Ageas Nv S/Adr New

Welcome to this Azure conference call. I am pleased to present Mr. Hans de Koepper, Chief Executive Officer and Mr. Wim Gilliams, Chief Financial Officer. For the first part of the call, let me remind you that all participants will remain on a listen-only mode and afterwards there will be a question and answer session. Please note that the conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand over to Mr. Hans de Koepper and

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for dialing into this conference call and for joining the presentation of EGEAS results over the first half year of 2026. In the first half of the year EGEAS delivered strong growth across both live and non-live 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 2026, 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 Esho and Saga, which was not included in the half-year 2025 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 Turkey and Portugal. In Asia, inflows increased by 4%, supported by the successful Jumpstart campaign in China, where inflows grew by 3%, and by a strong commercial performance in Thailand, with growth of 9%. Our emerging markets also continue 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 at more than 26%, or an increase of 6% compared to last year when at constant scope. Belgium and Europe both recorded growth of 5% 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, EGL delivered a strong net operating results 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 live results across all segments and resilient non-live results despite the impact from adverse weather. Live 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. By looking at non-live, despite severe weather events in Belgium and Portugal, our non-live business delivered a resilient net operating result of 240 million euro, 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 2026 net operating result guidance to above 1.95 billion euro. This updated guidance includes the 450 million euro of net capital gain and reflects a lower contribution of around 13 million euro for Malaysia sale of our stake in Epica. The guidance also includes the assumption of a full year weather impact of around 3 percentage points combined. Our operational resilience is equally reflected in our capital generation and cash creation. Operational capital generation remains strong at 1.1 billion euro, while we now anticipate a cash upstream above 1.4 billion euro from the full year 2026, 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 shareholders' 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 2026 once again demonstrated the strength of each year. Our diversified exposure across live and non-live, 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 Elevate 27. Egea has accelerated its data and AI agenda, deploying solutions that enhance customer service and operational efficiency across key markets. Egea's data and AI agenda focuses on two main areas, strengthening the foundations by upgrading data platforms and relying on strong governments for responsible AI, to ensure a future-proof architecture that maximizes AI value and capture value from data and AI use cases. The GIS 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% improved customer experience, and the remainder are transversal use cases, among others in IT. Halfway through Elevate 27, we have also significantly strengthened AGS 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 Attica transaction while investing in future growth opportunities in China through our stake in Taiping Pensions, 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 ESHORE. The integration of ESHORE is progressing well, with key integration milestones achieved, including a new and integrated management team since 2025. On October 8, at our Deep Dive event in London, we will provide a comprehensive update on both the integration journey of eShore as well as the progress we are making in delivering Elevate 27. With that, I will now hand over to Wim, who will take you through our results in more detail.

Thank you, Hans, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen, also from my side. As Hans mentioned, AGI has delivered a strong first half of 2026, 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 live net operating result was strongly up, plus 17% compared to last year, driven by an excellent insurance result illustrating the quality of the business in all segments. In Belgium, the live net operating result was up plus 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 live guaranteed margin of 106 basis points, up 14 basis points compared to last year. In Europe, the LiveNet operating result was up 33% compared to last year, driven by an excellent performance in both Turkey and Portugal, thanks to a higher CSM release and a continued solid result on short-term life. In Asia, the LiveNet operating result increased at 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 2025 to €11.1 billion at the end of June, driven by a strong operating CSM movement corresponding to a growth rate of 3.6% are 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 premium showed strong growth, up 15% at constant foreign exchange rate, driven by Belgium, Portugal, and China. Group life new business margins 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 26. 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 euro, 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 points to the combined ratio compared to less than 1 percentage point last year. The weather impact was partially offset by the strong growth in the results in accident and health. In Asia, the non-life net operating result increased mainly driven by typing RE supported by an improved combined ratio and a stronger investment response. 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. 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 cap market where we remain disciplined while selectively expanding 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 N25 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 2026. 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 N25. The movement mainly reflects a number of previously flagged items. The closing of the typing pension capital increase with an impact of around minus three percentage points. The end of the grandfathering of the fresh instruments around minus four percentage points. The repayment of two debt instruments with an impact of minus three percentage points. and the downgrade of the Belgian sovereign debt with an impact of around minus eight percentage points. The insurance operations contributed plus 12 percentage points. It is important to mention that the recently announced sale of our Malaysian activities will add 23 percentage points to the solvency at the moment of closing. The solvency of the non-solvency two 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 remains strong at 1.1 billion euro 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.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the introduction and we now open the call for questions from the analysts. May I ask you to limit yourself to two questions? If you wish to ask a question, please press pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. That's pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, please press pound key 6. Our first question is coming from Michael Hutner from Berenberg. Your line is now open. Please, go ahead.

