Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SCOR first nine months of 2021 results call. Today's call is being recorded. There will be an opportunity to ask questions after the presentation. In order to give all participants a chance to ask questions, we kindly ask that you limit your number of questions to two. At this time, I'd now like to hand the call over to Mr. Olivier Armengaud. Please go ahead, sir. Good afternoon and welcome to SCOR first nine months 2021 results call. My name is Olivier Armengaud from Investor Relations, and I'm joined on the call today by Laurent Rousseau, CEO of SCOR, and the entire executive committee. May I please ask you to consider the disclaimer on page two of the presentation. With this, I would like to hand over to Laurent Rousseau. Laurent, over to you. Thank you, Olivier, and welcome everybody. Today I'm pleased to report resilient results in the context of high natural catastrophe activity for the market. The group is in good health and delivered earnings of EUR 339 million for the first nine months of the year, equating to 7.3% ROE. This is despite a small net income loss in the quarter of EUR 41 million. Our results for the first nine months were driven by, first of all, heavy natural catastrophes leading to a 14.8% CAT ratio year to date, as well as continued COVID-19 pressure on the life side, with total COVID-19 claims booked in the first nine months of EUR 299 million. This resilience is a good illustration of what I presented at our September Investor Day, and the way we focus on disciplined execution. First of all, improving margins. Both businesses deliver strong underlying margins with a life technical margin of 5.6% in life and a P&C attritional loss ratio improving by two points. Second, we reduce volatility. We have absorbed the third quarter volatility well, while keeping a very strong solvency ratio at 229%. Finally, we manage growth well. We see opportunities accelerating, particularly in the P&C business, where the hardening market continues its strong momentum. Ian will take you through the details, a little further on. Beyond the third quarter results specifically, what I would like to say today, and looking here at page six of the presentation, is that we continue to take proactive actions to improve our operational performance, and we deliver on the shareholder value creation commitments reiterated at the Investor Day. First of all, the continued hardening in P&C insurance and reinsurance markets enables us to rebalance our business mix towards P&C. The life retrocession in-force transaction was timely and accelerated a lot of good work that the teams had already been doing to manage our U.S. mortality in- force book. Second, we are taking a proactive action to reduce the share of natural catastrophe business in our P&C portfolio by growing in non-CAT lines such as specialty insurance and Global Lines reinsurance. January 1 renewal negotiations are ongoing, and they confirm our anticipation of an improving reinsurance market while the underlying insurance prices continue to improve. Bear in mind that about 3/4 of our premiums are proportional. We also reduce our exposure to U.S. wind and related perils by exiting standalone U.S. wind MGAs and reducing our U.S. proportional treaties. Third, we are on track in our stated ambition to reduce our cash and liquidity exposure from a high 16% at the end of June 2021, with the aim of getting down to 9% by year-end. At Q3, this already shows in our portfolio mix, and it will further accelerate. Liquidity is at 14% of invested assets versus 16% at the end of June, and the corporate bonds are at 40% of invested assets versus 36% at Q2, and this 40% will trend towards 45% by year-end. Finally, we continue to proactively manage our balance sheet, and we announce a EUR 200 million share buyback program, which we will execute in the market. We have a strong rationale for this attractive capital return. At the end of Q2 2021, our solvency position was extremely strong, as demonstrated by solvency ratio of 245%. This was significantly above the upper end of the optimal solvency range of 185%-220%, as we had benefited from a life retrocession transaction which closed on the last day of the second quarter. At the end of 2021, the solvency ratio at the end of September 2021, solvency ratio was 229% pre-buyback. After that, we have assessed the various options to optimally deploy capital. This is to create long-term value for SCOR shareholders and revert to the optimal solvency range. As a consequence, we decided to seize profitable growth opportunities in the continuously hardening P&C market, and we have been further re-sensitizing our investment portfolio. Taking these capital deployment decisions into account on the one hand, noting that the U.S. hurricane season is coming to an end on the other hand, and finally, acknowledging that the French regulator lifted its recommendation against capital distribution on the 1st of October. We have decided to launch a share buyback program of EUR 200 million. It will be executed in the market by the end of March 2022. We are confident in the future of the group, and we believe the share buyback is an accretive way to deploy our excess capital, given we trade at such a discount to book value, while keeping a strong balance sheet in an environment which remains extremely volatile. In 2021, SCOR will continue to favor dividends as a way to remunerate its shareholders, and will pursue the attractive dividend policy that it has implemented over the years. I will now hand over to Ian to go through the specifics here, and once he walks you through the key financials of the quarter, I will then give you an update on the