Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the AXA Group 2021 earnings press conference. This year, we regret that we cannot be with you directly. Hopefully, we'll be together next year. These earnings will be presented by Thomas Buberl, CEO for the group, Frédéric de Courtois, Deputy CEO, Patrick Cohen, CEO for AXA France, and Alban de Mailly-Nesle, CFO. As usual, this presentation will be followed by a Q&A session in which will be involved some members of the management committee. I thank you, and I wish you a good presentation. I now turn it over to Thomas Buberl. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this AXA Group 2021 earnings press conference. We are delighted to be with you today. For AXA, 2021 has been a decisive and pivotal year. A decisive year, why was that the case? The numbers prove that we have come out stronger of the COVID crisis. A pivotal year, as it marks the end of the group's deep transformation phase of the group and the start of a new development phase. Such transformation had three major goals. First of all, simplify the group by refocusing it on its strategic markets. Today, if you want to have impact, you cannot be everywhere. You must pick carefully the countries where you operate. The second goal was to transform the group's risk profile to make it less sensitive to the financial markets. This is the reason why we purchased AXA XL, sold our life and asset management operations in the U.S., and transformed our life business around the globe. Lastly, our third goal was to improve customer experience, which is a major topic for AXA, as it is for the whole insurance industry. After such transformation, what is AXA looking like? Well, AXA is a group refocused on its business lines and the key markets. We are the second European insurer. We are the first global commercial insurer with a good footprint in the U.S., and we are also a health international leader with a good position in Asia. AXA is also a group which is refocused on so-called technical risks. P&C, health, and protection account for 80% of the group's earnings. In 2008, it represented only 20%. Of course, life insurance remains a very significant business for us and our customers. However, we have shrunk its share in our business mix, and above all, we have sped up the transition towards products that are less capital-consuming. Lastly, AXA is a group which has improved its customer relationship. Last year, the Net Promoter Score, which gauges customer satisfaction, was up by 3 points at 97%. Just two years ago, it was hovering at 75%. It's a stellar rise made possible through the acceleration of digitalization and simplification of our processes in order to improve customers' experience, including when it comes to how we handle claims. We shall continue our efforts in order to further improve such experience across all our business lines. As you can see, the transformation of AXA has been deep. Above all, it has been a success, as indicated by our 2021 earnings. Last year, AXA had an excellent performance. AXA is a group which is growing. Revenues is climbing by 6% at EUR 100 billion. Such growth was driven by all our business lines: property and casualty, life insurance, health, and asset management. AXA is also a profitable group. Underlying earnings stood at EUR 6.8 billion, up by 9% on a normalized base. Across all our markets, we saw such performance, and the success of AXA XL has been the key factor. I will come back to it. Lastly, AXA is a very solid group with a Solvency II ratio, up by 17 points, standing at 217%. Now, given this very good performance. The board of directors proposes to the shareholders a dividend of EUR 1.54 per share, up by 8% over last year. In addition, we feel we are positioned to deliver an average profit per share of our earnings in the upper range of our target range between 2020 and 2023. We feel also that we are well-positioned to top our cash flows target between 2021 and 2023. As you can see, we are quite confident about achieving the goals of our strategic plan called Driving Progress 2023. I will now show you the two major drivers behind our performance, our business lines and our markets. As I've just told you, our business activity has been very brisk last year. Our growing revenues were driven across all our business lines, property and casualty up by 3% standing at EUR 49.3 billion. Life savings and pension are rising by 9% at EUR 33.3 billion. Health rising 5% at EUR 15.2 billion. Asset management climbed 20% at EUR 1.5 billion. Such figures do show the high potential of these business lines. They are aligned with the significant needs of our customers. For AXA, it's a source of strong development going forward, because this has been a profitable growth. This slide does show the balance and the power of the AXA model. As I explained just a while ago, as is the case each year, France confirms its role as a pillar of the group with underlying earnings at EUR 1.8 billion, up by 8%. The remainder of Europe generates EUR 2.5 billion or nearly 40% of the group's performance overall. Likewise, we hold a solid position in Asia, where we generate EUR 1.2 billion in earnings. Lastly, we have two major cross-business lines which ensure us a presence on all our large global markets. They have registered an excellent performance, which makes us very proud. This is the result of actions of transformations made by our management and our subsidiaries teams. Of course, there's AXA Investment Managers with earnings sharply higher by 25% at EUR 0.3 billion. Above all, there's AXA XL, which has hit its goal, namely EUR 1.2 billion in earnings. It's as much as Asia. It's one of the noteworthy facts of our earnings this year. The work operated by our subsidiary specialized in large risk has really borne fruit. AXA XL henceforth is extremely well-positioned to generate a sustainable and profitable growth. This is very good news for the group and for all our customers. This proves the relevance of this major strategic move. As you can see, AXA has come up with excellent results and displays very strong solidity. This financial performance is absolutely key. It is thanks to it that AXA can have an economic horsepower and impact, which is also social and societal. The key challenge for societies is, of course, climate change. As an insurance company, AXA is a privileged observer of the impacts of climate change. As an investor, AXA is a business partner that supports the economies and businesses the world over in their energy transition. In 2021, we have pursued our engagements and commitments along these two lines. We have been very much involved in the launch of the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance. This is an approach of importance which aims at better integrating climate challengers in the criteria to select risks. We also have strengthened our policy on extractive fossil energies. We've clearly announced our goal to gradually stop extractive businesses and market participants which do not seem to us aligned with the requirement of energy transition. To the contrary, we'll keep investing and ensuring those