Aegon Ltd. New York Registry Shares

Thank you for joining this conference call on Aegon's third quarter 2022 results. Before we start, we would like to ask you to review our disclaimer on forward-looking statements, which you can find at the back of the presentation. With me today are Aegon's CEO, Lars Friese, CFO, Matt Ryder, and Chief Transformation Officer, Duncan Russell, who will take you through our three key results and the progress we are making in the transformation of Aegon. After that, we will continue with our Q&A session. And on that note, I would like to give the floor to Mark Beeson.

Yes, thanks, John Billen, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate that you're joining us on today's call. It's been a busy few months for us here at Agon, and I want to start by running you through our achievements on slide number two. In the past few months, we have taken a number of important steps in the transformation of Agon. We have made substantial progress on our operational improvement plan, and taken additional actions to maximize the value of both our U.S. variable annuity book and TLB, our high-net-worth insurance business. And, of course, we recently announced the combination of Aegon the Netherlands with ASR. We also made solid progress on our ambition to grow our strategic assets, especially in our life and retirement businesses, despite continued financial market volatility and political unrest. Our operating result in the third quarter declined by 11% on a constant currency basis, reflecting adverse market conditions that more than offset an improvement in claims experience in the United States, expense savings, and the benefit from growth initiatives. Based on extensive analyses and the learnings from engagements with third parties, We have concluded that the best option with respect to our U.S. variable annuity portfolio is to continue to own and actively manage it, at least in the near term. Furthermore, we recently completed an internal reinsurance transaction between TLB and Transamerica that freed up 600 million U.S. dollars of excess capital. This will in part be used to create a buffer to mitigate the impact of adverse equity markets which materially reduces the capital sensitivity of our U.S. variable annuity book. But we're not done yet. We continue to see opportunities for growth and greater efficiency, and we will remain focused on the execution of our strategic agenda. So let's turn to slide three. In October, we took a pivotal step in our transformation with the agreement to combine our Dutch activities with those of ASR to create a leading insurance company in the Netherlands. The transaction enables us to accelerate the return of capital to stockholders. It also propels our strategy of releasing capital from mature businesses and building advantaged businesses in our chosen markets where Egon is well positioned for growth. Additionally, The long-term asset management agreement that we have entered into with ASR strengthens our position as a provider of fiduciary services, retirement multi-asset solutions, fixed income, and responsible investing. We are excited about this transaction and the opportunities it brings. After the closing, we will hold a strategic stake of almost 30% in ASR. And through this stake, we will benefit from the synergies that this in-market consolidation brings. The majority of the cash proceeds from the transaction will be used to return capital to shareholders. We expect the transaction, the synergies, and the capital deployment to result in accretion of the free cash flow per share over time. We have started the preparations to get approvals from the relevant stakeholders, and we initiated a program to disentangle the Dutch business from the group to ensure a smooth transition to ASR. Slide number four highlights the good progress we continue to make with the execution of our operational improvement plan. We have now implemented most of the more than 1,200 initiatives that are part of this plan. Just in the last three months, we completed another 100 initiatives. And our efforts are bearing fruit. Expense initiatives resulted in a reduction of annual addressable expenses of 300 million euros in the trailing four quarters compared with the base year 2019. This is an increase of 50 million euros compared with last quarter. We have been able to absorb inflationary headwinds and further reduce our expense base towards the goal of 400 million euro expense savings by 2023. We are also increasingly seeing the benefits from our 260 growth initiatives that we have executed so far. Over the trailing four quarters, growth initiatives contributed 264 million euros to our operating result. In light of the announced transaction with ASR, we will update our expense savings target and other targets in due course. And in the meantime, we will remain disciplined and focused on improving the operational performance across all our businesses. Slide number five zooms in on the progress of our U.S. strategic assets. In individual solutions, we have the ambition to regain a top five position in selected life products over the coming years. And as you can see, commercial momentum remains strong in this segment. new life sales increased by 24% compared with the third quarter of last year. This was supported by the World Financial Group distribution channel where the number of licensed life agents grew another 10% compared with last year and now stands at nearly 60,000 agents. In the retirement business, Transamerica aims to compete as a top five player in new middle market sales. Written sales were 805 million US dollars this quarter, which is lower than the same period last year. Nevertheless, I'm satisfied with the results, considering the difficult circumstances with plan sponsors being hesitant to move retirement plans given the current volatile markets. Strong written sales in prior periods supported an increase in net deposits for the middle market to US$532 million. We will build upon Transamerica's emerging commercial momentum and intend to invest capital to profitably grow our market share in selected product lines. We will share more details on our plans to profitably grow Transamerica, as well as the UK, our growth markets, and our global asset manager at a capital markets day in the second quarter of 2023. Turning to slide six, where we highlight the performance of our Dutch and UK strategic assets. I will start with the Netherlands, where we are a leading player in both mortgage origination and defined contribution pensions, and continue to attract new customers. Mortgage sales decreased to two billion euros as the Dutch housing market is cooling down. Nevertheless, mortgages under administration continue to grow partially due to lower client prepayment activity, and now amount to more than 62 billion euros. We also continue to consistently grow our workplace business, mainly driven by sustained strong demands for PPIs. Net deposits for defined contribution pension products increased by 35% to 245 million euros in the third quarter of 2022. Moving on to the United Kingdom. In the third quarter of 2022, the platform business across the retail and workplace channels generated net deposits of 83 million pounds. Our workplace business delivered another quarter of positive net deposits. Outflows in retail reflect the impact of market volatility on customer confidence and their propensity to invest in line with what we have seen across our industry. Revenues for the overall UK business declined, as a result of the anticipated gradual runoff of the traditional product portfolio. Despite the unfavorable impact of adverse markets under assets under administration, the efficiency of the platform deteriorated only slightly as a result of the steps we made to reduce expenses. Slide number seven shows that our asset management business saw third-party net outflows on the global platforms, which reflect the challenging market conditions and the fact that customers freed up liquidity in a rising interest rate environment. Third-party net deposits and strategic partnerships of 1.5 billion euros more than offset the 1 billion euro outflows in global platforms, leading, in fact, to positive net deposits for asset management overall. The operating margin of global platforms improved by around two percentage points to approximately 15%, driven by lower expenses. This includes a reduction in accruals for variable compensation. The operating result from strategic partnerships decreased by 38% as performance fees for our Chinese asset management joint venture reduced from last year's elevated level due to adverse market conditions. In our growth markets, Agon is investing in profitable growth. New life sales from these markets increased by 16% to 54 million euros, and non-live sales grew by 17% to 25 million euros. In summary, we remain focused on executing our strategic agenda and continue to maintain a high pace in transforming Agon despite the challenging backdrop. Duncan will now provide you with more detailed information on the actions we have taken regarding TLB and the U.S. Variable Annuities Book. Duncan, over to you.

