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Aegon Ltd. (AEG)

Q1 2022 Earnings Call· Fri, May 13, 2022

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Aegon’s First Quarter 2022 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 Weidema, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Jan Willem Weidema

Management

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining this conference call on Aegon’s first quarter 2022 results. Before we start, we 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’s CEO, Lard Friese; CFO, Matt Rider; and Chief Transformation Officer, Duncan Russell. Let me now give the floor to Lard.

Lard Friese

Management

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 first quarter results and the progress we are making against our strategic and financial objectives. So, let’s turn to Slide #2. The first 3 months of 2022 have been unprecedented in many ways. Our Russian invasion in Ukraine has had a devastating impact on the lives of many people. It also further fueled inflationary pressures and volatility on the global financial markets at a time that many economies were opening up after relaxing COVID-19 measures. I am proud of our colleagues who continue to effectively support and service our customers in this turbulent environment. Our results and the progress we made on our 2023 strategic and financial objectives are evidence of their great work. Despite the challenging environment, we have achieved higher sales in many of our strategic assets. We continued sharpening our strategic focus most importantly, through the completion of the divestments of our businesses in Hungary and Turkey to the Vienna Insurance Group. The closing of the sale of our Hungarian businesses resulted in a significant increase in cash capital at the holding. This enabled us to announce a share buyback program and to further reduce our debt. As a result, we have brought our debt into our target range while maintaining a capital position that allows us to distribute excess cash to shareholders. Let me now share with you where we stand on the execution of our operational improvement plan on Slide #3. We have made good progress on our operational improvement plan, which, if you recall, included more than 1,200 initiatives. We have fully implemented more than 900 of these already, of which nearly 100 were completed in the first 3…

Duncan Russell

Management

Thank you, Lard. Good morning, everyone. At our Capital Markets Day, we laid out our intention to maximize the value from our financial assets by accelerating, increasing or derisking the cash flows of these blocks of business. We have made good progress across the board in this area, whether that is through the active management of our long-term care exposure or through our various efforts to improve the predictability and level of remittances from the Dutch Life business. And of course, this has also been the case for our variable annuity portfolio, where we have implemented a series of management actions. It started with an expansion of our dynamic hedging program in order to further protect our balance sheet for market movements. In the first quarter of 2022, we achieved a hedge effectiveness of 97% on a dynamic hedge program continuing our strong track record. Furthermore, we successfully completed the lump sum buyout program, whereby 18% of the eligible policyholders accepted the offer. We bought out these policies below the economic value of the liability. Combined with the increase in fees we have implemented on certain products, we have created approximately $250 million of capital. Our actions have led to a material reduction in the capital that is back in the variable annuity portfolio. Variable annuities now only represent 16% of Transamerica’s total required capital compared to 23% at the time of the Capital Markets Day, a reduction of approximately $700 million to $1.3 billion. As shown on Slide 10 variable annuities is a sizable business with over $75 billion in account values. It is also a heterogenic portfolio with a broad range of riders each with a unique profile. Newer contracts with minimum withdrawal benefit riders, GMWBs, represent about half of the account value and two-thirds of the allocated…

Matt Rider

Management

Thanks, Duncan. Good morning, everyone and again, welcome. Let me start with an overview of our first quarter financial performance on Slide 14. As Lard already shared, Aegon’s addressable expense savings for the trailing 4 quarters totaled €234 million compared with our full year 2019 expense fee. Aegon’s operating result increased by 7% to €463 million, supported by an improvement in claims experience in the U.S. and the positive contribution from growth initiatives. Operating capital generation increased from €223 million to €318 million. This increase was driven by an improvement in U.S. claims experience as well as strong performance in the other units, including from favorable claims experience and exceptional items. The proceeds from the divestment of Aegon’s businesses in Hungary and the €76 million free cash flow for the quarter increased cash capital at the holding to €1.8 billion, clearly above the top end of our operating range. This allowed us to announce a debt tender offer taking us into our gross financial leverage target range of €5 billion to €5.5 billion and also announced a share buyback of €300 million. Our balance sheet remains strong with the capital positions of all three of our main units above their respective operating levels at the end of the quarter. The group Solvency II ratio decreased by 1 percentage point over the first quarter to 210%. In contrast to the cash capital, the Solvency II ratio already reflects the debt tender offer and share buyback that were announced in March of this year. We continue to actively manage our risks and our capital position, especially in our financial assets. For the variable annuity book, our dynamic hedge program performed well with a hedge effectiveness of 97%. Furthermore, we have seen continued success in our long-term care rate increase program. We achieved…

