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Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SCORE second quarter 2026 results conference call. Today's call is being recorded. There will be an opportunity to ask questions after the presentation. In order to give all participants a chance to ask questions, we kindly ask you to limit the number of your questions to two. At this time, I would now like to hand the call to Mr. Thomas Fossard. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to SCORE Q2 2026 results conference call. I'm joined on the call today by Thierry Leger, Group CEO, and Philippe Ruede, Group CFO, as well by the other COMEX member. Can I please ask you to consider the disclaimer on page two of the presentation? And now I would like to hand over to Thierry.

Thank you, Thomas. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. We are pleased to report a strong and clean set of results in the second quarter and for the first six months of the year. Group net income reached €409 million in the first half, corresponding to an annualized return on equity of 19%. Our balance sheet resilience has grown with a solvency ratio of 220% up 5 points compared to the year end 2025. The underlying capital generation is in line with our 2026 guidance, reflecting the solid performance of all our activities. We also had some additional positives during the first half, including the benign cat activity and further ALM refinements. These allowed us to add resilience to the balance sheet and lower our debt leverage. Turning to our three businesses, P&C continued its strong performance, delivering a combined ratio of below 80% in the first half. This is supported by a relatively benign CAT activity and an excellent attritional loss ratio, demonstrating the quality of our well-diversified P&C portfolio. Our strategy to grow in diversifying lines of business is paying off. At the mid-year renewals, SCORE applied disciplined underwriting in a competitive environment, allowing us to preserve our technical margin with a limited two percentage points underwriting ratio increase, whilst still finding attractive opportunities to grow our P&C treaty portfolio by 3.2% As in previous renewals, growth was mainly driven by our preferred and diversifying lines of business, whilst we remained very cautious in U.S. casualty. In addition, premiums in alternative solutions grew by more than 70%, demonstrating the strength of our teams and franchise in that segment. Before moving on to life and health, I would like to say a few words regarding the NETCAT events that are ongoing at this moment. Europe and Canada are experiencing devastating wildfires. Japan just had a magnitude 6.8 earthquake on Tuesday night. First of all, our thoughts are with the people, the businesses and intervention teams impacted. As these events are still developing, it remains too early to assess the ultimate loss impact. However, at this point in time, we think that the impact on score will be relatively modest. Turning to life and health, the insurance service result stands at 157 million euro over the first six months. This includes the negative 64 million one-off arbitration impact. Since the Life and Health Reset in 2024, we have now performed six quotas in a row in line with our expectations, further building our confidence in the quality of our Life and Health portfolio and assumptions. We are satisfied with the new business production in Life and Health at €216 million of CSM. This was mainly driven by protections, but our FinSol Financial Solutions and Longevity Pipeline is growing, positioning us well for the second half of the year. Our teams remain highly active, building a solid flow of opportunities across traditional and structured solutions, leveraging scores, franchise, and expertise in life and health across the globe. Lastly, investments continue to provide a stable and positive contribution to group earnings. Based on this strong set of results for the first half year, I see SCORE well positioned to achieve our targets for the last year of our three-year strategic plan Forward 2026. Philippe, over to you.