market participants whose transition trajectories are credible. They will have a key role to play in accelerating the energy transition. Finally, we have committed EUR 1.5 billion to support the sustainable management of forests. The fight against climate change will be a long and difficult one. We have set for ourself a clear road ahead with tangible results which are included in our benchmark for progress and which were announced last year during our annual general meeting of shareholders. I will now recall some of these aspects. Number one, to reduce the carbon footprint of the assets in the AXA general account by some 20% by 2025. Number two, to increase green investments by AXA to reach EUR 26 billion by 2023. We already have reached EUR 23 billion. Number three, making our 120,000 employees committed and engaged participants in climate transformation. This is why we want to train them in climate stakes and challenges, and we want to have 80,000 of them trained by the month of September. Number four, finally, we want to be carbon neutral with our own operations by 2025. We have very ambitious goals. We cannot slow down our efforts. We want to continue to contribute to the economic and social growth in the countries where we operate. This is a very interesting slide. It shows the value that AXA has been generating for all of its stakeholders. On the one hand, for its customers and clients, these are the two numbers which clearly illustrate our action and our mission. We've been reimbursing every year EUR 50 billion in claims. After a claim, this is the assurance for our clients to be able to bounce back. We've been paying out some EUR 6.5 billion to compensate the savings of our customers. On the other hand, AXA has been an active employer everywhere in the world. We recruit some 12,000 people every year, and this number does not factor in all the systems that we have in place to enable youth to start their careers. We've also been paying out some EUR 6 billion in wages and salaries every year. Also, we've been supporting a well-balanced economic development everywhere. We've been investing every year some EUR 40 billion in the economies, especially in those very tangible projects for everyone in transportation, in infrastructure, among others. We've also been paying out more than EUR 10 billion in taxes, duties, and levies, including 40% in France. Finally, we compensate those who invest into AXA and contribute to its robustness. We've been paying out last year some EUR 3.4 billion in dividend payouts to close to 300,000 shareholders. Among them, there are many, many employees. For the last 30 years, we've been leading a very active policy to help our employees to become shareholders. They today hold some 6% of voting rights. They have been associated and involved in the strategic choices and decisions made by the group and in its performance. Attracting talent has always been a key stake and challenge for us. We believe that this topic will gain in importance in the next few years. This is why we have put in place a corporate culture that supports employee engagement. As you can see here up on this slide, you have some of our major initiatives taken. Some have been taken for quite a while, like our employee shareholding policy, but you also have the policy in favor of diversity inclusion. Other policies and initiatives have been more recently adapted to adapt our group to the new needs and requirements of our employees. This is the case for home working and for our policy to protect health, including mental health. All these initiatives and measures mean that we drive very strong engagement in our employees and a very high level of satisfaction on their part, as the various satisfaction surveys have demonstrated, all global surveys which were conducted last year. All of these factors that I've just presented to you make us very confident for the future. You know this slide very well now. It illustrates and recaps our strategic priorities and the key financial indicators in the course of our Driving Progress 2023 plan. I will recall the five strategic thrusts. Number one, developing health and protection. Simplifying customer experience and keep improving our efficiencies. Strengthening the underwriting performance. Continue driving our leadership in the field of climate change, and increasing cash flow generation across the group. With respect to our key financial indicators, we consider that we are well-positioned to deliver average growth in earnings per share in the high end of our target brackets of 3%-7% between 2020 and 2023. Also, we are well-positioned to exceed our cash flow generation goal by 2021 and 2023. Our will is to keep investing into the growth and development of the business. The share buyback programs are also tools that we have available to us to possibly generate added value. As you can see, AXA is doing very well. The group has successfully transformed itself. Performance has been excellent. We have clear, high-quality governance. Our strategic vision is perfectly adapted to the environment. All these commitments, all these accomplishments, we owe to the loyalty of our clients and especially to the engagement and commitment and dedication of our employees, agents, and partners. Thanks to them all, we are extremely well-positioned to reach our targets and goals of our Driving Progress plan and to meet the key challenges of our societies. I would like now to thank them all. I now give the floor to Frédéric de Courtois. Hello, everyone. We are registering very good earnings throughout our business lines. I'd like to go over these four lines of businesses. P&C first. As you can see here, a solid growth of 3% last year. If we now look first at commercial lines, well, it registered a very sharp rise of 5% with on average positive price rises at 7%, excellent performance, especially at AXA France with 11% growth in AXA XL as well. To say a few words now about AXA XL, you can see on this slide a sharp price rises obtained last year, so 15% in the insurance business and 9% up in the reinsurance business. If we now look at renewals on the 1st of January this year, these renewals also turned out to be very satisfactory with an increase of prices in insurance of 11% and an increase of prices in reinsurance of 8%. AXA XL again is well-positioned this year following this renewal of its portfolio. Looking still at this line of business of P&C for personal lines, you can see personal lines is growing by 1%, which can be accounted for by our prices overall steady in our various subsegments in the motor lines and in the other lines which are non-motor. Looking now at the profitability in the P&C, you can see the property and casualty profitability is sharply higher because there are non-recurring aspects of the COVID claims. If we exclude the COVID-related claims, P&C grew by 29% last year at EUR 4.1 billion, as you can see here on the slide. This can be accounted for mainly through a very good technical performance in terms of underwriting and within that underwriting performance, the noteworthy fact is a strong AXA XL rise, which made a great job in