Okay. Can you all hear me okay? Yes, very good. Welcome, everybody, and welcome to Just 2024 Interim Results presentation. For those of you who don't know me, I'm David Richardson, Chief Executive of Just Group PLC, and joined by Mark Godson, our Group CFO today. Also, as I'm sure some of you have already been chatting to, we have our senior executive team dotted around the room as well. Please do have a chance to chat with them over coffee later on if you can. Let's turn straight to the highlights on slide 4, and I'm delighted that we've produced yet another set of very strong results. The numbers speak for themselves. We've been focused and disciplined in executing our strategy and delivered record six-month sales and profits, together with a strong and resilient capital base. We're highly focused on increasing shareholder value, and the tangible net asset value is up another 16 pence to 240p per share. We've significantly increased the return on equity to 15.6% on an annualized basis, and this return on equity is well above our target of more than 12%. Driving all of this is outstanding growth in profits, up 44% to GBP 249 million in the six-month period. This has been propelled by a combination of new business sales, which are up 30% to GBP 2.5 billion, and increasing benefits from scale and operating leverage. Our DB and retail businesses delivered similar proportionate growth in volume. Our DB business achieved another outstanding period of delivery as our competitive advantage on smaller transactions led to strong market outperformance. Our retail business built on last year's momentum in what continues to be a buoyant, excuse me, guaranteed income for life market. And we are confident opportunities in the DB and retail markets will be equally strong in the second half of this year. It really is a very exciting time for the business. Our new business teams, as ever, are exercising superb pricing discipline and risk selection. We've achieved this high level of growth while maintaining a market-leading new business strain at only 1.5% of premium. The solvency ratio has been maintained at a very strong 196%, and we further increased our resilience to external market movements. And finally, we know the importance of dividend to shareholders, and the interim dividend is up 20%, representing 1/3 of the 2023 full year dividend. The opportunities available to us, the multiple structural growth drivers in our chosen markets, and our consistent over-delivery means that we have increased conviction in delivering our profitable growth promises. Given our strong showing in the first six months, we are forecasting that our 2024 profits will now significantly exceed the doubling of our 2021 base that we promised just five months ago. Now, we've talked through the five foundations of our future confidence before, but I'll step through them again briefly here. In DB, we're only at the early stages of capturing the potential GBP 1 trillion market opportunity. We are extending our lead in the smaller transaction size segment and remain very ambitious and confident of increasing our participation in the medium and larger transaction space. In retail, we are very well positioned to benefit from long-term demographic and structural drivers of growth, and over time, we believe that we can play a bigger role in helping more customers before, at, and in retirement. We have a highly scalable investment origination strategy that is sourcing an increasing amount of illiquid assets in-house. And finally, the combination of our strong balance sheet and very low new business capital strain means we are equipped to pursue our growth ambitions with increased confidence. Let's move on to slide 6. Since revising our interest rate hedging strategy in 2022 and aligning it with economic and IFRS value, we are committed to consistently growing the value of the business. Over the past 18 months, the tangible net asset value has grown by 26% to GBP 2.5 billion, equivalent to 240p per share. This has been driven from two sources. First, a rapid growth in CSM, which acts as a store of future value, and secondly, strong growth in IFRS equity as the large existing stock of CSM predictably amortizes and flows into equity. Now, we aren't necessarily expecting this level of net asset value growth every year, but our operating ROE target of greater than 12% shows the confidence we have in translating the strong operating performance into shareholder value. Before we dive into a bit more detail on our DB and retail businesses, let's just take a step back to remind ourselves of the fantastic long-term growth opportunity in both these markets. In DB, there are around GBP 1 trillion of remaining DB liabilities, with currently only 4% per annum being de-risked. In retail, again, almost GBP 1 trillion of decumulation flows coming over the next decade as customers reach retirement age with ever-increasing defined contribution or DC pension savings... Let's dive a bit deeper into the DB market. It is consistently generating high levels of demand, and this heightened activity leaves me in no doubt that DB continues to be an opportunity for us today and over the long term. On the top left pie chart, a reminder that since 2007, only 15% of liabilities have been insured, and despite last year's record, only 4% was added to that total. And bottom left, we show the number of schemes that remain uninsured. In 2023, there were 226 transactions across the industry. Again, that's around 4% of total. Now, this was higher than previous years, as we and others in the industry have increased capacity to take on more smaller schemes by simplifying processes and deploying smart technology. Interest rates rises have, of course, benefited most scheme funding levels. EBCs tell us that the vast majority of large and mid-sized schemes