Solvency II

Management

On Slide 18, you see cash capital at the holding increased to €1.8 billion at the end of the quarter, which is above the top end of our operating range. This was largely driven by proceeds from the Hungarian divestment as well as by remittances from the business units. In the Netherlands, the actions we have taken to strengthen the capital position, improve the risk profile and increased capital generation have allowed us to double the quarterly remittances from the life business to €50 million. This contributed to the €76 million of free cash flow during the quarter. Divestment proceeds net of an earn-out payment for our joint venture with Santander amounted to €553 million and mainly reflected the closing of the sale of our business in Hungary. Our cash position provided us with the financial flexibility to reduce our debt through a tender offer and announce a €300 million share buyback. The share buyback is being executed in three tranches of €100 million each, with each tranche conditional on maintaining the capital positions of our main units in line with the stated ambitions and the cash capital of the holding being involved at the middle of the operating range. The first tranche of €100 million is expected to be completed in the second quarter. We announced today that the second tranche is expected to commence on July 7 and is expected to be completed in the third quarter. And with that final note, I now pass it back to you, Lard.

Lard Friese

Management

Yes. Thank you very much. Looking ahead on Slide #20, we are seeing the impact from COVID-19 subside and several central banks tightening their monetary policies to address rising inflation. While global economic and geopolitical uncertainty remains, the action we have taken to strengthen our balance sheet, help us to navigate through this, and I’m confident that the progress we are making on the execution of our strategy and the implementation of our operational improvement plan, keep us on track for delivering on our strategic and financial objectives. Encouraged by the start of this year, we are fully energized to continue our transformation journey in 2022. I would now like to open the call for your questions. And in the interest of time, I kindly request you to limit yourself to two questions per person. Operator, please open the Q&A session.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] we will now take our first question from Andrew Baker from Citi. Please go ahead.

Andrew Baker

Analyst

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. First one on capital generation. Can you just walk through some of the moving pieces there for the quarter? And then maybe comment on what you see as a sustainable run rate going forward relative to the 1.2 run rate guidance that you provided earlier in the year? And then secondly, I guess it’s somewhat related, but the €1.2 billion rate guidance had €150 million assumed for excess claims in it. Given the favorable claims that you’ve seen in Q1, are you expecting to be coming below that €150 million now? And is there anything specifically to call out on some of the favorable claims you’ve seen outside of the U.S., please? Thank you.

Lard Friese

Management

Thank you, Andrew. Matt, over to you.

Matt Rider

Management

Yes. Thanks for the question. So as you point out, it was indeed a very good operating capital generation quarter here in the first quarter, especially given the fact that normally, we would see seasonally volatile claims in the first quarter. So coming out with the €385 million operating caption before holding and funding expenses, so this is what’s generated in the business unit was definitely above what we had guided for at the last earnings release. So maybe I can walk you through a little bit of the puts and takes of this one. So again, operating capital generation at €385 million during the quarter. And then of that, you had a €45 million of net adverse claims experience. So a little bit worse on mortality, significantly better on morbidity, but in general, €45 million of net claims experience. The COVID mortality claims where we had guided on 150,000 U.S. population deaths for the first quarter. That’s basically what we got in the first quarter. So the mortality results on COVID were pretty much in line with – on our expectations. So anyway, if you go from the €385 million and you add back the €45 million of adverse claims experience that we had that gets you back to about €430 million, excluding the claims experience within the U.S. And then after that, we had exceptional items outside of the U.S. totaling about €65 million. And that was – it was really spread all across the business units. Some of them could potentially be recurring, some of them were more exceptional in nature. But with that, correcting for those positive variances, you get to about €360 million, which was pretty much in line with the guidance that we gave in that quarter. Maybe a good way to bridge that…

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from Fulin Liang from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Fulin Liang

Analyst

Thank you very much. Thank you Matt, for just upgrading the OCG target and as a follow-up, actually, because you have two sets of targets. One is OPG, and another one is free cash flow. And so what I noticed that you have a very good OCG, but you also have a relatively large like maybe market movement from the overall capital generation. I wonder with that actually why you’re upgrading your OCD target? Or would you remain your free cash flow target? Or actually, you’ll keep your free cash flow target unchanged because of some negative on the cash item from market? That’s the first question. And second question is probably on the VA book hedging. I have many questions. So I wonder actually where I should start. I guess the question is, could you give us a broad kind of concept of idea? Is that – should we expect whatever your solution – assuming that you finally chose an external party to – on the transaction, should we always expect that the outcome would be you will release capital and return the capital to the shareholders, and that is your first priority, and can I say that? Thank you.

