Allianz Se Unsp/Adr

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Allianz conference call on the Allianz Group Financial Results 2024. For your information, this conference call is being streamed live on Allianz.com and YouTube. A recording will be made available shortly after the call. Just before handing over, I just want a quick word on logistics. In this morning's media call, we had some issues hearing questions from those who were accessing the call on IP telephones as opposed to the old-fashioned type of dial-in telephone. So I'd recommend for those who want to participate in the Q&A, which will happen after the presentations, you go for the analog approach and use the audio dial-in feature. Great with that. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to your host today, Mr. Oliver Bader, Chief Executive Officer of Allianz SE. Please go ahead, Oliver.

Good morning. Good afternoon to everyone. I thought you were the host, Andrew, but let's have some fun on a Friday morning or afternoon, please. It's a great day for Allianz. It's lots of volatility in markets and we're not looking at what happens today. But what we would like to talk about briefly is about what has happened in the last quarter of 24. And then probably you have tons of questions on what this means for the future. because that's what supposedly we're talking about. So I'll try to be fairly quick since, one, we had already had the data out for a while. You've been thoroughly reading them, I assume, and we had the press call already. So let me start on page A4 with this summary. Somebody this morning said, Beta, are you not getting bored by continuously reporting record numbers? No, we are not bored by reporting record numbers. We are actually very excited by reporting record numbers because it's quite hard to get there. 180 billion, 11% more revenues, 9% more operating profit, 10% more core net income, 12% more dividend per share, also really cool numbers. Many of them double digit, core return on equity close to 17%, which is really where we want to be. On top of the 1.5 billion share buybacks we've done in 24, we announced yesterday 2 billion because we have such a strong generation of earnings and cash. Let me hit that up front before we have lots of questions. I had some very funny readings today. You know, what does this 8 billion mean? Ladies and gentlemen, we have tons of liquidity that we need at the holding. That doesn't mean we have tons of excess capital. We will have a very strong discipline in getting excess capital out to you when and if it's there. So we remain very disciplined because we are strongly incentivized to do that. And we are striving a very careful balance between resilience, i.e. having very strong risk-adjusted solvency. We'll talk about that, too. and the ability to earn outstanding returns on invested capital. Let's quickly move forward. Page 5. Many investors are interested in what is the long-term performance of a company. So that provides an interesting view over the last 10 years. Remember, we just celebrated our 135th anniversary this month. Actually, two weeks ago, and we're very proud that over the last 10 years, our performance has consistently improved when you see in terms of growth rates, whether that's on revenues and profits, and we aim to continue that. Also in 21, I still remember like yesterday when we asked, is the plan given COVID not a bit ambitious in terms of 160 billion revenues or more than 14.5 billion in operating profit or 25 billion? earnings per share. We have met all those targets even though that was not easy all of the time. As a consequence, also dividend per share is growing now from 21 to today on a compound rate of 12.6%, 15.4 euros, a very important number because many of our shareholders are also pensioners that need strong dividends and reliable dividends to support their retirement and we are very proud to support that. Great finances are the outcome of a strong enterprise. There are very, very strong limits, in my opinion, to financial engineering. Therefore, highly satisfied customers and highly motivated people are at the core of a corporate success. Page A6 tries to demonstrate that very clearly. Interestingly enough, we had a slight dip last year in customer satisfaction because of the very strong price increases we had to take to protect our shareholders' margins. particularly in property casualty. So despite very strong investments in the brand, you see the brand performance continuously improving. Also last year in our product and service qualities, customer feedback was very strong, and we need to work on them. Only outstanding products and also price value perception protects us and protects our margins. So that's an interesting reminder, particularly on what we would call loyalty leadership. You see the three data points here. So a little bit of a plateauing. So we're going to give us an extra push to bring loyalty leadership to 60 percent plus. And you will see that in the targets on employee satisfaction and motivation. We have now achieved benchmark status in our industry. We're very proud of that. and with that i hand over i just on branding because a lot of people says why is brand important for those that are not experts on it net promoter score in terms of the willingness and ability to recommend alliance one of the most important thing is brand and in terms of purchasing decisions ladies in general don't forget a product that is low involvement like auto insurance in the mind of many consumers The power of the brand is the only thing they see for a purchasing decision. If you are a syndicate, you'll say, I don't care anything else than full price. If you ever had a bad claims experience, you'll think again. And therefore, the brand, as it stands for, and the trust in the brand remains super important and, in my personal opinion, will massively increase in importance going forward. Now, in terms of performance, all segments have contributed strongly over the last few years, not just the last year. Again, the reason why I show this, the story is consistent over time, and we look forward to that also over the next 36 months for our plan when there's tons of data to support the performance, whether that's consistent internal growth, whether that's consistent expense ratio improvement, and making sure we get effective price increases into the motor portfolio, which has been under most pressure on retail. Life and health is the same. The value of growth in new business has been extremely strong. The new business margin used to be below 3% just seven or eight years ago. It's now trending above five, clearly with further optimized business mix. And we had very strong third-party net flows, particularly relative to industry last year, and we have continuously increased improved our cost-income ratio. So all operating items, we keep on improving. And I'd like to remind on asset management that we are one of the few places that have very strong third-party AUM margins, which speaks to the quality of the business, not just to the scale. Now, let me move on to the segments. Property casualty, historically, we're still reporting in the three segments today. Growth momentum, strong profitability, balance between commercial and retail, and very strong ambitions for 2027, 9.5 billion approximately in operating profit. That equates, has a component of it that is about 6% to 7% revenue growth. Just to give you a benchmark, that's about double of what we had historically. The same holds true for life and health. We're one of the few strong life insurers really left. that are growing the business very strongly, getting it to very strong value growth. Why? Because over the last 10 years and beyond, we have been optimizing our product mix, the capital consumption, and we keep on innovating scones that you saw in the fall. And just as a reiteration, it's not a one-off. We want to continue to scale these solutions, not just for infos, but also for new business flows. So by 2027, we want to have about $6 billion in operating profit. That means we need and want to grow operating from unit-linked and health and protection more strongly than the rest of the portfolio. Again, the question will certainly come, why 6 billion, why not more? Given where you are, please keep in mind this year we're going to discontinue the joint venture with Unicredit so that we'll have a sort of downward effect at the beginning of the cycle. As a management performance, very strong flows, 85 billion third-party net flows last year. If you, by the way, look at profitability, again, we had some questions. Isn't 4% up relative to prior? Not a little bit too little. 23, we had very significant performance fees, and they come lumpy. They don't come sort of distributed over quarters. This year, we had less performance fee. Let's see how 25 goes. It's not something we can time, but my personal expectation is is that operating profit needs to grow more than that when we have seen given the level of inflows and given where yield curves are at the moment, and we expect an average of about 8% in third-party AUM growth over the next three-year cycle. So very strong outlook despite the permanent crisis that's in our environment. I will not speak about the slide. We personally believe that's a 12, ladies and gentlemen. We have huge opportunities into where we are going to sort of concentrate on the protection side. That's basically P&C plus health and protection. These are underwriting businesses that deserve very, very strong multiples here. because they grow and they have very strong performance and are very capital efficient and the retirement business that we've made a lot more capital efficient on the right-hand side. Again, I will not talk about it. It's very important that the yield curves as we see them today as we're coming out of a very, very odd number of years in terms of yield curve forms will support very strong earnings for us going forward. There's three specific things we want to do. Page A13 gives you a little bit of an overview of what we're trying to do. Drive growth a lot more smartly than in the past. Let me talk about that. Keep on reinforcing productivity. We have a strong track record. New technologies are enabling us to do a lot more. We are at a very important point in our trajectory from old legacy systems in the core insurance side and to bring our verticalized IT into force over the next three to four years and strengthening our resilience against shocks further. That's not just about financials. It's also organizational resilience. We can spend some more time on it. All of that driving us and supporting our drive from being outstanding product producers and product sellers to become ever more customer-driven in what we do. I'll talk about that. Page A14 gives you a little bit of a smell. On the growth triathlon, it has three components. Reducing churn is the most important. Increasing cross-selling and winning new customers. Why do I talk about reducing churn as the most important one? We win almost 10 million clients every year but lose almost as many, up to nine every year. That means we have a big washing machine and we can do a lot better by retaining the clients that we acquire. That translates into a volume growth ambition that's about Two times what we have historically been done. It's also the most efficient way to grow. And the most important answer, ladies and gentlemen, we are not looking to large M&A. We're not looking for large M&A to help us grow because it is much more expensive than working on our organic customer base. Now, productivity, just as a reminder, we're the only house that has been consistently driving up productivity since 2018. Four full percentage points, consistent improvements in expense ratio. We're going to translate that impact on transferred into the life and health segment. It's a very important area to focus on. in order to drive more value there. And it's not productivity. It's not just about expense ratio. It's also about loss ratio. There's a lot more to come from our digital platforms like Solved in order to bring prevention, claims