Fantastic, thank you. My two questions, or if you like, a lot of questions from China, please, and well done for the answer. They're extraordinary. Little as years are getting bigger. So the first question, a little bit provocative, is since you've obviously sold Malaysia, would you ever consider China? The reason I ask for that is that I know the cash is good, but the growth is 4% or whatever in premiums. It looks lower than Belgium. I thought Asia was growth, but it's really not growth. So I've been missing something, and I wonder if you could kind of do a little mini deep dive into what's happening in China. because it doesn't seem as strong as we'd like and I don't understand it. Also, I was a little bit surprised within Guaranteed. I thought the growth would be in participating. Anyway, anything on China and well done for the results.

Okay, thanks, Michael, for your question. On your first Would you consider selling China? My answer is very short, no. I think we had the opportunity to have a very attractive valuation for Malaysia, where our partner also saw a future of Etika more integrated in the bank. And so that's why I think we went into the transaction with Maybank in Malaysia. This is a standalone event, so this is not changing our strategy and positioning for Asia. We are a group on Europe and Asia and I absolutely continue to believe into the growth potential of the Asian region. On the growth of China, you're right, the top line growth was lower and in life this time below Belgium and I would more I would say congratulate Baizhen for that than complaining to China. First of all, if you look for instance at the growth of technical liabilities in China, that is still going up with 10%. So this is a young company, so the relationship between new volumes and building up technical liabilities, which at the end of the day is your foundation for the margin and the result is very different if you compare that between China and Belgium. So in that sense, the portfolio is growing nicely into the Chinese market. What has happened? Well, of course, we have the low interest rate environment, very well known to you, but we've also seen specifically in bank assurance that the regulator is asking for more market discipline by the insurers. There is a very specific circular, circular 65, that China has issued where you see that they want to better align your real economics on expenses and commissions with the pricing assumptions that you use in pricing your products, which is a move that we, and you have heard CTIH saying that yesterday as well, it's a move that we support because at the end of the day, that will improve the quality of the business and the quality of the market, and that is something you see happening in China in general. There is a move from volumes both in agency and in bank issuance to quality of business activity levels of agents and so on. With that, you know that my view on the future potential of the market has not changed. Aging population is an important topic in China. and I remain confident in the growth potential both for the market but definitely also for our business there. Your final comment is participation versus guaranteed. Participation is part of guaranteed, so I think you have to combine the two. Okay, thank you.

The next question is coming from Andrew Baker from Goldman Sachs. If your line is not open, please go ahead.

Great, thanks for taking my questions. First, just on the higher cash remittances for the year, I guess you highlight the high from China and Thailand for 26. Are there any one-offs here, or are these good levels that we can think about growth, I guess, going forward, so using as a base going forward? And 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, so you have 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.

Thank you, Andrew. I will take the first one and I will give the second one to our CRO, Christoph. 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 now, and this 200 million you can almost fully link to China and Thailand. I think there is one of effects in there. clearly also in China because if you look at the evolution of payout ratio we see a slow and gradual growth but that has delivered a lot higher numbers over the year also because of the tax effect you know the change in the tax regulation that we have announced with 300 million extra profits at the end of last year and you see that now coming through also in the dividend so yes indeed there is some one-off effect in these but we are aligned with announcement I saw yesterday our partner making China Taiping Insurance Holding that they do expect a growing dividend towards the future but please base that on I would say the historic evolution and not on that specific number that we have seen this year, last for China, and you know that we said that earlier. Together with our partner, we always keep the long-term view on solvency, and you know that this long-term view is impacted by the low interest rate environment, and that's also an important guidance for our dividend evolution. Similarly, we saw that increased dividend out of Thailand, I think also in there, there was some one of effects. Can I give OFCG to Christoph?

