Assicurazioni Generli Adr

Good afternoon. This is the Coral School Conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Generali Group Half Year 2024 Results presentation. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Fabio Cleva, Head of Investor and Rating Agencies Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Generali First Half 2024 Results Call. Here with us today, we have our Group CEO, Philippe Donnet, the Group General Manager, Marco Cesana, the CEO of Insurance, Giulio Terzariol, and the Group CFO, Cristiano Boren. Before opening the Q&A session, let me hand over to Philippe Donnet for some opening remarks.

Thank you and good morning. Thanks to all of you for this call. Today, we present generally have your financial results for 2024, which include the positive contributions from Liberty Seguros as well as Conning and its affiliates. As you know, these acquisitions were fully in line with the priorities of our lifetime partner, 24 Driving Growth Strategic Plan. to further strengthen our insurance leadership in Europe and keep building a truly global asset management platform. Before we open the call for questions, I want to highlight five key messages. First, these results highlight once more Generali's continued growth in operating results, up 1.6% from half-year 2023 to over 3.7 billion euros. This growth was driven by the life business, up 7.8% to over 1.9 million euros. By asset management, up 5.5% to 255 million euros. By wealth management, which rose to 311 million euros, up by 33.8%. Our group's total assets under management stood at 821 billion euros with a 25.2% increase from full year 2023 that mainly reflects the inclusion of Koning and its affiliates. This brought third-party client assets managed by our asset management companies to 252 billion euros up from €105 billion at year-end 2023. The adjusted net result stood at €2 billion, the 13.1% decrease compared to the first half of 2023, primarily due to capital gains and other one-offs that were recorded over that period, including, for example, that of a real estate disposal in London. Excluding these effects, the adjusted net result would have been stable. The Solvency II position remains solid, even after deducting around 9 percentage points from the acquisition of Liberty Segros and 2 percentage points from the share buybacks we announced this morning. The second key message is that we return this to sizable positive net collection in the live business. When we presented our full year results for 2023, I stated that this would be one of our key priorities for 2024. We achieved over 5.1 billion euros of positive net inflows in the first half of this year, driven entirely by protection and unit-linked, our preferred capitalized lines of business. We also recorded a very significant reduction in saving outflows. We are confident this trend will continue in the second half of the year, with Italy expected to return a positive net collection We made the tactical decision to reduce margins temporarily to pursue significant volume growth, and this result demonstrates our ability to successfully steer our live business, also thanks to our proprietary distribution network. Higher net inflows in life also mean higher inflows to our new asset management platform, something that would be even more the case future collectors following the acquisition of Koning and its affiliates. My third message is about property casualty. Our very strengthening measures have driven higher P&C premiums, which grew by 10.5% to €17.4 billion, or by 5.7%, excluding the contribution of Argentina. This is happening at a time when frequency is stable, and we are seeing improving claims inflation across all markets. These trends and the strong focus of our management team's technical excellence give us the confidence to reaffirm our undiscounted combined ratio guidance of below 96%, even after the consolidation of Liberty Segworks. I would also like to emphasize that the underlying technical result excluding the impact of discounting prior year and natural catastrophes improves by over 50% in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period of last year. This tangible improvement underscores the effectiveness of technical discipline. Fourth. With only a few months left before the conclusion of our Lifetime Partner 24 Driving Growth Strategic Plan period, we are now very close to its full period. I would like to highlight how the continued diversification of our profit sources throughout the current cycle is also proving the soundness of our long-term vision for Genelli as a global life and P&C insurer and asset manager. Besides this, we are very proud of the strong progress we have made on our lifetime partner journey. And in the first half of 2024, we further reinforced our peer group leadership position on the relationship net promoted store basis. Furthermore, we continue to deliver on our environmental and social responsibility priorities with a particular focus on tackling the causes of climate change and fostering the resilience of our communities. To position the group for continued sustainable growth, we are working on a new strategic plan for the next three years that we will present on January 30th, 2025, and we look forward to welcoming you all in Venice for this very important occasion. As the fifth and final message, let me emphasize again that today we announced that our 500 million euro Chez Babac will begin shortly. following the implementation of the long-term incentive plan. As I said at our last Investor Day in January, we will continue to look for the most efficient balance between shareholder remuneration and M&A on a yearly basis, possibly even with annual buyback. I thank you once more for your attention and for your interest in our group. Over to you, Marco, for your remarks. Thank you.