management, and other value-added services in to help us bring loss ratio down in a way that takes advantage of our scale. Now, resilience, a very important number. Everyone always looks at what's the solvency ratio, la, la, la, la. It's the solvency ratio after stress that matters. And we have been continuously working on improving that. So if you take the third row from the bottom, the so-called combined stress gives you indication. It's just the model indication. that we are trying to improve resilience against multiple shocks, and we are trying to do that across metrics. It's not just Solvency II. It's rating migration and a few other items, plus netcat stress. As the reinsurance markets now are softening and we're getting even more capacity, we'll be very clever around where we take risks, and we take them where we get paid for them properly. Therefore, uplifting ambition. This is just repeating what we said that the capital markets day. That's my last comment before I hand over to Clem Marie in this respect. We're not changing the numbers that we have communicated at the capital market days. We're just confirming now that we have ample opportunity to deliver on them. So we're very confident. Despite the sometimes horrific political environment, we can do that. So moving EPS growth up to 7% to 9%, capital generation on solvency to 24% to 25%, ROE north of 17%, payout ratio 75%. Again, the technicians will ask, how do you calculate that? Clamory will be delighted to tell you how we calculate that. And on customer satisfaction, making sure we have more than 60% loyalty leaders, we have to be firm and up the ante. Now, it hasn't been easy, to be fair, in a high inflation environment. By the way, also with regards to life crediting rates. And as being now a benchmark on IMICS, which is our indicator for employee motivation on a benchmark basis. We have lots of things to do, but it's not about the number. It's now about continuing the journey. So I thank you very much for this, listening to my very condensed summary of a spectacular year for Allianz, and thank you for being our supporters in this journey to all the shareholders and all that are supporting us, and certainly thanks to our people. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Oliver. So good morning, good afternoon, everyone. As mentioned already by Oliver, we have achieved in 2024 a very strong performance, and we have reached record results on multiple dimensions, from our life and health stop line to our operating profit, also in various segments, net income, and our ROE as well, now standing almost at 17%. More fundamentally, those results clearly demonstrate two things. One, our ability to navigate a complex environment as we are tapping into the resilience of our business. And secondly, our constant focus on value creation for all stakeholders. If I go into more details on page B3, you can see our top line is at 180 billion, which is up 12%, and here all segments are contributing. Similarly, on the operating profit side, as well, all segments contributing to the growth, which is 9% compared to last year, and we are emerging at 16 billion. What's clearly very pleasant to see as well in our numbers, in the translation from operating profit to net income, is that it's very clean. and this is leading us to a core EPS which is up 12% compared to last year and is as well with 25.42 euros well within our midpoint despite actually the accounting change between IFRS 4 to IFRS 17 and 9 which means the underlying is even stronger compared to what we had thought about in the capital market day in 2021. On the P&C side, you can see high level of growth, record operating profit, and I'm going to go into more details in a minute. On the life panels as well, very strong demand for our product at a high level of new business margin, which is leading to a record value of new business, which is up 18% compared to last year. On the asset management side, our third-party net flows are at 85 billion for the year, which is four times the level of 2023, which together with the strong focus we had on profitability, both on the expense side and the focus on the good margin level on the asset and our management, which is partially offset by the lower level of performance fees, as Oliver already mentioned, is leading to an operating profit which is up to 3.2 billion. If we move to the fourth quarter on a standalone basis, on page B5, here you can clearly see that the quarter is continuing with a very strong momentum that we have seen already in the previous three quarters. If I start with the group view, our total business volume is very high, growing at 16% across our three segments. Our operating profit is high as well, at 4.2 billion, which is our strongest quarter for the year, and is as well our record operating profit level in a single quarter for the Alliance Group ever. And we have achieved this level of operating profit in a quarter as we had almost no runoff on the P&C side and a much lower level of performance fees versus last year on the asset management side. So clearly very strong performance, excellent performance in the fourth quarter. If we look at the PNC segment on a standalone basis, you can see a high level of growth at 11%. That level of growth is the highest level of growth we have seen in the year, in a quarter. And within that 11%, we have 5% of volume growth. Our combined ratio is at 94.7. That's clearly higher compared to the combined ratio level we have seen in the previous quarter. And that's entirely linked to the very low level of runoff that we have seen in the fourth quarter on a standalone basis. And here you need to see, and we will come to a minute to that one, that our investment results have been particularly high in the fourth quarter. And we also have seen positive developments in our attritional and in our expense ratio, which basically gave us an opportunity to do tactical strengthening of our balance sheet. So this situation is leading us to an operating profit that is up by more than 20% compared to last year, and emerging at 1.9 billion, which is very strong. On the life and health side, you can see a very high level of growth, which is in the continuation of the third quarter, and that growth has actually been emerging across the portfolio. This is a growth of high quality with a new business margin at 5.5% and this is leading to a value of new business which is up 17% compared to last year. On the asset management side, Our revenue growth is positive, despite the lower level of performance fees that we have seen this year. By the way, last year was rather on the high end. We have seen 17 billion of net flows in the quarter, steaming from our both asset managers, and we have a very good cost-income ratio for the quarter at 60%, which is leading us to a good level of operating profit in the quarter. So as you can see very clearly, the fourth quarter is a very strong base towards 2025 on which we can build on as we move into the new year. Let's move to page B7 and let's have a look at the solvency ratio development. So our solvency ratio is up 3 percentage points. As Oliver already mentioned, we have a reduced level of sensitivities overall. And in addition to the point that Oliver already made on the On the combined stress test, what you can also see if you revisit with a bit of a longer time period and you look against 2021, the combined stress test has halved its effect compared to that point in time, which basically now means that after shock, we are above 180% solvency ratio, which is within our comfort zone. So clearly demonstrating the progress we have made in terms of resilience of our solvency ratio during that period. If you move to page B9, you can see that for the full year, we have produced 20 percentage points of operating capital generation, which is fully in line with our expectations. And the fourth quarter, on a standalone basis, has also produced a strong level of operating capital generation, fully in line with our expectations and similar to the one we have seen in the third quarter. In addition, in the fourth quarter, we have seen a positive effect coming from the model changes, and we have two effects that are contributing to a partial offset of that effect. First of all, we had a market impact, which I think is a bit higher compared to what What some of you may have anticipated, that's linked to the fact that we have seen a bit of decoupling on the yield side between the U.S. and the Europe yield curve. And secondly, we had a twist in the European yield curve that you cannot anticipate because our stress is with a parallel shift and not with a twist, obviously. And the second effect is the fact that we have a higher dividend accrual to reflect our performance that contributed also to the development of the solvency ratio. So clearly, capital generation is a focus for us. And in 2025, we'll be continuously working on our earnings, on our capital consumption as well. We expect at least 20 percentage point of operating capital generation in 2025. And we will continue to execute towards 24 to 25 percentage point operating capital generation ambition we have given to us as part of the Capital Market Day in December. Let's move to P&C on page B11. On this page, which I think is very nice and really demonstrating the quality of the growth across the portfolio, you can first of all see the strong level of growth, which is at 8%, has been supported as well by some hyperinflation effect steaming from Turkey and Argentina. Within the 8% growth, we have seen 6% of rate effect, the rest is volume and fees. And if you were to compare the rate change on renewal quarter after quarter, you will see that our rate momentum has been decreasing in the second half of the year, in particular linked to the United Kingdom and AGCS, and we have seen also a volume pick-up. during that period. From a line of business perspective, if you look at the full year, we see that motor retail has been growing above 11% for the full year, and also on the mid-court side, we have seen a growth which is above 11%, and that's very much reflective, I think, of the commercial strategy we have started in 2023. So on the page per se, you can see that the growth is very well spread among our flagship OEs. You can see that on Germany, France, Italy, Australia as an example. You can see as well that AGCS is an exception to the rest of the portfolio on that page as seen a decrease. mainly related to the fact that we have lower volume in ART, so Alliance Risk Transfer, and we also have been selective in our underwriting, so focusing on our preferred line of business and also being careful on financial lines and cyber in particular, given where the rates are there. On partners as well, you see a 3% growth. Clearly on partners, the growth has been split into two parts of the year. First part of the year, we had to do some remediation into the portfolio, in particular on the health side, to address the inflationary effect. And in the second half of the year, we have seen very strong level of growth in the portfolio of partners. In particular, the fourth quarter, I've seen 14% growth. If we go to page B13, here you can see that our operating profit is up 14%, that's driven by both the insurance service results and the investment results. And if you look at the work... If you look at the work, you can see in particular, so you can see those two emergence from those two effects. So we emerge at 7.9 billion of operating profit, which is ahead of our midpoint outlook. If you look at the year-on-year development of our operating insurance service results, it's plus 16%, and this is made of both the growth of our revenues, which has been 8% year-on-year, and then the margin expansion. So our combined ratio is emerging at 93.4, which is at the lower end of our outlook range. And you can clearly see in the split, right, the expected improvement in the expense ratio. Our undiscounted attritional loss ratio has also improved. By the way, if you correct a bit the development of our undiscounted attritional loss ratio for New Caledonia and the ARSH transaction, then you get to