Talanx AG (TLX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning from Hannover. This is the Talanx earnings call for the full year and fourth quarter of the financial year 2024. I'm together here with my CEO, Torsten Leue; and my CFO, Jan Wicke, who will take you through the details of our numbers. After the presentation, Jan and Torsten will be happy to answer your questions. We are on Teams today, so we can see each other. [Operator Instructions] As usual, all the documents will be available on our website, including, but not limited to, our financial data supplement, which has lots of details on all the numbers. And with that, I hand over to Torsten. Torsten, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Bernd, and a warm welcome also from my side. So I guide you through to the highlights of last year results. Well, we had an excellent year. This was actually the best year in our history. We have 11% top line, 25% bottom line, 18% return on equity. Important is that the bottom line is much faster growing than the top line, I believe, with that numbers. If you look to the industry, this is a fast growth, we can really probably seen us as top of the league. This is basically based on a business model we would like to continue, and I started -- and we started to show to you in Munich at our Capital Market Day that we have a strong diversification now, and you will see the numbers in a minute. It's roughly 50-50 primary insurance and reinsurance. So it's -- that's the whole idea about the diversification. We have a P&C focus, which is especially outside of Germany, very strong with over 90%, and we have a cost leadership. That's what we mentioned as well. 93% of our portfolio, except Retail Germany, we are the cost leader in the markets we are in, and that allows us profitable growth and gaining market share. And we have a resiliency, and this is a number which probably is important as well to you is -- and Jan will show you more in 15 or even more details when we get the Towers Watson results as we always publish a year. But he will show you, Jan, this is a kind of teaser that we probably have resiliency above EUR 4 billion now, and Jan will give you more details on that position. That performance culture, we see basically all the segments. I will not mention much reinsurance because you have all the information already. So let's talk about the prime insurance. Our strongest and basically, this is the origin of our company, we were founded by the Corporate & Specialty former called Industry lines. This is a global play. We have now EUR 10 billion. I remember some years ago, we had only EUR 5 billion, not even. Now we talk about EUR 500 million or EUR 501 million as a former jeans model, also 501 model, somebody if you remember. So it's a EUR 500 million bottom line. So this -- significantly, we really have a global play now. We are amongst the top player in industrial or in the Corporate & Specialty segment. Then followed by the second largest segment with our international Retail portfolio, it's a clear growth play. It's very good for diversification effect. It's nearly EUR 10 billion. It's nearly EUR 500 million already. And as you know, in those markets we want to be in, we play the top 5. And in Latin America, we are now top 2 last year, they grow -- as well as the Corporate & Specialty double digit, but they grew even over 30% last year. And Germany is a stable play, the smallest segment, 7% of the total with 163% (sic) [ EUR 163 million ]. We are quite happy because the combined is below 97%. So it's stable in a very challenging market. So this is basically summarizing. We are now EUR 48 billion as a turnover. And important for me is that while we had this liberty effect where we're now #2 in Latin America, but this doesn't happen every year. So therefore, important is that the organic growth according to our business model is still the most significant part, 7% is organic growth. And here again, comparing it, I think it's a good growth in the industry. And the 25% bottom line as well is close to EUR 2 billion with a 17% return on equity roughly, I think it's pretty much okay. That was