strategic plan. We will conclude with a Q&A session. Ian, over to you. Thanks, Laurent, and good afternoon, everybody. Let's look at the key metrics of the quarter. In the first nine months of 2021, SCOR continued to successfully develop its franchise and its rebalancing towards P&C. Gross written premiums stand at EUR 13 billion. This is up 10.1% at constant FX compared to the first nine months of 2020, driven by P&C up 16.7%, benefiting from excellent renewals and steady life growth up 5.0% with continued franchise expansion in Asia. Let's focus on profitability. Net income is at EUR 339 million for the first nine months of the year, translating into an ROE of 7.3%. Looking at the business units and starting with P&C, we've published a combined ratio of 102.7% in the first nine months, heavily impacted by a CAT load of 14.8%, as Laurent noted. The main events in Q3 were the European floods, representing EUR 206 million net of retro, and Hurricane Ida, representing EUR 137 million net. The underlying development of the attritional plus commission ratio has improved 3.5 points, benefiting from both profitability improvement and lower man-made activity. COVID-19 claims remain unchanged for P&C at EUR 109 million since the beginning of the year. On the life side, the technical margin stands at 11.3% since the beginning of the year, of which 5.7% is related to the day one impact of the recent life in-force transaction. COVID-19 claims booked since the beginning of the year stand at EUR 299 million, of which EUR 241 million comes from the U.S. The impact from COVID-19 on the mortality block is reducing and is tracking in line with our epidemiological model. Including the impact of the recent life in-force transaction, the technical margin should remain in the range of 5.5%-6.0% for the full year 2021. On the investment side, return on invested assets stands at 2.3% in the first nine months of 2021. The redeployment of excess liquidity into corporate bonds, as noted, will be completed by Q4 2021. Return on invested assets expectation for the full year is confirmed in the range of 2.0%-2.3%. In this context, solvency remains very strong at the end of Q3 2021, estimated at 225%. This is above the group's optimal solvency range of 185%-220%. The decrease compared to the half- year position reflects the CAT activity, the deployment of capital into P&C growth, and the share buyback, which is tailored to provide a strong capital return without jeopardizing the solvency of the group, and is consistent with maintaining our strong credit ratings. On the share buyback, I would add that at this stage, there is no intention to exercise the call option we have at EUR 28, and we will buy in the market. If we now look briefly at other key financials, group shareholders' equity remains strong at EUR 6.3 billion. This is an increase on the year-end position, resulting in a book value of more than EUR 34 per share. Finally, I would like to highlight the group's strong cash flow, with net cash flow from operations exceeding EUR 2 billion. With that, I'll hand back to you, Laurent. Thank you. Thank you, Ian. Before we move on to the Q&A, let me now give you an update on the upcoming strategic plan preparation. Despite an eventful quarter, we remain focused on execution of our strategy, and you can have a look here at page 13 of the presentation. As announced at the September Investor Day, we have started the preparation of the upcoming strategic plan, and we are progressing well. What are we proceeding on? We will build, first of all, on a detailed analysis of the performance of our portfolios to optimize our core business. Second, we run an analysis of the options available to enhance our financial and capital management. Third, we run a review of our operating model to take full advantage of a nimble and lean organization. Fourth, we go through an exploration of ways to keep growing our franchise and develop the business. We are nurturing our strong and disciplined underwriting ethos, and we'll focus on culture and people. We want to make our people and culture our number one differentiator. This in our industry is absolutely critical. Business leadership has to be our own way to be global reinsurance leaders with, again, a strong underwriting ethos. Our success will start and will finish with underwriting capabilities. This is key. Third, financial performance with attractive shareholders remuneration as demonstrated today. With that, I hand back to Olivier for the Q&A. Thank you. Thank you very much, Laurent. Page 15, you will find the forthcoming schedule event. With this, we can now move to the Q&A session. Can I remind you to please limit yourself to two questions each? Thank you. Thank you, sir. If you'd like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow the signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. We'll pause just for a moment to allow everyone the opportunity to signal for a question. Thank you. We'll now take our first question from Vikram Gandhi at Société Générale. It's Vik from Soc Gen. Congratulations on that good set of numbers and the release today. I've got 2 questions. The first one is on the retro in the P&C business. Can you highlight some of the key changes to the program, since the impact from Hurricane Ida implies a market share of about 0.5% rather than the usual 1% that we've been used to seeing, or perhaps it's, you know, a reflection of a lower gross loss itself, but any comment there would be helpful. The second one is on management actions. Is there anything you can share about potential management actions that might come over the next few months? For example, is it possible we might see another reinforced deal on the Life book