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Operator: Welcome to this Ageas conference call. I am pleased to present Mr. Hans de Cuyper, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Wim Guilliams, Chief Financial Officer. [Operator Instructions]. Please note that the conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand over to Mr. Hans de Cuyper and Mr. Wim Guilliams. Gentlemen, please go ahead.
Hans J. De Cuyper: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for dialing into this conference call and for joining the presentation of Ageas full year 2025 results. I'm extremely proud to report that we successfully completed the first year of our Elevate27 strategy, a remarkable year where we delivered a continued strong performance and raised our financial targets twice. 2025 was, to say the least, a transformational year for Ageas, giving us many achievements to be proud of. Thanks to the Saga partnership and esure acquisition, Ageas steadily strengthened its position in the U.K. market becoming one of the top 3 U.K. personal lines insurers. By acquiring the remaining stake in AG, we have full ownership of -- we will have full ownership of our core home market, further strengthening our leading position in Belgium. Both transactions fully aligned with our Elevate27 strategy of focusing on cash generative entities. In 2025, Ageas delivered outstanding growth across the group, with inflows up more than 9% at constant FX, driven by both Life and Non-Life with Ageas Re adding momentum. This remarkable performance was boosted by a strong growth in Non-Life with inflows up 16%, up in all segments and product lines. The uplift in Belgium resulted from both portfolio expansion and tariff adjustments while Asia benefited from an upward trend in all countries. Europe inflows increased with continued focus on profitability over volume and the U.K. positively contributed despite a softer market supported by esure and Saga business. The Reinsurance segment delivered an exceptional performance, mainly driven by third-party business, thanks to strong profitable growth in all business lines and aided by the inflows from partnerships. In Life, Europe inflows experienced a significant increase of plus 21%, driven by continued excellent performance in Türkiye and a remarkable growth in savings products in Portugal. Also, Belgium showed a strong performance of plus 6%, driven by excellent unit-linked sales to the bank channel, while Asia growth was realized with strong persistency rates, building on the new business that was sold in previous year in China. Our continued strong growth in Life translated in the growth of our Life liabilities of more than 6%. Regarding the net operating result, we achieved an outstanding result of more than EUR 1.655 billion above the latest guidance announced last month. This strong result was driven by a remarkable Non-Life performance reflected in the excellent combined ratio of 92.5%, partially supported by benign weather in Belgium. Life performance improved across the group with high margins in Belgium and Europe further supported by a one-off tax benefit in China. Regarding the recurring cash upstream, we received over 2025 EUR 949 million, and this is notably above guided range of EUR 850 million to EUR 900 million and up 18% compared to last year. And for 2026, we expect a significantly higher cash upstream of EUR 1.2 billion. Following the excellent results, a solid Pillar 2 solvency ratio of 211% and a robust cash position, the Board of Directors has decided to propose a total gross cash dividend of EUR 3.75 per share, a growth above 7% over 2025 and this is fully in line with our commitment. The interim dividend of EUR 1.5 per share was already paid out in December last year, and the payment of the remaining EUR 2.25 per share will be done in the course of June. Year 2025 demonstrated how quickly economic conditions such as inflation and interest rates can change and how macroeconomic events can influence the business environment. In this dynamic landscape, having diversified operations across regions and products are particularly important. During this transformational first year of Elevate27, Ageas achieved a more balanced geographical and segment distribution increasing the weight on European cash generative entities. The balance between Life and Non-Life businesses across the world is a defining feature of Ageas as a well diversified group, which keeps a steady growth in performance and a strong solvency even in volatile times. Before handing over things to Wim, let me share a quick update of our 2025 M&A journey. We closed Saga in July and esure in September, adding the missing pieces to our U.K puzzle. For esure, the integration started already at the end of 2025 ahead of plan, and we are well on track to achieve the announced annual synergies of more than GBP 100 million as of 2028. With the AG acquisition on track to close in the second quarter of 2026, another milestone approaches, further reshaping our group and accelerating our journey towards delivering on our Elevate27 ambitions. This allowed us to elevate our financial targets twice in the first year of our strategic cycle, upgrading our holding free cash flow to more than EUR 2.6 billion and the shareholder remuneration to more than EUR 2.2 billion while reiterating our average earnings per share growth between 6% to 8%. With this positive update, I now give the floor to Wim, who will walk you through the segment performance in more detail.
