Axa Sa Ord

Good morning, and thank you for joining AXA's nine-month 2025 Activity Indicators Call. Our Group CFO, Albon de Mainel, will walk through the highlights from the press release that we published last night, after which we'll be ready to take your questions. With that, I turn it over to Albon.

Thank you, Anou, and good morning to all of you. Thank you for joining the call today. So let me start with the key highlights on nine months 25. Overall, we delivered a solid performance with total revenues increasing by 7% to 89 billion euros. This reflects the strength of our franchise, which, as you know, is well diversified by line of business with 60% in P&C and 40% in life and health. And it's also balanced between B2B and B2C. All our geographies are delivering a consistent execution of our organic growth strategy, which is one of the key levers of our current plan. We continue to operate at a high level of capital with a sovereign city ratio at 222%. In the quarter, the group's financial strength was further affirmed by the decision from Moody's to upgrade its rating from AA3 to AA2. So let me now go through the key numbers of the release and I start with P&C. P&C revenues were up 5% to 46 billion euros, well balanced between the groups, three equally sized businesses, comprising of one large and specialty risks at AXA Excel, two small and medium sized risks in France, Europe and international markets, and three personal lines. At AXA Excel Insurance, premiums were up 4% to 13 billion euros. Prices were up 0.3% on renewables with the deceleration versus 1H25, predominantly in property pricing, which was down minus 4% in nine months versus minor 2% in 1H. This does not surprise us given the low level of industry NADCAT losses. In financial lines, we see the quantum of decline starting to flatten. And in casualty, pricing is plus 7% ahead of loss trends. So pricing in the majority of our business remains attractive, and we are growing with returns in excess of our cost of capital. In addition, our retention continues to be high. So based on what we see today and how we expect the market to evolve in the near term, We believe we can maintain AXA excels profitability in dollar terms in this plan with a number of levers. First, better investment income. We are still replacing lower yielding assets by higher yielding assets. Two, expense management. And three, given that we are a large net buyer of reinsurance, through more favorable reinsurance pricing. Our commercial lines XXL comprise of small and medium-sized risks, and you know that some of our competitors classify those as retail lines. In these lines, premiums were up 4% to 15 billion euros, with resilient pricing and good volume in France and international markets. And we expect margins to expand further as higher pricing is earned through. In personal lines, revenues were up 7% to 15 billion euros with good growth in both motor and non-motor. Our competitive positioning is strong. We saw close to a 1 million increase in net new contracts while we increased prices by 5%. So that will drive further margin improvement as it is earned through in the next month and year. So we have a good momentum in personal lines, both on pricing and on volumes. Finally, in reinsurance, revenues were up 8% to 2.4 billion euros, primarily driven by volume growth supported by alternative capital. Our reinsurance business is today well diversified with the majority of premiums from non-property lines. And partnering with Alternative Capital will help us better navigate the cycle and manage profitability. One last point on P&C. Our NatCat experience was below our prorated annual budget, in line with 1H level. And as a reminder, we managed NatCat together with PYD and discount benefit. Moving on to life and health. In short-term business, revenues were up 5% to 13 billion euros, reflecting disciplined pricing. In long-term business, revenues were up 11% to 29 billion euros, driven by strong performance in unit-linked, up 17% from successful sales initiatives across all geographies. Protection was up 11%, notably in Hong Kong, reflecting a commercial campaign, as well as in Switzerland and in Japan. And GA savings were up 6%, mainly driven by growth in France and in Italy. Next, on net flows. They were 5.6 billion euros positive year-to-date, compared to 0.9 billion euros last year, driven by the strong sales that I've just described and a decrease in surrenders. The improvement in net flows reflects the success of our initiatives to rejuvenate the life and savings business and will fuel our earnings growth over time. Moving on to new business. Life and health PVP was up 1% and NBV was down 1%. The NBV margin declined slightly to 4.5%. This results from strong sales in savings and protection with life PVP up 7%. But that was offset by discipline pricing and pruning measures in the multinational health and protection book, which is currently reported with AXA France Business. And overall, these measures delivered a 50 bps improvement in our health and PV margin. Life saw an unfavorable impact from actuarial changes implemented in the fourth quarter of 2024 in Japan. So I want to clarify two things. One, these changes that we made last year in Japan do not impact profitability in the short and medium term. And we can discuss that in the Q&A if you want. And adjusting for this change that we did last year New business CSM on a real like-for-like basis would have been up roughly 6% at nine months 2025. Moving to Solvency II. Our Solvency II ratio was at 222% at the end of September, up two points from the first half, mainly explained by three items. First, plus seven points from normalized capital generation, minus six points of accrued foreseeable dividends and annual share buybacks. Second, plus two points from the sale of AXA-IM, net of the full 3.8 billion euros of anti-dilutive share buyback currently being executed. But please note that we have taken the full impact of the share buyback, though only 63% was completed as of October 28th. And third, minus one point, from the negative impact of debt redemption executed in July. So we have disclosed some additional details in our press release on the impact of the end of the transitional period in Solvency II. On a pro forma basis, adjusting for the loss of eligibility of grandfather debt, you will see that our solvency ratio will still remain at strong levels. And from what we saw from the European Commission a couple of days ago, we are confident that the Solvency II revision, of which we will have the benefit in 2027, will lead to a significant increase in our solvency. Given the recent focus on French political risk, we have to clarify two things. One, our Solvency II ratio has zero sensitivity to the OAT spread widening. Two, on the topic of French politics, we have received many questions on the various budget amendments currently being discussed in the National Assembly. These discussions are similar to the ones we had last year. There is a long legislative process still ahead, and the final budget could look very different from what it may seem today. Last point on our balance sheet, given the recent credit events in the U.S. Overall, we have a high-quality investment portfolio reflecting disciplined asset allocation over the years. The vast majority is liquid fixed income invested in high-grade ratings. We have a balanced portfolio of alternative credit with strong safeguards. It comprises largely of residential mortgages, infra and agency debt with high rating, guarantees and low leverage. We have 8.8 billion euros of middle market lending book, which is highly diversified with an average ticket size of 8 million euros and screwed to non-cyclical industries. And we have private equity, a private equity book of 18 billion euros, also well diversified and focused on EBITDA positive companies. So thanks to our strict investment guideline, we have extremely limited or no exposure to credits which have been in the news recently. To conclude, so we believe we show very good numbers overall with continued growth momentum. This is driven by our diversified and balanced business model. We are executing on our plan with disciplined growth. And this gives us confidence to deliver 2025 UPS growth at the top end of our three-year plan target range of 6% to 8%. I'm now happy to take your questions.