Thank you, Thierry. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for SCORE's Q2 2026 results presentation. I will briefly take you through a few Key highlights of the quarter before we move to Q&A. The key message is clear. SCORE delivers another strong quarter. All three business activities contribute positively, reflecting the strength of our franchise, the quality of our diversified model, and our disciplined execution across underwriting, investments, and capital management. Group net income reaches 188 million euros in the quarter on an adjusted basis. On the same adjusted basis, this translates into an ROE of 18% for the quarter and 19% for the first half of the year, well above our forward 2026 target of 12%. Scores economic value stands at 9 billion euros at the end of June, up 10.5% at Constant Economics over the first half of the year. Our solvency position remains strong with an estimated solvency ratio at 220% up five points versus the end 2025 and stable compared with Q1 2026, despite the deleveraging actions taken during the quarter. Turning now to P&C, the quarter is particularly strong. The combined ratio is at 79.5%, supported by an excellent underwriting profitability, a benign NatCat environment, and our ability to build buffers while still delivering a strong reported performance. P&C New Business CSM increases year on year, reaching 255 million euros in Q2. and 978 million euros in the first half. Year to date, we have maintained a disciplined approach to portfolio management, delivering growth while containing net underwriting margin pressure and benefiting from lower retrocession costs. In life and health, performance remains stable and in line with expectations. The insurance service result stands at 49 million euros, but excluding the one-off arbitration impact, it would have been 113 million euros with a positive experience variance of 4 million euros. This confirms the benefits of the portfolio actions taken over the last six quarters. In investments, we continue to benefit from the higher rate environment. The regular income yield reaches 3.6%, return on invested assets is at 3.7%, and the reinvestment rate remains attractive at 4.3% as of June 30th. On ALM, we made further progress by refining our hedging strategies. Consequently, we have increased the duration of the invested asset portfolio to 4.4 years compared with 4.1 years in Q1 2026, taking advantage of the higher interest rates. By strengthening balance sheet protection against interest rates and foreign exchange shocks, we support greater solvency stability over time. Let's now look at the June-July renewals. Market conditions remained competitive, particularly in property CAT, but we found attractive opportunities in other areas. eGPI from traditional reinsurance increased by 1.3% over the period, supported by strong momentum in specialty lines, which were up 19.8%. On the other hand, alternative solution eGPI increased by 133%. Year to date, as Thierry said, the increase in the net underwriting ratio has been very limited. This demonstrates our ability to navigate a more competitive market with discipline while continuing to grow profitably and selectively. Overall, Q2 confirms the core message of our plan. Strong earnings, disciplined underwriting, attractive investment income, robust capital, and continued progress on balance sheet resilience. We enter the second half of the year from a position of strength with confidence in our ability to deliver forward 2026. Thank you very much. I will now hand over to Thomas for the Q&A question.

Thank you very much, Philippe. On page 22, you will find the forthcoming schedule events. With that, we can now move to the Q&A session. Can I remind you to please limit yourself to two questions each? Operator, let's move to the Q&A session.

Thank you, sir. This is the Coruscant 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. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Shanti Kang, Bank of America.

Hi, afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. So I just had one on P&C to start with. So if I try and work out the underlying attritional, it looks like the second quarter of this year underlying was super strong compared to Last year, is that surprising to you? I was just wondering if you could help us characterize the underlying, especially given the IBNR loading taken today. And then the second one was just a sort of hypothetical question. If ultimately 2026 proves to be another relatively benign cat year, is your preference to allow earnings to flow through or is it to keep building prudence or to keep building excess solvency, for example? So in other words, where does the next Euro of favorable experience go into the second year? Thank you.

Thank you, Shanti. I'll take the first question on the attritional. So yes, the second quarter delivered another strong underlying performance before any additional prudence. The underlying attritional loss ratio remains broadly in line with the very favorable trend observed in 25 and 26. As always, there's volatility quarter to quarter, whether favorable or unfavorable. And so for that reason, we believe the most relevant indicator is the full year rolling 12-month views, which provide a more representative picture of the underlying profitability. And this has been broadly stable, I would say. The strength of the underlying performance is based on the underwriting years, 25-26 mainly, which from a price adequacy are very strong. And so we think this strong attritional underlying should continue for a number of quarters to come.

On your second question, directionally, we would not let the good cat go through P&L, but rather continue in our current approach, which is to use it as an opportunity to build buffers in IFRS and, in spirit, normalize to an 87% cat ratio.

That's great. Thank you.

Combined ratio.