Wim Guilliams: Thank you, Hans. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us. As mentioned by Hans, the strong net operating result was mainly driven by an excellent insurance result in Non-Life and a solid performance in Life, further supported by a low tax rate in China. This translated into a strong combined ratio at 92.5% and a high Life net operating result of EUR 1.259 billion. Life net operating result rose sharply by 39% compared to last year. As communicated end of January '26, following a tax regime change in China, a Chinese joint venture, Taiping Life, recognized a positive one-off benefit of EUR 300 million in deferred taxes. We also delivered an excellent Life operating insurance service result, up 4% compared to last year, illustrating the quality of the business in all segments. In Belgium, the Life net operating result was up plus 5% compared to last year, supported by a solid insurance result, as shown by the strong guaranteed margin, of 102 basis points. In Europe, the Life net operating result was up plus 20% compared to last year, driven by an excellent performance in Türkiye. Asia recorded a solid increase in the Life operating insurance service results, up more than 7%, driven by a higher CSM release and a positive development in expense variance. CSM roll forward showed a positive operating CSM movement of EUR 170 million. This positive evolution corresponding to a 1.8% growth was supported by a significant contribution of new business. Looking at the drivers of the Life value new business, the present value of new business premiums in '25 was driven by the strategic shift in product mix in China. Belgium showed a significant improvement in the Life business new margin compared to last year, up 110 basis points, reaching a new business margin of 6.8%. In Europe, the present value of new business premiums showed a strong growth compared to last year of plus 17%, driven by Türkiye. Group Life new business margin stood at 7.9%, a performance influenced by the liability transformation in China to participating products. Participating products are more capital efficient and less sensitive to interest rate movements, but they typically carry lower margins than traditional products. The resulting shift in the business mix impacts the overall margin. Moving now to Non-Life. The combined ratio reached an excellent 92.5%, leading to a 21% increase in the net operating result to EUR 548 million. The strong performance was driven by all segments. In Belgium, the Non-Life net operating result rose by plus 9%, reflecting both business growth and an improved combined ratio supported by benign weather conditions. In Europe, the combined ratio improved versus last year, driven by the continued positive trajectory in health profitability in Portugal and better household performance across all countries. In Asia, the Non-Life net operating result increased across all markets, supported by an improved combined ratio. Lastly, the reinsurance combined ratio for the third-party business stood at a strong 76.5% benefiting from favorable claims development and a stable expense ratio. Regarding the balance sheet evolution. Our comprehensive equity grew strongly compared to full year '24, reaching EUR 17.5 billion. This growth was driven by strong net operating result and the capital increase for the esure acquisitions, which more than offset the impact of foreign exchange volatility and dividend payments. Our current cash position stands at a very solid EUR 1.45 billion, firmly supported by the EUR 949 million of dividend upstreams during full year '25, a strong 18% rise compared to last year. Our cash position was further reinforced by the RT1 issue completed in mid-December. To conclude, I would like to add a word on solvency and operational capital generation. As mentioned by Hans, the solvency ratio of the Solvency II scope stood at a comfortable 211%, while the solvency of the non-Solvency II scope stood at 244%. The operational capital generation over the period amounted to EUR 1.9 billion. This included EUR 1.2 billion generated by the Solvency II entities, representing a 7% year-on-year increase, while the general account consumed EUR 187 million. Non-Solvency II entities contributed EUR 892 million, a decrease compared to last year, reflecting the interest rate environment and the lower new business contribution from China, following the strategic shift toward participating [indiscernible] products. Operational free capital generation amounted to EUR 793 million. Within the Solvency II scope, operational free capital generation increased, supported by higher operational capital generation, the operational free capital generation in the non-Solvency II scope was impacted by higher consumption, capital consumption, mainly driven by the increased equity allocation in China. I've now reached the end of my presentation, and we are ready to answer any questions you may have.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from David Barma with Bank of America.