Lard Friese

Management

Fulin, thank you very much for your questions. The first question will be taken by Matt. And Doug, you’ll take the second question. Take the second question. So first question is free cash flow to...

Matt Rider

Management

Yes. So on the free cash flow, we’re not upgrading our guidance on that one at this point in time. Let’s understand how the year is going to play itself out. I think 1 thing that we had demonstrated though last year was that we want the business units to maintain their regular dividend payments. They did that successfully. But there were also exceptional items where we took dividends out of companies where the ratio is a little bit higher. So I wouldn’t really guide on the free cash flow, per se, in terms of regular remittances but we operate capital pretty tightly at the group. So there might be a benefit in it, but we’re not going to operate any guidance.

Lard Friese

Management

Okay. Thank you very much for that, Matt. So Duncan, over to you on the VA.

Duncan Russell

Management

On the VA. So I think today, we’ve been pretty transparent about our objectives and planning around this. The first statement is we can now say that we are going to engage with third parties following a period of time of significant internal work and preparatory work. Second is that we gave you some criteria deal certainty, manageable knock-on applications and importantly, a satisfactory financial outcome. And that’s something which we will only get greater insight into as we do indeed engage with third parties over the coming months and quarters. In terms of the actual financial outcome, if we do indeed do a transaction, that will then just throw into our normal capital management policy. So nothing specific towards that.

Lard Friese

Management

Yes. And our normal capital management policy, Fulin, is that we have a – we want the units be well capitalized with the cash flow for the holding company that we maintain in a range €0.5 billion to €1.5 billion. If we get above that range or the – and we have capital we don’t need for running the business priorities to get that back to stockholders, as we have just, by the way, demonstrated in this quarter.

Fulin Liang

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from David Barma from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

David Barma

Analyst

Good morning, thanks for taking my questions. I have two on – two follow-ups on the variable annuities, please. Firstly, could you remind us the sensitivity to equity markets or some of the metrics you’ve disclosed today on Slide 10, especially on the operating capital generation and maybe some of the CT numbers as well? And secondly, if we look at this on the cash view, what would be the implications from a cash remittance perspective? Were you to pursue any transactions on that portfolio? Thank you.

Matt Rider

Management

Thanks for your questions. So maybe on – maybe just some very basic data on the variable annuity portfolio. At this moment in time, we hold reserves of about $1.4 billion on the total annuity book. And to that, we have about $1.3 billion of capital that is allocated to it on their kind of at our 400% target basis. In terms of the equity volatility that is embedded in this book that’s the big driver of the published equity – of the published sensitivities that we have and that we put in – that we always put in the press release. You’ll see that they did not move a lot from the previous quarter. And that’s largely a consequence of the base not so much the – what’s happening in the reserve movements of the underlying guarantees. It really in the base fees.

Lard Friese

Management

Thank you very much, Matt. And then the second question, Duncan.

Duncan Russell

Management

Well, the financial implications of the transaction is indeed one of the primary input we saw considerations as to whether we will or not do a reinsurance deal ultimately. In the presentation, I highlighted that the VA block is expected to generate €150 million to €200 million of OCG for the next couple of years. Bear in mind that the book is falling by around 10% per annum to the natural withdrawals. And most of that, as Matt just highlighted, is from base fees. So indeed, we will need to weigh up the emergence of that cash flow and the ability of that for remittances over time with the upfront implications on our RBC from any transaction, which we may or may not do.

David Barma

Analyst

Thank you. Sorry, just to come back on the first point in the €150 million to €200 million OCG new guidance, what was the impact of the lower base fees on the lowering of this number?

Matt Rider

Management

Don’t really – maybe just – maybe to answer it from a little bit of a higher level, total operating capital generation on book was $61 million, I think, for the quarter. That would have been a small amount impacted by the lowering of base fees during the course of the quarter. But yes, but it will be relatively small.