Thank you, Filip, and good afternoon, everyone. So as Filip highlighted, we are very pleased by the return to significant positive net collection. This proves the attractiveness of our products, the power of franchise, and the effectiveness of our distribution strategy. These net flows also show the positive impact of the commercial action we put in place last year to proactively manage the increase in lapses experienced at that time. We expect further improvement in net flows, especially in Italy, and we plan to gradually reduce the commercial incentive we put in place as soon as we observe a consistent return to positive net collection in Italy. Unit link, protection, capital life savings continue to be the preferred lines of business, with protection generating around 40% of new business value. Assuming stable market condition after the recent decline in interest rates, we target a new business margin between 4.5% and 5% on a quarterly basis for the remainder of the year. Margins are important, but what also matters is the actual value generated, and as you can see, the new business value continues to grow. While the third quarter is usually seasonally slower, the fourth quarter tends to be seasonally stronger. So on this basis, we expect a positive evolution in the second half in terms of volume, margin, and new business value. The strong increase in volume was achieved without compromising on underwriting discipline. So just to give you a frame of reference, the weight of capital-like products as a share of new business has remained at 89%, in line with the first semester of 2013. The new business guarantee has decreased to 0.25% from 0.5% last year, and in the euro area it has declined from minus 0.17 to minus 0.27%. The weight of business without guarantees has declined from 72.5% to 70.2%, but this merely reflects one single large pension fund in Italy with zero guarantee, at maturity, so really extremely capital efficient. Our action also on the enforced business continues to drive a continuous improvement in the quality of life book. Since the beginning of the year, the share of capital life products on the overall life reserve has increased by 1.4 percentage point to almost 71%. As a primary retail and SME insurer, customer is of paramount importance at Generali. So as we continue to march forward on our journey to be the lifetime partner of all of our customers, we are pleased with the further progress that we recorded in the first half of 24 as far as our key customer targets. As Philippe mentioned, we confirm once more the leadership position in our peer group thanks to the focus on our key three customer promises. Personalized value proposition, effortless and caring experiences, and physical and digital advice. At first half 24, 52% of our customers rely on our products to cover at least two of their insurance needs. This percentage keep on growing quarter after quarter above our ambition for year end 24 that was at 50%. And anyway, this will continue to be a key priority for us going forward. Now moving to P&C, the top line growth is continuing thanks to proactive repricing and to selective business growth. Gross return premium increased versus last year is equal to 5.7% if netted by the impact of Argentina. Underscoring our focus on profitable growth, we continue to implement thorough portfolio pruning and claims management action to make the PNC portfolio stronger and its forward-looking profitability higher. This explains why, for example, in Italy and France, we have recorded somewhat slower pace of growth in motor. Average annual premium for our main 10 market is growing at 6.6%. In particular, for motor, this increase is equal to 6.9%, reflecting into an annual earned premium of 6.2%, overcoming the increase of risk premium at 3.9%. This is translating into rising margin as time goes by, and by in fact looking at profitability when we discard the impact from discounting and natural catastrophes, and we focus on pure attrition and current year technical profitability, we are seeing already a solid growth. I'm optimistic for an acceleration of this trend, and also supported by the stable frequency and declining impact of inflation on claim costs we observed. As Philip said, we confirm our below 96% undiscounted combined ratio guidance even after the consolidation of Liberty Seguros, but also taking into consideration the new Milan tables and the natural catastrophe events that happened in the first semester of 2024. The third quarter is historically when we have the largest losses from weather events. So for your event during July, we already recorded more than 100 million of NatCas claims. However, we remain on track to stay within our NatCas budget for the year. In SME and GCNC segments, we have further heightened the focus of underwriting discipline, and the main main losses trend looks promising, although characterized by an embedded volatility. On this front, we expect very limited impact from the CrowdStrike event in the third quarter. So moving now to investment. Our investment deals remain very good versus the Inforcebook, at 3.8% in life and 3.6% in PNC, including the contribution of private debt. The figure is lower than last year because market yields are lower, especially on European credit and China wealth. In our life companies, our investment volume were higher. Our investment policy remained prudent, especially on listed equity and most cyclical sector. So we are not particularly concerned on the impact from the recent volatility in financial market, which actually presents some opportunities. The decrease in interest rate reduced the unrealized losses on bonds and create more flexibility for portfolio turnover. In credit, we confirm appetite for European investment grade due to good fundamentals and attractive yields. We keep a disciplined approach with low exposure to more cyclical sectors and highly leveraged companies. We experience negligible rating downgrades in the portfolio. So, in conclusion, our first half result confirmed the group's ability to deliver solid, sustainable growth and execute on our strategic plan. So thank you very much, and operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Thank you. I would like to, sorry. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. We kindly ask you to use the handset when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Peter Elliott with Kepler Shiver. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much and congratulations, especially on the very strong net flows. My first question was on Liberty, please. I mean, you seem to have reported a combined ratio of well below 100%. I mean, you do make it clear that it benefited from no NATCATs or man-made losses. But that still seems, you know, a much stronger performance than you'd expected. So I'm just wondering, you know, if you could comment on that and, you know, whether that underlying performance is sustainable. The second question was, you mentioned the Milan tables in your introductory comments. I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about those and in particular, the extent to which they were already in your numbers and pricing and or what adjustments you may have to make or either have made as a result of them or will have to make to sort of pricing or reserves. I mean, I'm guessing or I think it was sort of expected that there would be an increase. So I'm just interested to know how much of it was a surprise and what the impact is. And then the third one, I apologize in advance for this one. But IFRS 17 changed the way you report most of your private equity. But I think it didn't change it for asset management. And that segment, I think you're right that you still include the dividends that Lion River receives. Before the accounting change, we were getting sort of high double digit, I think, per year. And we were told that the run rate of the result was higher and that dividends should catch up. So I'm just wondering if you can give us an update on what dividends you're currently receiving in Lion River and whether there is still catch-up potential there. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Peter. Cristiano, the question on Liberty and on private equity dividend process and world management is for you, while the second question on the bilan tables is for Giulio.

Hi, Peter.

