generate energy and there is a contract at the base of that. We supply that energy to an energy company who actually purchases that from us. And the money we receive it leads to a certain revenue. This revenue is attractive enough to make this investment. That is the business model. You invest, you generate climate-friendly energy, that energy is supplied to an energy company. You get money for that, and that gives us a good revenue. And we're doing good by the world.

Okay. Now your question about reinsurance and the storms. We had 3 storms, actually in a very brief period of time. And we have a reinsurance contract that pertains to all storms within a certain amount of hours that fall under the coverage. And this amount of hours is 72. In this case, that wasn't the case. Our contract is such that we can choose which of the storms fall under the 72 hours and which not. We decided to notify the reinsurer of the 2 largest ones. This is a contract that we have an own sum of EUR 35 million, we have to cough up ourselves. And that other follow-up damages are at the cost of the reinsurer -- between the EUR 40 million and EUR 60 million is the now estimated damage of all 3 storms, we expect that a maximum of EUR 40 million has to go on our own account. The total cost will be EUR 60 million and the EUR 20 million that remains will be reinsured. I'm sure you could follow those maths, Mr. Stevens.

I remember [ Mr. Stephenson ] that we did something comparable with 2 storms in the past. So the reinsurance covered that?

That is correct. This method has been around for a while. The exposure on your own balance sheet is something that you have to look into and what you wish to ensure. And you know that storms are always unexpected. I think no one is able to predict them. I actually grew up in an agricultural surrounding. And my dad always said farmers always complain when the sun shines too much, they complain when it rains too much they complain. It's not easy. But having said that, we have a good relationship to the organizations of various farmers as well as to the farmers who lease agricultural land. We own huge parts of land and a huge part of that is leased to our farmers. That means that they are our customers, and we try to have a good relationship with them as well. And we developed the OBI, the open ground index, and we give farmers a discount to help them to finance the sustainability of their own farm. If there is a collective financial incentive, then farmers really wish to join the table. And we were able to make this possible for our, let's say, 150 farmers. We know and understand that there are irritations in the farmers' community, but I believe we can say that we are only in constructive talks with them.

Okay. Next question.

I'm [ Jan Klein Brause ]. I'm a private shareholder. I have a question about capital allocation. Mr. Baeten, you just explained that you wish to follow a progressive dividend policy and a buyback program of EUR 100 million per year. Do you look at the share price with respect to the intrinsic value to actually prevent buybacks at higher rates? And with respect to the share price halving and the intrinsic value remaining the same, will you then decide to pay out less dividend and to buy back more shares?

Chair the market value and the intrinsic value by comparing those. This is, of course, the question in the new IFRS system. Ewout?

Indeed, we analyze the situation. Our dividend policy has been published and announced. We look at long-term value creation in that respect. What we believe is extremely important as by -- in our buyback program that we do not develop a vision on our share price development that is not a sensible way of proceeding. What we say is that we have a good capital position. We wish to use that to invest into the growth of our company. In the past, we've shown that we can do to our best for shareholders in that way as well. As soon as capital allows, we also see a reason to use part of that capital for a buyback scheme. And we actually look into whether this is attractive for shareholders as well. At the same time, we don't wish to support that with a vision on our share price development. That's something that you shouldn't do and you shouldn't wish to do as a company. Your question then just imagine the market acts crazy. We just had the Corona experience where, intrinsically, the value of the company was not dented, but the stock market went wild. At that point in time, it's not really sensible as a company to speculate on whether the interesting value is justified in the share price, then you will actually stick to the dividend policy as you announced it and you don't emphasize the buyback program.

Now our CFO hasn't been in his post for very long, but you understand now that he covers all topics.

My name is [ Kena ]. I speak on behalf of the Shareholder Association VEB. I'm not going to make a long introduction, but I would like to tackle your business model, cost structure; secondly, the strength of your principles. Now the business model. Recently, your big brother NN made clear that they are going to sell their asset management part because they maintain that they are too small to continue that. But their asset management portfolio is 5x larger than yours. You decided to keep it in your own hands. My concrete question is, how are you going to compete in your cost structure with the large players, BlackRock, et cetera. Specifically, those ETF guys who with large volumes, and low-cost structures can offer good products to customers, whether they are companies or individuals how can you remain a relevant player and continue to be one and even earn money for your shareholders while maintaining your asset management? Then we -- I'm a fan of brand new day in comparable parties. These modern parties based their offer on the basis of ETFs, cheap investment funds that support them. I expect that that's going to be your principle to use cheap investment funds, ETFs as a basis for these products. If your answer is yes. How are you going to keep enough money over to make this a revenue model for your shareholders. This has to do with the business models and your principles. We can talk long and hard about this. And how far are we prepared to have sustainability remain more important than long-term revenue. In many cases, these things go in parallel. In the long term, your risks mitigate, maybe you can use more opportunities are more assets possible than more revenue. But in other situations, this will not be possible. It will hurt -- it will hurt for yourselves, for your customers and for your shareholders. And how far if such situations occur, long-term revenue. That's what I'm talking about, not short-term, if they go at the cost of your principles and how far are you prepared to communicate that to your customers and your shareholders. I can mention 2 practical examples. How are you going to deal with it that you don't pay too much for the so-called green investments, many are trying to buy up those because greenwashing is attractive. Prices will only increase if you buy those assets, it can happen, that the revenue is quite high. But the other way around is possible too. I'll give you a private example, and that's last one, and that will give you an impression why I am asking this question. I've been investing since 35 years. And the first thing I decided was I'm not going to invest into weapons and you don't do that either. You say you do not invest in weapon manufacturers in nuclear energy. But I changed a couple of months ago because I awoke from my naive standards, is it correct that your principles are going to be set in stone? Or are you going to reevaluate because weapons aren't only a means of aggression, but also can keep a society safe. Then nuclear energy is another topic. It's a red flag for certain people. It is also part of the solution for the climate crisis. Those were my points.

Well, my goodness, these questions are extremely serious. Please do not think that our laughter pertains to them. This pertains to the creativity of your questions and your wording. These are very serious points that are, by the way, discussed in the Supervisory Board repeatedly. We'll start with your big question about our competitors. It's not our big brother. It's our competitor, the NN Group, Ewout. We have a very clear vision on this. Please explain.

Indeed, we have a very clear vision. And it's an interesting question to answer. It's very justifiably asked. I can understand that shareholders are concerned. I think the most important part is the following. We see our investment as an important part of our operational and steering measures and investment measures for the policyholders and the shareholders. And this is part and parcel of a balanced approach. And we have our investment manager right next to you. He can explain to you how he does that. On top of this, we have colleagues that are in the financial markets and follow it closely 24/7, know exactly what is happening. If anything occurs, interest movements, et cetera, then we have very short reaction periods. These colleagues know our -- the financial markets. We shouldn't underestimate their expertise. Now this is the operational and internal side of how we set up our asset management. And the third point is we do not compete with the back rocks of this world. This is a very conscious choice. So with respect to funds, we don't try to do everything ourselves. We actually take up niche instruments. If we look at the funds that we manage for third parties, we are in those areas where we are established as a company in the Netherlands, Dutch Mortgages, Dutch Real Estate. That's where we have our experience and expertise of over 100 years. That is where we can play a very prominent role and also [indiscernible] Dutch institutional investors to us. The result growth for our company is an ambitious goal. We wish to grow as with our asset management as part of our fee-based business, Dutch Real Estate, Dutch mortgages, that's where our growth potential lies. And to finish up, we benchmark whether we're efficient. We've done that only recently, and we are very efficient. We can actually compete with the large parties because we focus so much.

I'm a man of numbers. Can you give us a number, an indication where are the large competitors for cost structures, Ewout?

The base point isn't something I'm informed of now, but we're online with assets under management. We're online with the large competitors. This is the story that we tell. This is important for us. It's part of our operational procedures. We focus on specific categories where we have expertise where we can be efficient where we have a proven track record, and that's what we do. In this way, the operational result of a.s.r. can only grow.

So the pension question, Ingrid.