the past few years, and which has largely resubscribed and rewritten its portfolio and is very well positioned in order to deliver this year and the next years to AXA XL. Therefore, and it's a major message, is where it should be now and deliver this year earnings which truly are aligned with our expectations. You can see that the CapEx is stable, which is a good performance given that rates are lower, and all of this translates into the combined ratio, which you see sharply higher, again, sharp increase of the technical results with a 94.6% combined ratio. In that combined ratio, there are a number of elements which are exceptional. I will mention four of them. The first one is obviously the Nat Cat this year. As you know, it was a big cat load. It was the fourth most costly year since 1970, so it had a negative impact on our combined ratio. The second exceptional one was the better frequencies in the motor insurance related to the special situation of the COVID. The third one is the payment of restaurant owners. We struck an agreement, as you know, with the majority of the restaurant owners in France, and this has a cost for us and has an impact on the combined ratio. Lastly, the fourth exceptional element, Earnings are better than what we had before. It just happens that these four exceptional elements are offset, and we may consider that the 94.6% is a good benchmark or point of reference. It reflects our very good technical performance, and it positions us in good position to hit our goal of 93% in 2023, and we confirm that target again. Looking now at the life insurance business. As you can see, it posts a 9% strong growth. What is important for us is the quality of the mix. You see that growth, especially, is strong in protection, in unit-linked accounts and with low consumption of capital. This performance, and you can see it on the right-hand side, is particularly excellent in France and in Asia. Why is that the case in France? Well, the life insurers on an individual basis performed very well last year. It's true for unit-linked products. It's also the case for the so-called PER, the pension-related products, or also for the capital light consumer products, Euro Croissance, as it is called. If you looked at the mix in France, if you add up the unit-linked accounts and Euro Croissance, as it is called, it represents 56% of our business, which is a ratio 15 points higher than the market. This exceptional performance, Do you analyze it in France? Well, through the very good performance of our agents and employee networks. Very good performance as well, as I said, in Asia, especially in Japan and in Hong Kong, with products related to protection and unit-linked accounts and general account with low capital consumption. You see the net flows confirm that trend and this alignment with our strategies with net negative flows on traditional savings and positive ones and significant on all our other business lines. Moving on now to new business. Well, the message here is similar. New business are sharply higher, which translates the brisk activity of our network with a 13% growth last year, the speeding up in the second half of the year. The value of new business which reflects the value that is created in a way is also sharply higher at 8%, and this reflects the quality of the mix which I mentioned before. You can see here that there's a very low decline of VNB, which is the result of a change of the mix with less individual insurance in the health business, but it's not very meaningful. You can see that the underlying earnings for life insurance has grown solidly by 3%. If I'm to exclude those companies which have come out of the consolidation scope, including Central Europe, Greece, if I to exclude this reinsurance transaction, Hong Kong, underlying earnings would have grown by 5%. How can it be analyzed? Number one, significant growth of technical margin. This is the first notable point. Second notable point, and you can look at the right-hand side of the slide, is that investment margin has proved extremely resilient. Here again, this has been a strong performance in a low interest rate environment. You can note that this investment margin at 66 basis points is in excess of the guidance we gave with respect to the investment margin. We gave a 55-65 basis points bracket in our guidance, so we are very happy with this performance. Last factor to explain this performance, strong growth of revenues on unit-linked products, from unit-linked products, which translates very strong sales and marketing momentum, new business coming in and also an increase in financial markets which increased its unit-linked product stock. Now, moving on to our third business line, which is health insurance, which is of a strategic importance, as Thomas said. We are continuing with our profitable growth trend in this line of business. Very satisfactory 5% per annum growth, especially importance in group insurance by 9% this year, with a notable performance in AXA France. Now, combined ratio has been slightly deteriorating, but it's not significant by 0.4 percentage points, which can be explained by two factors. Number one, the fact that we had lesser frequency in health insurance last year due to the lockdown measures, and also to the fact that this year, Mexico, which is an important health insurance market, suffered from the COVID pandemic. These two adjustments lead the combined ratio to slightly increase, remaining on an excellent level. We are highly satisfied with this business all in all, accounting for some 10% of the underlying earnings for the AXA Group. I would like to zoom in now this year on the asset management business, which is our fourth line of business. As you can see here. Commercial performance was extremely good this year with assets under management up by 5%. Of course, the increase of AUM can be explained by a twofold movement, positive net inflows on the one hand, and also the increase of financial markets. Net inflows all in all increased by 12%. 12 billion, sorry. EUR 12 billion. And this has been the case in the alternatives. What we call alternatives are those unlisted assets and joint ventures in Asia. Now, the core segment seems declining, but this is due to a decline in general account. We have negative flows. We have outflows from the general account, which illustrates nonrecurring transaction on the reinsurance transaction Hong Kong. The core business with third-party business increased strongly. On the bottom right-hand side, third-party business increased strongly, both in alternative assets and in our core business segment. This will be seen later on, this has translated into increased margin. If I'm to look at the underlying earnings and performance, increase in financial market, higher net inflows and a better mix, all this translates into better revenues, an absolute 20% increase, and an increase in margin levels, which basically translates what I said, i.e., better mix, very strong increase in revenues. Now, the consequence of this is that the cost-income ratio has increased strongly. This is our cost-income, almost up by 4 percentage points due