David Barma

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Michael Huttner

Analyst

Fantastic. Thank you very much. On Slide 30, you saw the base assumption. So I just wondered what’s the sensitivity of that VA book the main metrics to the interest rates because we’re now higher than the interest rate in the U.S. And the other question is on U.S. mortality. I think you’ve got $1 trillion total exposure. I was just wondering if you can give a little bit of color to that which portfolio is it is in the VA? Or is it in University Life? And how should we expect it to affect means not worst-case scenarios, would be unmanageable. But relative to what you’ve seen in Q1 also last year, how would you view the emergence of those that mortality with compared to the original assumption of 2020? Thank you.

Lard Friese

Management

Matt, over to you.

Matt Rider

Management

Maybe I can take your first one. So I’m looking at that Slide 30, where we talk about the main economic assumptions. These are only really relevant for IFRS and they are not really relevant for capital generation for us. Interestingly, when we go over to IFRS 17 in 2023, we will not have to make any of these long-term assumptions, frankly, for the – for publishing our financial results. In terms of the mortality risk, I think that specifically for the life block, is that how we want to think about it. Right now, we have seen, obviously, more mortality experience as a consequence of COVID. You have seen in my opening remarks that we have an additional amount of that or additional amount of mortality experience, which we think is at least COVID-related. It’s very difficult to look inside of this to see what that might do to our long-term mortality expectations. You may recall, like last year, we decided we are not going to change any long-term mortality expectations at all because the results were really polluted by the COVID environment. I would say that this is going to be a similar kind of year. It’s going to be very difficult to look through the long-term impacts of COVID on what our long-term management – so that one to be continued, by the way, not just by us, but by the entire industry.

Michael Huttner

Analyst

Maybe you can give – just the figure would be really helpful, maybe just the reserves figure?

Matt Rider

Management

Reserve figure for what, the life block?

Michael Huttner

Analyst

Yes.

Matt Rider

Management

No, I got it. So, for the overall life block, think of it as $40 billion, the entire life block in the U.S.

Michael Huttner

Analyst

And that’s the exposure liability reserve?

Matt Rider

Management

That’s the IFRS reserve liability net of reinsurance on our books.

Michael Huttner

Analyst

And how much of that’s related to just mortality?

Matt Rider

Management

Very difficult to answer that question because a large part of that would be accumulated account value. So, cap surrender values, for example, in universal life type contracts. So, reserves are always a combination of sort of accumulated value to the customer, together with long-term mortality expectations. We can get more detail probably good to give Investor Relations a call on this one and they can get more details with you on this one.

Michael Huttner

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question, Steven Haywood from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Steven Haywood

Analyst

Thanks very much. Two questions on your variable annuity plan or potential plan to come. So, is there a preference for doing transactions with third-parties or any particular portfolio of VA in GMWB, GMDB or GMIB? And did third-parties actually have a preference for taking on particular portfolios. I don’t know whether there has been a majority of GW – sorry GMWB transactions in the market or a different portfolio. I am just trying to gauge what is the appetite in the U.S. third-party providers to do these transactions? And then secondly, you mentioned that the operating cash generation of the book is around $150 million to $200 million. That’s 10% to 15% of your total operating capital generation. And if you are thinking about a potential disposal amount, does that disposal amount to make it an economic attractive deal for you include the potential capital release or is it just on the loss of OCG. That makes sense?

Lard Friese

Management

Duncan, over to you. Thank you very much, Steve, for your questions.

Duncan Russell

Management

I think, Steven, if you are on two of the main ones, actually, which we ourselves are considering internally. So, on the first part about specific blocks of business, I am not going to go into any details there. That is something we spent quite some time internally preparing ourselves for, but we obviously haven’t yet engaged with third-parties and that is exactly what we want to do in the coming weeks and months to firm up, if there is an alignment between our ambitions and our intentions and theirs. You are right to point out that, that in fact, hasn’t been many transactions at all in the space particularly in reinsurance pool. So, this will be something which is complicated. It will take some time. And that’s why we are saying that we are going to compare the outcome there with the alternative of keeping this and continuing to manage it in a sensible way. The second question was on the – how we will measure in fact, the value, I guess the value creation from our deal. And indeed, that will be a simple comparison between the amount of capital we can release on day one, which we highlighted in the presentation has fallen, but it’s still reasonably substantial versus the loss of capital generation going forward, and you can kind of think about if an IRR or net present value as simple [indiscernible]. That will be an important consideration for us, along with certainty and the knock-on implications that actually take this look out, there could be other consequences on things like reserve for and to highlight which we want to get a grip with are manageable.