have locked in those gains. Smaller schemes are less likely to have done so, usually because of the scheme's complexity and/or its ability to do so. But this brings us to the right-hand side, where we remind you about the multiple reasons why the vast majority of DB schemes are likely to seek an insurance endgame at the earliest opportunity. For the smaller schemes, the cost of continuing to run a DB scheme is high and steadily increasing. For example, running costs for a GBP 10 million scheme as a proportion of assets will be 4 times higher than for a GBP 500 million scheme. Additionally, the pension scheme will usually be an unwanted distraction for the sponsor CFO and one that exposes the company to many complex financial and operational risks, which are uneconomic to hedge. Just as important is the covenant. Here it is the trustee that is looking at the strength of the covenant of the sponsor, often with a sizable DB scheme attached. They compare it to the gold standard that a PRA-regulated insurance company brings. So you take all this together, and we believe there are many, many years of DB growth ahead of us. Now, the market continues to be exceptionally busy, and so are we. We achieved GBP 1.9 billion of shareholder-funded sales in the first six months, representing 31% growth on the comparable period last year, and this is on top of a 4-year growth rate of 26% per annum. We've once again demonstrated how our investment in people, processes, and systems is enabling us to grow. We've delivered 55 deals during the first six months of this year, a mix of small and mid-sized transactions. This is a significant increase on the 35 in the first half of last year and indeed the 45 written in the second half of last year. Since we entered the market in 2013, we've now completed over 430 transactions. We are frequently asked to complete repeat business with our growing portfolio of clients. This is one of the strongest endorsements we can attain of our service and reputation in the market. Our bulk quotation and price monitoring service, Beacon, has really helped us achieve this success. We are investing to constantly improve the service to ensure that we have a differentiated position and maintain our competitive advantage. Beacon is used across the EBC spectrum, and with our smart, scalable technology, we could comfortably run calculations for every pension scheme in the UK. Our share in the less than GBP 1 billion segment of the market is around 20%, and that continues to grow. With almost 5,000 schemes available to de-risk, we can comfortably achieve our growth objectives by winning more business across small and medium-sized transactions. In addition, we now have the capabilities to write larger transactions, those above GBP 1 billion, and have been actively quoting for deals in this segment. This provides an untapped opportunity for Just. As you can see, we have enormous growth opportunity in all areas of the market. Let's now turn to retail market with a recap on the fundamental drivers of market growth. This provides us with tremendous growth opportunities ahead. Firstly, conduct regulation. We believe the introduction of Consumer Duty and the FCA's scrutiny on retirement income more generally, has prompted advisors to fundamentally reassess the needs of their clients who are spenders, i.e., those looking for retirement income solutions. There are signs that more comprehensive annual reviews are now taking place with clients. This means advisors are assessing the overall stock of assets their clients hold through their retirement and not just focusing on the retirement event at age 60 to 65. As part of that continuous evaluation, they are reappraising the attractiveness of incorporating guaranteed income solutions for their clients within their overall retirement investment portfolio and planning. So a brief reminder of that stock and flow of opportunity. In the middle is a GBP 1.9 trillion stock of assets held by the over 55s in the UK, that are available to support their retirement and could potentially be annuitized now or at some point in the future. This includes GBP 0.2 trillion that retirees already have in a pension drawdown wrapper. On the right is the flow. This is an estimate of the amounts that are entering retirement from defined contribution pension schemes every year, i.e., from the GBP 0.6 trillion in the middle chart. That flow is roughly GBP 60 billion today, and this grows through the combination of an aging population, historic closure of DB schemes, investment performance, and, plus, latterly, the additional savings generated by auto-enrollment. All of that adds up to close to GBP 1 trillion that will move from accumulation or saving, into decumulation or spending over the next decade. So we have advisors who are much more likely to consider a guaranteed solution for their customers, an enormous stock of assets, and an increasing flow of funds reaching retirement. Together, this presents an exciting opportunity for us. Now, let's bring those long-term forces together with what is happening in the market right now. The attractiveness of guaranteed income solutions in a period of more normalized long-term interest rates means that financial advisors are rapidly re-engaging with the guaranteed income market. We've repeated the top left chart that you've seen before to show that during 2024, the amount of retirement income provided to a customer continues to be around 40% higher than that available over a long period of time preceding the middle of 2022, making this product much more attractive to customers. Now, it took a little time for that dynamic to feed into advisor conversations with their customers, but we then saw that growth come through in 2023, which has continued into the first half of this year. The top right chart shows that