ASR Nederland (Euronext:ASRNL) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Welcome to the ASR Half Year twenty twenty six Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session.

0:27 Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Michel Halters. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to the ASR conference call on our results for the first six months of this year. Now on the call with me today are Ingrid Desvarte, our CEO and Ewout Rollehjin, our CFO. And Ingrid will kick it off with the progress of our strategy and the highlights of our financial results. Ewald will then talk about the development of our financials, capital position and solvency position. And after that, we will open up for Q and A. Now we have ample time planned for this call, but we will stop sharply at 10:30 the latest.

1:15 Please observe a limit of two questions, so that everybody has a chance to ask questions.

1:20 And finally, as usual, please review the disclaimer that we have at the back of the presentation for any forward looking statements that we may make. So having said that, Ingrid, the floor is yours. Thank you, Michel. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. It's a pleasure to welcome you to my first results call as CEO of ASR. I look forward to engaging with you as the investment community in building constructive dialogue with our shareholders and analysts. And together with ARNWT, I'm proud to present our strong first half twenty twenty six results. So let's turn to Slide two, showing our strategic progress. Over the past years, we have successfully pursued our strategy of profitable growth to create long term value.

2:09 Following a string of smaller bolt on acquisitions over some years, the transaction with Aegon in The Netherlands was transformational and has put us into various leadership positions. On the July 2, the legal merger of the Life entities came through, and this marks the final step and a successful completion of the integration. At the same time, we've already started the next integration. The acquisition of Bovema has been closed on the July 1. Now I will discuss the Bovema deal in a minute, but it's clear that this deal is another proof point of ASR as a disciplined consolidator in the Dutch Non Life market. We also show discipline in the pension buyout market. The market has clearly become more competitive, particularly in larger transactions.

2:58 But so far this year, we have announced two smaller transactions, and importantly, only at terms that make sense for us. The progress we have made across the businesses gives us confidence that we are on track to deliver on our 2024 CMD commitments. Over the first half of this year, we report a record OCC and a record operating result. We also see strong commercial performance with continued growth in Non Life and Pensions. Together, these results give us confidence in achieving our OCC target of €1,350,000,000 for this year. And lastly, we continue to operate from a position of capital strength. That enables us to invest in value accretive opportunities such as both AMI and the pension buyouts.

3:49 At the same time, we are committed to offer our shareholders an attractive return. And to that end, we announced the interim dividend per share of €1.39 an increase of more than 9%, and we completed the €175,000,000 share buyback, which we announced at the full year results. So we made significant progress so far this year. Let's turn to Slide three and look at the financial performance. Our OCC increased by more than 7% to €773,000,000 This was driven by a strong performance in P and C, contributions from the pension buyouts completed in 2025 and the continued delivery of cost synergies.

4:37 These items more than offset the increased investment in new technology and AI. The Solvency II ratio increased by four percentage points to 222%. This reflects strong capital generation and the resilience of our balance sheet in volatile market conditions. Our operating result rose by almost 10% to nine zero one million euros And as a result, our operating ROE reached over 15%, comfortably above our target of more than 12%. In Non Life, the combined ratio for P and C and disability was ninety one point six percent, better than our target range of ninety two percent to 94%. This reflects, amongst others, favorable claim experience in P and C.

5:28 Our organic growth rose 6%, supported by targeted price increases in group disability at the end of last year. In pension DC, we have seen solid inflows, and the annuity inflows showed positive momentum. This was driven by renewed focus on the customer journey and offering attractive retirement solutions. Overall, we remain well on track to deliver our organic growth ambitions for this plan period. Let's move to Slide four and look at our nonfinancial KPIs and how we continue to create sustainable value for all stakeholders. As this slide shows, our investment portfolio is already meeting its targets for both carbon footprint reduction and impact investments.

6:16 We continue to make good progress in reducing emissions across the portfolio, and I'm pleased with that. However, I should also mention that the significant decline is primarily driven by improved and updated data regarding the government bond portfolio. Just to be clear, this concerns not our own data, but data from external data providers. Our sustainable reputation improved further in the first six months of this year, and we are pleased with the increasing recognition we get from society.

6:51 Our other non financial metrics are also progressing well. I'm pleased to see that our customer satisfaction measured through MPS I has already outperformed our 2026 target. This reflects the investment we have made in both technology and service delivery. By using AI in customer interactions, we can handle routine tasks more efficiently and give our people more time to focus on what matters most, personal contact with customers and helping them when they need us. Lastly, our strong ESG profile continues to be recognized by a broad range of international sustainability indicators and benchmarks.

7:37 Let's move to the next slide and discuss the acquisition of Povemae. Small bolt on acquisitions are for many years already a firm part of our strategy to create value. The acquisition of Boveeime is a very good example of how we deploy capital in a disciplined way. This deal strengthens our number three position in Non Life and gives us a unique presence in the Dutch mobility sector. Through Beovamay, we gain access to the Bovag ecosystem. And in addition, we will establish a joint venture with Bovag for the distribution activities. This gives us a strong and embedded distribution platform in the mobility sector.

8:25 Bovav Mag adds roughly EUR 400,000,000 of annual premiums and further strengthens our number two position in the Dutch motor insurance market, while also reinforcing our leading position in Non Life more broadly. The deal was closed at the start of July, and we expect the integration to take about one years. Point Actually, this year already, we have planned for the lead merger with our non life entity. From a financial perspective, transaction fits squarely within our investment framework. We expect the deal to exceed our 12% return hurdle and contribute around EUR 25,000,000 of run rate OCC after the integration period. And as mentioned in our press release in January, we expect the impact on our Solvency II ratio to be around minus 3.5 percentage points.

9:20 And finally, I believe both AME is a good example of a broader trend that we may see materialize in the Dutch P and C market in the coming years. Beyond the three largest players, which together already account for around 65% of the market, there is a long tail of smaller insurers. For some of these companies, the investments required to remain compliant with increasing regulation, digitalization, data capabilities and AI may become increasingly difficult to absorb on a stand alone basis. The minimum size for insurers to run their business in an economically viable way just continues to creep up every year.

