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

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ASR 2023 Full Year Results. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Michel Hülters. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today for this call. It's the ASR conference call on the full year 2023 results. On the call with me today are Jos Baeten, the CEO; and Ewout Hollegien, our CFO; and Jos will kick it off as customary with the highlights of our financial results. We'll give a brief update on the Aegon transaction and discuss the business performance. After that, Ewout will talk about the development of our capital and solvency position and our investment portfolio. After that, we'll open up for Q&A. We have ample time planned for this call, but we will stop sharply at 10:30 for you all to have time to tune into the call of NN. And then finally, as usual, actually, I should say, we have a disclaimer at the back of the presentation, and I would appreciate that you could take a look at it after this presentation. So having said that, Jos, the floor is yours.

Thanks, Michel, and good morning, everybody. As you may understand, 2023 was a special year for us. We closed the transaction with Aegon Nederlands in July, and today, it's the first time we present the figures of the combined organization. And as we will discuss in a minute, the business has performed quite successfully and we've been able to drive -- to deliver a very strong set of results and, at the same time, maintain a robust balance sheet. Investing in growth pays off. I guess that the transition to IFRS 17 and now including only half a year of Aegon Nederlands, without a 2022 comparable set of numbers is not making it easier for you to see all the developments. In many cases, the inclusion of the Aegon Nederlands figures explains the majority of the movements. But happy to provide some additional insight in the numbers that we reported. And then reporting on the same day as we had planned already, is certainly not making it easier for all of you. So let's go to Slide 2, where I will briefly discuss the key achievements. I assume you have read our presentation in detail this morning since we are the first one to have an analyst call today, but maybe you're still recovering from the news about Ageas yesterday. Let's talk about the operating results. We improved the operating results by almost 40%. On top of the addition of Aegon Nederlands, we have seen favorable developments across all business segments. Our organic capital creation of EUR 938 million is in line with our full year expectations. We are happy with the growth in the capital creation of the new combination and the strong underlying business performance. Our solvency ratio stands at 176%. There is a lot running through that number. Ewout is going to provide full detail on this, but the main item is, of course, the impact of the Aegon Nederlands transaction. This is now fully absorbed, and we expect the balance sheet to gain further strength as we execute the integration plan and, of course, generate capital. The ratio also includes the impact of the unit-linked settlement and the additional provision we took for unaffiliated customers. And in addition, the impact from market movements, including the uneconomic spread widening of mortgages is in there as well. Following a review of the strategic plans for the bank and carefully analysis of the offers we received from other parties, we announced on the first of February, the agreement to sell our bank to BAWAG. This transaction will likely close in the second half of this year and is expected to deliver approximately 13 solvency points to our ratio. So using today's ratio on a pro forma basis, we would now be at close to 190%. Operating return on equity amounted to 12.4% also under IFRS 17 stands on an attractive level. We proposed a full year dividend of EUR 2.89 per share, which is a 7% uplift from last year and consistent with our ambition of mid- to high single-digit growth until 2025. Premiums received increased more than 35%, of course, helped by the addition of Aegon Nederlands and a strong organic growth in P&C, disability and pensions. In health, the growth was somewhat inflated. I will talk about that in a moment. Let's move to Slide 3. We are very pleased with the progress we have made this year in delivering sustainable value to all of our stakeholders. In the last year, we made progress on all 5 nonfinancial KPIs. Our reputation as a sustainable insurance company continues to rise and I'm particularly pleased to see that appreciation of our positioning amongst the younger people in the Netherlands, which is important for our future growth. We aim to become the best financial service provider in the Netherlands and are therefore happy to see a growing appreciation by our customers. This is reflected in our relational NPS improving from minus 11 to minus 7 and we are, of course, working on further improvements. We are also pleased with the engagement of our workforce, which has continued to perform well and above our target level. For this year, we anticipate some pressure on this metric, which is to be expected in a time of integration and especially with regard to people whose office location will close over time and their travel distance will increase materially. The objective of 65% reduction of the CO2 footprint we have already exceeded this year ahead of the targeted date and the reduction stood at 70% by the end of 2023. We're making good progress with our impact investments with an increase of EUR 1.1 billion through a combination of new investments and positive revaluations. On Slide 4, I'd like to talk about the progress of the integration. And let me give a quick update on that. We are pleased with the progress that we are making. And you all have seen the EUR 30 million uplift in our cost synergies targets to EUR 250 million that we announced on our investor update in November last year. We're well on track with the submissions of requests for advice to the works council and approvals of the works council that we have received so far, which is an important condition towards the integration of functions and departments. With respect to the TSAs, the so-called transaction service agreements, we are ahead of plan having phased out already around 20%, reflecting less dependence on original processes and systems of Aegon Nederlands. We migrated the group disability book and finished the rationalization of our individual life and remaining non-life books fulfilling important condition for the migration. The conversion of DC pension products is to the targeted system of Plexus, which, by the way, is pension reform proof is well on its way with the successful conversion of 300,000 participants in the beginning of this year. In the meantime, we keep on working on the implementation of the partial internal model to extend the Aegon model to ASR Life in line with