Steven Haywood

Analyst

Okay. Very good. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from Robin van den Broek from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Robin van den Broek

Analyst

Yes. Thank you very much for taking my questions. First one is a bit of a clarification on the guidance, because I think the 1.2 to 1.3 taking into account the beat in Q1, implicit piece of downgrades versus the previous guidance. I am just trying to get a true understanding of what’s driving that. It’s probably equity market. It’s probably the key driver here, but I was also expecting that in the Netherlands, for example, I think – maybe this is not for Q2, but for Q3, you should probably see some further release into OCG from UFR direct given what rates have done pretty parallel quarter-to-date. So, I was wondering if that’s part of the guidance. Next to that, I think reinvestment risk in the U.S. has probably turned positive. So, I was wondering to what extent those factors are taking into account when you give that guidance? And also in relation to that, with the VA book, your run rate was €250 million to €300 million, I think last quarter has gone down, which I guess is driven by the lump sum and the 10% gradual rundown. But can you talk about how these factors are embedded in that guidance? And last quarter, you were also very trying to provide some insights on how to think about 2023, so, if you can, yes, sorry, 2023. So, it will be very helpful to get that same picture again. And a little bit in relation to capital generation, I think in the Netherlands, you are using long-term return assumptions. And if I remember correctly, I think the mortgage rate was close to 120 basis points, which seems to be on the high side. Can you just give a bit of clarification on how your long-term assumptions are tracking to actual observable spreads at the moment and how that is feeding into your OCG for the Netherlands? Thank you.

Lard Friese

Management

Yes. Thanks Robin for your questions. It’s by no means a downgrade by the way, but I will give the floor to Matt.

Matt Rider

Management

Thanks Robin for your questions. First of all, I would like to ask which two of those five would you like me to answer? I will do all of them. So, on the first one, on the operating capital generation guidance, the €1.2 billion to €1.3 billion, it is not a downgrade. In fact, we had guided towards €1.2 billion last quarter. Now we are up in that guidance. And again, depending on how the year ultimately shapes out with respect to markets and mortality, then we will see where it ends up. So, in general, if you look at the – basically, the run rate of €300 million that was implied from the guidance last year or I am sorry, last quarter, we are maintaining that €300 million effectively that guidance for the next three quarters despite the fact that we have equity market declines that are fairly material. So, I wouldn’t no way consider that to be a – I would not consider that to be a downgrade. The next one on – so on the Netherlands, what’s happening with operating capital generation, actually, the yield curve movements have not been parallel. So, that’s the reason why you didn’t see really a decline in the solvency ratio of the life company. So, although interest rates had moved up during the course of the quarter, which would normally be a bad guide for solvency and a good guide for operating capital generation, you also saw curve flattening, which basically eliminated the result on both sides of the equation both in operating capital generation and in the solvency ratio. The reinvestment in the U.S. is a very important point here because usually, what we have – usually, what we have said is that in normal years, we reinvest something like…

Robin van den Broek

Analyst

And maybe, Matt, on the rates dynamics, I hear what you said, I think that’s exactly true for Q1. But I think since Q2, the move has been more parallel and has been positive. So, Netherlands should probably benefit from some rate dynamics in the third quarter? And do I get – do I understand correctly? You don’t want to entertain OCG thoughts on 2023 or…?

Matt Rider

Management

No, I can talk about 2023 guidance, too. And you are right, by the way. So, in terms of the curve shifts, they were non-parallel during the first quarter. But then since then, they have been up roughly, yes, it’s a little bit in parallel. For 2023, probably the best way to do this is to go off of the – so start with the 2022 guidance. So, here we are going to be, again, €1.2 billion to €1.3 billion. And then the things that if I were you, that I would factor in embedded in that is about €150 million worth of adverse claims experience due to COVID. So, we think that, hopefully, by the time we get to 2023, we won’t have to talk so much about COVID. So, maybe add €150 million to that. And plus, we are going to start to see the operational improvement plan start to kick in for about – just think of the round numbers, maybe €100 million a year. So, that would be an uptick from 2022. And then finally, we have the – so you remember that there is normally a UFR reduction, 15 basis points. We reflected it in the quarter this year. But if rates stay kind of where they are, we are not going to have another rate reduction until 2024. So, in 2023, you can add another €100 million to operating capital generation. And then actually, the way that things stand today, the next time there would be a 15 basis point decrease wouldn’t be until 2030, again, given current markets. So, hopefully, over time we are going to be talking about so much UFR. So, take our 2022 guidance at €350 million, and that gets you in the ballpark of…

Robin van den Broek

Analyst

And so the €1.2 billion to €1.3 billion that actually sort of ignores the exceptions of the beat in Q1. Is that how I should look at that guidance because you are using…

Matt Rider

Management

The full year, so that takes into account the exceptionals in 1Q and then €300 million run rate guidance for the balance of the year should be prior [ph] quarter.