Thank you, Lars. Let's move to slide nine. At our Capital Markets Day, we laid out our strategy to focus on three core markets, three growth markets, and one global asset manager. We made clear that businesses outside the corporate investor would be managed with tight capital and a bias to exit. We've made good progress on our portfolio rationalization, whether it is through the divestment of Central and Eastern Europe, or our various actions to release capital by winding down or selling subscale ventures and businesses. TLB, our high net worth business, was the largest remaining operation outside the core perimeter. In the past two years, it has been managed with a focus on strict cost control and capital efficiency to increase its capital generation. Over the past years, we have considered different strategic options for TLB, including a divestment Following this review, we have decided to extend our internal reinsurance of TLB's closed block to Transamerica. As of the fourth quarter of 2022, Transamerica will also reinsure the remaining 75% of TLB's closed block of universal life policies that have previously not been reinsured, meaning that 100% will now be internally reinsured. Transamerica will hold additional reserves to cover the underlying risks. but it will also be allowed to recognize excess capital as TLB in its capital position. This frees up around $600 million of excess capital on a U.S. level, which will increase Transamerica's RBC ratio by approximately 30% in the fourth quarter of 2022. As a consequence, we feel that we have landed on the optimal solution for TLB compared to the alternatives and therefore will classify the business going forward as a financial asset with a continued focus on improving cash flows and disciplined capital management. Next, on slide 10, let me update you on our variable annuity business. In recent months, we have engaged with third parties to explore the possibility for a reinsurance deal. These interactions gave us confidence in our actuarial assumption set for variable annuities. And we saw that these third parties aim to manage the liabilities economically, just as we do. Put simply, we witnessed a management approach and philosophy around VA that was consistent with where we have taken the block in recent years. Following these interactions, we have decided not to engage further on a variable annuity transaction at this point in time. There are three main reasons for this. First, a transaction would lead to significant counterparty exposure. given the size of the variable annuity business we have. And we have concluded that doing a smaller deal, and thus reducing potential counterparty exposure, wouldn't represent a good use of time and effort, given the intensity of these processes. Second, we would need to deal with stranded costs as the variable annuity block supports a substantial amount of overhead expense. These costs will need to be addressed as the block shrinks naturally over time, in an orderly manner. Over time, as the variable annuity block runs off and we successfully grow our strategic assets, stranded costs and counterparty risk will become less of a consideration for us. Thirdly, with respect to valuation, the block under our ownership benefits from two main items. Number one, Transamerica benefits from a lower cost of liquidity management, given its overall large and diversified balance sheet. Number two, we believe there is value in the emergency fees on the base contracts, as these are asset management-like in nature. Other parties tend to hedge the base fees due to the volatility in the capital position it creates, in particular on a smaller balance sheet. For this reason, we concluded also that the value-benefit of a transaction was unlikely to be compelling. Now, our work on the block does not stop. In October, we have taken another management action on the variable annuity portfolio, following on from the actions we have taken so far. we've decided to set up a voluntary reserve which reduces the amount of base fees reflected in the capital position. Setting up the reserve will reduce the RBC ratio by approximately 15 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2022. But by setting up the reserve, the recognition of base fees in our capital position will be more closely aligned with when they are earned. As a result, the sensitivity of the RBC ratio to 25% decline in equity markets will reduce by about a third. When taken in conjunction with previous actions we have put in place, for example, a dynamic hedging and a policy buyout, this additional action brings further stability and quality to capital generation as a variable annuity block runs off. I would now like to hand over to Matt to address the financial performance of Aegon in the third quarter.