or anything on those lines? That would be very helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Vikram. Jean-Paul will take the first question on the retro, and I'll take the second one. Thank you, Vikram. On the first question on retro, as we had indicated previously, in 2020, we did a request for proposal on our retro program with a view to have better balance between protection for severity and protection for earnings. That's what we had in place in 2021. The program has proved effective. I would say, and you know, this is shown in the figures we provide. I think the two points, one, our market share of Ida is below 1%, but it's because the areas that have been affected, we have a smaller market share than 1%. Second, the capacity we have still available for the rest of the year on our retro program is still sufficient for us to be comfortable with where we stand at the end of the Q3. On management actions, I'll just give you a few. Laurent mentioned them in his opening comments on the CAT. We've decided that on a go-forward basis, we reduce our exposure to the first- dollar programs where we are exposed to climate sensitive perils. As a result, we exited MGAs that are focused on U.S. E&S primary business exposed to U.S. hurricanes, and also reduced our planned capacity for proportional U.S. treaties. Those are some of the management actions on cat volatility that we're implementing now for 2022. With that, I'll give it back to Laurent. Just to pick up on what Jean-Paul said, the MGA actions alone, that's what we're talking here at EUR 200 million of PML reduction. I mean, it is sizable absolute level and in the scheme of the relative size of the group. Now, more generally speaking and turning to the future because what we've announced is done. I would very much focus, if you look at page six, this gives a good sense of the focus or actions, how to enhance earnings. Here, clearly what we're going to continue working on, Vikram, is the shift in business mix, whether it is life P&C, so in favor of P&C. Within P&C, in favor of specialty insurance. The market in single risk continues to be extremely hard. We've made significant investments, so in people and resources. I would expect that business as well to keep growing fast. And as well in the non-CAT lines in reinsurance. You might have seen in the market, we've made a significant hire on the Global Lines reinsurance in our Zurich team. So here we've been as well attracting some meaningful talent. The earnings enhancement is clearly gonna be focused. Alongside that, reduction of volatility. You mentioned the U.S. mortality in-force book. We have a dedicated team for a number of years now. They're doing a tremendous job. We are indeed taking a very proactive stance on the way to manage that in- force. Thank you. Thank you, Vikram. Next question, please. Our next question comes from Will Hardcastle at UBS. Hey. Afternoon, everyone. On the retro, I guess a bit of a blend actually has been from that retro optimization CAT budget underlying guidance, blend. Since the start of this market today, we've probably seen a bit of higher CAT activity, an extrapolation of better pricing environment, but maybe some retro tightening and collateral lockups. It's all a fine balance, I appreciate that. Has the aggregate improved in your eyes since the Capital Markets Day or has it deteriorated, et cetera, because there's been a lot of moving parts since then. And then just on the buyback expectation from here, I mean, how should we think about that? We've got the logic of, perhaps some logic of why it's running until March. Is that just a liquidity perspective or keeping powder dry? And with this in mind, how. There was the other data point that we had at the Capital Markets Day: a 25% debt leverage target over the next three years. I guess the buyback's probably pushing closer to 30%. Does that metric still stand and that's still the target over the next few years? Thanks. Thank you, Will. Jean-Paul will take your retro question, and Ian, the one on the share buyback. Yeah. If I understood correctly, your question relates to the state of the market on the retro market. You know, the 2021 plan was executed. We're in the process of renewing the retro program for 2022. In that plan, we anticipate a shrinkage of capacity for both proportional and aggregate covers, and our program takes that into account. You know, we'll probably look for different products to help us replace that shrinking capacity. Again, the target remains the same as in 2021, protecting against you know, severity and frequency of events. I think the metrics that we had for our 2021 program will be very similar to 2022, and we feel very confident as we speak today on the 27th of October that we should, you know, be able to reach our plan. Maybe I pass it over to you, Laurent or Ian. Yeah. Just on the share buyback, before getting into the question directly, just a few comments, just to talk about the timing. I mean, we think it's a very accretive way to deploy capital and bring value to shareholders. We had the Life in-force transaction as at the end of Q2. That unlocked significant value, increased the degrees of freedom for the group in terms of accretive capital management. We talked to that at IR Day. We talked about the profitable growth opportunities in the P&C market, how we would seize those. We talked about the reorientation of the investment portfolio into value creation assets. Then we talked about the additional capital management actions. That's why we're doing this now. We also had, at the start of October, the ACPR lifted the recommendation against capital distribution, by the way. We're starting now. We think that six months is good