Hello, and welcome to the UNIQA Group results of the first half year 2021. My name is Jess, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. For the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, there will be the opportunity to ask questions. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Mr. Kurt Svoboda, to begin today's call. Thank you. Thank you, a warm welcome to all the participants in the call for UNIQA's six months 2021 result. I am referring to the presentation, which is available via the UNIQA website and starting on page five, an overview to a very satisfying result for the first six months of the year 2021. Starting with the snapshot, what jumps to the eye is a 30% growth on the gross premium written. Of course, influenced by the situation that the integration of the former AXA companies are now to a full extent done. The organic growth, which is stated here, was about 2% in Austria, but also in the international business, where without AXA, a very comfortable organic growth in the first six months. Costs and the ratio decreased, of course, is a part of our costs program that was announced also during the Capital Markets Day. Of course, especially in the CEE regions, after the integration, the greatest cost savings are to come in the second quarter and then in the year 2022. Really nice this quarter on the investment side, coming from no significant impairments in the whole portfolio of more than EUR 20 billion. A good result from current income and carrying forward the gains that we realized in the first quarter out of the change in our strategy on the equity portfolio. A combined ratio with 92.6% is outstanding and much below our long-term target. Of course, influenced from certain effects like COVID, less mobility. On the other hand, I will talk about this then in the section on the combined ratio, also deteriorated by the floodings which took place in the first half year. The strong technical result leading to a nice double-digit ROE. Solvency ratio stable close to the 200. For us, therefore, the main challenge is to continue this good work after the first six months and to focus on our long-term target that we presented to you with the new strategy of UNIQA 3.0. Not to forget, looking on page number five, the investment yield is 2 percentage points, which is much above the average guarantee interest that the company has to cover for the life business in Austria, which is around 2.3%. Page number six. We talked about the nice annualized ROE, about 10.1%. Of course, due to this good result, also earnings per share increased rapidly. Group results. Jumping to page number eight and looking a little bit on the revenue side. The growth came out of several channels. First of all, the corporate business in Austria, where we took certain measurements on the pricing, on the portfolio segmentation, has a quite nice growth. Also, the banking channel in Austria with Raiffeisen is growing steadily. The life business, of course, still moderate demand on that level, but the shrinking portfolio is less than 1%, and this is good because we are here in a situation with the new products and also with the new IT that we're implementing and with new products that we're preparing. We see also here a little bit of a, I wouldn't say a light in the tunnel, but a stabilization on and in the portfolio. International business was focusing on the transferring of the former AXA business into our books and not losing too much clients and partners, which we achieved, and therefore, also a nice growth in that respect. Don't forget that with the Russian portfolio, where we have a good growth also here, negative FX effects, a little bit deteriorated the growth. Therefore, a very comfortable and good growth that we can report after six months. Next page about the cost ratio. Looking on the absolute amounts is a little bit misleading because in the year 2020, AXA, of course, is not included, and therefore it gives a little bit of a different picture. If you look together on the cost ratio, which is 26.9%, it's a quite good development, which we are satisfying. What are the reasons for that? A, the first part of the cost-cutting program is visible. B, we have also the synergies on the integration of AXA included here. Around 50% of that, what we expect for the year 2021, is already included in the first half year. If you take into consideration that the spendings for the integration costs like branding, marketing, consultancy, and stuff like that, it's fully extent covered in the first half year. In that case, we are also satisfying with the integration synergies. Also to talk about the integration of AXA here. What I can report is that we achieved the last agreement from the national bank in Czech Republic by end of August. Also with this, we can report that the integration of AXA is also formally and from a financial perspective, agreed, and with the end of August done. Combined ratio on the next slide, 92.6 is certainly all-time low for the UNIQA Group. What's behind? Behind is a, besides the good development on the cost side, also a very strong underwriting result on the so-called main business. Included in this combined ratio is around EUR 100 million gross and a EUR 45 million net effect of floodings in the first half year. The June flooding is included in that respect from Austria, Czech Republic, and a little bit Poland. The reinsurance is included also in that respect. With this, we have also covered the most impressive flooding in the last 15 years within UNIQA Group. COVID-19, of course, also in the second quarter, gave a little bit of a backwind. We can expect around 2% of this combined ratio is a COVID impact coming from less mobility, coming from lower frequencies, especially on the motor business. This is the thing that is for us, not that sustainable for the next year. Even taking into consideration this and excluding the high impact from the flooding, the technical ratio of UNIQA is in a very, very good development. Health business, the next page. We are back on our underlying long-term trends to grow in Austria, somewhere between 2% and 3%. Of course, due to the integration of