David Barma: Firstly, on Asia, can you update us on where the mix of business is towards your target in terms of participating products and whether the margins in the second half of the year should be fully reflecting this change of mix or whether we should see a bit more pressure in '26? That's my first question. And then secondly, on cash, with Ageas being full owner of AG, you've talked about the potential for cash pooling that could reduce some of the conservatism in local buffers. Can you give some color on what that means in practice and whether you'd be looking to run with less excess capital in Belgium going forward?
Hans J. De Cuyper: Thank you, David. I think I'll give both questions to Wim, who can give you the technical details.
Wim Guilliams: On the business mix, we've done a substantial change to the participating products. If you look at from a annual premium equivalent perspective, we're at 70% to 80%. But you should know that in that remaining, there's also a sizable part, which is nonparticipating, but they are very short term. They're more than protection business. You can say that we've done a major shift towards these participating products. I can understand your questions on the margins and how we have to look at them going forward? Now there has been a bit of volatility of these margins over the years. So don't take the second half as a reference. I would more look at the full year, what you see there as margins going forward as a good reference because there's a bit of a mix in the duration of the products they will be looking at. Why do I say look at the full year? You've seen that over the last couple of months, the rates in China are a bit more stable. So that has, of course, an impact on the margins you will see going forward. If they would go up or if they would go down, you know that we have now that automatic interest rate mechanism in China, but that always works with a bit of delay, so that you have to take into account going forward. Now your second question on cash fungibility, cash pooling has less to do with the excess capital from a solvency perspective. This is more a liquidity management tool, where we can say we can look at the free liquidity from a group perspective and start pulling that together. So that was also the reason why we said you can have a different view on our local -- on our GA liquid asset, total liquid assets. So we don't need to be as stringent as we are as before. Now your follow-up question will be then, what is the new level you would take into account? As in the past, allow me not to give a clear number on that because it depends a lot on the market circumstances and that is driving what we have. But we will continue having a cash guardrail. But thanks to this cash pooling, we have additional tools at group level now to take them into account to manage that cash liquidity going forward.
Operator: Our next question is coming from Farooq Hanif from JPMorgan.
Farooq Hanif: I've actually got 2 questions and one clarification following the answer to David's question. So just to be -- just a clarification first. What you just said, Wim, was that we should continue to forecast cash remittances as normal, but the amount of cash that you need at the holding is no longer as big a constraint. Is that the right way to think about it? So that's a clarification number one. And then on the questions, on Asia tax, I believe there are still some ongoing effects, if you could just talk about the difference between deferred tax asset, deferred tax liability, what's been recognized and what could be recognized going forward and how we should think about the tax rate for China and Asia generally going forward in the Life business? And then my last question is on the reinsurance profits. Obviously, throughout the group, you've had very good result because of weather. But in Reinsurance, the third-party profit has grown a lot as you stated in your presentation is ahead of target. So can you just explain how much of that is sustainable? How much of that might disappear with the Prima quota share? Just want to get a sense of what you think of the Re profit going forward?
Wim Guilliams: Farooq, on the first one, I can be very clear, yes, your understanding is correct. So it's about cash fungibility. And in the past, we looked at the total liquid assets. This has nothing to do with the cash remittance as such. That will follow the normal evolution that you had in the past. Your second question on Asia tax. I can understand this is, of course, the major update that you've seen with that one-off deferred tax benefit. As you could read end of January, this has, of course, to do with the fact that you know we have been more conservative in the past on these DTAs, which we didn't recognize as the average of the market is. And now it has been clarified with the transition to IFRS 17/9 that that's the tax base and also the transition effect you can take into account in how you calculate the taxes. So basically, this one-off tax benefit is a bit adjusting the more conservative tax rate that we had in '23 and '24, but it has all to do with deferred tax. From now onwards, we are for tax accounting in an IFRS 17/9 world in Mainland China, that means we take the IFRS 17/9 results and that's the tax base going forward. There's always a bit of an adjustment for fair value to P&L movements on instruments, but that's less relevant for us because we exclude them from our net operating results, so you can put that a bit aside. Now on that tax base, what is creating the big deductibility is that if you invest in long-term government bonds and in some of the provisional bonds, the coupon you get on these bonds, you can deduct from the tax base. So that means that if you now look at the situation, we will be looking to a tax rate between 0% to 10%. If you ask us to give a number in that range, it will be more than 5% because that's the midrange we have. And that depends on the deductibility that we have on that IFRS 79 tax base. How will that evolve going forward? That will depend on the evolution of the portfolio, the growth of the portfolio, and of course, to what extent we will have that part of deductibility of long-term government bonds. On the Reinsurance profits and the weather, and then I will give it back also to Hans. Please remember, of course, that the Reinsurance team has done a tremendous job also to work on the diversification of the portfolio. We're no longer fully dependent on weather. Weather will stay an element in Reinsurance, but we have diversified to other types of business lines and that means that the profit signature going forward will not be only dependent on cuts and that part of the business.