Yes, so on the operational free capital generation, well, you can follow it on slide 20. Of course, we have two elements there. We have operational capital generation itself. There you see that we go from 1.1 billion to 1.06, so a slight drop. Now, of course, you see that the general account is waiting a bit, but we have, of course, more debt compared to last year, so that wait is a bit there. And you see that the Solvency II Scope is actually doing better, so that is helped by Belgium, but also growth in Turkey, for example. And the Non-Solvency II Scope is also going down a bit. Even Thailand is doing relatively well in there, it's going up. But the big driver there is China, where you do see a slight drop in the value new business margins because of, indeed, the shift to more participating products, more short-term products. So, overall, in the operational capital generation, a slight down. So, what explains the fact that the operational free capital generation goes down from about 713 to 484 so about 230 million is indeed on the operational capital requirements and there you see compared to last year that indeed on our sovereignty 2 scope we do lock in quite a lot more capital now there are also quite some so there are two things in there there are one of them there which are linked to asset management actions and there is growth in there so For Belgium, it's mostly the first one. It's linked to long-term reinvestments in the first half of the year. On Europe, it's more growth. There are some shorter-term penalties and so on. I will not go into detail into that, but it's mainly the increase in the growth that we see over the first half year. Then on the non-sovereignty II scope, it is Nv S-Adr Nv S-Adr New Free Capital Generation. In terms of going forward, well, I explained a bit the one-offs. It's always difficult to predict that, so usually do not provide guidance going forward on OFCG.

Great. Thank you.

The next question is coming from Nazib Ahmed from UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my questions. First one is a broader question around capital management. I'm kind of flipping Michael's question around on your free cash flow generation is higher than what you need to return to capital, capital to shareholders by dividends. So can you talk about kind of what's your preference for regular share buyback or dividend upgrades? And 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 second biggest, China maybe not possible. How much can you increase in Thailand? And we talk about FAS, the file as well. So that's on that second is just some UK motor. What have you seen in the market over the first half, into the pricing, where have you been? And then maybe the latest on pricing. Some data points have been pretty positive. What's the latest on the pricing trends there? Thank you.

All right. Thank you. I will take both questions. Well, first of all, in capital management, I would say there is no change in our view. We are running sustainable growth strategies. Our first preference is if we see good opportunities to further grow our business, we will definitely consider that. If we have access or less opportunities, and growth by the way, 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, and of course we have that pool of reinsurance which today is not in demand to significantly increase their capital within the Plan Elevate 27, but that's something always we can consider. If beyond that we have excess capital, of course on the dividend we know, we have a dividend commitment and that of course we will try to and we will honor in the first place. If beyond that, capital remains available and there is low opportunity for investing in growth, then of course we do not exclude the option of a share buyback in the future. You also asked about increasing your stake in participations that we have. Also, there are no changes. 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 Kiev, for instance, where we went from non-life also into life. Then, of course, we are open to explore that opportunity and to widen our partnership. Saying if our partnership wants to step up in the market, of course, that is also something for which we keep some funds available in case these opportunities would arise so that we can also support them because the strategy is clear. In the countries where we are, we would have that ambition to become like the top three with maybe an exception for China, top five type of position. You mentioned China, by the way. Let me remind you that we closed the transaction with Taiping Pension. in the first half of the year, so there we recently did an expansion of our partnership into the pension business. UK Moto pricing, well we have seen the market in Moto slightly going up in the first half of the year, that was mid single digit at 4 to 5%. I can tell you that we did a little bit more. and we went high single-digit, 9% to 10%. But what is also interesting for us is that we have now a more diversified presence in the market towards different distribution channels and different customer groups, and I see that the team in the UK can now, I would say, fine-tune the pricing adjustments to balance, I would say, growth, where it remains interesting. but also hold back where profitable growth comes under challenge. And so we have, I would say, a little bit more agility and flexibility in doing that. By the way, we have also launched an AI engine on dynamic pricing and there we also see some first positive effects coming in. So that's what we see. Second half, latest data point I saw and that was over summer, that it seems to be a slight continuation of the increase in pricing in the UK motor. Claims inflation remains high in the UK. We talk about 5 to 10% continued claims inflation. And honestly, I think the outlook for inflation for me is not overly positive. that it would come down in the short term.

Okay, thank you. That's very good.

The next question is coming from Michele Ballatore from KBW. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you for taking my question. I have one question about the growth in Belgium, which of course was quite strong. I mean, can you give me more color on this growth, both in life, in terms of what drove the demand there, I mean, if it's a byproduct of, you know, how the market performed in the first half or something else, and also in terms of the products that you are selling, and in your life, also in Belgium. You mentioned Paris increases and portfolio growth. Maybe if you could follow on these two dynamics, where are you increasing Paris and what is the growth? Thank you.