The next question is from Andrew Baker, Goldman Sachs.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. First one, just on the P&C reinsurance revenue, are you able to give us a sense of what the constant FX growth would have been without the EGPI revisions on the existing business? And I guess, can you talk a little bit about your process for these revisions? I guess, if I look at you, you've obviously done this through 2Q, whereas a lot of your peers, we saw a similar impact on Q1. Just curious if there's a reason why you think there might have been a timing difference here. Secondly, can you just help me think about the mix effects on the combined ratio? I guess on a year-to-date basis, it looks like, at least from an exposure perspective, you've grown CAT quite a lot, which presumably is favorable from a mix perspective. But then you've also grown on the alternative side a lot as well, which presumably is maybe a higher combined ratio business. So leaving pricing to one side, how should I think about the mix impact going forward from the business written already this year? Thank you.

Yeah, so I will hand it over to Jean-Paul for the future of eGPI, but in terms of the impact on reported, the revision would have 2% impact and the effects around 2% as well. So on the constant effects, it will be flat and the eGPI would be 2%.

And then to your question about the process, this is something that we do every quarter, and I've always done, where the underwriters assess the EGBA estimates of the sedents with the latest information. Here, what we've seen, we've seen some revisions also in Q1, but to, I'd say, a lesser extent. And Q2 is just when we had more information. I think what we're seeing is insurance companies are having a tough time meeting their premium estimates for underwriting year 2025 mainly. And as a result, we've started to take a more conservative approach in our estimates for 2026 based on the information we have at hand. So we think we added some more conservatism, but It really depends on how well the companies achieve their objectives in 2026. On your second question about the mix, if you don't mind repeating, your question was about the mix on the combined ratio?

Yeah, exactly. Just the fact that you've grown, obviously, in cat business from an exposure perspective a lot this year, which is presumably beneficial from a mix perspective. But then you've also grown alternative a lot as well, which presumably might be a headwind. Do you expect the mix to be a positive or negative on the combined ratio going forward based on the business written already this year?

Yeah, so I think the business mix is definitely a positive. And this is how you can see in the limited, you know, net honoring ratio that we expect from the renewals. If I decompose a little bit to your question on the alternative solutions, you have to remember in IFRS 17, The combined ratio is actually quite low because you take into account only the premium at risk versus the expected losses, which are limited. So the actually IFRS 17 combined ratio for AS is actually quite, you know, slightly better than I'd say the 87 or below 87 target. On the other hand, the amount of revenue that AS generates is small because you only take into account the premium at risk, not the entire eGPI. In terms of the business mix, what our underwriting actions have done is growing CAT, where we still see good price adequacy. Growing specialty in the areas in specialty where not only is there good price adequacy, but also where the combined ratio tends to be a little bit better and decreasing where we see price adequacy, you know, slipping and then the net combined ratio as a consequence gets higher. and then also reducing US casualty, which has a high net combined ratio. So the combination of all these actions has a positive effect on the overall net combined ratio.

Very clear. Thank you.

The next question is from Will Hardcastle, UBS.

Thank you. Thinking about the solvency level, how are you thinking about it being at the upper end of the current optimal range? And should we be thinking about a higher target range as a possibility, or does the 185 to 220 still hold? And should we be using this metric as maybe our core proxy on capital levels, or is that not the binding constraint here? Secondly, one of those specialty lines that you've grown, you call out for growth is credit insurity. I guess I'm just interested in what's making this much more attractive year to date. We're hearing it from a few competitors as well. And just wondering if there's a huge uptick in demand for the product or it's just where you're achieving this business off someone else. Thank you.

Yeah, so... On the solvency too, right, you're right to note that we are at the upper end of the current range, but like quite consistently, we've been saying that the priority is balance sheet resilience. And in that sense, we will talk, of course, at Invest Today on how we see that in the next strategic plan. And I can't really comment more at the moment, but directionally, We want to operate higher.