Aegon's operating result decreased by 3%, but by 11% on a constant currency basis, to 429 million euros. Lower fees due to adverse market movements and expected outflows in variable annuities more than offset the benefits from expense savings, growth initiatives, and an improvement in claims experience. As Lard mentioned, addressable expense savings for the trailing four quarters increased by 50 million euros over the last quarter, and now total 300 million euros compared with the full year 2019 expense base. Operating capital generation before holding funding and operating expenses amounted to 399 million euros, mainly reflecting strong performance from the U.S., driven by income from alternative investments and seasonality and reserve movements in the U.S., Cash capital at the holding decreased to 1.4 million euros, mainly as a result of 373 million euros of capital being returned to shareholders, which more than offset this quarter's free cash flow of 67 million euros. Our gross financial leverage amounted to 5.8 billion euros, which is slightly higher than last quarter due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar. As mentioned in the press release we issued on October 27th, We intend to use up to €700 million of the cash proceeds from the transaction with ASR to reduce our leverage further. Our balance sheet remains strong, with the capital positions of all three of our main units remaining above their respective operating levels. The Group Solvency II ratio decreased by two percentage points over the third quarter to 212%, mainly from market movements. Furthermore, eligible owned funds reduced due to tiering restrictions on the amount of deferred tax assets that we are allowed to recognize as capital. Turning to slide 13, we saw the third quarter operating result come in at 429 million euros. Adverse markets have impacted our results, in particular in asset management and in the United States. The operating results in the U.S. decreased by 4%, or 19%, on a constant currency basis to 156 million euros. The primary driver of this was a lower result from variable annuities where fee income was negatively impacted by adverse markets and expected outflows. This was partially offset by an improvement in net claims experience in life and health. Mortality claims experience was €30 million unfavorable in the quarter, of which €12 million related to deaths directly attributable to COVID-19, with the remainder due to a higher-than-average claim size. Morbidity experience for the quarter was in line with expectations. In the Netherlands, the operating result from our bank, Knop, and from Workplace Solutions increased, supported by business growth. This was more than offset by a decrease in operating result from likened mortgages, from lower investment income, and lower mortgage prepayment compensations. In the UK, fee revenues declined as a result of unfavorable market developments and the runoff of the traditional product portfolio. This was more than offset by lower addressable expenses driven by the operational improvement. Once again, Agon International performed well, delivering growth across all businesses and showing improved claims experience compared to the same period last year. Finally, the operating result from asset management decreased by 25%, mainly driven by lower performance fees in the Chinese asset management joint venture, which were negatively impacted by poor equity markets. While market movements negatively impacted revenues and global platforms, the operating result actually showed improvement over the year-ago quarter due to lower addressable expenses. Let us go now to slide 14, where we show that the net loss for the quarter amounted to 206 million euros. Non-operating items totaled a loss of 622 million euros, mainly driven by an accounting mismatch related to the interest rate hedges for our legacy U.S. variable annuities. This program hedges the economic liability. However, under IFRS, we carry the hedge assets at market value while the liabilities for guaranteed minimum death benefits and guaranteed minimum income benefits are calculated using locked-in discount rates. The increase in interest rates during the quarter, therefore, drove a fair value loss as a consequence of this accounting mismatch. Realized losses amounted to 127 million euros from the sale of sovereign and corporate bonds in a rising interest rate environment, consistent with AGON's strict liquidity framework. Other charges amounted to 107 million euros, reflecting 79 million euros of one-time investments related to the operational improvement fund. On slide 15, I want to go through the capital positions of our main units, all of which ended the quarter above their respective operating levels. The U.S. RBC ratio decreased 12 percentage points over the quarter to 404%. The RBC ratio was negatively impacted by unfavorable market movements. Benefit from the operating capital generation was offset by $200 million of dividends to the U.S. intermediate holding company. These remittances from the operating companies were made in order to pre-fund the majority of the remittance to the holding anticipated to occur in the fourth quarter of this year. Please note that the net 15 percentage point positive impact from the reinsurance transaction with the TLB and the setup of the voluntary reserve and variable annuities that Duncan mentioned will be reflected in the RBC ratio in the fourth quarter. The Solvency II ratio of the Dutch Life Unit increased to 207%, particularly from a tightening of mortgage spreads and a flattening of the interest rate curve. The Solvency ratio of Scottish Equitable, our main legal entity in the UK, increased by one percentage point to 179%. On slide 16, you can see that the cash capital at the holding came down to 1.4 billion euros during the quarter, which is close to the top end of the operating range. This quarter, we returned 373 million euros of capital to shareholders through dividends and the second tranche of the share buyback program announced in March. We still have one tranche of 100 million euros from the share buyback program to go, which is expected to be Slide 17 summarizes the great strides we have made in recent months in maximizing the value of our financial assets. In the third quarter, we continued our track record of successfully hedging the targeted risks embedded in our variable annuity guarantees. We achieved 97% hedge effectiveness despite significant volatility in financial markets. This is another example of how we are stabilizing the capital generation from this block of business. In long-term care, I am pleased that we obtained regulatory approvals for additional rate increases worth 59 million US dollars. The total value of approvals achieved since the start of the program now stands at $450 billion. This means that we have achieved our target for this program which we upgraded a year ago from the 300 million target that we had set ourselves at the capital markets date back in 2020. We will continue to work with state regulators to get pending and future actuarially justified rate increases approved. The Dutch Life business again paid its remittance of 50 million euros, which was well covered by the 63 million operating capital generation for the quarter. And as just explained by Duncan, TLB will also be managed as a financial asset going forward. The reinsurance transaction that we announced today will free up capital and strengthen Transamerica's capital position. And with that final note, I now pass it back to you, Lard, for the wrap-up.

