Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A.

Good morning or good afternoon. This is the Coral School conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Generali Group full year 2023 results presentation conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on the telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Fabio Cleva, Head of Investor and Ratings Agencies Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Assicurazioni Generali full year 2023 results presentation. Here with us today, we have our Group CEO, Philippe Donnet, our Group General Manager, Marco Cesana, and our Group CFO, Cristiano Borean. Before we open the Q&A session, let me hand it over to our group CEO for some opening remarks. Philippe, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Fabio, and thanks to all of you for joining this call. Our full year financial results for 2023 confirm once more generally strong position and continued progress towards the delivery of our current strategic plan. Even in a challenging environment, Our group continued to drive profitable growth and create sustainable value for all stakeholders. Furthermore, this excellent performance does not yet reflect the positive impact from the acquisitions of Liberty Seguros and Koning Holdings and its affiliates. These acquisitions will provide us with a further boost as we strengthen our insurance leadership in Europe and continue to build a global asset management platform. Before we open the call for questions, I want to highlight four key messages. First, We delivered record results with a positive contribution from all business segments. Our record operating results of 6.9 billion euros is up by 7.9% compared to full year 2022. Our adjusted net results also rose to a record level of 3.6 billion euros with a very strong increase of 14.1%. Since 2016, the growth of the group's operating results has vastly outpaced that of the top line. This is a clear demonstration of our focus on profitable growth as well as of generally successful transformation from a predominantly life insurer to a diversified insurance and asset management group. My second message is about property casualty. which has been the key driver of our top line growth, with both motor and non-motor lines recording a positive performance. Property casualty was also the key driver of our operating result to record levels. The tariff strengthening measures we have implemented are driving an acceleration in our annual average premium growth. Also, the undiscounted attritional combined ratio is showing tangible improvement across different time periods. My third key message is about customers. We are continuing to work hard to achieve our lifetime partner ambition, and we recorded further progress in 2023. We confirmed the number one position in our peer group in terms of relationship net promoted score. And looking at our multi-holding customer goal, we closed the year with over 50% of customers and trusting generally to cover at least two of their insurance needs. This exceeds the ambition we had set for year end 2024. Being as close as possible to our customers is a key pillar of our strategy and a distinctive feature of Generali as the largest insurance for retail and SME customers in Europe. Thanks to our continued and significant investment in our distribution and our customer-centric value proposition, we have a unique ability to benefit from the positive dynamics we are seeing in personal lines. This is also visible in our live business, where protection and unit link continued to record positive net inflows that were close to 9 billion euros at the end of 2023, despite a challenging market environment. We are confident that if market conditions continue to improve throughout 2024, we will come back to positive net inflows in life. Our leading proprietary distribution network, which is the channel closest to customers, will be instrumental to achieve this. The fourth key message is about our continued commitment to shareholder remuneration. Following these excellent results and thanks to the very healthy cash generation and solid capital position, we are proposing an increased dividend of 1.28 euro per share. We have been distributing attractive, predictable, and steadily growing dividends since I was appointed Group CEO. This year's dividend is over 10% higher than the one we paid last year and 60% higher than the one generally paid in 2016. With this dividend, we also reach our 2022-2024 cumulative dividend target at 5.5 billion euros. Our focus on shareholders' remuneration is also demonstrated today by the €500 million share buyback we plan to implement this year, subject to AGM approval. With that in mind, in the time horizon of our current plan, we will pay to our shareholders a total amount of €6.5 billion between dividends and share buybacks. This is over 20% of the market cap we had when the plan started. On top of that, starting from 2023, we have decided to offset any dilutive impact from long-term incentive plans through share buybacks. As I said at our investor day going forward, we will look for the most efficient balance between M&A and and shareholders' remuneration on a yearly basis, possibly even with annual buybacks. To close, we keep working on the successful delivery of our lifetime partner 24 driving growth strategy, and we are fully on track to achieve the remaining two key financial goals of the plan. Furthermore, we continue to develop our business, particularly when it comes to integrating sustainability, the originator of our current plan, into everything we do as a responsible investor, insurer, employer, and corporate citizen. My focus, and that of the other members of the Group Management Committee, is also increasingly shifting to the next strategic cycle – with generally in the best shape it has ever been as a profitable, diversified insurance and asset management player, this is the ideal starting point for the next plan. And it gives me and my team great energy, passion, and enthusiasm to write the next chapter of our sustainable growth story. I thank you once more for your attention and for your interest in our group. And I'm now happy to take all your questions together with Cristiano and Marco.