Momentum Group Limited (MTM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Momentum Metropolitan Third Quarter 2024 Update. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to CEO, Jeanette Marais. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Good morning, everyone. And yes, just a warm welcome on a very cold day, I think everywhere, to all our shareholders and our key stakeholders to our operating update for quarter 3 of financial year 2024. I'm joined on this call by our Group Finance Director, Risto Ketola; and our Investor Relations team, [ Ron Berger and Taylor Manutsi ]. Yes, I think maybe now to start, we are in interesting signs with the election results. And I think let's also not forget to mention the NHI bill and the [ 2-part ] bill that has been signed very recently. Maybe a soundbite from us, just on the elections. I mean, I really believe that I currently have a unique opportunity now to find the right medical leaders to represent both our economic interest and our social responsibility to a large part of the population. We can only hope that sanity will prevail in the coalition negotiations that is taking place at the moment. And then I'll also just open before I get to our results to maybe just share with you our stance specifically on NHI. I mean we have published this. I think it is important maybe just as a start to say that while we agree that the intent to enable access to more health for more South Africans is positive and needed, we believe that the implementation of the NHI bill in its current format is not sustainable and nor it is constitutional. We are, therefore, fully participating and funding the legal cases to challenge the bill in its current format. Our belief remains that the current private and public system should collaborate better and to better utilize the experience and infrastructure of the private industry to augment the public offering and ensure that we don't lose critical experience, resources and capabilities from our health economy. We are engaging at the right levels with our health partners to help influence and negotiate this. Regarding NHI, our message remains to our clients that they should stay calm and not make any drastic decisions for a long time to come. To move over to our results. While we continue our transition to IFRS 17, this operating update provides only guidance and commentary on primary factors that influenced our earnings and operational performance against the key measures. With the exception of new business volumes, the operating update follows a more qualitative review of progress for the financial year-to-date. I'm happy that we continue to deliver pleasing operating results in the third quarter of this financial year. So in general for the group, I'll just make a few comments in this challenging economic environment. Our present value of new business premiums increased by 20% to ZAR 60.3 billion, which is a very pleasing result. While not included in the operating update, it is worth noting that our VNB recovered slightly in quality, mainly aided by the strong annuity sales and a significant improvement in Metropolitan's VNB. Although the earnings run rate was lower in the third quarter than in the first 2 quarters, most business units continue to deliver robust earnings. Direct expenses growth across the group was slightly above inflation, mainly driven by investments into capabilities and improvements to both clients and adviser service. In terms of any specific info, I'm only going to focus on Metropolitan and Momentum this year. We've seen progress on Momentum -- our Metropolitan Life 5-point turnaround plan. The quality of new business improved and they reduced the expense base. However, as expected, the protection and long-term savings new business volumes declined after their decision to reduce the number of site agents to focus on writing higher-quality business. We should start to see material improvements over the next few reporting cycles according to the 5-point plan. And in Momentum Insure, the turnaround is noteworthy. Despite the adverse weather-related events over the period, the claims ratio in Momentum Insure improved to 68% from 77.6%. This indicates the positive impact on the underwriting measures we implemented. And before I close up with our outlook, I will now hand over to Risto to provide insight on our financial performance.