On your question, Will, on credit and surety. So what we put into credit and surety, there's credit and most of the trade credit renewals are really at January 1st. But then there's surety and other credit products. and what we've done is build a very diversified portfolio across the credit and surety segment. There's a lot of opportunities in surety over the last, say, 24 months. We see, for example, surety in Brazil as a market that's grown very substantially over the last two years and very profitably. There's also surety in India, which has been a developing market where we've been one of the leaders developing that market. And then the US, of course, remains a very large market. In that segment in the US, there's been a number of losses going through and the US market is mainly an excessive loss market. And as a result, the prices on the excessive loss have increased. And then we've been able to push for sort of compensating business on a more proportional basis on some of those programs. So at June, July, it's still a relatively small renewal overall. And the growth was driven by a few transactions, growth coming out of Latin America, the US, and then one large transaction in Europe. And going forward, it's a line of business that we think where price adequacy remains good. Competition is still a lot of competition But I think given our franchise and I think our very significant presence in this line of business, we remain one of the go-to markets in that field and I think remain well positioned for future growth in that segment in 27.

Thank you.

The next question is from Michael Hartner, Berenberg.

Fantastic. Thank you. I've got two of the – ideally, I'd like to ask what your targets are for the 3rd of December, but I guess you can't tell us quite yet. So, state of play on career? I think there's still an outstanding – Lawsuit, what could be the financial impact of that? And then the other question is, what's the buffer level? So you very helpfully said 300 million you added to buffers in Q1. I think looking back at the end of 2024, you had over 300 million, and I don't know what the figure is for 2025. Any help here would be very welcome. Thank you.

Hi Claire, we take your first one on Covia. So obviously this is all confidential, so there's not much we can say, but maybe just so much. First of all, on the second arbitration we are very confident. Personally, it ranks pretty low on my list of worries. But of course, it is there. And as with other arbitrations, it's something we will be focused on. We, however, expect the process to be a bit less heavy on this one. Allow me to say this as a non-legal expert, but we expect it to be a bit less heavy compared to the first one. As we said already, typically, arbitrations take two, three years. but again I'm very confident in the outcome of the second one. The key one was the first one that's now behind us and we are pleased to look ahead now.

On the buffers just to recall so in Q1 what we did Besides adding to the balance is that we transferred 300 million from IFRS into the best estimate liabilities. So impact on the overall prudence was zero of that, but it meant that it had a negative impact on the solvency too. And so that's what happened in Q1. And since you mentioned those 300 million, I mean, otherwise, we don't comment on the overall stock, but you will note that we have added in Q1 and that we have added in Q2 again, actually more than in Q1. And so we continue on that journey. Thank you.

The next question is from Kamran Hossein, JP Morgan.

Hi, two questions for me. The first one is just on the solvency to ratio. Clearly, you know, the last two courses you've taken actions to improve the quality of the ratio, kind of best estimate P&C liabilities, key one, deleveraging this quarter. Is it safe to assume that deleveraging is still the focus here on improving the quality there? Or is that something we have to wait till the 3rd of December to hear a bit more about? The second question is on CAVEA, the first arbitration, so the one that's actually kind of done it in the past now, hopefully. Does this mean that cash flow going forward in life and health will improve? I'm just totalling up the kind of cash flows from the last three and a half years from life and health, the operating ones, it doesn't seem like it's especially positive. So just interested in whether with the first arbitration being behind you, that means cash flow will improve in life and health. Thank you.

Yeah, so on your first question, I mean, the focus on balance sheet resilience includes the two things that you mentioned and the third thing being the absolute level of solvency ratio. So, yes, our mind is on putting buffers in the best estimate liabilities. Deleveraging and in terms of the deleverage, we will continue to deleverage. The question is at which speed. On the cash flow, so I would just caution you a little bit that I mean that The period that has passed, right, which is the number that you probably have in mind, included significant COVID-related claims, and therefore it's not a good basis for the extrapolation into the future. And I think in the overall cash flow, this will not have a significant impact given all the other aspects and the volatility of this number on a quarterly basis.