Yes. Zooming in on what Ewout more or less said in terms of his answer. But it's important for the rest of the room. We have always been successful in DC. We were a shareholder in Brand New Day. And since more than a year, we are a full shareholder of Brand New Day. And the Brand New Day [indiscernible] went back to the founders. And we changed that into June pension since the 1st of April of this year. And we are very successful because at DC, we're growing a lot of -- but particularly brand-new day June pension is attracting a different kind of companies. So to do zooming on the details Brand New Day is the only one in the Netherlands that has a very successful digital proposition and can engage with very young companies, which is rather unique because they don't really turn to a consultant or an adviser, but when they start growing, and obviously, there's an enormous labor shortage in the Netherlands, and companies want to recruit talent, particularly with benefits, including pensions. And that means that Brand New Day is operating in -- among these tech businesses really contact them and it's -- and it's important that we have them now as part of a.s.r. and they're really succeeding engaging with young companies and benefiting from their growth. And DC, which goes through our advisers, we have a very healthy growth in both proposition, low costs are a qualifying item, but we can stand out not only with our digital propositions, but particularly the way in which we look at our assets and I'd like to highlight sustainability here because that is becoming increasingly important for SMEs and young companies. And as I just pointed out, we're absolutely convinced that we can be competitive in bespoke products, and we're adding with sustainability, a.s.r. sustainability to our proposition. And that appears to be a very successful combination.

I see that you're nodding. So I feel free to move to question 2. A or B or C. I don't know which one it was, but the question about the dilemmas that you were outlining. And actually, from the very beginning of the sustainability debate and also the war between Russia and Ukraine, this is a topic that is in fact on the table. And with respect to weapons, we have given our position more clearly internally. We've excluded weapons, and we will continue to exclude weapons. Weapons not only has an impact on protecting -- it's not only about protecting safety. But just look at what happened in the U.S. yesterday because they have a different policy in terms of weapons. And given the way we positioned ourselves in society, I think this really fits this decision and quite apart from the whole debate roles in society. But so far, our decision is not to invest in weapons. Shall I go on with the nuclear energy? Do you want to comment on weapons, [ Mr. Kayner ]?

Up to 3 months ago, I was -- I agreed with you. I'm not really talking about handguns, but I'm talking about combat helicopters. Don't you think? I mean it's not really that much of criticism. But a.s.r., we have moral principles, et cetera, but we are allowing other people to do dirty work. Isn't this a type of morale that has a sort of strange edge.

What I do really see this as criticism, it's more of a dilemma. And one of our colleagues is an ethical specialist and we always allow him to lead sessions about these topics so that we can look at the topic from several perspectives. And this is an issue that doesn't really have an ultimate truth. You have to consider matters and we don't consider the matter simply because we feel that we're on the high moral ground, we aren't. But I think we should look at things from all perspectives, and this is how we came to this decision. But to give you more of a background on this decision, Ingo just talked about our positioning vis-a-vis customers. We have been dealing with this matter since 2007. And this matter was triggered by me personally as a consequence of a conversation I had with a large NGO, WellChild, let me specify. And they asked us how we felt about these issues, WellChild, weapons, child labor, et cetera. And that really started the whole debate. And as I said, I'll repeat myself, the [ web users ] works the way we see the world and it is a dilemma and I do understand if everybody would do that, we would perhaps be facing a larger problem in the short term. But that as far as that's concerned. Nuclear energy. Well, you mentioned it yourself, [ Eralnaive ]. I don't think it's naive, but it was on the basis of the knowledge you had at the time. Our position was that we didn't want to invest in it either. All large Dutch investors, as we now know, now having a debate on how to deal with nuclear energy in the long term. We are a long-term institution, and we're looking at the developments in the longer term. This is something we can justify for ourselves in the longer term. On the positive side, if you look at how clean nuclear energy is, if you look at that, you should start investing in that today or perhaps you should have done that yesterday. If you look at certainty in terms of security, what are we going to do with the waste generated in the production process of nuclear energy. The dilemma then is, are you going to pass this on to future generations or generations after that. We are smack in the middle of the debate. If you weigh up both things the other interest, the price of energy that we have to cough up. Let me formulate this very carefully. I cannot rule out that over the next few months, we may take a more nuanced position in the matter. Weapons, well, we've dealt with that. We've decided on that. You call it principles. I think it's a good thing to have principles. But sometimes you have to be prepared to discuss and reconsider your principles, but they have to be very compelling reasons for that. So that's how we're dealing with that right now.

Thank you -- if the next people would like to ask -- raise questions they could just signal me, then I know who's coming up. Please go ahead. Yes.

Over the past 2 years, we had to submit questions in writing. And I'd like to come back to something that was discussed earlier on the NPS. You're proud that it's 49, which is 5 points over and above your 45 target. And last year, I asked how can I relate that to what similar insurance companies are doing? The answer at the time was that you didn't feel that was interesting and you only wanted to look at your -- the development of your own score. I do think it would be interesting to see what National and [indiscernible] other insurance companies do in terms of NPS. So if you disclose that in your -- if you disclose that in your annual report, I would assume that some other insurance companies would do the same. Of course, I can look for that and then I have to check and see whether they use the same definition and so on and so forth. So there are all sorts of tricky things here, but 2 things, could you perhaps disclose more than last year, how your NPS score relates to those of your competitors? And second, don't you think your target should be increased to 50%. Otherwise, it wouldn't be ambitious anymore, the 44. Another point, EUR 4.5 billion in impact investments that you announced some time ago. And you mentioned 2 categories here impact investment. First and foremost, the 2 wind turbine farms and the solar energy farm and I'm quoting what I read in English in your annual report, affordable houses, sustainable mortgages and green bonds. Green bonds doesn't seem very clever to me since we're facing interest rate increases and sustainable mortgages. I don't know about that and affordable housing. Well, that's a very broad concept. So that would also require further explanation in terms of what you intend to do that. And more in general, how far have you proceeded in realizing the EUR 4.5 billion? And what is the breakdown more or less? Is it 100% only the energy, the wind farms and solar energy parks or are the other 3 things also growing? And what about these targets, in general, should they be increased? Are you successful? Or are there obstacles? And do you still have to carry out a lot of work to achieve the EUR 4.5 billion. You're not really saying very much. So I'd like to know how well you're doing. And the last point I'd like to comment on is your insurance intermediary people of my age, remember, and he was at the corner of the street. He was on his own, and he knew about car insurance and home insurance and things like that. That man no longer exist. I remember my parents talking to the intermediary. And I still remember what he looked like. And you can't find them anymore. We still have the insurances, but what happened to the intermediaries. I think 20, 30 people work for the intermediaries nowadays. And the intermediaries are located, 34 kilometers down the road, and we have no connection with the intermediaries whatsoever. And then we have this trend that we want to do things online all the time. So what, in your view, is the position of the intermediary. It doesn't work as it was intended to work in the past. Don't you think that you should set up your own intermediaries at a.s.r. and set up a call center or something like that. I think we only have these intermediaries because traditionally, this is what we had.

Thank you, with all due respect, this was 1 ABC, 2 ABC, 3 ABC. So of course, everybody is entitled to speak his or her mind, but well, let's proceed to the answers.

Well, perhaps the first and the last question, we can have those questions answered by Ingrid first. By the way, my father was one of these men that you referred to. Ewout will answer the question in the middle.