Thanks, Jeanette. As Jeanette already alluded to, that because of IFRS 17 work, we haven't done a full consolidated group financials. But I have been able to work out from the management reports what is sort of guidance roughly of where we are. So first of all, in terms of earnings, earnings were what I would consider decent earnings, a little bit lower than the run rate maybe in the first half. So if you look at the first half run rate, it was about ZAR 1.2 billion per quarter. This quarter was probably a little bit closer to ZAR 1 billion. So a decent result, but maybe a little bit slower than the first half. What happened during the quarter, the yield curve shifted up 50 to 75 basis points across most of the curve. And obviously, that will have a small negative variance on investment variance. The 9-month gearing is still positive. In other words, we sort of maybe reversed about half of the investment variance in the first half during the third quarter. Also, on Momentum Corporate, you'll recall that had a phenomenally strong risk result in the first 6 months. The last 3 months are still very positive, but not at the same run rate as the first 6 months. It also includes the reality that because we've done so well, our sort of reinsurance profit share was also a little bit higher, so we have to sort of provide a bit more for the reinsurance profit share. Asset management profits were a little bit lower run rate than the first 6 months. And in Africa, we also had to impair some technology assets, which had a bit of an impact on results. On the positive side, we now look at our new teams continue their very positive story. I was mentioning to Jeanette earlier, it's interesting that while mortality on our whole life book is back to long-term averages, our immediate mortality also remains quite strong. In other words, the mortality improvements haven't happened quite as well as we expected. So all the annuity business written over the last few years, it's probably turning out to be a little bit more profitable than we had expected at the time. Also, we have secured some good assets recently, a couple of alternative energy deals, a couple of corporate deals. So the [ run rate ] loss they need to book is doing very well. Jeanette already spoke about volumes and they're highlighted in the announcements. I'm not going to go in detail. VNB run rate is better than the first half. Jeanette said slightly better. I would say better. I would slightly up and made improvement, in particular. So you'll recall, we had a bit of a -- I suppose, our [ record ] is maybe the best growth in terms of VNB for the first 6 months. It looks much better in the last quarter. So a lot of the actions that we've taken, I mean we talked about the quality of new business, so [ NTUs ] are better. I know that really links to you, redesigning and stepping up some of our commission rules, for example, not being overly generous on some of the commission payments and structures in terms of when we pay and how we pay. Also, on costs, because of our VNB pressure, we have negotiated some of our distribution agreements. We have also shuttered some of the new initiatives that we're not paying off. And then we've also done a little bit of repricing at the margins of some of the benefit structures and terms and so on. So a lot of action at [ MIC ] in the way to good prices. So the VNB is improving there. [ And note ], our [ initial ] team is looking very strong. Corporate, maybe I need to explain that volumes are very high. But VNB was actually pretty flat for the 3 months. So a lot of very big volumes but mainly a very low margin administrative type of business. So you probably don't want to read a linear relationship between the volume growth and the VNB growth there. Solvency remained strong. It was, I think, just [ under ] 2.2 at end of March. Now since then, we did pay an interim dividend, but I would ask that it will still be above the 2.11 we showed in December. And so even after the interim dividend is adjusted for, our solvency improved in the first -- in the last 3 months -- first 3 months of the year, which maybe at December year end, [ may lap it then ]. Okay. Also, quite important, we didn't complete the RMI asset management transaction during the quarter. So that's all in the solvency numbers. So there were some questions about how big is it. It was very manageable for us. So the solvency ratios are strong despite the completion of that deal. While I'm talking about deals and such, fourth quarter, we will see a little bit more capital injections than -- into businesses than maybe the first 9 months. There is an India capital injection for the year coming up, which is about ZAR 350 million. And then Guardrisk recently completed the acquisition of quite a large sale that they used to run. As most of you will know, that part of the Guardrisk strategy is that when it works for both parties, Guardrisk is quite open towards acquiring some of their sales lines. And there was a case like that in the last few months. But even with that, I think the solvency position, liquidity position or the outlook for year-end looks very strong. So the balance sheet remains -- I don't know, it's just been extremely strong.

Robust.

Robust is like modest. I mean it's extremely robust. I'm running out of adjectives. Yes. Okay. All right. Anyway, balance sheet is very strong. Yes. And then obviously, that will play into the decision of year-end around dividend, some buybacks and everything else. But what I'm basically trying to say here maybe is that I'm more optimistic about the outlook for year-end capital decisions than I was 3 months ago. So the last quarter has been positive for that. Any other sectors, I mean, Jeanette already mentioned Insure had a decent quarter, positive. I mean, they're still not at the run rate we would like. But at least, it's a gross profit. India had a slightly higher loss in the quarter. Guardrisk continues to do very well. So odds and ends, but overall, I think a pleasing quarter except for maybe the yield curve shift up just a little bit. But happy overall. Jeanette, back to you.

Thank you. I mean I think just to end, we're definitely very pleased by the growth in new business volumes. We expect our operating environment to remain under pressure, given the weak economic growth and just all the uncertainty and everything that is going on, especially around the medical uncertainty. But we remain focused on driving our new business volumes to gain market share, to improve the sales mix and the margin, and to reduce the cost base. And there's been quite a lot of focus now on the cost base across the business. As Risto mentioned, our VNB remains under pressure, and it will take time to turn it around. But I can assure you that in every single business unit, we know exactly what to do, and those processes have all kicked off. So maybe just lastly, we are on track to deliver on the targets that we have set for business performance for our reinventing growth strategy at the end of the year. But before then, I'm also very excited that we would invite you to attend the launch of our new strategy on the 23rd of July in Cape Town, and I really hope to see all of you there face-to-face, hopefully. But obviously, we will accommodate anyone who can't be there. So that's it from us. I think we will now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question that we have comes from Warwick Bam of RMB Morgan Stanley.