the advised share of the open market has increased from around a quarter two years ago, to almost two-thirds at the beginning of this year. The premiums transacted through the open market, that is where customers shop around for the best deal, is now more than three-quarters of the total guaranteed income for life market. Putting all this together, this has driven GIFL sales across the market materially higher, up 55% year-on-year in the first half of 2024. Undoubtedly, some of that is due to these increased advisor conversations post the introduction of the FCA's Consumer Duty in July 2023. We expect the second half to remain buoyant, which will result in 2024 being the biggest GIFL market in a decade. With this very strong backdrop, we are seeing more volume and larger case sizes, as those with bigger pension pots, who are virtually all advised, are opting to spend some or all of their pension pot on guaranteed income solutions. Within that, we continue to utilize our medical underwriting expertise to select the most profitable risks in what is now a much greater opportunity pool. This, combined with positive market disruption, a strong distribution footprint, and service excellence, gives us a powerful winning formula. With that, I'll hand over to Mark. Thank you, David, and good morning to you all. Before I speak about the results, I'd just like to express how much I've enjoyed my first nine months at Just. I've been massively impressed with my colleagues' engagement, talent, and passion to achieve our purpose. The team have delivered a really strong set of interim results, which build on the strong foundations already in place and really demonstrate to me that I made the right decision to join and play my part in this exciting opportunity. I'm focused on continuing to build our capabilities, as there is a lot more we can achieve in the short, medium, and longer term. As David mentioned, we see significant opportunities to deploy our capital and capabilities in our markets, and thus to deliver our strategic objectives both now and into the future. Focusing on now, we've updated this slide that I shared a few months ago at the full year results, which you can see demonstrates our continued strong track record of delivery. We have positioned ourselves in leadership positions in chosen segments of our markets, where we combine insight and risk selection to drive shareholder value. This reinforces confidence in our ability to continue to deliver compounding growth. The graph on the top left demonstrates one of our key strategic priorities, which is to grow sustainably. The first half of 2024 was very much a continuation of the strong momentum in the business. We wrote GBP 2.5 billion worth of premiums, split GBP 1.9 billion DB and GBP 0.6 billion retail, and this represents a 30% year-on-year growth rate. The strong growth in the first half of this year was partly due to completions in our 2023 pipeline, and we expect the excellent first half sales performance to continue into the second half, with similar volumes forecast. The chart on the bottom left shows that how that growth has continued to be disciplined, with a focus on margin and sustainable growth. We have maintained our margin at 9% while increasing volumes. We didn't write any DB partner or funded reinsurance business in the first half. As you know, we view funded reinsurance very much as a complement and optionality to our shareholder-funded business. Our use has always been selective, with less than GBP 1 billion of funded reinsurance across three transactions to date, each with a different counterparty. The PRA's supervisory statement has reinforced their expectations, which are very much aligned with our own risk management. We continue to view funded reinsurance as complementary to our existing business. Moving to the right-hand side, in capital. We have a resilient and stable capital base with a large buffer. As important as the absolute capital strength is that our capital sensitivities, in particular to interest rates and property, continue to reduce from historic levels due to management actions. Indeed, a 50 basis points move in the long-term interest rates in either direction would now only impact the capital coverage ratio by 4 percentage points, down from 6 points at the full year. A high and stable capital surplus gives us optionality and flexibility as we execute our growth ambitions. Finally, the graph on the bottom right shows one of the key pillars of our success. We have consistently beaten our new business strain target of less than 2.5% of premium. 1.5% in the first half of the year represents a reversion towards the mean, following the outperformance, even by our own standards, in the second half of 2023. When we operate in buoyant markets, price with discipline, maintain good cost control, in addition to the various capital levers at our disposal, we can comfortably fund very attractive levels of new business growth from our own means. Moving to slide 14. Underlying operating profit is well ahead of our growth target, up 44% to GBP 249 million. So let's go through the drivers of this. New business profits were up by more than a third to GBP 222 million, driven by volumes up 30% and an uptick in margin year on year to 9%, and consistent with the full year 2023 outcome. I'm particularly impressed by our asset management capabilities, which means we've been able to maintain this margin despite the tight credit markets that we have experienced. In-force operating profit, a source of recurring profit, is up almost a quarter, primarily driven by investment return on a higher stock of surplus assets and increased CSM amortization, as the store of CSM continues to grow strongly. Full details of the components of this are in the appendix. Other group company results and development expenditure