Let me start with a question about NPS. I think you are absolutely right that you want to know how our scores relate to our competitors' scores. But I'd just like to take you to the world of the insurance companies. Insurance companies are facing a problem. We hardly have in touch with the customer only when a customer enters into insurance and very often if sad things happen, that is just the reason why we exist. And on average, it happens on every 7 years that a customer will contact us, which is a good thing because that means that there are very few sad events, but it is a problem to actually establish contact. So -- when a customer contacts us, I can honestly tell you that the customer is happier with us than the scores our competitors have. That's good news, but we feel it's important to know how customers feel about us, not only when the customer contacts us, but they also can consider us to be relevant when they don't need us and that they do have positive views about us. That is the reason why for the next 3 years, we have an NPS-specific target. I'm not going to give you a lecture on it. Let me give you a summary. We always measure the NPS-c. That is when the customers contact us and we also measure the contacts digitally and also here. But -- we also have the RNPS, which is the relationship NPS, which means that you measure among your customers, even when they're not in touch with you, you measure how they view you, what their engagement is. And then we compared our score over 3 years with our competitors, and we have quite an ambitious target here. We said that in 2024, we want the NPS score to be in excess of the market. Where are we now? Let me be honest. If I want to be nice about our company, I think that we're doing pretty well because if you compare our position to our competitors that are also listed at the stock exchange and have intermediaries, we're at the top of the group. But if you enlarge the group, if you look at more specialized insurance companies, particularly direct insurers, you see that we are not even close to the number that we'd like to have. So we feel that we should be ambitious -- and we shouldn't be too nice to ourselves, and we should be quite harsh in our comparison. So we set the bar being better than the market, and outperform the market of insurance companies, which means that every year, we need to grow about 2 points. And in 2024, we will have outperformed the market in terms of NPS. I hope that's an answer to your question. To a certain extent, we took your comments to heart, and we incorporated it in our targets for the next few years. Mr. [ Vin ] is answering without a migrant interpret counter was being said. The NPS-c in fact is a target that develops as you go internally in our measurements. We've raised the bar for the NPS-c and P but we see the contacts are moving to digital contacts. So in order to get a higher NPS in 2024, every year, we need to grow 5 to 10 points a year in the NPS. So it may not be visible for you, but implicitly, it has been included in our measurements, so the bar has been raised. Answer to the inaudible question is actually, you measure the contracts you have with your customers, an important driver, but also in between, if a customer doesn't need the information, doesn't contact us you also include his views of the company and also how you are perceived in comparison to your competitors. And that leads to a above-market NPS, and so it's important we have an external agency that also looks into this. It's an extensive answer to the first question. The Chairman, this is a bit too technical, I think we're going to move on to the next subject. Thank you for your understanding. Let's move to the next question. Let me answer the last question about insurance intermediaries or agents. I have quite a bit of experience in insurance. And I remember what these offices of the intermediaries look like. And the situation has changed. Almost half the non-life insurances are contracted by intermediaries, all shapes and forms that could be the street corner, but also Internet because that's often where we see these intermediaries. And the rest is underwritten by bancassurance and direct insurance companies. We still have a considerable market share in the insurance part. We're in the top 3 for non-life private persons. But when the products become more complex, we have a larger market share. And so will the agent have that. And the agent will always continue to exist with respect to contacts so with customers about test insurance and non-life insurance and also for entrepreneurs, and we see that these agents are indispensable for companies and the latter are very important to this company. We also see that non-life and healthcare, where there's a shift as Internet, and we are anticipating on that with the Ditzo brand. And last year, we informed you that we are already considering how the brands Ditzo and Ardanta could be merged more, more towards a.s.r. and you'll see more of that next year, you'll see that we not only sell products through agents, but also ourselves through our own website. And that way, we are trying to fulfil the demand of our customers because we really want to engage with our customers as much as possible.

And then this intermediary question, Ewout?

Yes. Well, this is a long introduction, but I understood the question to be how far have we progressed with the impact of investments and how do we break them down across the different categories. Let me answer both questions. If we look at where we were at year-end 2021 that was when -- that was the New Year's with EUR 2.4 billion in impact investments is what we had on our balance sheet EUR 2.4 billion. And if you then compare that to our ambition, which that means that over the next 3 years, EUR 700 million a year is what we need to invest in additional impact investments in order to be able to achieve our goal. And how do we break that down? It's approximately 2/3 is what we will be investing in what we call green bonds. And later on, I'll comment on your question whether we should do that now the interest rates are increasing and one-thirds will be invested in the other categories that you mentioned yourself. And if we then look at green bonds, it is correct that the value of bonds decreases if interest rates increase, which is a situation, but we also have insurance liabilities that become cheaper when the interest rates increase. And you always hedge that, which is why green bonds for us as an insurance company with long-term liabilities are quite sensible because that way we're less vulnerable to interest rate development. So it's a matter of hedging our exposure to interest rates, which is why green bonds are very obvious investment as part and parcel of our overall impact investments. And if I then look at the other categories, it's true that we focus on affordable houses, sustainable insurance and the energy transition that you mentioned. But we do more than that because sometimes we invest in health companies that develop certain drugs for certain ailments. So sustainable mortgages, I think it's a good thing. You look at the returns that you make there still is more attractive than, for instance, investments in state bonds. And the great thing is that we make an additional budget available to our customers that they can specifically use to make their homes more sustainable. It's interesting for customers, also given current energy rates, it's important and attractive to make your home more sustainable, and we also get a higher return than we would invest in state bonds. And if we then look at affordable housing, it may be a good idea to mention and the person who's in charge of real estate, we'll be happy to give you more information. I know that for a fact. We invested more in houses in the category, EUR 750 to EUR 1,250 rent amount. So this is an affordable category of real estate that we invest in, in order to make rent affordable for more people in society in the Netherlands. And we also make an excellent return there, and we can also attract other investments to our fund because they feel that this is an excellent investment on the one hand, and they're also attracted by the fact that we make rent more affordable in the Netherlands. [Once again, a comment from [ Mr. Rinks ] off microphone.] Yes. So we clearly established the criteria for impact investments. And this can be measured in an objective way. [Once again, a comment off mic inaudible.] Can be measured objectively and we started the meeting with a question whether we would introduce a certain standard in order to be able to validate it. So this is an objective measurement of our own reports, and it would be excellent. Should we be able to move to market standards so that we can validate it and have a reasonable assurance for this? I think it would be excellent to be able to return to that.

What's more says [ Mr. Batt ] and the auditor is in the room, and he audits all of this.

Well, that's an excellent thing point, so we can move on to the next point. And all your questions have been very interesting and relevant. I'd like to request you, should you wish to make use of the second round. To keep in mind what I just said and I see that there are people who would like to raise further questions. No AMB questions, no introductions, unless very urgent. One chart will give you a concise answer. And then we have to proceed with the meeting. I want to do justice to everybody present here today. Having said this, is there anybody who would like to take the floor in the second round One question, one shot. And additionally, you can always ask questions when we enjoy cup of coffee over lunch, [ Mr. Stephen ].

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Do we understand correctly that we can only ask one single question?

Indeed, you understand that correctly? I have a number of short questions.

Well, okay, I give up -- go ahead.

Thank you. [ Stephenson ]. You were talking about takeover candidates, acquisition candidates, what type of acquisition candidates are you considering? So that's a bit difficult in live distribution service, etcetera. What are you doing with the bond loans, a.s.r., 5%, the subordinated bond loans? And let me see, I had another disability insurance. What about people who have to work at home?

Thank you for those questions, [ Mr. Stephenson ]. Is that all?

No, no, no. I have yet another question. But I understand that the Chairman doesn't really have an answer to that question. But perhaps I can raise that question under any other business.

No, go ahead and raise the question now.

Well, I've asked this question before but some I never really got an answer. Where I live, I hear a lot that there's drought.

Please, [ Mr. Stephenson ] says the Chairman. Please be concise in your question.

Well, this area was planted 62 years ago. What about a.s.r.? This is just one example.

Thank you for your question. Question is clear. I'd like to give the floor to the Executive Board.

[ Mr. Baeten ], I think you want to talk about irrigation of the area, the polders and everything that comes up there, we see that farmers deal with the problems better. There's a certificate initiative in order to make sure that the whole area is irrigated properly. And I think the farmers are doing an excellent job, but my colleagues tell me that if you fall into the water in the Netherlands into ditch, the water in the ditches is clean. I don't know about the situation where you live. But overall, the situation in the Netherlands is improving. If you want to talk about the details, I'll get you -- bring you in touch with the people who deal with this on a day-to-day basis. And then the candidates for acquisitions takeovers. So of course, we never give names. We never disclosed that. And at the same time, there are further opportunities for consolidation in the Netherlands and this was one of the previous questions. How do you feel about the intermediaries? We call this in distribution. We see consolidation there among intermediaries. We've carried out a number of takeovers. We still see opportunities. There's still small life insurance businesses that you could consider. And whenever we can get in touch with them, we do the same applies for non-life and the question for the longer term in the Netherlands is that we've done with the greater consolidation. We focus on smaller and medium sized. At the same time, if there are opportunities, we will take a serious look at that. [No, no question from [ Mr. Savi ].] So the Chairman says, no, no. What about distribution and service? Well, yes, distribution and service that can include employment condition, workers. What about disability insurance and working at home? The claim burden is developing positively. We don't see an extra burden. The only answer we don't have is what long COVID will -- the impact will be in the long term. We have extra provisions for that and Ewout is a specialist on the perpetual that we have outstanding.

