Good morning, I'm Nishimura. Thank you very much for attending our conference call today.

From my side, I'd like to first review the overall results for the first half of fiscal year 2025, please turn to page 2. Group adjusted profit reached 231.1 billion yen, progressing steady at 56% of initial forecast, driven by higher than expected gains from securities sales at Dai-ichi Life and reduced operating expense, and the impact of agency sales at PLC.

We announced on November 14th that we are raising this fiscal year's adjusted profit outlook to 470 billion yen. Group BNP increased to 106.3 billion yen, primarily driven by Dai-ichi Life reflecting the impact of rising interest rates.

Remittance from subsidiaries projected to total 2,830 billion yen, with increase of about 600 billion yen for the current and next fiscal years. We have raised 3 yen for the remit-- total share payout is expected to reach 280 billion yen.

For the ESR as of end of September, mass lapse risk was there, but despite that, we had the rising interest rates and with that we have the 8 percentage points increase from the previous fiscal year, and for relative TSR, we have been in seventh place compared with to 14 peer companies, and we are in our range. Next to this page, this is about the ESR.

While lapse risk increased due to rising interest rates, eligible capital rose fris-- significantly, driven by higher domestic stock prices, higher interest rates, and an increase in the value of new business and expected earnings. This has been an increase since then.

Compared with our initial plan, the environment itself had become more favorable. We're above the range, but to the year end, some cash outs for ESR, it could go up go down by 10 percentage points, and with the volatile financial environment, this could be a factor that we have to be careful.

On the right hand side regarding sensitivity, the trend remains unchanged from the levels indicated in June 2025. Please refer to the next page.

Next we'll explain the group risk profile. As part of efforts to reduce market risk, we proceeded with the sales of domestic equities.

However, this was offset by rising stock prices, and proportion of equity risk within total required capital remained largely unchanged. On the other hand, due to the impact of rising interest rates, mass lapse rates had increased.

The target for this fiscal year, we are considering to increase this fiscal year's target amount for stock sales from 380 billion yen to approximately 700 billion yen. We'll continue to closely monitor the market conditions and enhance capital efficiency through risk reduction.

Now on to the next page. This is about the supplementary information on Dai-ichi Life's asset liability duration matching ratio.

During the November 14th conference call, we disclosed that the matching ratio for the individual insurance block is 104%. Dai-ichi Life holds the majority of its assets as policy reserve matching bonds.

These are assets that unlike those held to maturity, can be rebalanced as needed. That's the asset classification.

In the liability block of Dai-ichi Life, every day duration fluctuates due to new insurance contracts, policy cancellation, etc. However, since assets are held in policy reserve matching bonds, the asset can be adjusted through rebalancing, and we proactively and flexibly rebalanced the asset side to avoid over-hedging.

Furthermore, from the sensitivity perspective, we are calculating using effective duration that reflects the impact of derivative asset interest rates, and the matching rate could be approximately 97%. This page is about holding's cash position.

Following the upward revision of group adjusted profit, remittance for fiscal 2026 is expected to increase by approximately 60 billion yen compared to the initial forecast. Also in light of the planned changes to capital regulations at the fiscal year end, certain domestic subsidiaries are considering the release of surplus capital.

It is not reflected in this diagram, but we would like to provide further details on this matter as soon as updated information becomes available. Also, as announced in October, regarding the subordinated call loan of Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company that reached its call date, Dai-ichi Life will repay its position, and also Dai-ichi Holdings raised approximately 210 billion yen in subordinated loans.

Consequently, Dai-ichi Holdings' cash position increased to 440 billion yen. If there are no specific uses for this cash, such as strategic investments, deleveraging is a potential option, and we're also considering allocating this cash towards repaying some borrowings scheduled for the next fiscal year.

Combined with the last fiscal year's increased profit, free cash flow is approximately increasing, as you can see in this diagram. Please turn to the next page.

Under our current medium-term plan, we are actively pursuing strategic investments. We are allocating this capital surplus generated by reducing Dai-ichi Life's risks to gross businesses, particularly overseas operations and asset management.

Since the launch of the plan, we have executed approximately 10 strategic investments of varying sizes, including bolt-on deals. Concurrently, we actively manage capital circulation through measures such as exiting RT operations and selling unprofitable blocks via PLC.