rose a little as we continued to invest in our capabilities to help us scale the business for the future. Finance costs were unchanged, with the continued strong growth in net asset value leading to a reduced debt leverage ratio, now down to 28% on an adjusted equity basis. This continued reduction in leverage provides future optionality as we fund new business opportunities. Pleasingly, return on equity rose 2.6 percentage points to 15.6% and well above our greater than 12% target that we set in March. Now, looking ahead to the second half, our pipeline of deals, which are exclusive or close to exclusive, has a higher amount of larger deals than we saw in the first half. We estimate this will mean a reduction in margin for the second half of the year. The business is firing on all cylinders with our low strain new business model, combining with asset and liability origination to drive returns at our mid-teens or above IRR target. As we execute this strategy, it will allow us to significantly add to existing shareholder value. Much of this in-year growth in total shareholder value comes from the growth in CSM, which represents a stock of value. Here we look at this in a little more detail with a reminder on the left-hand side of this chart, we're dealing with pre-tax CSM. The stock of CSM is growing rapidly, up 10% in the first six months of 2024. From this growing stock, a predictable portion amortizes into the in-force profit, offset by interest accretion or unwind of discounting on the remaining CSM. CSM amortization is growing and compounding and is a major component of our recurring in-force profitability, which then flows into the statutory profit. It's the scale of our new business profits versus the size of the current business that really drives the growth in CSM stock. As the chart on the top right demonstrates, the GBP 222 million of new business profit is three times the scale of the release from in-force. On the bottom right, a reminder of how all this has combined to grow the tangible net asset value to GBP 2.5 billion. Moving to slide 16. Here, we show the components of the Solvency II surplus during the period. Cash generation was stable at GBP 49 million, and from this, we funded GBP 2.5 billion of new business through GBP 37 million of capital strain. Together with management actions related to modeling refinements, our organic capital generation over the first half was GBP 42 million. From 2025, excluding external factors, we expect that cash generation will grow in line with the growth of the balance sheet. Our surplus capital and ongoing management actions will continue to support our growth ambitions. Moving now to the right-hand side of the graph. Payment of the 2023 final dividend represents a relatively small cost to our capital during the first half, while the increase in rates had a relatively small negative impact on the surplus, but a positive impact on the coverage ratio. The property effect was negligible, as our portfolio performed in line with our long-term growth assumptions. In aggregate, over H1, these operating and non-operating movements have translated into a stable Solvency II capital coverage ratio of 196%. Finally, a brief recap on our investment approach and how we create significant shareholder value. At a high level, our business is very simple. Our liabilities have contractual cash outflows, which allow us to construct a matching asset portfolio, which includes an optimal amount of illiquid assets. Inbuilt protection features on illiquids lead to rating stability through the economic cycle, which is especially important, as these are often long-term real assets held to maturity. Originating sufficient quantities of illiquid assets supports customer pricing, but is also a significant contributor to the returns that we earn on the capital invested in new business. The public and private portfolio continues to be very well diversified by issuer, sector, and geography. Our illiquid asset origination model provides us with the ability to scale and flex allocation between sectors while maintaining strict credit underwriting through our in-house team. Funded illiquid assets in the first half is a little below the typical run rate, but it was not due to a lack of choice, as in the first half of 2024, we were presented with GBP 17 billion worth of illiquid asset investment opportunities, compared to GBP 20 billion for the whole of 2023. Rather, it was our discipline on pricing and borrowers delaying taking down advantage of the expected base rate falls later in the year that has adjusted our timing. In the year to date, we have funded or committed to GBP 1.1 billion of illiquid assets, so we're very much on track to achieve our desired illiquid asset backing ratio for the year as a whole. In conclusion, a very strong set of results that the team should be really proud of. With that, I'll hand back to David for his concluding remarks. Great. Thank you very much, Mark. Let's turn to slide 19 for a second. We're focused on doing the right thing for our colleagues, our customers, and the planet, as well as getting consistently excellent ESG scores from the main agencies, Sustainalytics and MSCI. I was delighted that last month we met the FRC's requirements to become a signatory to the U.K. Stewardship Code. This sets high stewardship standards for those investing money on behalf of U.K. savers and pensioners. Also, just wanted to briefly update you on our journey to net zero for our investment portfolio emissions intensity, which we have now reduced by over 40% from the 2019 baseline that we're measuring. So I'm delighted we are even closer to achieving our intermediate step of a 50% reduction in investment emissions and expect to achieve this before our planned date of 2030. On this slide, I'd like to cover something that is