Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for dialing in to this conference call and for joining the presentation of Ageas results over the first-half year of 2024.

In the first half of the year, Ageas delivered strong growth across both Life and Non-Life, with inflows up 17% at constant exchange rate, supported by excellent commercial momentum in Life and the inorganic strategic initiatives we took last year. Before diving into the commercial performance, let me clarify one point on comparability.

As usual, growth rates are presented at constant foreign exchange rates. For H1 2024, where relevant, we also refer to figures at constant scope, excluding the additional two months of contribution from the extra 25% in AG Insurance following the closing of the transaction in late April, as well as the contribution from eSure and Saga, which was not included in the half-year 2023 results.

This provides a like-for-like view of the underlying business performance. At constant scope, the total inflows were up 8% compared to last year.

In Life, we continue to see strong commercial momentum, with inflows increasing by more than 12%, or more than 9% at constant scope, across all segments. Belgium delivered another excellent performance, with inflows up 28%, or 14% at constant scope, supported by successful commercial campaigns in both Unit-Linked and Guaranteed.

Europe recorded very strong growth as well of 41% at constant exchange rate, driven by Türkiye and Portugal. In Asia, inflows increased by 4%, supported by the successful jump-start campaign in China, where inflows grew by 3%, and by a strong commercial performance in Thailand with growth of 9%.

Our emerging markets also continued to deliver attractive growth, particularly in India and the Philippines, where inflows increased by 16% and 9%, respectively. Non-Life also continued to deliver solid growth, with inflows up more than 26%, or an increase of 6% compared to last year when at constant scope.

Belgium and Europe both recorded growth of 5% at constant FX and constant scope, supported by pricing actions, portfolio growth, and strong momentum across markets. In Asia, inflows remained broadly stable, while our reinsurance business once again demonstrated its strength, delivering strong growth of 28%, driven by new business and the continued diversification of the portfolio.

When looking at our results, Ageas delivered a strong net operating result of €776 million in the first half of the year, translating into a return on equity of 15.8%. This performance was driven by excellent Life results across all segments and resilient Non-Life results despite the impact from adverse weather.

Life delivered an excellent performance with a net operating result of €629 million, significantly above last year. This was driven by a strong commercial momentum across all segments.

The growth in net operating result was driven by a stronger operating insurance service results in Belgium and Europe, complemented by a solid contribution from Asia, further supported by higher investment results. When looking at Non-Life, despite severe weather events in Belgium and Portugal, our Non-Life business delivered a resilient net operating result of €240 million, supported by disciplined underwriting and healthy technical margins.

Based on the strong performance delivered in the first half of the year and the continued progress of our strategic transformation, we are raising our full-year 2024 net operating result guidance to above €1.25 billion. This updated guidance includes the €45 million of net capital gain and reflects a lower contribution of around €30 million from Malaysia sale of our stake in Etiqa.

The guidance also includes the assumption of a full-year weather impact of around 3 percentage points on the combined ratio. Our operational resilience is equally reflected in our capital generation and cash creation.

Operational capital generation remained strong at €1.1 billion, while we now anticipate a cash upstream above €1.4 billion from the full-year 2024, significantly above our original guidance of €1.2 billion and 49% higher than last year. This increased guidance reflects a substantially higher upstream from Asia, driven by exceptionally higher dividends from China and Thailand.

This strong cash generation provides a strong foundation for shareholder returns and future growth investments. At the same time, we remain committed to our dividend policy and will pay an interim dividend of €1.5 per share in December.

The first half of 2024 once again demonstrated the strength of Ageas. Our diversified exposure across Life and Non-Life, developed and emerging markets, and a balanced mix of consolidated businesses and partnerships enables us to remain resilient and continue delivering value through different market cycles.

To conclude, let me briefly reflect on the progress we have made so far on Elevate27. Ageas accelerated its data and AI agenda, deploying solutions that enhance customer service and operational efficiency across key markets.

Ageas' data and AI agenda focuses on two main areas: strengthening the foundations by upgrading data platforms and relying on strong governance for responsible AI to ensure a future-proof architecture that maximizes AI value; and capture value from data and AI use cases. Ageas is deploying more than 300 use cases, with about 40 identified as shareable and impactful across the group.