driven, and you can see it here on the right side, the reinsurance part and a significant growth of 28% compared to last year, which is very good, but you see as well that the 41% was increase of primary insurance net income. And those figures, and it is always important, what you don't see, you don't see the buildup of resiliency. Again, we will show to you in 15th of May when the results will be published, but I can indicate you not just the EUR 4 billion, I can indicate as well that especially this was increased by the primary insurance. So it's not just an increase of 41%, but as well the high quality of the results, which I would just outline at that point here. And that leads to the point that we have always said we want to have a good diversification. This was explained in a 50-50 and 50 means reinsurance, 50% and 50% primary insurance to our results, and we are now with 49% basically there. Actually, when you would see the fourth quarter result, we are above 50% in the prime insurance already. But this is not important for us, important to have a 50-50 -- roughly around 50-50 to have a clear and high benefit of diversification. And if you see now the prime insurance, this is the split we have there, what the contribution is. So Corporate & Specialty, our core, and we have to prove to ourselves in the past that our core is the Corporate & Specialty and that we can do the business relatively good. And with 22% contribution with this high quality of the resiliency that we have built up, we are there. Probably you could say we are back really in this market. And Retail International follow up very nicely as the #2 in our prime insurance and Retail Germany, as you can see, with 7%, #3. And this is reflecting at the end, the development of the primary insurance probably in our -- if you say some of the part calculation and some arguments we used in the past already. You can see now the prime insurance, if you take this kind of calculation, it's roughly EUR 6.6 billion or even now in the last days up to EUR 7.9 billion, which is still a price earning a P/E ratio of around 6%. So as you can see on the right side, Hannover Re is a price earning of 12% and we like more than 12%, that is clear. So there's some potential probably for us. Now comes to what we basically have said in the capital markets in Munich in December. Well, we want to give you the message 1 year earlier and higher than what we have done. We have thought that we will make '25, so EUR 1.6 billion. Actually, 1 year earlier in '24, we make roughly the EUR 2 billion already. So this message promises a promise even if we make it earlier, that was important to tell you. When it comes to the outlook, I mean, you have heard that what we've given the mid-single-digit growth. We still believe our business model can produce through the cycle growth. We have already published above EUR 2.1 billion and the 17% return on equity would mean that number. Maybe the message is we are confident to achieve that. We are confident -- in spite of what in the reinsurance event in California, what Hannover Re was a EUR 500 million to EUR 700 million nat cat event has said, we are confident to achieve it because primary insurance, basically, there was not much nat cat event. We are below the budget in the primary part, still some days to run. But for the time being, there's clearly below the budget. So therefore, confident to achieve that what we have said as an outlook. And as well -- as we have said as well in our capital markets, we prolonged our strategic cycle because the business model is running until 2027. And we gave you, therefore, as well the numbers. The numbers, the 30% and the 50%. The 30% was the net income growth, which would mean around EUR 2.5 billion net income in 2027 or a CAGR of double digit, let's say, of 10% until 2027. And regarding dividends, we increased actually even higher, plus 50% in 2027, which would give us -- which would give you a EUR 4 dividend. And that would mean a CAGR until 2027 of 14%. And with that, I would now hand over to Jan Wicke who gives you more details about finance and about the segments. Jan, the floor is yours.