very important to me and indeed all our leadership team, and I often get asked about by investors. So given the strong demand for talent in our markets, how do we attract and retain quality people? When we talk to prospective recruits about Just, there are typically three reasons why that attract them to us, I should say, rather than just the role itself. Firstly, our purpose. We help people achieve a better later life. They appreciate how compelling, distinct, and authentic that purpose is. Secondly, they are keen to join a growing business, and as the results show today, this is certainly an ambitious, high-growth company. And thirdly, they're attracted by the culture that we've built at Just, driven by strong behaviors and an environment that achieves high levels of engagement. Our strong and distinctive culture is a strategic differentiator that is equipping us to attract talent, and as you've seen from the results today, generate value. When I speak to others in the financial services industry, I realize we've something really special at Just, and so making sure we protect and enhance our culture is crucial to delivering our ambitions. So let me sum up with some final remarks. We've delivered what I hope you agree are another excellent set of results. They're very much a confirmation of our confidence in delivering strong and consistent results this year and into the future. We only achieve these customer outcomes when customers place their trust in Just. We are helping increasing numbers of people secure their financial futures and provide them with peace of mind. Our colleagues work hard to always put the customer first, and we are always very conscious of the trust placed in us and the responsibility that entails. With the opportunities available to our business, we are exceptionally well positioned to help more customers and build substantial value for shareholders.... The DB market provides very significant long-term growth prospects for Just, and the retail market is growing strongly again and has exciting long-term prospects driven by demographics, auto enrollment, and proposition innovation. We have a strong track record of being innovative, focused, and disciplined, and that's equipped us to consistently exceed the promises we've made. We've a growth mindset, and we've developed a winning formula, one which will ensure we fulfill our purpose to help people achieve a better later life. Putting all of this together, we're more optimistic than ever about the future for Just. So with that, I'll invite any questions you have from the floor. It wasn't just 'cause I looked at you, but I think you were first, Mandeep, so, why don't you go first? He's just there. Thanks. Thanks, Paul. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the presentation and taking my questions. Mandeep Jagpal, RBC. Three questions from me, please. The first one is on new business margin. Mark mentioned a margin contraction in the second half. What is happening in the mix there that results in this moderation? Or in the reverse question is, how were you able to achieve such a strong margin in H1? Second is on regulatory developments. The release this morning states that you have PRA approval for a full internal model for the Partnership business. What would be the benefit of this at your full year results? Presumably, you would not have gone through the process if it was not worthwhile in some way. And then, third question is just on the debt stack. Slide 31 in the appendix shows that you have a significant proportion of your debt coming due in FY 2025, and then a further maturity of some expensive debt in FY 2026. So what are your plans for optimizing the debt position over the next 18 months in light of your strong business growth, but also the current leverage ratios? Sounds like a full house for you, Mark. Yep. You've got new business- Yep. New business margin, clerical internal model, and the debt stack. Yep. I'll have a drink of water. So, on the margin point, so we are looking at our pipeline for the second half of the year and, and seeing that it contains, a number of larger deals in its, relative to the first half. As David outlined, we wrote 55 deals, in the first half of the year, so average, size of those deals was quite small. And there is just a little bit of a, a dynamic difference. So obviously, we won't say precise numbers, but if you look at our sort of last three years', average profit margins for the, for the years, you're probably, in and around where we expect, our annual, margin to come out. So, you know, we're not, we're not expecting, you know, reductions off, off our historic, but we're, we're currently probably in a slightly outperforming place. On the MMC, so this is, for those of you that don't know, this is the, the Partnership business. So we, we have two life entities. Most of it is, Just Retirement Limited, but, we do have the old Partnership business, which is essentially a, a very small, company in, essentially in run off. We have applied and been granted authorization to move that, company onto an internal model basis. The main benefit of that is to have consistency, across our business about how we, how we manage it and how we model it. It might give us a very small, positive adjustment, but, you know, it is a very, very small business. It's there, you know, 10 or 15% of the asset value of the company. So, I wouldn't be, you know, putting significant management actions in against MMC. And then on the debt stack, yep, so we've got debt falling due in 2025 and 2026. And yeah, we will absolutely be, Mm-hmm. facilitating and participating in the markets at the right time to ensure that our leverage position is where we want it to be, just from a leverage ratio perspective. We're very comfortable at the ratio we're at. Gives us some optionality- Mm ... if we, if we wanted it. So yeah, we will expect to be participating there. Uh, Barrie? Morning, it's Barrie Cornes from Panmure Liberum. Again, I've got three questions from A. First of all, in terms of the opportunity that you've highlighted, obviously, it's very significant. Just wondered if you feel you've got the right amount of capital to take the opportunity. Secondly, I think, Mark, you mentioned you hadn't done the funded Re deals in the first half, and I just wondered how you feel generally about funded Re. And last of all, in terms of the outlook for GIFL, as interest rates sort of turning and moving south- Mm ... have things changed since the last reduction rate cycle? Just wondering whether or not people feel differently about buying annuities now. Thank you. Great, let me take the question on the GIFL market, and I'll let Mark speak to the capital level and how we think about that, and also funded Re. So just a bit of context. You know, the GIFL market was very flat for a number of years when we had long-term interest rates at, like, 1%. We talk long term here, we're talking about, like, 15-, 20-year rates. And I think if we were to revert to levels like that, that would certainly be a headwind for the GIFL GIFL market. But we're not anticipating that. I think what we're seeing at the moment is something more akin to normalized long-term rates. Could it come down a bit? Of course, but I don't think, you know, down 50, 100 basis points would have a material impact on overall market demand. So what's really gonna drive the growth in that market in the future is the fact, as I spoke to earlier. First of all, there is just the flow of money coming to retirement. You know, this shift from defined benefit to defined contribution took place during the early 2000s. And so what you find is with each passing year, more people are getting to retirement with DC than DB, and the number of years they've had a DC pension is greater. It's increasing with each passing year. That gets compounded by more years of investment return, and then finally, you've got auto-enrollment giving it a boost as well. So all of that increase that flow of money that we've looked at earlier, and this point about the focus being shifted back onto retirement income as people shift from saving to spending, has really come into sharp relief in the last couple of years. Consumer Duty's played a part in that. It's put a lot of scrutiny on advisors and advice firms on how are they developing retirement strategies for their customers that will provide them with a sustainable income. That has really gone up the agenda in the last couple of years, and that's why you could see that slide earlier, that the proportion of people who buy a GIFL now, who have done it via an advisor rather than an external broker, which is non-advised, has gone from about a quarter to nearly two-thirds. That is really, really a material shift, and that makes us very optimistic about future growth prospects there. Yes, and then on the two questions, so on the amount of capital, so absolutely, we're comfortable with the amount of capital we have. Clearly, our ratio is very healthy, and that represents a surplus of capital that we are happy to invest into new business. And then a little bit linked back to Mandeep's question, you know, as we grow the business, as we become bigger, it also gives us a greater capacity to potentially access debt markets to a greater extent, again, giving us capital to invest in the business. So, yeah, no, we're very comfortable with our, with, with our amount and quality of capital. And then on funded Re, I sort of mentioned it a little bit in my, in my notes. We are very comfortable with our historic and future use of funded Re. We think it's very much aligned with the way that, the PRA is looking at it. So essentially, our view is the PRA is making sure that they understand and are comfortable with a very important part of the market. It's a very common tool. Most of the people in our market are using funded Re to greater or lesser extent. The new supervisory statement has essentially created, a level of expectation around how you manage that risk, and we've doing work aligning to how we look at it, and it's very similar. You know, there's no, no big outliers there. So from our perspective, we continue to see funded Re as an optionality, available to us going forward. Now, Farooq? Hi, thanks very much. Farooq Hanif from JP Morgan. One of your large, very large competitors, and I think others, are also setting up bulk quotation tools. What risk do you see in that, in that part of the market? And then secondly, you know, a clarification or maybe further detail on the solvency question that Barrie and, you know, alluded to. So, I mean, are you suggesting basically that obviously you're happy to let your solvency ratio go down from here because you, you've got a, you know, a very strong ratio compared to history, but there will be a level at which you'll be kind of worried that, you know, cost of equity goes up, given, also given your history. So are you suggesting that, you know, debt is a good way, potentially of sort of bridging that gap? Kind of how, how far would you be willing to let that ratio go down? Yeah, even if you can sort of talk about that qualitatively. Maybe just one last question on, consolidation of DC pension pots. Mm-hmm. If we get that change in regulation, isn't that a disadvantage for you if, let's say, a large workplace pension provider that also writes annuities kind of gains more of that GBP 900 billion? I mean, is that a risk at all? Thank you. Okay, so Mark, I'll let you build on the answer to solvency and capital trajectory in a second. So first of all, in the DB market. So again, just a little bit of context. We started to develop our bulk quotation service