Yes, we have a number of bonds as part and parcel of our overall balance sheet, particularly on the liability side in 2024. The first instrument will expire. This is a Tier 2 instrument. So it will expire then. And we always look at the debt on the balance sheet and how that relates to shareholders' equity. If we then look at the financial leverage position, which is the ratio that is key here at year-end is approximately 25%, which is a bit at the low side -- at the bottom side of the range that we are focusing on. So we're very comfortable with the debt position that we have right now. Once it's 2024, given the fact that we're comfortable with our debt position, the assumption is that we will then refund it. So first, we'll amortize it and then we'll refinance it. So that is the first bond that expires in 2024. That's the perpetual.

Yes. [ VB Mr. Kerner ].

Yes, I have one question, if I had 10. I would have used the opportunity our right, and I'm very happy to see you again after 2 years. So please give us the time.

Well, indeed, we're happy to have you.

Now one question is health. I think health insurance is 38% of growth of premium income. The concrete question is, how happy should we be with that as shareholders? If I understand the health market, I just don't understand it compared to non-life and life. It's difficult, a lot of regulation. You are obliged to offer your clients certain packages, huge competition. Why should we be happy with this growth? How good is it for you?

Yes. We steer our business on the combined ratio for health insurance is we have to keep a certain capital coverage, the combined ratio can be a bit higher there. Our health department always achieves its goals in that respect. We also understand the dynamics you've described. We believe a.s.r. is a company that wants to position itself in society, not at the cost of everything. But as long as our health insurances comply with the demands and goals we have, we're happy to offer this product because it's a product that every Dutch person has, every young person, it's a start-up. It combines often with other insurances. And we look at the holistic picture for health and also in other areas, we see this a stepping stone for our growth. Again, if it were financially not viable, we would have a discussion about it.

Well, looking into the audience, I see that there are no further questions. We had actually promised that this meeting would close at 12:00. We're going to make it. Jos and I just discussed that we enjoy these questions. It's very, very good to have this exchange. Thank you very much for that. We'll continue with Agenda Item 2b the report of the Supervisory Board. I'm going to make this more compact than the earlier one. In Section 5.2 of the Annual Report, you see our Supervisory Board report. Jos explained a lot in 2021. We discussed the existing strategy at the beginning of the year and decided to continue with, albeit with a number of minor changes. New medium-term targets were also discussed and set for the period 2022 to 2024. These were also discussed with the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board, the Supervisory Board is of the conviction that these goals strike the right balance between long-term value creation, sustainable growth and are confident that they can be achieved. Now in 2021, the Corona pandemic had a major impact on our society and economy. a.s.r.'s financial results were strong and weren't affected by this pandemic. We are very thankful to the employees whose dedication and engagement and intrinsic motivation in those difficult circumstances were admirable. We saw the operating result rise sharply and the solvency remaining as high and as comfortable as ever. As Supervisory Board, we also noted that despite those challenging circumstances, management and staff did their utmost to assist customers and get the NPS score up to the high level that Ingrid just expanded on. In 2021, the Supervisory Board discussed further topics, developments in the sector, the performance, financial and non-financial, solvency and capital, culture and customer interests, the contacts and consultations with the works council were a dominant factor, of course. And we've worked on a permanent constructive relationship with our external regulators. We also included reports of our 3 committees, the Audit and Risk Committee, the Nomination and ESG Committee as well as the Remuneration Committee. You've been able to read this extensively in the Annual Report. Are there questions or comments on this report of the Supervisory Board? That is not the case. I think you've done better than I have. Well, we'll continue now with Agenda Item 2C, on corporate governance. November 2021, at that point in time, Ewout Hollegien succeeded Annemiek van Melick as CFO. Ewout had already been working for a.s.r. for quite some time. And as you were able to see for yourself in the Q&A round earlier on, this was a natural and easy transition. The Supervisory Board is therefore confident that Ewout will make a lasting and valuable contribution to the further development of a.s.r. Furthermore, I took over as Chair from Kick van der Pol in the Supervisory Board. I was able to work together with him for more than 6 months. That was a great opportunity. Now finally, mid-2021, it was decided to change the Selection and Nomination Committee in both its objective and composition. We've renamed it Nomination and ESG Committee. The main aim is structurally embedding sustainability-related issues in our governance structure. The Supervisory Board recognizes the increased importance of sustainability for companies and for a.s.r. in particular. And we are, therefore, pleased to note that a.s.r. is making many successful efforts in this area, both with respect to products and assets under management, which has been explained extensively in the Q&A session earlier on. Now, these good results are reflected amongst other things in the recognition that a.s.r. receives from international benchmarks. For example, a.s.r. is included in the Joint Sustainability Index, which places a.s.r. among the 10% most sustainable insurers worldwide. The members of the Nomination and ESG Committee are now Gisella van Vollenhove, Gerard van Olphen, who couldn't be present here today and myself as Chair. Are there any questions about a.s.r.'s corporate governance as described in Section 5.1 of the Annual Report? That is the case. Please proceed.

[indiscernible] of PGGM. I have a question about remuneration policy. a.s.r. Nederlands in 2021 do not pay out a variable remuneration to the Executive Board. Connection of remuneration with non-financial goal CO2 reduction, for example, can be used as an incentive to achieve such goals under CSRD, the variable remuneration has to be connected to sustainability goals as well, but material, of course, within the Remuneration Committee. Are you thinking of awarding such variable remunerations in future?

Well, thank you for this question. Now actually, it fits to the next agenda item when we're talking about the remuneration report. But let's do it as follows. I'll check whether there are questions about corporate governance under 2C because this would help -- and we'll answer your question then. Is that okay? [Question without microphone, inaudible for the interpreters.]

For the listeners online, this is an inaudible question, we'll repeat it.

The question was why is Mr. van Olphen not present? He was unavailable at this point in time. And we, as a Supervisory Board, found it was not a problem for the other Supervisory Board members to answer your possible questions. He gives you his regards, and we talked to him extensively yesterday. That was it with respect to 2C. We'll continue with 2D then, the Remuneration Report. And by the way, this is the first agenda item that we request your advisory vote on. Now I'd like to hand over to Gisella van Vollenhove, the Chair of this Remuneration Committee and she'll tackle your question as well.

Let me give you a brief introduction on the basis of 2 points I would like to highlight in our Remuneration Report. Today's remuneration policy was decided in the shareholders' meeting of 2019 and has entered into force in 2020. We've just started the evaluation process. The idea there is that in the AGM next year we're going to give a new proposal for a possible adapted remuneration policy. Answering your question at this point in time, we have no variable remuneration in our policy. The question you're asking, how can you link non-financial goals? This is certainly a question we discussed in the evaluation of our policy. It may be a missed opportunity. Now evaluation means not only the amount or height of the remuneration, but also the structure and deciding whether we need adaptations. As you know us, we indeed involve important stakeholders in that process and try to find a conclusion before we finalize anything. I hope I've answered your question in that respect. A second point I'd like to highlight the importance for 2022. As a Supervisory Board, we chose an increase of 6% for our Executive Board members. The policy gives us the scope or range for that. We believe that the Board in the past year has achieved great results on non-financial and financial results. Only non-financial wasn't achieved and has a very ambitious goal for the next period, which led to our decision this exception to the rule of 6% increase. That was my introduction. Thank you.

Have we answered your question, I see you nodding I see a new question from the [ VEB ].

