Good morning, everybody, and a warm, warm welcome to those in person and online to Challenger's 2026 half year results briefing. I'm Mark Chen, Challenger's General Manager of Investor Relations. We're pleased to come to you today from Five Martin Place in Sydney. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which we are hosting this event today, and pay my respects to both elders, past and present. Today's presentation will be delivered by our Chief Executive Officer, Nick Hamilton; and Chief Financial Officer, Alex Bell. It will then be followed by a Q&A session. You can ask a question either in person, via the online portal, or through the telephone. As you'll see from today's presentation, we've made a great start to 2026. That demonstrates both the resilience of our earnings and the progress we're making in positioning Challenger for the next phase of growth. In the half, we've delivered earnings growth and returns above target, alongside book growth, driven by rising demand for income and financial security as retirement income tailwinds continue to strengthen. This performance is underpinned by disciplined capital management and a very strong balance sheet. Our capital position remains a clear differentiator, providing flexibility to support growth and deliver shareholder returns, as reflected in the increased dividend and on-market buyback we have announced today. Overall, this is a result that Challenger i t shows that Challenger is in great shape. It's delivering consistency through the cycle, and it is strongly capitalized and strongly positioned to capture the growth opportunity ahead. I'll now pass to Nick to take you through the results. Thank you, thank you, Mark, and, thank you for everyone for joining us. So this year marks a significant moment, for Challenger as we step into a new era of opportunity and growth for our business, and more broadly, Australia's retirement income market. We are a business that's been committed to providing, to supporting financial confidence for those approaching or entering retirement for more than four decades. Our experience and quality reputation as a leader in guaranteed retirement income has made us a trusted voice with the industry, government, and regulators on ways to develop Australia's retirement income market. After many years of seemingly waiting, the industry is now moving, and the difference in a year is stark. Retirement is fundamentally different, and the decisions an individual makes into and through retirement requires something distinct to what we have today, and that is now recognized. We are months now from entering a new capital regime for annuity providers, and for Challenger, this is a very material moment. Any way that you look at the changes, they will be extremely positive for our business. Today, we've announced our H1 results, a buyback for our shareholders, and more details on the growth opportunity that has arrived for our business. We'll talk through each of these this morning, and I'm joined by our CFO, Alex Bell, who will provide more details on our H1 2026 financials. Let me start with an overview of the three key points in our announcement today. First, we're financially strong. We've grown earnings, maintained our disciplined expense management approach, and increased returns to shareholders. Second, we have the capital flexibility we need to grow and deliver returns. And third, we are positioned to grow due to strong momentum behind our strategic initiatives, including our contribution to APRA's review of capital standards, which will see some of the biggest changes for providers of longevity products in a generation. Establishing key partnerships with super funds and advice technology platforms. Expanding our offshore reinsurance partnership. And delivering our transformation program across customer, investment, and data platforms, which will usher in a very contemporary and digitally enabled business model. Looking at the H1 headline numbers. At the halfway point for the year, very pleasingly, we are delivering earnings growth in an environment where credit spreads are at historically tight levels. Alex will say more on this in her presentation. The significant increase in our statutory result reflects our positive asset experience and gains across our investment portfolio. Strong book growth in the period was driven by a record level of annuity sales. Domestic annuity sales were up 37% to AUD 3.1 billion, and offshore sales up 13%, also to a record level. Our longer-term annuity sales also increased, driven by higher domestic lifetime and MS Primary volumes. Our group return on equity at 11.4% is above our full year target of 10.7%. We're extremely well capitalized, providing us flexibility to support our growth and deliver returns to shareholders. Our performance demonstrates the strength of our fundamentals, and we've continued to build for growth. Today, our growth opportunity is underpinned by unique demographic and industry tailwinds. We have a world-class accumulation system that is projected to see retirement assets grow nearly fourfold to AUD 3 trillion-AUD 4 trillion during the next 20 years. An aging population is one of the most significant trends. Around 780 Australians retire every day, or the equivalent of a city the size of Wollongong retiring every year. However, as Australians move from accumulation to decumulation, the vast majority are not transitioning to solutions designed for this stage of life. This is despite our own research showing 78% of people would be happier with at least partial guaranteed income for life. Unlocking demand for retirement solutions is core to our focus and where we have been driving changes during recent years. At the same time, we're seeing significant increases in demand for income from higher net wealth investors, particularly through private credit strategies, as more people search for investment options that provide higher income. Our other major tailwind is the growth in offshore reinsurance markets, particularly in Japan and more broadly, Asia. More than 35% of the population in countries including South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan, will have populations aged over 65 in 2050. This year will mark 10 years of our reinsurance business with MS Primary in Japan, where we have recently surpassed AUD 7 billion worth of new business cumulatively written. The strength of the partnership will see us further expand how we deliver offshore reinsurance, including a significant opportunity for growth. As a leader in retirement income over four decades, Challenger has developed unique competitive advantages that will allow us to shape the future of retirement in Australia. We have competitive advantages across our customer proposition, distribution capability, asset origination, and as a manager of long-term insurance investments and capital. On customer, we have invested to maintain our strong brand awareness for retirement income. The future customer experience will deliver simple end-to-end integration into the financial ecosystem. The re-platforming of our customer technology to a modern registry and new customer interfaces will put Challenger in a unique position in the retirement market. This half, we delivered the first phase of our customer technology uplift, and phase two is now well