the accelerated time lines as discussed at the investor update. We expect to have the Life PIM implemented at our results over full year 2025. So let's now turn to the business performance on the next slide, Slide #5. I'm pleased to see that in Non-life, the premiums received went up more than 25%, driven by organic growth in P&C, Disability and Health from the -- of course, from the contribution of Aegon Nederlands. For P&C, it's the first time in our history that on an organic basis, we achieved a triple-digit growth. So more than EUR 100 million. And with that, I mean the absolute increase in the euro amount. The operating result of the Non-life segment increased by EUR 122 million, mainly due to higher operating insurance service results from improved underwriting results in Disability and Health in addition to the contribution of Aegon Nederlands and a higher investment margin. In P&C, the combined ratio increased slightly to 93.6% on top of the intensified traffic and higher claims frequency, we are back to pre-COVID levels. We've also seen claims inflation picking up. And as you may know already, we have raised our pricing in personal lines in June last year by 5% and in commercial lines last December by 10%. For Q2 in this year, we plan further price increases regarding personal lines of an average of roughly 10%. This with the intention to being ahead of further eventual claims inflation, and this should also cover the higher reinsurance costs. Price increases kick in at policy anniversary date, as you know, and in personal lines, these occur evenly throughout the year. So it will take a full year before the portfolio is on an improved level. Operating results also reflected the benign impact from weather-related calamities in 2023. The profitability of our Disability book is improving as a result of pricing improvements in group disability, which we implemented already in 2022. This is partially offset by some deterioration in the Sickness Leave portfolio as we experienced some increase of people reporting ill for a longer period due to psychological factors. For 2024, we increased premiums already with 8% in Sickness Leave to reflect these developments. Growth in health in last year's season positively contributed to the result due to improved cost coverage from a growing portfolio and lower CPA expenses resulting in a decrease of the combined ratio to 98.9%. In 2024, we will see a decline in our health portfolio due to disciplined pricing. On average, over the 2-year period, 2023 and 2024, the number of policyholders has increased with approximately 60,000 people. So let's now move to the Life segment on Slide #6. Premiums received -- and DC inflow increased by 48% to EUR 3.5 billion, primarily driven by the inclusion of Aegon Nederlands, adding roughly EUR 1.2 billion and the organic growth of Pension DC, which was driven by an increase of recurring premiums of our Werknemers Pensioen and customer funds deposited in our Doenpensioen. Growth in Funeral was mainly driven by inflation-related indexation. The increase is partly offset by the natural decrease in the pension defined benefit and individual Life portfolio. Assets under management in the DC proposition increased to EUR 22.6 billion, mainly driven by the addition of Aegon Nederlands that added just over EUR 12 billion, net inflow of ASR DC products as well as positive market revaluations. The operating result increased by EUR 98 million to EUR 688 million in total. The increase primarily relates to the addition of Aegon Nederlands. The operating insurance service results benefited from the -- also from the addition of Aegon Nederlands, reflecting a higher release of CSM and risk adjustment, which was partially offset by a lower benefit from experience variance, which reflects the fact that actuals are now more in line with what we expected. Operating investment and finance results increased by EUR 34 million due to the addition of Aegon Nederlands and a positive impact from lower UFR drag due to higher interest rates. The increase is partially offset by higher investment expenses and a decrease of the investment margin due to lower asset valuation and negative impact from accrual of the balance sheet. Moving on to our fee-based business on the next slide. Operating result of fee-based business consists of 2 fee-generating segments. On one hand, asset management consisting of our mortgages, real estate and asset management business, and on the other hand, the distribution and service businesses. Operating results of the asset management more than doubled to EUR 78 million as a result of the inclusion of Aegon mortgage business in the second half of the year. Mortgage origination increased by EUR 800 million to EUR 6.1 billion. The increase is mainly driven by the addition of Aegon Nederlands for an amount of EUR 3 billion. There was less demand for mortgages as a result of higher mortgage rates. We ended the year with a stable market share of around 11% for the combined mortgage businesses. Total assets under management for third parties increased by EUR 800 million to almost EUR 30 billion mainly by the addition of assets under management coming from Aegon Nederlands pension DC business. This was partially offset by the third-party assets under management that is part of the transaction with Aegon N.V. which is yet to be transferred, and that's about EUR 12 billion. The real estate portfolio, which is managed for third parties, for third parties increased by EUR 200 million, meaning more than 8% growth. Inflows in the real estate funds were partially offset by lower real estate valuations. Operating result of the Distribution and Services increased by EUR 5 million to EUR 30 million. Fee income increased a result of organic -- as a result of organic growth any addition of the DNS entities of Aegon Nederlands being Robidus, TKP and Nedasco. Let's move to Slide 8 before I hand over to Ewout. On this slide, we see the result of holding and the banking segment, reflecting the activities of Knab for the second half year. The operating result of EUR 139 million reflects the somewhat extraordinary interest margins driven by the higher interest rate levels. As a result of the announcement to sell Knab, the bank will be labeled as held for sale and therefore, no longer contribute to the operating result and OCC of ASR, and Ewout will come back to that in a moment. The decrease of the result of segment holding and other with EUR 91 million was mainly due to the interest charges related to the EUR 1 billion Tier 2 capital instruments that we issued late 2022 to prefinance the transaction of Aegon Nederlands as well as the higher holding costs related to, for example, centralization of activities and brand rationalization of Ditzo and a downtime to the ASR brands. So with that, I will hand over to Ewout for his view on our solvency capital generation, the investment portfolio and, of course, the strong balance sheet.