[ Kaner ] from the [ VEB ]. I'd like to react to your explanation. The VEB is also open to including the software, the sustainability factors as a factor in variable remuneration. One condition, please, no variable remuneration whenever financial results are disappointing. I can also live with it if no variable remuneration is paid out when sustainability isn't achieved because I see some companies that are doing poorly, but do lots of good sustainability things on paper for the society, for colleagues and that pay out very high variable remuneration. Please don't do that. It's good to include sustainability but always under the condition that financials are achieved at a.s.r.

Maybe we can contact you for further consultations on this.

Are there any further questions on the remuneration report? I will now offer you the opportunity to fill in your voting form. [Voting]

I have to look into the room and check whether you have been able to finish registering your vote. I believe you've had sufficient time looking into the audience here, and I think that Gisella made very clear that no decisions have been taken for the future that there is no preliminary decision in any way with respect to variable remuneration. This is still under discussion and a point which we are going to present to you as soon as appropriate. And you will also -- we will also reach out to a number of you to consult further on this. Thank you, Gisella. Thank you for your questions. I'd like to now hand over to Sonja with respect to Agenda Item 3. We are looking at the annual accounts for the financial statements for 2021. We want to put all of that to the vote, and that is why we give Sonja the floor so that we can then indeed approve the financial statements.

Thank you very much, Joop. I'd like to give you a brief information of the Audit and Risk Committee, A&RC. We have a report on pages 121 and 122 of the Annual Report. Now in our committee meetings, next to results and balance sheet issues, we gave special attention, of course, to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as Jos and Ewout discussed that. I would like to say that the committee took this up very seriously in line with Jos said. With respect to the low interest rate, inflation and their impact on solvency, we discussed the balance sheet and the ORSA based on risk scenarios as used in the ORSA, the Audit and Risk Committee was able to discuss and establish that the solvency remains within a.s.r.'s risk appetite. This underlines a.s.r.'s robust solvency position. Next to financial goals and developments, the Audit and Risk Committee also paid close attention to information security, cybersecurity risk and compliance-related topics such as CDD, the anti-money laundering and terrorism financing law and the Sanctions Act. The Committee is pleased with the steps taken within a.s.r. on these subjects. In 2021, a lot of attention was paid to implementation of IFRS 17 and 9. This is a huge project that the organization has put a lot of work into the Audit and Risk Committee was kept abreast of our developments in 2021, and this is also a topic on each and every one of our meetings in this year. The external auditor and the additional engagements were reviewed on a quarterly basis. We have no findings there. Moreover, the management letter and the report by the external auditor were discussed with specific attention to reported key audit issues and controls there. The Audit and Risk Committee follows up on any measures to be taken. We always do that in a very adequate way. Furthermore, we exchanged our views with the external accountant in a very open, critical and constructive way. That is why on behalf of our committee, I would like to thank KPMG for its out of work over the past year. Moreover, we had great clear exchanges with actuarial officers on the adequacy of estimates and assumptions underlying the insurance liabilities on the balance sheet. In each case, it was established that these estimates and assumptions were arrived at on the basis of careful and prudential decisions. I'd like to turn to the year-end of 2021 in the first quarter of 2022. The results for the full financial year were discussed in detail in the Audit and Risk Committee. This includes the press release, the Annual Report, the financial statements, the 2021 audit report and the actuarial functionaries report. This subsequently led to the Audit and Risk Committee giving a positive recommendation to the Supervisory Board regarding the Annual Report and accounts. The committee also explicitly complemented the structure and reliability of the a.s.r. annual report. And I would now like to hand back to you, Chair.

Sonja, thank you very much, very compact and very thorough. I'd like to hand over to Ton Reijns of KPMG, the external auditor who is going to give us a brief overview of the audit work. I would also like to say that he has been relieved of his secrecy obligations for the purpose of this.

Well, thank you very much. I'm happy to give a clarification with respect to the audit work we did. My name is Ton Reijns. We're the external auditor of a.s.r. Nederland. I'd like to explain our independent auditor's report in the Annual Report and the Assurance Report in the non-financial information sector as included in the Annual Report for 2021. I am the responsible person for these auditing activities, and I'm glad to be here live and in person with you. As Joop already said, my confidentiality restrictions have been lifted for the purpose of this meeting. I can freely speak and answer your points. And we indeed extended our independence to last year's activities, and we confirm that once again as of 22 March 2022. Let me discuss these activities. We looked into the consolidated 2021 and the single report for a.s.r. Nederland and gave our Tronair view on the positive report. You can find all of this on pages 278 to 294 of the Annual Report. We furthermore audited 27 non-financial KPIs and a review of non-financial information also included in the Annual Report. An unqualified assurance report about the independence of the auditor was given. We would also like to refer to page 295 to 298 of the Annual Report in this respect. My presentation is going to discuss a number of topics in the audit as included in the slide. Let me start to the right-hand upper side and then move forward clockwise, more details in our report. First subject, materiality; we set up an audit plan with the Audit and Risk Committee on 17 June 2021 and in that audit plan, we give further information about our approach, the materiality. We stick to our risk assessment with an indication of the significant risks, the scope of our audit as well as other important subjects such as ESEF reporting, which was new for the year 2021. We determined materiality at EUR 40 million. We based this on the average result of the last 3 years before taxes, about 4%. We did not deviate from the starting points that we held the year before. Some parts of the financial statements were audited at a lower materiality as reaction to the nature of certain posts, qualitative factors, for example, which were applied in the audit under Note 6.7.5, which is key management personnel remuneration, all stated and all stated misstatements in excess of EUR 2 million were reported to the Audit and Risk Committee. They were individual and in their totality, not material for the Annual Report. We also looked into the continuity presumption report for the first time in our audit report on this for example, expectations for shareholders. We looked into climate-related risks and included them as well and are reporting for the first time this year. With respect to the continuity assumptions and climate-related risks, we found no significant findings. In the structure and execution of audit, we look into the risk of fraud. We assess the reaction of the management with respect to fraud and the functioning of the 3 lights of defense. In this respect, we also looked at the presumed fraud work of the management over right of control and included that in our deliberations with respect to noncompliance with laws and regulations, the so-called NOCLAR we looked into laws and regulations that can have a material effect on the annual accounts. For further information I like to refer to our audit report. Finally, we were able to take on the full responsibility for the group audit after having sent instructions to the accountants of various group sections to execute certain audit activities for us. We decided which entities and which materiality were at the basis of such audit measures. And we've also took taken into account the impact of COVID-19 from a risk perspective as well as from the perspective of financial relevance for the components of the group as a whole. In the audit of all components or practically all of them have been done by KPMG accountants. We have a coverage of 95% of the owned assets and 96% of the result before tax. If there were any specific experts necessary, we included them from KPMG in the areas of IT and actuarial issues. Let's get to our key audit matters. We identified 4 of them this year. Last year, they were 5, the same of this year. And we included goodwill impairment last year because that was triggered by COVID-19, especially -- the key audit matters are those points that according to our professional assessment, are most significant to report to shareholders based on our audit. And they are here on the slide the valuation of liabilities arising from insurance contracts, the valuation of hard-to-value assets, unit-linked exposure and Solvency II disclosure. These were key audit matters that we discussed extensively with the Supervisory Board, the Audit Risk Committee as well as with the Executive Board. Then we discuss other matters such as the takeover of branded PPI, COVID-19 and effects of in a.s.r. Nederland based on the Ukraine and Russian crisis. We were present at all Audit and Risk Committee meetings and at some of the Supervisory Board meetings. We also conducted individual talks with members of the Audit and Risk Committee and the Supervisory Board. We experienced an active engagement of the Audit and Risk Committee and to note that our observations were taken seriously and implemented. Before I now hand back to the Chair, I would like to thank the Executive Board, the Supervisory Board, the Audit and Risk Committee and all others present. And thank you for your attention. This is the end of my presentation. I'm available for questions.

Mr. Reijns Ton. Thank you. That was compact and complete. Great, I must say. Are there questions? [ Mr. Kerner ] of the [ VVB ].