an undiscounted attritional loss ratio of 71 to 71.5, which is exactly what we expected to see and is also in line, I think, with... what I would use as a reference for 2025 onwards. What you can see as well clearly, we had a lower level of NATCAT compared to our expected CAT load of 3%, which is also a strong outcome and demonstrates the strength of our underwriting because we are below our five-year average, while the rest of the insurance market is above the five-year average. So it's very much, I think, resonating with... You know with the view I provided at the capital market day where the volatility of our own loss ratio is much lower compared to the rest of the market. Clearly lower level of runoff for the reason I already mentioned previously. If we go to page B15, which is a very good page, that's clearly highlighting the overall quality and breadth of our portfolio. You can see as an example the output of the work that has been done by the team in the UK or in Australia to address inflation and also to enhance our positioning in the market that is showing up in the operating profit. You can see Germany that is emerging with almost 18% improvement of operating profit despite the high level of Natcat we have seen in the second quarter. You can see Italy, Central Europe or Switzerland with excellent level of combined ratio. AGCS is down in operating profits, that's due to runoff and higher level of NATCAT. And Partners is actually emerging with 11% growth in operating profits, which is fully in line with our capital market day expectations. If we go to page B17 and we have a look at our investment results, you can see that they are up 10%. Our interest and similar income emerged for the year at 5 billion, which is approximately 400 million above our guidance from last year. And that's linked to two effects mainly. The first one is that we have seen higher short-term rates in 2024 compared to what we were anticipating. And we also had some positive contribution from our hyperinflation countries, in particular in the fourth quarter, into that number. which basically means that it has created room in the fourth quarter on the underwriting side, which is reflected in the very low level of runoff that you have seen in the fourth quarter already. Our interest accretion is at minus 1.2 billion, which is fully in line with what we were anticipating at the beginning of the year. For 2025, I expect on the investment results side to see slightly lower level of investment results as we are going to see higher level of interest accretion, basically paying for the discounting we have seen this year, and also I expect slightly lower level of interest and similar income for the reason I just mentioned. So let me recap on P&C. We are clearly well positioned for 2025 as we build on 2024. In retail we expect growth in a supportive rate environment and in commercial the situation is for us to be nuanced by entities but the level of rates clearly gives room for focus growth and also for us to tap into some of our distinctive entities like partners as an example. If I move to life on page B19, clearly excellent page. You can see the high level of quality and breadth of our growth momentum. Our PV and BP is up 22% and that double digit growth is across the portfolio. It's clearly highlighting the demand for our product. What is also super pleasing to see as an example is the German health business that is growing almost at 35% compared to last year, which is clearly the output of having worked structurally on the products and having products that are offering better features and also higher service quality compared to many competitors on the market. So this growth, as I mentioned, is of high quality. We have an excellent level of new business margin, and we are growing in our preferred line of business at 94%. Our value of new business is at 4.7 billion, which is up 18% compared to last year. Also, I think worthwhile to note is the fact that we have seen positive net flows in our life and health portfolio since the first quarter of this year. Moving to page B21, you can see that the high level of value of new business is translating itself into a high level of normalized CSM growth, which is above 6% and which is also above our expected range of 4 to 5%. Very pleasant as well to see is a very low level of variances we have had this year, which is around 0.4% of our CSM. And that includes the update of the last assumptions in the third quarter. And by the way, also our non-economic variances were positive in the fourth quarter on a standalone basis. Our CSM release is fully in line with expectations and our sensitivities remain at a low level. If I move to page B23, basically from the CSM release to the operating profit, there is still a bit of noise between the line items as we are still fine-tuning the effect of IFRS 17 and 9. Overall, our operating profit is at 5.5 billion, which is well above our midpoint outlook. On the right hand side, you can see the good development of our operating profit by operating entities. Our German life entity is up in OP by 10%. The US is slightly down on this page, but actually that's linked to a technical effect. If you correct for that one, the underlying operating profit is up by more than 6%. What also is very nice on this pie chart is that you clearly see that beyond our two flagship operating entities, the rest of the portfolio represents 60% of operating profit, has been growing by 7% year on year, with also a very strong growth of value of new business of more than 18%. So clearly, this is a very well diversified portfolio. So to summarize on life and health, our results are very strong across the portfolio. We have seen a high level of growth. Certainly, I believe that this high level of growth will be difficult to fully replicate for 2025, but we see strong momentum for our product across the portfolio, as I have already mentioned. And this high-quality growth is translating into a strong CSM growth, which clearly will support well our future profitability and create confidence for 2025. If I move to asset management on page B25, here our third-party asset and our management are up 12% year-on-year with positive development at both PIMCO and AGI. On PIMCO side, we have seen more than 84 billion of positive inflows. 82 billion went into fixed income, which basically means that PIMCO is clearly maintaining its leading position on active fixed income. And we have also seen on PIMCO side 4 billion of inflows into our alternative strategy there. which is in line with what we have communicated as well in the capital market day. Now, basically our alternative and private credit platforms represents more than 200 billion US dollars of asset and our management on PIPCO side. HCI as well has seen positive inflows in multi-assets and alternatives, in particular in infrastructure and real asset debt, which has been offset by the outflows we have seen in equity and as well the two large fixed income mandates that came with a very low level of margin that I have already mentioned in the third quarter. If I move to page B27, you can see that our revenues are up 3% for the year, despite a lower level of performance fees. Our revenues, which are linked to the asset and our management, are up 7%, and that's basically the output of two effects. First of all, the fact that we have seen positive developments in our asset and our management. And also that we have had solid margin level at both of our asset managers, which I think is very important to see. A good example of that would be that as part of the stable margin development on PIMCO side, as an example, the contribution of the alternatives is now more than 20% of the revenues, as I was already mentioning, for PIMCO. If I go to page B29, you can see that our operating profit is at 3.2 billion, which is slightly above our guidance for the year. Our operating profit excluding performance fees is up by more than 10% in 2024. And by the way, for the fourth quarter on a standalone basis, it's up by more than 20%. Clearly, this performance is supported by the strong focus of both PIMCO and HDI on productivity, which is clearly shown in the development of our cost-income ratio, which is despite the level of performance fees. Actually, if you correct for this performance fees effect, The underlying improvement in the cost-income ratio is 150 BIPs, which is a lot and clearly demonstrating that both of them are really addressing the productivity aspect thoroughly. They are leveraging new technologies actually both on the front-end and on the back-end to deliver that outcome. So overall, both asset managers have had strong contribution in 2024. We have seen as well positive inflows at the two of them and this momentum has been continuing in January and will position as well for 2025. Page B31, I'm going to skip and let's move to remittances on page B33. Well, you can see that our remittances are at 8.1 billion for the year, which is a healthy level that is quite close to 2023. This corresponds to a net remittance ratio which is above 90%, which is also ahead of what we have mentioned at the Capital Market Day, which was 85%. That's clearly for me demonstrating the ongoing discipline that we have in place within the group in terms of management of the upstreams. In 2024, we have had 400 million less excess capital upstream compared to 2023, which basically means that the underlying remittances are up 6% compared to 2023. Let's move to page B35, and here from the 16 billion of operating profit to the 10 billion of shareholder core net income. The line items are very straightforward, I would say. We have a lower level of non-operating profit items in 2024, and our tax rate is at 25%, which is fully in line with what we expected to see. so this brings us to a core eps of 25.42 euros which is up by more than 12 percent compared to 2023 and as mentioned that's fully in line with our capital market day 2021 and this despite the accounting change so clearly a very strong delivery on that side as well Let me move to our outlook on page B37. And here we are clearly keeping our mechanical approach of setting our outlook in line with previous year delivery. We are as well keeping a certain level of conservatism when it comes to assumption setting in the underlying. So let me explain to you a bit what I expect to see in the various segments. On the P&C side, I expect to see growth, growth in line with what we have communicated in the capital market day. I expect to see an underlying improvement in profitability coming from both our attritional loss ratio and our expense ratio. And I expect to see as well a bit of a lower level of investment results as I have mentioned before. On the life and health side, I expect to earn the CSM, also slightly lower level of investment results, as we will have to pay for the interest accretion in particular coming from the protection business, and as well I allow for the deconsolidation effect of Unicredit Vita, as already mentioned by Oliver. And on the asset management side, I do not take any market assumptions or any assumptions related to the timing of the performance fees, and I just allow for the slight increase of the asset management which is supporting the slight increase in the overall operating profit outlook. So clearly our commitment from the capital market day in December is completely unchanged and the share buyback we have announced today is supporting our EPS trajectory and is as well very much in line with what we have communicated already in terms of overall capital management policy. Let me conclude on page B39 where clearly the group had a very strong year in 2024 with record results on many dimensions. Those results demonstrate our ability to consistently deliver value in a complex environment. And during the capital market day in December, we have set for ourselves ambitious targets. And as you can see on this page, and as you have heard from me when going through the numbers, our performance in 2024 gives us confidence in our ability to deliver this ambition. And with that, I hand over back to you, Andrew, for questions.