timing, given the ability to execute in the market. As I said before, we will not be using the call options at EUR 28 that we have. We will be buying directly in the market for this buyback. Coming to your point in respect of leverage, I think here, EUR 200 million in terms of the sensitivity, EUR 200 million on equity means a change of 0.6% or so in respect of leverage. I think the... It's clear actually that our leverage ratio has come down a little across the course of this year. We would expect to broadly maintain the level of leverage going forward through the balance of capital return, earnings generation and so on. Then a little bit more longer term, we would expect to earn back into the 25% range. Thank you, Will. We'll take our next question. Our next question comes from James Shuck at Citi. Hello. Good afternoon, everybody. Two questions from myself. First, just in terms of the EIOPA review into the Solvency II position, you highlighted there's a potential positive there, and assuming that's coming from the risk margin. You are quite a heavy user of diversification credit, particularly relative to other reinsurers. I'm just keen to get your thoughts on whether EIOPA is looking at that diversification benefit, and in particular, how local authorities actually allow the implementation of that through internal models, and if that is actually taken into account in your comment about a positive impact from that review. Second question, I'm not sure who to direct this one to, as I'm not sure that Denis is on the line or not. I'm just keen to get a view into his potential retirement in at the next AGM. My understanding is that he will reach mandatory retirement age before the AGM, and therefore, unless you change the bylaws, he will need to stand down. Therefore, I'm just keen to get a view whether you intend to change the bylaws, please. Thank you. Thank you, James. Fabian Uffer, our CRO, will take the first question. I'll take the second. Denis is not on the call, and I will answer your second question. Thank you. Okay. On the EIOPA review, the particular point on the diversification, you might be aware that the risk margin allows not for the full diversification as the SCR. The risk margin depends on the legal entity risks, and this is then aggregated as a sum of the legal entity risk margins. This is not the change in the Solvency II revision that is expected. The change to the risk margin proposed by the EC is on the cost of capital, which would directly translate to our risk margin. Then there's the so-called introduction of a Lambda factor, which has a dampening effect on the size of the risk margin. Overall, we have communicated in the past, and it depends a bit on the economic situation, but the expectation is that the proposed changes could improve the solvency ratio by around 19%. Still, this needs to go through a political process and will be in place earliest in 2024. Thank you, Fabian. On your second point, James. The age limit is reached indeed at the AGM. However, if you look in the precise bylaws wording, it's the age limit hits in the year when the person turns 70. It's not when the person reaches 70 itself, it's at the AGM following the age. First point is, I can confirm that Denis Kessler would reach the statutory limit in March 2022, and then that would have to be reviewed at the upcoming AGM. The nomination committee makes recommendations on age limits. If the board wishes Denis Kessler to remain as chairman, and if Denis Kessler accepts it, then the resolution would be put to the AGM to extend the age limit, and then shareholders decide. Anyhow, this is a board matter. They own it, and that's with them. Thank you, James. We'll take our next question, please. Our next question comes from Andrew Ritchie at Autonomous Research. Oh, hi there. Thanks for the buyback. That saves that question. Two other quick questions. On slide five, Ian, I wonder if you just clarify how I interpret the eight points for planned P&C growth. Is that on a sort of forward-looking basis? To what degree is that? Is that sort of capturing one or how forward-looking is it? On that slide as well, the EOF generation looks quite low, but there is something that says and other. What is the and other? I'm guessing the and other is negative, but maybe if you just clarify, is there any way you can sort of give us a sense as to normal levels of EOF generation or something exceptional in Q3? Second question, for Jean-Paul. When I look at your normalized combined ratio, you've normalized using seven points of CAT, when I just assumed you'd already transitioned to the eight points of CAT. I'm not sure what happens overnight in 2022 that makes the eight points normalization right then versus seven points now. I mean, does the underlying attritional drop by a compensating amount? Or, so I'm just, I'm not sure why you've not normalized it now. Related to the normalized, it was a bit higher. I'm always conscious one shouldn't overinterpret a quarter. But was there any sort of elevated man-made, particularly in Q3? Thanks. Really, Andrew, I'll just hand over to Fabian to pick up on the solvency position changes. Thanks, Ian. On the planned P&C growth, that includes the capital we deploy on a one-year forward-looking view. That's the pure effect of the SCR on the solvency ratio. It includes obviously one last quarter of capital needs for this year and then three quarters of next year, and in particular, also includes then the growth that we have announced at the IR Day and big part of the 1/1 renewal. That's pretty much what you should expect as capital needs for next year. Obviously, it will then depend on how exactly which lines of business we write, what kind of diversification