I have 2 questions. A fundamental one with a longer introduction and the short-term concrete one. The more fundamental one, you need to know more about me. I'm a number sky. I was able, I'm good at math. I'm not that good in socializing. That's just my nature. If I look at Annual Reports, not only for you, the same thing pertains to others such as Aegon. As a numbers guy, I have difficulty interpreting your numbers. You talk about operational results of more in excess of EUR 1 billion IFRS net results somewhere else, but it's newby. So that's very hope-giving. Next to profit and loss, we see a couple of amendments that cannot be included in the P&L because of the rules, but actually need to belong there, but the rules just don't allow it. Those adaptations aren't rounding off numbers. We see that with other listed companies. But in insurance, the adaptations are much higher than the numbers in the net results. On top of that, Solvency II. And that's capital about EUR 0.5 billion. That is freely available. My fundamental question is and how far can I trust that the result that you present to me, specifically your own operational profit valuation that that gives me a trustworthy picture as shareholder? That's something that I have to look into. I mean the whole IFRS methods are changing. I'm interested to see what's happening if there are adaptations of plus EUR 2 billion plus, minus EUR 3 billion in the sun still shines and it's still EUR 1 billion on the bottom line. How far can I trust a.s.r.'s communication with the outside world? And I'm referring to your activities, but also to the auditors' one. Second question, I hope the auditor can do something about numbers 248, very concrete question, please, don't worry sensitivity analysis. What is going to happen to your Solvency II ratio if the share markets decreased by 20%. I would expect a Solvency II to decrease then too, but the contrary is the case. My question is -- are you -- what's your position in the market? Did you do some overheads? I think that's easy to answer.

Chair, I'm going to chop up your question. I'm of an age of good stewardship and the external auditor that says true and fair rule, we see now different reports from auditors -- and this is a personal comment. I just recognize what you're saying, just keeping up with IFRS, Dutch Gap, international GAP, etcetera. I know that in the Supervisory Board, we have continuous professional development that is actually needed to keep up with the auditors. You're asking about the reliability of the numbers, and I'd like to hand back to KPMG on that. And you're asking some technical questions. And your second question, I'd like to refer that back to the Executive Board. And I'd like to give Sonja Barendregt also as Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee, the floor, how we deal with all of this as Supervisory Board.

Let me make more precise, reliable, of course, I know the answer according to the rules. This is what the result is. That's what you have to be satisfied with. I'm talking about what is sensible and useful for us. We know that everything is according to the rules, but in 5 years, we'll all be much poorer than we expected. We would -- will then probably have over-hedged and we have all sorts of factors working against us. And I'd like to prevent that. And I want to add that question here today. Those intentions are something we all share with you.

May I answer? KPMG. I'd like to add to the answer that you've just given yourself the Annual Report and the financial statements have been set up according to IFRS. Of course, there are additional rules that we test and assess. And we check whether what is in the financial statements is actually what reality reflects. It cannot be contrary. There are checks and balances that look into that. It isn't as far as our audit measures in the with respect to the financial statements. IFRS are the rules and the reporting are in compliance with them, and that is sufficient for the requirements with respect to the financial statements.

May I now continue? Ewout is going to discuss this too. I understand your dilemma, and this is a discussion that we have a lot as well. And we do a lot of roadshows and meet some investors who want to understand the IFRS results. We have more and more shareholders who actually don't even worry about IFRS anymore. And just say, well, this is a number that we don't even include in our spreadsheets. They want to see the free cash flow that you generate as a company and what can you do with that free cash flow. So that's a criteria. Then we have internal controls. You want to steer your -- and manage your whole company on metrics that people can influence. And that is the operational results. This is the result that we achieve because we're doing well in our business. So within the shareholders, within one group, you have various views, and we just cannot surface with only OCC or OCG, sorry, or other numbers. Each shareholder has a different perspective, and that's why we have to show all of that. Well, Ewout, please now.

At least we share the passion for numbers. I think that's important. But of course, the human side is relevant, too. We -- I'd like to discuss that at some other time with you. But I would like to add on to what Jos just said, we see in the market that there are various parties who actually assess a report by an insurance company in different ways. The auditor's report and the Supervisory Board look into what the undermining direction of the company is because incidental posts positive or negative are then disregarded. They look at the actual underlying direction of the company. What is going on in the insurance business? What is the base for our investments impairments and realized added value is excluded. So that keeps the bottom line understandable. So if you leave in incidental items, et cetera, then you can see some divergence in the final results. But I think that we were able to restrict all of that quite well. And then you see what the market is like the possibilities there to have some incidentals. I don't really say very much about what the business is doing and how it is doing. And they have only a one-off impact on IFRS. Then you have Solvency II. I understand the difficulty in comparing that that's your concern, the IFRS, the old one, IFRS 4. But I'm afraid that IFRS 17 isn't going to make comparability optimal either. Now but you will be able to compare all insurance companies, other parties are also looking at Solvency II to find a way out here. There, you'll have to do a couple of adaptations to make it comparable as much as possible and OCG or OCC organic capital creation or generation, whatever the market uses. This is freely usable capital. I think it's also an operational profit number, but in a more market value definition for the tendency is that people look at that more and more. So the quality of your balance sheet expressed in solvency percentages, but also the underlying free cash flow that you generate with your business, which is a market value reflection in your operational results.

Well, maybe I'm presenting myself as more naive than I actually am. But what I want to prevent is that certainly, if you talk about the underlying standard operational course of business that in 3 to 4 years, we see and I have to note that a.s.r. was underlying a very healthy company. But unfortunately, the top it over it that people weren't able to find that in Solvency II reports and profit and loss in the cash flow, 200 pages on financials only, but people just cannot find out how healthy a.s.r. actually is. We have to trust what you're telling us. Operationally, we're looking at this, the underlying, how many people are looking at this, but the auditor looks at IFRS and Solvency II, they're also looking at what you internally use as a steering parameter. That's what I'm trying to get a feeling for.

I can only say one thing. You don't know our risk functions. Absolutely, are we looking at that? I'm saying we're the stewards of this business, and our task is to hand over a healthy company to following generations and to our shareholders. Of course, that is an answer that gives you solids, but I am convinced that all metrics that are relevant for the long-term durability of what we're doing that we take them extremely seriously, analyze them seriously, have collected very critical people around us who look into that as well. We have all risk functions in first, second and third line where really people then start ringing the bell and react. I think it is quite an interesting question that the market that shareholders actually approach us and say, you're much too conservative. Your balance sheet is much too strong. You could actually pay out much more to shareholders. Now I think shareholders are worth of everything, but our fair long-term approach is to be to be a sound company. Sometimes people ask, aren't you presenting yourself as prettier than you actually are. That is just not the case. We wish to find the solid procedure reaction. We still have to trust you, there aren't any methods for me to benchmark that. We have to trust what you say.

I'd like to answer the question that is still open. The sensibilities, very interesting and relevant. You are talking about the reduction -- the sensitive share market movements and the effect on our solvency. We are in a standard model for shares that we have in our balance sheet. We have to keep a certain capital, which is different from a partial model, which means that when share prices go down as we fuse in the recent period, then on the one hand, the value of the investment goes down, but we also have to keep less of a capital coverage and that degree, the denominator has decreased in such a way that it compensates the decrease of the nominator. And that leads to a positive effect. Shareholder, I think that's still strange. Now if the shares go down by 90%, it's great for the Solvency II. Well, why don't you send a letter to AOPA about this and they are responsible for this mechanism?

A discussion about the intrinsic value about the market. Maybe it's a good idea from the governance perspective to hear more from the Supervisory Board. You're triggering quite a lot with your question.

To be quite honest, I really don't have that much to add to what Edward and you just put forward. Every time we discuss the magnitude you're referring to free cash flow, OCC, Solvency II combined ratios. All this is very important and is discussed, and we also discuss the development of the business in financial sense and also all the underlying elements, operating result like-for-like. I really feel that it does give us information. I agree with Jos that a.s.r. is rather conservative. And I agree with both IFRS 17 is going to lead to a lesser degree of comparability. So we will make sure that we into proper explanations in the Annual Report and the financial statements.