Yes. Thank you, Jos, and good morning to everyone on the call. Today is a remarkable day. It is the first time we report full year numbers under the new IFRS regime, and at the same time, it is also the first time we report solvency numbers and IFRS numbers, including Aegon NL. And I'm very grateful to all the employees in the financial departments that made this happen. At the same time, I appreciate that it is hard to see that all those developments. So let us together have a look at those numbers starting with Slide 10 for the movements in our solvency ratio. Our solvency ratio is composed of the in partial internal model for Aegon Life and a standard formula for the remainder. Our full year 2023 Solvency II ratio amounts to 176%, which is after the full year dividend. At H1, we mentioned the pro forma solvency ratio somewhere above 185%. So we are a bit of 10 solvency points down from that number. And if we look to the H2 developments, we see that the level of capital generation in H2 was, in fact, deployed in the full year dividend. And in addition, we have seen the impact of the unit-linked settlements, adverse real estate revaluation and spread widening of mortgages. In addition, we have seen some final model changes as a result of the IFRS 17 implementation and harmonization of assumptions between Aegon and ASR. Knab, our bank is still part of the 176%. The announced sale of Knab, which is expected to close in the second half of 2024 will add approximately 13 solvency points to the ratio. And this will further strengthen the balance sheet in 2024, together with a strong level of capital generation and capitalized synergies. As you all know, the impact from mortgage spreads rising is not economic. I will talk about this in a bit more detail later on with a time lag between interest rate movements and mortgage tariffs, provide some volatility in mortgage spreads. You will see that mortgage spreads through the cycle will FSP between 80 to 100 basis points. Looking at the year-to-date market spreads tightening, I would assume that the large part of the negative impact of H2 as we reverse again, and our ratio is positively impacted with roughly 4 points by this. EUR 610 million is from distribution relates to our proposed full year dividend and the 65% of the OCC. Let's now take a look at our OCC development in more detail on the next slide. The OCC came in strong around EUR 940 million this year, also including the contribution of Aegon Nederlands in the second half of the year. Within business capital generation next to the Aegon Nederlands contribution, we see improved results in Disability and Health, Jos mentioned it earlier. And compared to 2022, the excess returns are low because of lower contribution from real estate and equities and the higher IFRS AAA accrual. In addition, the holding and hybrid expenses increased related to the Aegon NL transaction. The release of capital increased with the addition of Aegon, partly offset by negative impact from a lower average solvency ratio, which is used to get from an SCR to an OCC figure. The technical movements representing the UFR drag showed an improvement related to the higher interest rate environment, partly offset by the addition of Aegon Nederlands in H2. The interest rate of the -- sensitivity of the OCC has been updated for the inclusion of Aegon NL and is still very manageable. Looking ahead, for 2024, there are a couple of items you should account for. Of course, there are many moving elements by combining 2 businesses, but the main items are the exclusion of the contribution of the bank and also the mortgage servicing fees as part of the announced sale of Knab to BAWAG together around EUR 50 million. And in addition, you should take into account the negative UFR drag Aegon of around EUR 25 million due to lower rates at the year -- at the end of last year. For education purposes, the UFR drag methodology is presented on Slide 13. Underlying, nothing changed. Business continues to perform well, and we keep commercial momentum despite a large integrations, and we are executing our integration as planned. And we will, of course, provide you with more insights on the OCC at the CMD end of June. Moving to Slide 12. As a result of the combination with Aegon Nederlands, the general account asset portfolio doubled to EUR 82 billion. The investment portfolio remains a high-quality asset portfolio with over 85% of fixed income when including the exposure to mortgages. Around half of the fixed income portfolio relates to government bonds that are for more than 95% AA or AAA rated. The exposure to mortgages increased to 31%, where it was around 25% at the year-end of 2022. And the increase reflects the more heavy weight mortgages are having in the Aegon NL portfolio. The quality of the mortgage portfolio is underpinned by the low average loan to fair value of the book of only 63% and 24% of the total portfolio having a government guarantee. Also for the combined portfolio with Aegon, the payment arrears are very low at 0.07 basis points and credit losses amounts to 0.04 basis points. In the graph on the bottom right-hand side, you can see the OCC Mortgage spread development over time. As mentioned earlier, Mortgage spread can be followed out because of the timing lag between interest rate movements and the mortgage tariffs. This is just a timing thing and does not reflect the underlying credit risk of this asset category, which is and remains extremely low. The graph show relative stability over a longer period of time with short-term volatility, which can lead to a spike up or down in the valuation on a given reported date. Looking through this cycle on OCC Mortgage spread of around 80 to 100 basis points still look like a realistic number. And year-to-date, movement shows an expected tightening of Mortgage spreads of around 40 bps as mentioned earlier, bringing the OCC Mortgage spread in line with that range. Overall, I'm happy with the quality of the investment portfolio. And as mentioned earlier, we do see room for optimization of the combined balance sheet and we'll update the market on our plans at our Capital Markets Day in June. You might have noticed that I did not talk about real estate on this slide, which I will do in a bit more detail on the next slide. The real estate portfolio increased by EUR 4 billion as a result of the transaction, which mainly consists of high-quality assets in residential real estate with owning frictional vacancy and the stable cash flows. This makes that roughly half of our real estate portfolio relates to residential real estate in the Netherlands. Following steep price increases in quite a number of years, we have experienced negative revaluation since interest rates and mortgage rates have started to rise in 2022. Also in H1 of 2023, house prices declined the Netherlands. However, since that moment, we have already seen a cautious improvement in this market segment in the second half of 2023. And this have not yet been reflected in the value of rented houses. And we've seen in historical context, a large gap between fair value of houses and the fair value of rented houses. Having said that, we are also aware of the recent discussions on rental agreements and CPI indexation, which is in a very early stage and not something that keeping us awake at night. But, of course, we are closely monitoring that situation. Fundamentally, we see a very significant shortage of housing in the Netherlands nowadays up to 300,000, which is actually growing. Our rural land portfolio represents 22%, which is a very stable category with long-dated inflation-linked contracts, which also in 2023 shows a positive revaluation of 2% compared to 2022. About 5% of our portfolio is invested in Dutch offices. And we believe we are relatively shielded from some of the international developments in the office space because our portfolio is very focused on offices that are located on prime locations, near mobility hubs in the larger cities in the Netherlands and on the university campuses. We believe this portfolio will continue to do relatively well through the cycle, and the vacancy rates remained low and even improved over the last 6 months. At the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, we have seen negative revaluation coming through in our real estate portfolio, mainly related to the higher interest rate environment. In the second half of 2023, we still see our efforts in active evaluation, but this seems to ease off, and we are neutral for the coming year. Let's move to Slide 14. This slide shows that our strong balance sheet with ample financial flexibility. The unrestricted Tier 1 capital represents over 70% of the total own funds, and we continue to have ample headroom available within the Solvency II framework. The financial leverage decreased as a result of the increase in equity and CSM related to the Aegon transaction and also includes the Green senior bond of EUR 600 million we issued in December. The financial leverage is well below our limit of 35%. The interest offers decreased as a result of interest -- increased interest expenses, but still well above our minimum target level and S&P recently reaffirmed our single A rating with a stable outlook. Our debt maturity profile, as you can see, is nicely stacked and the first call date is in the second half of this year. Let's go to the next slide. This slide give an overview of our holding liquidity and the solvency ratio of the main underlying entities. The holding liquidity at the end of 2023 stood at EUR 700 million, a decrease of EUR 1.5 billion, driven by the cash payments to Aegon Group. The remittance reflects a EUR 500 million one-off upstream from ASR Life and Non-life entities to fund part of the transaction. The backlog order shows the EUR 2.2 billion cash payment to Aegon Group and the redemption of the bridge loan partly offset by EUR 600 million green bond issue. Solvency II ratio of the ASR entity shows a decrease to finance Aegon and Health transaction and unfavorable market and operational movements, mainly in Life before instance, mortgage spread widening and the unit-linked settlement-related provision. This letter is also reflected within the Aegon Life solvency ratio. And this brings me to the end of my presentation, and let's bring it back to you Jos for the wrap up.