the former AXA business, we post here a little bit higher growth this year. From a technical perspective, we see that the demand for medical treatment is a little bit lower than it was in the previous years. We cautiously reserved for that, but on the other hand, we believe still that this comes back then, at least in the next years, that these treatments have to be covered. On the life business, page 13, I talked about the relatively stable development in Austria, at [6%] in the CEE region, where Unit-linked and especially in the former AXA countries, this business is growing. New business margin has recovered out, of course, a little bit of higher interest rates. Stabilization in the life business can be reported. Page 14, net interest and income. I talked about this in the snapshot picture. The EUR 307 million is a strong investment result, driven by less impairments than last year. The equity and the fixed income side, we took gains from the first quarter with us, and we see also some increased current income after six months. No major gains to be reported from the real estate side. Here, a stable development we can report. This brings me on my last page, 16, to the outlook. I think you have already read and you're informed about our ad hoc release, where we increased our guidance for this year. With these good results and also taking into consideration that floodings and regional storms and hail storms are impacting the results, we are confident to reach this target. With this, I want to end my speech and looking forward to take your questions now. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally, as you will be advised when to ask your question. Once again, that's star one if you would like to ask a question. The first question comes from the line of Thomas Unger from Erste Group. Please go ahead. Yes. Hello, good afternoon. Thank Thank you very much for taking my question. Thanks also for the presentation. My first question would right away relate to the end of the presentation, your outlook. Do you see it as very cautious now? You've achieved the EUR 260 million earnings before tax in the first half. The guidance is for EUR 330 million- EUR 350 million. Taking into account what you said also for the operating costs, that the benefits should be coming through from the efficiency gains in the second half. Do you anticipate any non-recurring effects for the end of the year, Q4, or anything else? That would be my first question. The second question would relate to the reserves booked last year for COVID-19-related claims. Where does that stand now? Have you used it, or have you released any of it in the first half or in Q2? What do you anticipate for the second half from that? Also, you talked about the NatCat impact in June. What do you anticipate from the summer events, from the floodings in July, especially? Do you have an estimate already for what the impact on UNIQA net and growth could be? Thank you. Thank you, Thomas. Starting with the first question. Yes, firstly, it looks like there is a little bit of a cautious outlook planning. If you take EUR 260 million after six months, why not double this after 12 months? What we anticipated, Thomas, is on the one hand, that we do not calculate with further non-impairments in the next six months. I think from that perspective, we have calculated that some impairments can come and will come. Equity side or fixed income side or corporate bond side, where it comes. Secondly, is the topic of UNIQA always had a seasonality in the cost situation. The first quarter is the strongest quarter with the cost. This comes from many project calculations, from many invoicing in the first, fourth quarter. This is also a topic that you can see on our balance sheet. The last one is a little bit coming to that what you asked in your first questions. We are cautious because we see that the development on climate is changing rapidly, and this also has an impact on the claims side. We believe that especially these regional hailstorms and floodings, that they also lead to a gross net result. With this, we calculate an impact also in the second quarter, which led us then to this EUR 330 million-EUR 350 million from that perspective. Second question, Thomas, was on reserve that we built on COVID. I guess you refer to the health business. With this, I can tell you that we did not release a cent. Either we reserve additionally from that perspective and also the P&C business. We took aside a little bit for the COVID impact for the next month. Let me jump in here. I think Thomas referred to the reserve, which we are billing last year for the business interruption cases. The EUR 70 million net negative effect on the P&L last year. Is that correct, Thomas? Right. The EUR 70 million at the end of last year. Yeah. Okay. Sorry for the misunderstanding. From that, half of this is released, half of this is still there because we have to wait until we have all these claims filed with the customers. 50% is released, 50% is still open. Thank you. The third question about the NatCat in June and the floodings in the summer rains. This is exactly what I stated in the first, Thomas. We see that these floodings last week, this week, in July, these are so-called single events on a local perspective. The reinsurance is owned internally or mostly internally. With this, we are cautious in planning. So far we have no numbers, but it is still a double-digit EUR amount that we expect here to pay. Thank you very much. The next question comes from the line of Cintia Cheong from Insurance ERM. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for having me. Three questions, if I may. First question, congratulations on the profits which quadrupled. That's a very good result. Just wanted to know why your consolidated net profit quadrupled to EUR 171 million. I can see you enjoyed positive impact on multiple fronts. For example, higher investment result, lower costs, and successful integration with AXA's previous businesses. Do you see a single major factor behind this profit hike, or is it the result of multiple factors? That's question one. Question two, you just mentioned about the flood cost. You said you don't have numbers yet, but you said it's double-digit. Could I just check with you whether you meant double-digit million EUR? Thirdly, back to the cost. I just wanted to know if you have any recent update about cost in IFRS 17 program. I know that it has been costing a lot from issuers. I just wanted to see if you have any updated figures in terms of the accounting standard. Thank you. I'll start with question number two, the floodings. Look, as these events are something that's been coming up, I would say each week, we are at the moment, not in a position to give you a complete number in terms of what does this mean for a gross net basis. When I say a double-digit amount, it's somewhere around EUR 50 million, which I expect at least that this will come for the summer floodings, in July and August. Anyhow, this is calculated in the outlook that we announced several weeks ago. Third question about IFRS 17. Look, we are at the moment in a position that we can say the project itself is at UNIQA in a quite good shape. We are preparing for a dry run in this year, in the second half of the year, where we see then the first results. In terms of a budget and in terms of a cost perspective, please allow me to say, as this project is running and we have not calculated and invoiced all the things, I cannot give you a whole amount. What I can tell you is that generally I expect the whole project to be finished then in 2023, will be around two to two times the costs of Solvency II implementation that we had, and the Solvency II implementation was of around EUR 25 million for UNIQA. For the first question, sorry, there was a little bit of a noise in the line. I just understood that you are talking and that you have been questioning about the consolidated profit, but honestly speaking, I did not get technically the exact question. Could you repeat it again and help me to understand better? I just wanted to say congratulations on the good result. It has quadrupled to EUR 171 million. I just wonder what's the single major factor behind this increase? I can see a very high positive result on multiple fronts, like better investment results, better, higher premium, lower cost. Just wanted to see if we can pick a single major factor behind this profit hike. Yes. Okay. Good. There is not a single major effect. There is not a one-off effect, and there is not a major impact from that respect. As you stated, we have a good growth that is over plan and better than in previous times. We had a good technical development in the P&C business and in the health business and a stable business in life business. We have no outstanding impairments in the investment result, and we have also what I call it now technical and balance sheet management, no major effects. A stable, constant, good development in this second quarter that led to this EUR 216 million result. Thank you so much. The next question comes from the line of Michael Haid from Commerzbank. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. Good afternoon to everyone. I have two questions. First, on the P&C, you showed good growth. You mentioned price increases in the corporate business. Can you maybe provide a breakdown of the growth of the premiums in P&C into what are price increases, what is volume, and what is the 1st-time consolidation impact from AXA CEE? 2nd question, given the flood losses that we have seen in the 2nd quarter and also in the of your reinsurance protection program you have in place. These are my two questions. Thank you. Okay, Michael. Tough question for P&C side, growth, price, and AXA. Let me answer the question like that. Details then to come from our investor relation department, because I have not in mind and in front of me the exact numbers. I can tell you that the growth without AXA was in Austria, generally the growth is a little bit more than 2%, first thing. These 2%, Michael, you can assume around 80% is coming from real growth and 20% is coming from pricing. Yeah. This is the first answer I give you. Second answer I can give you is international-wise, the growth without AXA is about also here 3.5%-4% in P&C. Maybe you remember that we are also [connotating] here, Romania, for example, Hungary, for example. That means less growth for higher profit. The AXA impact out of that, this will be then delivered by the investor relations department because I cannot now distinguish between the AXA and non-AXA business in that respect. Second question, Michael, about the flood and the reinsurance program. The reinsurance program of UNIQA in the Nat Cat is like the following. We have a so-called four-layer reinsurance coverage. That means the priority is 15 plus 15. That means EUR 15 million coverage plus a EUR 15 million annual aggregate deductible, leading to a EUR 30 million level. Then the first layer is about EUR 60 million, the second layer about EUR 100 million, the third EUR 125 million, the fourth EUR 150 million, and the last one about EUR 100 million. That means we have a coverage of EUR 565 million for a worst case. We have it for whole of Europe. That means no distinguish between Austria and not Austria. This is the coverage of UNIQA's Nat Cat XL. Thank you very much for this detailed answer. There are currently no questions in the queue. Just one last reminder, please press star one if you would like to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Robert Montague from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. One very simple one. Can you comment on what are the main drivers behind the movement in the solvency ratio from 170% start of the year to 198% now? Main drivers are increasing interest rates. Second, is profitability increase in Life and in P&C. Third thing is, a little bit of increase in the own funds coming from STRABAG and OCI. Great. Thank you very much. There are no further questions in the queue, so I'll hand the call back to your host for some closing remarks. Yes. Thank you very much for joining UNIQA's half-year results 2021. I wish you a successful remaining day. Stay healthy and thanks for participating. Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your line.