Okay, just to maybe just come back to be clear, so in the minus 42, for example, in Q2, some of that relates to COVID from 2020, 2021.

No, no, no, sorry, that is purely on your question about the retrocession and not what happened in Q2, but I think the The figure that you see in Q2, the typical fluctuations, we have it from quarter to quarter.

I might follow up with Tom after that, but thanks very much for the comment. Thank you.

The next question is from Ian Pearce, BNB Paribas.

Hi afternoon, thanks for taking my questions. The first one's just on the capital generation number. So at Q1 you guided three to five net of the dividend accrual and we're at five at Q1. It sounds like there has been positive net capital generation in Q2 again, quite a strong number. Just wondering why you're not bumping up the capital generation guidance for the year and if there's anything we should be thinking about into H2 around new business strain expectations or anything as to why that number has not been increased. And then the second one is just on the alternative solutions growth. Obviously, it's been very strong. We have heard peers sort of flag demand headwinds in alternative solutions. So just if you give some color on what you're seeing in the market, what's supporting that level of growth. And also with that growth now leading to alternative solutions has been 20% of eGPI. Do you see a maximum level for that or are you happy to continue to grow this work ahead of the wider traditional business? Thank you.

So on your first question, we would maintain the guidance of three to five because the drivers were good luck in NatCat and we don't want to extrapolate that necessarily into the future. and on the ALM what we did is improvements. I mean you can actually see that we lengthened the duration from 4.1 to 4.4 years on the asset side and that led to a lower requirement in the SCR and so these are improvements but more one-off in nature. And therefore, our guidance is really for the capital generation of the core business.

And the second question on AS.

So, year to date, the growth of AS has been really spread geographically across Europe, US, Latin America and Asia. At the June-July renewals, the growth has been specifically concentrated in the U.S. just because of the renewal dates in that region. What we see is the clients where we've grown has been two parts. One is growing shares on existing business, and this is, I think, as CORE becomes... A bigger challenger in this field. Clients are more comfortable allocating larger shares to us. The second one was new business and here a number of clients are just using AS as one of their capital management tools regardless of cycle. There are some clients that actually use AS when the market is hard and soften the impact of the price increases and there we do see demand going down. There's been also a number of clients that have been using AS when their surplus was depleted. And then as they repeal the surplus, that demand goes down as well. Those are not clients where we have large concentrations. The new business we're getting on right now is more clients that use it as a capital management tool. And we see further growth opportunity because our shares relative to market leaders remains still small. So I think there's still room for us to grow. And on your question of the relative size to P&C, I think right now we feel pretty comfortable that if there's room to grow in the segments that we're targeting, we're happy to continue the growth. We're not chasing the growth. It has to fit our risk appetite.

Perfect, thank you.

The next question is from Vinit Malhotra, Mediobanca.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you. So my question is more, if you look at the new business TSM in PNC Reads, 13% growth, and you're talking about retrocession benefits and other drivers, I'm just curious, I mean, if we're getting such good numbers, then even though retrocession economics, you know, Thierry, you said in one keyword favorable economics, but even though that might lead to some lower net top line, surely the combined ratio should be getting better. Is that a fair assessment of how this new business CSM retrocession and I'm not trying to preempt guidance here, but just a trend of thought. Is that what you would agree with, that the better retrocession dynamics, the combined ratio should get better? Second question is just on strong attritionals, loss ratio mentioned. The presentation also noted manmade. Could you just help me understand if manmade was Thank you. So on the new business CSM, I won't split it, but there's really three drivers. One is we have growth in volume, so that's a positive.

Then, as everyone else, we have a reduction in the margin and that's more substantial than the volume growth. And then the third one is the reduction in the seeded new business CSM on the retro side. And these three factors are roughly offsetting in the big scheme of things. And then on the combined ratio, I'm not sure I understand the question properly, but I will try. I mean, ultimately, if you look at it, the net combined ratio deterioration that we see is two, and we would say the gross one would have been three points. So it is helping us in dampening the deterioration of the combined ratio. Is that clear?