advanced, and once complete, will open our business to customers in entirely new ways, and as we, as we say here, it will be on customer time. We have an expansive distribution footprint, and our partnerships will drive new momentum as the market develops on the premise of a retirement income system. We have established partnerships with some of the largest superannuation funds, platforms, and advice technology providers in the country. Our two recently announced platform and superannuation partnerships with BT and MLC will launch real innovation in how retirement solutions are delivered at scale. Through the design of new retirement advice in the Iress Xplan and IFA planning tools, for the first time, financial advisors will be able to model retirement plans which incorporate guaranteed lifetime income. We're continuing to discuss partnerships with a number of other providers in the retirement sector, and we're very optimistic about further partnership opportunities over the coming months. We're also remaining focused on the offshore opportunity as our annuity sales reach record levels. Challenger has operated with a limited Bermudan license since 2016. We're working with the BMA to expand our offshore reinsurance business, which will allow us to reinsure products more broadly than we can today. Our asset origination capability remains key as we look ahead. Quality asset origination supports our Life business, and it will also enable us to expand fee-related earnings under the Challenger brand. We recognize that the market environment has changed. Demand for Australian credit has risen. Our own demand is growing and will be driven by changes to our asset allocation and our growth. During the H1, through the strength of our fixed income asset origination capability, including our whole loan transaction team, we raised AUD 5.9 billion in origination volumes, which included AUD 2.5 billion of private credit originations. As noted in our announcement on Monday, 9 February, we are in talks with Pepper Money on a potential transaction to acquire an equity stake of up to 25% as part of our broader asset origination strategy. While there is no certainty of a transaction at this stage, we will keep the market informed on any material developments. On investment excellence, we are focused on delivering superior returns to customers and meeting their evolving needs. A key part of this is continuing to innovate the retirement and savings products we offer. In September, we launched our LiFTS Income Notes platform, the first of its kind in the market, and we acquired an equity stake in London-based Fulcrum Asset Management, a leading liquid alternatives manager. We are focused on being disciplined managers of capital. As part of our capital management framework, we're making Challenger a less capital-intensive business that is pointed for growth and has capital flexibility. Today's announcement of a proposed AUD 150 million buyback is an initial step ahead of the changes to capital standards. This action demonstrates our strong capital position. We will continue to look at our capital management initiatives as the standards come into effect. With that, I'll now hand to Alex to present our H1 financials. Thank you, Nick, and a very good morning to everybody. I'm delighted to now present to you our financial performance and outlook for the H1 of the 2026 financial year. At a time when credit spreads remain near cyclical lows and market conditions are tight, we're delivering exactly what investors look for in this environment. We have grown earnings, we have generated returns above our targets, and we have increased dividends, all supported by a strong balance sheet and disciplined capital management. The key message for this half is consistency. We are delivering earnings growth despite a challenging reinvestment environment. By holding a more defensive portfolio at this point in the cycle, we can take advantage of attractive opportunities when they arise, and we're not taking undue risk to achieve higher returns. We achieved a normalized earnings per share of AUD 0.333, representing a 2% increase, with normalized net profit after tax of AUD 229 million, also up 2%. Statutory NPAT reached AUD 339 million, a particularly strong result reflecting positive total return across each asset class in the Life investment portfolio. We've increased value creation for our shareholders, with normalized return on equity of 11.4%, which remains above our target. Outperformance against this target increased to 70 basis points, up from 40 basis points in the prior comparative period. Reflecting the board's confidence in our outlook, we have increased the fully franked interim dividend by 7% to AUD 0.155 per share. These outcomes highlight our ability to generate consistent returns through the cycle, maintaining capital strength and flexibility. Turning to the key drivers of our earnings result. Group net income increased 1% to AUD 487 million, driven by Life cash operating earnings, which benefited from higher average investment assets, and funds management fee income, supported by higher non-FUM-related revenue. Importantly, we're continuing to demonstrate strong cost discipline, with total expenses flat on the prior period at AUD 154 million. Inflationary pressures, especially on technology costs, were offset by realized efficiencies in our operating model. As a result, the cost-to-income ratio improved 30 basis points and outperformed the target range of 32%-34% for the period, the lowest we've ever delivered for a half. For the Life company, we delivered reliable spread earnings despite cyclical dynamics in credit spreads. Life normalized NPAT was AUD 226 million, up 1%, supported by higher average investment assets and ongoing pricing discipline. Book growth of 5.8% and annuity book growth of 7.4% resulted in 5% increase in our average investment assets, which will underpin future earnings and returns. This slide highlights the cyclical dynamics impacting COE earnings. This half, our margin has moderated to 2.95%. Credit spreads across the fixed income spectrum remain historically tight, which has reduced reinvestment spreads in the near term. Our disciplined approach to pricing has moderated the impact of this effect. To support the change in sales mix this period, we've deliberately increased our allocation to liquid assets, with cash and equivalents of AUD 3.3 billion at December 31, up 27% or AUD 700 million on the prior period. This strategy reflects attractive opportunities in liquid assets to back some of the shorter duration institutional business we've written this half, as well as providing flexibility to deploy capital into higher yielding assets as opportunities arise. Like many insurers globally, this approach ensures we are not prioritizing short-term yield at the risk of long-term value. Sales momentum in Life was particularly strong this half. Total Life sales increased 11% to AUD 5.1 billion, driven by record annuity sales of AUD 3.8 billion, up 32%. Domestic annuity sales rose by 37%, supported by strong institutional demand and continued demand for guaranteed income solutions. Lifetime annuity sales of AUD 0.7 billion were up 12% for the period. Our offshore reinsurance annuity sales also reached a record, increasing 13% to AUD 0.7 billion, further diversifying our