Of these, 35% target claims and fraud, 20% focus on underwriting, another 20% improve customer experience, and the remainder are transversal use cases, among others, in IT. Halfway through Elevate27, we have also significantly strengthened Ageas through targeted acquisitions, disciplined portfolio management, and consistent operational delivery.

From the 25% step-up to full ownership of AG Insurance and expanding our presence in the UK through our acquisitions of Saga and eSure to unlocking value through the Etiqa transaction while investing in future growth opportunities in China through our stake in Taiping Pension, all these actions illustrate the disciplined way in which we are executing our strategy, creating a more diversified, more scalable, and increasingly cash-generative group that is better equipped to deliver sustainable growth and shareholder value over the long term. Before handing over to Wim, let me also briefly touch upon eSure.

The integration of eSure is progressing well, with key integration milestones achieved, including a new and integrated management team since 2024. On October 8th, at our deep dive event in London, we will provide a comprehensive update on both the integration journey of eSure, as well as the progress we are making in delivering Elevate27.

With that, I will now hand over to Wim, who will make who will take you through our results in more detail. Uh

thank you, Hans. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, also from my side.

As Hans mentioned, Ageas delivered a strong first half of 2024. The net operating result reached €776 million, up 6% compared to last year, despite a significantly higher level of weather-related claims in Belgium and Portugal, amounting to a total weather impact of €180 million.

This performance was driven by a strong Life result across all segments, resilient Non-Life earnings, and excellent commercial momentum across the group. The Life net operating result was strongly up, +17% compared to last year, driven by an excellent insurance result, illustrating the quality of the business in all segments.

In Belgium, the Life net operating result was up +20% at constant scope, significantly higher than last year, driven by a higher operating insurance service result, further supported by net capital gains, resulting in a Life guaranteed margin of 106 basis points, up 14 basis points compared to last year. In Europe, the Life net operating result was up 33% compared to last year, driven by an excellent performance in both Türkiye and Portugal, thanks to a higher CSM release and a continued solid result on short-term Life.

In Asia, the Life net operating result increased with 6%, driven by a higher CSM release and a positive development in experience variances. The CSM balance increased from €9.4 billion at year-end '23 to €11.1 billion at the end of June, driven by a strong operating CSM movement, corresponding to a growth rate of 3.6%, and further supported by the 25% step-up to full ownership of AG Insurance.

Looking at the drivers of the Life value of new business, the present value of new business premiums showed strong growth, up 15% at constant foreign exchange rate, driven by Belgium, Portugal, and China. Group Life new business margin stood at 7.9%.

This margin was mainly impacted by the new product mix in China and higher sales of invest products in Belgium. In Belgium, the new business margin is expected to recover towards normal levels by the end of '24.

Moving now to Non-Life, the reported group combined ratio stood at 95.2%, compared to 92.1% last year. This increase was driven by a significantly higher weather impact, which added around 5 percentage points to the combined ratio, compared with around 1 percentage point last year.

Excluding weather, the underlying combined ratio remained strong, demonstrating the continued quality of the Non-Life portfolio. Despite the significant higher impact from adverse weather of around €180 million, the Non-Life net operating result remained resilient, amounting to €240 million.

The Non-Life net operating result in Belgium stood at €75 million. As mentioned, the result was impacted by severe storms and hail in late May and June, which had an impact of €59 million.

Thanks to a well-diversified portfolio, the impact was partly offset. In Europe, the combined ratio increased compared to last year, mainly due to storms in Portugal at the beginning of the year.

These weather events added 3.5 percentage point to the combined ratio, compared to less than 1 percentage point last year. The weather impact was partly offset by the strong growth in the results in Accident & Health.

In Asia, the Non-Life net operating result increased, mainly driven by Taiping Re, supported by an improved combined ratio and a stronger investment result. Finally, in Reinsurance, the net operating result was also impacted by the severe weather in Belgium and Portugal, as shown in the results from group purchasing and from capital management.

The combined ratio of the reinsurance third-party business, on the other hand, stood at a strong 82.1%, supported by strong business growth and favorable claims developments. The Non-Life net operating result in reinsurance third-party business increased considerably.

