AXA SA (CS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, this is a conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the AXA Q1 2025 activity indicator conference call. [Operator Instructions] The host will be Mr. Alban de Mailly Nesle; and Ms. Anu Venkataraman. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Anu Venkataraman. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Good morning, and thank you for joining AXA's first quarter conference call. Our Group CFO, Alban de Mailly Nesle will go through the highlights of the quarter, after which we'll open up the call to your questions. Alban?

Thank you, Anu, and good morning to all of you. Thank you for joining the call today. So let me start with the key highlights of this first quarter. As you saw in the press release, we achieved a strong performance in those first 3 months. We delivered robust growth across all lines of business: P&C, Life & Savings, and Health. Our total revenues increased by 7% to EUR 37 billion with a healthy balance between volume and pricing, so that reflects a disciplined execution of our organic growth strategy and the continuation of the positive momentum that we saw last year. Our balance sheet is robust with a Solvency II ratio at 213%. That reflects strong organic capital generation. And our diversified business model focused on technical margins and our prudent asset allocation are key strength in the current volatile environment, and that makes us confident for the execution of our plan. So let me now go through the key numbers of the quarter, and I'll start with P&C. For P&C revenues overall are up 7% with growth both in Commercial lines and in Personal lines. In Commercial lines, and I exclude AXA XL for the time being, Commercial lines are up 6% and pricing trends remain positive across all markets. AXA XL Insurance revenues were up 9%, reflecting both higher volumes and price increases, notably in casualty and in property. While reported growth in the quarter was impacted by a large contract with limited risk retention, underlying growth of mid-single-digit remains at healthy levels. Pricing has held well, 2% -- plus 2% on renewals, which is broadly stable compared to full year '24 and is plus 3% if you exclude financial lines. As we've said before, we see different pricing dynamics depending on the line of business, and we are managing, therefore, the cycle proactively. So in property, pricing, including exposures remains ahead of loss trends. In casualty, pricing is up 7% in line with loss trends, and the market remained very disciplined on both sides of the ocean, the U.S. and Europe. And in financial lines, like last year, pricing remained soft. Overall, we have grown selectively. We grew where the pricing was favorable, and we also focused on retention and we did benefit from strong retention in the first quarter. Excluding AXA XL, we continue to see favorable pricing at plus 4%, and volume growth, notably in France and in Belgium. Moving to Personal lines. Revenues were up 7% with growth both in motor and nonmotor of 7% and 8%, respectively. You know that we did the turnaround of the U.K. and Germany last year. So now all engines are working well on the Personal lines, which allow us to grow our business but we also continue to benefit from a very supportive pricing environment in our various jurisdictions. And therefore, net new contracts were positive in France and in Europe, and that includes Germany and the U.K. So we are growing volumes in Motor by, in particular, in France, 3%, in Germany, also 3%. And we benefit from a good positioning, a competitive offering because many of our peers are still catching up on pricing. In the U.K., we are growing the portfolio on a selective basis in a context where prices are moderating obviously, following the strong repricing that you saw on the market last year. Last, on reinsurance, revenues were up 12%, that's driven largely by business that we write but seed to insurance-linked securities. But pricing continues to be favorable, and that comes, as you know, on top of strong price increases last year. One last word in P&C is on nat cat. As you know, group nat cat experience in the first quarter was below our prorated annual budget. The main event was the California wildfires, which are EUR 0.1 billion as we told you at the end of February. Now that's only 1 quarter. So we maintain our nat cat budget for the year of 4.5 points of combined ratio. I now move to Life & Health. So in Life & Health, premiums were up 8% to EUR 15.5 billion with 2 dynamics. As you know, we like having 2 areas of focus, short-term and long-term business. In the -- on the short-term business, we delivered strong performance, Protection & Health, with revenues up 8%, in particular, from favorable price effect in Health across geographies. And you know that for the first year, we are now also recapturing Laya premiums in Ireland, and that was EUR 0.4 billion for the quarter. But