Thank you, sir. 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 1 on their touchtone telephone. To remove your question, please press star and 2. The first question comes from David Barma of Bank of America.

Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, on Excel, can you give us an update on pricing versus loss trend by main category of business in the third quarter, please? And then linked to that, the volumes at Excel were flat in Q3 compared to last year. So could you give us some color on your growth appetite in this part of the cycle and where you're seeing the best growth opportunities, please? Then secondly, on health, can you please come back on the point you were making on the French multinational health portfolio? Can you remind us the measures you're taking there and when you expect the volumes to recover and if there will be an impact on margins once that happens? Thank you.

Thank you, David. So first, on pricing versus loss trend. If we look at the various lines, if I start with the financial lines, which is the line that started first to be softer. At this point in time, the pricing is down 4%, but clearly we see a flattening of that decrease. I think we're getting to the bottom of it. But obviously, minus 4% is below loss trend. Second, in property, as I said, we see a softer market driven by NatCat. We will see benefit on NatCat reinsurance next year. And there again, so the minus 4% is below loss trend, but I would insist on the fact that property is extremely profitable. And third in the large lines is casualty. Casualty is up 7% and it is above loss trend. So overall, it's true that two of the three lines have pricing which is below loss trend. But what we believe and what I said in my introductory comments is that we have other means to offset those uh this uh this pricing impact again reinsurance because clearly from the discussions we have with insurers prices will come down uh in in 2026 second investment income and third expenses but then there is also as you point out in your second question the uh the volumes uh aspects and adaxa excel We are growing in a number of places. We are growing, for instance, in property, because as I said, that's a place where pricing is good. But we're also growing in specific areas that have a very dynamic momentum. When I think, for instance, in energy property, revenues for the first nine months are up 61%. So you see that there are areas, I mentioned this, but we also have Mid-market in the U.S., which, as you know, is one of our growth initiatives, we are up 37% on that line. So we shouldn't believe that this environment is negative because soft or lower pricing doesn't mean unprofitable. It's still a very profitable business in the vast majority of our lines. And second, there are a good number of areas where we can grow volumes profitably. On your question on health, so it's a specific business which today is reported in AXA France numbers, which is a multinational business. And on this, there are two things. One, we changed some actual assumptions from last year, notably on mortality, because we realized we had probably true optimistic mortality assumptions. And that's an impact on our NBV, not NDCSM, but NBV, because it's a short-term business. And therefore, we are making sure that the pricing of that business is in line with our new assumptions. It's as simple as that.