liability book and demonstrating our strong relationship with MS Primary, the expansion of which is a strategic priority for future growth. The balance sheet continued to exhibit a stable composition by asset class. What has evolved is the increase in high-quality fixed income assets within the portfolio i n the last year, we have invested AUD 1.6 billion of additional fixed income, and with almost all of this being deployed into cash and triple-A securities. This move up in quality ensures we are well positioned for any repricing. As evidence of our commitment to investment excellence, we've achieved a strong scorecard this period, with total return across all asset classes significantly exceeding the COE investment yield that we include in our normalized result. This generated a substantial after-tax asset experience of AUD 105 million for the period, which supports a strong statutory earnings result. Now, turning to Funds Management. Funds Management delivered normalized NPAT of AUD 29 million, up 7%, driven by higher net fee income and continued cost efficiencies across the platform. While average funds under management were lower period-on-period, the focus here is flow, quality, and margin sustainability, not just headline FUM. 2025, and the start of 2026, has been one of the most difficult periods for active equity managers, domestically and globally. Fidante continues to showcase the strength of its multi-affiliate model, with total net flows of AUD 1.5 billion for the half. The platform remains one of Australia's largest active managers, with 83% of strategies externally rated as recommended or highly recommended. During the half, we recognized AUD 12.6 billion of FUM from adding Fulcrum Asset Management to the affiliate platform, and de-recognized AUD 2.9 billion upon completion of the Ares distribution agreement. Demonstrating the success of our diversification strategy, alternatives now represent 15% of Fidante's FUM. This shift demonstrates the platform's ability to adapt to evolving investor preferences and broaden its investment offering. A strategic priority for Challenger has been to grow our Challenger Investment Management business, and to scale originations for Challenger Life and third parties. Challenger Investment Management continues to deliver on its mandate to grow third-party capital and scale origination for the Life company balance sheet. This investment team will form part of our group investment capability under our new group CIO going forward. Third-party FUM has increased at a 38% four-year CAGR to AUD 3.1 billion, supported by investor demand for credit and income strategies, and by the listed LiFTS notes launched this period. For our Life company balance sheet, the originations remain well-diversified, with AUD 5.9 billion of new originations across public and private opportunities. Our capital strength remains a key differentiator. This period, S&P upgraded the capital rating for CLC and Challenger Limited by one notch to A+ and A- respectively. S&P noted that the upgrade in ratings reflects CLC maintaining its market leadership position in the Australian annuity market, better regulatory settings, and strong retirement savings trends that will support earnings. At December 31, the Life company had AUD 1.7 billion of capital above APRA's minimum requirements, with a PCA ratio of 1.58x based on the current capital standards. This capital position supports ongoing organic growth, continued dividend growth, and disciplined capital management initiatives, such as an undertaking to do an initial buyback of AUD 150 million. This slide serves as a reminder of our capital allocation framework, and the progress that we have made to maximize shareholder returns. In addition to supporting meaningful organic growth this period, we have announced a AUD 15.5 cent per share, fully franked interim dividend that is up 7%. In respect of capital returns, we intend to undertake an initial on-market buyback of AUD 150 million, subject to market conditions and regulatory approval. This reflects our confidence in our ability to support organic growth and return excess capital to shareholders. Last Monday, we announced that we were exploring an investment in Pepper Money. While not finalized, a modest minority stake like this would require no integration, and would be just one of the ways to accelerate the expansion of our asset origination capability. Importantly, we are maintaining a strong and resilient balance sheet through these actions, and remain disciplined and focused on delivering shareholder value, demonstrating that we are good allocators of capital. Although not yet effective, I wanted to spend a couple of minutes reminding investors why APRA's proposed changes to capital standards are so important, and what to expect from the first of July 2026. Using our December 31, 2025 balance sheet, our reported PCA ratio of 1.58x is expected to increase 16 basis points to a pro forma of 1.74 on day one. If spreads were at their long-term average, the improvement in PCA ratio from applying the new standards would be even greater, equivalent to an increase in pro forma PCA to around 1.82x. These numbers reflect the lower PCA requirement from the enhanced liability offset within the credit spread stress, and the interaction of the standard and advanced illiquidity premium approaches on CET1 through the cycle. We view these reforms as very supportive of financial resilience, reducing capital procyclicality, and creating a more favorable environment for retirement income innovation, consistent with the objectives that APRA has outlined and the sector's policy focus. Then, as we move forward with the implementation of APRA's capital standard changes, we anticipate a meaningful shift in our asset allocation mix over time, with an increased emphasis on fixed income assets and a corresponding decrease in growth assets. This change is expected to lower capital intensity of our portfolio and reduce earnings volatility throughout the economic cycle. By adopting a higher proportion of fixed income, we aim to achieve more predictable spread income, which will then be further supported by the expansion of capital-light fee income streams. Although investment gains will continue to vary over time, we expect them to remain positive through the cycle. The overall effect of these changes will be a relative improvement in return on equity, as we gradually shift away from capital-intensive assets that currently yield lower relative ROEs. In managing our equity base, earnings per share will remain a key focus, guiding our efforts to optimize earnings with the most efficient use of our equity capital base. The proposed changes to APRA's capital standards in FY 2027 will be an opportunity to revisit our existing normalized cash operating earnings framework that we use for management reporting and ensure that it is fit for purpose as Challenger evolves. With the appointment of Damian Graham as Group Chief Investment Officer, we are aligning our investment capability under a single leadership structure. So consistent with this, we intend to evolve our internal and external reporting away from separate business unit segments to a more integrated Challenger group view. Looking ahead, we reaffirm our FY 2026 normalized EPS guidance of AUD 0.66-AUD 0.72 per share, with AUD 