Yeah, thanks, Matt. Let's go to slide 19. I'd like to reiterate that we are maintaining a high pace in Agon's transformation. We are making good progress on the operational improvement plan. We are maximizing the value of our financial assets, and we are investing in profitable growth. I am therefore confident about delivering on our strategic and financial commitments. As a final note, I want to share my appreciation for the hard work and dedication of all colleagues to support our customers' needs in challenging times. specifically our employees who are affected by the transaction with ASR and who continue to work tirelessly to improve our performance, despite the uncertainty that the transaction brings for them personally. It is thanks to the efforts of our employees that we are able to continue to improve our operational performance and accelerate our strategy. I would now like to open the call for your questions. Please be so kind as to limit yourselves to two questions per person. Operator, please open the Q&A session.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to slowly press star 1 and then 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please be aware that we'll take an answer one question at a time before moving to the next question. Please stand by while we compare the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. We are now taking our first question. The first question for Angel Baker from City.

Great. Thank you for taking my questions. So the first is on capital generation. Just wondering if you could provide some of the usual moving parts on the capital generation and what you see in the clean quarters for both Q4 and then also 2023. And then the second one is on the variable annuity book. So obviously you're retaining the book in the near term, but it feels like you're not ruling out future transactions just based on the growth of the underlying U.S. business and when you can reduce that, the impact of the counterparty risk and the stranded costs. Just wondering, based on your projections today, how long do you think it will be before those two constraints are small enough that you might be able to consider a transaction for that book? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you very much, Andrew. I'm going to ask Matt to... to do the capital generation, and then thereafter, Duncan on the VA. So first, Matt, over to you.

Yeah, thanks, Andrew. So for the third quarter, the operating capital generation from the business units that we reported was 399 million euros. We did have some what we would call, you know, unfavorable mortality and morbidity experience. there in the amount of about 41 million. But we did get a benefit in two main items. One was in alternative investment income was higher than what we had expected in the amount of about 30 million. And then we had a favorable benefit from some seasonality in universal life reserving. And this was for an amount of about 35 million euros. So we also had about 25 million of good guys from international where we benefited from some lower required capital from just change in asset mix together with some favorable claims experience. So if you net that all out, we end up with about a Xene number for the quarter of about 350 million Euro. So if you think about going forward for 2022, We have year-to-date reported 1.175 of operating capital generation in the business units, adding, you know, sort of a clean run rate of the 350 for the fourth quarter. And that gets you to something around 1.5 billion euros. So that's an upgrade of the OCG guidance that we had given last quarter, which was around 1.4 billion. Now we say it's about 1.5 billion. So it looks like we're on a good track to be able to achieve that. At this point in time, we're not giving any guidance on 2023 yet. We will do that in due course, likely in the fourth quarter, as we work through those funds. Thank you very much, Matt.

So, Duncan, the VA question?

Thanks, Andrew. Well, you're right to summarize that the two main considerations for us were the counterparty exposure, given we don't have a separate legal entity, so any deal we would do would be in reinsurance form. And the second one was the We are quite focused at this point in time in reinvigorating the growth engines within Transamerica. So that's our focus right now. In terms of the question in terms of timeline, we'll continue to evaluate things. Our work won't stop on this block of business. We've de-risked it materially, and we have stabilized the capital generation coming out of it materially. But we're going to continue to look for incremental management actions, as we have done in the past. Obviously, we're not going to look to Transact in the very near term. But given that the policy count is running down between 8 and 10% per annum, both the items I identified in the coming years should become less relevant for us. And therefore, again, it could be an opportunity for us to reevaluate in the coming years.