The next question, sir, is from Michael Hutner of Barenburg.

Thank you very much. I was finding it hard to find questions because you're so complete, but could you go back and could you give us a little bit more feel for the credit mix and exposures? I know you gave us a large array of numbers, but is there – how can I ask it – And here, I'm not even sure, it looks okay, but what could be, if I look at it in terms of hypothetical, what could be the worst, or if we imagine things getting a little bit worse, where would you see the risk? I think that's the best. And then just very, very briefly on UK and Ireland, we had this lovely presentation I think a month ago, but UK and Ireland, the pricing worsened in Q3. I just wondered if there's any comment there. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. So on the credit mix exposure, I believe we have a very robust balance sheet and credit quality. Just to remind you before I talk about numbers, we sold AXA-IM, but we retained 300 investment professionals in AXA. From those 300 professionals, around 50 are credit analysts. So we do our credit analysis ourselves and we give what we call the credit universe to AXA-IM so that they know what to invest in when it's about listed exposure. So on corporate bonds, starting by the liquid part, we have roughly 110 billion of corporate bonds with on average a single A rating. More importantly, we have less than 3 billion in triple B minus exposure. And, you know, that's always the thing to look at because that's the risk of a fuller angel. And we are not concerned by that exposure. And more generally, we have strong guidelines, notably when it comes to trade sectors. Now, your question was probably more on the illiquid or the private credit part. So on this, we have 65 billion. But out of those 65, as I've mentioned, eight is really private credit, meaning loans to mid-market corporates with high diversification because it's 8 billion, but it's on average 8 million lines. So you see that you have 1,000 lines. And again, we are giving guidelines to our GPs when it comes to the covenants that we want, we want first lean, we want certain trade sectors, and they have to comply obviously with those guidelines. We don't give them full liberty, full freedom on the selection of the various lines. And that explains why we were hardly exposed to the names in the press over the last weeks. In addition to that, We have residential mortgages from the Netherlands, from Switzerland in particular, for 18 billion. We have CLO trenches AAA and AA for another 18 billion. And there, again, given the seniority, you would need a 40% loss on the CLO total to touch the first euro of our exposure in those CLOs. We also have infradet for 8 billion. And I'm looking at, what am I missing? Yes, and we also have commercial real estate debt for 7 billion. So diversified, and again, very well structured and with clear guidelines for our GPs. What could be a worst case? It really depends on the scenario, but as it is today with decent GDP growth all over, and I mean, I'm not worried on our credit exposure. On UK and Ireland motor, so what happened in the UK was that the start of the year was soft, but then it's stable. Over the last four or five months, pricing has been stable in the UK with decent profitability and growth in volumes. In Ireland, we've seen some more pressure on pricing recently. Yes. Brilliant. Very clear. Thank you.

The next question is from Andrew Baker of Goldman Sachs.

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one, just on the French buyback and dividend tax proposals, I appreciate what you're saying. It's very early. The outcome's uncertain. But are you able to just give us a sense of how you expect the process to play out? And I guess what are the key dates that we should be looking out for next? And then secondly, on the grandfathered debt, Should we expect you to do any further redemptions and reissuance for Solvency II eligible debt, or are you happy for the full impact to hit the ratio given, obviously, as you said, you've got the Solvency II review benefits coming through thereafter? Thank you.

Sorry, Andrea, I'm not sure I understood your second question on the grandfather debt.

Yeah, obviously, you've done some work on that already in the second half. Should we expect you to do more? I think you've got $3 billion or so left. should we expect you to sort of do more redemption and some reassurance for Solvency II eligible debt? So how much are you willing to actually let hit the Solvency II ratio?