to the increase in revenues, of course, and due to a stronger discipline in controlling costs last year. As a consequence, underlying earnings up by 25%, which is the result of all I have just presented to you, especially the very high quality of our alternatives franchise. Now, a few last words on asset management and our alternatives franchise. I would like to emphasize the fact that we are the European leader in alternative asset management, in unlisted asset management, the largest franchise in Europe in this segment. This is a franchise which has been delivering proven performance, not just in the last year. AUM increased by 12% per annum over the last five years. Net inflows all together was EUR 54 billion in the last five years. All this translates into higher revenues contributing to AXA IM's bottom line and underlying earnings. It is a business of extremely strategic importance, delivering very fine performance, and we want to continue growing this business, as has been the case in the last few years. Now, by way of a conclusion, to repeat what I said before, on the one hand, you saw that performance was very good across all four business lines. Our four engines are going extremely strongly, which is a source of satisfaction for us. My second important message is that AXA XL has been delivering following extremely great and hard work in the last few years. AXA XL has been restructured and is a business unit which will be releasing its full potential and which still has a great potential. Thank you, and I give over to Patrick Cohen with AXA France. Hello, everyone. I'm delighted to be with you today. This is my first time, and it's my privilege to do it in a context of very good results for AXA France. There are three matters that I would like to cover with you today. The first one is briefly remind you what is the strength of AXA France. After that, I'd like to comment the highlights of the 2021 performance. Last, I will want to talk about our priorities, continue our profitable growth trajectory, and reinforce the citizen commitment, which is in AXA France's genes. AXA has a position which is unique in the French market today. We serve 10 million customers, one out of four professionals, and in P&C, we manage more than 5,000 claims per day. We are leaders in nearly all the business lines. We are also leaders on the direct insurance in France, and we're the only ones who are so diversified between P&C protection, health, and savings and pension. These are very resilient. This position in the market, we owe it to the extension of the technical expertise of our teams, to their ability to constantly innovate. We owe it as well to the power of our distribution networks, to the quality of the advice they give to their customers and the unique meshing on the territory. Each French person is less than 5 km from an AXA advisor, and this is the source of our very good performance in 2021. Revenues reach a record level at EUR 28 billion. It is up by 13%. It's not only related to a rebound effect. Growth is 8% compared to 2019. We are conquering all in all the lines of business and in all our networks. In P&C, we grew by 7%, 11% on commercial lines thanks to product innovation and the rollout of our new underwriting digital platform and in personal P&C, we have more than 100 customers thanks to the overhaul of our offer. We grew by 10% in health. This is the result of our development in collectives. We make the difference thanks to a wide range of services, especially our Angel platform, which we launched last year. It's also the result of our development in individual health. Ever since that it is possible to cancel anytime, we gain even more customer thanks to the quality of our offer and to the mobilization of our networks. Lastly, in the life business, revenues increased by 17%, mainly thanks to the very good growth in the pension retirement market. We are pioneers in the PER, in the pension savings scheme. We have a market share of 20%. We had a big rebound of individual savings in unit-linked accounts. The welcome was very good. For example, we gave access to the general public to the investment capital in small companies, that are French. Lastly, 2021 is the year when Euro Croissance has soared, and we have more than doubled what we did there. In the highlights for 2021, there's one point which is dear to my heart, it's a rise in customer satisfaction across all our businesses, and this translates in a lot of loyalty, more loyalty from our customers. With regard to underlying earnings, it is up by 8% at EUR 1.8 billion, driven by the strong commercial momentum I just mentioned, and the quality of business with P&C combined ratio 89.7% in diversification rate, in savings, 15 points above the market at 56%. Lastly, in our growth underlying earnings, there's impact of the EUR 300 million mobilized for the friendly, amicable agreement with restaurant owners. 80% of them initiated that approach, and now 64% accepted our proposal. We are in net positive contribution with restaurant owners and at level superior to the situation before the crisis. In my introduction, I said we are a company which is highly committed in cities, in society, and we illustrated ourselves last year in terms of jobs with 6,000 new jobs, out of which 3,000 new people and 3,200 long-term contracts. We invested about EUR 1 billion in companies in the terms of protection of our investment. Green investments are at EUR 9 billion. Much for 2021. I would like to congratulate again and very warmly all the teams of AXA France. We will not rest on our laurels. We believe in the potential of AXA France. We believe in our ability to strengthen again our leadership position, and to this effect, we have strongly sped up, we will speed up customer experience, technology and agility, and societal commitment. On customer experience, the crisis helped us gain years in terms of digital adoption, but also has highlighted the significance of being close to our customers in a human way, which is embodied by our networks of tied agents, of the other agents, and our employee-related networks. This is why, on the one hand, we will invest a lot in the digitalization of customer expertise for a simpler, more rapid experience with a quality of service that leads by example by giving customers the freedom to choose the channel that is best for them, physical or digital, at every stage of the life of the contracts. At the same time, we want to speed up the transformation of our distribution networks. We want networks that are growing, and they were in 2021. We want them to be equipped with new technological tools and even more expert-wise to provide high value, advice to our clients. We want to continue also to innovate, to meet, increased protection needs and position ourselves in future markets. We innovate on health-related services in companies. In terms of offer, we want to highlight green insurance and inclusive insurance on the unit-linked development that is not listed and on Euro Croissance, which for us is the new base of life insurance. The second priority on which we want to speed up things is technology and