10:07 The both in line acquisition demonstrates that we are an active and disciplined consolidator. Over the past years, we have built a strong track record to successfully integrate acquisitions and realize their full potential. And we have the capital to continue to pursue attractive opportunities. With that, let's move to the next slide, and let me talk you through our business segments. Firstly, Non Life, where we delivered another strong performance. Premium income increased by 6%, clearly above our organic growth target range of 3% to 5%. Growth was primarily driven by targeted pricing actions in group disability as well as new volume.

10:55 Premium growth is really strong in H1, helped by some single premiums and price increases in portfolios that mainly have annual upfront payments. So the premium growth in the second half of the year is expected to be somewhat lower. But on an annual basis, we still expect growth towards the upper end of the 3% to 5% target range. Our combined ratio for P and C and Disability came in at 91.6%, exceeding our target range of 92% to 94%. P and C was particularly strong with a combined ratio of eighty nine point nine percent, which benefited from favorable claims development on prior years, and there were also some one off expense benefits.

11:46 Weather related claims increased compared with last year, but remained within our semiannual budget.

11:54 In disability, the combined ratio came in at ninety three point three percent. This reflects the pricing actions in the second half of last year, particularly in group disability, to address higher incidence rates related to psychological absenteeism. I should also mention that the uncertainty around the challenges remain, and the backlog at the employee insurance agency has worsened, and it's something that we monitor closely. We will reassess our assumptions as part of the usual year end review and will not hesitate to take further actions where necessary.

12:37 Lastly, Health continued to perform steadily. The combined ratio was 99.6%, while our customer base grew to more than 700,000 customers. Premium volume increased by 10%, supported by both pricing actions and higher benefits received from the Dutch equalization contribution. With that, let's move to the next slide and discuss our pension business. In DC pensions, inflows increased to €1,500,000,000 in the first half of this year, and we remain well on track to achieve our medium term target of €8,000,000,000 in cumulative inflows.

13:23 Supported by favorable financial markets, our DC assets under management increased by 14% to EUR 34,000,000,000. Annuities, our pension decumulation product, gains momentum. Inflows increased by 38%, driven by growing volume of maturing DC assets and an improved customer journey. Our focus remains on retaining these assets through high customer satisfaction and competitive pricing. Based on current developments, we are on track to exceed our medium term cumulative annuity inflow target of EUR 1,800,000,000.

14:06 In pension buyouts, we remain highly disciplined. During the first half, we successfully executed the King Bavaria transaction, adding over EUR 200,000,000 of assets under management. The ACOLAP transaction, representing a further EUR 150,000,000 has already been announced for the second half of the year. We will maintain our value over volume approach and will only pursue transactions that meet our return requirements. While competition has increased, we remain confident in achieving our EUR 8,000,000,000 buyout ambition, although part of the opportunity may materialize beyond 2027. With that, let's now turn to our fee based businesses, where acquisitions and cost synergies supported another strong performance.

15:02 Fee income increased by 33%, driven primarily by the addition of Human Total Care to our Distribution and Services segment. Human Total Care operates in the growing market for occupational health and reintegration services. With absenteeism levels elevated, we see attractive opportunities across the broader employability value chain. The Human Total Care contribution also supported the operating result of fee based business, which increased by 32% to EUR 115,000,000.

15:38 Next to the acquisition, this was mainly driven by the realization of cost synergies from the mortgage platform migration. In mortgages, production amounted to EUR 3,600,000,000. Volumes were lower than last year as we see spreads tightening. Competition is particularly strong from banks, especially at the shorter end of the maturity spectrum. Nonetheless, we remain disciplined in pricing and only originate mortgages that meet our desired spread levels. Overall, our fee based business continue to demonstrate their value as scalable capital light growth platforms for ASR.

16:22 With that, I will hand over to Ewout, who will take you through our capital generation and solvency position. Thank you, Ingrid. Great to have you all on the call, and I hope everyone enjoyed a nice summer break. A CFO cannot be more happy when these results are not only strong, but also a very clean set of numbers. Let's move directly to Slide 10 and start with the capital wheel.

16:49 This slide shows what we mean by putting the balance sheet to work. We continue to operate from a strong capital position. This gives us room to invest in growth, while the balance sheet remained robust. We deployed capital in a disciplined way that includes organic growth, optimization of the investment portfolio, the Baupheme acquisition and pension buyouts. And every growth we achieve, value of volume is the starting point. Our level of capital generation increased to €773,000,000 Our business performance gives us good confidence on delivery towards the €1,350,000,000 target for 2026. And capital return remains attractive as well with 9% interim dividend per share growth and the completion of the €175,000,000 share buyback announced at the full year results.

17:41 So in short, the wheel is turning, we invest in profitable growth, we grow OCC and we increase capital return. Now let's zoom in on the development of Solsea on Slide 11.

17:54 As this slide shows, the largest contributor in Solsea development is OCC. OCC added 13 percentage points to the ratio. The market and operational movements had only a small negative impact of one percentage point, where the positive impact from mortgage spread tightening and real estate revaluations were net offset by negative impacts such as the downgrade of Belgium government bonds and the growth of the equity portfolio. After capital distributions, the ratio lands at 222%. Looking ahead, there are two relevant items to keep in mind. Those do not differ from what I've mentioned at the full year results. One is the Bofemi acquisition, which is closed in July and two is the removal of the DA as part of the legal merger of the life entities.

18:46 And as you all know, we have chosen not to apply for the DA in the Baixo internal model for of ASR life, knowing that the DA has to be eliminated anyway when EIOPA twenty twenty kicks in, in the beginning of twenty twenty seven. Combined, the impact of those two points is around 7.08 percentage points. And then in the first half of twenty twenty seven, the implementation of the EIOPA 2020 review kicks in, and it is still expected like by the full year to add around 10 percentage points.

19:20 So overall, we remain in a very strong position with ample room to support profitable growth and attractive capital return. Let's turn to the next slide for further detail on our OCC. The main driver for the 7% increase in OCC was higher finance capital generation. This reflects the contribution from the pension buyouts that we closed in 2025.

19:44 We also benefited from strong revaluation in Equities and Real Estate over the past year, which are compensated by spread tightening throughout the fixed income portfolio. The Non Life contributed positively with a EUR 55,000,000 uplift. In P and C, performance was strong with a combined ratio below 90%. Disability showed a solid performance in H1, proving portfolio discipline and at the same time, knowing uncertainty remains given the situation at the UWV. Next to the strong business performance, the increase also includes a lower business strain of around EUR 20,000,000. This was a result of an increased upper limit of our net cat cover in H2 last year. And though it does not make a difference for the full year, we see an outperformance from H1 to H1 due to this timing effect.