Okay, thanks, Michele. Indeed, we saw very strong performance on the live site in Belgium. The live site grew 27%, the non-live site 13%, but of course, we have also to look scope on scope, because in Belgium, of course, we took two more months at 100% in the numbers that you have in front of you. So if we bring Belgium back with our growth of 13% which is a mix of 14% in live and 5% in non-live. On the live side, strong performance by Bank Assurance and of course you know we have renewed that Bank Assurance Agreement into a 15-year contract and we see that there is more effort invested in further building the Bank Assurance relationship with BNP. So we talk here more about the investment type of products also with a higher proportion of unique things than usual. If you look at the fiscal 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 regulations, strict to application of the tax deductibility, so that the market for the time being is growing less, but of course we are waiting to see the performance there on the second half of the year. The growth in non-live is 5%. I would say that is a nice continued growth. You know that almost two-thirds of the products in non-live in Belgium have an automatic indexation mechanism embedded, taking into account the inflation. There is in the market a slight increase in premium for the cut-nod risks. Thank you. Thanks.

The next question is coming from Farah Hanif from JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi there. Thanks very much. The first question is the comment you made about not sitting on capital. So obviously you've made a decent gain on the Etica transaction. You have a lot of cash post that. how long would you wait so what is the time frame for deciding whether you know 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 kit 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 really want to deploy that quickly. They just want to understand the timing of that really. That's question one. Question two is on the combined ratio really been supported by strong reserve releases and this is an area where I guess we've not had Quite a lot of guidance from you guys. So how much of that reserve release is structural and how much is you basically being able to offset some of the knackpacks that you saw in 1H? Can you give us some balance on that and are we still on a path to 92% basically? Thank you.

Good morning Farouk. I will take the first question, second question I give to Wim who is very close to the reserve. We close the first half year with the cash position between 1 and 1.1 billion. A similar amount is expected to come in at the closing of the transaction in Malaysia, so we can assume that 2 billion to 2.1 billion is probably a good reference for the evolution of the cash position. The second part of the question is a lot more difficult. How quickly? Well, first of all, first things first, let's close the Malaysia transaction before we can really think about how to deploy. Of course, you know, there is a bit of noise of M&A also in our home market. Belgium, there is an opportunity. We have expressed our interest in that opportunity. But it's very hard to read today what the timing of this will be so I can absolutely not comment. But I think you have enough confidence, I think, in how we manage the balance sheet and the gas position and the M&A opportunities. So if we truly believe we have excess capital for the longer run, we will consider that share buyback. But it is very, very hard today to put timing on that.

Good morning Farouk. Your question on reserving, as you know, we are very disciplined in how we set reserves. Our confidence interval is 75%, but you know that the confidence interval on top of a best estimate, and a best estimate is not a point estimate, it's a bit of range. So you have a bit of reflections on whether you put yourself in the range, and that we are very disciplined and how we put ourselves in the range. What you've seen happening over the first half of the year is the normal evolutions of the claims, and you see that we had a higher reserve release in Belgium, 3% compared to 2% last year, and also a higher reserve release 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. So that's a bit supporting, of course, the evolution of the reserve release as such. And, of course, there is a bit of a link between how you look at the range of your best estimates and what you see in weather. And so that's the way you a bit look at it going forward. Now, we've never given explicit guidance on that prior year development and how that will contribute. You should know age 1 is always higher than age 2. It's just a 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, higher in the first half of the year, lower in the second half of the year, but you have also seen a bit of lower numbers in the previous years. Now on your reference point part 292, now the fact that we stay very disciplined in the reserving is that we also stay very disciplined in what we see happening across the globe and then especially what's happening in this trade and what that could have as an impact on the inflation. And where we are 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. We've done some scenario analysis on how long we think that this is happening, and we put ourselves at the high amount of that scenario analysis. So if you would take that out, I can confirm that we're more in that 92 range. So that is on track with the path to the 92%.

Thank you very much.