[ Free to charge ]. In Momentum Retail, you mentioned a 21% increase in protection new business on the present value of new business basis, yet VNB remains negative based on your commentary. How much higher do you need sales volumes to be in Momentum Retail to be comfortably or comfortably achieve positive VNB? That's question one. Question two, just on -- your momentum in single premium sales volumes is significant. Are you finding that the election uncertainty has changed the momentum in that regard in, I guess, the post-31 March '24 period? And lastly, just on corporate new business volumes, obviously, the magnitude of the volumes are significant. You're mentioning that they're low margin. What levers do you have to improve the margin of that business over time?

I will answer the single premium question. Just actually, I have the numbers here in front of us. But I mean, again, we've not seen -- in terms of annuities as structured, I think I'm correct if I say it was again the highest month we've ever seen in our history. And it's in April. And it is noteworthy that in terms of our structured products, the [ nego ] product, which is a guaranteed product that was actually very, very popular, we've actually reached our capacity on it. And that product was actually stopped or discontinued at the end of March. So I mean, those very, very high numbers basically are purely annuity numbers. And again, like I said, it was a record month in our history in terms of single premium. So we've not seen it narrow down. In fact, what is probably true is that the more uncertainty while we can maintain our annuity rates, I think that will continue rather than the other way around. But across our investment business, we again had a very, very strong month. So even on our platform and sales force, in the same order of all of the months that we've seen before. So not really any slowdown in that. Risto, you want to answer the VNB question?

Yes. I'll do Momentum Retail. I mean, it's a tough question that we've been pondering in-house as well for the last year or 2. But maybe just to give you a little bit of a factual statement, first of all, that the VNB in Myriad is better than the VNB for Momentum Retail. So it's at a negative VNB. All that has to do with the recurring premium savings business we write and invest on. And as you know, recurring premium sales products have very thin margin. And sometimes, we really get down to thinking about sort of fixed cost coverage and is it worth spending at a marginal profitability versus all-in profitability. At the same time, you're right. I mean, even in Myriad on its own, even if it's positive, it's not exactly a [ fat ] margin. So there's definitely improvement, we agree. And the reality is that the volume growth realistically is not going to be the only lever. I mean, we have to actually cut expenses there as well. As you know, we're doing a number of initiatives in the underwriting new business arm to reduce that cost. So obviously, as people migrate more and more into straight-through processing, using digital underlying tools, as we streamline our own underwriting processes, that will help the margins become a bit more comparable to others. So the answer to your question is, volumes alone won't do it. We have to cut the cost base there or increased premium base. But I keep getting told we're in a very competitive market. But I think increasing premium rates is not the answer. So it already leaves the expenses as a key leader we have to combine with volumes.

And then one on the corporate [ SME ] business. That seems to be very lumpy with big deals. I think that we remain cautious in terms of our current exposure on the protection business. On the FundsAtWork business, we're not seeing much activity as people are -- or trust teams are preparing for the [ 2-part ] system. So I think that they probably want just to [ bed down ] and play out, and then we'll probably see activity in that part of the market again.

Also, Warwick, maybe the last thing to finish up the [ quarter 1 ] area. In this quarter, we had some very big business where there's basically no margin for corporate. So you might say, why do we do it? It's because our investment business works together with corporate. So we have this internal question of [ Acala ]. If we're making, let's say, 10, 15 business investments, they're [ definitely ] going to do it even if corporate shows 0 VNB. So if some of that business that -- if we sort of capture the margin within asset management, meaning you will look very different, but the rules are the rules. And effectively, the fee, that corporate tax largely just covers the admin costs. And the real economic margins sits in asset management. So it's not business that we regret taking. It's just business that optically has almost no margin for corporate even though it works for the group. In fact, we're very happy when we [ cast that ] together. I mean...

And we've been quite successful with that over a number of years. But then, of course, you don't see that being -- be coming through because it sits in asset management.

[Operator Instructions] The next question we have comes from Michael Christelis of UBS.