agility. Technology is not an aim in itself, it's a condition in order to keep alive our leadership, and we want to put it at the service of our customers, our networks and our staff. We are increasing our technological CapEx because progress possibilities are huge. Automating things, artificial intelligence, we want to use it at scale to reduce the procedure time in terms of procedure and underwriting and keep our technical leadership alive. Also, we want internally gain in swiftness and better leverage our human assets. Concretely, we want to simplify our organization and our governance to stimulate innovation and the entrepreneurship which are AXA's DNA. Lastly, third priority, societal commitment. It's a reality and has always been there. It's not a slogan or a catchword, it's a commitment which is real that AXA France's men and women carry forward. We want to strengthen our action there on the protection of the environment where we want to remain pioneers and blaze the trail. We want to develop green business as from next year. 90% from next year of new business will meet ESG criteria. We want to go over EUR 10 billion of green investment. Likewise, we want to reinforce our solidarity action in territories. We want to even put more resources in partnerships with local associations in every territory. We want to do our best to remain the benchmark in terms of protection. We want to concentrate on health, on cyber risk and the environment. In this transformation, the commitment and the well-being of our employees will be an absolute priority. The crisis reminded us that companies above all are great human adventures. Right now we are experiencing the fact of moving from constrained working from afar to really doing it because we need to do it. We have a new collective project based on flexibility, management, empathy, the quality of life at work and leveraging the diversity in every form it can have. In conclusion, I'd like to say that our positioning is unique on our market. We've always been where we should be with performance. We don't intend to rest on these laurels. To gain in the future, we want to combine digital and closeness, innovation of products and services, human factors and technology, performance and societal commitment. It's on these key commitments the men and women of AXA France are engaged in order to speed up our transformation. I thank you very much, and I turn it over to Alban de Mailly-Nesle. Hello, everyone. I will now review our performance in underlying earnings, which reflects the quality of our performance. Our underlying earnings increased by 61% versus fiscal 2021. Remember that 2021, as Frédéric mentioned, was impacted by COVID and the Nat Cat. If we were to adjust the 2020 numbers for these two impacts, our underlying earnings would have grown 9% versus that year. Very fine performance, as Frédéric said. It has been driven, among others, by improved underwriting in P&C business, especially in XL. We've also posted regular growth in our underlying earnings in health insurance and life insurance. Finally, asset management business fared very well, thanks to a buoyant financial environment and thanks to the net inflows from our clients. The holding operations are slightly down, which is the result of lower dividend remittance from non-controlled companies. Underlying earnings up 9%. Net income now, which is up by 135% to EUR 7.3 billion. This increase obviously is driven by the increased underlying earnings, as well as by the favorable financial environment in fiscal 2021, which had us generate EUR 400 million in realized capital gains, which also had a positive impact of some assets recognized through the P&L by some EUR 1.1 billion. There's been a limited impact on the adjustments for intangibles and goodwill and non-recurring costs are related to transactions being carried out in Belgium and Hong Kong and to the disposals of some business operations. Now, moving on to shareholders' equity. The key takeaway message here is that the profitability, the return on shareholders' equity has been at 14.7%, excellent level in fiscal 2021, i.e., in the high end of the bracket, which has been our target in between 13%-15%, which is another way to illustrate the outstanding operational performance last year. With respect to our shareholders' equity, it's been stable, slightly down, which is due to the mark to market value of our assets, mainly bond assets, and due to increased interest rates, they lost some value in 2021. This loss was almost totally offset by the net income recorded in 2021. We obviously paid out dividend of EUR 3.4 billion. You can see here up on the screen that we proceeded with share buybacks on the order of EUR 900 million, a share buyback program in total which was EUR 1.7 billion. In December of 2021, we generated EUR 900 million out of the EUR 1.7 billion, the balance being in January and February. The last impact is with respect to pension benefits, thanks to higher rates, has delivered a positive impact on our shareholders' equity. Now, moving on to the Solvency II ratio, excellent level of 217%. Strongly up on prior year, which stood at 200%. Remember that our target ratio is 190%, so we are in excess of this target ratio, and very much so. You can see here on the slide the sensitivity of this Solvency II ratio to some market shocks. You can see that despite these market shocks, our ratio would remain at an excellent level, which translates the very strong capitalization and robustness of our balance sheet. Moving on to our cash position at the holding company level, at EUR 4.5 billion, again, above the bracket we guided, which was between EUR 1 billion-EUR 3 billion. This very high cash position level was the result of strong cash remittance from our entities and subsidiaries by some EUR 4.4 billion, as well as the proceeds from disposals for another EUR 1.4 billion and an issuance of financial debt of EUR 4.9 billion. We have this cash position level knowing that we paid our dividends on the order of EUR 3.4 billion and a share buyback in the order of EUR 900 million. All this brings us a EUR 4.5 billion cash position, which is an excellent level for fiscal 2021. Now, with respect to our financial debt, it comes out at EUR 18.1 billion, up EUR 1.5 billion over fiscal 2020. This EUR 1.5 billion euro increase is a Forex effect and we keep leverage at 26.4%. The bracket is in between 25%-28%. We have very well-controlled leverage which explained our strong, robust balance sheet. We paid back a Tier 1 debt on the order of $850 million, and we issued a Tier 2 debt of EUR 1.25 billion, which again falls within our program for fiscal 2022. Finally, our CapEx investments. We invested last year, so new investments on an average rate of 1.4% in fixed income products. This 1.4% is a mix between 1% for the core debt, that is liquid debt, sovereign bonds, corporate bonds, among others, and 2.4% of private debt or alternative debt, as Frédéric de Courtois showed when he reviewed the alternatives business. This enables us to have a 1.4% reinvestment yield on average, which did not deteriorate the quality of investment. We