This growth was achieved in a softening cat market, where we remained disciplined while selectively expanding into into specialty lines where we see attractive risk-return opportunities. Let me now turn to the balance sheet and cash.

Regarding the balance sheet evolution, our comprehensive equity increased by €2.2 billion to €19.7 billion. This was supported by the strong earnings contribution and the 25% step-up to full ownership of AG Insurance.

Shareholders' equity stood at €10.2 billion. Our cash position stood at a solid €1.2 billion.

The decrease compared with year-end '23 mainly reflects our dividend payment and the financing of the acquisition of the remaining 25% stake in AG Insurance, partly offset by higher dividend upstreams from our operating entities. For the full year, cash remittances are expected to amount to more than €1.4 billion, of which more than €1.1 billion has already been received in the first half of 2024.

This includes exceptionally high dividends from China and Thailand, as well as increased remittances from other segments, highlighting our group's increased ability to convert earnings and capital generation into cash at group level. To conclude, I would like to add a word on solvency and operational capital generation.

The Solvency II ratio stood at 195% at the end of June, lower compared to year-end '23. The movement mainly reflects a number of previously flagged items: the closing of the Taiping Pension capital increase with an impact of around -3 percentage points; the end of the grandfathering of the FRESH instruments, around -4 percentage points; the repayment of two debt instruments with an impact of -3 percentage points; and the downgrade of the Belgian sovereign debt with an impact of around -8 percentage points.

The insurance operations contributed +12 percentage points, and it is important to mention that the recently announced sale of our Malaysian activities will add 23 percentage point to the solvency at the moment of closing. The solvency of the non-Solvency II scope companies stood at 230%.

This mainly reflects the interest rate environment in China, the capital consumption linked with the strong new business growth, and the increased equity exposure. Operational capital generation remained strong at €1.1 billion, in line with last year's strong performance, despite the impact from adverse weather.

This demonstrates the resilience of the group capital generation capacity and the quality of the underlying operating performance. In the Solvency II scope, operational capital generation proved resilient and increased compared with last year, reaching €558 million, despite the weather impact in Belgium and Portugal.

In the non-Solvency II scope, operational capital generation stood at €627 million. The operational free capital generation, including both the Solvency II and non-Solvency II scope, amounted to €484 million, impacted by an increased operational capital consumption in Belgium, Europe, and China.

I've now reached the end of my presentation, and we are ready to answer any questions you may have.

Fantastic. Thank you.

Um my two questions, or if you like, my my my a lot of questions, were on China, please. Done for the results.

They're they're extraordinary. Um little Ageas is getting bigger.

Um so the first question, a little bit provocative, is uh since you're you've obviously sold Malaysia, would you ever consider The reason I ask for that is I know that I know the cash is good, but the growth is is 4% or whatever in premiums. It looks It looks uh It looks lower than Belgium.

I I I thought Asia was growth, but it's really not growth. Am I missing something?

I wonder if you could kind of do a little mini deep dive into into what's happening in China 'cause it it doesn't seem as strong as as uh as as we'd like. Um and I don't understand it.

Also, I was a little bit surprised was in guaranteed. I thought the growth would be in uh in participating.

Anyway, anything on China, and and and uh and and well done for the results.

Thanks, uh Michael, for for your question. Uh on your first point, would you consider selling China?

My answer is very short: no. Uh I think we had here the opportunity uh to have a very attractive valuation uh for Malaysia, uh where our partner also saw a future of uh Etiqa more integrated in the bank.

That's why I think uh we went into the transaction uh with Maybank in Malaysia. Uh this is a stand-alone event, this is not changing our strategy and positioning for Asia.

We are a group for uh on Europe and Asia, and and I absolutely continue to believe into the growth potential um of the Asian region. On the growth of China, uh you're right, the top-line growth uh was lower, and in Life this time uh below Belgium, and I would more I would say congratulate Belgium for that than uh complaining uh to to China.

Um first of all, um if you look, for instance, at the growth of technical liabilities in China, that is still going up with 10%, and so this is a young company, the relationship between uh new volumes and building up technical liabilities, which at the end of the day is your foundation for the margin and the results, is very different if you compare that between uh China and Belgium, and so in that sense, the portfolio is growing nicely into the Chinese market. Um what has happened?