Yeah, sure. I was just trying to say that when you see such strong new business CSM in the face of these kind of markets, the temptation would be to think that the positive effects are a little better. So I get the three and two, but maybe the dynamic is that it will help more than we thought or more than you thought earlier.

I think the combined ratio, as hinted at the renewal, ultimately, like for like, we would expect as it earns through a deterioration of 2%. Sure.

Okay. Thank you very much. And on your second question on the nutritional, so this quarter man-made was, I'd say, in line with expectations. As I mentioned before, it's better to look at it rather than on a quarter-by-quarter basis, more on a rolling 12-month basis. And what we see for that is a fairly stable attritional for the past quarters. I think this is also why we've been able to build a significant amount of buffers in 2025-2026. And as I said, we As the portfolio underwritten 25-26 continues to earn through the rest of this year, I think the expectation would be similar trends to be observed in the second half of the year, bearing any unforeseen large man-made losses or large losses overall.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from James Shock City.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My two questions. Firstly, I just wanted to delve into the P&C re-expense ratio. So we're kind of 8.2%. It's up 40 basis points year on year. And there's a comment in the presentation that's pretty stable versus Q1, but I actually have it up also up about 40 basis points versus Q1. Obviously, some of that is coming from the top-line pressure, but there's quite a big move offsetting some of that underlying nutritional loss ratio improvement. So my question is really kind of, do you view the expense base as being the right one for the shape of the business going forward? And do you expect, therefore, to be able to grow it back down to historical levels? That's the first question. And then secondly, I just want to sort of ask A bit more about your use of retro, because if I look at your gross ISR versus the net ISR, then historically you're giving away about 50% of your gross ISR to retro, which seems a massive number. I understand the balance sheet is in a much better place, and you're introducing various amounts of buffers, etc., Is that the right business model to rely on, that amount of retro going forward? Obviously, you've got the capital market state, so I don't want to preempt anything from that, but it seems a very high level to you, given the strength of the ownership now.

Thank you. Yeah, so on the cost income ratio, I mean, this can fluctuate quite a bit quarter to quarter and it's also the divider is actually the net insurance revenue. So even the retro has an impact on the divider. So I would say broadly as a firm, we manage that at the group level and we're committed to our 1.2 billion of expenses. and we're on track to delivering that. Then on the second part, I take the compliment on the strength of our balance sheet. But to your question, I mean, I think it is a very legitimate question on the retrocession. And indeed, this is part of our reflections that as Thank you.

The next question is from Ben Cohen, RBC.

Thanks very much for taking my questions. Good afternoon. I had two questions, please. The first was if you could just say a bit more about the improvement in the gross price year-to-date in the second quarter versus the first quarter. I guess that was a bit of a surprise to me given trends at least in terms of U.S. net cap markets. And the second question was in terms of So, on your first question regarding the price,

It's really driven by portfolio mix. So what happens at the June-July renewals, we have a higher proportion of non-proportional than at the prior renewals. That's one effect. And then the second effect, within the non-proportional, we have a higher percentage of property CAT. And property CAT is where we've seen the largest price decreases relative to other lines of business. So this is why the gross price decrease for the June-July renewals is higher than what we saw in April and July. But again, the trend that we've seen has been very similar from the April and January renewals. I'd say on the property CAT, we saw price decreases in the U.S. around minus 20. Outside the U.S., we saw price increases on CAT between 10 and 20%. and other lines of business, I'd say very similar to what we saw in other renewals. So for us, June-July is a continuity of the prior renewals and the overall net impact on a net combined ratio remains limited. June-July is a relatively small renewal compared to the overall book and the impact of this on the overall book is very limited.