maintained our average rating of double A and a single A for corporate bonds and for private debt in which we've been investing. We are not sacrificing the quality of our investments due to this. This has led, with respect to the yield of our assets, all in all, in P&C, yield was extremely stable to 2.6%. If we want to be very specific, it went down by 2 basis points, thanks to very disciplined management of our investments. Also, in life, in the life business, as Frédéric said, our financial margin remained almost stable to 66 basis points, which is above the target we guided for our plan 2021-2023. All in all, you can see that we are posting very fine operating performance, very strong increase in our performance, both net income and underlying earnings. We also have a very, very robust balance sheet, whether you speak about Solvency II or cash position and profitability and return on our shareholders' equity to 14.7%, which is excellent. I will give over to Thomas Buberl for his conclusion. In conclusion, we can say that AXA has achieved an excellent performance across the group with a sharp growth of the activity of products and a solid operating performance across all our markets. A success of AXA XL's transformation, fully operational. Today, we are positioned to deliver an earnings per share at the upper range and exceed our accrued cash goal by 2023. To end, we have great trust in hitting our goals of our Driving Progress 2023 plan and our ambitions beyond. We are now available to answer all your questions. First question from Danièle Guinot, Le Figaro. Please activate your mic. Over to you. Bonjour. Hello, and thank you for this presentation. Sorry for my mask. I am located in a place where we need masks. I have three questions. The first one was in relation to AXA France. You paid about compensating restaurant owners. I have a second question about AXA XL, and you underlined its success. Four years after the acquisition, I'd like to know what were your ambitions in relation to the AXA XL's reinsurance business. I have a third question now regarding the Ukraine conflict. I'd like to find out whether it could have an impact on AXA, and in what way? Thank you. Thank you, Danièle, for your three questions. I suggest that Patrick Cohen start with the question about restaurant owners, and then we'll take the next two questions about AXA XL's reinsurance and the conflict in Ukraine. Over to you, Patrick. Thank you for your question. As you know, we launched this amicable solution last June with Restaurant Owners France with EUR 3 million package. We confirm that figure because, as I said, it went quite well. We have 80% of our customers who have accepted this friendly solution, and today we have 75% of the customers. We've come to a conclusion. This is due to the engagement of our networks, to the attractive offer we made, and how simplified it was for the customers. We are delighted to see that the links between our tied agents and the restaurant owner clients have been stronger now with their 20 new restaurant owners, which each day take out their insurance at AXA France. Danièle, the second question regarding reinsurance at AXA XL. The reinsurance at AXA XL, yes, is a major part of AXA XL since it allows us to take positions in reinsurance in spots where we're not present in the so-called primary insurance business, and certainly in many emerging markets. Emerging markets are growing through reinsurance, which gives us as well access to those markets. You've seen in the presentation of Frédéric de Courtois and Alban de Mailly-Nesle that we are in the midst of restructuring our exposures. We are cutting back on our exposure in regard to nat cats in the reinsurance business of AXA XL, and we are increasing our exposure in parts that are not related to nat cats. This is being done with a strong determination and resolve. You've seen we've cut our exposure in nat cats of AXA XL by 40% at the start of the year, so that we can really expand that change in the mix. That will continue starting from now. Your third question about the conflict in the Ukraine. We all regret that this conflict this morning has taken a bad turn and is very tense. It's probably a humanitarian crisis that is starting now in the Ukraine, and we really regret such developments. Obviously, there are effects on the economic front on both sides. On one side it is the question about our direct commitments in terms of insurance and investments in the Ukraine and in Russia. I can tell you that all of this is minimal compared to group level, because in the insurance part, we have left the Ukraine several years back, and in Russia, we are a minority partner in a joint venture in Russia. Now, in the CapEx or investment, we have a few commitments, but as I said, it's a minority. It is minimal, so it's not material for the AXA Group as such. Now, there's a second effect, which is certainly the secondary so-called effects. You noticed this morning that the volatility in financial markets is starting to rise, and certainly energy prices, especially gas, will be soaring. In other words, an increase in prices of energy entails that inflation could well pick up further, which means that there will be less growth in PIPs and probably a speeding up in the increase of interest rates. This context for us is not something new because all of this has to be seen in a geopolitical context, which is increasingly tense with weights that are redistributed. AXA has already started. Well, it started a while ago by way of maneuvering in this new context. You even noticed that in this post-COVID context, which remains tough geopolitically, well, we are presenting excellent results and earnings. This is why I remain confident with our great capabilities in terms of adjusting. Next question, please. A second question from Thibaud Vadjoux from the L'Agefi. Thibaud, over to you. Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for your answers and your presentation. The question follows on the same lines. I'd like to know what can you tell us about Russia. What is the exact exposure in terms of investments in Russia? And since 2014 and the annexation of Crimea, had you put some exclusions in place? Is it part of your ESG policy to consider countries that are at war? And there's another quick point about the weather, the climate. Have you calculated anything on the European so-called taxonomy? Thank you, Thibault, for your two questions. First of all, I hand over to Alban de Mailly-Nesle. Well, on the first question, it was about further specifics about our position in Russia and the question have we taken any decisions in terms of ESG following the 2014 events. Lastly, on the climate, whether the effect of taxonomy on our CapEx-related decisions. Alban. Thank you for your question. On the exposure of AXA to Russia, it is twofold, but as Thomas said, it is not material in the sense that all in all, we have about EUR 200 million of assets exposed to Russia, and by way of our insurance, we also have just under EUR 200 million of exposure. So it's not really material. Now, by way of our ESG policy, have we taken any steps with