in case you had a question, there is a bit of seasonality so you shouldn't multiply that by 4. Q1 is generally stronger than the other quarters but it was EUR 0.4 billion in Laya in Ireland in this quarter. Then we have the long-term business for which we've seen a good sale dynamic, and that is very much in line with our renewed ambition on the life side. Unit-linked sales were up 16% with contributions from all our key markets but notably France. G/A savings were up 10%, in particular, in Italy, where sales were up 54% as well as France, plus 6%. As we told you last year, in Japan, we are selling a single premium product, and we have elevated sales of that product. But that will not last the whole year and that will probably moderate in the remainder of the year. And last, Protection was up 5% and that's mainly from the continued success of Protection with Unit-Linked product that we sell in Japan but we saw also good growth in Switzerland and in Hong Kong. So together with the decrease in surrenders, primarily in Unit-Linked and general account savings in France and Italy, we saw strong net flows of EUR 2.5 billion in Q1 '25. That's a EUR 1.8 billion improvement versus the first quarter of '24. And so we expect that improving trend in net flows to fuel growth in CSM and therefore, in earnings over time. A word on new business. So Life & Health PVEP was up 5%, and that reflects the Unit-Linked sales in France and Europe that I mentioned, But also the general account savings in Italy but also health in Germany. NBV was down 1%, primarily due to an unfavorable change in mix and change in assumptions in France and Japan that we did last year in '24. And that -- those changes, partially offset the higher volumes. As a result, NBV margin is down 0.3 points but remains at a very good level of 4.9%. Then our last line of business, that's Asset Management for a few more months. The average assets under management increased by 4%, reflecting the favorable market effect that we had last year. Net flows were a negative EUR 4 billion, and that's driven by a low fee mandate for which we expected termination in this quarter. And revenues were up 8%. That's driven by the higher management fees that are due themselves to the increase in average assets under management. And the sale of AXA IM is progressing well, and we expect to close the transaction early July. Then the last word on the balance sheet with Solvency II. So we continue to operate at a high Solvency II ratio at 213% at the end of March, down 3 points versus full year '24. Those 3 points are made of plus 7 points from normalized capital generation, minus 6 points of accrued foreseeable dividends and annual share buybacks, minus 2 points from unfavorable impacts on financial markets, and that's 2 things: widening of government spreads in Europe and the widening of government spread in Japan. And we also lost 1 point from a regulatory model change. So how are we positioned in the current macroeconomic environment, which is uncertain to say the least. So we have a diversified business model focused on technical risks, and that obviously reduces our exposure to financial markets. We have a strong balance sheet with the 213% Solvency II ratio that I just mentioned. That is supported by the 25 to 30 points normalized capital generation that we have on an annual basis. And we have lowered our sensitivity to market volatility over the past years. We know that we have transformed our Life business as we shifted from capital-intensive traditional GA product with high guarantees to capital-light savings and Unit-Linked. We closed our duration gap and that has led to a significant reduction in our interest rate sensitivities, and our sensitivity to listed equity is also fairly limited because it would be 2 points of Solvency, minus 2 points, if stock markets were to go down by 25%. We have a disciplined asset allocation with low exposure to the most vulnerable sectors such as O2O travel, leisure, luxury. And in the medium term, we are -- we have a positive view. We are constructive on the outlook for Europe, which is the main market, and that's mainly due to the expansionary fiscal policies that will be implemented in Germany and that will obviously support growth in Europe. And also the fact that there will be better spending by government and notably on defense. So to conclude, we are off to a good start this year, consistently with our plan. We are continuing the momentum of last year with organic growth, well balanced across lines of business and between pricing and volumes. We have an attractive and highly diversified business model built to deliver predictable earnings growth. Our balance sheet is strong and resilient, which is a key asset these days. And we remain focused on the execution of our plan, and we are very confident in achieving our targets. I'm now happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from David Barma of Bank of America.

