Mark George Culmer
Management
Thank you, António, and good morning, everyone. I'll update you on our financial performance, and then cover our balance sheet and capital positions. Starting with the P&L. As you heard from Antonio, in the first half of the year, we delivered significantly improved profits on both an underlying and statutory basis, driven by income growth and further substantial reductions in costs and impairments. Underlying profit improved nearly threefold to GBP 2.9 billion, with core business profit of GBP 3.7 billion, up 26%, while non-core losses reduced by nearly 60% to GBP 0.8 billion. Statutory profit before tax was GBP 2.1 billion compared with the loss of GBP 0.5 billion in 2012. Statutory profit includes gains of GBP 780 million from the repositioning of the gilt portfolio in Q1 and GBP 485 million of positive insurance volatility, primarily reflecting the rise in equity markets in the period. Simplification and Verde costs were GBP 786 million. Within this, Simplification was GBP 409 million, with the program contributing run rate cost savings of GBP 1.16 billion. Verde build costs were GBP 377 million, and we continue to target an IPO in mid-2014. On legacy, we've taken a further provision of GBP 575 million, comprising GBP 500 million for PPI and GBP 75 million for our legacy clerical medical business in Germany. Other items were GBP 304 million, and include a charge of GBP 104 million related to pet revisions in pensions benefits. This compares with a GBP 250 million pension curtailment gain in the first half of last year. Finally, the tax charge was GBP 556 million, marginally higher than the effective U.K. rate due mostly to the policyholder tax charge. This gives a profit after tax of GBP 1.6 billion. Looking at income. Core income was GBP 9.1 billion, up 6% with…