over five years ago. That's what we call Beacon. Because we could see that there was a real strategic opportunity here, is that there's 3,800 schemes with less than GBP 100 million. So these are small schemes, and a lot of those are less than GBP 10 million. And so with a finite, you know, amount of human capital, i.e., talent in the industry, to serve that market, the solution needed to be technology. So we've been developing and continue to develop our bulk quotation service over those five years and have built up a substantial competitive advantage. Now, you're absolutely right. Others appear to be trying to expand their proposition to smaller schemes. We actually welcome that, because even with the best will in the world, it's gonna be difficult for us to serve all 3,800. So we welcomed additional capacity, and the key thing for us is just that we continue to invest in our people and also in the technology that serves that end of the market. We have an unparalleled reputation at that end of the market. 17 different EBCs have taken their clients through that service to ultimately transferring the risk. So they've seen it isn't, you know, it isn't marketing, this is something real, and almost all those 17 have done it multiple times. So it's got a fantastic track record, and not to in any way underestimate the competition, but we just say the numbers speak for themselves. You can see we've done 55 deals this year. In the first six months, it was 45, in the last six months, 35, the six months before that. I'm not promising it'll be 65 in the next six months, but you get the picture. And we can see more schemes are coming onto our bulk quotation service than are coming off it each month. So, you know, others, no doubt, will increase their capacity, but we're not seeing it impact our growth potential. Let me quickly touch on the consolidation DC pension pots. The short answer to that is not really, because even if you've got bigger workplace providers who are hoovering up more of the savers, when they get to those decisions around retirement, this is where Consumer Duty has a big part to play. It's really incumbent on all providers that they deliver good outcomes to their customers and deliver fair value, and, you know, if they're looking at guaranteed income, that's gonna boil down to, well, looking at what else is available in the market. So if anything, larger pension pots should lead to more people getting financial advice, 'cause, you know, there's a cost associated with financial advice, and that will encourage more people to shop around, which will increase our addressable market. So no major concerns there. Mark, capital? Yep. Talking about capital in the ratio perspective, so obviously, where our ratio is at the moment, you asked, would we be happy to see that ratio erode as we grew the business? Yes, we would. I think that is something that we would be perfectly comfortable doing. We currently have an excess capital position, and we would be happy to utilize some of that capital to grow the business. And sort of related then to the question about debt and, you know, as we grow the business, absent raising new debt, our leverage ratio will naturally fall. Business gets bigger, amount of debt stays the same. So that would then create capacity to then raise additional debt were we to want to. The sort of leverage ratios that we're at, we're very comfortable with. You know, we're not looking to lever up the balance sheet, as it were. It's more that just sustainable growth and gives you sustainable capacity to utilize things like increased debt if the markets and the pricing is conducive to do that. So yeah, very, very happy to do that. Well, yeah, James. I'll get you next, Andreas. Hello. Yeah, congratulations, guys, on a great set of results. James Pearce from Jefferies. So first one, you know, each set of results, you kind of keep on raising the bar in terms of the level of the level of what you need to report next year in order to achieve more growth. Is 15% average growth kind of the right level to think about from this point onwards? Second one's on in-force profits. So your investment return on surplus assets looked really strong. I think it was GBP 64 million. I think that's about 5.5% annualized on net tangible assets. Is that kind of level... Is that the right sort of level to think about going forward? Then last question, and sorry if you mentioned this in the presentation, but are you seeing evidence of DB schemes shifting their asset mix such that surplus positions are kind of less sensitive to a fall in interest rates? I guess, you know, it, you know, that would imply that the near-term pipeline should remain pretty strong even if rates come down. Great. Thank you for the questions. So, let me do the last one first, and then I'll hand over to Mark on the, you know, how we think about future profitable growth and also what's driving in-force profit development. So what we're generally seeing, and you know, a lot of this is via EBCs, 'cause we're not advising the pension schemes on our investment strategy. But we hear a pretty consistent message that the larger schemes are taking a lot of that risk off the table. So they've benefited from interest rates going up, they'd like to lock into some or most of that gain. So, we think the funding position of the larger schemes are going to be quite robust to changing market conditions. Not immune, but quite robust. I think if you go down smaller scale, you know, when you go down to like a, a GBP 5 million or GBP 10 million scheme, they're unlikely to put in place a lot of interest rate hedging. So those are the ones which will be a little bit more susceptible to interest rate movements. But the flip side of that is, and this is again, you see it in EBCs' reports, a lot of these smaller schemes don't even