0.333 delivered in the H1. Our through-the-cycle targets for ROE, cost to income, and capital remain unchanged, and we continue to see strong structural tailwinds across retirement income, advice integration, and asset origination. In summary, the H1 of FY 2026 was characterized by solid financial delivery and continued strategic momentum. During the period, we've delivered earnings growth and returns above our target. Our focus on disciplined capital management allows us to maintain significant capital flexibility, ensuring that we will remain well-positioned to respond to market opportunities and challenges as they arise. I will now hand back to Nick, and I look forward to taking your questions as part of Q&A. Thank you, Alex. I'll now cover our key focus areas as we look ahead. We have a clear strategy that meets the significant demographic and retirement tailwinds. Launching our new customer technology platform before the end of this financial year will deliver simple end-to-end integration into the financial services ecosystem for our customers. We're embedding partnerships with some of the largest superannuation platform and advice technology providers, which will help to deliver retirement advice and sales at scale. We're actively expanding our reinsurance business in partnership with MS Primary to capture the growth opportunities we see offshore. We will continue to expand our asset origination capability through the scaling of our private credit functions to underpin our long-term growth. We're driving innovation and investment excellence, and we're targeting our second LiFTS note issue in the next six months. In Fidante, we have an impressive global network of investment firms. We're focused on supporting their ongoing growth and the investment capabilities they provide to customers. And against the backdrop of the APRA capital standards reform for retirement income products, we're becoming a less capital-intensive business. To close, a reminder of our key points today. We have financial strength, and in the H1, we've continued to deliver our key initiatives. Our capital position is enabling strategic flexibility and growth while delivering returns to shareholders. And finally, we've done the work to position Challenger as a growth-enabled business with a significant opportunity that has arrived in the retirement income market. We'll now move to Q&A. Question, please press star one on your telephone. Just a reminder of the process, we'll take questions first in the room. We'll then go over to the telephone and via the online portal. In terms of protocol, can I please ask you, when you ask your question, please introduce yourself, and if possible, because there's a number of people in the room asking questions, just ask all your questions at once, and it'll just enable an efficient process. We'll start off in the room. Can we start off with Simon over there first? Thanks. Hi, there. There's Simon Fitzgerald here. Can you hear me okay? Yep. Simon Fitzgerald here from Jefferies. I'll ask the three questions at once then, just really quickly. Firstly, I wanted to just take you back to the slide that you put up when we talked about the capital changes, which I understand still haven't come into place. But the AUD 150 million buyback, and I know that's independent of those changes, but just wanting to know if you wanted to point out that any other uses of that excess capital, such as perhaps repayments of hybrid capital or anything like that, that you might want to point out? Secondly, just on the short-dated sales, there's now two big lumps that you've done in the Q1 and the Q2. So just wanting a little bit of help in terms of how dilutive that would be to the margin. But also in terms of, you know, it doesn't seem like you had the assets there to begin with, given that we've seen an increase in the cash as well, in terms of the investments. So interested to know a little bit more about the dynamics of that. And then lastly, a little bit more on the margin in terms of any effects you might want to call out, sorry, about any cat bonds or ILS securities that didn't turn up this time that we normally see in the H2. Anything you could add to that? Thank you. Thanks, Simon. I might, let me just kick off on the sales one to start with, and then, we can come to the uses of capital and margin- Yep. And then we'll share this. So, yeah, I think what you've—if you step back from the sales, what you're seeing is we're continuing to focus on longer-dated sales. Like, that is a priority. The message to the team as we move towards our new technology that will integrate into the system where it doesn't today is just continue to drive longer-dated sales through the retail market. You know, we're benefiting from strong growth that MSP is seeing, and you're seeing that coming through the reinsurance volumes. Over the course of this period, there's been a bit of a switch in the institutional business, where sales that you've typically seen in Index Plus have been coming in to the term annuity side, institutional term side. And there's explanations for that, but what I want to make absolutely clear is we're running this business to meet our returns. So with our liquids team have identified some opportunities in markets that you know they can deploy capital into. The pricing environment in institutional term has been more attractive to us right now than it has been for a long while. And so we have been able to map attractive pricing dynamics with investment opportunities there for that shorter-dated business. So very much consistent with meeting the ROE, but our focus is bridging through to the new technology, driving longer-dated sales as we can, and then these strategic partnerships renting into the step change at medium term. But your comment there on diluted, it's clearly it has to be because it goes into the denominator. And that's just an outworking. But, you know, as we've said many times, you know, we run the business, particularly around pricing, we run the business to meet the ROE target, and, you know, pleased, pleased, pleased with that. On the first question, which was uses of capital, I've wrote. Yeah, I can take it. You take that one. That's all good. So obviously, we do have the new APRA capital standards coming up, and that presents an opportunity on day one where we expect to have excess capital. I think hopefully what you've seen today is that we're thinking about capital in a lot of dimensions. It's not, it's not binary, it's not one thing or another. We're trying to satisfy a number of different options from a capital perspective. You called out specifically, you know, any considerations for our Challenger Capital Notes 3. So we do note that those come up for their optional exchange date in May this year. But you'll understand from an APRA perspective, it's important that we don't set any expectations around our intentions for that. But you can rest assured that it's clearly a consideration for us as we think about the optimal capital stack. From a buyback perspective, look, what we've signaled today is AUD 150 million. We recognize that that's not large, that's not what we're saying, the capital excess is on day one of the capital standards. We're operating under the current capital standards today. So it's something sort of really modest and executable