Of course, we have the low interest rate environment, very well known to you, but we also seen specifically in bancassurance uh that the regulator is asking for more market discipline uh by the insurers. There is a very specific circular, Circular 65, um that China has issued, uh where you see that they want to better align your real economics on expansion and um on on expenses, sorry, and commissions with the pricing assumptions um that you use in in pricing your products, which is a move that we, and and you have heard CTIA saying that yesterday as well, it's a move that we support uh because at the end of the day, uh that will improve the quality um of the business and the quality of the market.

That is something you see happening in in China in general, and there is a move from volumes, both in agency and in bancassurance, to quality of business, activity levels of agents, and so on. Um with that, um uh you know that my view on the future potential of the market has not changed, uh?

Aging population is an important topic um in China, and I remain uh confident um in in in the growth potential both for the market, but definitely also for our business uh there. Your final comment is participation versus guaranteed.

Participation is part of guaranteed, uh? I think you you'll have to combine the two.

Okay. Brilliant.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you for taking my questions.

Um first one, just on the higher cash remittances for the year, I guess you highlight the extremely high dividends from China and Thailand for '24. Were there any one-offs here?

Or is it are these good levels that we can think about growth uh I guess going forward, using as a base going forward? Then secondly, can you just help me think a little bit more about the year-on-year development of the operational free capital generation?

I know you mentioned higher capital consumption driven by Belgium, Europe, and China, but I guess the decline year-on-year is quite high. You're able to give a bit more detail here, and again, how we should think about the development in the second half and just going forward more generally?

Thank you. Uh

thank you, uh Andrew. I will take the first one, and I will give the second one to our CRO, uh Christophe.

Uh indeed, we have raised the total upstreaming for the group from the guidance 1.2 billion in the beginning of the year to 1.4 billion uh now. This uh 200 million you can almost fully link to uh China and uh Thailand.

Um I think there is on one-off effects in there, uh clearly also in uh China, because if you look at the evolution of of payout ratio, we see a a slow and gradual growth, uh? Um but that has delivered a lot higher number over the year, also because of the tax effect, uh?

The change in the tax regulation that we have announced, with 300 million extra profit uh at the end of last year, and we see that now coming through um also in the dividend. Yes, indeed, uh there is some uh one-off effect in this.

We are aligned with an announcement I saw yesterday our partner making, uh? China Taiping Insurance Holding, that they do expect a um a growing dividend towards the future, but please uh base that on, I would say, the historic evolution and not on that specific number that we have seen um this year.

Uh last for China, and you know that we said that earlier, uh together with our partner, we always keep the long-term view on solvency, uh? That this long-term view is impacted by the low interest rate environment.

That's also an important guidance uh for um our dividend um evolution. Similarly, we saw that uh increased uh dividend out of Thailand.

I think also in there, there are some uh some one-off uh effects. Can I uh give OFCG to Christophe?

Yes. Uh on the operational free capital generation, well, you can follow it uh on uh slide 20.

Um of course, we have two elements there. We have the operational capital generation itself, and there you see that we go from €1.1 billion to 1.06, a a slight drop.

Uh now, of course, you see that the General Account is weighing a bit, but we have of course more debt uh uh compared to last year, so that weighs a bit a bit there. You see that the Solvency II scope is actually doing uh better, so that is helped by Belgium, but also growth in Turkey, for example.

Uh and the non-Solvency II scope is also going down a bit. Um even Thailand is is doing relatively well in there, it's it's going up, uh but the big uh driver there is is uh China, where you do see a a slight drop in the the value new business margins because of indeed the shift to more participating products, more uh uh short-term products.

Overall, uh in the operational capital generation, uh a slight down. What explains uh the fact that our operational free capital generation goes down from um 713 to 484, about €230 million, is indeed on the operational uh capital requirements.

There you see, compared to last year, that indeed on our Solvency II scope, we do lock in uh quite a lot more capital. Now, there are also quite some um So there are two things in there.

There are one-offs in there, which are linked to asset management actions, and there is growth in there, uh? For Belgium, it's uh mostly the first one, uh?

It's linked to uh long-term reinvestments in in the first half of the year. On Europe, it's more growth, uh?