Great. Thanks, Doug. Thank you for your question. We are now taking our next question. The question from Robin van den Broek from Mediobank. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, everybody. I'm sorry if I have something you mentioned in your introductory remarks, but my line got cut off a few times. My first question is around the management actions in the U.S. I mean, clearly, it's raising your absolute level of RBC in the local units. But besides that, it's also reducing your volatility towards equity markets for the U.S. as a whole. So my guess is that that should be quite remittance positive for the group. And I was wondering if you could give any commentary around that and also include the potential for regular buybacks. in that narrative. I mean, we've heard what you had to say last week after the AECON NL deal. So we can expect quite material buybacks after H1 next year, probably. But I was just wondering how this management action could affect your decision-taking there already at the Q4 stage. Then secondly, I think on the group ratio, you have some diversification benefits that dropped, and you have some Tier 3 eligibility issues. Did, I mean, with the Dutch unit coming out, I think the diversification benefits will probably drop further. So, we're just wondering if that was already reflected in last week's guidance on your group salt C2 ratio. And in relation to that, should we even care about your group solves through ratio after the tax unit basically has transferred? I guess the answer to that question is no, but I was just wondering about the reasoning. And maybe a follow-up question on the OCG bridge. I think last quarter you did get guidance. I guess now you're not doing it because of all the deal uncertainty and you just want to, yeah, have better visibility on the variables. Is that the reason or are there other reasons to not give any guidance. Thank you.

We'll just leave it for this year.

Matt, over to you. Yeah, with respect to the management actions, you have it exactly right. So the Transamerica Life Bermuda reinsurance deal will add about 30 percentage points to the RBC ratio, and then we're effectively using 15 percentage points of that to fund voluntary reserves. So your question is, that's got to be remittance positive. Well, it's certainly cash flow positive for the U.S. business, and that's the intention here is that we wanted to increase the solvency level of the U.S., but also to provide some level of funding for future growth, let's say. And then if we get that growth, fantastic. That means we would have done our jobs and we would have written new business profitably. That's a good thing. If we don't get that growth, then we revert back to our normal capital management policy where if we have excess capital sitting in the country units, then it comes up to the group. But for now, we leave it in the U.S. With respect to the group ratio, yes, there was some small movement in the group solvency ratio. Yes, we lose a little bit of diversification benefits, and there was some market movements there. But I think your main question related back to the announcement that we've previously done with respect to the ASR transaction. So when we telegraphed the group solvency ratio, it did, in fact, include the loss of diversification benefits that we would get intergroup. So that's, I guess, the factual point. But as you had mentioned kind of in the last part of your question, indeed, the group solvency ratio becomes even less important than it has been. We really look at the capitalization within the main country units together with cash capital at the holding as really the way that we manage capital within the group. When I talked about the OCG bridge, hopefully that was clear to you that we've upgraded our guidance for 2022. to 1.5 billion, but indeed, we have a lot of moving parts at this point, and we want to work that through before giving any guidance on 2023. It goes no deeper than that.

Yeah, and when it comes – and, Robin, just to finalize your list of questions, when it comes to regular buybacks and buyback potential for the company, I think we've been quite clear about that last week. In the context of the combination that we're going to create with ASR, the cash part of that consideration will come our way, that we plan for a $1.5 billion return of capital. Of course, you know, we need to find a way to not make that an endless, let's say, timeframe, and we'll navigate through that to make sure that we reduce the share count of the company with the $1.5 billion that we allocated for that. For the remainder, we have a stated policy. which is that, you know, we have a cash buffer that we want to maintain between half a billion and a billion five. Last week at the announcement of the ASR deal, we also announced said that we want to maintain that at the higher level because we want to do two things in the U.S. One is create profitable new growth and be able to fund that. And secondly, that we want to use also money for some additional management actions or enforce management actions that we may want to do in the U.S., to make sure that we are able to do that. But beyond that, anything that is an access of what we need for the overall business plan, et cetera, has a very clear priority. And that is that, number one, it goes back to stockholders over time, unless there is a value-creating opportunity in front of us. But the main priority is, I think, clear from that. With that, I think we've gone through your list. So back to the operator.

Thanks. Thank you for your question. We are now taking our next question. The question from is from AAOB.

Please go ahead. Good morning. Two questions. First of all, on the VA business. You basically inject 15 percentage points, 300 million in capital in that business to make it more stable. King, you mentioned this positive probably on the long term for the FICASO. What's the effect on the OCG or the capital generation of this transaction? And also related to this, are there more of such kind of transactions possible? Because it's a voluntary action. So, yeah, is it possible that in a few quarters you will add, again, 300 million or something to make it even more... more stable, so that's on the VA part. Then other question, that's also partly related to the ASR, the transaction, where you basically swap the Ego Netherlands for a mistake in ASR. What effect does that have on the debt holding structure? Because, of course, the holding is not in the unit, so the unit structure, of course, changes as a result of this. Will that also, yeah, have some consequences for the holding debt structure? We know, of course, you're going to reduce 700 million, but we also have to bring debt to other countries, and why do they have impact on the interest costs or other transactions? And maybe the last thing, Mark, that you just mentioned, you want to keep some extra capital in the U.S. for extra management actions. Could you elaborate on what kind of things we have to think about? That's it from my side.

Thank you very much, Cor. The first three are going to be Matt and then the last one, Duncan, on the management actions in the U.S. So, Matt, over to you for the first three.