that we can do today, and what we're hoping investors will take away is a signal of our intent around ensuring that we are, you know, optimizing the uses of capital and doing that in advance of those changes to capital standards. And then I think you had a last question just around the margin. Margin. So look, there is, there is sometimes a little bit of seasonality between the H1 and the H2. We've seen cat bond distributions typically slow, more slightly weighted to the H2. But I think if you take a, a step back, Nick's points are right. But what we should be focusing on is meeting the ROE. So we have written some sort of duration business this period, but at good ROE. So what you should hear is that the business we're writing is meeting or exceeding those ROE targets. Can we go to Freya and then to Sid? Hi, Freya Kong from Bank of America. Can you help me reconcile the higher liquids holding in the portfolio versus a higher PCA capital intensity this period? Anything I'm missing in that? Second question on you talking about offshore market opportunities. You've talked about Japan, but Asia more broadly. Which regions are you looking at, and I guess, what's the strategic rationale for expanding this business versus focusing on the opportunity that you have domestically? Do you have enough bandwidth for both domestic and international growth? And then just lastly, clarifying, should we be viewing this buyback completely independent of any acquisition of Pepper Money stake? Thank you. Okay, so there's three questions there. Thank you for asking. I might, let me start with offshore and give some context there, because in many ways, this isn't new for us. I mean, we have, since December 2016, we have, been reinsuring business with, MS Primary, and if you look at the volumes that we've been reinsuring, even in the last two or three years, they've almost doubled. And so our partnership with them, you know, is excellent. What we do note, there are some products that we would like to reinsure, which out of the Australian jurisdiction are difficult. And by taking what is already. You know, we've got a long relationship operating with the BMA, and expanding or building the platform to expand the products that we're able to reinsure is a really sensible adjacency for us. Now, this is not new. This is not something we're announcing we've just looked at in the last recent period. You know, members of the team have been working on this for coming up two to three years. So the capabilities that we have inside Challenger today, whether it be on the investment side, the ALM side, the actuarial teams, they are able - and they, because they do it today anyway, across for MSP - you know, able to support the delivery of you know, the new licenses that we'll achieve. And consistent with new product development we've done for many years with MSP, new products that we'd look to reinsure. So it's a very sensible strategy because of the partnership, and it gives us a beachhead and an opportunity then, without needing to make a business case on any grand business case. It gives us the opportunity to look at other markets. Because of the stability of that relationship, you know, Challenger being a trusted brand in the region, well-regulated, domiciled in Australia, you know, there are just other opportunities that we believe in the fullness of time we will be able to unlock, but very much built around what we do, you know, with MSP today. Then we might go. Do you want to take? Yep, so I'll take the PCA one. PCA one. So again, well, and sort of happy to take the PCA one offline, too, in terms of showing the ins and outs of the calculation. But if you look at the capital intensity, the capital intensity of the balance sheet has remained roughly the same, particularly if you look at the asset risk charge, and the overall composition of the balance sheet is steady. That cash balance was high at June 30 too, so that increase is really comparing us now versus where we were at December 31, 2024, in terms of that, that increment. But there's no, no increase in capital intensity, and obviously, as we have written lots of new business over time, we have, you know, also invested in some alternative assets over that period, which is still highly capital intensive. So the relative capital intensity has stayed, has stayed about the same. Then you had a question around the buyback as well. So, yes, you know, we should definitely view that as completely independent of any considerations we might have around a proposed transaction with Pepper. You know, the buyback is being done with a view to our long-term view around capital management, as well as, you know, how we're feeling about APRA's new capital standards coming in. So yes, not contingent at all. Sid? Siddharth Parameswaran from JP Morgan. A couple of questions. Firstly, just on your slide 22, where you show us an indicative view on what the ROE would look like under the new standards. I just wanted to firstly check, is that to scale, and scale starting from zero and at the bottom? And if that is the case, I mean, you know, it would suggest that economically speaking, it makes a lot of sense under the new standards to just reallocate the capital that's backing the real estate alternatives and equity right to fixed income. It looks like, you know, it'd be like a 50% increase in your ROE from what you're getting at the moment on those assets. It suggests that's what you should be growing into. Is that the strategy, rather than giving it back to shareholders? That seems economically what would make sense based on that chart. Am I reading that correctly? So that's question one. Question two is just around the guidance. Just wanted to make sure that, I'm reading, you know, what you're in. Well, where, where do you think you're likely to end up? You've kept the guidance range the same on EPS, but, you know, the midpoint would imply a 7% step up from the H1 levels. The top end would imply an even, you know, much bigger step up again. It seems like they're quite big step ups, given that the H1 was, you know, saw quite a lot of margin contraction. So I just want to check, you know, where, where do we sit versus that guidance? And, maybe just a final one, just on asset origination. Just wanted to check, you know, obviously, you're talking about geographic expansion in terms of product sales. Are you thinking about geographic expansion also in terms of asset origination? Maybe just close off- Yep. The last one, first. We're not. I mean, to the extent that organically we have built out capability in London today, which has been in place for five plus years to manage access to assets. But we've got a number of really good partnerships across the world with, you know, global leaders in credit origination, which we use to support the balance sheet today, and would continue to do so in any growth environment, including to support growth in the offshore insurance, which is just stepping up from what we do today in any event. So there's no plans there to do more offshore there. And maybe I'll take your other two questions, Sid. So on slide 22, I was expecting the question about scale. I wondered if you'd bring a ruler. It is so that it's not to scale, the graph that we've done. But there, it's intentionally there to try and show directional impacts. So it