Thank you, Ewout. So to wrap up today's presentation, I think we've seen a solid performance in 2023 and the inclusion of Aegon Nederlands for the first time. So combining the 2 entities and at the same time, growing the business and delivering strong results, we are very happy with that. We are also very happy with the strong performance that is delivered and to continue to be delivered in sales, especially in P&C disability and our pension business. Our Solvency II ratio is strong. And when including the sale of Knab, we get to around a pro forma level of 190%. And we see further levers to strengthen the balance sheet with organic capital creation and realization of the capitalized cost synergies. We're on track to deliver on our upgraded integration plan from last November and would very much welcome you join our Capital Markets Day event on the 27th of June at our head office in Utrecht. That being said, I'm sure you still have a few questions for us. So let's hand over to Michel.

Yes, we're going to opening it up for Q&A. So we'll wait for the first question to come.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from the line of Cor Kluis from ABN AMRO ODDO BHF.

Cor Kluis from ABN AMRO ODDO BHF. A few questions. Maybe first on the OCG. I think you have an OCG target for this year of EUR 1.2 billion, for 2026 or EUR 1.3 billion. Are we correct that you basically now say we just -- the bank has been sold just so the excess capital goes up, but it goes out of the OCG, EUR 50 million and UFR EUR 25 million. So is the EUR 1.2 billion now, EUR 1.1 billion and the EUR 1.3 billion, is it now EUR 1.2 million? Could you update us on that or other things we have to focus on at least with the new OCG guidance? Second question is on residential houses in the Netherlands. So 52% of your portfolio this is rising very nicely since December of last year, and also the outlook are quite positive for this year. We talk about rents that some restraints, could you elaborate on that? And could you help us a little bit to have an understanding on what we might expect on the mark-to-market for real estate residential houses for this year or where is it dependent on? And my last question is about Non-life. The claims where we saw the same at the end and then the claims were somewhat higher in the second half of last year. You've been increasing premiums quite actively. Is there something specific? Or is this just back to post-COVID or something else? That's it from my side.

Let me start with the last question, Cor, and then I'll hand over to Ewout for the first 2 questions. In Non-life, we have seen a number of developments, especially in motor. First of all, the frequency seems to be back at the same level as it was pre-COVID. I think that's one. Secondly, we do see that average price for repair has gone up due to inflation. And within that, we see a third development and it is that due to still shortage of materials, but also the fact that a lot of repair shops don't have enough people to do the repairs, that the time for repair has increased from, on average, 40 days to 80 days. And during that period, most of the people get a rental car, and that kicks also in the development of the P&C. That all in all made as we already increased -- upfront inflation increase. Last year with 5% that we already now have decided that when the cycle of the 5% has ended, that we will increase premiums. We have another 10% from the middle of this year going forward. So we want to be ahead of those developments. And that's why we already now have decided to increase premiums there. And for the first 2 questions I hand over to Ewout.

Yes. So to start with the -- on the OCG. Cor, so in detail, what I also mentioned, when we start with the EUR 1.2 billion of that we expected for the -- around EUR 1.2 billion that we expected for 2024. If we exclude the bank, if we exclude also the mortgage business that was on the balance sheet of banks that we earn fees on. And we take into account the UFR drag it moves into the number that you mentioned, so around EUR 1.1 billion. So that's correct. On the house -- on your question on house prices, what we see in the Netherlands is that there's a very significant shortage on houses in the Netherlands, so 300,000 today and it is increasing quite rapidly the shortage. So fundamentally, this is in a very good category to invest in. What we based because of that also have seen. And now actually, the markets have digested the higher mortgage tariffs that house prices in the Netherlands are going up again. So actually since H2 house prices are going up, and I think the expectations on house price increases in -- for 2024 is actually increasing every month further. So fundamentally, you do see that the fuel on the value of houses is positive. What we build today have not seen is that the rental value increased as well. So there's quite a gap between the rental value and the fair value of houses. And historically, we now already see that, that is actually bigger than in a historical context. So all in all, in the longer term, that makes us positive also on the valuation of the residential portfolio that we have on the balance sheet. Good to be seen when that kicks in.

And the next question comes from the line of David Barma from Bank of America.

The first one is on the solvency position and 2 little questions there. So first, on the capitalized cost synergies. Can you remind us how much you booked during 2023 and what your plans are for recognizing those during 2024? And then secondly, on this, given the current market conditions, what are your expectations for asset optimization during '24 and rerisking? The second question is on capital returns. So your solvency position will improve quite rapidly from the year-to-date and capital generation is strong. So at what stage do you expect to be able to move back from the payout, which is around 50% today to the 70% to 75% you previously targeted? And then lastly, one question on the Life market and the pension buyout. So can you give us an update on how your discussions are going? And if you -- if in the last 8 months, you're already seeing a change of behavior in the discussions you're having with your clients or potential clients?

Yes, Ewout will take the first one.