Great, thank you, Claire-Marie. Just some housekeeping points on questions. I mentioned earlier that we had some problems receiving questions if you're dialling on IP phones, so I strongly recommend you use the old-fashioned approach. If you are using a normal phone, it's star five. If you want to try on the web version, there's a talk request button on the top right-hand corner. We are going to do our usual rule, which is restrict yourself, please, to two questions. And then if we have time, we will go for some follow-ups. Great. So with that, I think the first question is from Andrew Baker of Bank of America. Go ahead, Andrew.

It's Andrew Baker, Goldman Sachs. Thank you. That's okay. There's a lot of Andrews. First one, are you able to just help me try and link the 2025 guidance to your three-year plan? So if I look at your, obviously, the 7% to 9% EPS CAGR, including operating profit CAGR of assumption of 6%. Yeah, the midpoint of the 25 operating profit guidance is flat versus 24. So, and even really, even the upper end of the 25 guidance is 6% growth versus 24. So, do I read this as 25 guidance is relatively conservative and you expect to be above the midpoint? Or is a three-year plan more back-end loaded? And if it is the latter, can you just help me understand sort of what the drivers are that leads to this back-end nature of the plan? And then secondly, are you just able to quantify the benefit in the 2024 PNC investment result from the hyperinflation countries? And what should we expect this to look like in 2025 versus 2024?

Thank you. Thanks a lot for your question. So maybe let me start with the second one on the hyperinflation effect. So clearly what we have seen in the fourth quarter, we had high level of hyperinflation effect and we had also a strong contribution from the US dollar that has been strengthening inflation. in the that has been contributing positively in the valuation and other results so you take you can take from that one that it's around 100 to 150 million euros and basically we we have not taken any assumptions when it comes to the effect of the hyperinflation country into our guidance at this point in time. So you can, I mean, we consider that you can use the steady state guidance we have given now that would be a fair reflection of what you should expect from that perspective, if that makes sense, right? So that's basically what we have done, yeah.

The first question was on the guidance to the CRP.

Yeah, the first one was on the guidance, yeah. So clearly, I mean, we are not changing our guidance against the CMD, and we do not expect our plan to be back and loaded. So as I have mentioned, we have taken a certain set of assumptions which are fairly conservative in the environment, but also I think the current environment is a complex one, very clearly, but that's the way you should be reading our current outlook now.

Okay. Thanks, Andrew. The next question is from another Andrew. This is Andrew Sinclair from the correct institution, Bank of America. Go ahead, Andrew.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I mean, just before I ask my questions, I do find your policy of giving next year's guidance just as a midpoint for the previous year effective. slightly unhelpful, genuine guidance or nothing actually might even be more helpful. Maybe that's just a moan. But anyway, on to my two questions. First, P&C, a bit of a regular theme for me. What colour can you give us on how strength of reserves evolve during the year? I guess lower PYD today. and building a bit more conservatism in the reserves. But it'd be really helpful to have some way to quantify that from the outside, whether that be preserved triangles or whatever, but just any quantification you can give me on that reserve conservatism building. And second was just on personal lines. We've had, I guess, some important renewals in markets like Germany, Switzerland, Germany, Just really, what have you seen, your level of competitiveness versus peers? Has that given you an opportunity to take some market share? And has it been disciplined pricing that you've seen? Thank you very much.