Robin van den Broek

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much for the color. Very helpful.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our final question from Nasib Ahmed from UBS. Please go ahead.

Nasib Ahmed

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. And probably for coming back to the variable annuity block potential transaction. I am not sure if you can say much more on sort of your preference in terms of reducing guarantees versus generating value, I know if you are reducing your guarantees on – that comes at the cost, but also reduce the share of potential cost of equity. And then just the size of the book is quite large. So, presumably, if you can – you said you might be part of a transaction. So, presumably that’s kind of one of the reason why you would say that. I am not sure if you can say that you can do the whole book at the same time given cost transactions up and about €30 billion, I think. And then just on the – sort of the run-off of 10%, that doesn’t include any long-term sort of market gains on the account value. So, you should have minus 10% of some assumption on long-term sort of equity value gains offsetting that. And then second question on sort of there is an assumption change in Q2 on long-term volatility in the variable annuity book. So, I think there is a negative impact on the RBC ratio, but does that improve your OCG going forward? Thanks.

Duncan Russell

Management

I will hand over to Matt for last question. Your question on the VA block, I interpret that to mean what is your criteria versus risk reduction, capital generation, etcetera. And to be honest, all of those things will go into the mix. So, as we engage with third-parties and formulate and if there is a deal to be done here, we will indeed weigh up the trade-offs between capital generation and risk reduction, stability, knock-on implications to just as I have in the presentation. And it’s hard for me to get more precise than that at this stage because we are [indiscernible]. And in terms of sizing, I think it’s – this is a complex deal and this will be a complex transaction, and it does require a lot of resources on our side and presumably also on the counterparty side. So, that means that any transaction would need to be meaningful to makes sense and justify that workload. But you are right, we do have a very large book here. And I think it’s unlikely that we would transact on the whole book given the size and given the potential counterparty exposure that would bring. So, it would need to be meaningful, but unlikely to be the whole book. And then just quickly, the runoff of 10% indeed that we can offset from account value appreciation. As I highlighted in the presentation we issued an 8% total equity return, and I will provide an offset then. I will hand to Matt now for the book.

Matt Rider

Management

Maybe I can take the second one first, just in terms of the runoff of the book. We have – it’s about a €78 billion where we would expect to have that number run off about 10% over time. So, don’t add anything and then subtract that just 10% of that just runs off over time. So, with respect to the volatility assumption, indeed, we have – so in 2Q, we will set a higher – a long-term volatility assumption going forward than what it is today. And the reason why we do that is we want to stabilize the RBC ratio going forward. At this point in time, we would think that, that would have about a 5 percentage point negative impact on the RBC ratio in 2Q. But your question about operating capital generation is spot on. We set the assumptions so that in normal times, actual volatility will fall below that long-term applied volatility. So, you will see that come back over time if things go as kind of normal – you will see that come through over time in the operating capital generation over time. But in terms of very high spikes in implied ball, we are protected on the solvency ratio, which is the reason why we do this.

Nasib Ahmed

Analyst

Prefect. Thank you. That’s very helpful.

Jan Willem Weidema

Management

Alright. Before we close off, I would like to hand over to Lard for some closing remarks.

Lard Friese

Management

Yes. So, if I just look back at the quarter, I mean, over the last 2 years, we have really worked hard, as you all know, as one of our key strategic objectives to calm down the overall risk profile of Aegon Group. And if I look at the work that’s being done, the market backdrop in the first quarter and the print that we did today, on, let’s say, the capital positions, the balance sheet, the way we are able to get also the debt position, the balance sheet in the target range in the first quarter. I think that’s objective and hard work is bearing fruit, as I think, demonstrated by the capital positions and the strength of the balance sheet today. I also believe that we are making good progress on the strategic and financial objectives. We remain consistent and focused on delivering upon our financial and strategic targets by the end of 2023. And with that, I want to thank you for your time today, for your attention to the company and for your questions, and I wish you a very good day. And Jan Willem and the team will be ready to support you in any follow-up questions you may have. Thank you very much.