Yes, Cora, thanks. So for the VA business, indeed, by setting up this voluntary reserve, we are reducing the RBC ratio by 15 percentage points, obviously more than made up by the TLB reinsurance transaction. It does have an impact on what we would expect for operating capital generation going forward. So you can think about it as 50 million a year round numbers over the next couple of years, importantly, that's not the reason why we did the transaction. You know, we really want to set up that voluntary reserve, mainly to stabilize the RBC ratio, not to inflate our OCG. That's not the point. Yeah, yes. Lard reminds me that the $50 billion OCG is indeed a positive thing. You also sort of tacked on to that question, you know, is there an opportunity to do more of this? Sort of implying are we going to move this around quarter by quarter? No, actually we have a mechanism to be able to accomplish this, which we don't want to touch for a number of years. This is not OCG management in any way. And we felt like that, the level of voluntary reserves that we struck combined with the benefit that we're getting from TLB really optimizes the day-one effect, operating capital generation, and really risk management, mainly on the RBC volatility. Your next question was with regard to, hey, does the ASR transaction change something with the structure of our debt stack? The short answer is probably not in the short term, something that we want to work out over time. Importantly, we did say that there was about a $700 million reduction in leverage that we would expect, or I should say up to $700 million, but that would be for, I think, another day to revisit that one. On the management actions, Duncan, do you want to cover those?

Yeah, not an awful lot to add, apart from that's the way I can see. One of the key philosophies we've had since the Capital Market Day two years ago is indeed to look for ways to improve net present value, particularly the financial assets. And as you're aware, over the last couple of years, we've taken quite a lot of action, whether that's in the Netherlands or in the U.S., just looking at the VE. In isolation, we extended the dynamic hedging. We implemented a lump sum buyout program. We increased the fees on several riders. We implemented a long-term volatility assumption to reduce statutory capital volatility. We increased the basket of indices within the hedge program to include NASDAQ to reduce further volatility. And we announced voluntary reserves. So just on that block of business, we've done an awful lot. That's before we take into account the actions of the long-term care and the lifeblocks. So we have a rhythm. We have a team in the U.S. and also in the Netherlands. And I'm confident that with that rhythm, the team will find further action in the future.

Very clear. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your question. We are now taking our next question. The question is from David from Exxon. Please go ahead. Good morning.

Thank you for taking my question. The first I have is on the U.S. life segments where you mentioned some some higher persistency in parts of the portfolio. So we discussed that in the second quarter, I think, and my understanding was that last assumptions were very low. So does the comments in today's release have any implications for reserving in the lifebook? That's my first question. And the second one is on the Netherlands, where You flag again today some realized losses linked to asset sales to maintain the liquidity position. What's the absolute Euro amount of assets here today that have been needed to maintain the liquidity position? And also, could you help me understand the implications this could have on ALM? and the re-risking potential in the near term. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, David. Matt, do you think that?

Yeah, so I guess the first answer is pretty easy. We have been seeing low persistency, and part of it we think due to COVID, in fact, and no, it does not have any implications for reserving today. I think everyone knows that we do our review of assumptions in the U.S., In the second quarter of each year, we did so last quarter. So there's no need to adjust anything at this point. With regards to the liquidity issue that you raised, yes, so within, let's say, within the first nine months of the year, we actually had to fund about 8 billion euro worth of liquidity needs for collateral reasons. We do this through asset sales in part. This is all part of our liquidity management strategy. So despite the fact that we had to fund a lot of liquidity during the first nine months, we maintain very high cash liquidity buffers in the companies, and that's there to maintain our quite strong liquidity management policy, which we always try to maintain at a level where we can withstand a 300 basis point increase in interest rates of that 1.5% immediate shock, and then the other 1.5% over the course of one year. So this is, although it has not been business as usual, obviously given a rising rate environment that's come up so quickly, we do have plans for this, and we have dealt with it, I think, remarkably well.

Thank you. Thank you for your question. We are now taking our next question. The next question is from Michael Hoffman for Barabas.

Thank you. And I had three. I'm really sorry. The first one is, I think somewhere, but I'm not precise on this, there's implication that half of the VA to be expected capital generation, I think is right. is to come in the next five years. And I wonder what the figure is. I think it's about 400, but who knows. And then the other question, part of that is how much of the capital will still be there in the next five years? If 1.1 billion, you add 300, so 1.4, will you also halve the amount of capital allocated in the next five years? Does it go in step or does it kind of become a less attractive asset as it kind of matures? The second, what is the cost of the reinsurance transaction with Bermuda? So is there a profit loss in Bermuda, which I now have to kind of deduct? In other words, you're getting $15 million extra capital generation from this kind of move in the VA business, but is there a loss somewhere else which I should account for? And the last one is a question I'll think for reinsurance, reassurance. So last week, I think one of your peers had a $2.1 billion kind of, to me, surprise announcement, maybe not for others, and I think a big reduction in insolvency due to lapses, which I think was a previous question. And I just wanted to kind of doubly confirm that I am correct, that there's no risk like that at Aegon, that your lapse assumptions are near zero. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Michael. The first two will be done by Duncan. That's about the VAPs. And then I think the TLV and the last point you had will be done by Matt. Matt, maybe it's good if you start with those two last ones. Or you want to do the first? I can start with the VAPs first.