There are some shorter-term penalties and so on, I will not go into detail into that, but uh it's mainly the the increase uh in the growth that we see over uh the first-half year. Then on the non-Solvency II scope, it is uh relatively uh limited, the increase, but you also have two factors in there.

You actually, if you would do the same basis, um we have an increase in our equity allocation in China in the first-half year, which we did not have last year. Um so if you would remove that, actually would have a lower operational uh capital requirements uh than last year.

All in all, when you put everything together, of course, our operational capital uh requirements go up more than last year, and that's indeed the main driver of the drop in the operational uh free capital generation. Uh in terms of going forward, well, I explained a bit the one-offs.

It's always difficult um uh to predict that, uh we usually do not provide uh guidance going forward on on OFCG.

Great. Thank you.

Hey, uh thanks for taking my questions. Uh first one is a broader question around uh capital management, and kind of flipping Michael's question around on your free cash flow generation is higher than what you need to uh return to capital capital to shareholders, i.e., dividends.

Can you talk about kind of what's your preference on for regular share buyback or dividend upgrades? Then also on the uses of capital, you said you don't want to sell, but in terms of buying more stakes or increasing your participation in some of the stakes, I know Thailand is the the second biggest, China maybe not not possible, how much can you increase in Thailand?

We talk about Ethias, the file, as well. That's on that.

Second is just on UK motor. What have you seen in the market over the first half in terms of pricing?

Where have you been? Then maybe the latest on pricing, uh some data points have been pretty positive.

What's the latest on uh the pricing trends there? Thank you.

All right. Uh thank you, uh Nasib.

I will take uh uh both uh questions. In capital management, I would say there is no change um in our view, uh?

We are running a sustainable growth strategy. Our first preference is if we see good opportunities to further grow our business, uh we will uh definitely uh consider that.

If we have access or less opportunities, and and growth, by the way, uh that can be Europe, that can be Belgium, that can also be Asia. Let me be clear on that one, that can also be Asia.

Of course, we have that pool of reinsurance, which today is not in demand to significantly increase their capital uh within the plan Elevate27, uh but that's something always we can um consider. If beyond that, we have um excess uh capital, of course, on the dividend, we know, we have a dividend uh commitment, and that of course we will try to, and we will honor, in in the first place.

If beyond that, uh capital remains available, and there is low opportunity uh for investing in growth, then of course we do not exclude uh the option um of a uh share buyback in uh in the future. Um you also asked about um increasing your stake in in participations that we have.

Uh also there, no change, uh? We have said that if our partner, wherever in the world, would like or to diversify our participation You have seen we have done that many years ago in Türkiye, for instance, where we went from Non-Life also into Life.

Um then of course we are open um to uh to explore that opportunity and and to widen our partnership. Same if our partnership wants to step up um in uh the market, um of course that is uh also something for which we keep some funds available in case these opportunities would arise so that we can also support that, because the strategy is clear: in the countries where we are, we would have that ambition uh to become like a top three, uh with maybe an exception for China, top five, um type uh of uh position.

You mentioned China, by the way. Let me remind you uh that we closed the transaction with Taiping Pension in the first half of the year, there we recently did an expansion of our partnership into the pension business.

UK motor pricing. Um well, we have seen um the market in motor uh slightly going up um in the first half of the year, uh?

That was mid-single-digit, uh, 4% to 5%. I can tell you that we did a little bit more, um and we went uh low uh uh low uh, sorry, high-single-digit, uh 9% 9% to 10%.

Um but what is also interesting for us is that we have now a more diversified presence in the market, uh, towards different distribution channels and different customer groups. I see that the team in the UK can now, I would say, fine-tune the pricing adjustments to balance, I would say, uh growth where it remains interesting, but also hold back where uh profitable growth comes under challenge.

We have, I would say, a little bit more agility and flexibility um in in doing that. Uh by the way, we have also launched an an AI engine uh on on dynamic pricing, and uh and there we also see some uh first uh positive effects um coming in.

That's uh what we see. Second half, uh latest data point I saw, uh and that was over summer, that it seems to be a slight continuation of the increase in in pricing in the UK motor.

Uh claims inflation remains high um in the UK, uh? We we talk about uh second uh 5% to 2 10% continued claims inflation.

Um and honestly, I think the outlook uh for inflation, for me, is not overly positive uh that it would calm down in in in the short term.