20:38 So actually, this half year is a solid base to think of also going forward. Segment Asset Management shows an uplift of EUR 50,000,000, mostly driven by the migration of the mortgage portfolio in H2 last year. The increase in Distribution and Services segment mainly relates to the full contribution of Hard S. A, which has been reallocated from holding to distribution and services after we acquired the remaining stake of 55%.

21:06 For the Holding and Other segment, we see a couple of elements driving the EUR 22,000,000 decrease. Firstly, as you know, we are investing into new technology and AI secondly, a modified treatment of the employer's disability arrangement and lastly, I have to say this no longer contributes to the holding segment.

21:26 And before we head to the operating results, let's look at the outlook for our full year OCC. The OCC of EUR $773,000,000 per half year 2026 should be your starting point. Then if we add the €594,000,000 OCC from the second half twenty twenty five, you should take into account a few elements. Combined ratio in H2 last year set within our targeted range. Growth of the business, increased investment return and cost synergies should provide an additional uplift, and those are offset by headwinds from the impact of the introduction of the PIM to ASR Life, the transfer of KNAP mortgages to Baava, the timing effect on the SCS strain, as just explained, and additional investments that we are doing in AI and other technology.

22:15 All of these developments combined should roughly be awash. So that would keep the OCC for the second half a touch below €600,000,000 and the full year 2026 OCC north of the targeted €1,350,000,000 Let's turn to the next slide and talk about the operating results. Given that the most underlying drivers in the operating result are the same as OCC, I will focus on the drivers that are different from the OCC analysis. The operating result increased by 10% to $9.00 €1,000,000 The Life segment delivered a strong increase of €17,000,000 mainly driven by a higher CSM release, reflecting, amongst others, the higher release of CSM due to the capitalization of cost synergies in H2 twenty twenty five last year.

23:06 The positive experience variance observed in pensions was offset by a lower contribution from associations compared to last year. And lastly, for Life, we realized a high investment margin from the 2025 pension buyouts. The increase in operating investment in finance result is higher than the increase in OCC finance capital generation because the tighter that market spreads led to a lower liability liquidity premium and IFRS, but does not impact the VA and the solvency.

23:36 In Non Life, the increase in operating results mainly reflects higher investment income. For the insurance results, the business growth is offset by slightly higher combined ratio compared to last year and the development of our fee based business and holding are equal to OCC. So let's turn to the next slide and talk you through our updated solvency sensitivities. Slide 14.

23:59 As mentioned during the full year call, we would give an update on our sensitivities that also reflects the removal of the determinant adjustment, which now actually already has been removed after the legal merger on the July 2. And as a reminder, the DA was an Aegon specific mechanism that corrected for mismatches between our own portfolio and the VA reference portfolio via the required capital.

24:23 And what you now can see in our sensitivities is that they stay benign and our solvency resilience remains strong also after the removal of the determinant adjustment. The current sensitivities are actually now more aligned with market practice. Let me for now focus on the free spread sensitivities since those sensitivities are mainly impacted by the removal of the DA. For government spreads and mortgage spreads, the outcome is quite intuitive. If spreads widen, valuation go down and for both investment categories, risk is low and therefore limited compensation in required capital netted a negative impact on solvency from spreads widening and the other way around from spreads tightening.

25:06 For Credit Suisse, the picture is different. Year widening actually leads to an uplift in the solvency, and there are two drives for that. Firstly, in the European context, our fixed income portfolio has a relatively large allocation to mortgages. The VA reference portfolio has a relatively large allocation to corporate bonds. So when credit spreads widen, the VA reacts more strongly than it would on the basis of our own portfolio.

25:31 Secondly, is the application of the IS-nineteen for the valuation of the pension scheme liabilities for our own employees. The IS-nineteen discount curve is based on the corporate bond yield curve, so why the credit spreads therefore also have a positive impact on our solvency. So overall, the sensitivities to our balance sheet remain very manageable and in real life spread movements in coffees, credits and mortgages have historically been positively correlated. That means the different direction in spread sensitivities also provides a natural offset. Let's move to the next slide where we discuss our investment portfolio. This slide shows our robust and high investment portfolio with over 80% allocation to fixed income assets, including mortgages, derivatives and cash.

26:20 The fixed income bonds portfolio covering government bonds, credits and alternatives is a high quality and well diversified portfolio that I'm very comfortable with. We believe that more cases offer historically a very attractive risk return profile.

26:34 The average loan to value is around 50% and credit losses remain below one basis points. So from a risk perspective, this is a very strong portfolio. As Ingrid mentioned, new mortgage production was lower. That's mainly due to the current interest rate environment, which increases customer appetite for shorter maturities where there is more competition from banks and resulting in lower spreads.

26:59 Let's move to real estate and equities, where performance was very strong. In the first half year, real estate revaluation were up almost 3%, and this was mainly driven by residential, which was up around 5%, helped by the lowering of the transfer tax we discussed at full year stage and remains the backbone of our portfolio together with our rural portfolio that also continues to show solid performance.

27:22 In equities, next to positive revaluation, we used the recent geopolitical volatility to expand our portfolio a bit at attractive buying moments. And that is another example where having your own asset management and be really on top of the market creates real value. Let's look at the flexibility of the balance sheet on the next slide. This slide shows that we continue to have ample financial flexibility, and that is really supported by the composition of our balance sheet. Financial leverage is at 21%, interest coverage ratio well above our internal limit, and on top of that, we still have significant debt capacity. There's room for more than EUR 2,500,000,000, ART1 and Tier two issuances.

28:07 And as you can see on the bottom right hand side, our debt maturity schedule remain nicely spread over time.

28:14 So from whatever angle you look at it, the balance sheet gives us significant financial flexibility. Let's turn to my last slide and end with our Holdco liquidity. At half year, the Holdco liquidity position is temporarily elevated, reflecting the cash upstream needed for the Bofemer acquisition. The cash was already remitted before the half year closing date, while the actual cash out took place the day after.