Quite a part of all the techniques, the external auditor, the internal conversations, the ins and outs and all, how all this works at this deep sense of responsibility that as referred to do the proper thing for future generation that, that is an overall value that we have here in this company. Are there further questions to KPMG auditors? That not being the case, I will now give you a moment to jot down your vote with respect to the adoption of the financial statements 2021. And since everybody has already filled in the voting form, the voting ballot and understands how to proceed. I hope that I can suffice by saying that you've been given sufficient time to fill in your ballot, and I'd like to proceed to agenda Item 3B and C. And if you the time I'm going to deal with them jointly. And this is about the policy on dividends, and I'm going to give the floor to Jos part to explain our dividend policy.

I attempted to include that in my introduction, Chairman, unless the meeting once further explanation.

As far as I'm concerned, we can leave it at that. I see that people here in the room agree with that suggestion. I'm just going to repeat what it is that you can cut your vote on. The proposal is for the financial year 2021 to pay out a dividend of EUR 328.6 million, which is EUR 2.42 per share in cash after the paid interim dividend of EUR 0.82 per share final dividend of EUR 1.60 remains. Are there any questions on the dividend policy or dividend proposal? I know that, that is not the case, and I would request you to jot down your vote and to cast your vote with respect to the dividend. [Voting]

I see that most pens have been removed from the paper. So this takes us to item 4, discharge for a granting release from liability to members of the Executive Board. This has put to you for the vote. This concerns both the current and the former members of the Executive Board for their performance, their duties in 2021, as shown by the 2021 Annual Report, including the financial statements, 2021 and as shown by announcements and statements made at this meeting so far, otherwise known to the general meeting. Are there any questions on the part of the shareholders regarding this item? Since that's not the case, we can proceed to the vote, and I request you to fill in your vote on the ballot. [Voting]

I can see that you have become quite skilled at this, so we can proceed to Item 4B granting release of liability to members of the Supervisory Board. The proposal is to grant discharge to each current or former member of the Supervisory Board for the performance of his or her duties in 2021 as reflected in the Annual Report 2021, including the financial statements 2021 and also as reflected in announcements of statements made during this meeting so far otherwise known to the general meeting. Are there any questions? I see that, that is not the case. And I would now request you to fill in your vote for 4B, which is granting release liability Member of the Supervisory Board. I can see that you've been given sufficient opportunity to do so agenda Item 5 extension of the lot of the Executive Board, the general meeting on 19 May 2021 granted the Executive Board reauthorizations for a period of 18 months as referred to the explanatory notes to agenda Item 5, the Executive Board now proposes with the approval of the Supervisory Board to extend these authorizations with the effect. As of today, these new authorizations will therefore expire on 24 November 2023. And these authorizations give a.s.r. the flexibility to act quickly should circumstances dictate. The first one is 5a, extension of the authorization of the Executive Board to issue ordinary shares and/or to grant rights to subscribe for ordinary shares. Under this agenda item, it is proposed to authorize the Executive Board as of today for a period of 18 months to issue one ordinary shares and 2 ground rights to subscribe for ordinary shares up to 10% of the issued share capital of a.s.r. Netherlands as of today. The Executive Board will only be able to exercise this authorization with the approval of the Supervisory Board in each case. Do you have any questions? Since that is not the case, I would request you to fill in your vote on the ballot. And if you allow me, I'd like to start reading the second agenda item 5, authorization of the Executive Board to restrict or exclude the legal pre-emptive rights. It is proposed to the general meeting that the Executive Board be authorized as of today for a period of 18 months to restrict or exclude pre-emptive rights of existing shareholders with respect to the issue of ordinary shares or granting rights to shares based on the authorization you just granted. Again, the Executive Board may only exercise this authorization with the approval of the Supervisory Board, you have any questions. Since that is not the case, I would request you to cast your vote. And in the meantime, I will address agenda Item 5c, proposal to authorize Executive or to acquire own shares by the company. It is proposed to authorize the Executive Board for a period of 18 months starting today to acquire ordinary shares in the capital of a.s.r. Nederlands through stock exchange or otherwise. Executive Board will only be able to exercise this authorization with the approval of Supervisory Board, a maximum 10% of the issued share capital of a.s.r.'s at today may be repurchased at a price between the nominal value less shares in question and 10% above the average closing price during a period of 5 days prior to the day in which the shares were acquired. Are there any questions? Yes.

[ Mr. Rinks ]. Yes, I'd like to respond to that indeed. You can only spend your money once. So now you've got some additional cash according to the rules, and the rules can change, of course, of the interpretation thereof. But you've got some cash. And you can use that cash in several ways, several possibilities. One is an acquisition. 2 is making the company grow. I'm in favor that acquisitions could be dangerous if they're not responsible. And the third thing you could do is expand your buffers beyond what the rules require. And I think that's great to have larger buffers as a shareholder. And now you're going to buy back shares, and that decreases your possibilities in your possibilities to grow, and it reduces the buffers. And if there would really be an excessive amount of money, I don't think that's the case. I would prefer you to increase the dividend ratio to 50%. That -- the [indiscernible] paid a couple of euros. So I'm against this authorization and the share buyback program. I'm going to give you one more opportunity to change your mind? I don't think I'll be successful. But please explain to me one more time, why do you think it's such a good idea to buy back shares? Because I really want you to use the money to grow the company. And if you can't do that because there have to be opportunities to be appropriate. I would prefer the buffers to be more robust, gives me a feeling of safety. So to summarize it, you're allowed to do this according to the rules, but that doesn't mean you have to do it.

I know you as a man who takes every and any opportunity to explain why this authorization for the Executive Board is such a good idea.

[ Mr. Baeten ], I completely agree with you, and we've expressed that our preference is to generate organic growth. This is the most stable and value-creating growth because you can have an impact on different elements. Over the past 2 years, we carried out lots of accretive acquisitions, and that's the best way to use our capital. We just talked about how robust our balance sheet is and are we not perhaps a bit too conservative. And I was raised in a culture where you actually always have to make sure that your balance sheet is very, very conservative. And if you have a headwind or August comes, doesn't top you over. And that is our dilemma. And that applies to your Executive Board as well, not all shareholders agree on your view. So at this point in time, we are generating much more capital than we need to grow and we need to keep our buffers very robust and the money that we need for acquisitions, the EUR 100 million that we're reserving really possibly to buy back shares early next year. Once 2022 has also passed safely. We've always said should we have a better destination for the money, acquisition or additional growth. We will not make use of the share buyback. It's not that we're saying we really have to do this, come hello water, but in order to balance out all the interest all shareholders. This is what we decided to do. And should there be a wonderful takeover opportunity. This would be the first thing. Should it be substantial? This would be the first thing that we would strike. [Comment off mic, the interpreter apologizes ] We gave this some thought as well. I have said it on several occasions. We want to be predictable. And this dividend, by the way we're going from operating results related to a dividend that is progressive. The base has been EUR 242 million -- and we said every year, we want to increase it with 2% to 3% and the drawback of paying out a one-off high dividend that is that afterwards, people will complain that the dividend became lower. I'd like to have it grow in a stable way, a bit every year and then from time to time, do the share but fundamentally, I do agree with you. [Comment from the shareholder off mic. The interpreter cannot hear what is being said.] I would almost say, well, why don't you join us on a roadshow and talk to all the different investors all these different investors and their strategies, their reason to buy a share. It is absolutely impossible to do it right for all shareholders at the same time. So we think that we found a good balance to serve all shareholders in a way that we feel that we are paying out a good dividend some shareholders say share buyback. That's what we also trend perhaps not always good but we're trying to engage with all shareholders and do the right thing for them.