Great. Thank you.

That's very good.

Yes, thank you for taking my question. Um I have one one question about the growth in in Belgium, which of course was uh was quite strong.

Can you um uh give me more color on this growth both in Life in terms of what drove the demand there? If it's uh by product or, the how the market um performed in in in the first half or something else.

Also in terms of the products that you uh that you're selling. In Non-Life, um also in Belgium, what kind of You mentioned tariff increases and portfolio growth.

Maybe if you can give a color on these two dynamics, where are you increasing tariffs, and what is the growth? Um thank you.

Thanks, uh Michele. Indeed, uh we saw a very strong performance on the Life side um in uh Belgium.

The Life side grew 27%, the Non-Life side 13%, but of course, uh we have also to look uh scope on scope, uh? Because um in uh Belgium, of course, we took two more months at 100% um in in the numbers that you have in front of you.

If we bring Belgium back uh we see our growth of 13%, which is a mix of 14% in Life and 5% um in uh Non-Life. Um on the Life side, uh strong performance by bancassurance, uh?

Um of course, you know we have renewed that bancassurance agreement into a 15-year contract, and we see that there is more effort invested in uh further building the bancassurance relationship with uh BNP. We talk here more about the investment type of products, also with a higher proportion of uh Unit-Linked uh than usual.

If you look at the fiscal uh products, they are anyway more focused on the second half of the year, but there is, I think, some continued pressure also by changing in tax regulation, stricter application of the tax deductibility, so that uh market, for the time being, is uh growing less, uh? Of course, we are waiting to see um the performance there on the second half of the year.

Uh the growth in Non-Life is is 5%. I would say that is a nice continued growth, uh?

That almost two-thirds of the products on Non-Life in Belgium have an automatic indexation mechanism embedded, uh taking into account uh the inflation. There is in the market a slight increase in premium for the cat nat risk uh that we have seen, and also AG has applied a small increase in uh in the property book.

Uh so, but 5%, I would say, is a healthy, continued uh growth for Non-Life. There is also growth in volumes, uh?

Um that's also an element. It is not only an element of of tariff.

Thank you. Thanks.

hi there. Um thanks very much.

The first question is the comment you made about not sitting on capital. Obviously, you made uh a decent gain on the Etiqa transaction.

You have a lot of cash post that. Um how long would you wait?

What is the timeframe for deciding whether, whether you will return capital or or use it for uh for inorganic growth or growth? Um so for example, hypothetical situation, let's say you think some file is going to come, for example, in your home market, um but it's taking a bit longer than you think, are you prepared to just wait for that because you'd rather just be ready for when that happens?

Or would you rather sort of fund that when the time comes and and really want to deploy the cash quickly? I just want to understand the timing of that really.

Uh that's question one. Question two is, um on the combined ratio, really been supported by strong reserve releases.

This is an area where I guess we've not had quite a lot of guidance from you guys, how much of that reserve release is structural, and how much is you basically being able to offset some of the nat cat that you saw in 1H? Can you give us some balance on that?

Then, what are we still on a path to 92%, basically? Thank you.

Morning, uh Farooq. Uh I will take the first question, second question I give to uh Wim, who is uh very close to the reserving.

Uh we closed the first-half year uh with a cash position between 1.0 and 1.1 billion. Uh a similar amount is expected to come in at the closing of the transaction in Malaysia.

We can assume that 2.0 billion to 2.1 billion is probably a good reference for the evolution of the cash position, uh? Your second part of the question is a lot more difficult.

Um how quickly? Uh first things first, let's uh close the Malaysia transaction uh before we can really think about how to deploy.

Um of course, there is a bit of noise of M&A also in our home market, uh Belgium, there is an opportunity. We have expressed our interest um in that opportunity.

Um but it's very hard to read today uh what the timing of this uh will be, I can absolutely uh not comment. Uh but I think uh you have enough uh confidence, I think, in how we manage the balance sheet and and the cash position and the M&A uh opportunities.

If we truly believe uh we have excess capital uh for the longer run, we will uh consider that uh share buyback. It is very, very hard today to put a timing on that one.

Uh Reserving? Yeah.