Thanks a lot. So on the lower level of PYD for the fourth quarter, clearly you should not be reading anything into this one. We are very confident with the quality of our reserves. As you have seen during the capital market day, we have shared with you the consistency of the emergence of positive runoff that we have seen year after year. So I would expect to continue to see that one to continue going forward.

And then on your second question... Any measure that you can give us, really, just of that additional strengthening that you're doing. You're right, we've had lots of PYT over the years, but it's hard to tell if you're building or releasing strength in the reserves. It would be useful to have some sort of metrics from the outside.

So I think, Andrew, what I was alluding for is that we have strengthened the quality of our reserves during 2024. And then maybe if you want to get a guidance when it comes to what we expect to see going forward, I would expect to continue to see positive runoff in the 2 to 3 percentage point year on year now. And then on the renewals, on the important markets where we have seen renewals, so we are happy, actually we are very happy with the quality of the renewals we have seen in January. So as an example, if we take on the German motor side, we... We have been growing our number of policies. We have also achieved the highest level of retention ever into our motorbook, as an example. So we have been clearly gaining market share, and it's also supportive in some of our other markets, clearly.

Very good. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Andy. Next question is from Michael Hutner of Berenberg. Go ahead, Michael.

Yeah, congratulations on lovely results. Two, one is if I think about your profits, so to me the guidance is that the profit growth is not good. 8% or whatever, but it's the dividend growth at the 12% or even if I look at the buyback, you know, the 2 billion is 1.5%. kind of indication that the profitability is kind of ramping ahead. But your CFO above three, I think, used to say, well, if I have a source of losses, that's a turnaround. So I was looking for potential turnarounds. You have virtually none left. The only one I could find, and it's only in Q4, is Partner, the Partner business, where The combined ratio was 99%. That's a big business with not great profitability. So you kind of talked about it a little bit, but maybe you can say how quickly or why it was not so great and how quickly you can improve it. And the other question is... It's really just simple numbers, and there are lots of simple numbers. I'll ask three, and I hope it's not a pain. So dollar sensitivity of earnings, that would be massive if you used to report it two years ago. The second is the inflows in January. I think you might have said it, but I missed it. And the third is the L.A. wide high cost. Thank you.

I start with the LA wildfires, which for us will be a double-digit loss, well within basically our expected catalog for a month or for a quarter, if you want. So we are exposed to the LA wildfire. our AGCS business and our third-party business on the Inon3 side. For the inflows in January, we have seen a low level of double-digit inflows at both PIMCO and AGI in January, which clearly positioned us well for the quarter.

Can I interrupt? Double-digit in AGI?

No, no, it's total. It's total. It's basically low. Yeah, exactly. Total.

Yeah, yeah.

It's total for both PIMCO and AGI, low double digit, a billion number of inflows. Yeah. And on partners, we have seen, so indeed, the level of combined ratio has been deteriorating itself a bit. We had a bit of movements in the combined ratio of partners during the year. But we have two effects we need to have in mind. First of all, we had some mixed effect that came through, and I believe when you look forward, The 97 is not a bad anchoring point for that business. But you need to look at the performance of partners with both the combined ratio and also the fee business. Because we have a lot of services that is embedded into the partner business, which is coming then into the operating profit. So that's why you see this very high growth in operating profit at plus 11% for the year, which is the outcome of both effects into the performance of partners.

So, Michael, did you have another, was it a dollar sensitivity question? I didn't quite hear it.

Yeah, you used to give it for 10% change in dollars, 500 million or something.

It hasn't changed.

I think it's unchanged. Roughly the same. Exactly, yeah.

Thank you. Great. Thanks, Michael. Next question is from William. William Hardcastle from UBS. Go ahead, William.

Thank you. The first one's on P&C growth. You know, top line's still really strong and you've been really clear there on guidance for the division overall. Is there any possibility you can help us thinking about 2025 expectations on growth and margins disaggregated for both motor versus non-motor? Qualitatively, obviously. And then how does that stack up relative to AGCS expectations? Second one is just thinking about any major deviation that may have happened year over year on reinsurance protection that you're purchasing, whether it be price coverage, terms and conditions, or all very similar year over year. Thanks.

Okay, maybe I start. Indeed, I think for P&C, as you rightfully say, I expect growth development in terms of top line really in line with what we have communicated in the capital market day, so 6% to 7%, right? Within that, retail, we also expect, I mean, quite in line with what Oliver has mentioned or Klaus-Peter did mention, so 3% to 4% of P&C. Percentage volume effect, which is meaning like we build up on the traditional 1 to 2 percent volume effect. So we add up 1 to 2 percentage point volume effect as we are tapping into our growth triathlon. And I think what I was just mentioning on the renewal we have seen on the German side as an example is confirming that view. And we also expect to see something like 4-5% price effect into the growth on the retail side. And then a bit higher on motor as opposed to non-motor because we expect motor to contribute more significantly compared to non-motor in the improvement of the margin on the overall retail side. And then for commercial, you clearly have two new ends between mid-corp, AGCS, trade or partners. For AGCS, as mentioned, right, we expect a lower level of growth, but still some growth as we are cautious in terms of some line of business when it comes to the rate adequacy at this point in time as well. But we still see space for focused growth in the AGCS book as well. On the reinsurance renewal, so we have renewed our, so we have changed slightly some of the features of our insurance structure, but it's broadly unchanged compared to what we had in place before. And we have seen, despite the fact that we had some of our cover or some of our insurance protection that was, I mean, that was a bit impacted by some losses, we were able to renew at slightly lower price compared to previous year. So good outcome of the insurance renewal period for us, yeah.

Great. Thanks, Will. Next question is from James, James Shuck of Citi. Go ahead, James.

Thank you, and good afternoon. My first question is around the performance fees in asset management, please. It's around 400 million across the year. If I take into account the AUM, it's probably the lowest level of performance fees in history, at least as far back as my model goes. So I'm just keen to know whether the performance of PIMCO in particular is starting to fade somewhat. That's my first question. Secondly, Oliver, I'm keen to just understand where AGCS is at this point in terms of kind of strategic crossroads. What are you kind of thinking about in terms of how you start to scale up this business, develop new distribution platforms, potentially introduce third-party capital, those sorts of things? And if you're able, just a quick final one, could you update on what the inflation reserve was at the end of 2024, please? Thank you very much.

Thank you for the question. I'll start with AGCNS. We have invested a lot of time, energy, and money to upgrade the capabilities, but also in parallel to make sure we integrated more properly with the large-core business and mid-core business into the various countries, particularly in Europe. That's been at the core of... What we've been doing, we continuously, for example, roll out a consistent go-to-market strategy, applying the same risk and underwriting and pricing tools, making sure we have a consistent risk appetite so we don't find ourselves writing something in mid-corp and then in AGC and S at the same time without the other one knowing about it. So it's unfortunately a lot of and continues to be a lot of grinding and On top of that, this year is delivery year in the United Kingdom for the new what we call Allianz Business Master Platform delivery on commercial lines. UK is the first market to have to deliver, so that's very important for the next few years. Remember, most in our industry don't even have a consistent platform strategy, so it's an important delivery year in 2025 to make that happen, and then rolling that out to... the rest of Europe over the next few years. So it's lots of work in progress. On top now as reinsurance prices and in some areas, Claire Marie talked about it, financial and cyber rates have been continuously trending down. We're taking capacity out because we're here to write profits rather than volume and that will continue as we speak. The good news is that Allianz is not dependent in its performance on what happens in large commercial given the footprint within property casualty and also beyond that makes us very confident to not having to depend on it. The second thing to bear in mind, we are trying to also use our reinsurance platform, Allianz Re, a lot more effectively in terms of playing wholesale markets. So where we are not seeing a lot of value in primary, there may be value in excessive loss, and particularly in reinsurance, and that we tap then through Allianz Re. So there's a lot more to... Yeah, and that's it. And then we are waiting for our new CEO to arrive April 1st. So we're very happy about that. Thomas Lillilund will come and join us finally from AIG and we're very happy to have him. Because we need to fill the shoes of the team there, particularly Claire Marie now having a different job. So that's a short update. So commercial lines is important for us. We continue to build it out. But as the cycle turns more soft, we are going to be highly disciplined. in terms of how we ride it. It also helps obviously that retail has been performing strongly and is going to see further improvements to balance that. That is obviously not true for many of our competitors who have been betting on wholesale markets for the last few years. That's it. Camarille, any additions on the detailed questions?