we get, and how exactly the retro program puts in place. That's our planned, in some sense, capital deployment that we need to book in Q3 just because the SCR is fully forward-looking. On the own funds generation and other, we don't usually publish a full walk in Q3 or in the Q1 and Q3. What we have included here is the usual model changes, market movement, and the own funds generation. There's nothing particular negative or positive. As you know, the own funds don't linearly come in over the quarter, mainly driven by the big chunk of 1/1 renewals, which we will see in the Q1 own funds generation. This is just a bit of a seasonality effect that it's slightly lower than normal. I'll take the question on the CAT ratio and the normalized combined ratio. We had mentioned going to 8% CAT budget in 2022. We continue to use 7% because that was our base assumption, that remains our base assumption for this year. You know, your question as to what changes as of 1/1, actually quite a lot. You know, we have a new retrocession program in place. You know, we implement some underwriting measures, as just described, by Laurent myself, on the U.S. portfolio. We have other actions that we take in place, and we'll put in place at 1/1. There's quite a lot of changes that happen, you know, at 1/1 compared to where we are today. For continuity, we continue to use our assumptions for 2021 at 7%. That being said, as you said, you know, as you mentioned, the Q3 normalized, whether it's 7% or 8% is higher than the prior quarters. That's really driven by one large event, the South African riots, which represent a EUR 48 million net impact this quarter. That's the, let's say, you know, it's almost 2.7 points of loss ratio in that one event. That's the main driver behind those figures. The rest of the man-made has been really lower than normal and lower than 2020. Thank you, Andrew. Next question, please. As a reminder to ask questions, please press star one. Our next question comes from Vinit Malhotra, Mediobanca. Please go ahead. Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much for the opportunity. So, one on P&C, please, and one on life. On P&C, Jean-Paul, I remember. I mean, we were quite surprised at the IR Day when 2021 was looking quite lower than those expectations that time, and you had guided to EUR 7.5 billion GWP P&C Re. Obviously you've retained that today, and that is even a bigger surprise because that would imply full Q 2021 to be a -15% roughly. I mean, what has been the change since then for the strong growth in 3Q, and why should the targets imply such a sharp contraction in full Q 2021? Is there any one-off that you could point out to or anything that would be helpful? Thank you very much. Second question, just on the life technical margins, ex-COVID-19, I mean, remain very, very high. You know, I can see a 13% or whatever for the third quarter. Is that the reason why despite the pickup in 3Q mortality in the U.S., the guidance for the fourth quarter for the full year really has been unchanged? Do you see any risk to that, because the U.S. mortality is still quite high? I mean, I think it's more than maybe 1,500 a day of the current average. I might be not fully accurate, but just that's the rough number. Just curious as to what do you think is the moving part from the life technical margin strong year. Thank you. Vinit, I'll answer the first question on the P&C gross written premium. This quarter, the gross written premium at constant rate of exchange is roughly EUR 1.7 billion. We would expect the same in Q4. What was impacting us in Q1 and Q2 was really the foreign exchange as you can see on slide 10 of the presentation. This effect has really dampened out in Q3. We expect it to continue to do so in Q4 if there's no big shock on the exchange rate market. Therefore, at constant rate of exchange, we would expect the GWP to be more like EUR 7.8 billion in that range, EUR 7.7 billion-EUR 7.9 billion. When you take out the sort of the impact that we had in Q1 and Q2, you land at the actual rate of exchange to roughly EUR 7.5 billion. That's why we're guiding our EUR 7.5 billion still at the current rate of exchange. With that, I'll hand over to Frieder. Thank you, Jean-Paul. The portfolio has performed well in Q3, excluding COVID. We see experience and performance in general in line or slightly above our expectations. That is really a fact across the whole portfolio. We are also constantly working to improve and optimize the portfolio, the performance of the in-force portfolio. In line with previous quarters and years, we have taken action to improve performance and increase premium rates on certain underperforming U.S. treaties, and that was the case in Q3 as well. Overall, you know, we have and continue to have significant reserve margins, which help to support the performance of the business. That will also be the case in future quarters. As far as COVID is concerned, you've seen the losses which we have booked in Q3. Our exposure continues to be mainly concentrated in the U.S. The current wave has plateaued, and we expect this to be trending down during the course of Q4. You know, you're right, we will continue to see fairly significant numbers of population deaths in the U.S. in Q4. That is broadly in line with what we had indicated in early September. Q3 population deaths came in, I guess, a notch above what we had expected in Q3. Overall, we still think that for the full year, 400,000 deaths in the population in the U.S. is a sensible high-level estimate. Maybe within a higher likelihood that the final number will be a bit higher than below that number. That is included in our plan and in our forecast for Q4. We continue to, you know, guide toward