Okay. Thank you, Andrew. I'll start with the second because it's easier and faster than the first. On your question on grandfather debt, so the grandfather debt will de facto become senior on January 1st. Our view is that we will take an economic view on that debt. Either we need it for cash purposes and we would keep it, but at this point in time, we have plenty of cash at the AXA level, or we will repay it, but we don't have a lot of needs for senior debt. And by the way, we don't have a lot of needs for additional subordinated debt either, given the likely increase in solvency that we will have in 2027. Now, on the political process in Parliament. First, what you understand is that today the budget is voted line by line, amendment by amendment. That's the way for some political parties on both ends, to put it that way, to show to the electorate that they're taking the right measures. But at the end of the day, next week, there will be a vote on the total budget law. And it's not unlikely that that law is not voted as such. Then it goes to the Senate. And there is a back and forth between the Senate and the National Assembly. And at the very end, if it's within time, the National Assembly has the last say on the budget. But if it's not within time, which is 70 days, so that's probably until mid-December, I would suppose, then We have no budget as such, which is exactly where we were last year. And the parliament votes a so-called special law, which is, in fact, the copy-paste of the current budget. So that's exactly what happened in 2025. They couldn't agree to a budget at the end of 2024, voted that special law, and I think it was a unanimous vote of all parties because they all realized that as opposed to what's happening in the U.S., we can't have a shutdown. That's simply not happening in France. You have a special law, which is the reconduction, which is English. It's a French word. Sorry for that. It's a Gallicism. But the repeat of the current budget, which would have slightly, but only slightly positive impact on our budget deficit. because you gain the inflation fundamentally on the tax thresholds that you have. So that's the process in the next two months, and so we'll see where we land.

That's really helpful. Thank you so much.

The next question, sir, is from Thomas Bateman of Mediobanca.

Hi, good morning. Thanks very much for taking my question. The first question is just on AI. I think it's a year since you presented on the topic. I was just wondering if you could share roughly how much you're investing and how you evaluate capital allocation to these type of projects versus alternative uses of capital. And then the second question is just on leverage. I'm just wondering what's the best way to look at it. And obviously, you could look quite comfortable under your own gearing metrics. but we seem to be quite close to the limits on solvency too. I was just wondering what you think is the right lens to look at leverage. Thank you.

Thank you, Thomas, for your two questions. So on AI, obviously, AI is very much front and center of our IT investments. And to give you an idea, approximately 40% of our IT spend is investments. That being said... To be ready for AI, you need to have prepared your systems from the ground up. You need to have moved to the cloud. You need to have the right data set. And so that's also where we are investing in. We are investing in getting out of mainframe. We have almost finalized our transition to the cloud. But you need to be ready. So there's a lot of traction, obviously. And we're getting ready for that. But I wouldn't say that it's only AI. It's everything that you need to get to the use of AI. And when we say AI, it's predictive AI, generative AI, and agentic AI. On leverage, you're right that with the debt that we have today, the one which is grandfathered and the one that we've just issued, we have saturated... our Tier 2 capacity to the point that, as you may have seen in the press release, roughly 300 million of Tier 3 is now a haircut. But with the end of the grandfathering, the current 4.2 billion, of which you saw that we repaid 1.2 in October, will disappear from the Tier 2 and Tier 1 pockets. And that will give us additional capacity if we want to issue in the next years. But as I said previously, given what we have issued, given the uplift in solvency that we have in 27, we see little needs, everything else being equal, to issue further debt.

The next question is from Farol Kanis of JP Morgan.

Hi, everybody. I hope you can hear me with my new headset. But I wanted to go back to the point you made about investment income and expenses as a way of maintaining profitability at AXA Excel. So of these two things that you mentioned, I mean, what's new? I'm guessing when you refer to investment income, are you talking about the fact that yields remain higher than you planned? So you're not talking about taking more risk? And then on expenses, can you talk a little bit about what would go beyond your current plan so we can understand what to add going forward? And then my second question is, just on your credit exposure, I believe that a large proportion of this is in participating funds. So could you just talk about the shareholder versus policyholder split roughly so that we can have some extra comfort on that? Thank you.