Yeah, I take the one on performance fees. So basically, James, if you look at performance fees historically as a percentage of revenues, you can see that performance fees on average have been trading between 5% to 10% of our operating revenues year on year. And the average is around 7%. And actually, 2024, is just slightly below the 7%. So he's at 6.9% or something like that. So it's very much in line with the average we have observed historically. So it's more last year was even above this 10% I was referring to. So for 2025, I will not give an outlook because you know that performance fees can be lumpy. We never know when they materialize, can be on a quarter, can be on a year. So you don't know. But if you want to get a guidance, I think you can use this 7% revenue of operating revenue as a guidance for performance fees for next year.

Great. Thank you, James. The inflation reserve as well, if possible. Oh, sorry.

I apologize.

The inflation reserve, that was the question, wasn't it?

Yeah, sorry, I missed that one. Okay, yeah. So basically, our inflation reserve is broadly unchanged compared to what we had introduced previously. As I mentioned, you know, also last time, I think during the capital market day, the nature of the inflation reserve has changed, right? Because initially, it was built more for short tail line of business. And now, because the inflation has emerged into the... into the books or into the triangles. It has been more translated into the long tail line of business where we expect that the inflation is going to take longer to materialize. And so as such we have kept this establishment of the inflation reserve for that purpose.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, James. Next question is from Vineet. Vineet Malhotra from Mediabanker. Go ahead, Vineet.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you so much. So one question on life, please, and one on PIMCO. On life, just curious, you know, the 6% normalized CSM growth, unless you would say that there was some one-offs there, I mean, it was a driver, of course, along with experience variance of the beat and the quarter. And still your guidance is four to five growth. Could you just elaborate a little bit about why guidance has not been moving up, even though... we are seeing this kind of a better number outside that guidance range in full year 24. And second question on PIMCO, I mean, there was some news including in the Wall Street Journal about how PIMCO had found a unicorn startup and it listed and it was a large stake and it made tons of money. I think it was in December. But I mean, just even if you can't comment on the... specific case, but that's an alternative investment which worked very well. Should we not have seen it in performance fees or should we have seen it in the regular fees? So I'm just curious how these situations are reported in PIMCO's case. Thank you.

Yeah. So first of all, on the point on the normalized CSM growth, right? So it's, I mean, last year, the guidance was 4 to 5%. So now I mentioned that my normalized CSM growth is expected to be around 5%. And you have one effect, which is related to the fact that the I mean, we have seen really good volumes that came into the numbers in 2024, and I don't think all those volumes can replicate themselves in 2025, and also because you will see some of the... Some of the effect of Unicredit Vita GV that is going to come through and also some of those one-offs I don't want to give as part of the outlook will be one dimension. So a bit lower value of new business coming into the CSM would, from my perspective, be quite logical. The second effect is that our in-force return will be slightly lower in 2025 as basically the risk-free rates are going down. So that's also the second effect that is explaining why I don't think you can use a 6% normalized CSM growth as being the fair guidance for 2025. And on your second question, you are right, there was this comment that was done in the Wall Street Journal, and you are fully right that I cannot comment on it. It's clearly related to various types of investments. It has been going on. So it's going into different portfolios, if that would be the case. So that's really related to the agreements that are between PIMCO and the investors into those funds. So even if that would be the case, I would not be in a position to comment on those. So on your more generic question, clearly we would expect that this would materialize itself, depending on the agreement, more under the shape or form of performance fees at some point in time. But please understand that, I mean, we don't know all the details into the funds, and I can clearly not comment on that side.

Great. Thanks, Vinice. Next question is from William. William Hawkins from KBW. Go ahead, William.

Hi, everyone. Thank you. Oliver, coming back to your opening remarks about earning outstanding returns on invested capital, we've already covered a lot of things, but across the whole business, where do you think you're getting the best marginal returns on capital that you're deploying in 2025? I mean, I like slide 14 about the smart growth, but that's kind of quite high level. If you just tell us from everything we've talked about the one or two things where you feel most bullish, that would be great, please. And then secondly, Clemory, maybe when you're hedging your financials, can you just remind us your prioritization in terms of managing down volatility, you know, the metrics across IFRS, solvency, earnings or capital or whatever? And are you finding that there are any particular kind of tradeoffs you're having to accept that, you know, you accept volatility in one area because you're trying to solve for something else? I'm not asking for a technical point. I'm just trying to remind myself, you know, when you're managing volatility, what the priorities are. Thank you.

Will let me answer a little bit differently because we always think about LOBs and geography, right? Or maybe a channel. The highest area of attention for the team now has to be on managing customer retention. And the effects are across loss ratio, expense ratio, and many other items. I want to come back to this point around... depending how you run the numbers, whether you include partners or not, because you have a lot of one-off purchases of travel insurance. And I'll lead you to core retail business, acquiring between 8.5 and 9.5, 10 million clients every year and losing about 8 to 9. So we have enormous churn in the system that's fairly expensive. So just to give you a number... If we are a top quartile customer acquisition machine in Europe, where the core of P&C retail is, if we were as strong on retention as we are on acquisition, the net growth of the company doubles. It literally doubles. And there's many levers attached to it. We need to change the way we incentivize distributors, which we're already doing. We need to change the way we underwrite and price in some areas because we do a lot of let's open the house and get everybody in and then pick and choose to how do we think about how we manage certain customer interactions in an intelligent way because we treat everyone the same. even though we have very different lifetime values for clients. So that's, if you'd ask me, where's the most value-added spend of management attention on capital, it's there. Cross-selling, by the way, is successful. We have, on the one hand, a very polarized world in Allianz. We have many clients that have three, four, five, six, up to ten products I have. And then we have 50% of clients of Allianz have only one. By the way, even those that have huge and give us huge NPS promoter scores, like on life, corporate and individual pensions, where we are not very successful in using that momentum. So that's the other area. It sounds a bit odd, so it's not what is the marginal on property insurance in France. That would be the wrong way to look at it. Sorry for that question. So this is where all the attention goes. The prerequisite for that is, by the way, that we really know what drives these things. So having the analytics in place, and we've worked a number of years now, and now we do know.

Yeah, and maybe on your questions on edging, so basically maybe on the operating profit side, when it comes to currency risk, we are not edging. But on the investment side, our currency risk is very limited because we... Because it's very limited as we have like the currency hedging which are basically playing a role there. So that's the way we are thinking about hedging our financial volatility. Also on the investment side, so basically as I was just mentioning, so on the fixed income we do hedge for currency risk in particular.

Thank you. Okay, thanks, William. Next question is from Cameron, Cameron Hussain from J.P. Morgan. Go ahead, Cameron.