regard to Russia? Since always, we've been looking at all the countries that could be exposed, especially to sanctions. This has led us to cut back on our exposure to Russia, and as you can see, our residual exposure is minimal, it's marginal. This is the answer I can give you. Lastly, on the European taxonomy, you will see in our next annual report that we intend to publish two indicators on the European taxonomy. On the one hand, on our assets, the other one on our premiums. In these two categories, we will see which ones are eligible to European taxonomy. Thank you, Alban. Next question, please. A third question, Lionel Garnier from Le Revenu. Unmute your mic. Over to you. Yes. Hello, everyone. Thank you for the presentation. I have two questions, please. The first one deals about activating the new tranche of buyback. Was that anticipated? It was anticipated by the analysts and the markets. Beyond this EUR 500 million, what do you plan? You have a high solvency. The markets are a bit agitated. Does it change your latitude in terms of acquisitions? Could you specify at the turn of 2020 to your policy, are there any changes? Second question regarding AXA XL. I don't think I've seen any new targets in terms of profitability in what you said this morning. Does it mean the EUR 1.2 billion are a base, and there's no need to talk about this again? Or else, are you not sure enough to be able to reassert that level of profitability? Thank you. Thank you, Lionel, for your two questions. I suggest that I answer your first question, and Frédéric de Courtois will take the second question regarding AXA XL. Just to preempt a bit the answer, we are very confident about our AXA XL earnings. This is why we don't need, again, EUR 1.2 billion. Regarding the question pertaining to EUR 0.5 billion of buyback of shares, it's quite true. It was already announced in November last, but it was at the time related to the closing of the divestitures. You've seen recently that one of the major sales in Singapore mainly was authorized. Today, we are in a situation in which we can start that second part of share buyback, the EUR 0.5 billion that we announced. In other words, it will be implemented immediately. Now, on the question in general about Lionel, first of all, look, we need to say that we're very confident about our cash situation. After all, it is very important to have moved out of this crisis with a lot of strength, with a lot of solidity in regard to our balance sheet. When it comes to the next initiatives of potential share buybacks, well, we were very clear at our investor day on the 1st of December, 2020, and it has remained unchanged ever since. We've said two things since then on which we also have acted on. First of all, we said, "Look, if there are any divestitures, certainly we will offset the dilution of the earnings through share buybacks." I've talked exactly about this example with the EUR 0.5 billion. We also said something else which applies perfectly. We said at the time that we will apply, and we are still in that posture, a strict financial discipline on the use of our cash. In other words, acquisitions are still assessed against the buyback of our own shares. We want to follow strictly these two principles up until now, and starting from now nothing will change. Lionel, with respect to your second question, in fact, Thomas Buberl started to answer it, but I will go into some more detail. On the one hand, the EUR 1.2 billion is absolutely not a cap for us. It's rather a starting point. XL has potential for growth for growing the business and for growing the underlying earnings. Last year's and the 1st of January's price increases are not fully factored in the earnings. So just in this respect, there will be a mechanical effect which gives us confidence that we'll be growing this line of business. Now, we've been considering, after all the actions which have been taken the last few years, that XL has been restructured, that we are entering business as usual mode. Which doesn't mean we don't have anything more to do with XL, but the EUR 1.2 billion underlying earnings, the reunderwriting of the portfolio in the last few years, which means the business as usual mode. We are not going to distinguish XL from the other business units in this respect. Next question. We have a next question from Marie-Caroline Carrère from Argus de l'Assurance. Marie, you have the floor. Thank you. Hello, everyone. In line with the previous question which you answered, my question is as follows: Are you satisfied today with the integration of XL within AXA Group? Now, you mentioned the reunderwriting, but will you keep the same trend of price increases for next year and the years after? Thank you, Marie, for your question. Once again, Frédéric will answer on our degree of satisfaction on the XL integration. Well, the answer is that we are very satisfied with the integration to date, especially with the hard work done in the last two years under Scott Gunter's leadership. We consider that the bulk of the integration is behind us. Having said that, we'll be working along two lines. Number one, we have a transformational plan and a technological investment plan for AXA XL, and we also have a plan to expand the range of services on and around AXA XL. This is point number one. Point number two, in AXA XL, the underlying earnings for the reinsurance business is not at the level of our expectation. As Thomas said, we largely re-underwrote the insurance portfolio at the end of last year. We're confident that it will bear fruit. We believe there is potential for growth here. Above and beyond that, with respect to price increases, rate increases always difficult to make a prediction. You can see what's happening today in the market. The markets and the cycles, we believe, will remain favorable for 2022 and 2023 at least. Excellent. Thank you, Frédéric. Moving on to the next question. We have a question from Florian Delambily of News Assurances Pro. Florian, you have the floor. Yes. Thank you. Can you hear me? Very well. I have several questions. The first is on your management of your Solvency II ratio at 218% with a target of 190% in your strategic plan guidance. How will you be managing it? Will you take special measures to reach this 190% threshold? My second question, I had some audio disconnects, so I don't know whether you answered it. Now that AXA XL is more or less on track with the restructuring behind you, are you contemplating other acquisition targets in the next few months, in the next few weeks, in the next few years. Some clarification I would like to have on AXA France. The first is on the doubling of the inflows in Euro Croissance funds. What is the value of these inflows? You also said tha t RIA had you gain business. Can you give us numbers on the impact of the RIA? Thank you, Florian Delambily. I suggest that Alban de Mailly-Nesle answers your question on the Solvency II ratio and that Patrick Cohen answers your two questions, which are more French specific. Euro Croissance and new business gain connected with RIA. On AXA XL, I'll give you a very simple answer. We are very happy