Firstly, I wanted to ask about the price trends at XL, both on the primary and reinsurance side. I'm quite impressed by the plus 3% you're mentioning out in commercial pricing at financial lines and the plus 1% in reinsurance when market commentary for both has been much more negative, especially on North American property risk. So can you impact that a bit for us, please, and explain whether mix effects have a big impact in the quarter, please? And then secondly, staying on reinsurance, the volume growth was very strong. Can you explain the increase in the transfer to ILS in this period, why this is happening now? And if there's any color you can share on the sort of margin on that business. And then lastly on Personal lines, the volumes have recorded in Europe remained down year-on-year. Can you give a bit of color on the trends by geography, where you're growing and where you're shrinking volumes?

Thank you, David, for your 3 questions. So pricing trends at XL. So you -- as I've said in my introductory speech, you see different dynamics. I know that some players in the U.S. have said that property prices were down. That's not what we see. We see stable pricing in property in the U.S., which together with the exposure effect is sufficient to maintain our margin, i.e., sufficient to compensate for loss trend. When you look at casualty overall, so we -- prices are up 7%. That's more in the U.S. and a bit less in Europe. But in both cases, we see a very disciplined market, very disciplined. I insist on this, which allows us to grow in both sides of the ocean and with good margins. And where we obviously see still some deteriorating prices, it's in financial lines. But there, we are reducing our volumes in Q1, as we said we would, given all this. The other message I want to give you on XL is also that we are focusing on retention, which is the best way to grow, which is not to lose our good customers. We have a good level of retention of 90% in the first quarter. And so this plus the discipline in our various lines of business, except financial lines, allows us to grow. On reinsurance, so we don't want to grow aggressively or at all our business in reinsurance. That being said, if we can grow our business in order to transfer part of the risk to alternative capital and insurance securities or sidecars, that's something that we want to develop because that's the way for us to accompany our customers and not take more risks and generate fees on that business. So that's what we want to deploy. But clearly, on a net basis, reinsurance is not something that we want to grow. And finally, on Personal lines, so we have good growth in meaning a positive net new contracts in most, if not all, of our jurisdictions so France, Germany, the U.K., Switzerland, Italy. You may have seen that we announced that in the U.K. starting a few days ago. We have now an exclusive agreement with Lloyds Bank that will distribute motor products So we see a good dynamic in all those countries. As we said in February, we believe that the environment is very supportive for Personal lines. And that will be, for us, a way to expand our margins in P&C. You know that our plan is to increase our margins by 2 points. We did 1.1% in '24. The other 0.9 points will come mainly from Personal lines and from Commercial lines ex XL. But in personal lines, we see both positive net new contracts. And as you saw, good pricing in all our jurisdictions. It's moderating in the U.K., that's for sure. And we also see good pricing in non-motor Personal lines.

The next question is from Michael Huttner of Berenberg.

Great results. Three questions. The EUR 2.5 billion net inflows, you said that would lift CSM growth and lift profit growth. I wonder if you can give us a feel for how much it could lift them. The 4.5% budget for nat cat, I'll ask 2 questions here. How much -- when you say lower, was it much lower? Was it a little bit lower in Q1? And also, in the -- in your 7% addition to solvency from operating capital generation, did you put in the 4.5% or the actual number? And then my last question is if we add layer in Health, what would be in the growth?

Thank you, Michael. So the EUR 2.5 billion net inflows, I mean, you see -- I mean, the way to look at it is you see our CSM and you see our total amount of reserves. So the rule of thumb because it's to say how much is CSM compared to reserves, and that gives you roughly the margin that you get. There's no reason why those EUR 2.5 billion net inflows will have a different CSM than the rest of the business. And I think that's important to keep in mind. We have new business. We also have retention and retention, as you know, progressively materializes in operating experience. And that's why it grows the CSM. On the nat cat, I would say, first, as you would know, our nat cat loads the 4.5%, and that's different from some of our competitors. It includes absolutely everything and notably, weather events. So it's not only nat cat. It's all events. I would say at XL, given the California wildfires experience was in line with budget, in the other jurisdictions, it was quite a benign quarter. But again, that's only the first quarter. And impact on -- we do estimate in Q1 and Q3, and we do a true-up in half year. So that's where we see whether effectively if we have a good second quarter in nat cat that further materializes in our solvency capital generation. And last on Laya, I mean, you have the -- when you look at the Health in our appendices and you look at the Health reported numbers on Health, I think we would be at, yes, 17%. We're including the Laya premiums. And that's adjusted when we do like-for-like, so 17%, including Laya.

The next question is from Andrew Baker of Goldman Sachs.

First one, just following up on the AXA XL retention of 90% that you mentioned in Q1. Can you just help us put that in sort of historical context? So what would that 90% look like over the past couple of years? And then secondly, how are you thinking about the direct and indirect impacts of the U.S. tariffs? And can you just remind me your EPS sensitivity to U.S. dollar weakening as well?