Definitely, yes. So what we have mentioned during the investor update in -- by end of November is that we expect that the capitalized synergies in Life will add by end of the day, roughly 12 solvency points to our ratio. What we also have said is that we are on the path of harmonizing the balance sheet and the success on the balance sheet of Aegon and ASR. So what we have done is on one hand, we have increased the technical provisions on the balance sheet of Aegon Life by increasing actually the technical provisions on cost. And at the same time, we took that out by also recognizing part of the capitalized Life synergies which is around 3 solvency points in the full year numbers. That makes 8 to 9 solvency points we still expect, and we gradually will release that in the solvency position can be done in 2 steps, can also be done in 3 steps. That is something that we did not take a decision on yet. That is more or less the path that we are seeing. And then on the asset optimization. So what we are now doing, if we see good opportunities, so more or less the asset optimization opportunity, where we see that we optimize the -- on one hand, the credit portfolio. For example, moving from AAA coffees to AA coffees or even single A coffees. That's a way of optimizing it. We can also see in the credit portfolio, you'll see some optimization, and we see room to also move a bit more to the equity space on the Aegon Life benefits, stepping away from mortgages. What we see on today is that, well, the first small step we can take, especially on optimizing the portfolio on the government bond side, and we expect when we see opportunities, we will not be hesitating and also taking access on the other side. But what we have mentioned also earlier, it will take a couple of years to do the full to do the full exercise and get the full potential that we are actually seeing in optimizing this portfolio.

And then on your other 2 questions, first of all, capital return, you mentioned a payout ratio of 50%. I think for this year, over 2023, it's 65%. Just to clarify that, going forward towards 2026, we gradually want to grow back to the 70% to 75%. From our perspective, it is important to execute the plan we have -- part of that plan, we've already executed, for example, by the transaction we've done with BAWAG and growing into the balance sheet -- back into the balance sheet. And as you said, David, that will be fairly quickly. And from that, we do see opportunities to allocate capital in growing the business. I'll talk in a minute about the pension buyout market and also to stack some capital to be ready if and when Aegon might decide to sell down their position. And if that is going to take a long time, and we've been always clear on that, we're not going to stack capital, which we can't use for the business. So if and when we have a very strong and large capital position. And we don't see any opportunities to further develop the business or to do buybacks towards Aegon, that we definitely will come up with further capital return plan. As said earlier, we will be -- we will give more clarity on our medium-term plans also on capital return during the investor update on the 27th of June. Having mentioned pension buyouts, we do see actually over the last couple of weeks, the first incoming requests for offerings for the pension buyouts. In the SME area, we already did close to 200 new contracts for employers under the new pension law. So also that is starting to kick in. And in the buyout space, we are making offerings. As you know, we want to be very disciplined and meet the 12% return hurdle. From our perspective, we don't mind if we would miss one or two in the first round because we expect that none of the 3 larger players in the Dutch market can adopt the whole market. And we expect that the more profitable business could be done later this year or even maybe next year. So we're taking part of the offerings yet but we want to be disciplined, and we are patient to do the right contracts at the right returns. But we're very confident that over the remainder of this year and next year, that we can be very active in that market.

And just to check what kind of strain do you expect from this? On solvency?

Well, we've said earlier that every EUR 1 billion of assets under management in this space will require roughly 1.5 percentage point of solvency depending on whether you buy reinsurance for the longevity part. So for spreadsheet reasons, I would, for this moment in time, calculate with 1.5%.

And the next question comes from the line of Farooq Hanif from JPMorgan.

I just want to clarify what you just said on the buybacks because I think it's important. So are you saying that the priority is not to do any buybacks until you've made a stack and then you want to know what Aegon does? Or are you saying that there could be a mixture of both building a stack and maybe doing some buybacks? I mean I appreciate that you will tell us more in June, but I think it's really important to get this clear now. And my second question is, when you talk about pricing, it sounds like that you're still pulling through price, particularly in P&C and Disability. I mean, what does that mean for top line growth in Non-life? And then finally, when I look at the Life operating result, clearly, we only have about half a year worth of Aegon NL. So does that mean when we look at CSM release and we look at net financial result, we need to kind of double the second half? If you could explain and help that on IFRS, I think it would also help.

The last question will be done by Ewout. On your first question, the story actually hasn't changed, Farooq. We prefer to invest in business growth and long-term profitability. That's one. And investing in buyouts is one of that. At the same time, we want to grow into the balance sheet. And actually, the answer to your question is going to depend on the behavior of Aegon in that way that -- we want to be ready if and when they start to sell down. And if it would take a longer term and we can't spend the capital in another way that we're not going to wait for Aegon. So actually, it could be either one of the 2 or a combination of the both -- of 2, depending on the moment in time where they start to sell down. But if -- for example, if they -- and I think they're very happy with their investment in ASR currently if they would stay in a bit longer, and we can't spend the capital for other things, we're not going to wait for them to take a decision on potential buybacks if we can't invest in the business. So that to your first question. On your premium increase question, we delivered this year a growth in P&C and Disability, excluding the addition of Aegon of over 6%, roughly 2/3 of that was due to premium increases. But as I said in my presentation, we also organically grew EUR 100 million in the P&C business. So going forward, we expect that at least 2/3 of the growth will be due to premium increase in P&C and that we -- on top of that, also organically, we'll be able to grow the P&C business.

And yes, Farooq, on your question on IFRS results. So I think it's fair to double the contribution of Aegon Life or to come up with a full year number. Having said that, it's also good to be aware that there are a lot of moving parts in the IFRS results because of the PPA, because of the harmonization. And that's why we also have said is that we will come back also on the ambition for the IFRS results for the combination at the CMD in June because then we have also clear visibility on what that means for the full year number. But if you want to put a number in the model for now, it is the best way indeed to double the contribution of Aegon Life for the second -- over that -- was in the second half of the year and double that.

Okay. And just on the buyback, if I may return. Just to be absolutely clear, what you're saying is, if Aegon decides it wants to stay because it wants to benefit from -- it's shareholding in you, you will, I guess, look annually at your capital and decide on that basis, whether to do a buyback rather than saying now upfront what that will be, if you see what I mean?

Yes, for this moment in time, I think that's the right approach, and we will clarify that further in June, in the update we're going to do that.

And the next question comes from the line of Andrew Baker from Citi.

First, just on the -- obviously, on the group solvency ratio, we have a pretty clear sort of framework for thinking about capital return, and we can all see the mechanical tailwinds coming through. The local entities, as you've highlighted, lower at the end of full year 2023 than they have been. Just curious if you see at any point that these could be a constraint to capital return at the group level? And then secondly, are you able to give an update on where you are on the unit-linked settlement specifically related to the 90% threshold. And just a reminder, when is that expected to be achieved? And then also, have you seen any claims come through from the sort of nonpolicyholder protection group customers that you provisioned for separately?