doesn't include expenses, for example, and how we've done the calculation, and it can be imperfect to come up with a perfect ROE by asset class, because you've got to allocate target surplus across them. So the idea is to give you an indicative, relative sense of what we're currently thinking about as the relative value and relative returns that we're earning on those asset classes. It does then lead to the right conclusion that you've drawn, which is that, you know, if the current conditions around those relativities persist, you should see us swapping out growth assets like real estate, although doing that in a careful way, and we've sold four properties this period. Selling out real estate, and to some extent, some of the alternative assets too, and putting those towards, fixed income. Now, you've got to do that in a way that protects the EPS outcome for shareholders, and so you've got to manage that, equity denominator at the same time in doing that. The second one was on guidance. And the second one was on guidance. So yes, from a guidance perspective, so AUD 33.3 cents for the H1, reiterating the full range of AUD 0.66-AUD 0.72 per share. And maybe just a reminder of kind of why we set that range. You know, there's a number of headwinds and tailwinds that we think about in terms of where the business could go in the period, and some of the contributors to our final outcome are still variable. So things like performance fees and transaction fees can move us around that range, so can some of the distributions on our asset returns. There is a little bit of seasonality, which we spoke about before, but that's just to give you a sense of why we've stuck with the full range. And just a reminder, on that chart, Sid, I mean, obviously, we have a footnote there. That, that is a pre-tax ROE target, that line, and it's pre-expenses. So when you're doing your comparisons. I can see either Kieran or Nigel has the microphone, so we'll go- It's Nigel Pittaway here from Citi. Okay, a few questions. First of all, cost-to-income ratio looks like your guidance actually implies that goes up H2. So is that just conservatism or is there more sort of cost to come through H2 to drive that ratio up? Secondly, probably overly simplistic view of the capital would be you're re-releasing AUD 400 million from day one as a result of the new standards, AUD 150 million is going on the buyback, and AUD 280 million is earmarked for Pepper Money. I presume that's overly simplistic, but if so, why? And then, given you're going to need so much fixed income moving forward, whether or not the Pepper Money deal goes ahead, do you expect to have to do more such deals to guarantee your supply? Why does a minority stake in Pepper Money get you what you want? Well, let me. Thanks, Nigel. Let me start. We'll go work from the back up again. So I guess first comment to say about Pepper, for the avoidance of doubt, is clearly the news flow was taken out of our hands, and the deal remains very much incomplete, and there's no certainty that we'll execute an agreement. But if you went back to slides that we've put up since 2022, we've talked about expanding the aperture of our asset origination capability. And in so doing, we have built out our own internal team further. We've also created a new whole loan servicing and origination capability. So we look at Pepper like we look at our other partnerships, where it gives us a whole lot of optionality about growth in the future. Pepper is a really well-run business. You know, it, it's a big originator. Its growth has been really strong, and it's a business that we know well. So, you know, that as you would expect, and the opportunity to the extent anything was to, we were to execute any agreements there, it would give us strategic access to assets, not just for now, but, you know, long into the future, across a whole lot of lending verticals that, you know, Pepper today originate across. So that, that's the sort of the premise to it. You know, I would make a comment that, you know, we have, to this moment in time, been able to, as an incredibly reliable funder into the non-bank lending market and other originators in the domestic, you know, here in Australia, we have been able to meet, you know, our, our requirements. But we recognize that while supply of assets is growing, demand for assets will continue to grow over time, and our demand is going to continue to grow over time, for the reasons, not just the capital standard changes, but also the expectations on, on book growth, you know, through time. So we're not flagging any other, you know, transactions here. That's definitely not the message. The news flow has been taken out of our hands and, you know, we really do look forward to, to the extent it, it's appropriate to update the market, on that, to provide more context on, on the sort of the structure and the agreement. So maybe moving to cost-to-income ratio, Nigel, so thank you for the question. So just below—we're sitting just below the range of 32%-34% for the H1. Again, there is some seasonality to our cost spend, so we do expect some of our project spend to be weighted towards the H2, but I don't expect that to move it materially. So, you know, being at or around the very bottom of that range is the right way to think about the cost-to-income ratio for the H2. And then your question around capital, look, I've, we've spoken about this a little bit. What's really important to take away is this idea of, you know, looking at the capital options and the uses of capital in their entirety and how to best ensure that we are sort of meeting the requirements of everybody equally, recognizing that organic growth for us is obviously a primary focus. So the extent to which we are realizing the growth of the business, having capital to back that is of primary importance. But with the capital standard changes, returning any excess capital to shareholders is equally important to us. And so that AUD 150 million you should think about as initial. We certainly are not thinking about it in the context of the remaining being for Pepper there. If that transaction were to complete, there are a number of funding options that we could look at. We were really explicit in our release last Monday that we definitely have no intention of raising fresh common equity, but that the options are broad. Why does the minority stake then work for you? So that's the, so I think Nick touched on that. A minority stake gives us a seat at the table with, with Pepper Money, if it were to complete, and I think importantly, that gives us a level of, of access to assets that you, would not be able to do just by an ordinary flow arrangement, many of which we have already today. Can we go to Kieren? Thank you. Thanks. Kieren Chidgey, UBS. A couple of questions. I might just circle back to the life, margin trajectory. Alex, the, you know, the credit spread compression you talked about, can you just be clear whether or not giving you mark to market your entire book, you know, every half, if we've seen the full impact of this lower credit spread environment in your margins yet, or if there is a sort of flow-through yet to sort of come through into the future period? Secondly, I guess a follow-up question on Sid's guidance question. I'm just interested in what are the scenarios that land you in the