Good morning, Farooq. Um your question on reserving, as uh we uh are very disciplined in how we set reserves.

Uh our confidence interval is 75%, but you know that's a confidence interval on top of a best estimate. A best estimate is not a point estimate, it's a bit of a range.

You have a bit of reflections on where do you put yourself in the range, and there we are very disciplined in how we will put ourselves in in the range. What you've seen happening over the first half of the year is the normal evolutions of the claims.

You see that we had a higher reserve release in Belgium, 3%, compared to 2% last year, and also a higher reserve release in in Europe. Now you may have seen similar trends with some of the peers who communicated in the UK market, also there the prior-year development has been strong.

That's a bit uh supporting, of course, the um evolution of the reserve release as such. Of course, that is a bit of a link between how you look at the range of your best estimates and what you see in weather, uh and so that's the way you a bit look at it uh going forward.

Now, we've never given um explicit guidance on that prior-year development and how that will contribute. You should know H1 is always higher than H2, it's just the mechanical effect of a prior-year release because you still have the claims of the end of last year running through, and that becomes a prior-year release.

Now, if you want to have a bit of an estimate, I would give more an indication of 2% going forward, high higher in the first half of the year, lower in the second half of the year, but you have also seen a bit of uh lower numbers in the previous years. Now, on your reference point, path to 92%.

Now, the fact that we stay very disciplined in the reserving is that we also stay very disciplined in what we see happening uh across the globe, and then especially what's happening in the Red Sea and what that could have as an impact on the inflation. Where we're mostly monitoring that is of course the impact on the UK market, where you know that inflation has the most direct impact.

In our market in Belgium and Portugal, that's more spread over time and can be better absorbed in the pricing. Now, we've done some scenario analysis on how we how long we think that this is happening, and we put ourselves at the high high amount of that scenario analysis.

If you would take that out, I can confirm that we're more in that 92% range, uh so that is in on track with the path to the 92%.

Clear. Thank you very much.

Yes, uh good morning. Uh I had uh uh some questions.

The first one is uh in Portugal, according to the news, you would be ready to take a stake to defend the bancassurance partnership. Uh so could you remind us when it ends, and the financial rationale for locking something like, whatever, 0.5 to 1 billion of capital to defend uh such a bancassurance deal, and, to What is the kind of length that you're looking, the duration?

Uh the second part are kind of small questions. In China solvency, uh comprehensive solvency, what's the third-quarter outlook they give, um because it's difficult always to find?

Uh C2 the sensitivities in equities haven't exactly worked, uh it would be interesting to understand why. Uh finally, you have 3% nat cat in the guidance.

Now, this is high for the second half, because in the first half, we've had nat cats, we had 3.5%, you assume nearly the same, or a bit less, for the second half. Uh does that give you a bit of margin, to um uh to beat your guidance?

Thank you.

Thank you, Jason. First one for me, the second one uh for Christophe.

Um on Portugal, indeed, we have that uh successful bancassurance uh partnership uh with BCP. Uh maybe let me start by referring to the numbers, uh?

We have seen the Life business in Portugal growing just below 50%, uh 48%, 49%, in the first half of the year, I can tell you that the bancassurance uh business is functioning very well uh with our partner um in Portugal. Indeed, there has been some noise um in the media about stake that uh Fosun is holding um into um BCP.

Um I've also set that together with you, and I've also seen that the CEO of BCP has commented that they prepare for the a potential scenario of divesting uh by Fosun. Look, that's all that I uh can comment um on this.

Of course, it is a relationship which is very close and uh very important uh for us. Uh bancassurance uh agreement we are having now is still running um a few more years.

Um Christophe, on Solvency?

Your question was why does the equity sensitivity does not work? It has to do with the size of the shock.

Um there is a mechanic in your equity that is uh in your equity SCR that they call the symmetric adjustment. That means if markets are very high, our capital charge for equity is actually higher than if markets are quite low.

That means if you do a big shock like 25%, this can go outside of these boundaries, huh, because it it ranges from a + to -10 on on top of the base shock. If you, for example, take a European equities, the base shock under the standard formula will be 39%.

It can basically be 10% higher or 10% lower in terms of capital requirements, depending if the markets at that moment are high or low. That means if you do a big shock on 25%, you go beyond those boundaries.