28:39 The additional remittance came specifically from our well capitalized life entities, and that's also reflected in the solvency ratio for ASR Life, which still remains very strong. So OCC, good group solvency, good case at holdco, good legal entity, solvency, good. But could I say more? I think this is a good moment to hand it back to you, Ingrid, for the wrap up. Thank you very much, Ewout. This brings us to the end of our presentation. Let me briefly close with the key messages. First, we have pursued profitable growth and strengthened our platform. The integration of Aegon in The Netherlands is now finalized, and the acquisition of Beauvema was completed in July.

29:21 Those are important steps in creating a leading insurer in The Netherlands. Second, we delivered a solid performance across all business segments. Our OCC is on track to reach the EUR 1,350,000,000 target in 2026. Third, our capital position remains very strong.

29:42 The Solvency II ratio increased to 222%, reflecting strong capital generation and well positioned to pursue value accretive opportunities. And finally, we will present our updated strategy and new targets at our Capital Markets Day on the first of December of this year. With that, we are happy to take your questions. Looking forward to answering them. Thank questions. Will now take our first question from the line of Cor Klaus from ABN AMRO ODDO BHF.

30:46 Cor Klaus, Hayden from ODDO. Congratulations with the results, especially, I think, the organic growth, the premium growth in Non Life was quite high, better than expected.

30:57 Could you elaborate a little bit more on that? So in visibility and P and C, could you split it in price increase and volume? How was the churn? And are you satisfied with the price increases and visibility, especially given the Versus situation? So that's a question on premium growth in Non Life organic. Second question is about M and A.

31:21 Yes, I think that you, as new CEO, of course, doing acquisitions has always been an important part of ASR, so you will probably also continue that in the future. Could you give your, yes, first views and context and a way of looking to M and A as probably a continuing way of doing business, but your own view on that? And last question is about the Via. I get it that, of course, you will do an update in Q3. Yes, could you give some comments about what's going on, how the government is acting, what your interactions with the government indicate, what get the backlog in order, etcetera? Those were my questions. Thank you.

32:06 Good morning. Thanks, Kare, for those questions. We will I will start with answering the question around M and A, and then Ewout will take care of the P and C and disability questions that you posed. And thanks for the compliments as well, Kare. We're also very happy with the clean set that we presented this morning. So I've been part of this company for almost seven years, and M and A has been an important part of the strategy and an important source of growth for years. I think that the Aegon Netherlands transformation of integration and deal was really transformational to ASR, and we are really proud that we completed the integration within the three years and delivered on all the targets that we promised. And more importantly, also we're very successful in bringing two cultures together.

32:55 I'm also very happy that while we have just closed down the integration and really completed it, we have already started the next integration of both V. May. And I love the blueprint of both VMA that well fits into what we have always said, that in the non life space, particularly in P and C, there may be opportunities in the coming years because of the 65% that's divided between the three biggest players in the market. There is a tale of smaller players. And we see now that both Weimai is, I think, a perfect proof point of that it's quite difficult for a smaller P and C insurer to stay economically viable to do the events into digitalization and AI and to remain relevant to customers.

33:45 And that's why I'm very happy that we were able to have such a nice deal together with Bova and Bovaeimai, and we are very keen to explore additional opportunities. So I would say, as expected, no change here, but looking forward to creating more opportunities. And the same goes for the financial investment return point of view deals, while we also always have looked at life and also funeral. They're also very keen and interested in bioportfolios, both in Life with the back books that have predictable cash flows, but also in Funeral. And we still believe that there is one big insurer that we think may come to the market at some point in time, and we will be keen to have a look at that, as you can imagine.

34:36 And in the last couple of years, we have also required a range of smaller distribution companies, such as also Human Total Care that we mentioned in our presentation today. And we also are of continued interest to add those to our portfolio. So that's how I would look at it, looking forward to all the opportunities feeding forward. And with that, please, Ewout, can you do the P and C and income? Yes. So on the premium growth, indeed, we were very happy with the strong growth in Non Life that we have shown, so six percent growth. When we look underlying, we see a 4% growth in the PC market. So we were able to grow in the middle of the actually the target range that we are having of 3% to 5% and at the same time, having a very strong combined ratio. So definitely very happy with that. In disability, we grew even 8%.

35:35 And what we see there is that the price increases that we pushed through as a result of the developments in group disability, which I will answer after this question, actually resulted in less losing customers than we actually were expecting. And as a consequence of that, we actually saw that the increase in disability rose to 8%. Good to mention is that we see the increase mostly of in disability, in group disability and also a bit in Signus Reef. And what it also means is that we have more customers that actually do annual payments. So we do, as a result of that, expect that, that growth in disability flattens a bit in the second half of the year. But with the strong growth that we are presenting today, we are having the confidence that we can land somewhere in the higher end of our target range.

36:31 Then on disability, definitely an important topic to answer as well. As you all know, in group disability and as I think also the market is seeing, in group disability, we are observing elevated incident rates, which is mostly driven by mental illness and also long COVID, a broader market trend and something we also observed last year. That was also the main reason for repricing our business significantly in group disability for the year 2026. And when we actually look today into our portfolio, we see that the payments that we're doing, so the claims that we're having, is actually more or less in line with the actuarial assumptions that we are having. And this, in a way, proves the effectiveness of our portfolio discipline and also of the reparsing.

37:20 At the same time, and Ingrid was already referring to that, we do see that situation at the UWV, so the Dutch Employee Insurance Agency, is further deteriorating and that their backlog is also increasing. The risk that comes with that is that we might not have the full view on the inflow of disabled people as not everyone is assessed yet. And the second order effect can also be that reassessments are executed less because of this backlog. And this could mean, compared to the past, that individuals return less back to work, less often back to work and are also less often reclassified into a group, which is not expected to return at all because they are lifetime disabled.

38:07 And in that situation, actually, the payments are no longer covered by the insurer but by the government. What we are doing to actually solve that backlog is that we, together with the Dutch Insurance Association, are in very close contact with the UWV and the Government of Social Affairs, and we see definitely solutions there. But it might require, and we don't know that exactly, time and also change in legislation. What we will do is actually bringing all those developments, the conversation that we are having, the risk that there might be some delay in the inflow and in the reassessments, that we bring that altogether as part of the annual review that we are doing on our actuarial assumptions in H2. And we will definitely look at this in conservative as you know us in considering further actions. And that's actually the situation where we are looking at today.