top half of that range. Is it plausible, or are we now sort of looking more at a sort of a best estimate that is in the lower half of the range for this year? And then thirdly, on the APRA capital changes, you've had some time to digest these now. I'm interested in your thoughts around where your target ratios are likely to land. Okay. All right, I'll take you to those in turn. So I guess coming back to the COE margin, I won't reiterate the drivers in terms of where we've got to for this half. But, you know, we don't, as you know, guide to a particular exit rate in terms of how we're thinking about the H2, and that is fundamentally because it is just an outworking of the mix of the business that we write, as well as the credit spread environment that we're in. To your point around, you know, how much of it has come through, like, credit spreads have been really tight for quite some time now. So if you think about the duration of our fixed income book, it's about three years, and depending on when you think it started being low, like it's been low for 18 months at least. So there is, you know, most of it is in that COE margin now. A lot of the higher yielding fixed income has started to roll off as we think about the impact that that has on that COE margin. So as I said, there's a little bit of seasonality to it, but it will more be a function of the book growth and the mix of the sales that we write. Remembering, of course, that some of that shorter duration institutional business, as long as we're getting good pricing for it and it's meeting our ROE, is still good business to write. You will probably remember me sitting here last time talking about Index Plus in that way. You know, it can be a s long as it's meeting our ROE, it can be accretive to margin, but good for ROE, and that's then, you know, the, the right economic and rational decision for us to make from a management perspective. Coming back to the range. Look, there are things that can move us around that range quite a lot, particularly some of the funds management variables. For the H1, that AUD 0.333 per share is about 48% of the midpoint. I think last year at this point, we'd done 49% of the midpoint, so it's not a huge delta, so I wouldn't be pointing to any particular, you know, exact specific point within the range at this stage. And then from a capital standard perspective, look, we've looked at the outcomes in terms of kind of day one. We've got an Investor Day coming up in May, and we'll provide, you know, much clearer guidance around the impact that it has on our ranges and metrics. I spoke very briefly about the mention of maybe thinking about how our own COE framework evolves, too. And so, we'll make sure that there's an education of the market around any changes we make to metrics and targets. Okay, it looks like there's no more questions in the room. We'll move to the telephones. Operator, can we move to the first question? Your first question comes from Lafitani Sotiriou with MST Financial. Please go ahead. Good morning, guys. Just one follow-up on the reinsurance update. Can you just go into a little bit more color on the expanded products that the expanding footprint in Asia? The language, I know you've been working on it for a few years, but this seems like quite a big step for you guys. And, and can you also add some color around what conversations or any, if any, that have occurred with Dai-ichi about reinsurance or interest there? Laf, thank you. Let me just try to bring it back a little bit to how we got here. So, you know, 10 years of reinsuring with a major Japanese group like MSP. Over that time, we have periodically, I think it was probably two years ago, we moved to a new product, so we've probably reinsured about four to five different products with MSP. Within the Japanese market, demand and preferences change through time. And so our team have been able to work with them to meet, you know, meet the designs of new products, and you're seeing the significant benefit of that coming through the sales. You know, what we note, though, and something to take offline, is there's certain of the products we're now limited from being able to, in the Australian market, reinsure into Japan. And that is, you know, that is a limitation, and it's something that if we can solve, which we are going to now solve with an extended license in Bermuda, that will allow us to use the MSP relationship as our beachhead to support an orderly build-out of that capability, leveraging our own internal systems and capabilities. And then it gives us optionality around growth. So the first growth we would seek is through new product reinsurance with our existing partner in MS Primary. And I'll probably just round off, I mean, make the comment around Dai-ichi. I'd put Dai-ichi in the same category as other, you know, Japanese insurers. There is significant demand for panel reinsurers in the Japanese market. We think we offer a differentiated proposition. We've been able to prove how we can build through strong relationships with MS Primary, you know, what is now a 10-year partnership. And so we do think there are other opportunities, and we wouldn't limit it just to one name or another. You know, I make mention of the other markets simply because there are other opportunities in those markets. Challenger operates globally. We have an office in Japan. You know, we have team members up and down, you know, all the time. So it's not a huge new for us. It's an exciting evolution of an existing business strategy that we have today. And just the timing on it, so how long do you think the license comes through, and will there be any other additional capital considerations? So on the licensing, it'll be this half. We're working towards i t's obviously subject to the BMA regulatory approvals, but it's something that we've been at for a while now. And the next steps there would be transitioning the portfolio with MS Primary, the statutory fund assets across. There'd be no implications to capital because it would use w ith the sort of almost convergence of Australian standards with international standards, the amount of capital that we would back it with is more or less equivalent to that which we have today backing those liabilities. All right, thanks. The next question comes from Julian Braganza with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Good morning, guys. Can I just start, firstly, what is, what is baked in your guidance just for book growth going into the H2? Are you expecting that to continue to be strong, consistent with the first option? Maybe let's start with that one. Thanks, Julian. So look, we don't talk explicitly around the book growth assumptions that we make, remembering that the sales that we deliver in the H2 of any year have very small impact on the actual profit outcome for the year. And so the you know, the two would not be that linked in any event. Okay. Okay, thanks. And then maybe just in terms of, in terms of the pricing for growth, are you testing this against your current ROE targets, or are you testing this against, potentially a lower ROE target under the new capital standard? Just want to be very clear how you're pricing for growth today. Thank you. Yeah, no, thanks for the question. A very easy question for that. The, you know, the pricing today is to our existing ROE