I'm just breaking down your questions, not to forget any. So the retention of 90%, you may certainly have in mind that when we bought itself, we did a lot of repricing and the underwriting. And probably 4 years ago, it was in the low 80s. And now that the business is completely underwritten, repricing, has been so for the last 2 years, we can be at 90%. So that's the difference. On tariffs, well, you have the direct and indirect impact. What we see as direct impacts, that would be in the U.S., and that would affect mostly, I mean, motor insurance. But we hardly do motor insurance at XL. It's only 2% of our premiums. So that -- we don't expect to be affected by tariffs at XL in the U.S. Now you have the indirect effects and that -- those are the impacts on financial markets, of which we had a glimpse a few weeks ago. So our scenario is in such a case that it would have an impact on GDP growth, and therefore, an impact on long-term interest rates. But as you saw, our sensitivity to interest rates is low in general and if anything, it has reduced since full year '24. And the impact of low interest rates on our earnings would be through the discount but we believe we have ways to manage that. When it comes to the U.S. dollar impact, so the rule of thumb is 10% change is 2% to 3% impact on our EPS. But bear in mind that the average U.S. dollar rate last year was 1.08. But that's what you need to compare to when you do your sensitivities.

The next question is from Farooq, Hanif from JPMorgan.

I just want to clarify again on pricing at AXA XL. So can you tell us what the pricing that you're seeing generally ex financial lines is -- sorry, in property is at AXA XL, you gave a number on sort of Casualty, and you seem to be implying that you've grown your exposure to casualty versus property? So is that correct? And what are the relative margins between sort of the casualty business and the property business that you're seeing? So that's question area number one. Secondly, just looking at the Health business, you seem to be suggesting that there's been positive pricing trends as well as volume. How is this sort of comparing to your kind of expectation for margin improvement in Health?

Thank you for your questions. So pricing at XL. On property in the U.S., prices are stable as such so it's 0%, to put it very clearly. But then you have what we call the exposure effect, which is for a given line of business, if you reduce your exposure but you keep the same price, that's equivalent to an increase in price. So net-net, we see loss trends for property probably in line with general inflation. And when you combine the price, which is stable, and the exposure effect, you are in line with loss trend. So you don't see an increase or a decrease in margin in property in the U.S. But we have grown our volumes in property, as we have grown them also in casualty for the reasons I said. The number of casualty lines in the U.S. we'll see price increases like last year at 10% or above. So that's what I meant when I said that the market was very disciplined. On the Health side, so we see significant price increases, the -- which allows us to be confident in the fact that on the Health side, we wanted to improve our margin by 3 points over the planned period. We did 1.4 in '24, and we should see a further improvement in line with our over '25 and hopefully, '26.

Just to return, maybe if I quickly can, on the AXA XL point that you made. So presumably, you have increased your exposure to casualty versus property on average. What are the relative margins, so I know the pricing is very strong but is it a weak combined ratio of business?

So we've grown both businesses, and I'm not sure that Q1 is representative for the whole year. I think what you should keep in mind is that at XL this year, as we said in February, we want to maintain our margins overall while keeping investing on our developments in mid-market in E&S. That's the main message that we want to give for XL.

The next question is from Will Hardcastle of UBS.

Just 1 from me left. In Personal lines, you touched on it a little bit but just a bit more color. If you can give us the current strategy on pricing and volume in some of those major markets like France, Germany, and the U.K. I guess how much volume did you actually achieve in these markets in the first quarter, if you're willing to give that?

So we grew, as I said, in Personal lines in our European markets. When I look, for instance, at Motor in France, we had a growth of 9%. And that's a mix of 3% in terms of volume and 6% in terms of prices. When I look at Europe, it's closer to 1% in volume and the rest in pricing. When I look at international markets, that's 2% in volume and 8% in pricing.

The next question is from William Hawkins of KBW.

Sticking with Personal lines, can you help me interpret the change in the nominal rate increase that you've published? So the headline figure is 6%, which is much lower than 10% last year. Can you talk a bit more about what's happening to loss cost inflation against that? If I were assuming that maybe loss cost inflation was a stable 5%, then the real rate increase that affects the claims ratio would have gone from 5 point to 1 point but obviously, inflation will have been changing quite a lot. So with that background, can you just help me understand what's under your real rate increases that affect the claims ratio against that 10% to 6% change in nominal rates, please? Secondly, yes, can you talk a bit about Switzerland? What's happening there? That's an area where you've seen an acceleration of nominal rate increases, quite a big one in Personal lines relative to the history but also in Commercial lines as well. So could you just give us a bit of a narrative of what's happening in Switzerland, please? And then lastly, sorry, just to clarify, I'm still a bit confused if it's been a light nat cat quarter why your cap gen impact on the Solvency is only in line with the budget. So I would have thought either there's an offsetting negative or something else. Did you answer to Michael Huttner, effectively just booked the budget, even though you're telling us capital light? Or is there some offset against the light cat that brings your cap gen back down to normal?