39:04 Okay. Very clear explanation. Thanks very much. Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Andrew Baker from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you for taking my questions. The first one, just on the Non Life OCC. I know you touched on this in your comments, but can you just give a little bit more detail on the year on year SCR development that you saw in one half twenty twenty six? I guess, drove the differences year on year? I think you said the first half is a good base to project off going forward. How do we think about the second half then in 2026 versus the second half in 2025? So just picking apart those moving pieces would be really helpful. And then secondly, are you able to give us a sense of the amount of investment in technology and AI that you're running through the holding company cost line in the first half. What type of investments these are in? How should we think about this level of investment going forward?

40:02 And I guess when should we expect to see the benefits flow into the results? Thank you. Good morning, Andrew. Thank you for your question. As a former CTO, I will take the AI and technology question. You should think about tens of millions. Ewart, can you take the OCC question? Absolutely. Absolutely. So on the so we already call it internally the net cat question because it's raised if they maybe to start with, what we now see in H1 of twenty twenty six is really kind of the normal level of what we should expect. What happened is that during given the continued growth that we had in the P and C portfolio, we actually saw in H1 of twenty twenty five that the exposure levels temporarily exceeding the coverage assumptions underlying part of our net cat program.

40:59 As a consequence, we saw that additional solvency capital was required during the first half of twenty twenty five until the reinsurance program was adjusted at year end. So the subsequent update to that program released this additional solvency capital requirement in the second half of twenty twenty five. As a result, we benefit from lower capital strain in the first half of twenty twenty six compared with the prior year period, and this created a positive year on year effect. But again, the level of H1 is normal. What it does indeed mean is that around, let's say, 20,000,000, that's around the number, we expect around EUR 20,000,000 less capital release or EUR 20,000,000 higher strain in H2 compared to last year. And that was also part of the OCC bridge that I provided that is included in that. That's one of the reasons that we expect more or less to land at the same level of on OCC of in the second half of the year as last year.

42:01 Hopefully, that helps, Andrew. Very clear. Thank you. Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. And have two. One is on real estate and the other one on reinsurance. On real estate, I saw the so you mentioned you said 3% in residential 3% in real estate, 5% residential, I think, and solid in rural. In your 13% OCC increase, how much of the was that from real estate? Or is it somewhere else?

42:46 And how much more could we expect from real estate in the second half? And then on reinsurance, you just said you've got negatives on or not negatives, but the highest strain due to the high exposure numbers. Is there a benefit from buying more reinsurance? Or did you decide not to buy more reinsurance? Was just curious. Thank you. Yes. Thanks for those questions. On the real estate, so what we have as a kind of the total return assumption in real estate is a pretax return of 5.5%. So every revaluation that is actually exceeding that number and the 5.5% is also including the direct yields. So everything that is excluding the is outperforming those assumptions is not part of the organic capital creation, but is part of the market and operational developments. That's why I also mentioned in the kind of market and operational developments, there was some positive effect from the revaluation of real estate.

43:57 In the second half of the year, we are neutral in our view on real estate. So we see still attractive direct yields revaluation more or less a neutral view. Then the second question in buying reinsurance. So the way we are looking to reinsurance is actually always in two ways. One is what is effective from a cost of capital perspective. So we assess the reinsurance program from a cost of capital perspective. That's one element. Also, we like, just as ASR being predictable, is that because of our reinsurance program, we also have a performance that is well, that is that if there is kind of catch happens, that our performance remains also strong in that type of situation.

44:45 And with those two kind of criteria in place, we are actually happy with the reinsurance program that we are having today. So we don't foresee to further expand our reinsurance program. Maybe you can free up some solvency, but then it comes at a really high cost. And from a cost of capital perspective, that's then not really interesting. Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Farooq Hanif from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Hi, everybody. Thank you very much. Two questions, which may be more for Ewout. But just firstly, you gave that bridge on OCC.

45:35 It sounds like a lot of the elements that neutralize OCC and 2H are not what you would apply to operating profit. So I'm kind of thinking that the expansion that you had in operating profit, will that be more normalized? So if you can talk about some of the one offs in 1H that we should not repeat in 2H for operating profit. And actually just digging into one really large amount of detail, apologies, but the other line in the Life result, which went negative, I think that's where you mainly earn your DC fees. So can you explain what happened there and what we should expect in that line going forward? Thank you. Thank you very much, Farooq, for the questions. And I think like you guided already, these are typical questions for Ewald, I would say.

46:24 Yes. So Farooq, I think you're right. So when we talk about the strain on in P and C, the benefit compared to last year was not part of the IFRS operating profit that we presented. And the fact that, that will be normalized in H2 will also not be part of the operating profit. So net net, one could say that, that amount of EUR 20,000,000 is not normalized in an operating profit base. So you're definitely right on that one, Farooq. And I think your other question was also relating to the operating profit and then mostly the other results. So what we actually see in the operating profit of the Life segment is two elements that is worth mentioning.

47:11 One is indeed the lower operating results of other results, sorry. And that has to do with the fact that in H1 last year, we had a couple of associations, so participations in the Life segment that really made a strong performance and that landed in the other result, and that is not there in H2026. That is actually compensated by a positive experience variance, And they're mostly on the kind of the positive experience variances mostly also have to do with the expense level that we assume on the IFRS versus the expense level that we were actually seeing in the Life segment and that resulted in the positive experience variance. So there are actually two elements that are more or less offsetting each other, lower contribution from participations, which was very high last year, but good strong experience variance, mostly driven by a little bit of mortality and then the other part is expenses in the experience variance.

48:16 And so just to follow-up as well quickly on that. So in Non Life, you also benefited, didn't you, in the combined ratio from nonrecurring elements? What's the size of that? Yes, that was EUR 5,000,000. And the offsetting effect of that EUR 5,000,000 was, by the way, in holding and others. So there was kind of the offsetting effect. So there was EUR 5,000,000 benefit in the in Non Life, 5,000,000 lower result in the Holding and Others. So it's more or less neutral for the second half of the year. So you're implying that 1H is kind of a run rate in operating profit? That's exactly why I'm so happy as a CFO that I not only present strong numbers, but also very clean set, definitely. Yes, true.