So starting from Liberty, first point, yes, Liberty experienced an overall 94.10% combined ratio during the first half of the year, and discounted 96.8%. For sure, you are observing a positive priority of development, which I would like to highlight is also linked to a phenomena related to the so-called purchase price allocation, where you need to to allocate the liability value, including a cost of capital, which is increasing them, and then this is really is full time over the duration of the liabilities. So there is this extra effect, which is, I would say, valuation-driven more than fundamentally technical-driven, which would stay up to the duration of the liabilities into this, and you should try to embed it in your, let's say, next two to three years projections. There is no NAFCAT registered by Liberty in the first half. I go directly to the third question, which is related to private equity. In the first half of 2024, private equity contribution to asset management through the dividend was 35 million euro. I would like to highlight that there is another element of contribution, which is not only the private equity result of the investment, which is held by our companies, but there is also the so-called performance element, which is affecting Assicurazioni Generali. And last year, this kind of performance-driven dividend was impacting €52 million of accounting investment results in the P&C, which was not repeated this year.

Thank you, Peter. Thank you. Thank you. Part of your question was whether this is a surprise. Not really. So clearly we cannot anticipate necessarily the Milano table, but we were clearly anticipating that there would be increases. And also, as you know, when you have an inflation environment, you know that you might get here and there some pressure points. So from that point of view, we couldn't specifically anticipate predict this one, but we were ready anyway for some increase in inflation driven by the intervention of regulators or this update to the table of Milano. So overall, we had clearly put cushion on our reserves. On top of that, as you see, we are taking strong rating action. So from that point of view, we are very well prepared, and what we did anyway on a prudent basis in the six months of this year, we put about one percentage point of combined ratio in Italy for the Milano table, but I can tell you that that's been more out of prudence and not because we had a need to strengthen the reserve. We have already enough buffer to offset the inflation impact.

That's great. Thank you very much both. Cristiano, is it possible to quantify the accounting impact on liberty?

Yeah, you mean... I think we may have lost you.

This is Marco. I think we lost the room.

Who did we lost? Cristiano? We lost Cristiano?

I think we lost the connection with Cristiano. Yes.

Are you still online? Fabio? Yes, it's just the two of us, Marco.

Marco, can you hear me? Yes, Filippo, I think we are in the call and with the analyst and Fabio is going to be reconnected with

The next question is from David Varma with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hello. I don't know if the connection has been reestablished.

Yes, we are here.

Okay, great. Well, thank you for taking my questions. I have three on the life business, please. The first one is on the investment result, which was very strong in the second quarter, and you flagged some items in your slide pack that sound like that may not be a sustainable level. What would be an underlying view of your life investment result, please? Secondly, on the new business margin, I expected that to recover a bit more in the second quarter. Is the 4.8% of Q2 now a clean number, or are there other scope and mix effects like we had in Q1 to have in mind? And then lastly, on lapses, can you talk a little bit about the lapse environment? Because I've been quite surprised to see lapses in Italy remain fairly high, at least in the market as a whole. We're still double digits on an annualized basis and actually increasing again this year, which I guess explains your operating variances, which are continuing in the CSM. But can you give us a bit more color on the lapse environment, please? Thank you.

Yes, so I would start from, yes, so I can start talking about the labs environment. So I would say what we see at the moment is a labs environment in Italy that is still going on. I think you've seen the numbers also on the industry. So we are better than the industry, but the labs are still there. We have started to see a decline. I think most of the of the situation will be also depending on the financial conditions that we will see in the next month. So in France, the situation is actually much better than France. The situation has improved. As you remember, we have always discussed these two portfolios as the ones that were more keen to have lapses. So the two portfolios These were the two. And so I would say France is improving. I think actually has improved, France. And Italy, I think, is still high, but on a better trajectory.

Can I ask what kind of lapse rate you have on N3?

So I would say 1.5% non-analyzed in the second queue. So that is the lapse rate. On the new business margin, I would say, so in the second quarter, we had around 4.8%. As I highlighted in my speech, we are targeting between 4.5% and 5% on a quarterly basis for the remainder of the year. So we really are focusing on a trade-off between getting volume and the new business margin. As you remember, we decided to put some action in place, especially in Italy, to make sure we had good inflows. And we actually are very happy with the inflow that we are having at this moment. So we are really targeting an improvement of the new business value that we create in the market. And therefore, we are on that level. So I think you mentioned in your question the accounting for France, and I think it will stay there until the end of the year.

Thank you very much, Marco. Cristiano, if you want to follow up on the question that Peter Elliott asked previously before we cut off, and then add color regarding the sustainability of the investment results in life in the second quarter.

Thank you.

Hello, Peter.

We've lost you again.

The next question is from William Harkins with KBW. Please go ahead.

I am not sure it is. I'll wait for our friends to be reconnected.

Some of us are still here.

Marco and Mike, we are here. So please go ahead.

We will try to answer you, William.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, it's William at KBW. I've got two questions, please. Maybe the first one is a slightly strategic question for you. The first off result still had a negative in life from the loss component on onerous contracts. And I think if I'm right, that's mostly from China. And so I'm thinking the onerous contracts structurally are still zero. but I wanted to check that as an accounting point. But then more strategically, can you just remind me kind of what's going on with China? Because I know it depressed the margin in the first half, but we're still a positive new business value. But I think you're saying it's an onerous contract. And I'm not really sure sort of strategically what the value proposition is of the Chinese business that you're writing, please. So if you could help me understand the Chinese angle, that would be kind. And then secondly, sorry, this may be one for Cristiano when he comes back on the line, but when I'm looking at the mix of the combined ratio by country, there's a really low figure for the undiscounted combined ratio at the group center. It's historically been not a million miles from your overall figure. Last year it was 88%, but in the first half of this year it was only 70%. So there's something weird going on there, and I don't know if I extrapolated or if there's some adjustment for the future. Those are my two questions. Thank you.