that AXA XL is fully integrated and consolidated into AXA, that they reached EUR 1.2 billion as Frédéric de Courtois said. We are very happy and very confident with the team and with the development at hand. We have had great opportunities to develop organically. We have very fine teams located in the U.S.. We still have lots of great potential there, so very certainly this will be a place and a source of additional growth for the group. In Europe, this might be the time to let Antimo speak, who is the Head of Europe, with our distribution footprint and our presence in Europe. On the back of XL's know-how and expertise, we've had great collaboration, but we can do even more. Antimo, can you say a few words on how things have been going in Europe? Thank you very much, Thomas. Yes, with great pleasure. With XL's integration and collaboration with Europe, we've been recording very fine growth in Germany and Switzerland by building upon the various skill sets inside XL. In commercial lines, we posted very fine growth, especially with large acquisitions and large clients, large gains, large new business gains, which made it possible to increase our presence in those markets. To us, work will keep going in other European operations and entities, but Germany and Switzerland are going very strong with very effective and efficient collaboration, and we'll be replicating this model in the other countries, in Italy, in Spain, in Belgium, because I can see that this model of collaboration can deliver even more and better results in the next few years going forward. Alban, with respect to the management of our Solvency II ratio. Thank you, Thomas. Thank you, Florian, for your question. You need to understand the target ratio of 100% as a ratio with which we are comfortable, but we are not trying at all cost to stand at 100%. The 217% ratio I presented to you is a satisfactory ratio which illustrates our robust balance sheet, which enables us to contemplate our organic development with peace of mind, possibly acquisitions, possibly buybacks, share buybacks. This can be the case in the next few weeks to take advantage of market moves. We are not trying to have this 217% level go down. Patrick questions for AXA France. Thank you, Florian. Well, the first question on Euro Croissance and inflows. We really truly believe that we are at a watershed moment in life insurance. This time, Euro Croissance took off with inflows on the order of EUR 600 million. This is a great product in high demand by the French people, very well publicized, pushed by our networks with good markups. We've been investing more in the productive economy in our fund. We've been investing in green areas on the order of 50%, so very great takeoff. With respect to RIA, it benefited from AXA to AXA France. It makes it possible to compete strongly, improving the legibility of offerings in the market, more simplicity for the clients, and our net contribution in the health business increased by 170,000 clients. Moving on to a last question. We have a question from Gwendal Perrin of Argus de l'Assurance. Gwendal, you have the floor. Hello everyone. I have a question on the fact that you mentioned that AXA XL would become the reinsurance company for AXA Group. I understand the financial interest of this move, but are there other reasons for this transformation above and beyond financial interest? Thank you, Gwendal, for your question. Alban, you are the expert to answer this question. Hello, Gwendal. Thank you for your question. Well, indeed, there are two goals we are pursuing here. Number one, there's the financial goal because it will improve the fungibility of our shareholders' equity inside the AXA Group. You also noted that we've been transforming AXA SA as a reinsurer, provided that we get the regulatory clearance, but also want to merge AXA SA with the reinsurance captive, which is called AXA Global Re. There's a goal to simplify and streamline group's organization by reducing the number of body- Thank you, Alban. Because this question was a quick one, we will take on a very last question from Les Echos, and then unfortunately we'll end the session. We have a question from Solène Poloni, Les Echos. Solène, please unmute your mic. Over to you. Thank you. I'd like to come back to one thing. Could you give us the overall cost of the COVID crisis for the group since when it was triggered? I'd like to come back to the XL portfolio and the reinsurance of XL. In terms of risk profile, what has changed since the acquisition? Could you give us some examples about liability, outside of liability, about the reinsurance of XL? I understand that you lowered your Nat Cat net exposures and thereby to the benefit of what kind of risks, please? Very well. Thank you, Solène. I suggest that Alban take the question on the overall cost of the COVID, and Frédéric will take the question regarding on how we changed the risk profile of AXA XL. Yes, hello, Solène. The COVID crisis, if we take it year by year, in 2020 cost us EUR 1.5 billion. In 2021 we compensated restaurant owners, which cost us EUR 300 million. But it was offset though by the reduction in the frequency of road-related accidents, around also EUR 300 million. You saw besides that we came up with AXA XL EUR 400 million in terms of combined ratio. So the COVID crisis cost us net-net EUR 1.1 billion. Thank you, Alban. Frédéric, on AXA XL Reinsurance. Our goal was, in the last two years, especially during the last underwriting campaign, to reduce the cat-related exposure. Why so? Well, on the one hand, we feel that in many regions in the world, prices are not enough yet regarding such exposures, especially in a climate change context. Additionally, volatility was high, and as you know, in the last few years especially, volatility was really high. We cut back in the new underwriting campaign on the first of January by 40% the AXA XL cat exposure, and it is our target for the full year. We believe this year we want to reduce by 40% the AXA XL cat exposure. Beside this, it does not hurt the profitable potential of AXA XL Reinsurance because this decline in exposures is offset by an increase in prices and through a decline in so-called the reinsurance of reinsurers. Because we have fewer exposures, by definition, we reinsure ourselves less, so the potential of earnings is not hurt therefore. Besides this, on what line are we growing? Well, on this topic, we are paying close attention to the profitability and the adequate level of prices. Now, in terms of prices, the most satisfactory ones in numerous segments, especially in motor insurance, we have in view that we are not moving out of the Nat Cat risk, but we are underwriting only if we have adequate prices. Thank you, Frédéric. Unfortunately, we need to close this session. I know that there are further questions. Of course, our team is ready to answer all your questions. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for your attention. Certainly, thanks to my colleagues for having contributed well to these earnings and to this session. I wish you a very good day, and hopefully we will meet soon physically. Thank you.