The next question is coming from Jason Calambousis from ING. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. I have some questions. The first one is in Portugal. According to the news, you would be ready to take to defend the bank insurance partnership. So could you remind us when it ends and the financial rationale for locking something like, you know, whatever, half to one billion of capital to defend such a bank assurance deal and, you know, to what is the kind of length that you are looking, you know, the duration? kind of small questions. In China, Solvency, Comprehensive Solvency, which is the first quarter outlook, they give, because it's difficult always to find. EC2, the sensitivities and inequities haven't exactly worked, so it would be interesting to understand why. And finally, you have 3% NATCAT in the guidance. Now, this is high for the second half, because in the first half, with pretty bad NATCATs, we had 3.5%. So you assume nearly the same or a bit less, you know, for the second half. Does it give you a bit of margin, you know, to get your guidance? Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Jason. First one for me, the second one for Christophe. On Portugal, indeed, we have that successful bank assurance partnership with BCP. Maybe let me start by... referring to the numbers. We have seen the live business in Portugal growing just below 50%, 48, 49% in the first half of the year. So I can tell you that the bank issuance business is functioning very well with our partner in Portugal. Indeed, there has been some noise in the media about stake that Fosun is holding into BCP. I've also said that together with you and I've also seen that the CEO of DCP has commented that they prepare for the potential scenario of divesting Bifosome. That's all that I can comment on this, but of course, you know, it is a relationship which is very close and very important for us. Bank Assurance agreement we are having now is still running a few more years.

Your question was why does the equity sensitivity does not work it has to do with the size of the shock so there is a mechanic in your equity that is in your equity SCR that they call the symmetric adjustment so that means If markets are very high, our capital charge for equity is actually higher than if markets are quite low. So that means if you do a big shock like 25%, this can go outside of this boundary because it ranges from a plus to minus 10 on top of the day shock. So if you, for example, take European equities, the day 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 market's at that moment or high or low. So that means if you do a big shock on 25%, you go beyond those boundaries. If you do a smaller shock, it behaves differently. So that's the reason that it's indeed difficult to use a big shock like 25% on let's say if you have a smaller movement during a quarter.

Okay, I will add a few comments on the weather. Maybe good to remind a few of the key numbers. So, we had a significant weather impact at 180 million euro 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. So, in the combined ratio that we published, we have 5 percentage points. In the guidance we did for the full year, we're referring to a guidance of 3% impact on the total combined ratio. 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. This 1% 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 level is more 2%. So now this year we're taking in the guidance more that we are on the upper end of that guidance going to the 3%. So that's a bit to clarify the numbers 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. So we're taking that analysis at group level.

Thanks a lot and for the clarification and finally just the comprehensive solvency in China with the outlook they give for third quarter.

Solvency ratio. I think the outlook for TPL is 205%. Super. Thank you very much.

The next question is coming from Dina Petrak from Kepler Schiffer. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. So a few questions on my side. First of all, on the UK remittances, it's up a bit in H1. I was wondering where you stand on solvency to ratio and also versus your commitment to start to remit from issue in 28, whether you see that happening a bit upfront than expected, also in 27 potentially. And on the remittance number above the 1.4 billion for this year, if you clean for China and Thailand, could you strip out, say, 175 million to get to a clean number for the future clean base for 2021? And just final on ATIs, I think there have been quite a number of political comments during the summer. What is your base case today? Do you think you could get a chance to get a deal by your end, or do you have a stronger conviction that that will happen in 27? Thank you.

Thank you, Benoit, for your questions. First of all, on UK, We do not give solversy ratios by the specific entities, but what I can tell you is what we said at the beginning of the transaction, that it would become accretive as of 2028 and that until then the issuer contribution which we expect a normal evolution and that's also what we see that that would be consumed by the integration cost and also, of course, the higher cost of debt. And that is exactly what we have seen happening in the first half of the year. So we are all scheduled 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. So I hope to welcome you there. On the 1.4 billion coming with excessive or excess solvency or, 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 Solvacy. Third, your question on ETIAS. Again, we cannot comment a lot on M&A opportunities. What I can tell you is that our view on the opportunity of ETIAS has not changed. So in that sense, timing, I would say, has by no means become more clear. and if you follow a little bit the political environment about both files, the potential partial divestment by the government of refuse and then the potential yes or no link on ETIOS, 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.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to return the conference call back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your questions. To end this call, let me summarize the main conclusions. Next to our strong topline growth, our operations also delivered and improved profitability despite the impact from significant adverse weather, a clear reflection of the resilience of our insurance business. In 2026, we expect to reach a net operating result above 1.95 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 2026, 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 euro 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.