Thanks, Andrew. So in detail, so -- I think also when the group solvency ratio is, we -- there's a clear development how it comes from the H1 to the H2 number. Thank you all also based on sensitivities could follow that. When we look to the legal entity levels, actually, we have seen the same development for -- in the legal entities as well for example, the mortgage spread sensitivity was also part of the Aegon Life and the ASR Life entities the unit-linked settlement was also -- is also included in the Aegon Life and the ASR entities. So with that, actually, we can also clearly follow the trajectory that we have seen from H1 to H2 for the legal entities and the promising path that we have in front of us is also the promising part that we have in front of us for the legal entities. So for us, we don't see this as a strength in any way for the future.

And on your second question regarding the 90%, maybe to clarify the process towards getting a 90%, we agreed with the 5 parties involved that they would give us all the names of their customers and the policy information of their customers in the beginning of January. They have delivered on that. So they lived up to what we agreed. The next step that we agreed with them is that we would match their information with our policy systems of ASR and Aegon. In the meantime, that's done. So we have now referred to them, well, from the 145,000 policies that you said that would be involved in this arrangement. We have matched that portfolio with ours. And as you can imagine, the match is not directly 100%, but we are already at a very high percentage. So we've now asked to them, well, could you help us out with the remaining group of policyholders that -- where we couldn't match the information. That will lead to a final group of people that we could match. These people will get a proposal based on the agreement we have from the different foundations, they are aiming to start outstanding those proposals as from the first of April next. And the group that get a proposal from this group, 90% should agree with the proposal. And we expect that, that will be somewhere around mid-summer. So from the first of April, they will start to send out the proposals and hopefully, somewhere around mid-summer, we have reached the 90%. We are in a very good collaboration with the 5 foundations. Up until now they live up to all the promises they have made, and we were able to do the same. So there is, by them and by us no doubt that we will get to 90% over time. And to your second question, whether we have seen new claims coming in from the -- under the second part of the agreement, we have had, of course, customers that gave us their details because they think they are not part of the agreement and they think they have the right to receive a compensation. That has become a stable group up until now. There is not much growth anymore. The agreement we have is that we first focused on the executing the agreement with the foundations. And as soon as we've done most of the work for that, we will start to match the people that gave us their details for the second part. The first thing we will do is check whether those people aren't the same people that are already at the different claims foundations. We can't exclude that fully. That for certain reasons, some people say, "Well, I'll drop my name even if I'm part of the arrangement, just to be sure" and then we will start to develop proposals for those people. And up until now, we don't have any doubt that everything that we have to do will be within the provision we have taken for that. So in the EUR 250 million, we are -- and that's a maximum. We will be able to finalize everything with the foundations. And within the additional provision we have, we will certainly be able to finalize all the other incoming individual claims.

And the next question comes from the line of Michael Huttner from Berenberg.

So really well done. You've got some moving parts at the moment is brilliant. The -- I only have maybe 3 questions. The first one is -- it's a little bit personal. So as I understand it, Mr. Baeten you're due to your mandate rise at the end of April or May 2026. But the planned delivery is at the end of '26, now no news or I think we'll kind of assuming here rather, does it mean you'll try and push your guys to kind of deliver by the 1st of April or something so you can announce it's done with a step as you decided to step down, if you'd certify. And the second is on Slide 13, there's a -- and you probably talked about it, but I missed it. The office vacancy rate seems to have dropped sharply. I was just curious, really. And then the third one, you talked about the pension business, 3 participants. But as I understand it from the press, it might only be 2 participants. What does that do?

Thank you, Michael, for those questions. And including the personal one. We have always said that we will deliver the plan in 3 years from closing, and the closing was at the 4th of July. And you will see that there is a kind of a perfect match between the midyear 2026. And the remaining period of my contract. And whether I will stay on by then, it's up to the Supervisory Board, and we will see that. I've committed myself to deliver the integration. And I don't need to push my colleagues. They are doing it by themselves because as a team, we are committed to deliver on that. So there is really no connection with my potential stepping down, which is not sure yet because we have to see that in 2026. We're going to deliver together on that. So that, to your first question, Michael. Then the office vacancy rate is a question for Ewout.

Yes, I thought your first -- I was moving to his first question. Now on the second question, the office vacancy rate. So that came indeed down, Michael, with minus 2.2 percentage points from 4.7% to 2.5%. We also disclosed that on the slide. And that was mainly driven by, well, a large office that was not filled and is now filled. So actually, what I also mentioned, given the fact that our offices are only there on focused locations and focused locations for us means near railway station of the large 5 -- largest 5 cities in the Netherlands. And some offices on the university campuses that actually makes them that focused strategy really helping us in having a good level of rentals in the offices. And with that, we are also more positive on the outlook on our office portfolio compared to what we see across the world. So that is actually what we are seeing today.

And on your last question, are there 2 or 3 participants. We expect that in Dutch markets, we will have to deal with the 3 of us. Being NN, ASR and Athora. And there may be some smaller participants, but the larger buyouts from our perspective could end at one of those 3 where NN and ASR, our vested Dutch insurance companies known by most of the pension funds, with a strategy to combine a good service with having a solid position in the Dutch market. And Athora is more the one who's doing the asset play and it's up to the pension funds and of course, to the regulator what they like most. But we expect that this will be the main competitive environment.

And the next question comes from the line of Nasib Ahmed from UBS.

Firstly, on -- you don't give an OCC split by division. I was wondering if you could kind of give some indication of, let's say, the 2024 OCC of EUR 1.1 billion? How the split between Life, Non-life fee business and holding? Second question on reinsurance renewals at 1/1/24, how is it gone relative to last year? What are the terms and conditions? How is the retention looking? And then finally, on the debt, you've got the maturity coming in 2024. Is the expectation to refinance that? You've, of course, done the EUR 600 million senior. I think the expectation is that EUR 600 million remains. That's not for refinancing the EUR 500 million that's coming this year.

On the reinsurance, the premium went up with roughly EUR 4 million to EUR 41 million. Conditions due to the growth of the portfolio, we increased the retainer a little bit from EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million. But for the rest, it remained roughly the same. So the other questions...

Yes. So to start with the split, Nasib, so indeed, we do not provide -- we have chosen to make a distinction between the different components of the level of capital generation more specific when you look to the B&S segment, for example, or to the holding expenses. It's fair to assume that, that is one-on-one also the way that is reflected in the OCC. For now, we haven't -- we are not envisaging and changing the way we are disclosing the OCC information. Then on the debt side, your assumption is right, the EUR 600 million is not there to refinance -- potentially refinance the Tier 2 instruments that has a call date in September. That was actually there to refinance the bridge loan to provide a loan to Knab. And that was actually the main driver behind the EUR 600 million. So if you decide to refinance the Tier 2 instrument, we will do that in a different way.

And the next question comes from the line of Iain Pearce from Exane BNP Paribas.

Just 2 quick ones. First one was just a clarification on the subsidiary solvency levels. Should we think about subsidiary solvency level targets in the same way we think about the group solvency level targets? And obviously, those moving in a positive direction with all the things that you're doing and getting to above a 175% level in, hopefully, the fairly near term. I'm just thinking about how that will drive remittances going forward? And then the second one, I don't know if I misheard, but I think you said something about the health book declining in 2024 or taking some remedial action in the health book? Just trying to understand why -- what the expectations are there? And if you expect premiums to be down or customer numbers to be down offset by rates, sort of what you're expecting on the Health business for 2024?

Let me start with the last question. To answer the question, I need to elaborate a little bit on the dynamics of the Health market. In every business line, we can do business through the year in health. There is only one moment per year that people can decide whether they want to stay with their current health insurance company or whether they want to move to another health insurance company. So in the last couple of weeks of any year, there's always a very strong competition for Health customers. Last year, so end of 2022 for the year 2023, we had a growth of 240,000 new customers. That was mainly due to our pricing position in additional health coverage. This year, we again priced a very responsible, not only in the basic health insurance, but also in the additional health insurance. And it was one health insurance player that actually price very aggressive. So that was a part of the Achmea Group. So they gained a lot of new customers. So that's why we already know now for the year 2024, the number of customers has decreased. At the same time, we have increased premiums in health business. So from a top line perspective, that will not be fully visible because of the growth of the premium of the remaining customers. But -- and that's why I mentioned the number over the last 2 years. Over the last 2 years, we have seen growth of roughly 60,000 customers. So net-net, we have been growing the business, and that's actually a growth according to plan. We've always said well if we can grow the business around 40,000 customers per year, then we were happy. So with this number, we're still happy. From a solvency perspective, the decrease of the number of customers means a positive impact on solvency. And also from a combined ratio perspective, we think that given the fact that we have priced in a healthy way that will also impact our portfolio in a positive way. And the first question I'll hand over to Ewout.

Yes. So on your question with respect to the target solvency level of the legal entities. Actually, it differs a bit from what we have at group level. So for the Non-life entities, we aim to have a solvency ratio above the 130% and for the Life entities, it is actually the same. But on top of that, we also have said, given the fact that the unit-linked risk was there. We want to maintain 10 solvency points additional on top of the 130% and that's something that we also need to rethink whether that additional 10% is still necessary. And at what moment in time we can drop that but we haven't yet made a decision on that. So that's the -- these are the target levels for the legal entities.

And the next question comes from the line of Steven Haywood from HSBC.

A few questions, please. Just on your real estate portfolio now that you've obviously enlarged it with the Aegon acquisition. Can you give an update on how your own real estate portfolio performance, the vacancy rates and also the rate increases on rent, they compare to the sort of Dutch market average. I think that you've obviously been doing better than the average, but it would be helpful if you have any color on this? And are you comfortable with the current exposures and Solvency II sensitivity here? Next question, just a clarification. I'm not sure if you mentioned anything about the reinsurance retention levels on the P&C side. I'm sure I heard something, but if you could give us an update on what retention cover you have now and if there's been any change since last year? And then finally, I think I know the answer to this question but I'm asking anyway. Are you interested in Achmea's Life and Pension business that is up for sale?

Let me then take the first 2, and then Jos can probably like to answer the third question. On the real estate portfolio, so yes, we are happy actually with the portfolio that we are having. What we said we are -- the outlook actually of houses in the Netherlands is promising. So the 50% -- and the cash flows are very stable because there are no frictional costs in this category and sort of the friction of -- there are only fixed vacancy, there are no -- there are no other vacancy -- the frictional vacancy in this real estate category, and that makes that -- that we are happy with the 50% that we have in residential. We are also very happy with the 22% in rural because land is something that no one can make. In real estate that is back in the '60s, but we haven't planned as since going forward. And that makes that actually the price increases of land is already there for many years, even despite higher rates. And that also makes that the remaining 25% will help actually diversify the real estate portfolio. So all in all, happy with the portfolio that we are having. How that exactly is related to other portfolios in the Netherlands? I don't know for sure. What I do know is how we are focusing our portfolio, what I said for offices only on the -- in the bigger cities. I'm sorry, in near railway stations in the 5 large cities in the Netherlands and on the leading university areas for retail, we are only in the main streets and in large shopping centers. So we are having a very focused strategy, and that makes that we are also comfortable and happy with the portfolio that we are having. But again, how that is -- how that exactly relates to other Dutch real estate? Just -- it is hard for me to comment on. Then on the P&C retention levels. So that is EUR 50 million, the P&C retention levels that we are having. Over time, we already have seen that the premium that we have to pay to reinsurers is increasing despite the fact that actually reinsurers are making money on reinsurance business in the Netherlands. Also, we based probably because of the climate change that are impacting reinsurers. They also -- we, as a cash cow are facing increased -- premium increases by the reinsurance and the retention levels is increasing a bit compared to last year, and that's actually related also to the growth of the portfolio that we are having. And then I think, Jos, for the third...

Yes. On your third question, I think the shortest answer I could give is yes. If and when it is indeed the case that they are considering to sell the portfolio, we would love to have a serious look on that. Having said that, of course, it needs to fit in the timing of our integration, but normally, such a transaction would require a bit more time in terms of decision-making on the seller side. So we can't think of a reason that we couldn't match that somewhere in time. And if I was the seller, I would at least invite the strategic players in the Netherlands on such a portfolio. But up until now, the only thing we have seen is rumors in the press. So let's wait and see what's going to happen. And you asked for the retention number. I already mentioned it, it was EUR 50 million in the P&C.

And the next question comes from the line of Jason Kalamboussis from ING.

Yes, probably a point and 2 questions. The first one is coming back to what Nasib was asking. Just wanted to check that, are you considering at some stage still to move to a segmental OCG? I think that will be extremely helpful for us in an area where we don't have always the best tools, if you want. And we like to mention companies on that front to do our focus still. So that's the one. The second thing is, could you give us a -- maybe I have missed it because my line dropped, can you give a solvency update or how it has improved on the market perspective over the last 2 months? I would have thought that with the recovery of mortgage, you should be by around up 5%, but could you give a comment on that? And the third thing is again coming back on the recurring share buybacks and Aegon's willingness to reduce the stake. Do you have in your mind, I mean, we can wait for June to know the quantum of the timing. But do you have in your mind that there is any chance that you don't come back necessarily with the recurring share buyback at the CMD in June because the only way I can think about it is just if Aegon places a whole stake, then you use the Knab proceeds effectively for that. And then effectively, the recurring share buyback would be for later because you will always also need to keep capital for the buyout you would like to do. So if you could help us a bit more in that direction, that would be great.

Yes. So Jason, thanks for your questions. To start with the first, hopefully, you're not getting bored, but I'll probably answer it in the same way as I've done with the question of Nasib. So it's not something that we envisage today to make a split in the way as you propose. At the same time, we also carefully listened to the feedback that we are receiving also from U.S. and its members. So -- well, that we take into account and let's see how that the tree falls. On the year-to-date solvency ratio, I think 2 main items to mention there of, let's say, maybe 3 is better. Mortgage spreads tightened indeed with roughly 40 bps and that will add around 5 solvency points. As you know, the UFR lowered with 50 bps, so coming down from the 3.45% UFR to 3.3% UFR, that will roughly take out 3 solvency points. And we have sold the bank, of course, which will also bring in 30 solvency points. So all in all, pro forma, I think the best assumption to make is around the 190% mark.

And on your last question, Jason, you're right, we will come up with further guidance in June next. So it's difficult to walk ahead on that communication rather, we are fully aware of what the market expects. We are fully aware of the fact that everybody sees that we will hopefully quite rapidly grow back into our balance sheet. Our view on running an insurance company is that it should be about the long term. And the long term is always about growing the business. And if and when we have a lot of capital, which we can't use for growing the business, we will find a way to give it back to investors. Our balance sheet is strong enough to carry the buybacks -- sorry, the pension buyouts going forward. So the fact that we are investing in buyouts doesn't need directly to influence on our decision on that as long as we've indeed grown into the balance sheet. And what we tried to clarify is there is -- at the end of the day, there is no real dependency on the decision that Aegon is going to take. If and when we have a lot of capital, which we can't use and Aegon decides to remain for a longer-term strategic shareholder, we're not going to wait for their decision. At the same time, on an animal base, we have to carefully look into a potential moment that they might sell to sell down. And given the size of their 29.99. And given our experience when the government was a large shareholder, we have learned that it is helpful to adopt a part of a potential sell-down. So if and when we do have the feeling that there is a chance that there will be a sell down, we always will try to be able to adopt a part of that sell-down. So hopefully, that clarifies a little bit.

And the next question comes from the line of Anthony Yang from Goldman Sachs.

The first one is coming, is a follow up on the capital and capitalized cost synergy of the 8 to 9 percentage points remaining to be released. Can I clarify, should we expect that to be once every year over the next 2 years or like once every half year?

Thanks, Anthony. No, I think it's more logical when we look to how the process works, that will be seen by year-end and not by half year.

Cool. Can I just follow up on the Solvency II sensitivity as well. It just on Slide 28, I see minus 10 percentage points reduction in real estate, reduced Solvency II ratio by minus 8%. Shall we expect that to be lower once the partial internal model is integrated?

No. So that's a good question. So I think that will increase because what you see today is that still half of the real estate portfolio is on a standard formula. The standard formula has higher required capital. And when you move to an internal model, we expect that the required capital for the -- on the ASR balance sheet will also be against a lower -- against lower charges. And when you then have a reduction of the value then the reduction of the revised capital is less. So the sensitivity of real estate will increase broadly.

And the last question comes from the line of Marcus Rivaldi from Jefferies.

There's been plenty of questions on sort of financial flexibility this morning. I just want to ask on Slide 14, your debt leverage is clearly running significantly below target interest coverage ratios are materially above what you set yourself. So you've obviously got debt coming up to call this year. Is your view to sort of build or increase the gross amount of debt outstanding over the course of this year and to grow into that leverage ratio go close towards that target ratio for the course of this year?

Thanks, Marcus. So actually, the clear answer or the shortest answer is that we are not investing and increasing the amount of debt outstanding keeping it in -- well, in kind of at the same level as we have today, that would be our base -- that's our base case situation.

Dear speakers there are no further questions for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Michel Hülters for any closing remarks.

And in that respect, I would rather give it to Jos.

Thank you, Michel, and thank you for all the questions. And -- most of you, we will meet later on today for a live meeting, and we can elaborate further on today's presentation. Thanks for joining us. As said, we are quite happy with the set of numbers that we deliver today because most people might forget it, but we deliver them in a period that we also are integrating 2 of the larger insurance companies in the Netherlands. And combining an integration, growing the business, remaining a strong balance sheet and also investing in further future growth. We think it's quite a challenge. We aim to look at the long term. And I think for the long term, this company has set a very, very strong base to grow further and to remain being one of the most important insurance companies in the Netherlands. So thanks for joining us. And hopefully, we will meet in short-term life. And enjoy the next call at an answer, you have a couple of minutes to take a break and then listen to Annemiek and David. Enjoy that.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.