Hans J. De Cuyper: I can add, Farooq, 2 things. First is your question on Prima. You're right, we had EUR 7 million impact result in '25. As you know, we expect that to go on in '26, probably around another EUR 8 million. In the long run, AXA has communicated that it is their intention to take over that business. How that phasing out will happen is not fully clear yet. But I think by the end of the strategic cycle '27, you can assume that, that business will not be there anymore. On the other hand, we have now an organization that is capable to insure and reinsure these type of partnerships. And we have already, I think, signed a new similar type of partnership for not the same volume, but EUR 130 million. So that is a business that we will continue developing going forward. Last comment I want to add on Wim is, indeed the diversification. As you know, we started with predominantly property risk. We have diversified, first of all, in casualty. And now the team has done a great job in underwriting expertise for specialty lines. Eventually, the intention is to bring it to roughly to 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 in the 3 segments. So that will, first of all, stabilize results; and secondly, reduce the dependency on weather as such for Reinsurance.
Farooq Hanif: Just one follow-up, if I may. I believe, and I might be wrong, that there's also a deferred tax liability benefit that you could get in Asia, am I correct? So when you give the 5% guidance, that's taking that into account?
Wim Guilliams: Let's take into the -- yes, Farooq, that's taken into account. It will, of course, depend -- that's all based on the projections of results going forward. If that would be a difference, then you could have still a difference in the tax rate also at this point. That's taken into account in the assumption of the 5%.
Operator: The next question is coming from Andrew Baker from Goldman Sachs.
Andrew Baker: First, there's been some headlines around China government potentially planning capital injection into some of the larger insurers, including Taiping Life. If this was to happen, would you anticipate any impact on the dividend capacity from this business? And then secondly, are you able to just give an overview of the rate and claim inflation dynamics that you're seeing in the U.K. right now?
Hans J. De Cuyper: Okay. On your first question, indeed, there has been some rumors about this China government capital injections. Of course, we cannot comment and we cannot act on rumors. What you will see is that actually, our solvency in China remains quite strong despite the fact that we had, I would say, a double impact from the VIR over '25 because, of course, you have the further absorption of the VIR impact, but you also had the impact on the asset valuation because of interest rates that stabilized slightly up. So that being said, I can say that a big chunk of the VIR impact has been absorbed. We have seen that the gap between the spot rate and the VIR rate as approximately halved over 2025. There is more effect to come, but the solvency is still comfortably about -- above 200%. So for us at this moment, a capital injection is -- in Taiping Life is not on the radar. U.K. claims inflation, it remains high. So in my view, there is, I would say, no room for further softening of the market. We have seen the market softening in '25. We have not fully followed that. We have put bottom line profitability above top line growth, although, of course, we do see a nice performance in top line, but that's also from absorbing the Saga and the esure business in the portfolio. Our price adjustments have been limited to approximately 2%, both in motor and property, while you have seen the market softening between 10% and 12%. Towards the end of the year, December, and that's also what we see in the pattern beginning of this year, we've seen it could be that the motor market is bottoming out a little bit, and that [indiscernible] become reasonable. But all this, of course, is subject to further monitoring and how it will go. What we do see now in the strategy of the U.K. team is we have, I would say, more dynamics to play in this pricing market because we have now access to the full, I would say, potential customer base via different brands and different distribution channels from partnership over brokerage, where our pricing used to be a lot more stable because this was about the good relationship with the brokers versus PCW and direct where the pricing often is a lot more dynamic where you immediately act on your positioning in the rankings. But I can assure you that the team is very diligent on focusing protection of the portfolio on the one hand, but definitely also on achieving bottom line performance.