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. A couple of questions for me. The first one is just on the, I guess, the reserving in the fourth quarter in PNC. Just interested in kind of where you had to add to reserves in the fourth quarter, you know, if casualty, kind of how big. I'm just trying to put two things together from your earlier comments around the inflation reserve. It sounds like that went to match kind of longer tail reserves. liabilities and then you had to strengthen the fourth quarter a little bit more on top so just interested in whether it's casualty or something else uh whether my understanding is right on the kind of 1.8 billion um the second question is just around um i guess the there's some interesting m&a spec that came up today about a um german backpack consolidator just interested in any views on that as well thank you

Let me hit the question because it looks like people are asking whether we had under reserving somewhere that we needed to cover. Right. So let me just hit that from a CEO perspective. That's total nonsense. We obviously cautious at looking inflation on U.S. liability. We would always try to make sure we are properly reserved. But there's nothing that we needed to cover as a problem, just to be very clear. So as Claire Marie tried to politely say, we have been extremely prudent in setting our reserves. So if you say that the average long-term runoff that Allianz has shown over the last few years in property casualty, let's say, is between 3% and 4%, and you now have only 1%, and you assume we don't have big negative runoff, then you can make up your mind around how much reserve strengthening you have been seeing, which we think will make our balance sheet a lot more resilient. Is that helpful? Okay, and the second one, yeah, and the second point is on, I think you're referring to Viridium. It's a very interesting business model, very successful in Germany. As you know, Allianz is managing the question of how to efficiently capitalize live resource very successfully, as you've seen with Project Lucy in 21 in the US and now Wisconsin. So that is an interesting way for us and some partners to look at it. We like the business model very much. Let's see what happens.

And I say thanks very much.

I can just add on the reserve, right, because you were asking, and I think Oliver was very clear, but just in case, after the divestment as well of the U.S. Midcorp book to ARCH, right, U.S. casualty reserves are very small as part of the overall spectrum of reserves of the alliance group, so it's below 3% in terms of reserves.

So it's a great year to make sure we have powder dry for the future. Thank you.

Thanks, Cameron. I'm actually going to take a question that I've been emailed because clearly we have problems today with people using the web function. So this question is from Raya Shah from Deutsche Bank. She has two questions. How should we think about cash remittances in 2025 when thinking about 85% guidance and 93% that was reported in 2024? Within this, what are your expectations for excess upstreaming or exceptional remittances? That's our first question. Her second question, Oliver mentioned in his introduction a growth point come from large-scale M&A. How about bolt-ons and away from Asia, perhaps? Where could there be opportunities or gaps in Europe or the U.S.? Those are her two questions.

Let me hit the first one. Thank you very much for the questions and apologies for the functionality. We'll fix it immediately. Of the web's tools. One, we have for the last 10 years only done bolt-on. The biggest ever we did relative to currently whatever 127 billion market cap was the acquisition in Poland and there were lots of questions about that. You know, in the larger scheme of things, Allianz is actually tiny. And we continue to focus on that, even more so now, dear fans, supporters, and critics. Why? Because the opportunity to grow organic market share is significantly higher today, particularly in PNC and in life as it had been years prior. Why? The massive increases in investment requirements in technology, in compliance systems, in branding, in customer service, in supporting and maintaining distribution and it is leading more and more of our competitors that have marginal national positions to give up. You can now read every day how people are selling portfolios in Germany and other parts of Europe and how consolidation is happening. We believe that organic And the markets where we have a very strong position is going to accelerate rather than decelerate. And there's a second reason that is more technical, cyclical. We have had a lot of competitors in retail, particularly on motor, that have held back with price increases. And now, relative to us, have to catch up massively. which will drive, as we have prepared properly, more clients into our direction. Some indication you already see in us not just having a 10-point better combined ratio in German motor than most of the people, including the market leader, but we are also for the first time in a long time acquiring and retaining more customers. So we really believe there is more room for organic growth, not just both on M&A. And I think it's important for you to see that. You see that also in life insurance. When you look at the growth that AZ Life has had, they have been consistently growing market share on the top of very strong performance. So we also need to force our management and ourselves to really look at, you know, the most efficient way to grow that is organically acquiring customers and not just increasing prices.

And let me go into the remittance question. So clearly, as I mentioned already, our underlying recurring remittances have been growing in 2024 by approximately 6% compared to 2023. And I would expect to see our underlying recurring remittances to continue growing basically in line with the underlying growth, with the projected growth of the earnings. In addition to this one, so in 2024, we have seen a bit less of excess cash remittances compared to 2023, but I continue to expect this approximately 1 billion of excess cash to come year on year, more or less, but it's obviously lumpy, so you never really know exactly when it's coming. If I, I mean, to give you a guidance, I would expect something like 8.5 billion of net remittances for 2025, and then above 9 billion of remittances for 2026 and 2027 for us to meet our commitment of an above 27 billion of total cash remittances over the period.

Great. Thanks for those questions, Ria. We'll go back to the phone lines. And Farhad, Farhad Janghazi from Kepler. Farhad, do you want to go ahead?

Thank you very much for taking my question. Can I just take you back to the CMD and your low solvency to RE operations? Do you have any update or actions that you've got planned in 2025 to improve those returns? And the second question, just because you've given the guidance now, on the operating capital generation, LIFE S2 operating cap gen was lower in 2024. I appreciate the 20% for 2025, but could you give some guidance on that particular cap gen going into 2025? Thank you.

So basically, you're right. So to work towards the 24 to 25 percentage point of operating capital generation, we have designed, you remember that very well, I assume, like the capital market toolbox, which was going through a number of dimensions, against which we had as an example some elements around moving some of our operating entities from the standard model to the internal model. We had also I mean, further views around optimization of the portfolios and so on and so forth. So I think, I mean, we are working on all those levers and they are currently in execution mode. When exactly they are going to emerge with exactly what effect, I cannot tell you at this point in time. But we are structurally working along the lines of the toolbox I had mentioned at that point in time. On your point on the lower level of operating capital generation for life in 2024 compared to previously, you are right. We have seen, usually what we see is that we have a higher level of, the new business in life is consuming less capital versus the old business, and that's quite logical because we are growing in our preferred line of business. But last year the growth was so big that basically the new business could not be absorbed entirely by the runoff of the old business. So that's why you have seen that effect. So I think going forward, if the level of growth is in line with what we have been communicating, then basically I would expect to have something in line with what you have seen previously.

Great. Thanks, Farhad. Next question is from Henry Heathfield of Morningstar. Go ahead, Henry. Henry, is your line on mute? No, I think we've fallen victim to the IP phone virus. Okay, we'll take the next question from Andrew Crean. Andrew from Autonomous. Go ahead, Andrew.

Hi there. A couple of questions. One on slide B13. I wonder whether you could split the discounting NAT CAD and runoff effects between retail and commercial products. Then the second question on your 26% stakes in the Indian businesses with Bajaj, could you give us a sense of what you think the value of those are relative to what you're carrying them in the books for?

I think those are very good questions. I mean, on the 20% stake in Bajaj, so this is, sorry, 26% stake in Bajaj, I mean, you will understand I cannot really comment on that one. As mentioned, we are very interested in the Indian market. For us, it's strategically very relevant, and we are looking at ways to strengthen our establishment in India as opposed to anything else. And then I think you are asking for the split, the granular split between retail and commercial of the combined ratio components, if I understand well, on page B13. We do not provide that split. If you have any specific questions that basically could help us to understand some of the underlying developments, I'm happy to give you some color. If you tell me what this is, you will be more interested in understanding.