[ Mr. Baeten ] really did his best. I would like to point out that this concerns an authorization. I'd just like to add that this is an authorization. Are there any further questions about this topic? Please cast your vote and fill in your vote on the ballot. I hope you agree that I continue with Item 6, proposal to cancel shares held by a.s.r. proposal to cancel shares held by 2021, a.s.r. repurchased shares for an amount of EUR 75 million, and it is proposed to cancel these shares, more than EUR 2 million in order to clean up the capital structure of the company. There's currently no other destination for the repurchase shares. I would like to see whether any questions with respect to the proposal to cancel of more than 2 million shares, which were purchased in 2021. By the way, I understand that your question was also -- could also be related to this topic, but the question was already raised, right? I see that there are no further questions, and I would request you to fill in your vote on the ballot. While you're doing that, I hope you allow me to proceed and to multitask and to proceed to agenda item 7, composition of Supervisory Board agenda Item 7A, proposed to reappoint Sonja Barendregt member of the Supervisory Board. In view continuity within the Supervisory Board, Sonja was requested to be available for reappointment for a period of 4 years. And I hope you'll understand that after she intervened just earlier on. And this reappointment is in line with the Dutch Corporate Governance Code. As a member of the Supervisory Board, Sonja has made an important contribution to the development of a.s.r. in recent years. And also, as Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee, her expertise and experience were very valuable. As you've been able to read in the document of the meeting, the Works Council has been asked to give its opinion on the nomination -- and the opinion of the Works Council is positive. The Works Council has decided not to further explain this position at the General Meeting of Shareholders. Before I give you the opportunity to ask questions, I'd like to perhaps briefly give the floor to Sonja.

Thank you, Joop. I've been a Supervisory Director for this wonderful company for 4 years now. And for those of you who attended the AGM 4 years ago at the time I explained why I really wanted to become a Supervisory Director of the a.s.r.. And that had to do with the fact that a.s.r. is an insurance company for all the insured and sustainability is a focus -- was a focus at the time and still is and did very well in the benchmark with respect. And I mentioned the honest insurance company Select. And in the Board -- in both boards, people are very passionate. So that was the reason for me to join Supervisory Board. Over the past 4 years, I have seen how a.s.r.. has developed and grown, not only on a financial level, but also internal control, customer-focused sustainability and also personal development of employees. What I see is that we still have a very passionate executive Board and also a very passionate Supervisory Board. And what I really enjoy is that a.s.r.. represents all stakeholders and it's very much a people's business and something I'm very proud of, and I have nothing to do with this, by the way, but that a.s.r.. responded very quickly to disasters. So I'm referring to the floods and the storms. Well, this is something you as a supervisory director are very proud of. The open and transparent relationship between the Executive Board and Supervisory Board is also something I'm very proud of. So I'm very willing to perform this duty for another 4 years.

Thank you. So now, are there any questions among the shareholders? I see that, that is not the case. So I would request you to cast your vote or fill in your bet on the ballot form and to respond to the proposal, the reappointment of Sonja Barendregt. This was the last agenda item that we needed to vote on. And if you've jotted down your votes, I would request you to hand over your ballot to the civil law notary. It might be a good idea to pick them up. I think that would be more convenient. I hope you agree with me. We are moving towards the end of the meeting. If we start walking around or going outside, we'll be losing a lot of time. [A comment off mic. The interpreter cannot hear the comment made off mic. Apparently, the proposal is to count the votes against and the abstentions.] Thank you for your suggestion. Legally speaking, we have to pick up all the ballots, including the votes in favor, against and abstention so somehow we'll be collecting all the votes, all the ballots. And in the meantime, I will highlight that we are always open to any new suggestions.

Perhaps I can briefly comment on this. Of course, we have considered working with handsets, etcetera, but we're also trying to make sure that we take decisions in the interest of all stakeholders. And the presence of shareholders or the attendance of shareholders, related to the price of renting the handsets was sort of out of whack. So we said, this is sort of folkloric and it takes us back to where we came from. Let's do this in the old-fashioned way. We did this for reasons for financial reasons. It just costs a whole lot of money to use the handset. So we decided to do it in the old-fashioned way.

One of the shareholders would like to take the floor to comment on this. [It's a comment off mic. The interpreter cannot hear what the shareholder is saying.]

We're going to answer your comment seriously. Well, we hardly ever print Annual Report. The Annual Report is digital, be even more interactive next year. And indeed, we did consider -- well, we decided we're going to print a small number of Annual Report s. Some people really appreciate it to having it in hard copy. 80% would say, no, I don't need a hard copy, but there's always 20% that would like to have it in a hard copy. As I just explained, we try to cater for the different shareholders. And some people simply do appreciate a hard copy. Thank you. [More comments off mic.]

I'm just looking at the clock here because we had wanted to conclude the meeting around noon. It's a bit later, but it was really a pleasant meeting. In any case, that's how we experience this. Would it be okay to proceed to any other business? And then after that, I can disclose the voting results. So that's a different order business. Any other business, please go ahead. Please use the microphone.

My name is [indiscernible]. I'm from Amsterdam. We just talked about electronic voting and how expensive it is. I wanted to ask how much it costs to vote electronically. I also attend other AGMs, smaller ones as well, and some do have this facility being able to vote by app or a handset.

[ Mr. Baeten ], I don't remember the exact figure. It was discussed with me some time ago. I don't really know the numbers off the top of my head. But in [ acres ], I thought it was worthwhile not to spend that money. I'm going to look it up, and I will tell you later on, EUR 25,000. And I prefer to serve you a good sandwich after the meeting instead of saying, bye-bye.

I think it's a good thing. We said this at the very beginning of the meeting. Talking about communication technology, we feel it's very important to have this meeting in a hybrid form, so that there are 2 ways to engage with a.s.r. at the meeting online and here in person and webcast, we've got that. But talking about communication with shareholders and the expenses involved, we always try to engage in interaction with you as best as possible. Any other question for any other business? So there being no questions. I'm not going to close this agenda item because, first, we will proceed to the vote. [A shareholder would like to ask a question off mic.]

Cost of electronic voting is EUR 25,000. Okay. We already talked about the relationship that we have with the farmers. The farmers also like to cut costs so do we. [There's a conversation going on in the room, the interpret cannot hear what's being said off mic.]

Someone made a joke that costs can always be divided by the number of shares.

Yes. Well, we use that money to buy back shares.

Well, to the notary, I don't think we have any more jokes. Well, it just goes to show how thorough are people at the secretary and the notary are. Ladies and gentlemen, the results of the vote. Will we be showing anything on the screen? No, we won't. So there you go. You can check everything on the website, as you know -- I'd like to inform you that at this meeting, 1,803 shareholders are represented 100,458,424 votes, which is 74.64% of the number of votes. The remuneration report has been approved with the result of 77.99%. Is that correct? 97.99%.

You said 77%.

I said 77. I'm so sorry. Well, thank you. For your 97.99% votes in favor of approving the remuneration report. 100% of you agree with the financial statements. 99.46% of you agree with the dividend. 99.35% has gone to discharge to the Executive Board and the individual members, 99.35% has gone to discharge in the Supervisory Board. That is the current and former members, 99.6% of 5A voted in favor of the entitlement authorization to issue shares, 97.8% agenda Item 5B, voted in favor of 5B, agreed with that. 98.19% agreed with the authorization to buy back own shares, 99.96% is not interesting -- agrees with cancelling the own shares and 98.7% agrees with the reappointment of Sonja Barendregt. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thank you for the way you've expressed your faith in the Executive Board, Supervisory Board and the company as a whole. Outstanding status agenda item 8, any other business. Are there any additional questions on your part? I see that, that is not the case, and that brings me to agenda item 9, which is closing. I would like, on behalf of the Supervisory Board, the Executive Board and all the employees of a.s.r. I'd like to thank you for your trust in us. And I'd also like to thank employees and Executive Board of a.s.r. for their commitment in this past year, which once again was an extraordinary and eventful year. And we see from the performance of the company that you deserve our acknowledgment for that. It has led to wonderful results, as you always say, attending to all the interests of all stakeholders. Once again, I'd like to thank you as a shareholder for your trust in a.s.r. It was wonderful to host you here again on our part. Well, we very much appreciated the questions you asked and the broad questions you asked just goes to show how involved you are with our company. So we appreciate that. Thank you very much for coming for attending the meeting. Outside the hole, you can enjoy the lunch that we're serving outside. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. The meeting is closed. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]