Aegon Limited (AEG) Q2 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for this conference call on EGON's first half-year 2025 results. I'm Yves Cormier, Head of Investor Relations, and joining me today to take you through our progress are EGON CEO, Lars Friese, and TFO, Duncan Russell. Before we start, we would like to ask you to review our disclaimer on forward-looking statements, which you can find at the end of the presentation. And with that, I would like to give the floor to Lars. Thank you, Eve, and good morning, everyone. I want to start today's presentation by informing you about the next steps in Agon's transformation and running through our commercial developments before Duncan will address our results in more detail. So let me begin on slide number two with the key messages. Our strategy is to grow and transform our businesses, and we made good progress in doing so during the first half of 2025. We are on track to deliver on our strategy and on all our targets. Our operating result was 845 million euros, up 19% compared with last year. This increase was mainly driven by profitable business growth and less unfavorable claims experience in the US, but also in the UK and in our international segment. Operating capital generation before holding and funding expenses amounted to 576 million euros, decreasing by 2% over the same period. New business strain increased, especially in our U.S. strategic assets, as we grew the business. Commercial momentum remains strong across our key markets, leading to higher new life sales and more net deposits. The capital position of our operating units remains strong and above their respective operating levels. Furthermore, in the U.S., we have extended the hedging of the variable annuity portfolio to cover part of the base fee exposure, which redu...