Operator: The next question is coming from Michael Huttner from Berenberg.
Michael Huttner: Fantastic. I have so many questions, but I'll ask 2 and come back. The first one is just a bit more on China. I was really interested by your comment that the gap between the spot interest rates and the VIR is halved and solvency is above. But can you give us a little bit more granularity? It's just -- I'm sure -- just in terms of the gap on the VIR and if it were to fully close, what would it mean in terms of solvency? I mean any help -- and within that, if I may include that as a question, I saw the China cash went up from EUR 80 million to EUR 110 million. And I'm just wondering what you kind of feel for what it might be in your plan for the EUR 1.2 billion in 2026? And the second question is on Reinsurance. Excluding -- so you have this 300% rise in Prima, I'm assuming that's Prima and Triglav. Can you give us a feel for what the kind of the more normal business, what the growth is there? And in light to that, just a feel for whether at some stage, you'll be considering putting more capital in there?
Hans J. De Cuyper: Okay. Thank you, Michael. There are 2 detailed business questions, so I will give them to the responsible heads of those business, Filip and Manu in a minute. But maybe first, your question on VIR and solvency, which I give to Christophe, the CRO.
Christophe Ghislain Vandeweghe: Yes, perhaps to explain the solvency, you can see it a bit in the evolution on the slides that we have shared. If you see our solvency evolution on Page 22, you see that you have a big market movement in there. And obviously, the biggest impact of that market movement is exactly linked to what Hans was mentioning also the VIR impact. Now in terms of amounts, there is an FX impact in that. So you first need to deduct that. That's about EUR 900 million on the own funds and the whole capital movement that you see there, there's about EUR 300 million is basically a fix related, if you simplify it. So the fix doesn't move that much. The solvency ratio is quite neutral. But it does, of course, impact the own funds and the capital requirements. I would say most of the rest is actually linked to interest rate movements. We have different things. Hans already mentioned the rates went up during the year. So you have 1/3 of a double hit there. But of course, the equity markets also increased, so that offsets a bit. So we can expect that, given the figures that Hans already mentioned, I think the delta between, let's say, the spot rate of the Valuation Interest Rate and that average Valuation Interest Rate was about 90 basis points at the end of last year and is about 40 basis points today. So we did absorb a large part of that delta during the year. And of course, that means that we expect still a material impact to come in 2026, but by then, it will start to go down a lot.
Hans J. De Cuyper: Upstreaming China...
Filip Coremans: Yes. Thank you, Michael. On the dividend development that you saw over the last year, of course, it's just not entirely come from China, but China indeed increased the dividend, very much in line with the statements that they themselves made on their dividend policy. So to demystify a little bit the effect of dividend on the solvency is only around 3%, 4%, let's keep that in mind. That is not a determining factor. CTIH made a commitment and also in their public statement that they are looking at a steadily increasing EPS over time and that is the line they stick to. They also mentioned that they may relook at that as increasing the payout looking forward. But so we expect stable increasing dividend per share coming out of CTIH and Taiping Life being the main feeder of that, you can draw your own conclusion.
Hans J. De Cuyper: So before I go to Manu for reinsurers on upstreaming, you mentioned the EUR 1.2 billion, Michael. Important there is that in the agreement we have with BNP on the stake in AG, we will receive the full '25 -- over '25 dividend of AG already at the level of Ageas. So that should give a lot more comfort on that EUR 1.2 billion that we have stated as upstreaming for 2026. Now Reinsurance, Manu?
Emmanuel Van Grimbergen: Thank you, Hans, and good morning, Michael. So on Slide 37, you have an overview of the inflow of reinsurance and you see that by the end of 2025, the inflow for the third party is at a level of EUR 905 million, which is including the Triglav Prima deal, and that amount for EUR 630 million. So excluding that EUR 630 million, the inflow end of '25 would have been EUR 275 million compared to EUR 213 million end of '24, which is an increase of 29%. So I can give you already a quick update on the renewal of 1/1/26 and there, we -- on the business that had to be renewed on January '26, we have an increase of more than 20% of business. And your question on your capital, you know that over the strategic cycle, we decided to allocate EUR 280 million solvency capital requirement to the Reinsurance third-party business. The EUR 280 million solvency capital requirement was excluding a deal like Prima. Where are we today? Today, we are at a level of capital allocation, Solvency capital requirement allocation to reinsurance of a bit more than EUR 200 million, and it is including the Triglav deal.
Michael Huttner: And other EUR 200 million, that includes your renewals, right, the 20% rise in January?
Emmanuel Van Grimbergen: Yes, yes.
Operator: The next question is coming from Farquhar Murray from Autonomous.
Farquhar Murray: Two questions, if I may. Firstly, on the guidance for net operating profit of over EUR 1.5 billion full year '26 million, can we just walk through the bridge of the kind of full year '25, so I want that EUR 655 million? I'd have the Asia Life's tax steps, it's probably minus EUR 300 million to get to the 25% tax rate and then probably a positive of EUR 137 million to get the 0 to 10% and then a material step up from the AG minority. But I just wondered if you could give a sense of those right steps and what else are you assuming in there? And then secondly, you commented on the competitive environment in U.K. Non-Life. I just wondered if you could extend your thinking on to the Belgium business and in particular where you might expect any softness to emerge in that business or relatively stable this year?
Hans J. De Cuyper: Thanks, Farquhar. Indeed, we gave a guidance of 1.5 -- well above, I would say, EUR 1.5 billion for this year. First of all, in that guidance, we do assume a tax rate for Asia between 0 and 10% somewhere, let's take approximately 5%. You are right that the starting base, of course, is the EUR 1,350 million, which is the right reference to look at. For AG and the deal with BNP, we assume here closing towards the end of the first half of the year. So we do include half a year of the impact of AG in this guidance. As usual, we also assume a normal cat nat event. So that means the promise to give guidance on combined ratio which is below 93% considering a normal cat nat here. So that means worse it could go above, better like we had last year. Last year cat nat was plus 1% impact on combined ratio, it might be even a little bit lower, but also be aware, of course, that there is already some weather events in January, mainly in Portugal. But at this moment, we are comfortable to go above the NOK 1.5 billion for the year. And as you know, in these volatile times, it is hard to give this full 12 months in advance. So we will definitely bring an update by midyear. Then the Non-Life business from Belgium. Well, I think Belgium is, I would say, today in a very attractive situation for profitability, the market as a whole, but definitely Ageas is outperforming that market on the positive side. You have seen that the results were very good, but the impact of weather in Belgium was very low, 0.4, I think, in the combined ratio, that was a very positive cat nat here. So please assume a more normalized cat nat that we always assume for the year. At this moment, no events, I think, in Belgium or no material events yet in Belgium, but the market is profitable, is very competitive, but it is also excellently positioned to compete in that market. So the sensitivity for the softening in the Belgian market, you cannot compare, for instance, with the U.K. market where your business is immediately impacted in Belgium. The persistency of your businesses are a lot stronger compared to the U.K. market.
Farquhar Murray: What kind of tariffs you bring through at present, just as a follow-on?
Hans J. De Cuyper: Sorry, I didn't -- I missed that question.
Farquhar Murray: Just as a follow-on, what kind of tariffs expectations have you for the year? Are you going to be [indiscernible] still increasing in line with inflation probably or maybe a bit softer than that?
Hans J. De Cuyper: Well, you know that in Belgium, approximately 60% of our business is immediately inflation linked. So there, I think the normal index 2% to 2.3% was inflation? .
Unknown Executive: Yes, depending on the...
Hans J. De Cuyper: yes, depending on the product that is already absorbed in the tariffication. The rest remains to be seen. For cat nat, I do not expect an increase because it was a very good year last year and the rest remains to be same.
Operator: The next question is coming from Michele Ballatore from KBW.
Michele Ballatore: Yes. So 2 questions from me. So the first one is on the Asian business about your comment on the higher exposure to equity. I'm sorry, I thought in the past, you reduced this exposure, probably I missed that, but if you can clarify this point. And the second question is about the overall pricing environment in your European business, I'm talking about Non-life, so what are you observing in, let's say, since the start of the year?
Unknown Executive: Yes, the first point on the exposure in equity, maybe a few points of clarification. First and foremost, in 2024, indeed, we reduced that exposure gradually and in the course of 2025 that has been rebuilt up to the levels that we had, let's say, beginning '24, plus obviously, you had a sharp market increase. So the equity exposure certainly has gone up. Also to note that this, in combination with the shift to participating products mostly happened, obviously, in the par portfolio, where the loss absorption capacity for that type of instrument is better. That's the only clarification I can give on that. But that indeed led to a slightly higher risk charge, obviously, on these equities in the solvency ratio.
Hans J. De Cuyper: Okay. If I look at the European continent, well, Belgium, we just spoke about on tariffs in Non-Life. So I don't think I should go a lot deeper there. U.K., we already spoke about as well. I see market analysts being relatively negative on motor in the U.K. I see predictions of combined ratios to 100% to 110% for the market, but be aware that the last few years, we have been outperforming that market and doing way better. But as I just said in the first question, we have seen maybe that motor business bottoming out a little bit, but that is definitely on watch for the rest of the year. As for the team, it is very clear that it is all about sustaining the bottom line. We have said that esure, we should not expect contributing to that bottom line because the esure brings over '27 will go into integration costs to put the businesses together. But we assume that we can sustain profitability in the U.K. despite the cycles we will see in tariff. Portugal, very strong recovery last year. There were 2 attention points the year before, the years before, that was healthcare on the one hand and motor on the other hand. Health care, I think we can comfortably say that profitability has been fully restored while keeping a very good persistency in the portfolio. And I think that has all to do with a very strong customer proposition that we have with Medis in the Portuguese market. Motor situation is improving. I would say we are not yet at the end. We have seen in motor, some negative impact on top line from our pricing discipline. But there, I think the market is still on the path to full profitability. The work is not fully done yet. But again, in summary, Portugal over '25, significant improvement compared to the years before, and we expect that to continue in '26. And then the last one is Türkiye. Well, you know the situation in Türkiye in Non-Life. It is very difficult with inflation. I think the solvency of that company is stable. We hang in there with that business. But overall, I would say, the profit from AKSigorta is not material in the overall European Non-Life business. And as you know, that is more than compensated by the excellent performance that we have on Ageas Life in the Turkish market.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to return the conference call back to the speakers for any closing remarks.
Hans J. De Cuyper: Thank you. Before moving to the conclusions, I want to take a moment to express my sincere appreciation to Filip Coremans for his 20 years of exceptional service at Ageas. Filip has been instrumental in shaping the group's journey and closing the Fortis settlements, which marked a historic milestone for the group. This leadership has been central to our growth story in Asia and to building the strong and valued partnerships that underpin our presence in the region. I would also like to extend my warm congratulations to Karolien Gielen on her expanded responsibilities, bringing together the Managing Director Asia activities with the business development and her leadership will create new opportunities for Ageas. To end this call, let me summarize the main conclusions. Next to our continued top line growth, our operations delivered an improved underwriting profitability, a clear reflection of the strength of our underlying business. The net operating result for 2025 was driven by an excellent performance in Non-Life and a solid Life result, further supported by a one-off tax benefit in China. The strong 2025 results lead to a total dividend per share of EUR 3.75, representing more than 7% growth over 2025 and we anticipate receiving significantly higher cash upstream of EUR 1.2 billion in 2026. The successful first year of the Elevate27 strategic cycle, upgrading our financial targets twice, increasing holding free cash flow targets to over EUR 2.6 billion and our shareholder renovation target to more than EUR 2.2 billion. And to conclude, 2025 was a transformational year for Ageas, and we are well on track with the integration of esure and the closing of the AG acquisition. With these closing remarks, I would like to bring this call to an end. If you should have outstanding questions, don't hesitate to contact our IR team. Thank you for your time, and I wish you a very nice day.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you very much for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.