49:02 We will now take the next question from the line of Benoit Petrarch from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. So actually, the first one is on the clean OCC. Could you give us kind of the clean run rate for H1? I think you had some prior year's provision release in Non Life and also one off expense benefits. So just wondering how much it is on the clean basis? The second one is on visibility. So if I remember well last year, you lost clients after the repricing put through in 2025. Now the churn is quite limited in H1 twenty twenty six. So are you kind of reaching a point where clients are becoming less sensitive and you could be more active on the pricing into 2027?

49:58 And on visibility, given all what you said on the backlog and the repricing, do you think you can maintain a combined ratio in the range of 92% to 94% for the Disability business given what you know currently? And just a final one on the pension buyout. So you've done two small deals. I was wondering how you see the pipeline for the rest of the year on the pension buyout. Thank you. On the 5,000,000 of sorry, on the OCC run rate OCC, that was the question. There was so the release that was mentioned was only EUR 5,000,000 on the expense side, but we wanted to flag that because you actually see that the expense ratio goes down 1.2% in P and C, and that's a high number. And that's why we want to flag that EUR 5,000,000 was kind of a more has to be seen as a one off. But again, the compensating effect is in Holding and Other. And with that, you can also see this as a run rate number. So the SEER strain is in a run rate number because of the net cap program at the right level, but also this is a run rate number.

51:12 So that's on the OCC H1. And then if I understand your question correctly, on the pricing and whether we can push even more price increases to the market, then they will easily accept that. Well, that's it would be lovely if the market works that. I think in all fairness, we do see that it is a hard market, so you should can definitely ask the margins that you want to achieve. And at the same time, there's also competition. So also corporates can also go to the UWV to insure themselves. And I think there, you will probably see the most competition out of it. What we have said is we see uncertainty.

51:57 And as you can expect from us that we will address that uncertainty in a conservative manner, and then it's up to the clients to decide whether or not they want to stay with us. That is the position that we are taking when it comes down to this business. Will that keep us in the target range somewhere around 94%? Well, when we look today, that's actually the case. But again, we have seen that on that uncertainty uncertainty that I described on the the given the backlog at the UWV, and that is something that we will assess in the second half of the year. But definitely, when we look today, we do see that the portfolio is performing in a solid way. Thank you. Then your the last question, Benoit, around the pipeline.

52:46 We still believe that the market opportunity of EUR 20,000,000,000 to EUR 30,000,000,000 is there. And we also think and see that a part of that is likely to materialize over a longer period than we initially anticipated. Market competition is increasing after ACMEA entering the market, and we see that Athora is willing to play the game. And we also see that returns are coming down. However, we really remain disciplined in pricing and are very true to our value over volume principle, and we'll not deploy our capital if we can't make our 12% hurdle rate on these deals. We see room for us in the smaller midsized deals, proven by the two announced buyers that I mentioned before.

53:38 And we still believe expect to be able to take our fair market share over the market of the EUR 8,000,000,000 to 30,000,000,000 market in total. But we do believe that it will extend beyond 2027. Thank you. Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Nasib Ahmed from UBS. Please go ahead. Perfect. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, on AI, where do you see the biggest benefits coming through within AI? Which segments? I think previously, you mentioned Health as an easy win.

54:23 And then kind of related to that, the combined ratio, Ewat, you mentioned there's 1.2 points of benefit from a reallocation of expenses. It feels like that's a run rate, like you said. So your combined ratio, 92% to 94%, seems like it's going to come down just of the reallocation of expenses, maybe some AR and top. So it should be running a little bit lower than that range. Is that my correct interpretation? And then just last question on longevity reinsurance. Is there still more capacity to do that based on what you've got on the books? Thank you. The last part, I didn't get fully, Nassip, but I will answer that. So the just to the one off was not 1.2%.

55:09 It was a part of that 1.2%. So around EUR 5,000,000, I think that's around EUR 500,000 or 600,000. That was kind of the one off that we saw in the expense ratio of P and C. So that is just to clarify that, sorry for not being clear. And whether or not that we sold in a kind of structural lower combined ratio, that's I think that's too early to say. It's something that we also will assess in with respect to the Capital Markets Day. But in all honesty, and we also have that dialogue in the past, there is we are in and we do see that The Netherlands is a well consolidated market. And at the same time, there is still a lot of competition. And having a combined ratio at the low 90s is already very attractive from a return on capital perspective. So whether or not the combined ratio can be structural lower, that's really a question mark and not something to answer all during this call.

56:09 Okay. Thanks, Ewout. Then I will take the AI question. Thanks for asking such a nice question because I really like the subject, as you all know, I think. So you were mentioning already the health part of our business, that's the part where we started experimenting with AI. And we used health as a nursery for the whole company. Why? Because we were in the middle of an integration with Aegon in Netherlands. Health was not in that integration since Aegon didn't have any health. So that was one. And two, we were able to have a lot of direct customer contact there, so a lot of data. So we built some use cases there for especially in the customer contact area, and that's a very good area to start because there is a lot of customer contact.

57:02 And we were able to really develop those use cases a bit further through. So we have seen that was your other question, that when you combine AI with very well adoption by people, because it's 30% around technology, 70% is about people, processes and also culture. We see if that if you do combine that in a correct way, and I mean a way that really creates value for businesses, that we see an increase in customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction, and we see costs go down. And that's a very important proof point that we have seen. And of course, as you can might imagine, we have a lot of businesses outside of health that can benefit from the same.

57:54 So we do see that there is ample opportunity to really scale this from Health towards the whole all the business segments within ASR. And we see that not only operational efficiency, operational effectiveness is an important driver for ASR towards the future driven by AI. But we also do see that customer experience also really benefits from AI digitalization and automation. So as one would expect, we have a focus on creating long term value, and we see the combination of people with technology as an important driver for this. And we truly believe that there is an accelerator for our strategy feeding forward if we can successfully combine the technology, AI and people components with each other.