target, not least because we are, you know, still very much operating under the existing capital standards, and, you know, until we're not on the first of July. Thank you. Got it. And then just in terms of the funds management business, can you maybe clarify how you're thinking about flows from here, given the pressures that we've seen, as well as the sustainability of the margin that we've seen over the H1? Thanks. Thanks, Julian. I'll give Alex a breath there. So in terms of funds management, you break apart our two businesses. We have our Challenger Investment Management and the Fidante platform. Alex has a great slide in the pack there, just showing the growth of Challenger Investment Management, and as you'll be aware, that's been a strategic priority over the last number of years. We've seen, obviously, demand for income and higher income products really increase. I think the approach we've taken to growing it has been really strong, and the announcement or the launch of our new LiFTS platform just gives us pathway to support different channels within that domestic market. So really exciting what we're seeing coming through the CIM team. Within Fidante, you've really got to look at. Yeah, there's a, there's a broad range of strategies in there. The announcement around Fulcrum, which increases the alternatives business there to about 13%, of FUM, is very exciting. 'Cause you are seeing really strong growth in alts managers, liquid alts managers globally, as allocators are shifting between passive and active or, or thinking about their, their shift, I should say, from active. And whilst they'll have significant exposure to passive, a lot of them are finding halfway houses in liquid alt strategies to provide portfolio diversification. So it's very much in line with where market dynamics are right now. Because the corollary of that is clearly the, and, and it's not contained just to our business, but active equity fund management has found it very difficult in the last, you know, number of years to produce excess returns to the passive benchmarks. And you can find an argument on both ends of the spectrum here, pretty depending on what your perspectives are. You know, I think what we would say is, when we look at our managers, they're incredibly highly regarded, they're well-rated, they're sticking to their investment processes, and to the extent that we see a normalization across markets, they'll benefit materially in that environment. So there's a lot of support going on around the customer bases there. But then, you know, within the fixed income managers on the platform, there's some really strong performance in Fidante there, and should be supportive of flows going forward. All of that comes to, you know, margin and mix is always a little bit hard to read. We've seen some benefits from a lower denominator simply because we had some very large, low-value money sitting in that book, which came out over the last 12 months. So there's always going to be a mix of things, but we're, you know, prioritising clearly growth in those strategies and protecting margin across that book. Your next question comes from Andrei Stadnik with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Good morning. Can I ask my first question around the last COE margin? Can you talk a little bit about the impact of tighter spreads isolated from the impact of lower cash rates? Yeah, sure. Thanks, Andrei. So the COE margin is y ou know, if you think about the math of it, you've got the earnings in the numerator, and you've got your average investment assets in the denominator. So the first thing to say is, we did grow earnings. Those earnings, you know, the numerator is up 2% period on period, but the average investment assets grew by more than that. So that's why you've got the margin coming down, and that's because of the book, the strong book growth that we had during the period. That numerator then includes the investment yield that we are earning on assets, less the funding cost that we pay away to our annuitants. So from a cash rate perspective, the cash rate impact, particularly of small movements, and particularly in the short term, is really netted off between those two. You know, the impact on the investment yields then felt equal and opposite, on the interest expense. So those, those sort of net off. The credit spread environment, though, affects really just that investment yield. And so to the extent to which there is increased competition for assets, you know, more, more tricky reinvestment spreads, to get that, puts pressure on that, on that investment yield, recognizing that, you know, a meaningful part of our balance sheet is in fixed income. Yeah, just to check on that. So I thought the earnings on shareholder funds went through there, and so the impact of lower cash rates does have some impact. Well, I appreciate it's not overly large. But, you know, how should we think about that, and particularly going into the H2 in terms of any lagged impacts of the rate cut versus the benefit of the rate increase that came through in February? Yeah. So I think, you know, the shareholder funds revenue does go through there, too. I guess that's the first thing to say. But the shareholder funds are made up of the same composition as the policyholder funds. That's also got 75% of fixed income in there. So there are assets that are more exposed to that cash rate, like property over time, but small movements of 25 basis points here and there, and in one half, you're not going to see any big impacts from cash rates. Gotcha. Thank you. And look, for my- The other thing as well, Andre, it'll take a little bit of time to season through as well. So obviously, you know, you're not going to get the full benefit come through from a cash rate increase over the last year and the current financial year. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. That's helpful. And, look, for my other question, can I just follow up on what I think you were replying to Freya? I think the analyst pack, page 48, shows a small increase in capital intensity. So, how do we reconcile the small increase in capital intensity versus the move to hold more in liquid during the half? Yeah. Thanks, Andre. So maybe we can show you the detailed calculation offline, too. If you look at slide 48 of the analyst pack, you'll see the compositional parts of PCA. If you actually just look at asset risk charge over investment assets, it is flat. So the increase is really coming in the combined stress, where the biggest movement is actually in deferred tax assets. So there were larger deferred tax assets this period than there were in the previous period, which means we have to hold slightly more PCA. So it's not a function of the actual asset mix at all, but happy to show you that in detail. Thank you. Your next question comes from Jason Lindeman with Coolabah Capital Investments. Please go ahead. Thank you. My question's already been answered. Thank you. There are no further questions on the phone line at this time. I'll now hand the conference back. Okay. Unless there's any further questions in the room, I think that closes today's briefing. Irene and myself, we're both on the phones today, so if there's any other questions, feel free to call through. Thanks again for your time and your interest in Challenger. Thank you.