Well, thank you, Torsten. And before I dig into the details, let me start with a quick end of some figures, which Torsten has already mentioned. So we are growing. We are growing 11%, currency adjusted 13%. We are growing profitable. The return on equity stands at 17.9%. And we want to -- our shareholders to participate in the way how we monetize our growth. This is why we have increased the dividend per share by 15% to EUR 2.70, which should be paid out during the course of this year. Where is the performance of our company coming from? It's coming from the underwriting performance. We were able to improve the underwriting performance across the board in all lines -- in all business units of our group. And -- but we want to remain humble. First of all, yes, it's about underwriting discipline, but second, also large loss play a role. And large loss remained at prior year level, but below -- more than EUR 200 million below budget. So we have been a little bit lucky also with this underwriting result, which resulted in an insurance service result of above EUR 5 billion, which is a record in our history. But it's not only because of that, it's also because of underwriting discipline, and this really matters to us. If we look at the other part of our income, which is the investment income, there we have rather boring numbers. We stick to our high-quality investment portfolio, which is seen on the left side of the chart. We were able to make use of nice reinvestment yields on average 4.5% during the course of the year, and this helped us to increase the average bond portfolio yield to 2.9%. Torsten already mentioned it. We have a very, very much invested in the resiliency of our balance sheet. And this is shown on the next chart, which you can see we did not only increase the resiliency on the reserve side, we also increased it on the investment side. So we realized losses in our bond portfolio in order to lock in higher coupons for the future. And over the last 3 years, we did it with more than EUR 1.2 billion. And on top of it, we strengthened the resiliency, which is embedded in our best estimate and which is assessed by an external actuary to what we expect to be above EUR 4 billion for 2024. Towers Watson hasn't finalized their assessment now, but I'm very confident that there will be a number above EUR 4 billion. And as Torsten has said, we have already heard some numbers from Hannover Re, which are very good, but we expect Primary Group to be even slightly -- in relative terms, slightly a little bit better. So given the strong resilience in our balance sheet, we can increase the dividend easily by -- over the last 2 years by 35% compared to the last year, 15% to EUR 2.70. And I just want to remind you that the initial strategic cycle until 2025, we have set out a target for the dividend EUR 2.50 for 2025 to be paid off 2026. So we are 1 year early, and we deliver higher than initially expected. And also, we want to confirm we are very confident that we can deliver an increase in earnings growth of 30% by 2027 so that would mean more than EUR 2.5 billion net income by 2027 and the dividend increased by 50%, and that's in clear numbers that are EUR 4 dividend by 2027 to be paid out 2028. So given the very good performance of the previous year, this is also reflected in the yardsticks for capital management. So there are two. First of all, the solvency development. As usual, we will publish our final year-end numbers in May, but we already give you an indication as of today. So we expect Solvency 2 numbers by year-end to be slightly above 220%, so an increase compared to the previous year of more than 5 percentage points. And the overall strength of our balance sheet and the very good earnings diversification was also reflected by an upgrade by the rating agency, Standard & Poor's to AA-. What they in particular light was the diversification of our earnings engines within the group. Torsten has mentioned it already. We have a 50-50 split when it comes to net income. But when it comes to the cash contribution to the holding company, Talanx AG, it's even 2/3 from the primary insurance and 1/3 from reinsurance. You may now ask whether this is a problem, the dividend payment, Hannover Re has just increased it by 25%? No, it's not. To be crystal clear here, we are very happy shareholders of Hannover Re. And as long as the business unit provides us with a return on equity of 20%, we are happy to support the growth and the capital needed for it. So with regard to the new accounting yardstick, here comes my favorite chart. You're aware of it. The new accounting standard provides us with the ability not only to have a closer look to the equity development where you can see a direct value creation of EUR 1.8 billion during the course of the last year, but it also reflects the embedded future expected profits in the balance sheet in the CSM and in the risk adjustment in both positions. And we have adjusted the CSM and the risk adjustment on the right side of the chart for taxes and minority interest, which is in particular important for Hannover Re. And what you can see here in total, already within our balance sheet, there is a value of EUR 19.2 billion. And so roughly 90% of the market value of Talanx is already backed by the existing book, and there's no value in this calculation for the franchise value, and we do not intend to stop our business. We want to write new business with nice margins, and we are very confident that we can do this. With regards to -- I have some more information with regard to the debt leverage. We have been in 2023 due to the Liberty acquisition, slightly above our internal threshold of 35%. We are now back below 35%, as we indicated already last year. And on an HDI Group level, the leverage stands at a very prudent 26.5%. So Talanx has -- can provide for a very efficient capital structure for its shareholders. Let me now dig a little bit more into the segments, where we earn our money and where the colleagues and the management team provided for the great results of 2024. Let me start with Corporate & Specialty. Corporate & Specialty had very impressive results. They were able to increase the insurance revenues to more than EUR 10 billion, which is a record in the history. They were able to increase the insurance service result to above EUR 1 billion, and this translated then in a net income of more than EUR 500 million. And Torsten has already mentioned it, they have continued to be very prudent in reserving and a large part of the increase in the resiliency, which we expect to be assessed by Towers Watson will be derived from Corporate & Specialty. Looking at where is the growth coming from and how are we diversified, we have here put the countries in certain brackets, core, grow-to-core and develop. If you see now the U.S. in developed, that's not mentioned that we want to declare the U.S. as a developing country. We have to develop market share there. And you see different growth rates across the board. You see that the overall portfolio is well diversified, a little bit overexposed towards Europe compared to the rest of the world. If we look at the growth, which we could provide for, this growth is driven by both new business and tariff increases. So we have rate changes of more than 6% on average through the whole portfolio. This is above claims inflation. It's not significantly above because we are writing business not only in euro terms and also in other countries where we have higher inflation rates, but it is above inflation. And so we are very confident that Corporate & Specialty will continue to deliver very good technical performance in the years to come. The insurance revenue by lines of business is on the right side in the pie chart is also very well balanced. So we feel very comfortable to grow this business further. What is the outlook? Let me -- sorry, first, what is the investment portfolio. In the investment portfolio, we had in the middle, you see that a strong increase in the net investment income by 88% which is derived from 2 factors. First, the growth in the asset under management. So Corporate & Specialty has assets now EUR 15 billion asset, which was an increase by 15%, but also what is reflected in the increase in the net income is that we already started with realizing losses on the bond portfolio and locking in higher yields for the future in the last year. We also did something in the current year in 2024, roughly EUR 90 million -- roughly EUR 100 million there in this business unit, and this helped to increase the net investment income. The finance and investment result now stands at EUR 83 million. What is the outlook? We expect to further grow the business in the high single-digit number on currency adjusted number. The combined ratio should be -- remain below 92% and a return on equity above 15%, I expect it to be close to the fantastic figures I provided us this year. Let me now go to Retail International. Retail International is our growth machine. They were able to increase the insurance revenues by 31%. And if you adjust this for currency exchange rates, it's even 40%. And if you adjust for -- that we just want to figure out the organic growth number, currency adjusted, it's 15%. So in all different dimensions, nice growth, which was seen in 2024. The insurance service, result due to high technical discipline, was up by 83% to EUR 778 million insurance service result, which translates into a combined ratio of 92.5%, which is a very, very good number. And the net income is with EUR 450 million -- roughly EUR 450 million, already close to the EUR 500 million. And we are pretty confident that in the near future, we will be able to reach a EUR 500 million contribution also in this segment. If we look at the revenue split and the diversification within this business unit, we are insurance revenue-wise, already close to a 50-50 split in between Europe and South America with regard to the net income split, and this is also thanks to the outstanding performance of our Polish colleagues in the team around Langenbach. We are 60-40, so more Europe-based. But you should keep in mind that in Latin America, we had more than -- we have roughly EUR 72 million integration costs for the Liberty acquisitions, which were booked in 2024, which is roughly 75% of the overall integration costs and the colleagues also in Latin America are doing a great job with regard to the integration work. I think Wilm has presented that also on the Capital Markets Day. You're aware of it. With regard to the outlook, we expect a mid- to high single-digit growth in currency adjusted. And when it comes to euro, it doesn't come as a surprise for you. Obviously, we are slightly dependent on the exchange rates here. With regard to the combined ratios, should be around 93% and return on equity above 13%, which is a very good number in such a growing business unit. Let me now explain a little bit the numbers of Retail Germany. Retail Germany, we have a stable insurance revenue development, plus 2%. Insurance service result was up 12% to more than EUR 400 million. So combined ratio, as Torsten has already mentioned, below 97% -- 96.6% and the net income stable with 1% at EUR 160 million and providing us with a return on equity above 12% if we include the part of the contribution, which is done via the asset manager, Ampega. If we exclude that, it's still above 10% return on equity. To put it a little bit into context of the group, Retail Germany now provides for 7% of the group insurance revenues, 7% of the net income, but they were able to contribute 19% in the cash contribution to Talanx AG in order to provide for the liquidity base to serve the dividend during the course of this year. So they are doing what they can. And given the limited growth potential in Germany, we take some more money out of this business unit. With regard to the outlook, we haven't set a growth target. Profitability is key. The combined ratio should remain below 96%. The new life business value above EUR 170 million and a return on equity, excluding Ampega, above 10% and including the Ampega share, it should be above 12%. So a stable result and contribution. With regard to Hannover Re, you all -- or most of you might have listened to the call of JJ, Clemens, Claude and Sven. And we are very happy shareholders here. So they expect insurance -- they were able to grow the insurance revenues by 8%, 11% in P&C reinsurance and 1% in Life & Health reinsurance. They were able to grow the insurance service result to above EUR 3 billion, which is a record in Hannover Re history, and the net income was up 28% to EUR 2.3 billion, and our share is here EUR 1.17 billion. This is Talanx share what you see reflected, return on equity above 20%. I do not have to add something to those numbers. With regard to the outlook, we will further grow our P&C reinsurance business by above 7%. The combined ratio should remain on very low levels. In Life & Health reinsurance, we expect the insurance service result to be above EUR 875 million, and this should then turn out to a profit contribution for Talanx of EUR 1.2 billion or for Hannover Re as a whole, a profit target around EUR 2.4 billion, as I have mentioned in the call. So I've now explained a little bit about our business segments where the colleagues, in particular, in Corporate & Specialty did a fantastic job during the course of 2024. When it comes now to the outlook for the group as a whole, I hand over to Torsten again.

Thank you, Jan. Outlook '25, confident. And we prolonged our strategic targets until 2027. So the cycle runs until 2027, very confident. And with that, I hand over to Bernd for your Q&A.

All right. So back again with Q&A. [Operator Instructions] And the first one comes from Michael Huttner at Berenberg.

Congratulations. Three really simple questions you'd probably expect. Effectively, today, you've raised your target for 2027, EUR 2.5 billion. And if I do 30% above EUR 1,977 million, it's close to EUR 2.6 billion. I just wondered maybe you can comment on this. I mean you probably say, well, it's just higher, but maybe. I was really super impressed by Retail Germany, how quick the turnaround is in combined ratio. Could you give us a little bit more color on this? I don't know, maybe you mentioned the rate rises or volume kind of rejigging. I suspect if you strip out the rate rises, you lost a lot of volume, but anything like that? And then in retail -- in former Industrial Lines, Corporate & Specialty. It sounds like there's no cycle anymore. You just keep pushing the numbers up all the time. I just wonder if you can give a little bit of background. The reason I ask that is that one of the calls I had recently, the company was actually a little bit more cautious on Industrial Lines. I really can't remember which one, but there's a little bit of caution in the background.

Well, Michael, I'll start and then Jan will continue. Well, I mean, maybe the last one, the Corporate & Specialty, we don't run over water. But what we do is as I bring you the business model is about cost leadership and about still -- I mean, we have now from EUR 5 billion to EUR 10 billion basic growth in the last years. We still have to position in many markets with that kind of business model we can gain profitable market share. So it's not in the defending. Sometimes we're attacking models. And with that business model, it's possible, but we want to stay humble. We don't run over water. It's clear in cycles we have as well for sure. But the business model is kind of winning one at the moment. Retail Germany, I think, again, I mean, we have -- there are many actions now done and focus always pay off. They focus now on performing this now hardening market. I mean we have seen all this inflation kicking in, and they're working on their cost position, efficiency and the first results we can see already now. I'm not sure if you meant this target -- this midterm target is 27%, it's above INR 2.5 billion. That's the number. But maybe Jan, if you want to add something here?

What shall I add? Michael, you did the math, and it's above EUR 2.5 billion, yes. And we will deliver our 30%.

Okay. So then we have another question from Nick Johnson from Deutsche Bank.

So I just wanted to ask on the '25 growth guidance. So I'm slightly surprised to see higher growth guidance in Corporate & Specialty versus international, if I've heard that right. Perhaps I think I would have assumed that international would have higher growth given the markets you're in. And maybe within Corporate & Specialty, there might be some drag on growth from price softening in the Specialty segment. So perhaps it would be kind if you could just give some color on the building blocks around the growth guidance in those 2 segments, please?

Yes, good point. I mean industrial, as you can see, renewals is big at the end of the year. So therefore, we're basically a bit more sure than in some retail segments. But at the end it reflects again the business model, I mean, and our position in the market. And therefore, we are quite still optimistic that we have this kind of growth ratio and as we have seen in the renewal. When it comes to the Retail International, Jan can comment on this as well, yes. Well, now we have the currency effect in some markets. And therefore, probably we are a bit cautious here, but this is generally what we are. And Jan, you comment on that?

Yes. And maybe on top of it, there will be an accounting effect due to the acquisition of Liberty, we have to book for the -- the so-called loss portfolio transfer of the Liberty entities, the CSM and the CSM fuels insurance revenue in the accounting regime and will be getting smaller and smaller over the years. So there's a negative effect from the takeover of the Liberty entities embedded in that one. This will just last for 1, 2 years, which is a little bit a drainer in that number. So if we look at the market shares in the countries, we are very optimistic that we can further grow the business.

And probably we explain you when it comes to first quarter exactly how much is CSM reflecting this kind of plan of growth. It's just accounting gimmick and not real picture. We will show you then.

Nick, does that answer your questions?

You're mute, Nick.

Sorry, yes, I look forward to the update in May. But yes, that answers the questions.

All right. So then next in line is Bhavin from HSBC.

So I have 3 on my side. The first one would be on your reserve resiliency. I appreciate the fact that you said that this was largely driven by primary lines. Can you provide some further breakdown in terms of which subsegments within the primary lines drove that further resiliency within Corporate & Specialty, Retail International, Retail Germany. So any qualitative colors on what drove that increase in resiliency this year? And the second one would be on your Industrial Lines combined ratio targets less than 92% for 2025. You're already at around 90% for 2023 with -- and you already said that the rates are running ahead of claim inflation. So should we see that more of a conservative guidance? Or is there something that I'm missing here given resiliency situation looks to be more at an appropriate level in this line of business? And third and the last one would be on your Corporate segment. We still see that in 4Q, there were some higher charges related to this other investment expense, which has been the case for the last 2 quarters. So can you just give us a guidance of how should we think about that line developing going into 2025? Is that more of a conservatism that you're building in your numbers going forward? So any color around how should we think about that line developing going forward?

Thank you, Bhavin. I mean I'm not sure you if I said everything, but we will try. Maybe the first one is resiliency per segments, we show only -- provide the numbers for prime insurance and reinsurance. So that's what we provide to the market. And the 2 other questions, maybe, Jan, you got it.

Yes. So we will give you a little bit more color on resiliency in May after the assessment of Towers Watson is done, but I already want to provide as of now with the information that we are very optimistic that overall, there will be a resiliency figure above EUR 4 billion, and there will be a very good relative contribution of the primary group, not only of the very good contribution of Hannover Re. So -- and this is mainly derived from -- I can -- also already said that with Corporate & Specialty, yes, if you look at the sources of the increase in resiliency. With regard to the combined ratio target for Industrial Lines, 92%, given the 90% they have achieved. It's rather a conservative guidance. Yes, it is. So we are -- given the technical discipline, which Edgar Puls and his team have, we are very confident that they can deliver that through the cycle. And the main base of this 92% is that the cost leadership, as Torsten already has mentioned. So it's not only about claims, it's also about costs. And yes, we are a little bit passionate about that one, yes. With regard to the Corporate segment, there, you have seen that we made some provisions on investments. It's a very prudent provision, which will provide us with upside for the future. Yes, do you have to expect that we can do this every year? No. For the modeling purposes, I would recommend you to put in EUR 100 million drain for the corporate functions as a whole, where the financing costs of the group are already also embedded and the holding costs take EUR 100 million. There will be quite a little bit volatility around this number, but EUR 100 million is a good assumption for the future.

Right. So just to clarify, for the EUR 100 million on a quarterly basis that...

No, no. For the full year. Thank you for your question. For the full year.

All clarified, Bhavin?

Yes.

So then Michael has apparently other questions. Michael, go ahead.

Then very quick. Poland, 80% combined ratio, I think I heard from your lovely Investor Relations. I wonder if, is that a one-off? It seems a really amazing number. Then always on deals, I think Mexico and Specialty U.S. is always kind of on the radar. I just wondered if there's a kind of update on that. And then the final one is on cash. So I worked out 2/3 of cash remittance is primary relative to EUR 1.1 billion profit, that's about a 75% cash ratio. That seems already very, very good, but is there upside here potentially?

I make Mexican and U.S.A. and Jan will continue with the other 2 questions. No update here. And the only update if we stick and we focus what we have said and one day will come. What I can just generally say that, well, Mexico, we are on the top 10 now. We're growing nicely in the Retail International portfolio. And then yes, it is clear we don't want to buy a big company there or something that we rather go to the specialty lines, we rather go to niches and build up from here. So it's more, let's say, build and grow than rather to buy something big. So -- but we are keen, but we are careful.