Three questions, if I can, from my side. Sorry, currently, I don't have the half 1 data in front of me. But can you maybe just talk a little bit about the net sales volumes in protection, relative to just the quarter last year? In other words, quarter 1 calendar this year versus quarter 1 calendar year last year. That's the first question. Second question, just around [ letters ]. If you can give us some sense of what [ letters ] are doing in each of the business units and particularly, obviously, met again in the context of the onerous contracts and the strong lapse assumptions you took last year, how you're trending against that. And then the third one, India. Did I hear you correct that you said Indian losses were reported for the quarter? I looked at the presentation. It looked like they have made a profit for quarter 3 over their quarter 4. Am I looking at the wrong quarter? Maybe it's just a 3-month lag? Maybe just clarify that for me, please.

Okay. I'll -- yes, okay. Maybe I'll answer that and then Jeanette, you can add if you want. So on India, Michael, you spoke about it's a part for the year-end. Yes, it's exactly that. Remember, we reported the quarter in arrears. So the last quarter of the year for them, which is -- which we really report in our year-end, that is traditionally stronger because of end of the tax year, big volumes, little clients. I mean, so you're right. I mean, I don't know exactly what it looks under IFRS 17 because obviously, we convert their numbers on IFRS 17. But you're right, they reported a profit in the last quarter, which will then -- put it this way, the loss run rate, at least, will be very low compared to the first 9 months. So yes, okay, I need to find [ something else for the ] year-end now. Okay. Lapses, I'll talk about it a little bit. So I actually forgot to mention it when I did my commenting that we have focused so much on new business quality but we're very happy about the [ NPUs ] being lower and so on. But you're right, so the lapses in the entry-level markets remain higher than expected at the longer durations. So we're still showing a negative persistency variance for earnings in net. Less than last year. But yes, persistency is not great in the entry-level market. And then a funny one, which I sort of maybe mentioned on the buy-and-buy at the interims. But I look at it now in the 9 months a bit more. We also see a little bit higher lapses in Momentum Retail, particularly some of the larger policies, like business policies, buy-and-sell policies. So we think those are the businesses that are getting closed down, folks are immigrating. When you get like a -- when you go have [ 20,000 ] in a month policy lapses, it hurts. So we're seeing a few of those big policies left. So I think we have a overall negative lapse variance in Mom Retail. Offsetting that is operations. So if you look at our persistency variance overall in retail, it still looks positive. But it's really a sum of positive operations offset by negative lapsing, which is a bit of a new trend for us in the last few years. Then this risk, the net risk sales, I mean, I want to look here, but the first quarter protection sales, I'm doing [ mental maths ] here. Remember, the first quarter includes the data, the [ lull ] from December, January. But the third quarter risk sales looks quite similar to the second quarter of the -- at the first quarter. Now against last year, maybe down low single digits. But then...

Weaker than peers, right?

It's what?

Considerably weaker than peers. I mean, Mutual is showing 22% growth. That seems to imply...

I'm not going to disagree with that. But we've been focusing on quality. Now the VNB is better despite volumes being, let's call it, modest. So net-net, I think a lot of the missing volume is that quality business, which is a good trade-off. Yes. I don't want to start paint an overly positive picture, Mike. But I think the point is the outcomes are what we thought they are as we manage -- as we sort of manage the policy better.

I mean in the 5-point plan, the focus definitely was far more on quality and sales force management than it was on appointing and driving sales volumes. It feels like we need to get the quality right, and we need to get it to a sustainable level, where we don't get the kind of nasty surprises. And then we will go back into recruitment mode again. We've also just promoted a person that we've appointed actually a year or so ago, probably 2 years ago now in corporate, to actually take over and run our workforce, our sales force in Metropolitan. And already, her input and her insight that she brings, I think, is going to be very positive in terms of just better understanding of what went wrong in that business and making sure that we get to fix that before we go into a fast recruiting mode again. But that placed -- on Metropolitan, the volumes are very directly related to your ability to recruit fast. I just think we've burned ourselves over the last while by recruiting the wrong people.

The next question we have comes from Francois Du Toit of Anchor Stockbrokers.