Sounds like a better ask later.

Sorry?

I'll take it offline.

Yeah, okay, very good.

Okay, thanks, Andrew. Next question is from Kalish. Kalish Mistry of HSBC. Go ahead, Kalish.

Hi there. Good afternoon. A couple of follow-up questions. One on the capital consumption. Could you just elaborate on B9, how the 1.2 billion incremental capital consumption is split between the live consumers? P&T and other businesses. And going forward, particularly for the life business, how should we expect this to grow over the next three years? I think in response to one of the previous questions, I think the implication of that is probably does not grow because the runoff should offset the new business capital consumption. Second question is just a follow-up on Will's question around focus on organic growth and also customer retention, etc. Could you just talk about how management and distribution incentives and weightings have been altered to reflect this shift in emphasis in managing the group. And one last quick one, if I may. The 79% per annum core EPS growth target, will that still be based on the 25 euro EPS, or is it the 25 and a half that you reported today? Thanks.

Okay, I start with the last one. It's basically based on the midpoint, so we are not changing our guidance compared to the capital market in terms of commitment for this one. And then I think you had... Now I have just lost your second question.

The components of SDR growth.

No, no, and then what was the second one?

The trajectory for...

Let me before answer the technical question. So the question is very good. The first one is in order to really start to drive retention, you need to know the numbers. And you need to know what drives it and what doesn't. And we've needed quite a few years across products and markets to build the database. Then incentives are super important. We used to incentivize retention to a certain point, but not grid net growth and policies. So what we are in fact doing now across the portfolio is to look at incentives. net growth in order to make sure we understand that. So you had a distribution of agents that are very strong in acquiring customers and others are better in retention. You know the hunters versus the Palmer pictures. We've learned over the years that it's not just a crude, it's a false segmentation, and you need to really drive all our portfolios forward. with the same tools. It took us quite a while to find out how that is. By the way, our new Allianz Direct platform that we now have across four markets is helping because we get real-time data on how that actually functions and that we are feeding in all our other channels. It's also true that we are, for example, incentivizing customer segment or product experts. Think about group pension experts to not just any more focus only on that but having super incentives. We call them boosters. We can talk about that offline in order to drive retention and cross-selling much more strongly. So the change is holistic. We launched that last year. We're going to have on our leadership meeting this year a consistent steering towards that. But the requirement is always the same. You have to have outstanding products in every market, and we should not be having mediocre stuff. You have to have outstanding service capabilities in delivering. We're not there everywhere yet. And you need to make sure that you properly price not just what you think you need in order to offset inflation, but have the right product and services mix that give clients what they want and what they're ready to pay for. And let me hone in on that. One of the biggest, it's an intellectually interesting, hopefully, comment for you. This industry has learned a lot to deal with lapsation and price elasticity. We have not been great in forecasting and testing why people are sensitive to price changes and what they're ready to pay for. There's a lot of very interesting and sometimes illogical behavior of people why they pay for certain services where they don't do that. And this is not about taking advantage from people, then overcharging them and things that should be overcharged, but making sure we give them things that they really value. So it's a little bit of a look into the cookbook. We spent a little bit of time on the CMD on it. There's a lot more to come over the next few years. Now, Claire-Marie, you had some SCR growth questions.

Yeah, indeed. So to answer your question, approximately, if you want to get a sense... It's like one-third SCR development associated to life and then two-thirds associated to PNC in the underlying of the 1.2. I think nonetheless I'd like to highlight maybe one point is that it's very much related to the business we are underwriting, obviously, right? So like then depending on the diversification process, profile, basically depending on the nature of the business and the diversification among the businesses, then you get different outcomes. So I don't think you can use that as a straightforward element to extrapolate what you should expect to see also going forward. Just to say it's not obvious.

Okay, thanks, Kalish. Henry, let's try again. Henry Heathfield from Morningstar. Go ahead. No, Henry, I'm afraid we can't hear you. I think if you're on an IP phone, it's not working today. Okay, so we've got some follow-ups, and let's keep these follow-ups sharp. So, Michael, a quick follow-up from you. Michael Hutner from Berenberg. Go ahead.

Thank you. A very quick follow-up. The life seems to be the biggest area for BEAT, and you said you're still fine-tuning how it works. Can you give us thinking of where it's come from? Because it's not all CSM. There's other bits, and it would really help. Thank you.

I'm not sure I fully understand your point. I think what I was mentioning is on the CSR development, right? It's not on what do we expect to see in terms of development of the operating profit on the life side.

No, so the life profit was above your expectations, 7% or something. And you said it's beating, but it's not the CSM because the CSM is only part of it. And I just wondered where's the beat coming from? Where's the positive coming from? Because that sounds quite powerful.

Ah, so basically we, I mean, some of the, I think my comments in general was more related to the very strong level of growth we have seen, right, which basically then came into the CSM that is still to be earned, right, and I was trying to give an indication that I don't think that these very high level of growth can basically be anticipated to re-happen entirely again this year for the reason that we have the exit of the uni credit gv on the on the one hand and secondly we had some specific one of into the into the numbers of 2024 that you cannot take you know as guaranteed for basically to come through. That's basically what I meant mainly. Then maybe to your point, and I think maybe you are alluding to the fact that we had some positive variances that came between the CSM release and the operating profit. which there is more an effect of... So we had some better variances, in particular in the fourth quarter, that are related to two effects mainly. The first one is that we had a better experience compared to what we were expecting in the French health portfolio that supported positively that line item. And secondly, we had some negative... I mean, correction that took place back in 2023 on our easy life portfolio that did not... happen again because they were expecting to be one of in 2023 so those are the main effects um and that that explains some of that development in the fourth quarter super helpful thank you you're welcome okay um uh next follow-up william um go ahead william from kvw william hawkins from kvw

Hi, thank you, and I'm sorry to drag the call out. I just wanted to follow up on that response about Viridian, please, Oliver. Obviously, I'm not asking for any deal-sensitive information, but conceptually, how could a third-party vehicle ever add value to Allianz Leben in Germany when you've already got the massive cost-of-capital advantage in the free RFP of the original portfolio? I mean, it seems to me Germany is a completely different situation from the U.S. where you're deploying sconceterie. So I'm just trying to get clear in my mind, what am I missing in terms of what can happen in Germany?

I think you're not missing anything, but as you well know, I'm not allowed to answer your question, even I would be super keen to answer it.

My point was more I can't see how third-party capital can help a German life company like yours.

No, no, it's not about capital efficiency. Think about asset management income, for example.

And let's go to our last question, which is a follow-up from Andrew Sinclair of Bank of America. Go ahead, Andrew.

Thanks. Just on the whole coal liquidity buffer, apologies if I've missed this, but you gave an 8 billion figure at the CMD in December. Have you got an updated figure for that? I didn't see it in the packet. It would be helpful if it was there, but my apologies if I've missed it.

So basically, I think, Andrew, I mean, that's a liquidity buffer. So that's a buffer we think we need to hold in case something really adverse will happen or in case the markets would be closed, right? So I think our views, as I mentioned as well, we have a very sophisticated way of assessing what should be the level of that buffer. It's linked to various type of scenarios and so on and so forth. So our views compared to December have not moved. So that's very similar to what we think we need to hold, and that's basically very close to what we are holding as well, as a buffer. Thank you.

Okay, great. Well, thanks very much. That completes our Q&A. If you have any follow-ups, don't hesitate to get in touch with the IR team. Thank you very much, and have a good rest of the day. Thank you.

Thanks for your support and interest. Thank you. Bye-bye.