When executing investment projects, we set appropriate hurdle rate levels based on risks and make disciplined decisions. Going forward, will enhance capital efficiency through capital-light projects, pursue projects that contribute to asset formation, and leverage bolt-on acquisitions overseas to realize synergies, thereby driving early corporate value growth.

Please turn to the next page. This is reviewing profit contribution from overseas businesses.

Since entering Vietnam in 2007, our group has expanded into a total of 10 countries. Considering each country's market environment, we have steadily grown the scale and profit contribution of these companies.

In developing overseas operations, we partner with local management teams who are deeply familiar with each country's regulations for the insurance sector, an area where we possess deep and abundant expertise. To leverage our extensive experience in insurance, we also actively invest in human capital to achieve medium-term value enhancement.

While ROI figures are presented, not all projects have achieved such numbers from the outset, day one. In the regulated insurance sector, heavy day-one costs during the initial acquisition phase often result in lower initial ROI calculation at the beginning.

However, by taking time to refine these operations, we enable them to generate stable and long-term profits. Our overseas operations now generate profits exceeding 100 billion yen, accounting for approximately one quarter of the total group profits.

We'll continue to thoroughly refine each country's operations to drive value enhancement. Now next page, this is about the future outlook for profits at Protective in the US, one of the pillars of our overseas operations.

Following the acquisition in 2015, PLC expanded its business scale through large-scale block acquisitions in 2018 and 2019, supported by capital assistance from our company. However, due to impacts including the novel influenza outbreak, COVID-19, and the failure and default of US regional banks, PLC experienced several years of persistently low profit levels.

However, these were all temporary negative events. We received tough criticism from market participants regarding PLC.

Amidst all this, since 2023, factors such as temporary downward pressure dissipated, and in recent years, we have actively pursued initiatives including reducing operating expenses to improve business efficiency and driving unprofitable blocks. We focused on enhancing profitability of existing businesses, and through measures like improving investment yields through portfolio restructuring and expanding the balance of retirement products, we were able to enhance PLC's capital efficiency and also improve the contribution to group ROE.

We also recently announced the acquisition of Portfolio. Portfolio operates warranty business in the US, and the company is a capital-light business model generating the majority of its revenue from fee income.

Including ShelterPoint acquired last year and our existing APD businesses, we aim to actively expand this capital-light businesses across growing in areas going forward, and will target the generation of approximately $200 million in profit from these areas by fiscal 2030. To achieve its group adjusted profit targets for fiscal 2026 and 2030 and to realize the vision envisioned at the time of PLC's acquisition, PLC will accelerate initiatives to expand earnings and shifting away from the trend observed in recent several years.

I'd like to talk about Group EV. In addition to realization of value of new business and expected earnings, the rising interest rates and changes in the yield curve, the steepening, pushed up Group EV significantly.

Regarding EV disclosure, we are currently considering disclosing information based on ESR in light of the introduction of economic value regulation in the end of the fiscal year, this fiscal year. Please note that we are considering disclosing useful information to investors so that the disclosure level will not drop.

That's all from me.

I'm Kikuta, and thank you very much for giving us time today and participating in this meeting. I will explain to you our growth story for 2030.

Let me start by talking about the progress of the mid-term management plan. As Mr.

Nishimura explained, group adjusted profit and adjusted ROE significantly exceeded targets thanks to the favorable economic environment, and have revised upwards. As it has already been announced, we have revised our full-year forecast upwards, and we continue our efforts to enhance corporate value.

We see steady progress in M&A activities in overseas and non-insurance businesses, and we are taking steps to improve capital efficiency and drive growth. In domestic businesses, the recovery trend in Dai-ichi Life's sales performance continues.

At Dai-ichi Frontier Life, the sales of yen-denominated products expanded thanks to the higher interest rates. Its AUM is growing steadily, and we can expect a stable profit going forward.

Dai-ichi Life is working on initiatives to improve operational efficiency. In the beginning of the next year, we will have business strategy presentation by group heads, and Mr.

Kai, the head of domestic protection business, will give you an overview of the initiatives there. As you have just heard, in overseas businesses, PLC, Protective, is driving profit growth through capital-light M&As and reinsurance of non-profitable blocks.

It is moving toward operations with focus on capital efficiency. On the other hand, the Asia-Pacific region, TAL and Dai-ichi Life Vietnam are struggling.

In case of TAL, there's a bad claim environment, and in Vietnam, there is a regulatory changes, and these companies are struggling to perform. TAL is repricing products with high claim payments, we can expect some improvement with respect to claims.

In Vietnam, stagnant sales of bancassurance have hit the bottom, and we are now seeing a sign of recovery. In non-insurance business, Canyon, an investment made during the period of this medium-term plan, and DMRE, for which the JV started to operate, start to contribute to group profit.

The revenue of asset management segment is expanding, it's coming closer to 20 billion yen. In Benefit One's employee benefit business, the share of Dai-ichi Life channel is growing, especially the sales to the large corporations.

The major sales will come next year, but we are making a steady progress. As you may know, we have revised upward the fiscal 2025 full-year forecast of adjusted profit from 410 billion yen to 470 billion yen.

Favorable economic environment is indeed a tailwind, but Dai-ichi Life has been generating profit steadily, and both organic and inorganic initiatives have heightened our profit generation capabilities. As for group adjusted ROE, assuming the achievement of this fiscal year's full-year forecast, it will be 11.8%, bringing us closer to the mid-term plan target of 12%.

Dai-ichi Life's plan to sell domestic listed stocks is progressing according to the plan. Its ROE forecast for the next fiscal year is around 13%, there is a high probability of achieving group adjusted ROE of 12%, and we will move forward with greater speed and steady progress toward our target of 14% or more by fiscal 2030.

Considering current performance and future forecast, we have revised our fiscal 2030 profit target to 700 billion yen from 600 billion yen. Domestic businesses are expected to generate scalable profit, and we also take into account profit growth of overseas businesses driven by Protective's profit expansion, and increase of profit contribution from non-insurance businesses as the profit of asset management segment grow in the mid to long-term.

Profit levels have risen under the current medium-term plan, enabling us to generate more cash than when plan first began. We will think about inorganic investment using this capital.

We cannot aim to achieve 700 billion yen only by organic growth, we would like to allocate more capital to inorganic growth in order to achieve these targets. We will put more focus on cash flow and cash remittance, and at the same time, we'll be reviewing our KPIs.

This shows the outlook for 2030. In our current medium-term management plan, we have made improvement of capital efficiency a top priority and have steadily strengthened our foundation of growth by expanding profit, reducing risks, and accelerating growth in overseas business and entering adjacent non-insurance market.

The target of ROE larger than 10% and adjusted profit of 400 billion yen have been adjusted upward to 450 billion yen and ROE of 12%. In light of these circumstances, the most important goal of the medium-term plan, achieving capital efficiency that consistently exceeds capital cost, as we approach the third year of the plan, we have previously stated that when that is achieved, that we would raise our dividend payout ratio to 50% and allocate more capital to growth investments to accelerate growth toward 2030.

We believe that the time has come for that. First, we will focus on achieving our full-year forecast for this fiscal year, and hope to raise our dividend payout ratio to 50% as early as possible.

Furthermore, we will increase capital allocation to growth investment and accelerate profit growth. However, these changes do not mean a weakening of our shareholder return policy.

We expect shareholder returns to expand in line with profit growth, especially the dividends. We intend to manage share buybacks flexibly.

The plan has been disclosed shortly before the general meeting of shareholders. As a means to improve our capital efficiency, share buyback is one of the possible measures.

However, we would like to decide the timing very flexibly, taking into consideration such factors as capital and cash positions, a pipeline of strategic investments, and the share price. That is how we would like to change the announcement of share buyback.

Backed by stable profit and cash generation, we have been able to steadily increase dividends for over the past 10 years. We are proud of our dividend per share growth rate of 18%, it is a very good number, and as for EPS, the growth rate is 11%, and it demonstrates a stable profit growth.

By steadily implementing our growth strategy, focusing on profit growth and accelerating our growth, we aim to further expand shareholder returns. Now, I would like to conclude my explanation here.

Thank you very much for listening.