Just a few quick questions. The first thing on Momentum Insure, meaningful improvement in the claims ratio there. If you could maybe give a sense of how much you ascribe to premium increases and how much just to maybe more variable claims experience being better than expected. I see your gross written premium increased 6%. If you could maybe put that in context of the policy count change as well. So how much was premium inflation and how much was policy count change there? That's a very meaningful increase in the claims ratio, if I can get a bit of color on that. That's the first question. Second question around the group risk business that appear to continue to be very profitable, and that's not just the case for yourselves. Maybe if you can talk to the level of competitiveness in the market as well or competition in the market. Your volumes were quite low there, but I've seen some of the peers' volumes also low there. It almost appears as if that market segment with the nice high current levels of profitability is a little bit less competitive, not a bad thing. And so if you can chat about that a little bit as well. And then another one on Metropolitan. I think there's 2 sales mostly in funeral business, if I'm correct, but please correct me if I'm wrong. And it contributes quite meaningfully. I think the dividend last year was something like ZAR [ 170 ] million. So if you could just give us a sense of the experience there and given also, I think, the trends in funerals in South Africa, where those sort of trends are coming to Lesotho as well. And then the last one, just on -- I think there's mention of the change in the product mix in -- and that more low-margin group business is currently being sold and expected to be sold in future. If you can just talk what you expect from that in terms of return on capital for that business long term.

Yes. Francois, you broke up a little bit, but I'll maybe mention insure and then group business maybe [ relevant ]. And then could this be long term, maybe, Jeanette, I don't know the margin. I don't know. And then what was your question on funeral? You broke up there.

Yes. Just want more to do with funerals in Lesotho. I know Lesotho is a small country, but you guys dominate that. I think I just want to understand the sort of products that sold and whether the funeral market has the same sort of dynamics and risks that are playing out in South Africa.

Yes. Okay. I'll take that one then. So Momentum Insure, I don't have the quarterly report in front of me. But I do know that the policy count is down 8%, 12 months on 12 months, okay? So that will tell you that premium rate increases are probably in the mid-teens on average, okay? So I'm [ going with that number ] yet, a number of [ 16% ] in the [ volatile ] is somehow okay. So yes, so we had quite large premium rate increases, maybe a bit of a catch-up. Also, what you'll find interesting is our lapse rate has been averaging about 1.8%, 1.9% a quarter, peaking at about 2% per quarter. So the lapse rate has never [ gone ] through the roof despite these premium increases. So it does feel like we are catching up to the right rate rather than sort of squeezing too hard in terms of premium increases. So that's been a reasonably good story. In terms of funeral in Lesotho, that's actually a bit more diversified than you think. It's about sort of half savings, half funeral. In fact, we have the ex-CFO of the distribution business here in an [ incoming event ]. The margins are quite good on the funeral rate, less [ so net ] savings. So the savings business there is exactly the same problems as net savings, yes, low premiums, sort of, let's call it, not the late stock collections. Also in Lesotho, we have paid upfront commissions on savings and that might be coming to an end, where we're going to start paying as an [ end ] commission. So that improves the margin of profitability that might create the volumes and longer term. Also, in Lesotho, we're not just dominant on retail. We're also dominant on group. So some of the high profitability in VNB over the years, there's been some good group deals we've done. I think we're very confident about our market position. There is a few smaller competitors who largely focus on funeral. But they tend to sell much smaller policy sizes, don't have quite the same quality of business as we do. So I think Lesotho in my books remains a very solid dividend contributor. You're right. I mean, Lesotho and Namibia, actually, despite their volatility and not always in the best story in the world, they've been good dividend payers for the last 5 years. So I think that will continue. [ Robert ]?

Yes. As far as group risk, I think, as I mentioned, the [ bid ] quarters just the change in [ COVID ]. I think there isn't much sort of movement in the industry. I'm not that close to it. I think I'd like to think that we've learned our lesson from pre-COVID when there was a race to the bottom on [ PHR ]. And so most of the players have been quite concerned with it. What typically happens is trustees where we'll tender [ for ] rates, and we'll normally go to the incumbent to match for those rates received. So we're actually going to be quite aggressive to the downside to create a rate that the incumbent [ or customer ] [ encompass ] to actually win that business. So I think with that level of conservatism, you're probably not seeing aggressive quotes. In the current levels where they are in terms of profitability, most insurers are quite comfortable meeting those lower rates when this isn't the lowest one provided. And so therefore, we've probably not sort of seen the churn to the new business. And really, that's coming through more positively in terms of earnings.

Excellent. Thank you. Just the last one on the Indian health business and mix change to group rate.

Yes. Okay. Yes, because you broke up, we thought it was...

I thought [ it was easier ].