Thank you, William. I will start and then I will let you go. had some comments as he went to China together with Giulio and Cristiano. Our Chinese business is definitely becoming quite significant in terms of volume. And as you know, it's part of the positive life net inflow. This is quite positive. Definitely, we need to work to improve the quality of this business. We are fully aware of it and we already started working hard on it and we had a very positive outcome. from the interaction we had recently with the Chinese management team and the Chinese regulators. Maybe, Marco, you can add some flavor on this.

Yes, I would say so. Clearly, the interstate environment in China had an impact. But I would say we remain pretty confident on the future on this because what we are seeing from the regulator is pretty good movement. And so we think the environment in the next month could improve. Coming to your second question on the undiscounted in corporate center, I think the main benefit is coming from the manmade that we account in global corporate and commercial. And this is highlighted also in the slide, and it's accounted in the corporate center.

The next question is from Ian Pierce with BNP Paribas Exam. Please go ahead.

Hi, Marco. Hi, Philippe. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one was just on premium growth, mainly focusing on motor here. I think the slides talk a little bit about some pruning in Italy and France. In Q1, there was some talk around some pruning in Germany. Just trying to understand how long you expect this pruning process to go on and if you're expecting sort of an uptick in risk exposure overall or expecting premiums to grow more in line with rate in the motor and the non-motor segment. My second one was just on conning and if there's been any disruption to flows or some outflows as a result of the acquisition and sort of what you think about the run rate of flows for conning going forwards and what you're doing to drive flows there. And then just a final one on one of the slides in the presentation, flagged lower intragroup dividends from France. I don't remember there being any one-offs in France last year on remittance. I'm just wondering what that relates to. Thank you.

Okay, so yes, so I will start with the topic of premium growth and pruning. So, as we always said, basically we adjust our rate based on the risk premium, right? And also we try to to exit some specific risk and reshape the risk portfolio so that we can have a better and, I would say, a more effective portfolio coming to the bottom line. So in particular, in Italy and in France, we have done some portfolio pruning. I think some of the portfolio pruning is an ongoing effort that we always do. It's part of the technical excellence journey that we have. So we always look at the portfolio. We always try to improve the risk mix. So at the moment, we have done more in, I would say, in Italy and France, but, you know, It's really something that we would do every time we see the need. If you see the rate increase that we had in motor, I think overall in the different countries, we are pretty happy about the development that we had. The rates increase we see are starting to come into the earned premium. And so I would say I would say this is a very positive news. In terms of non-motor, clearly the situation is slightly different. The profitability is very good. We are improving that, but we started with rate increase much earlier, and so it's normal that we see a lower rate, lower average increase in rates in this segment. Maybe, Philippe, you want to comment on that?

Yes. Obviously, for any asset management company, it's difficult to predict the flows. We are expecting any positive flows. Because we believe that the decline in interest rate should boost the positive inflow on fixed income asset classes. And as you know, KONIN is very much specialized in fixed income. Talking about the lower dividends coming from Generali Investment Holdings, don't forget that in 2022, we had a record result and Generali Investment Holdings paid a high dividend in 2023, and the lower a result in 2023 translated to a lower dividend from general investment holding. Definitely, we as the asset management will improve that the dividend from GIH will get back on track and it will start growing Again, basically, this is the answer on the dividend of general investment holding.

Thank you.

The next question is from Michael Hattner with Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Fantastic. Thank you very much. And I had three questions. The first one is on deals versus buybacks. The second one, I don't know if you can give us a feel maybe for how big your cash pile is. Maybe if you submit it every morning, you can measure the depth. Sorry, that's a bit of a jokey way of asking it. And the third one is, I guess, semi-technical, but it kind of relates to the answer that Julia was beginning to make. You know, this Milan court and stuff. I remember from the past, you had a kind of almost like an inflation buffer And I'm just wondering whether that's the thing which you've used or which you've kind of allocated or whatever to this Milan code stuff.

Thank you. I didn't get the question. I didn't hear the question on the back. What is the question exactly?

It's on deals, the balance between deals and buybacks.

Can you hear me?

I don't know.

The balance between?

M&A and buybacks.

Oh, okay. Okay. Okay, sure. Sorry. No, I think that we always try to strike the best possible balance between M&A and remuneration for shareholders, and we started doing this on a yearly basis and we will continue doing this on a yearly basis with a very strict discipline on M&A. We've been so far very selective and we will continue being very selective on M&A without a strong and solid industrial logic. without a strong strategic and cultural field, and without strong and solid financials, we will definitely consider the capital management and the shareholder remuneration as a priority.

Hello, everybody. Do you hear me? We are back. We have an emergency line of connection from our offices.

I can take it.

I'm Cristiano. Do you hear me? I'm back. Sorry, I apologize for this very strange inconvenience. Hello, Michael. Hi, Cristiano. I owe an answer to Peter before. He asked me the impact of this purchase price accounting on Liberty and the number in the first half of the year was between 11 and 12 billion euros in the first half and should be projected for the next three years duration of the liabilities. I go back to your question on the whole co-position at first half. We have, including some short-term treasury portfolio, something in the order of €5.9 billion, which has to be used to refinance €1.75 billion of September 24 senior that we already refinanced, the €500 million buyback, €1 billion of liquidity buffer and what is basically left is mainly the cash of our branches and some more volatile operating cash for something in the order of slightly more than two billion, which is the usual treasury operating cash, which should not be considered available apart from simple operations, as we always said.