Thank you, William. So the -- to make a long story short on Personal line pricing, I'm much happier with what's happening in Q1 this year than last year. So effectively, last year, you could say that price increases overall were 10%. But in fact, it was driven by the 2 turnarounds that we needed to execute in Germany and in the U.K. I mean, price increases in the U.K. were 30%, 35%. So now it's much more distributed in Q1 '25 and on businesses that all have profitable personal line businesses. So when I look at the price increases in the first quarter, that allows us in all countries to grow our margins because -- and that's your question on the real rate increase, we see in Q1 '25, let's call it, loss trends if it was XL, better loss trends in Q1 '25 than we did in Q1 '24. And that's also due to the fact that general inflation is more muted. So our ability to grow margins, as we said we would when we talked at the end of February, is materializing. We have good pricing basis overall and higher than our loss trends. In Switzerland that you mentioned, it's true that prices increased by 6% simply because in Switzerland, we have seen a small increase in frequency and that we needed to compensate. As a reminder, the current year combined ratio undiscounted, undiscounted, that we have in Switzerland for Motor is 90%. So we are -- we have a very healthy business in Switzerland but we just needed to adapt on this. On the Commercial line side of Switzerland, so same, we want to make sure that we are keeping up with the trends. Workers' compensation is -- has a higher loss trend in Switzerland that we needed to reflect in our pricing and that's what we did. Then on nat cat and Solvency, there's no offset and nothing that compensates the Q1. So to put it more clearly, more bluntly, when we do the true-up in half year, if we have the Q2 in nat cat, which resembles Q1, then you should see better capital generation.

The next question is from Fahad Changazi of Kepler Cheuvreux.

Just 2 brief ones. On the Health business, can you just expand in terms of your -- you've done 1.4% and you're looking to do 3%, and it was going to be driven by pricing, claims initiatives and the U.K. recovery. Could you just sort of update us where you are in each of these 3 aspects as you attain your target? And sorry, just 1 quick, quick question on Solvency II. Is it -- is the SCR development Q1 in line with the previous guidance of 3% growth, which is incorporated in the 25%, 30% capital generation targets?

So on Health, so in the U.K., by definition, the turnaround that we did last year gave its full effect at the end of the year. So we are still earning in Q1 '25 what was put in place over the year in '24. So yes, there is an improvement to be seen in our margins in the U.K. this year. Then on pricing and claims management, just to make sure because I didn't completely hear your question. The 3-points improvement that we want to have in Health, that comes from the U.K. but that also comes from the rest of our business, to be clear. And we do see some good prices, as you saw, across our entities on Health, and we are continuing with our efforts to improve claims management through pathways. That's why I said that we are confident in our ability to grow our margins on the Health side in line with our plan. And on your question on SCR, yes, it's in line with our growth, in line with what we -- what you saw last year.

The next question is from Andrew Crean of Autonomous.

Can I delve a little bit more into the nat cats? I mean, the California wildfires up 0.5% and your budget is 4.5%. I mean, just how much better than average are you? I know storm Ewen and Arwen were quite big in U.K. and Ireland for intact. Second question, bit of detail. Can you give us a sense of the U.K. motor pricing through the quarter? I mean, when you say moderating, I assume that's a way of saying prices are being cut. But my understanding is that pricing in motor, U.K. motor actually stabilized as you went through the quarter. Is that your experience? And then thirdly, as your question, 2024 operating profits from your U.S. subsidiaries. Can you give us what they were? Would be presumably part of the XL profits, but just want to know what that figure was.

Sorry, Andrew, when you asked your third question, I was still writing down your second, so can you repeat your third? I'm sorry.

Third one is in full year '24, what were the operating profits from your U.S. subsidiaries? So maybe a question to take later.