the same margin and overall result as in September, and are very confident that we can achieve that despite the continued high claims activity on COVID in the U.S. Next question, please. We'll now take the next question from Thomas Fossard at HSBC. Please go ahead. Oh, yes. Good afternoon. Two questions, please. The first one is a follow-up for Frieder. Frieder, I mean, at the start of the year, previous CEO of SCOR Global Life indicated that you had a lot of policy management actions in full year 2020, and that we should not expect those to be repeated in 2021. But when I'm looking at my modeling, it looks like on a full year 2021 basis, those policy management actions will be actually bigger than they've been in 2020. So, I mean, sorry about that, but can you please come back on what have been the drivers? And maybe for next year. I mean, you would go again with a fairly cautious assessment of what to be expected in 2022? Any comment. I would be interested in the experience in 2021 and what to expect in 2022. The second question would be for François. So actually, it looks like you're going to be very active in terms of liquidity rebalancing into Q4. Can you tell us what kind of reinvestment rate you're getting at the present time on the corporate bonds? Because it seems that this is where you're going to shift or reinvest this liquidity. Maybe if I can squeeze a very last one, very short one, what do you make of the global minimum tax? I mean, do you expect any implication for the group when this is implemented? Thank you. Thomas, thanks for the question. We do continue to expect to perform management actions on underperforming treaties in the course of 2022. We have, of course, taken, you know, some of the more significant rate increase actions, somewhat earlier on in the program. Having said this, the performance of the business, you know, the way the treaties are structured and many other factors have an influence which we continue to assess and evaluate. You know, our current view is that there is still a quite sizable potential for improvement of underperforming treaties next year and probably beyond. That's something we'll continue to leverage upon. We also have in-force management opportunities outside of the U.S., and that is an area which we are increasingly exploring as the business is growing, and we are building up our in-force management capabilities. In addition, as we explained in early September, the in-force transaction, which we concluded at the end of June, has not only led to a significant one-off gain, but it has also led to an increase in margins of prudence in our reserves, which given the improved profile of the business, Will run off during the coming quarters, and that helps to support the performance of the business also during 2022. Thomas, on your question, that's true that we have a significant activity on our side in Q3. We have to take into account that we receive on the investment side the proceeds of the Life in-force transaction early July. Our starting point at the beginning of Q3 was not 16% of liquidity but 20%, if I include the EUR 860 million of this transaction. Where we've invested, that's mostly on U.S. corporate bonds, which corresponds to the sale program we executed in Q1. During Q3, we purchased EUR 1.7 billion of corporate bonds with an average rating of BBB+, an average duration of five years, an average book yield of 1.64%. Since the beginning of Q4, we have already reinvested the equivalent of EUR 400 million, always on corporate bonds, average rating A-, and you see improvement in the market conditions, average book yield 2.03%. That's reflecting the increase in interest rates. On top of this, if you remember, I mentioned during the IR Day that we deployed EUR 200 million of commitment in 2021 and also EUR 200 million in 2022 on value creation assets, mostly private equity, infrastructure and private debt. On this envelope, we have already committed EUR 120 million for 2021, so we will be on target for this year. I remain very confident on the fact that the reinvestment of our excess liquidity will be done by the end of the year. With liquidity around 9%, we will come back to, I would say, our normal allocation to corporate bonds between 43%-45%, and we will close the duration gap that we opened in Q1, and after we will maintain a disciplined ALM strategy within the fixed income portfolio. Hi, Thomas, Ian here. I'll just pick up on the tax question briefly. We're currently monitoring the situation and we'll assess the impacts once the situation becomes a bit clearer. Just in terms of sensitivity, a strict application of a 15% minimum tax rate globally to areas that are currently below that threshold, that wouldn't have a material impact upon the group, low- to mid-single-digit. Thank you, Thomas. Next question, please. We'll now take our next question of Will Hardcastle at UBS. Hey, thanks for taking the follow-up. Just the first one on the potential for reserve releases. I guess in the past, we became a little bit accustomed to seeing major CAT quarters arrive with some reserve release to dampen the volatility. I guess, has there been a change in approach, or what was the logic this time? Then the second one is, can you give any sort of loss industry loss assumption for the European floods and Hurricane Ida? I know there'll be some distortion, but any indication there would be helpful. Thanks. Thank you. Will, I'll take the first question, and I'll let Jean-Paul talk about the second one. I'll make a general statement on your first question. Just like you might have seen, we don't do capital gains on bonds. I make the link here on the smoothing of the volatility of the earnings that we did not do this