On the life and health insurance revenue, I mean, this is totally in line with our expectations because it is a consequence of us prioritizing profitable growth and focusing on higher margin opportunity. And as a result, we've seen lower insurance revenues in certain protection portfolios that we discontinued. Having said so, if you actually look at the constant effects in the first half of 2026, it would only be down 2.9%, and that's probably a fair representation of the reduction in volume.

Are you confident that that changes, or is there more of that effect to come through in the second half of the year?

We are confident in protection. We keep being very selective, and we are seeing the opportunities. Probably you've seen the new business CSM, which is OK. And then we have a good pipeline for financial solutions and longevity. Typically, the first half of the year is more quiet on these sizable transactions. Yeah, we are seeing the market dynamics and we are working, you know, for executing as soon as the clients are ready.

Ben, when we presented the updated strategy in life and health, we were very clear that there would be some sort of a U-shape. As what Philippe mentioned before, it's coming through slowly and what... Edith with what Pilar just said on the future growth opportunities. And if you combine the two, you can now see this U-shape coming in. We don't exactly know when the bottom will be reached. At some point, we will reconnect with growth. OK. Thank you very much.

The next question is from Benoit Vallour, AutoBHF.

Yes. Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. So we have also two questions. The first one is more a follow-up on Solvency to Margin. In Q2, you have this positive ALM refinement. You just mentioned that you have increased your asset duration. And you said it's a one-off. But my question is, should we expect maybe more to come? And you believe that you might increase further your asset duration or not in the next quarter? And linked to this, you mentioned that you could continue to deliver the balance sheet, but... Do you believe that it could make sense also for you maybe to build some additional buffer within your best estimatability under Solvency 2 as you did in Q1 in a specific situation? And my second question is related to tax rate. Tax rate in Q2 was very low. I just want to check if it's just a geomix effect or if there is anything else to be mentioned. And also linked to this, you have re-domiciliate some earnings to France this year. Can you give you a view on what could be a normalized tax rate in 2027 or is it a bit too early? Thank you.

So on the asset duration, you know, we're very happy with the progress that we made on the ALM and we're moving more into a business as usual We had a need to lengthen, and given that when the conflict started, interest rates went up, we felt the timing was right. But in that sense, on the duration side, you should not expect big movements going forward. rather that this is kind of the closure of multiple years of efforts in matching interest rates and currency better. Then, I mean, for me, the two are to a certain extent a bit interchangeable, right, whether we do deleverage or whether we We add resilience to our best estimate liability. It is a form of balance sheet resilience, and so we will look at it as the opportunities arise. I would say maybe not exactly your question, but of course, and I've been saying it for months, that the solvency ratio is a very high priority. for me, and we will continue to see what actions can be taken left, right, and center. And then you asked about the effective tax rate. So I would say it's just important to remember that on a quarterly basis, the effective tax rate can be quite volatile. Having said so, and you made reference to The French tax parameter and all the efforts that management has made to address this issue. And we did actually in the second quarter for the first time recognize the benefit linked to the re-recognition of tax losses carried forward linked to the French tax parameter. Then in terms of outlook for 27, that's way too early and you said it yourself, so I'll just confirm that. But in terms of 26, we would probably expect to be below the 30% that we had indicated.

Okay, thank you very much.

The next question is a follow-up from Michael Hartner, Berenberg.

Thank you so much. I had two, so the one is on a broader question on the market's terms and conditions. I think we heard yesterday from one of your smaller peers that they're softening, and I just wondered how do you see that and whether it's, I'm sure it's already in your combined ratio, but just a feel for it. And then the second, kind of related, on slide 21 you show the The premium mix at the renewals, so property and property cash are down. But on another slide, you showed that the PMI is up. I'm sure it's a really easy explanation, but I'm just curious why this kind of divergence. Thank you. Oh, and the last one, last one, and I shouldn't, but the career 64 million, is that a pre-tax or net of tax figure? And what would be the net of tax?

So quickly, 64 is ISR pre-tax, post-tax is 49. Brilliant, thank you.