So in nat cat, the main impact was clearly the California wildfire. It's true that you also had in the U.K. and Ireland. That's, I would say, Ireland, you know that our business there is mostly Motor and Health so it had an impact but it was not significant. And in the U.K. and the storm that Ireland more than the U.K. So we have an impact in both. But after that when you look at the rest of Europe, that was pretty benign really. So -- and it was a good quarter in nat cat. On U.K. motor pricing, you're exactly right. It was slightly down at the beginning of the quarter. But what you see in March and April is prices that are now stabilizing in Motor. And we don't disclose the operating profits at XL by geographies. I would just say that roughly 50% of our business at XL comes from the U.S. and that the U.S. is slightly more profitable than the rest of the XL geographies.

The next question is from Rhea Shah of Deutsche Bank.

Just 3 quick questions for me. So the first one is Alban, I think you mentioned that the XL underlying growth rate, if you exclude the impact of a large contract, was mid-single digits in the first quarter. Is that how you expect the growth to be in the rest of the year? Second question on Asset Management. Is there any more you expect in terms of these large redemptions ahead of July? And then the third question in terms of solvency, could you just quantify the impact of the widening Japanese spreads to the solvency ratio move in the first quarter?

Okay. So look, what we see in terms of pricing at XL, we don't see, at this stage, a reason for a change in the sense that inflation is stable and reinsurance prices are stable and that's an end on casualty. You don't see a significant increase in loss trend with more new verdicts. But as we know, some of those assumptions and/or some of those items can change very quickly in the current environment with any significant political macroeconomic decision. So at this stage, we believe that what we've seen in the first quarter should carry on for the rest of the year, but that can change if suddenly, tariffs are put in place in the U.S., inflation goes up, general inflation because then everybody will need to adapt notably on the property side. But that's as far as we are concerned. But that's not what we see for the time being. On Asset Management, we don't have in mind other redemptions that are planned. Now it's not that we do not care but the price at which we sell like is fixed and not dependent on the volumes of assets under management at the time of closing. And solvency, the -- what came from Japan, it was slightly above 0.5 point, between 0.5 point and 1 point.

The next question comes from Dominic O'Mahony of BNP Paribas.

You've given very comprehensive answers to all the questions. So I've already got a couple of detailed ones. One is just on Laya recaptures. You were clear that the EUR 0.4 billion for the quarter is, we shouldn't multiply that by 4. I had in mind about EUR 800 million for full year. Is that right or have I got that wrong? Just another detail point on the ILS cessions. You've been clear that you are not looking to grow reinsurance. Should I infer that essentially all of that 12% growth is then ILS? Or is it a subset? And then the third point, a broader point, you mentioned very hopefully, the list of equity sensitivity is only 2 points to 25% drawdown, which is clearly much lower than the published sensitivity. I just thought I'd ask you to maybe explain a bit how you would -- how the valuation of the unlisted equities would respond to a drawdown in the region of 25%? I mean, is there a mechanical feed-through so that you are essentially mark-to-market in a similar way for the unlisted? Or would you expect it to be more muted because of the way you value them?

Thank you, Dominic. So Laya, at this stage, I think, EUR 800 million would be slightly conservative for the whole year. We'll see at the end of the year but that's more than that, that we expect from the business. On XL Re, if you exclude the business leader to ILS, growth is closer to 1% or 2%. So the bulk of what was -- of the additional business, to put it that way, was ceded to ILS. And then on your third question, so we -- I gave it on purpose to 2% on listed equities because to some extent, what we publish is a bit salacious because you don't see the same real drawdown on private equity and even more infra equity as you would see on listed equities. So there is no correlation as such. I mean, the 3 buckets are valued separately. Obviously, the listed equity is just looking at markets. On private equity really comes from the GPs we work with, and we take a prudent stance in the approach. And in is not very sensitive to the listed equity market. So we give the 25% impact overall so that you have a view. But I don't think it makes sense to think that the equity for equity would react as listed equities would.

The next question is from Michael Huttner of Berenberg.

Just 1. The 9% growth at AXA XL, which includes what I'd take as captive, what would be the kind of more underlying number, I guess?

So excluding the captive, what would be closer to, as I said, mid-single digit as the growth we had at XL.

Mr. de Mailly Nesle, there are no more questions registered at this time, sir.

Well, thank you all for your questions, then.

And I'll just remind you that we have our next roundtable session scheduled for September 15, so we look forward to seeing you all there. And if you have follow-up questions on the first quarter, please don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you, and have a good day.

Thank you.