time round on the P&C reserve. So your understanding is good. I think it's important for us to have to go through this volatility, to take it without necessarily looking to smooth it. We don't need to. We don't have to. I think it's more transparent, and we'll look to do that way as much as possible. I'll hand over to Jean-Paul on the second question. Thank you, Laurent. On the industry losses for Ida, our assumption is a market loss around $30 billion-$35 billion, with I'd say a small contribution to that market loss of the flooding on the Northeast. The majority assumed to be ceded to FEMA. On the European flood loss, Bernd, where the assumption is EUR 11 billion market loss. Thank you. Thank you, Will. Next question, please. We'll take our next question from James Shuck at Citi. Oh, hi. Thanks for taking my follow-up. Frieder, I think the way you answered the question on diversification was specific to the risk margin. Really my question was just leaving the risk margin to one side, my kind of thoughts were that EIOPA were looking closer at diversification credit overall in use by insurers and whether it's appropriately applied by the local regulators. Just any comments on whether you're actually seeing that or can anticipate any kind of scrutiny of your very large diversification credit that you apply in the Solvency II ratio would be helpful. Second question. I heard the answer you gave on the Q3 underlying combined ratio, which was in response to the underlying number being a bit higher than one might expect. My take on that is a little bit different in that you would normally see quite a high level of seasonality around the nat cats that you'd see in Q3, perhaps almost as much as twice as the usual 7% load. If that's the correct view, then the underlying combined ratio actually looks a lot better. If that's the case, then could you just comment around the large loss experience relative to what a normal run rate is, or just any insight into what's happening on an underlying basis there. Finally, sorry to return to this, I just wasn't quite sure that I caught the answer, Laurent, but, you know, were you saying that a potential change in bylaws was something that could be considered, or is that something that is set in stone and would not be? Thank you. Thank you, James. Let's take your answers in the other end. The first one was actually answered by Fabian, and who I give the floor back to. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Sorry I didn't get your full question on the SCR. Now it's quite clear. There's no particular thing happening with SCOR and the diversification effect. What we see is obviously EIOPA doing more and more comparative studies among the internal model users, and I mean, that's public information. There is an ongoing study on diversification, but we have no indication that there is something specific coming for the internal model of SCOR. I mean, that's the approved internal model that we have. This has been checked and thoroughly gone through with our regulators, those where we operate entities in the Solvency II regime, as well as the entities that we operate under the Swiss Solvency Test. The diversification effect is not so much as a part. It is obviously our modeling assumption, but it's highly driven by the portfolio mix that we have that then leads to such a diversification. Oh, this is Jean-Paul. I'll answer your second question on the P&C net combined ratio on a normalized basis. The year to date is actually 3.5. If we combine commission and attritional losses, the sum of the two is actually 3.5 points below the same amount year to date 2020. The driver of the improvement has been primarily Q1, Q2. In Q3, we see the normalized net combined ratio being very close to the normalized net combined ratio of Q3 last year. As I said, the driver last year was, if you remember, the Beirut blast, which was a significant market loss. That was a man-made loss. This year we have another significant man-made loss, I'd say of similar size, which is the South African riots. If you take out that event as an exceptional event, you know, the net combined ratio this quarter would be 2.7 points lower than the 94.7. It would be around the 92, which is in line with what we've seen in the prior quarters. The rest of the man-made losses have been very much in line with what we've seen in Q1 and Q2. The main difference this quarter has been the South African riots. I'll hand it back over to you, Laurent. Yeah. On your question, so the bylaws can be changed, James, but it requires first of all that the board recommends and put through the AGM a recommendation to change the bylaws, and it requires the shareholders to vote to change the bylaws. It can be done, but there is a very strict process to do so. Thanks, James. Next question, please. We'll now take the next question from Vikram Gandhi at Société Générale. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity. I've just got one follow-up question, which is on the investment income. Is there something that you can flag around potential real estate disposal that can come in Q4 or something next year? That's always lumpy, so any guidance there would be helpful. Thank you. Yeah, that's a good question. The first point is I would like to mention that there is no one-off in our income this quarter. Take it really as a real one. On real estate, that's true that I mentioned previously that we are in the process of selling a mature asset. It will be done at the end of the year or beginning of next year. I have no certainty, given the real estate market today in Paris, but it could be done before the end of the year or more probably in January. Having said this, we still have a pipeline of mature assets that will mature in the next few years, and you see the amount of unrealized gain we've got on the real estate portfolio. As far as fixed income, the contribution of fixed income portfolio into realized gain, as mentioned by Laurent and myself, we want to maintain a disciplined ALM matching strategy. Which means that any realized gain coming from the fixed income portfolio should be non-material and just reflecting a tactical adjustment within the fixed income portfolio. Maybe another indication, I'm still speaking on this. The income yield is at 1.7% today. Our projections, given the current environment, indicate that we should be at the low today. Thank you, Vikram. Next question, please. We'll take our next question from Vinit Malhotra at Mediobanca. Yes, thank you. One is a quick follow-up with Jean-Paul. One is a quick check on the EOF for Fabian. Frieder, just I'll start with that. If I go back to your IR Day presentation, we saw an EOF in the low end, roughly EUR 400 million, a little above EUR 400 million, and I'd asked you whether there was anything exceptional, and you had said that there wasn't. That would imply that a sort of EUR 800 million, give or take, range on own funds capital generation is sort of the benchmark or a normal level, which is very close to 18%-19%. Then there is a dividend usually coming. Say, last year's dividend was eight points, so roughly. Is a 10-point kind of capital generation calculation per annum on a normal basis, would you agree with that, post-dividend, maybe post-tax? If you could comment on that or clarify or correct that, I'd be very grateful. Just second, very, very quick one for Jean-Paul. So I've seen the slight change, Jean-Paul, after the comments. Just so I understand, if EUR 1.7 billion for P&C growth, GWP, is a good level for fourth quarter, give or take, and then the EUR 6 billion is stated there in that nine months ex-FX. So what are we looking to do for next year? Are you suggesting that we use EUR 7.7 billion-EUR 7.8 billion as a base for a 15%-18% growth, or would you still be more comfortable with EUR 7.5 billion as a base for 15%-18% growth next year? Thank you. Thank you, Vinit. I'll take the first question. Well, the question on the P&C GWP. Our basis for 2022 would be the EUR 7.7 billion. So that's what we're projecting for to land at the end of this year. Those are the basis on which we're projecting for next year. Thank you, Jean-Paul. Maybe answering on the own funds generation, we usually don't give any forward guidance on this figure. Use the published figures on our half year and yearly walks, and I think this is a good basis. Thank you. Thank you, Vinit. We'll take the last question, please. We'll take the next question from Thomas Fossard at HSBC. Yes. Thanks for taking the questions. The first one will be on the cost of retro, Jean-Paul. I think that you're renewing pretty early, so you may have a fairly good view on what could be the higher implied costs. Would you be able to give us a kind of impact on, in terms of combined ratio on what we should think for 2022 in terms of impact of unchanged struct-retro structure, but likely to come with higher cost? Also on COVID, P&C, any comments you would like to make regarding, you know, high IBNR level and, you know, how much you paid out already? The very last one would be, it has no impact in Q3 but may have some impact from Q4 onwards, could you remind us, you know, the call option mark- to- market, how this is going to be booked, and if you could give any, I know it's depending on a lot of assumptions, but any sense of, I mean, any sensitivity would be helpful. Thank you. On your first question, Thomas, we're still in the middle of negotiation. I think one of the key points is that the program will not be unchanged because as I said previously, the supply of proportional and aggregate covers we anticipate to be less than last year. We'll probably have to buy more non-proportional and look at other structures. But the impact in terms of net combined ratio we're anticipating will be the same as last year. The risk protection will be similar, and this is where we're taking actions on the inwards acceptance side to sort of balance out the anticipated changes in retro supply and keeping the same risk metrics that we had last year. On COVID P&C, we've paid out roughly EUR 75 million by as at the end of Q3. You know, we haven't made any changes to our reserve level because we just didn't get any new information. I think there's still a lot of, I'd say, litigations ongoing, especially in the U.K. and France, as well as some in the U.S. You know, I think the cedants involved in those litigations are still have not changed their assessments of their exposures. We haven't either. I think, you know, we'll probably gather additional information in Q4. These are, I think, claims that will probably carry on into 2022 for sure. Yeah. Just on the call option, Thomas. Yeah, in terms of sensitivities, it's not been material. Just to give you an indication in Q3 the impact was a very low single- digit euro. EUR 2 million impact in fact. Thank you, Thomas. Arthur, I think we can close the Q&A. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's questions and answer session. At this time, I'd like to hand the call back to the speakers for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you. Thank you very much for attending this conference call. The investor relations team remains available to pick up on any further questions you may have. Please don't hesitate to give us a call. I wish you a good afternoon. Thank you. That concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. Ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect.