Aegon Limited (AEG) Q2 2021 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good day and welcome to the Aegon second quarter 2021 results conference call for analysts and investors. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Jan-Willem Wendema, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, sir. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining this conference call on Aegon's second quarter 2021 results. You would appreciate it if you could take a moment to review our disclaimer on forward-looking statements which you can find at the back of the presentation. With me today are Aegon CEO Laert Vriese, Chief Transformation Officer Duncan Russell and CFO Matt Ryder. Let me now hand over to Laert. Thanks Jan-Willem and good morning everyone. We appreciate that you are joining us on today's call and look forward to updating you on our second quarter results. In my part of the presentation, I will take you through the strategic highlights and through the progress we have made on our strategic assets. Our Chief Transformation Officer, Duncan Russell, will take you through the actions we are taking on our U.S. variable annuity business. And Matt Ryder will then go through the details of the results and our capital position. Finally, I will conclude the presentation with a wrap-up, after which we will open the call for a Q&A session. So let's move to slide number two. We have made steady progress on our strategic priorities and financial targets, and I'm encouraged to see this reflected in our second quarter results. Economic recovery, aided by increased vaccination rates, supported our results. The second quarter of 2021 saw an increase in the operating result across all segments, driven by expense savings, increased fees due to higher equity markets, and normalization of claims expe...