And then there's an inflation buffer, which we had before. And my guess is this is the bit which you recycled for the Milan Corps. And then the last thing, if I may ask, because I think Tosti gave us a figure.

is the um guarantee fund yeah so uh for for uh for what regard uh also the milan table i think that we have already embedded a first part of it on top of the already prudent as julia was telling already you Very prudent priority reserving. You have seen that this quarter in general, we have been overall with very low priority, which I would like to underline the high quality of the results which were developed. So clearly the inflation buffer we have in our assumption of the best estimate being prudent allow for the absorption for it, especially in the part of pre-year, notwithstanding that we put something in the mid double digit million euro in the first half already to be prudent out of that, which we will be seeing. At the end of the year, according to the very healthy evolution of the profitability that we are observing as well in Italy because of the increase of rates in the pruning. As well, for the contribution of the Guarantee Fund, in the first half of the year, we observed for Italy Life 25 million euros. Then I owe another answer to David on the investment result life about the sustainability of this delta. As I think you heard, there is part of it which is related to our evaluation, equity method accounting of our participation we have in our German business, which is the participation to our distribution partner company where we are a minority shareholder. And I would say this is less of a recurring term, which you should project half of the investment result improvement as a recurring one.

The next question is from James . Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Good morning, everybody. So my first question, is on global corporate and commercial. And it's actually going to link in a little bit with Will's question earlier on. And Christiane, you weren't on the call regarding that question, but there's a question about the undiscounted combined ratio in corporate to H1, which seemed to be around 70%. And Marco helpfully answered that that was due to a low level of man-made in global corporate and commercial. But perhaps you can just flesh that out a little bit for me. My kind of question, though, was really on that, was just a request if you could give us the actual premium base and the combined ratio for global corporate and commercial in H1 and perhaps identifying the man-made, because I think that division has actually been the cause of some of the problems on man-made. So I'm just keen to get some insight into that. Second question is, It looks like Switzerland had a combined ratio of 108% at one age. I presume there's some adverse prior year happening there, but if you could just elaborate on that for me. And then my third question, I'm not sure if we have Giulio on the call or not, but I'm sure Philippe can take it. But Giulio's old shop had quite a big focus on something called a target operating model, which was a very kind of innovative approach to the tied agency approach set up. has been very successful in Italy. I'm really keen to get his views or Philippe's interpretation of how that target operating model works for a company like Allianz and what you might take and what features you might learn from that when you're looking to modernize and continue to modernize your own tied agency networks. Thank you.

Hi, James.

Thank you very much, James.

Do you hear me? I can hear that voice. I couldn't hear the... Yeah, it's Cristiano.

Okay, so you didn't hear the voice of Fabio because he was close to me asking whether you were talking about Switzerland, just to confirm. Yes, I heard it. So I start with the global corporate commercial part. First of all, we have approached global commercial business with reinsurance in the Assicurazioni Generali parent company. The vast majority of it, and for the first half of 2024, we are talking about something in the order of 1 billion and 50 million of gross insurance revenues. We're concentrated there. We had a low experience of man-made place for almost 100 million euro improvement, which is driving this piece of the business. In the holding, there is also the group reinsurance business overall, which we are managing as a centralized reinsurance, which experienced a better result because all the events so far were experienced only at the business unit level as an impact because they were not triggering, let's say, the threshold for the centralized reinsurance, which is experiencing this positive impact. So the two effects are the one explaining the movement of that specific topic. The second topic regarding last year was a positive prior year development because of the close of some larger claims which were affecting in a positive way the combined ratio. The underlying current year one is above 100%. And this is something, together with Giulio and Marco, we have already discussed, and there is a kind of improvement plan underway with the local management to get them back to the desired level of profitability.

Yes, so I'm back now, so I can take a question about the target operating model, which I believe was specific to the agency model in Italy. So let's start saying that... Our agency network here in Italy is a big asset. So if you ask me about the great things I found coming to Generali, I would say the quality of the agency network that we have in Italy. You can see that also when we think about the flows in life, you can see that on the life side, on the agency network, we have basically positive flows as we speak. So from that point of view, that's an asset. As we think about these assets, clearly the point is always as you make it even stronger and more productive, so the focus is going to be clearly on productivity moving forward. And also it is very important that something that we will have to analyze and discuss right now also is piece of the value chain which are under the responsibility of the agents so and somehow we can definitely try to get some some of these services on our side when it's more efficient also for the for the agency network so this is not something that's where we have a concrete plan right now but we're going to look how to make our agency force in Italy more productive, more effective by avoiding that they need to make administrative tasks that can be done in a different way. But fundamentally, we are starting from a position of strength with the big assets, and we will work on making these assets even more productive.

Next question, please.

The next question is from Steven Highwood with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thank you very much. Three questions, please. One is on the lapses. Obviously, thank you to Marco for explaining the trend. My question is mainly on whether you took any assumption changes in the first half or whether you need to take any assumption changes going forwards. The second question is on a solvency to ratio market to market since the end of the first half. Can you give us a kind of indication? I know you mentioned that you're not worried about volatility as it provides opportunities within your results, but if you could give us an indication on the solvency move, that would be quite helpful. And then finally, if you can answer this on your sort of yearly cash generation expectations, Can you give us an indication of what you think your yearly cash remittances generation is and the net of the dividends, holding expenses, debt costs, what does this give you on a yearly basis to potentially deploy? Thank you. Thank you very much, Stephen. All the three questions are for Cristiano.

Hello, Stephen. So the first point related to lapses. I think that... The major trend in lapses observed was more concentrated in Italy. The operating variances lapses related are slightly above 400 million euro out of the 540 that you have seen in the first half of the year. I would say the change in assumption is just slightly above between 100 and 150 million. All the rest is really experience part. related a little bit on some portfolio in France because of some slightly higher value product lapses within the mix, as well as a higher amount of lapses compared to what's projected so far in Italy. Going forward to look at what we are planning to do, clearly it is very much dependent on the market And so far, we are observing a little bit of trending down, especially in France, and all this behavior, which is giving some more reassurance trend. We will make the final evaluation for Italy in the end of the year, according also to the combination of the commercial actions which are underway also to manage the phenomenon. To go to the second element, update on solvency. We recently, this morning, in the media call, we gave the latest number as of August the 6th, closing business day, market day, and we had something more than 209% of solvency ratio as of August the 6th. And the sensitivity you were asking, we have observed in the last year especially in the interest rate, a reduction of the sensitivity to have slightly less than two percentage points for 50 basis points of interest rate up and slightly less than three percentage points of solvency for interest rate down of 50 bits per part. Regarding to the third question of yearly cash generation expectation, we are running at usually something more than 900 to 1 billion of excess cash out of the dividend payment, which is very important to keep in mind that our first priority when we have recurring remittances and in general recurring net holding cash flow increase, it is allocated firstly to the growth of the dividend for remuneration of the shareholders, and the lasting part is for the capital allocation according to the principle that Philippe was telling you before, much more focused on an yearly basis of an M&A versus a buyback benefit as we already declared end of January this year.

Thank you so much.

Next question, please.

The next question is from Elena Perini with Intesa San Paolo. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hello, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions. I've got actually two questions on the asset management issue. It is clear that this business is a strategic one for you, on the contrary of some other competitors of yours. I would like you to remind, please, the main reasons why you consider it as a strategic business for your group. And this is the first one. The second one is on the sustainability of the second quarter operating result for the asset and wealth management, which was around 300 million. Can we consider it as a recurring run rate going forward? And in this respect, in other detail concerning the slide number 40, because I saw an increase in the cost-income ratio for the asset management in the first half of 2024 compared to last year, if you can give some explanations on this trend. Thank you very much.

Thanks to you, Elena. Philippe, the first question is for you, while Cristiano, you will take the second question on the cost-income of asset management.

Elena, as of today, General Lee is already a top 10 asset manager in Europe. When you look at assets and their management, we, as you know, have a long-term strategy to become a leading insurance asset manager. By the way, most of the top 20 largest life insurance companies in the world, including the U.S. market, have business. So we want to be building this pillar. We want to continue building a global asset management platform. We want to enhance our customer-centric culture. And I'm convinced that thanks to the... to do, increasing the third-party business. You have seen that we went from 100 billion up to... Hello, yeah.

...all over the world.

So, we don't hear very well, Philippe. I start with the second question on the sustainability of the asset and wealth management. 330 billion of the period is referring to the way 311 million contribution from wealth management was embedded something in the order of 94 million of performance fees, which you should not project at the same rate for the second half of the year, also due to the actual market volatility and the strong first part. For what regards the overall, let's say, second half projection, this number should be materially reduced in the wealth management sector of Banca Generali. For what regards the cost-income ratio, the driver of the increase are, for sure, when you take as a merge between our general investment component and conning, conning group is running at something slightly less than 81% of cost-to-income ratio, which is clearly on the full average of the merge group, increasing naturally. So this is a kind of restriking of the level due to their nature of third-party business. Having said that, there are some small increases in the operating expenses also in the perimeter of the general investment, which are affecting the cost to income and are related to the anticipation in accounting of the variable benefit to the employees, which is, in a certain sense, double charging it to align also to the process we are using in the group. And at the same time, there are some small project, uh, uh, as well integration and, uh, project to transform, um, the company, which are underway, which, uh, explains part of this increase.

I, uh, I was told the call. Sorry, Philip. Yeah.

The next question is from Gianluca Ferrari with Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. I have two left. One is on Germany. It seems that your combined ratio is in a better shape compared to some of your peers. So I was wondering what is the managerial decision here if to follow the tariff increases that many others are doing or to try to cash in this competitive advantage capturing market share vis-a-vis the others. The second and final one is on some headlines I saw on the press conference where Marco was mentioning something on retail not cut protection. I was wondering if this is embedding some kind of operation, public, private, so including also involving also the government to extend retail cut coverage similarly to what has happened on SMEs. Thank you.

You can get the first one, which is on the combined ratio. I would say the answer is also depending on the different countries. So in the case of Spain, clearly we need to have additional rate increases in motors, so that's definitely a market where we're going to push for rate increases. There are other markets, let's take France, where we have a good level of profitability, and we see that in motors right now we are not necessarily winning customers, so that's an area where we want to look also at clearly commercial actions. Also, we want to look at more the guarantees that we give. So in that area, we will presumably press less on pure rate increases and also look at clearly what is happening to the risk-in-force. So I would say in general, you cannot give a generic answer. You really need to look portfolio by portfolio. Overall, I would say that in motor, we are getting close to a level of profitability, which is at our expectation, but there is still some work to do. And then that's very important. We need always to monitor inflation because the last thing we can do is to get complacent. So from that point of view, we are going to monitor the situation. We are going to monitor the improvement of the low-celeration motor and also look at what the risking force is doing. We are going to clearly take the right action case by case.

I owe also some other follow-up, which I was told were not heard well because of the line issue. The first one is the question regarding the contribution or negative impact in the operating result of the Fondo per Guarantia, the Italian Guarantee Fund for Life. In the first half 24 in Italy, we accounted for 25 million euro of this effect. And it is part of the category called other operating income and expenses. This is consistent to the run rate, 50 million euro we were already guiding before when the the decision came into application. The other element I think you discussed, and I was not connected in the moment the question was raised, was the effect of the lost component in China and the new business margin related eventually to that. First of all, there is an increase in loss component in China. On a half-year over half-year basis, we are talking about something in the order of 38 million euro extra compared to the previous year, which was already experiencing some loss component in products which are not related to new business margin, but old products which are with profit, sold years ago when the rates were much higher, and now the guaranteed rate is is above the actual market rate, which triggered the loss component part. As you heard, the Chinese interest rate dropped the minimum of 10 years ago, to 2.1 recently. The good news is that we understand there is a very swift and strong movement from the regulator asking companies to decrease materially the guaranteed rate, which is giving more stability to the system. Also, if there is a prolonged interest rate down, as we, for example, experience in Europe. So these are good, positive news. We should see positive trends in the second half as well of the year.

Maybe I can join. No, maybe there is a follow-up on the NATCAT protection that I think I can give. So maybe you are referring to the statement that I did in the... Yes, correct. Right, so exactly. So, no, let me clarify. So what I mean is that going forward, we consider that this is a huge protection gap that we have, you know, across all the geographies where we operate. So overall, we are developing an approach. We consider the approach that we are having somehow in Italy, but also in other geographies on a public-private partnership and healthy approach. So it can take very different shape and form. But overall, I think as an insurer, we will develop an approach in the next plan to the climate change. And I I think this is going to be an important part of the development that the customer will want to see in terms of risk protection.

Thanks for the clarification, Marco.

If you don't mind, I would like to add final comments on the question on the asset management because, unfortunately, I had a problem of connection. I just wanted to... add that there are strong synergies between life insurance and asset management. These businesses are helping each other. It's good for the asset management to have the safety of stable long-term abilities of the life insurance. And it's good for the life insurance, the benefit of professional asset management in-house, obviously, and you can be very professional and provide strong capabilities if you are also in the third-party asset management business. Not being only captive doesn't work the same way. So the strategy is good. What's really important is the execution of the strategy. I'm very confident that under the new leadership of Woody Bradford and his team, we will be able to execute very well this strategy. Thank you.

Next question, please.

The next question is from Michael Hartner with Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. It was just a very quick follow-up. I think I saw on the screen, Cristiano, you said profits would be below 900 in Q3 and about 900 in Q4. And I was thinking, oh, no, it's like a decline, right? 1.1 in Q1, 900 in Q2, below 900 in Q3, and then maybe a slight bounce. Can you explain a little bit your thinking here? Thank you.

Yes, Michael. First of all, when we compare the first out 24 versus the first out 23, we need to acknowledge that at first out 23, we were at 2.33 billion of adjusted net result. And we closed year-end 2023 at 3.575 billion. or a billion euros of adjusted net results. So the second half of 2023 was extremely smaller because 2023 was a very peculiar year where we had, in a certain sense, all the positive effects of the capital gain, the sum one-off on the release of the pension fund in France because of the change of the regulation and other effects, both concentrated in the first half, and the negative effect, including capital losses realized in the last quarter plus a restructuring charge in Italy in the last quarter, which were creating an asymmetric pattern. So what we are observing in the first quarter quarter 2024, which was a 1.1 billion euro quarter, and this quarter, which is a 900 million and something quarter adjusted net, is a more coherent run rate of the company on a more stable part. Clearly, the third quarter 2024 statistically is expected to be lower than the other quarters because it is the quarter where we have the highest historical concentration of natural catastrophe Marco was correctly already informing all of you that we experienced so far up to the end of July 104 million euro of natural catastrophe so clearly it is in line with the budget but you should expect a higher concentration in the third quarter if we are statistically coherent with the past, because it is related to our exposure. So what I'm saying is that compared to the year-end expected projection I'm seeing, basically we are there, if not mildly, slightly, two tenths of a million lower compared to what is projected. It was to give a better understanding on the trajectory, because 2023 was more erratic in it. I hope that gives clarification.

That's fantastic. Thank you.

Next question, please. The next question is from James Chakwitsiti. Please go ahead.

Thanks for the opportunity to follow up. I just wanted to follow up on the remittances at 1H, because Christiana, you gave the cash figure of $5.9 billion, so I'm going to have to try and fill in the pieces, but perhaps you could help me of what the actual remittances were at 1H and which remittances from OEs are still expected in the rest of the year. Then on the PNC combined ratio, I appreciate there being a bit of noise in this quarter, whether it's Liberty or whether it's weather or whatever, but the Q1 to Q2 sequential, on an underlying basis, kind of excluding discounting and NATCATs and PYD, etc., Looked like it kind of deteriorated a little bit, about 30 bits in Q2 versus Q1. I think about half of that might be due to Liberty. So it's still getting a little bit worse. And I was expecting to see an earn through from the rates you put on the books in this quarter. I appreciate weather has probably had an impact. So I'm keen to get an understanding of what you think a true reflection is of that development sequentially Q1 to Q2, please. And finally, just quickly, I'm looking forward to the Capital Markets Day and Venice is a lovely venue, so thank you for that. I'm just interested, I don't want you to front run too much of what you might say, but one of the targets that you don't have and is quite conspicuous relative to peers, and I think it's quite an important one given that you always focus on solvency and cash generation and capital discipline. You don't have an ROE target, and I'm keen to get your views on whether we might see that be introduced at the Capital Markets Day. Thank you.

Hi, James. So, remittance in the first half, as I told you, the full year view is the 4.4 billion euro of remittance, which are confirmed. At the first half, we have basically collected the vast majority of it. I think we are left out with something in the order of slightly more than 300 million, which is just a stubbed agreement with our companies to get some extra remittance. So it is almost all already there apart from this 300 million. In the first to second quarter noise on the attritional undiscounted loss ratio in current year, I think we need to make a first, an important announcement a really fundamental remark from the way the business is followed and made. The best comparison should always be done with the same period of the previous year and to have the right comparison because there are seasonality impacts as well when you look at this indicator. A very simple example and an explanation to this 0.3 you were mentioning, the 30 bps, is mainly related to the fact that during the second quarter versus the first quarter, where we basically do not have natural catastrophes and let's call natural events are very low, natural events in the second quarter were higher. And some of them are not necessarily natural catastrophes, are below the threshold, but are impacting the attritional part. Cleaning up for that and also reducing Taking into account that, don't forget, but as I was saying before, Liberty has a higher loss ratio currently around this country being more motor business and having it for three months in the third quarter, in the second half versus the two months. of the first quarter okay uh in the second quarter versus the first so there is a third one third 50 more exposure so three months while we have two is slightly polluting it what i can tell you is that the trajectory and what we see as the final earned premium the budget the confirmation that we are Even embedding liberty within the 96%, lower than 96% undiscounted combined ratio guidance is giving you the confidence of this result. By the way, the quality of this result, again, especially because of very prudent prior year development, notwithstanding a higher amount of nut cuts, is what I wanted to highlight to you because these are results on a really recurring and growing amount basis that you should start projecting on forward. Yes, last question or I hand over to Marco.

Yes, so James, I'm gonna be very quick because as you correctly said, we're gonna present the strategy planning then is in January. And so we are developing it. So I think it's very early to define any TPI or anything that it's that will be defined over the next weeks. But clearly, we know that this is a topic, so we are thinking about this. We need to reflect on the fact that we have a specific business model, we have a specific type of capital, and so an ROE target will also have to adjust for this kind of situation. that we believe we have, and so we are thinking about it, and we will define the type of target that we will give ourselves, but it's a point that we understand, and we are thinking about this.

Thank you very much.

Next question, please. The next question is from Peter Elliott Rick Hepler-Shover. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much also for the opportunity to follow up. Just had a quick two follow-ups, please. One was because you just mentioned it, Cristiano, on the NATCATs below the cutoff falling into Q2, and because others have mentioned it, I was just wondering if you could remind us of what your cutoff is for claims before they fall into the NATCAT bucket. And the second one was on your expense ratio. Ex-Liberty was down 0.4 percentage points, which seemed like quite a strong number. I was just wondering if you could talk about the drivers and sustainability of that. Thank you.

Yes, Peter.

So the threshold is 5 billion euro for the reporting. The explanation related to the driver of the expense ratio are related also to the fact that we have a net of liberty we have some more weight of the administration acquisition expenses because of the premium increase on a relative basis related to this and don't also forget again when you talk about the driver of premium there are seasonality is in premium so clearly also second quarter versus first quarter movement of this indicator net of the liberty part has to be taken again with the attention of the seasonality in mind yeah right next question please the next question is from michael hattner with berenberg please go ahead sorry last one um

On Liberty Mutual, so you had the target excluding Liberty of below 96. Now you include Liberty. I'm going to be really silly. What's the improvement? I seem to remember 20 bits is the figure. And then acoustically, I didn't catch what you said about the Liberty undiscounted combined ratio. I think it's something 90, something 0.8, but I don't know what the big figures are. Thank you.

Yes, Peter.

So, yes. The confirmation of the undiscounted core guidance, including the liberty, is an improvement because we were expecting 20 bps deterioration because of the liberty part. Clearly, we have also the fact, as I was mentioning before, with the PPA unwinding for the prior year, but in general, what we are finding in liberty is that In line, it's not slightly better than what was projected, so we can embed this effect to confirm less than 96% even because of absorbing this potential 0.2%. And in general, the number of the half-year combined ratio total of liberty is 94.8% discounted. The undiscounted one is 96.8%.

Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you very much.

So, operator, since our time line was briefly cut off, we are more than happy to take now any follow-up from, I think, David Barmer, William Hawkins, and Ian Pearce. And I, again, apologize for the technical issues.

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