Yes. So Jeanette was looking at me to [ sort of ] answer it. Okay. So India, yes, so the claims rates in India in the group business are in low 80s, high 70s, low 80s. So it is high. I think on the retail, it's more like low 50s, okay? There's a massive difference in the claims ratio between 2 of them. Now at the same time, we do like a burn rate analysis where we look at things like claims plus marginal costs, is it over 100? And there's no business in India where we're sort of burning through that on group side. So our group business is, I think on a marginal basis, is very profitable. Fully costed, maybe closer to breakeven. So it's not bad business even though obviously, we would like to do more retail over time. Also, what's important for the [ content ], I remember there's a new thing in India, where [ expense ] management rules where we need to get our total expenses down to less than 35% of premiums. Now on group business, it is already well below 20%. It's like 15% around that. So our group business is also a way for us to meet the regulatory expense ratio limits. I think once we reach that ratio, we will also -- we will then turn the dial back on the retail side when expense ratios are higher. So I actually think the management team has implemented quite well in that we were more nervous when they turn the dial up on group business. But it's actually behaved very close to expectation. It's not a moneymaker, but it doesn't really cost us money either. It's a neat way of getting to the scale required for the expense ratio.

Actually, I don't know that ratio is across the business in total, so you can get the [ ratio up ], I think.

Yes, it's actually a neat way to actually prevent -- I think, to reduce our charges on retail business by rather changing the mix in terms of what we have on book. So it's quite a -- kind of a focused effort to get that right, and then we can focus on retail business again.

[Operator Instructions] The next question we have comes from Jarred Houston of All Weather Capital.

Just another question on India. Risto, you mentioned seasonally, Q4 looks like the strong quarter as with previous results. But obviously, still encouraging to turn to profit. Do you think this is a broader trend or reading too much into this looking at the prospects for next year and getting towards profit?

Yes. So I -- Jarred, I think you are reading maybe too much to it. So we have had a fourth quarter profit in the past. So what happens in the fourth quarter, India has got a 31 March debt tax year end. So we often get a lot of high volume of business in the last quarter. Now we defer -- well, where we provisioned for the premiums, it means we actually have to deliver revenue on this new business. But let's say there's huge volumes in the last week of the quarter. We will recognize some revenue. But generally, [ when that ] decline, so there's a bit of a disconnect in the last quarter between volumes being high, with just claims being a bit lower. So it's not the first time we've seen a profit in India in the last quarter. I think this quarter was bigger than the previous profit than there was last quarter. So I rather view it as a confirmation of the trend where we're trying to be profitable in 2 years from now.

The final question we have comes from Matthew Pouncett of Laurium Capital. At this stage, there are no further questions on the conference call. I would now like to hand back to Jeanette for closing remarks. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Yes. I mean, Matthew, if you get your line back, you're welcome to show your hand and we'll give you an opportunity. I think I basically said everything I wanted to say. At the moment, all of us very hard at work at the new strategy. We're presenting back to the Board a week from now for their approval or just over a week from now. I see Risto, got an architect next to me. Maybe he realized that he's got less time than he thought he has. And in 2 weeks, we're presenting it to the Board and then we'll be presenting it to you, as I said, in July. So we're working quite hard at that. There's some other very interesting kind of things we're working on. I did mention, we will spend a bit of time on that on when we launch our new strategy, but a very deep dive focus on cost basis. It's part of what we know we need to do in order to fix VNB. And it's both in allocated costs from the center as well as what happens in the business. I think also maybe for the last 5, 6 years, it was easy for businesses to blame allocated costs from the center for their cost base. This time around, we focus very deeply on the cost basis in the businesses as well. We have mentioned to you that we've had slight above-inflation increases over the last while. So I mean, that's a very big focus area for us. On top of that, the new strategy. And then maybe just lastly, one of the things that we've started, we started talking about collaborating better between businesses and not only between corporates and investments. But over the last while, between health and corporate. That's actually started pitching together for business with very good results. Yes. So things -- I mean, I am an optimist. It's hard to get me down. But to be honest, things look good. We've been taking some really hard decisions about the continuation of certain businesses. I can't share that information with you yet, but we will -- in a month, when we see each other a little over a month. But I think we're focusing on the right things, let me say that. And what's good is that it's a combination of making sure we clean house, while we're building our new strategy. So interesting times, good energy in the business for sure. Okay. I'm waiting for applause, but that's obviously not coming. So maybe it means that the call is almost over.

Thank you very much, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, that then concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.