Swiss Life Holding AG

Webcast viewers may submit their questions or comments in writing via the relative field. Kindly note that webcast questions will be answered after the call. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Matthias Ehrlich, Group CEO of Swiss Life. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for dialing in and for your interest in Swiss Life. Today, we are reporting on selected top-line figures for the first nine months of 2024. We will focus, as usual, on fee income, premiums, and direct investment income. I will provide an overview of today's key messages, and our group CFO, Marco Terussi, will walk you through the segments. In the first nine months of 2024, Swiss Life increased its fee and commission income by 6% to 1.9 billion. All sources contributed positively. Cross-written premiums, fees, and deposits received increased by 4 percent to 15.9 billion. Direct investment income grew from 3.0 to 3.1 billion, which corresponds to non-annualized direct investment yield of 2.2 percent. The SST ratio at the end of September was around 205%. With that, I hand over to Marco.

Thank you, Matthias. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased to walk you through our nine-month 2024 trading update. All group figures are in Swiss francs and figures for each business division are in local currency. All figures are unaudited and growth rates are stated in local currency. Let me start with our segment Switzerland. Premiums increased by 1% to 8 billion, while the life insurance market was flat. Premiums in individual life grew by 8% to 1.4 billion, while the market increased by 1%. Periodic premiums were up by 2%. Single premiums grew by 19%, driven by a modern traditional product. Premiums in group life were stable at 6.7 billion, while the market decreased by 1%. Periodic premiums fell by 2%. Single premiums grew by 2%, mainly due to higher new business. Assets on the management in our semi-autonomous foundations were at 7.7 billion, compared to 7.1 billion at year end 2023. Fee and commission income grew by 5% to 252 million due to higher income from Swiss Life Select and the unit-linked business. Turning to our French, German, and international segment that all report in Euro. I will begin with France. Premiums increased by 12% to 5.6 billion. Life premiums grew by 15%, which is in line with the markets. Unitlink share in our live premiums was 67%, while the market was at 37%. Live net inflows were at 1.7 billion versus total market net inflows of 21.3 billion. Health and protection premiums grew by 4%, driven by price increases. P&C premiums increased by 6%. P&C income rose by 16% to 416 million. More than half of the increase was due to unit-linked fee income based on higher average unit-linked reserves. The remainder was due to the banking business. Overall, we recorded continued high revenues from structured products. Let me continue with Germany. Premiums grew by 4% to 1.1 billion, driven by modern, modern traditional, and disability products. The market decreased by 1% due to lower single premiums. Fee and commission income rose by 10% to $602 million, mainly due to our own IFAs and the endurance business. The number of financial advisors remained essentially stable at 6,017. Turning to international, premiums decreased by 7% to $1.5 billion. We recorded lower premiums with private clients, while premiums with corporate clients increased. Fee and commission income was down by 3% to 283 million. Higher income from our own IFAs and from private clients was more than offset by lower income with corporate clients in particular from Ellipse Life. As a reminder, the acquired Ellipse Life business was fully re-insured. The renewed and the new business is partially re-insured and therefore we see over time a shift from free income to risk premiums as expected. Moving to asset managers which reports in Swiss francs. As usual, the update in Q1 and Q3 focuses on commission income and does not include alternate income from real estate project development. Asset managers' commission income rose by 5% to 699 million. In our PAM business, commission income increased by 11% to 263 million, driven by higher recurring and non-recurring income. In our TPAM business, commission income was up by 2% to 436 million, driven by higher average assets under management. Non-recurring fee income, including negative ethics translation effects, slightly decreased. To make figures comparable to half and full your disclosures, the share of total non-recurring income for TPAM, meaning commission income and other net income from real estate project development, increased from 14% prior year period to 31% of total TPM income. Three quarters of the total non-recurring income in the current period relate to revaluation gains, which are non-cash. For the full financial year 2024, we continue to expect the share of non-recurring income to be around 30%. Net new assets in our TPM business amounted to 3.4 billion compared to 8.4 billion for the first nine months of 2023. We achieved net inflows in real assets of 2.1 billion, thereof 1.7 billion in real estate. Net inflows were 1.1 billion in bonds and 1.2 billion in money market funds. Excluding money market funds, net new assets amounted to 2.2 billion compared to 8 billion in the prior year period. By the end of October 2024, total net new assets amounted to 4 billion, of which half was in real assets. We continue to expect total net new assets to be around 7 billion by year-end 2024. Overall, assets under management in our deep-end business were at 119 billion compared to 112 billion at year-end 2023, driven by net inflows, positive performance, and ethics translation. Turning to our direct investment income. Direct investment income increased to 3.8 billion compared to 2.99 billion in the prior year period. Bonds, equities, and real estate contributed more, but this was partly offset by lower income from alternative investments and negative ethics translation effects. The non-annualized direct investment yield increased to 2.2% compared to 2.1% in the prior year period. As you know, real estate continues to be an attractive and important asset class for backing our long-dated liabilities in the context of our disciplined ALM. And we hold real estate because of the regular rental income it provides and not because of appreciation. Vacancy rates marginally increased from 3% at year-end 2023 to 3.1%. For the year-end 2024, we expect vacancy rates at this level. Fair value changes remained unchanged at minus 0.7% compared to half year. For the full year 2024, we continue to expect negative real estate fair value changes to remain in the range of minus half and minus one percentage point. Moving to solvency and cash. By the end of September 2024, our SST ratio was around 205%, and therefore above our ambition range 140 to 190%. This compares to a level of around 205% at half-year. Equity at holding amounted to 1 billion at the end of September 2024. With that, I hand back to you, Matthias.