58:54 We have programs in place to drive this successful adoption and also build a lot of proof points within the company, and I'm really looking forward to telling you the whole story on the first of December of this year at the Capital Markets Day, because there's so much to AI technology and how you can really place it in the middle of your businesses that it would be a shame to just have a couple of minutes more to talk about it. Perfect. Thank you, guys. The last question here was around longevity reinsurance. What's the capacity? Sorry, was the one I didn't get. So we are currently in the middle of assessing to do additional longevity reinsurance. Also to give some context, sorry, is that we do see longevity reinsurance on one end as an important optimize actually the risk the insurance risk that we have in our portfolio because in the whole ASR book, longevity risk is the largest insurance risk that we have on the balance sheet. And simultaneously, it also provides a balance sheet optimization opportunity against attractive cost.

1:00:13 When we look to the current portfolio, roughly EUR 50,000,000,000 of our liabilities has longevity risk in it. And a part of that risk is already being mitigated, let's say, onesix by the natural hedge that we are having between longevity and mortality because the funeral book that we are having onethree is something that we already have reissued in the past. And of course, we also think about this more going forward that we might add in the future additional Dutch funeral business and then you also want to have some mortality risk of longevity risk still on your balance sheet. I think with that in mind, roughly EUR 10,000,000 to 15,000,000 of remaining liabilities is really applicable for longevity reinsurance, and that will be probably be separated into several tranches, if any.

1:01:09 I think general rule of thumb is that the EUR 5,000,000,000 deal will bring around roughly 2% to 3% level solvency benefits at group level, and that is currently still our stance, mostly driven by a low risk margin. So that's actually where we are in the middle of assessing it. We see that the of the solvency benefits that we mentioned in the past are still more or less seems to still more or less be the case, good risk management, attractive from a cost of capital perspective, and we hope to give further clarity on somewhere in H2 whether or not we enter into a longevity deal. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Ian Pearce from BNP Paribas.

1:01:55 Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one was just on the fee business. I'm just trying to get a feel for the underlying growth in the fee businesses. There's been a bit going on in terms of resegmentation, HTC, the mortgage transfer. Just trying to get a feel if you can give us some sort of feel for the underlying growth rates that you're seeing. And also on the operating expenses in the Asset Management segment, which went down year on year, if you could give us obviously synergies as part of that, but is there anything we sort of need to factor in, in terms of the costincome ratio outlook for Asset Management? And then on the P and C segment, just trying to think about the impact of Baobemay on the combined ratio, just looking at the OTC guidance sort of implications that might have a bit of a negative impact on the combined ratio for H2? So again, if you could give us any sort of feel for the headwinds that it might provide to the combined ratio going forward? Thanks.

1:02:54 Yes. On the fee basis, so in detail, so we saw an increase in the result of our fee businesses. Actually, the two main drivers there. One is the HTC business that we acquired the remaining 55% stake. As a consequence, it actually moved from a participation that was part of holding and other fully to the fee segment. The total contribution in the fee segment on the OCC level, so net of tax, is around EUR 15,000,000. Other contributor EUR 15,000,000 to EUR 20,000,000. And the other contributor is actually the synergies that we realized from migrating the mortgage portfolio to the of Aegon to the ASR platform.

1:03:45 And that resulted in the lower expense base that you were referring to, roughly also roughly €12,000,000 is what we are seeing on a lower expense basis, roughly €20,000,000 of contribution coming from that. So that's actually on the fee business that we are seeing. I think the second question was on the kind of the combined ratio of Bofemay, sorry, the combined ratio of Bofemay. So what we already mentioned during the full year, we don't expect a material contribution from Bofemay in 2026 already. That's because we added actually a portfolio that needs to be repriced, but even more importantly, where synergies needs to be realized so that you end up with a kind of healthy P C portfolio of both M and A. As we integrate from end of twenty twenty six onwards, you really will start seeing benefits kicking in from 2027 onwards and the full amount from 2028 onwards.

1:04:58 Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Farquhar Charles Murray from Autonomous. Please go ahead. Two questions, if I may. Firstly, thanks for the guide towards non life premium growth kind of moderating back into the 3% to 5% range. A lot of that turns on the disability market. So my question there is whether ASR would be willing to kind of perhaps go below the three percent to 5% target range, particularly in full year 2027, if it's not possible to address the kind of issues in terms of the disability marketing and visibility on claims costs on which to build appropriate pricing? And then secondly, thanks for your earlier comments on M and A. Those are helpful. More specifically, do you think the opportunity set is opening up a bit more than recent years? And is that mainly at the kind of smaller end of the spectrum in terms of what you're seeing?

1:05:52 And then finally, can you outline your thinking on business expansion outside The Netherlands? Is that still mainly for holidays? I'll begin with thanks, Farquhar, for your question. I will answer the last two questions around M and A and abroad, and then Ebert will take your first question. So starting with the abroad still for holidays question. ASR is really focused on becoming the leading insurer in The Netherlands. I'm really happy where we are today, but we do believe, that we have a lot of organic growth opportunities, but also see that there is further consolidation possible and will occur in the Dutch market, and we are more than willing to participate in that.

1:06:44 So that's, I think, quite clear. Continue to believe that has not changed, that it's incredibly difficult to find a compelling business case for ASR to buy another insurer outside of The Netherlands. So really focused on The Netherlands. And then to your question around P and C and especially the longer tail smaller insurance, Like I said, we are really happy with Povema being a blueprint. And I do believe that with the current revolution going on around AI technology digitalization, also changing customer behavior And the investment money that needs to be put into a business to successfully meet the standards that are nowadays normal for P and C players, that's incredibly difficult for the smaller companies to do that on a stand alone basis.

1:07:45 So we are happy and thinking that the blueprint of both V. M. A. Will have a how do you say, will have new transactions in the coming time. Faker, on your question around the disability growth and are we willing to accept growth below actually our targeted range, the simple answer is yes. And the reason is that we strongly believe in the kind of the value of volume and that's every business that you write needs to deliver on the right return. That's why I also mentioned we will definitely look at the whole situation more on the conservative side and take that into account in for example, in our price level.

1:08:34 And if that means that, yes, we lose more clients and that we then will come below kind of the 3% growth in 2027, then that is what it is. We also kind of have make a margin, And that's how we are always in the market. And for the long run, we believe that is actually the right position also to have as an insurance company because that makes you also predictable for advisers and for clients. Thanks. Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Michele Ballatorre from KBW. Please go ahead. Yes. Thank you for taking my call. Just one question from me.