So Michael, and with regard to the cash in the holding, yes, we have a higher remittance. We will continue to have a higher remittance from our subsidiaries, from our business units. And we are very confident that we will deliver on our dividend path. So the dividend for 2027 will be EUR 4. And on the way to EUR 4, we will always want to increase the dividend from the EUR 2.70 we are starting with. And we are able to finance out of own cash, the buyout of the minorities in Poland, which will cost us a mid-triple-digit million amount. And this is already reflected in our plans. So we are very confident we will deliver the EUR 4 dividend per share for 2027.

Okay. So I'm not sure Nick -- sorry, Michael, go ahead.

Poland combined ratio?

In Poland, the combined ratio was -- hang on a second, I can tell you the exact numbers in a second. In Poland, we had a combined ratio of around 90% -- was 89.4%, a really great contribution of the colleagues in this country.

And no one-offs.

No -- yes, nothing to add. It's just a great performance.

Okay. So then Bhavin seems to have another follow-up question, Bhavin? Bhavin, you're mute.

Bhavin, you're still on mute.

So on Slide #23, wherein you show the cash contribution from subsidiaries, would you be able to say how much was the negative contribution from the corporate and consolidation segment, i.e., I'm looking at the corresponding number of EUR 743 million that you provided last year, as the net cash remittances for the group. So what would be the corresponding number to that number for 2024, excluding the negative impact from corporate and consolidation?

I have to ask my colleagues. 4% to 5%? Could you repeat your question? I'm not sure whether we got the right answer.

I was just looking at the net cash contribution from subsidiaries numbers, i.e., excluding the negative contribution from the corporate operations so the cash contribution. So the reported number for the last year was like EUR 743 million that you reported in your FY '23 slide. So just trying to understand what was the total cash contribution from the subsidiary for this year, net of any corporate operations?

Okay. I received some support from my colleagues here in the studio. And -- so I'm not quite sure whether I got your question right. But if I got it right, then in 2024, we were able to achieve more than EUR 1 billion cash contributions from all the subsidiaries and dividend payment from Hannover Re. Is that right? I'm not quite sure. Maybe we can take it off bilaterally after the...

Sure. I can take it offline.

So we follow up with you, Bhavin, separately over the phone. The number, Jan, just gave was the capital upstream from all subsidiaries, and we clarify the rest on the phone, if that was okay with you. Is there anything else, Bhavin, we could help you with?

No. That's really helpful.

All right. So we call you later to clarify the cash thing. And then Michael has other questions. Michael?

Sorry about that. Just curious, Viridium, Helvetia and Baloise. These are 3 topics. So Viridium, you kind of own 10%. I just wondered whether the aim is to keep that 10% whatever happens. Speaking to Allianz, what they explained is that the article in the German press is relatively accurate, and that article kind of says that it would potentially open the door for Allianz itself to do back book deals. So I imagine that having 10% in Viridium is always an interesting insight into where the back book deals would be attractive for you so that's -- I don't know. And then the other thing is yesterday, Bloomberg said that Helvetia and Baloise have held talks. And Helvetia, of course, has kind of indicated -- half indicated that the Germany is up for sale. And presumably, if they have talks, then maybe there could be something similar on the Baloise side. And I was just wondering at what stage would you feel that Retail Germany is strong enough to consider actually increasing its scale itself?

Well, first question, Viridium, it's a question for Hannover Re to answer. And I think there's, as we see in the press, some positive development on that and probably some announcements soon. But basically, that's Hannover Re story, and we will see what they will do. At the end, we expect a decision probably in some months. But basically, for timing, we keep it there, and we wait what Hannover Re will decide. That's a clear how we are organized in the group. The second one, Retail Germany, no comment on procedure which are happening in the market now. We are on observer status and no comment on that. Sorry for that, Michael.

Okay. So looking at the screen, Michael's question have been dealt with. No other questions seem to be outstanding. So then I hand back to Torsten for concluding remarks.

Well, the concluding remarks, basically, thank you very much for showing interest in our share. And I hope that my colleagues and -- help you support even between the calls, let's say. And again, just thank you very much. Have a nice week. Goodbye.

Thank you very much. Bye-bye.