Axa Sa Ord

Good morning, and welcome to ACCESS 9 Month 2023 Activity Indicators call. This morning, our Group CFO, Albon de Mainel, will go through briefly the highlights of last night's press release, after which we'll be ready to take your questions. Albon?

Thank you, Anu. Good morning to all of you, and thank you for joining the call today. So I'll start with the key highlights of our 9 Month 2023 results. AXA continued to deliver high-quality revenue growth, very much in line with our strategy and consistent with the trends that you see in the first half. We continue to see strong momentum across our technical lines, in particular in P&C, plus 7%, and protection, plus 3%. And growth in health. remains also strong, up 7%, if you adjust for the non-renewable of two large international group contracts. This has been partly offset by actions taken to right-size businesses that have been deprioritized and that you know well, that's reinsurance property CAT and traditional general account. And this should be completed by year-end. Overall, our total revenues increased by 2%. to 79 billion euros. Our balance sheet remains very strong with a ratio of 230% driven by strong organic capital generation. And we are very pleased with this level. We also remain confident in delivering our enforced management target of 30 to 50 billion euros by year end. And apart from those results, we've also recently announced two transactions The first one is the closing of the acquisition of Laya, the leading health insurer in Ireland with 28% market share. And second is the agreement to dispose of our live joint venture with Bharti in India. So these are in line with our strategy, which is to focus our footprint on our core markets where we have leading positions while we exit non-core markets. So going back to nine months, 23, let me now go through the key numbers of the press release, starting with PNC. PNC revenues were up 7% overall with growth in both commercial and personal lines. In commercial lines insurance, which excludes AXA Excel RE, we saw very good growth of 9%. This was driven by both price increases and volume. And as AXA Excel insurance, Prices were up 4% on renewal or 7%, excluding North America professional lines, where conditions remained challenging. This was mainly driven by favorable price effects in short-tail lines, with notably North America property up 19%. Overall, price increases remained above lost trends in nine months 23. and we remain very disciplined on pricing and we have tools to manage the cycle. In France and Europe, we continue to see favorable price effects at 5% and 4% respectively. On volume, customer demand remains strong, notably at AXA XL insurance in property and specialty lines and in Europe. Moving to personal lines, revenues were up 5% with growth both in personal motor and personal non-motor up 7% and 3% respectively. In motor, price increases accelerated further in the third quarter in Europe, except in Switzerland. Overall, we believe the price increases in retail are sufficient to offset claims severity. But you know, we are also vigilant on the frequency side which is higher than expected in Germany and Ireland, which we had flagged at half year. And in those countries, we are taking further pricing actions. And finally, in reinsurance, as you know, we've reduced our net cat exposure again this year by circa 35%, and in line with our strategy. And that was offset by price increases in casualty, property, and specialty, so that overall revenues in reinsurance were down by only 3%. One last point on PNC regarding NatCat. In the first half, we had relatively benign NatCat experience with three points impact on our combined ratio. That's below our four points load. In the third quarter, we experienced several storms across Europe and the US. And despite this, At the end of September, we were still on track to be within our four-point NatCat budget for the year. We currently estimate losses from Hurricane Otis that made landfall in Mexico in October to be around $0.2 billion before tax and net of reinsurance. And obviously, we need to see how the rest of the year plays out. Let me now move to life and health. In life, we see once again a positive trend in protection, up 3%, from higher sales in protection with Unitlink in Japan and sales to mainland Chinese visitors in Hong Kong. Unitlink premiums were down 13%, reflecting volatile market conditions, albeit with some recovery observed in the third quarter. And this was largely offset by good performance of capital light general account, up 12%, which was driven by the continued success of our general account of maturity product, Euro Croissance, in France. In France still, which is our main life carrier, given this capital light proposition of Euro Croissance and our unit link performance, overall, we are up 10% on the saving side. Once again, our strategy around this complementary offer has proved successful. It's relevant, especially in these conditions. And lastly, traditional generic and premiums were down 13% in line with our strategy to reduce our exposure in this business. So overall, life revenues over the first nine months were stable. On health, premiums were down 7%, and that's largely from the renewal of two large international group contracts in France that you know well, Excluding those contracts, we had organic growth of plus 7%, and that's across all geographies. And this reflected notably favorable price effects, again, across most geographies. So next, on the net flows. So we see continued outflows in traditional general savings, general account savings, which is in line with our group strategy. And that's partly offset by strong flows in protection and health. moving to new business. So life and health, PVP and NBV were down 8% and 4% respectively. This was largely attributable to the increase in interest rates, which will reverse positively with a higher unwind over time. NBV margin, which is what matters to us, was up 0.2 point. New business CSM was up by 2%. reflecting a better portfolio mix, notably with a higher contribution from Eurocroissance. Overall, our business mix in life and health remains of high quality, and we will continue to grow from there. And finally, in asset management, so average assets under management decreased by 5%, but that reflects unfavorable market conditions. Because net flows were flat, we have, as you saw earlier, strong inflows from third-party funds, both in our core and our alts platforms, and specifically in real estate, where we've had good momentum. And this was offset by net ad flows from AXA insurance companies, which is obviously linked to negative flows in general account that I had mentioned earlier. Revenues in asset management were down 2%, driven by lower recurring fees, from the reduction in average assets under management. Moving on to Solvency II. So our Solvency II ratio was 230% at the end of September, and that's down five points from first half. And this was mainly due to a combination of different factors. First one is minus four points from the early redemption of subordinate debt. which we have decided not to refinance in line of our strong cash and capital position, minus three points from unfavorable market effects driven by lower equity markets and higher implied volatility, and plus seven points of normalized capital generation minus, obviously, four points of accrued foreseeable dividends. So at the end of the first nine months, our normalized capital generation was plus 23 points. And as you see, we are well on track to achieve the 25 to 30 point guidance we gave this year. Overall, we're happy with our strong solvency to ratio. It reflects our more capital efficient business model, and that allows us to grow without the need for more capital. So one word on our full year 23 outlook. We are on track to deliver our earnings outlook of above 7.5 billion underlying earnings in 23. A few things to also keep in mind for the second half. As you know, we always report more than 50% of our earnings in the first half because we have higher investment income in the first half and there is also a small seasonality in discount. And we expect several headwinds in the second half, which should already be known to you. So that's the higher health claims frequency in the UK. We have still elevated lapses in Italy. And as you saw, we have higher Q3 NADCAT losses. So as a conclusion, I think fundamentally the group is in good shape. We are disciplined in our execution of our strategy and that will continue to deliver strong results. We have a balance sheet which remains strong with a high level of sovereignty to ratio at 230%. And therefore, we are well placed for our next plan, which as you may have seen, will be announced on March 11th next year. I'm now happy to take your questions

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. We will now take the first question. Coming from the line of Andrew Sinclair from Bank of America, please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Three from me as usual, please. First was just on the NatCat budget. Could you remind me how you allocate that by quarters? Is it just straight a quarter of the budget for each quarter? Just trying to think about what's left for Q4 and... and how much of that is used by Otis, and we've had a few storms so far. It feels to me like we could have burned through about half of Q4 budget already, so just any colour on what's left of budget for Q4. Second point, sticking on NatCat, just really wondering if you can give us an update on Excel's NatCat performance year-to-date. I know you've said that for the group you're in line with budget after the first nine months. Is that also the case for Excel or any color there? And then third and finally, it was just on North America professional lines. We know there's been weaker pricing there. Just could you remind us how much of your book is in those lines today within Excel? And do you think pricing today is adequate on a written basis? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Andrew, for your question. So on that CAD budget, as you know, it's four points overall, and we think four points of combined ratio, obviously, and we think about it across the year. So what we meant when we wrote the press release is that we were at three points at the end of half year, and given the number of small but intense natural events that we had in Q3, we are in line with the four points for the full year. Now, it's true that with Hurricane Otis, which as you saw is a around 200 million. I would say that's a bit less than a quarter's budget. It's around 40% of a quarter's budget. On Excel specifically, I mean, we think about our NatCat budget at group level. The Q3 was more, was rather balanced between Europe and the US. Excel Re was not particularly affected, and Otis is really AXA Mexico, and that does not affect Excel very much, if at all. And on the professional lines, I think we see the same sort of trend. It has not changed in Q3 compared to the first half. and we don't disclose the amount of business coming from North America professionals. But there is no change in trend, and very importantly, it is still a very profitable line. But given the fact that it was extremely profitable for the whole market, and given that there is less business, notably because you've seen fewer IPOs, for instance, there is more competition on the For a smaller cake and that's what puts pressure on on the business, but it's still very profitable Thank you We will now take the next question From the line of Farouk honey from JP Morgan, please go ahead Hi everybody.

Thanks. Thanks very much. I When you talk about the headwinds in 3Q, I mean, what would you say is different from 1H? Because the list of items you give is very similar. I guess NACAT is one thing you could talk about, but what actually do you think we should take into account that could have got worse than what you showed in 1H? That's question one. Question two, around the disposal targets, you've been very confident around the 30 to 50 billion. I believe you've done something like 24 billion announced transactions to date. So can you tell us a little bit more about where you think you'll end up within that range and what kind of things may be on the table to consider? And I guess my last question is coming back on pricing trends. So do you think... Generally speaking, if you take North America professional lines out of the equation, do you think pricing conditions are stable, accelerating or decelerating in commercial lines generally? Thank you.

Thank you, Farouk. So on the headwinds, no, there's nothing new on the health in the UK or the level of lapses in Italy. that's very much in line with what we said in the first half. It has not worsened. We wanted to highlight them because that's what we said in the first half. NatCat, as you saw, clearly the level of NatCat in Q3 was higher than in the first half. That's the only real difference. On the enforced transactions, So you probably have to wait until, say, mid-December for the announcement. But we are confident that we'll be well within the range with what we will announce. We are close to signing on a couple of transactions, and we are quite confident. And on North America, on the pricing in commercial lines, when you look at commercial lines for SMEs and mid-markets, so more European business, it's very stable. And when you look at Excel, I would say overall it's stable. You have some pluses and minuses. You probably have a bit more price in short tail lines such as property and aerospace, and you have slightly lower prices in casualty but overall it's i'm not sure it's uh statistically relevant but so overall it's holding up well thank you very much thank you thank you we will now take the next question from the line of auntie ukraine from autonomous please go ahead

Good morning, everyone. A couple of questions from me. Firstly, I noticed you have not done a debt issuance, so you're not doing your usual one billion net debt issuance this year, which will take you to the bottom of your debt leverage range. Should we expect that to continue next year, or will you revert back to raising debt largely in line with your shareholder equity? And then secondly, on the overall revenue growth of 2%, you've called out, as you always do, general account savings, those two contracts in health, and the Excel research. What is the underlying growth if you strip those three elements out? And do you think that that is a sustainable level of growth as you go into your next plan?

Thank you, Andrew. On net debt issuance, so the reasoning behind the fact that we would not refinance it is that our solvency ratio is at a high level and that we have enough cash at Holco. So those are the two reasons, and I can't see why that would change going forward. So we will say more, obviously, in March with the plan, but I think the rationale will still hold. And on the revenue growth, when you strip out what you mentioned, so the large health contracts, general account, and NatCat insurance, our growth is at 5%. And that's where we would like it to be going forward.

Thanks. Thank you.

We will now take the next question from the line of Peter Elliott from Kepler-Chivrel. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Firstly, just a quick follow-up on the lapse comment. I guess if you're seeing the same level as earlier in the year, I guess we might have hoped that it might have improved a little bit given the pressures from Eurovita, etc., towards the start of the year. I'm just wondering how it compares to what you're expecting and what sort of momentum you're seeing at the moment. Should we expect that to lead to any sort of review of assumptions behind the CFM? The second one, asset management, revenues in Q3 standalone look very strong. Is that all recurring or is there any sort of one-off elements in there? And then maybe thirdly, I just wonder if you can give us any insights into what you're thinking about your own reinsurance cover in this environment. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Peter. So on lapses, so I will leave aside France because you know that it's a small portfolio specific. and on the rest we see no change compared to last year. In Italy, I think it's not so much Eurovita. Obviously, Eurovita has some impact on the whole market, but it's more the competition of BTPs designed for individuals and sold notably through bank branches. It's more that competition that creates that elevated the level of lapses and also reduced level of premiums because people would go more to BTPs than to life insurance. And therefore, I don't see at this stage a foreseeable change in that level of lapses given the environment. Will that have an impact on our assumptions and therefore on our CSM in Italy? Yes, probably, because it means that the business will have a shorter duration because we have more lapses. Asset management in Q3. So I think we have... with AXA-IM Core and AXA-IM Alps, a very good platform on a number of businesses, notably fixed income in core and real estate infrastructure debt, notably in Alps. And I think what's quite remarkable is that obviously the real estate market is not doing that great currently, but nevertheless, you see strong net new money on that front because we are recognized as probably the strongest or one of the strongest platforms in Europe. So we expect good net inflows going forward from third parties. And last, on our own reinsurance cover, you know that the way we think about it is outcome driven. In other words, what is our risk appetite? and what is the cat load that we would like to see. So you shouldn't expect a significant change in 24 compared to 23 in terms of cat load. We are looking at the way to design our reinsurance program, but what we see is that on a risk-adjusted basis, prices should not move significantly. We are between 0% and 5% most probably.

Thank you very much. On the asset management, I mean, it was actually revenues as well as flows that I noticed, but thank you for those comments.

Yeah, I mean, on revenues, it's obviously, you know that on the core part, we are more a fixed income business than an equity business. So the fact that interest rates and yields have come down over the last few weeks is is obviously a positive for our business.

Thank you. We will now take the next question.

From the line of, one moment please, from the line of Michael Hutner from Bernberg, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. I'm always delighted to see you delivering despite all these upsets and headwinds and everything. I have three questions. The first one is, So the net outflow from life companies in asset management were, I think, $13 billion. The figure we see for a general account is $6.8 billion, and I think there's just under $1 billion from unit links. So there seems to be a big gap, and I just wondered, what is that? The second is, and I sort of asked this a half year, but the benefit of discounting, lest we unwind, fall insurers, not particularly a factor, but it's true for you as well, It's a very, very big benefit this year. I can't remember the figure, but I think at half-year it was about half a billion. So it's probably unfair to annualize it, but it's probably not going to be far short of a billion for the year. And if you say, well, over $7.5 billion, it's a big chunk of the earnings. How should one think about managing the drag as this difference between discounting and unwind kind of slows down going forward? And then I was hoping you could give a little bit more on cash because clearly if you're not refinancing and you've actually spent a little bit money on layer and stuff, you must be even more cash rich than before. And I just wondered maybe you could explain where it's coming from or any kind of qualitative would be very helpful. Thank you. I had a last question. NPS, if somebody breaks that contract, you're due a billion, which I guess would be quite nice. What's the likelihood that NPS is sold to a party where you would effectively say, well, now there's a break clause?

Sorry, Michael, can you say the last question again? I'm not sure I understood.

Montepaschi. You have a contract, your exclusive distributor for Montepaschi in Italy. I understand that if there's change of control and the break clause is invoked, you have effectively a put option which is worth a billion or over a billion. And I just wondered how you see the probability of things developing in Italy in that direction. Okay.

So thank you for your questions. On the first one, which is the reduction or the outflows from AXIM, and that's the 13 billion you wanted to reconcile that, sorry, with our own outflows. So obviously there is the life one, There is also the fact that on the PNC side, on the net basis, reserves have also a bit decreased, and there is always the impact also that the dividend we pay, because the dividend we pay is made of the dividends paid by the entities, and therefore it's also a bit of assets that is withdrawn from AXA-IM. On the discount and unwind, You know that it's not exactly the way we look at it. We look at unwind versus investment income because those two should evolve in parallel. I think going forward, you will see more investment income. You will see also more unwind. The net will still probably be a net negative going forward, but something that we'll be able to manage overall. And there again, we'll give you more in March with the plan. But don't forget the investment income part, because that's a very useful component these days with higher interest rates. On cash, well, you know, I think we will have to wait until February before I can give you more. But effectively, and that's what I also said to Andrew, we have the right amount of cash at Holco, the right level of solvency, and therefore no need to increase our debt. And on MPS, well, look, we are looking at what's happening. Our preference, obviously, is to keep the good distribution agreement that we have with BNPS, but that's not entirely in our hands, and As you well said, we have, I think, a contract which protects us well. But again, our preference would be not to use that clause. That's very helpful. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We will now take the next question. from the line of William Hawkins from KBW.

Please go ahead.

Hi, Alban. Thank you for taking my questions. First one, please. What was the contribution of required capital changes to the plus seven and minus three percentage points, capital generation and market movements in the solvency roll forward you gave? Secondly, you've repeated the cap budget of around four points. Could I just press you, you know, That's a reasonably wide range optically. It could be 3.5. It could be 4.4. And there are a few companies that are now starting to squeeze that, you know, so they're talking about 4.49 or something like that. So apologize that it's an exercise in pedantry. But how do you think about where your cap load is going to be at the end of the year around four? My guessing is that it's definitely above four rather than below four. But if you could comment on that, that would be helpful. And then lastly, please. We've seen this acceleration in rate increases in a number of European personal lines in the third quarter, which is good. Does that automatically imply improved combined ratios from the moment it's happening? Or is there actually a risk that your loss picks could still be trending upwards? And it's the rate increases that are sort of responding to inflation that you're having to adjust for. So if you get my point on that, it's nice to see the acceleration of rate increases in personal lines but is there a risk that that's indicating higher loss picks before it gets better at some point in the future? Thank you.

You can talk.

William?

Hello? Hi, sorry, can you hear me?

Yeah, I don't know if we were disconnected or you, but I didn't hear the end of your third question. You were speaking of the accelerated rate increases in personal lines, and then the line was cut.

I do apologize if it's my side. So, yeah, accelerating rate increases in personal lines in the third quarter, does that imply immediately improving combined ratios? Or is there the risk that your combined ratios actually deteriorate because there's a process of adjusting loss picks first, and then you get the benefit of these rate increases in the future? Just wanted to think about how we get the timing of that accelerating rate increase. Thank you.

Okay. So on the first question of the capital requirement, very much like the first half, there was no additional capital requirement. So the 7% is gross equals net, if you see what I mean. On the NADCAT, well, at this stage, it's a bit difficult to say because the quarter and the year are not over. And that's a bit the question at the very beginning. We had the hurricane Otis. We have the storm in Europe today. both in France, the UK, and now in Italy. We'll need to see how it plays out. I'm really not able to say whether it will be 4% plus or 4% minus. We shall see how the end of the year develops. And on the rate increases in personal lines, I think what we see is what we told you at the end of the first semester. which is that overall, in terms of severity, we were not surprised in any country. In terms of frequency, we were surprised in two countries, Germany and Ireland, for which we are taking additional measures. And those measures will also be taken in the first half, notably in Germany, because you know that the book significant part of it, renews at 1.1. So I'd say there's no reason, apart from Germany and Ireland, there's no reason why the loss will come first and the rate increases second. I think here the price increases are positive.

Thank you. And could I just follow up? Sorry, thank you for the answer on the capital generation, but could I also just ask you the market movement of three points, how much of that was coming from changes in required capital, please?

So that's really the mainly or most exclusively the numerator effects of the EUF. Super. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We will now take the next question from the line of Will Hardcastle from UBS. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking the question. Just one left. Is there any progress on the three areas where you've highlighted previously about potential cash unlock in the future? I think there was Japan. Hong Kong and Excel, or is this more meant to be perhaps just a timing aspect to these? Is this more a year-end aspect, or is this sometime in the future, perhaps 18 months down the line? Thank you.

So I think it depends on the country, but the impact only materializes once a year with the dividend paid by the entity. So that's... that's done, that's over for 23. And so you will see the progress in 24 with the dividends we receive from them. And part of it, as you know, if I take Hong Kong, the improvement is linked to the change in the local regulatory framework. So you will see that progress when that comes. But when I look at Excel, The question was more on the liquidity constraints in terms of regulatory liquidity constraints, and we've made progress on this, and that should show in the dividend that we received in 24.

Thank you. We will now take the next question.

From the line of Dominic Omahony from BNP Paribas, please go ahead.

Hello, folks. Thank you for taking the questions. Three, if that's OK. Just on the Italian lapse topic, you flagged that as a heading to earnings. I would have guessed that elevated lapses would be a negative to CSM, and so the earnings impact in the period wouldn't be so powerful. Can you just explain to me why there is an earnings impact? Is it the contracts are turning onerous? And in particular, is this, if as you described, Aubyn, that the trend hasn't changed, if the trend essentially remains roughly stable, should we expect a similar effect in 2024? Second question, capital generation, seven points of operating generation is great, and it's roughly the middle of your range annualized. If I remember correctly, at half year, Aubyn, you said that don't expect quite a strong capital generation in the second half than it could have with the first half, but they're still there in the middle of your range. Should I infer that Q4 has a sort of structural headwind to the capital generation, or would you expect another seven points roughly? And then last question, not really to do with the results, but there's a lot of regulatory attention being paid to to private assets at the moment within life insurance portfolios globally. This is clearly a part of your portfolio and private assets are really an obviously important part of your third-party asset management portfolio. So I just thought I'd ask for your reflections on the regulatory attention being paid to this asset class, how you feel about your allocations here, and indeed whether there might be any adverse impact on asset management flows if if there is more international pressure on this asset class. Thank you.

Thank you, Dominique, for your questions. So on the Italian lapses, no, you're right. I mean, the impact is mostly or exclusively on the CSM. But you know how it works. We have so-called group of contracts in our live carriers. Those group of contracts in Italy reflect generally the funds that we have. And it might be then one can turn on errors, but if that's the case, it will have a non-significant impact. The real impact is on the CSM, as you pointed out. On capital generation, I think if I remember well, we were at 16 points in the first half, and therefore above the 25 to 30 points range annualized. that we mentioned. So what we just wanted to say was that there is seasonality in our earnings and therefore there is also seasonality in our capital generation. You shouldn't expect Q4, everything else being equal, to be weaker than Q3, to put it that way. And on private assets, we... Honestly, we haven't had much regulatory pressure on this or much regulatory attention. I think regulators across the world are probably a bit more attentive to liquidity, notably on the live side. So private assets are part of that equation, but there's no strong pressure, no... particular concern from regulators that we have seen. And you saw that we had good net inflows at AXIM-ALTS, notably on real estate. So that shows that investors are still willing to put more money in illiquid assets. Obviously, you have the denominator effect for a number of them, which reduces their appetite for illiquid assets, but you If you have a good platform, you still can benefit from this.

Thanks, Albin. Sorry, just to clarify on the lapse and the CSM effect, does that mean that the elevated Italian lapse topic isn't relevant to the underlying earnings, or is there an impact? I'd sort of inferred that this was being presented as a potential headwind to the earnings.

I mean, if there is an impact on earnings, it will be small. Let's put it that way.

Okay. Thank you. That's great. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. We will now take the next question. From the line of Michael Hattner from Berenberg, please go ahead.

Thank you very much. I just had two follow-up questions. One is... I think I probably answered it, but I just want to double check what is the leverage now, given you've reduced debt by 1.2 billion. And the other question is on health in the UK. It's almost like a personal question. I've got a relative who's saying it's the greatest thing, buying a private insurance contract, basically because people buy it because they want to claim. It's not, oh, just in case, I will claim it. How close are you to managing this given that potentially you have a change in behavior here? Thank you.

So on leverage, Michael, you know that our denominator is around $90 billion. So you have directly the impact with the $1 billion non-renewable of that debt. And on health in the U.K., So we believe it's a fundamental change in the market. And you know that our stance is that over time it will be positive because it means fundamentally that the NHS will not be able to cover or to give coverage as much as in the past, and therefore people will go more for private insurance, which also means that we need to design the right products so that they are affordable to a larger population. portion of the population. But coming back to that change and the impact on us short term, part of it will be dealt with with pricing. And there's more to come, very clearly. Only a small part of our price increases have taken place in Q3. But part of it is also very much about the claims management and what we call pathways. In other words, how we manage the patient's move from GPs to specialists to analysis and so on in order both to deliver the best service for our customer and to reduce the cost for us.

Brilliant. Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry. So as we said, it will take us another 12 to 18 months to get back to the right level of profitability in that business.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We will now take the next question from the line of Henry Heathfield from Morningstar. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question, Alban. Congratulations on the results. Just one question from me. On the pricing effects within P&C personal lines, and apologies if this has already been covered, it's plus 26%, 26.1% in UK and Ireland. And I was just wondering if you could perhaps reiterate or outline what line that relates to and whether that is just covering kind of increased severity and frequency or whether there's some other kind of catching up dynamic that's going on in there so um hello henry it's it's um the vast majority of it is is the motor and and you know that the uh

The profitability in the UK motor market, not Ireland, but UK motor market was not satisfactory to say the least. And hence the significant price increases that we had. It's mainly severity because it's cost inflation. And now we are, as we said at half year, we are writing business at a combined ratio below 100%.

Could I take that as partially that you feel that AXA was slightly below the market, or would that be an incorrect read?

I mean, I think when you look at our performance before inflation kicked in, say on UK motor, and again, not Ireland, but UK motor, we were in the pack and clearly not leading in terms of profitability.

And is there a shift in distribution in the UK or not at all, arrangements?

No, not specifically. The only thing is you may know that we have launched a third direct platform under the brand of Mojo to gain scale and to diversify our offer, and that's doing pretty well.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. We have no further questions. I will now hand back to Anu Venkataraman from closing statements.

Thank you for your interest. If you have any follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Investor Relations. Have a good day.