I think I got your question, Michael. And you're right. We think that roughly half the value of the VA block, and I use the word value, will emerge in the next five years. And that's actually one of the considerations we had when we weighed up a transaction and the complexity of that versus keeping it. In that, because the value is quite short-term in its emergence, we felt that the keep scenario, that had a similar weighting of the keep scenario. In terms of how it runs off, roughly, as I said in the notes, roughly there's a 10% reduction per annum in the policy count So that runs off relatively stably per annum. What actually happens to the capital, obviously, is a bit sensitive to markets. So if markets go up over the period, that means that the capital will run off less rapidly than the policy count. And if they don't, then vice versa. So capital is a bit more nuanced because of the influence of markets, but the book is running off quite rapidly. And as I said, roughly half the value emerged in the first five years.

I'll take the next one. So this is on the cost of the reinsurance transaction between TLB and the Transamerica Life Insurance Company, the legal entity in Iowa. So in general, I think easiest to talk about it from an operating capital generation perspective. So this is sort of a left pocket, right pocket thing. So you can think of Transamerica Life Bermuda operating cap gen will come down by 30. U.S. operating cap gen will come up by about 30. and it's a wash. Obviously, nothing is really happening economically, although the reinsurance transaction does allow us to release capital more quickly through this mechanism, which is part of the point in doing this. The other one that you had mentioned was that, yes, there was a company in the U.S. that had announced a significant charge as a result of revising lapse rate assumptions on secondary guarantee universal life contracts. And you are correct that it happened again second quarter. So we kind of say the same thing here. We are already operating under a granular lapse rate assumption, where for the secondary guarantee universal life business, the business is quite sensitive to lapses, specifically at the older ages, specifically with higher face amounts, and specifically if they're, we say, in the money period. And in this case, we have, let's say, over age 80, which is a very sensitive group. We have lapse rates that are less than 1%. For policies that are age 80 and over $1 million in face amount, our lapse rate is 0.5%. And if they're in the money, in other words, no account value but remaining to pay premiums, which is particularly sensitive, we take a quarter of these levels. So we are already – at the most sensitive areas, close to a zero lapse rate. So this is something that we have taken care of over the years. And we continue to update it every second quarter. If there are changes, then we make them. But we're already on quite a granular lapse rate assumption.

And just a reminder, how much did this – any adjustments you made in Q2, how much did it cost back then?

The IFR? very small amount. It was a negligible amount, really, on our balance sheet, and IFRS purposes, I think it was something in the order of maybe $200 million or something in that space.

Cool. Thank you so much, and thanks for all the lovely answers. Thank you, and good luck.

Thank you for your question. We are now taking our next question from Ashik Musadi from Orgas Valley.

Yeah, thank you and good morning, Lord Duncan, Mark. Just a couple of questions I have. So first of all, is it possible to get the capital generation number or say cash flow number from TLB and VA business as to given that you know now you're keeping it and you know you would have much more visibility about the cash flows from this business in a general course now. So what is the cash flows from this business going forward every year. And I guess you already gave some color about what would be the decline pattern, et cetera. So that would be helpful. And secondly, I think, Matt, you mentioned that you will decide on when to upstream the cash, the capital release from the TLB transaction once we have better visibility about whether the growth or investment in growth is required or not in the U.S. business. how long do you think we would need to wait to see that? I'm just trying to understand as to for how long will this capital be kept in the U.S. business, or is there a possibility that, okay, we are talking about two, three quarters, and then take it out after that?

Thank you. Yes, Ashif. So I think on both of these, both of the questions that you asked, we will be able to provide some additional clarity at the capital markets today that we intend to have in the first half of the, actually in the second quarter of next year. But I can give you maybe some, just some very basic information. Last year, OCG and TLB was around 70 million, 70 million euros. And again, as I had said, we would expect that to come down by 30 and we would actually like to come up by 30. On the upstreaming, upstreaming, cash if we're not getting the growth, when we would have visibility on that. Yeah, we're working through our planning right now. Our strategic planning every year anticipates a certain level of growth, and we'll have better visibility as we get into next year, and we'll update everybody at the Capital Markets Day in two years.

That's good. Thanks, Matt. Thank you for your question. Then I'll take you to our next question. The next question is from Michele Bellatore from KBW.

Yes, thank you. So I have two questions. So the first question is, I think this is the second quarter in a row that you are able to, let's say, to capture surplus capital from other entities. So you did also in 2Q with a captive thing you did in the second quarter and this quarter again. I mean, how many, I don't know if you can give us an idea of how many, you know, pockets of surplus capital you still have that are not for some reason captured. So this is the first question. The second question is clearly with today's transaction, you have reduced the let's say the volatility on the fifth component of your revenue to equity markets, if you have a low volatility, sorry, a low sensitivity to interest rates when it comes to capital, what are the kinds of volatility, what kind of factors you are most, let's say, worried about when we talk about, you know, volatility on capital and on results at this point? Thank you.