So... On the Excel investment income, the short answer is no, we're not taking more risk, but you have two simple factors. One is we're simply growing the balance sheet with revenues and growth in balance sheet simply means higher investment income. And second, it's the fact that we do have higher yielding assets. Plus, I believe, but I may be wrong on this, that we probably have seen the trough in terms of PE distribution. You start to see a rise in M&A in the U.S., and that could lead to better distribution from PE funds going forward. I'm not counting on this. The other two factors are sufficient, but it could come on top. On expenses, I think at some point there is the projects that you have and the plan that you have. And by the way, we will keep investing in our initiative in the U.S. where we want to accelerate in ENF and mid-market. But when the market becomes softer, there are also a number of projects that you can postpone, you can reduce, and so on. So you have flexibility there. And I believe there's also further transformation in AXA Excel on the expense side that we can think of. It will take a bit of time. Maybe it will not be all done in 26, but for the next period, I believe we have some room to reduce expenses at Excel and notably through AI. On credit exposure. We disclose in our financial supplement the part which is in participating fund. On average, it's 60%. And I think you have some details of that in the financial supplement.

Okay, thank you very much.

The next question is from Andrew Crayon of Autonomous.

Good morning, all. Two questions. Firstly, on Excel's $13 billion of revenue, could you give us a bit more of a split in monetary terms between the different areas? Firstly, how much is U.S. and how much is non-U.S. of that? And then secondly, when you go into the U.S. side, could you give us a sense as to how much that is financial lines property, large corporate, and then the bits which you're interested in, sort of the mid-market and the specialty lines. And then the second question is, you've talked about the benefit of Solvency II reform in 2027. Could you give us some sense as to what you think the points benefit of that is, and compare and contrast that with the potential impact on your Solvency if you did a burndown or, you know, recreated the global financial crisis of 2008-9, what would that do to your sovereignty?

Okay.

So on Excel, as you know, we don't disclose a lot of details, but I would say the following. One, it's roughly 50% US, 50% non-US in terms of revenues. On volumes, I think the important thing to have in mind is the flexibility that we have. I'll give you an example. You saw that financial lines had a soft market over the last three years. Financial lines, probably seven years ago, was 1.3 billion revenues. It went up to 2.5 billion with the hard market. is down to 1.2 billion. And you didn't see it overall because that was compensated by growth in other areas. So that's the way we want to manage AXA XL, growing in some lines, decreasing in some others where it makes sense. And I would insist again that we want to grow because most of our lines are still in a very profitable territory. On the Solvency II reform, So we are waiting for the final confirmation of the trial log, as it's called, to have the final number. What we've said for a number of periods now is that the impact should be between 10 and 20 points. At this stage, it's probably at the upper end of that range, but I want to be cautious on this. because it's not finalized yet. Things could change, and we need to take that into account. And so that gives you a view on how it would compare, for instance, to the points we would lose on a financial crisis. As you know, it's 30 points. To be very transparent, I have not yet recalculated what the sensitivities would be in the new framework post-72 revision.

Okay. You can't do any more on the U.S. business in terms of looking at the different areas other than what you said about financial lines. Is that where you're sticking?

I mean... At this stage, again, we need to be fair in our disclosure, and we are not reporting more detail than this publicly. So I'm sorry for that.

Thank you.

The next question is from Dominic O. Mahoney of BNP Body by Xane.

Hello, and thank you for such detailed responses to the questions thus far. I've got a few left. Just coming back to the Excel investment opportunity, I suppose I had assumed there would be some headwind from discounting from here, given some of the movements, especially in the U.S., Is that fully offset, you think, by the net financial results dynamics? That's all within your thinking on the flat dollars of earnings. The second question is just on the retail side, and I suppose retail and SME side, there's been some commentary that frequency has been quite benign across some European markets. I was curious to hear whether that's been your experience. And if so, what do you think might be driving that? And then thirdly, just coming back to the Solvency II reforms, the percentage points could, of course, be quite large. Do you think it changes anything in the real world for you? Do you think it actually impacts your remittance capacity when you think through what sorts of entities are going to see the benefit and what drives their remittance capacity? Do you see any impact there? And or do you think it changes your incentives on asset allocation? Do you anticipate any mix shift in that? Thank you.