1:09:22 In if we look at the good trends in the especially in the finance capital generation, both in Non Life, but particularly in Life, So how should we look in terms of the outlook on this line? I mean, how do you see these trends continuing next foreseeable future? Thank you. I think if I understand your question correctly, is how do we look to the trend on the finance capital generation in OCC? Yes. Okay. So no, we are what we see actually in the portfolio in also in H1 compared to 2025 is then on one hand, we saw actually spreads were tightening a bit. So there because of that, you see spreads tightening and we have small spread tightening, and we have seen in mortgages spread tightening in coffees and also spread tightening in credits.

1:10:26 That is that brings you a somewhat lower return, for example, compared to the full year 2025. At the same time, we saw positive revaluation in real estate, more than expected. In our total return assumption, we saw good developments of equity markets, and that all contributes actually to a high investment margin. So if we look going forward to our finance capital generation, we expect that, that will kind of develop in the same direction as we have seen over the year in the first half of twenty twenty six. So no really worries there. And but it all by the end of the day, always depends a bit on how markets will develop. Thank you. Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Jason Kalamboussis from ING. Please go ahead.

1:11:22 Yes. Quick follow ups, if I may. The first one is on the longevity. I mean, we get more clarity maybe in the second half, maybe you can do a deal. But looking at your solvency ratio three years out, it looks very high, building up quite a lot. So is that fair to say that actually longevity is not you don't need to do longevity deals at this stage given your strong capital position? The second thing is a follow-up again is on the buyout market. Could you differentiate between AKMEA and Athera? Because as far as I'm aware, maybe I've missed it, but I haven't we haven't seen a lot of large deals as last year. So do you find that it also takes even though there is competition in pricing, it takes more time for the pensions funds to take the decision and are there also softer factors than pricing that could make that things come back to, ASR?

1:12:27 Or do you think that at the end, it is a lot more pricing, it will be more ARNNY and, as we're battling it out and you focusing on the midsized deals over the next twelve months? And the third question is on Non Life. Could you give us, I mean, specifically for the P and C combined ratio, the 89.9%, what is the percentage benefit you got from the prior year reserve releases? Maybe it was given earlier, I'm not sure. I think that you said that expenses was minus 1.2%. But if I could have the PY answer, that would be great. Thank you very much. Thanks, Jason. You called it follow ups, but I think you also there was one follow-up and two new questions that you raised. Let me try to give a clear answer to that. On the longevity part, I think that's the beauty where we are looking at today. So we don't need longevity reinsurance from kind of a position of weakness there where we because we need solvency.

1:13:32 We are in a strong solvency position, and we only want to do longevity reinsurance because on one end, it is good risk management there. So an important risk that we have on the balance sheet, you can offload. That's one element to that we take into account. But the second element, just as important, if you can do this against the right prices and you see that your cost of capital can become close to CIBO of such a deal, yes, that makes it also from a balance sheet optimization attractive. And that is the reason that we are considering this. So it's just good balance sheet management, good risk management, and that is the main driver, not because we need sourcing. The second element on the Non Life, how much reserve release, well, that's a simple answer, so thanks for that.

1:14:17 That's actually negligible. So there is this is a real strong underlying number. There's the 5,000,000 that we discussed with, which has an offset of the holding, but it's a clean number that we present here today, which is very strong and we are very happy with. And then on the buyout market and how that is developing. So in detail, we saw H2 H1 twenty twenty five, Afora and ASR both winning quite some deals. H2 Afora have won a lot of deals, a lot of activity in the buyout market. H1 of twenty twenty six is a bit less. And at the same time, we see deals happening. And also, our sales actually have won two smaller deals.

1:15:03 Think I Ingrid described it very well in a way that sees that because kind of the main competitor being Afora in this market really won a lot of bigger deals, the appetite for smaller deals seems to kind of fade away a bit and that provided us the opportunity against the right return levels that we want to have to win those deals. And that is and I think so it is not because of pension funds are now thinking differently to the market. It's just sometimes you have a bit more activity in the market, sometimes you have a bit less activity. But H1 of twenty twenty six, there were still a couple of buyouts. And also when we look going forward, there's still a pipeline, and that's why we are still confident, though it might take two more years, that we will reach the €8,000,000,000 Great. Thank you.

1:15:56 Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Two. One, you spoke lots of times on funeral business. I just wondered, could you remind us who is the lucky competitor you might be looking at? Or any indication, maybe you can't say, I don't know. And then on we had the question on pension buyers. Can you talk a little bit about the individual annuities? So you're that's the one you're exceeding. Is there can you give us a feel for how much more growth there is? Because it's clearly not a closed block. It's linked to the DC growth. Thank you.

1:16:54 I will answer your last question, Michael. So if you look at the annuity, so we have a big book of DC that's accumulative accumulation business, and now we have the decumulation that's where the annuities come in. And what we do see is that if you have a very good customer journey pricing and people are already used to your brand service and happy with that, that they have experienced over the DC time of of period that they have been customer with us, we see that people really like to stay with ASR because of the very good customer journey where we have invested in to the new standards that are there today.

1:17:42 And and then and with that, I mean more digital, more AI, etcetera, more personal. And if you also have competitive pricing, people do stay with us because they liked during the accumulation phase, and they do also like us for the decumulation phase. And that's why we have indeed a very exciting increase of our annuities and of 38%. And also, believe that we really think that we will exceed our target for this year. And on funeral, so it's never please be with me, Michael, that it's not really good to mention names in a call like this when But it comes down to funeral to answer your question, of course, we are open to onboard closed books in of funeral businesses. So there are a couple of closed books of funeral business, and we are also more than willing to look more to open funeral businesses.

1:18:43 And there are a couple of bigger players where the largest players has 50% market share, probably that is not possible for us also from a competition perspective to really be interested in, but other players would be of our interest. Brilliant. Thank you so much. There are no further questions at this time. I will now like to turn the conference back to Ingrid Deswardes for closing remarks. Thanks a lot, and thank you all for listening in and also for your very nice and interesting questions. We enjoyed being with you this morning and are looking very much forward to meeting, hope lots of you in London in the coming days.

1:19:30 So with that, I would like to really look forward toward our the London engagement and meetings and hope you all have a very nice day with our clean set of results. Thanks very much. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.