Thank you, Michele. So on the first, how much more is there? How many other pockets of surplus capital do we have in any units? I think TLG was a very unique case. There again, we had a transaction that we were thinking about potentially doing there. We recognized that that was not the optimal way to go, and then we go through a reinsurance solution. But In this case, we had flagged the idea of optimizing TLB either through some kind of a transaction or making it a financial asset, as we have done. So I would say that is sort of a unique circumstance. I think more to the point, though, is what you are seeing is active capital management, especially on the financial assets. Duncan had rolled through earlier all the actions that we had taken in the U.S. with respect to the VA business, with respect to long-term will continue to prosecute this. This is something that is a fundamental part of our DNA is to maximize the value of those financial assets. On capital volatility, still the biggest area that we have for volatility of capital remains with the equity side of the balance sheet. So really, we took action within the – we've just taken action to reduce the volatility going forward. through establishing the voluntary reserve on the VA book. But we'd rather do that than to hedge the risk, equity risk, in the base fees. So on that point, that still remains the biggest area of sensitivity. But you can see we've taken real action here to reduce the level of sensitivity of our capital ratios to the financial markets. That's a fundamental part of what we're trying to achieve, make the quality of capital to be better over time. Thank you.

Thank you for your question. We're now taking our next question. The question is for Stephen Haywood for HSBCIB. Good morning, Ben.

Thank you. Just two questions. You mentioned earlier about liquidity, the $8 billion of bond sales. you require to fund the collateral in the nine-month stage. Could you give us a split of that between the US and the Netherlands to help with what sort of hedging policies you have in place? And also, could you tell us if there's any impact to your OCG or your operating earnings from the reduction in coupons from this bond. And then secondly, the 400 million expense savings that you have, can you tell us how much of this is for the Dutch operations, please? Thank you.

Over to you. Over to you, first, from liquidity and the impact on OCG.

Okay. You know, I don't have it handy in front of me, the breakdown of the liquidity needs within the Netherlands versus the U.S., but it would be heavily weighted toward the Netherlands in this case. But we can come back to you with more detail on that. And in terms of the impact on OCG, it does vary. So in the case of sale of, let's say, corporate bonds, we end up with releasing required capital, and that goes into OCG. However, we are losing, let's say, coupon income on that. So it is a bit of a mixed bag. It's not popping up as a, like, let's say, in our over-under OCG walk. It's not popping up on the, let's say, Delta. The one thing I would mention in the Netherlands is that, you know, like in the Life Company today, we have seen an uptick in our run rate OCG. It currently stands at about 260 million euro, which is an increase of about 20 million euro from the last quarter. But that's largely a consequence of a lower UFR drag that we have seen. So it's not really part of the liquidity management. It's more of a consequence of the now higher interest rates.

Okay. When it comes to the questions about expenses, it's about a third there. And that's in line with the size of the business that was in scope for the addressable expense base.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your question. We are now taking our last question. Please come to the line, Najeeb Ahmed from UBS.

Hi, Monique. Thanks for taking my questions. Just two from me. First one, the clarification on the TLV transaction. Again, just looking at that transaction, the reinsurance transaction in isolation, you've released $600 million of capital. But wouldn't that capital be coming off TLB over time anyway? So you're saying your OCG net net is zero. It's left pocket, right pocket. So when I think about reintroduced transactions, it's kind of an acceleration of your capital generation. So just wondering at the group level, what's going on? Why is there no negative impact on OCG? Maybe it's the new business. I don't think you're wrong if business is there. So if you can just clarify that. And then second point on the debt-carrying impact on the group solvency number, is that driven by higher interest rates, and do you expect that to kind of come back over the next quarter?

So, Matt, can you take both? Yeah, so on the TLV reinsurance field, so what I've said is that the operating capital generation, there's sort of a flip between TLB and TLIC, or the U.S. business, 30-30. However, the reinsurance transactions does allow us potentially to increase the level of remittances. So it creates, let's say, free cash flow more quickly than if we had left the business sitting in effectively and reviewed us. So from that standpoint, that's why the transaction is appealing to us. That's what we do with financial assets. We try to accelerate the release of capital, and that's what this reinsurance transaction will do. On the debt tiering, we have seen the FCR come down from interest rates coming up and also through management actions. We've also seen that we have seen some DTA limitations in both the U.S. and in the Netherlands, but that's sort of a regulatory issue with respect to recognizing DTAs in available capital. So we still have those DTAs. We can recapture those from the various tax authorities, but that's the limitation that we're reflecting at this point. But it's sort of a non-economic thing. Those DTAs are recoverable over time.

Thank you, guys. Thank you for your question. We have no further questions. And I will hand the call back over to Jean-Willem Weidemann for closing remarks.

Thank you, Operator, and wonderful apologies to everyone for the technical issues that you have encountered. We conclude today's presentation and the Q&A session. On behalf of Lars, Matt, Duncan, and myself, I want to thank you for the interaction. If you have any remaining questions, then please reach out to us at Investor Relations, and we're happy to help. Have a good day, and thank you for participating.