Thank you, Dominic. On Excel investment and discount. So as you know, discount has two components. One is the rates. And so you need to look at, on average, the five-year rates. And there is some volatility in that rate coming from the tension between budget deficits on one hand and lower growth on the other end. But our belief is that it will remain at a high level compared at least to history. So that's the first point. But the second point is also the duration of your current year claims. And you saw that in half year, for instance, we kept a strong level of discount benefit because the mix of lines was skewed to more long tail lines, which is normal because when you see that casualty in AXA XL has price increases of 7%, by definition, you grow your casualty lines faster than your short tail lines. That also explains why we believe that the discount benefit should remain at a reasonable level and therefore should not be a strong headwind going forward. On frequency for retail, yes, I think it's true that we have better frequency in motor than last year, simply also because it was less rainy in Europe than last year. That's as basic as that. And so we do see an improvement. And that's why when we see this plus the 5% price increase on average in motor, we believe that we have some room to improve margin. On the sovereignty to reform, what I would suggest is that when we disclose our numbers in February, we give you the full view. on what it will really mean, both in terms of solvency and in terms of remittance. I think at this stage, it's too early, given that we don't know yet what the outcome will be. And sorry for that.

Brilliant.

Thank you.

As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your touchtone telephone. The next question is from Michael Hutner of Berenberg.

Thank you so much. Just to reinsurance buying, so I'm working out that it's a 300 million benefit. I just wondered if my math is right. So I'm assuming very rough numbers, 2 billion kind of protection, so 3 billion premiums. My numbers are probably incredibly wrong. a price decline of 10%, so that's $300 million. And then on Japan, you said if we asked, you'd explain why the lower margin is kind of not particularly meaningful for earnings now. Thank you.

Sorry, Michael. Could you repeat your first question? I'm not sure I got it.

It's just on the benefit of lower reinsurance costs. I tried to work out a number. I mean, it's a bit... I'm assuming 3 billion total premiums, 10% decline, that's 300 million, but I have no idea. I'm just making it up.

I would say what we see is clearly a market where prices are coming down, notably on Netcat. It's also positive for reinsurance buyers on Netcat. on the long-tail lines, but the more important impact will be on short-tail-like property. It's probably, it's a bit difficult to say at this stage how much it will be, and it's still being negotiated with our reinsurers. I would rather not taint that discussion with reinsurers, and I will tell you in February what the outcome is. But net-net, there is obviously a strong benefit for us. On Japan, So the actual changes we made in Japan were the following. We realized two things. One was that surrenders were slightly higher than what we had projected. So we increased our surrender rate in our projection. As such, it has no bearing or hardly any on next year's earnings because what it means fundamentally is that you will have fewer policies in 20 or 30 years. That's an impact, but not that you will have lower margin next year. And second, there are some products that we model better, notably introducing options and guarantees in the modeling, so TVOGs. There again, when you unwind your CSM, you unwind those TVOGs, and that has no bearing on on new earnings. So we, this new business CSM last year was impacted because of that in the risk neutral environment, but with no impact on our real world earnings, short to medium term. And compared to those numbers, we grew new business CSM this year by 6% if you adjust. So we believe it's a good performance. Fantastic. Very clear. Thank you.

The next question is from Andrew Baker of Goldman Sachs.

Great. Thank you for taking my follow-up question. Just a quick one on AXA XL and the casualty pricing that you're talking about. Are you able to give us a little bit more color on what specific lines you're writing here? I guess I'm just trying to square the 7% price increases being above lost cost trends. So any additional color there would be helpful. Thank you.

So we are obviously writing a lot of lines, both in the US and international. We do primary and excess in the US. We do construction casualty and so on. So there is different dynamics in those lines. I would say it's probably... lower price increases in international casualty, and higher price increases in excess casualty in the U.S. And overall, it comes to 7%. But the underlying dynamic of the loss trend is obviously different if you compare Europe and U.S. and even within U.S., primary versus excess.

Great. Thank you.

Okay. Ms. Venkat Aramahan, there are no more questions registered this time. May I turn it back to you for any closing remarks?

Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for joining our call. If you have any follow-up questions, then please don't hesitate to reach out to Investor Relations. Have a nice day.

Thank you very much.