If you do a smaller shock, it behaves differently. That's the reason that it's indeed difficult to use a big shock like 25% on um on let's say if you have a smaller movement during a quarter.

I will uh add a few comments on the weather. Uh maybe good to remind a few of the key numbers.

We had a a significant weather impact, that's that €180 million impact on the net operating result. If you look at that weather impact, that's an impact of almost 5 percentage point on the combined ratio.

In the combined ratio that we publish, we have 5 percentage points. In the guidance we did for the full year, we're we're referring to a guidance of 3% impact on the total combined ratio, but that's for the full-year impact.

Which means that in the second half of the year, we're expecting an impact of 1 percentage point. Now, this 1 percentage point is aligned with the impact of weather that we had over the last two years.

Now, you may remember when it was 1%, I said be a bit careful, a normal through-the-cycle uh level is more 2%. Now, this year, we've taken in the guidance more that we're on the upper end of that guidance, going to the 3%.

That's a bit to clarify the numbers, uh because you mentioned the 3.5 percentage point. The 3.5 percentage point is the weather impact in Europe only, in the segment Europe.

The numbers I'm referring to are the one at the total level, at group level, we're taking that analysis at group level. Uh

thanks a lot on for the clarification. Finally, just the solvent the comprehensive solvency in China, what's the outlook they give for third quarter?

For solvency ratio, um I think the outlook for uh um T for TPL is uh 205%.

Superb. Thank you very much.

Yes, good morning. A few questions on my side.

On the on the UK remittances, um it's up a bit in uh in H1. Um I was wondering where where you stand on the on Solvency II ratio and also versus your commitment to um to start to remit from from eSure in '28, whether you see that happening a bit uh a bit upfront than uh than expected, also in uh in '27 potentially.

Um and on the remittances number uh above the 1.4 billion uh for this year, if you if you clean for China and Thailand, could you strip out, say, 175 million to get to a a clean number for uh yeah, for the future, a clean base for 1.2 billion? Just final on on Ethias, I think there have been um quite a a number of uh yeah, political comments during the summer.

Uh what what is your base case today? Do you do you think you could get a chance to to get a deal uh by year-end, or are you uh you have a stronger conviction that that will happen uh in '27?

Thank you.

Thank you, Benoit, for your questions. On UK, we do not give solvency ratios by the specific entities.

What I can tell you is what we said at the beginning of the transaction, that it will become accretive as of 2028, and that until then the eSure contribution which we expect in normal evolution, and that's also what we see, that that would be consumed by the integration costs, and of also and also, of course, the higher cost of debt. That is exactly what we have seen happening in the first half of the year.

We are on schedules on in this respect, but we will, as I said, come to you with a more deep dive on the UK business and the integration specifically at the beginning of October. I hope to welcome you there.

On the 1.4 billion coming with excessive or excess solvency, sorry, excess upstreaming from China and Thailand, I think you're right. 175 million is probably a fair estimate for the two combined on the exceptional element in the upstreaming of solvency.

Third, your question on Ethias. Again, we cannot comment a lot on M&A opportunities.

What I can tell you is that our view on the opportunity of Ethias has not changed. In that sense, timing, I would say, has by no means become more clear.

If you follow a little bit the political environment about both files, the potential partial divestment by the government of Belfius and then the potential yes or no link on Ethias, you can imagine that at the moment it is a very complex situation and complex decision. You gave two options, will it happen in '26 or '27?

There is maybe a third option, that it might even happen later or never. Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your questions.

To end this call, let me summarize the main conclusions. Next to our strong top-line growth, our operations also delivered an improved profitability despite the impact from significant adverse weather, a clear reflection of the resilience of our insurance business.

In 2024, we expect to reach a net operating result above €1.25 billion, including the contribution of the sale of our stake in Malaysia and assuming around 3% full-year weather impact on the combined ratio. In 2024, we expect to receive above €1.4 billion cash upstream from our insurance entities, which is an increase of 49% compared to last year.

In line with our dividend commitment, an interim cash dividend of €1.5 per share will be paid in December this year. With these closing remarks, I would like to bring this call to an end.

If you should have outstanding questions, don't hesitate to contact our IR team. Thank you for your time, and I wish you a very nice day.