So on your first question, Michael, in terms of conditions and renewals, so we did see, especially at the Florida June renewals, clients coming in with attempts to broaden the terms and conditions. with drop-down covers, top and drop cascading structures. This has been, I'd say, broadly resisted by traditional reinsurance. There has been a few insurers that were able to place this with the ILS markets, but the traditional reinsurers have resisted broadly. and outside of Florida, we really seen very little softening of terms. Attachment points are remaining stable. You know, reinstatements are remaining stable. The event definitions, everything else is remaining stable. It's been really renewals focused on price. You know, as we look forward to 2027, Of course, the terms and conditions would be an area, a topic of discussion at the negotiations, but I think reinsurers have stayed very disciplined so far. Our intent is to continue to do so, and we'll push strongly for remaining discipline in the upcoming renewals. In terms of your question on premium and PMLs, just to understand, as rates decrease, if premium is stable on property cap, That means we've increased exposures to sort of match the decreasing premium rates. So that could be the explanation you're looking for. Brilliant. Makes sense. Thank you.

The next question is a follow-up from Will Hardcastle, UBS. Mr. Hardcastle, maybe your line is on mute.

It is indeed. I was expecting that PMLs would have reduced with the added retro, but this hasn't really been the case. I guess, is the retro operating more in the belly at the risk as opposed to the tail? And are you able to help us consider whether any further optimisation of retro that was perhaps mentioned is more likely to focus on capital or earnings volatility? And just on the second one, just coming on to the investment duration, you've increased it from 4.1 to 4.4, as you say. Can you help me to understand how you've achieved this? I'd imagine only a little over 5% of the portfolio probably turns over in any one quarter. So wondering if that's all being invested in closer to 10-year average duration, or is it through derivatives? Thanks.

So I'll take the first question. On the retro, again, focused on CAT, We buy both proportional and non-proportional retro. Proportional retro plays across the gamut of earnings and capital protection. The non-proportional, depending on the layer, also has different benefits. The lower layers are really earning protections and the higher layers are more capital protection. The retro program really covers, I'd say, both areas of the balance sheet. And then when Philippe talked about the optimization that we might be looking in 2027, we'll definitely look at both aspects.

Yeah, so on the duration, we did not use any derivatives. There's purely cash instruments and we sold a little bit of corporate short duration and bought government bond with quite long duration to better match some of our life and health liabilities and in the process actually picked up a bit of yield.

The next question is a follow-up from Vinit Malhotra, Mediobanca.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you. I saw the time and I thought I'd ask one more. The split of revenue between SPS and PNC-RE is quite interesting because the SPS growth 4.1% is probably one of the higher prints seen in many recent quarters, while PNC-RE obviously we've explained seeding revisions and other things. I'm just curious whether, so the IR team has said that there's some seasonality, but could you just comment a little bit more about SPS if that 4.1 has any more background that you could help us understand? Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Vinita. I think, you know, we do see going forward SPS playing a stronger role in the overall revenue growth. Just because of the breadth of the insurance market and the very small footprint we currently hold, there's more opportunities to target the pockets of profitable business than there is in reinsurance where we already have a footprint. We do expect some growth in reinsurance, but I think SPS will probably be a stronger driver. Here, what happened at Q2 is really, as mentioned, seasonal. It depends, you know, the renewals for SBS tend to be concentrated in Q2. And so, you know, as the premium earns through and SBS earns through relatively quickly because our book is very short tail, that has the effect that we're seeing in Q2. So there's nothing, I'd say, out of the ordinary other than, you know, we do have growth plans for SBS in 2026 and those are starting to materialize in the balance sheet.

Great. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's Q&A session. At this time, I would like to hand the call back to our speakers for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.

Thank you very much all for attending this conference call. We'll remain available for any follow-up questions you may have. The reminder score will release its Q3 26 results on Friday 30th of October with a call as usual as 2 p.m. CET. And with this, I wish you a very good summer break and see you soon. Bye-bye.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.