realize that they can buy out now, that they're actually in a very strong funding position. So actually, a lot of the push in the EBC community and ourselves is to really raise our awareness how easy it is to go to buyout. So there's actually a lot of untapped opportunity there anyway. So overall, not concerned. Mark? Yeah, and two, two questions essentially on outlook. So just on the in-force profits and the return on surplus assets, yep, I think you're thinking about it in the right way. So simple answer to that question. And to the 15% point, clearly, we are going to exceed that this year. What we're saying is, though, that this is, we are confident in our future growth ambitions from this point. So this is not a, is very similar to message to the one in March. You know, this is not a one-off that we're then going to flatline from. So we're not changing that 15% or putting a different number, but we are saying that we are confident to continue to grow, continue to compound value from this elevated position. ... So just a point of clarity, but I think part of your question on the return on surplus assets, did you quote a 5.5% return number? Yeah, no. I don't think we're confirming that's what's baked in the numbers. No. Andreas, yeah, over to you. Thank you. Andreas van Embden from Peel Hunt. I think, Mark, on your, on the spread slide, you said that the increase in illiquid supports customer pricing, so you're offering more guarantees to your customers, and at the same time, delivers better returns for shareholders. If you look at that spread you delivered during the first half of the year, how does it compare to the first half of last year? Have those spreads improved? And what, what, how do you think spreads would evolve into the second half of the year? And the second question is: as you move into quoting more of the over GBP 1 billion DB scheme market, what impact will that have on your new business margin relative to the less than GBP 1 billion or between GBP 100 million and GBP 1 billion? So everything outside what you quote on Beacon, is there any difference in the new business margin if you go up that sort of plus GBP 1 billion segment? Thank you. Mark, do you want to- So both for me. So, in terms of the actual spreads we are achieving, first of all, you'll have seen the public market spreads were definitely tighter in the first half of this year than they were over last year. We're seeing less of that play out in the private markets, where spreads are continuing to be robust. The way that that plays through, as you say to customer pricing and our returns is through... for our returns is through our margin. So, you know, we're showing a 9% profit margin for the first half of this year, consistent with the profit margin for the whole of last year. So that is essentially looking at the value that we're generating from writing these business and including, of course, expectations on spread that we're earning. So you can see it's essentially consistent period on period. And one, I guess, just slight clarification in your question. Obviously, what we're not doing is changing kind of scheme guarantees in when we say better customer pricing. We just mean, particularly in the individual market, better rates, and in the DB market, better pricing, i.e., the scheme doesn't need to provide so many assets. So that's what we mean, not changing you know, DB member outcomes. And when we look into the larger schemes, it's really a competition point rather than a larger schemes point. So it's not that larger schemes have inherently more or less, new business margin. It's just that there are more people competing in and around, that space. What we are seeing, though, and you'd have seen that from, results, from our, one of our competitors last week, who quoted that they were looking at GBP 16 billion deals in the market. So there is just an enormous amount of these large deals happening, and that is creating, you know, essentially excess supply of that, and therefore, enabling, more people to be quoting in and around those, those, those schemes at good margins. So, you know, we're not... We, we wouldn't be writing business that, didn't meet all of our hurdle rates. Yeah, yeah. That last point is key, which is that we will absolutely maintain our pricing discipline as we are going up the scale in terms of DB size of a transaction. I think you have Rhea. Thank you. Thanks. Rhea Shah, Deutsche Bank. Three questions. So the first, going back to the 1 billion plus deals, you said that you have been quoting for them, and you said this in the past as well. How many have you been quoting for this year to date, and how do you think about these deals? Do you need to think about capacity, assets, anything else for you specifically? The second one is around strategy, and thinking about Just Group in five to ten years' time, as the DB flows start to slow down. Clearly, you are trying to position the GIFL market, and you're strong there, but is there anything else that you would look at to continue growth, or is that a point when you would think about capital generation and shareholder return? I'm not talking about now, but in the future. And the third question around costs, you mentioned that some of the development expenditure, other group company results have been ticking up slightly. What is this being spent on? Is it mostly on investing in the tech and in Beacon, or is there anything else that you're working on? Great, thank you for the questions. I'll handle the first two, and then, Mark, let you speak to what's in costs. So, I guess first thing to say on billion-pound plus deals, let's not overfixate on them. We've delivered 31% growth in the first half with no big deals, and we've delivered 26% per annum compound growth over the last 4 years without deals over GBP 1 billion. So we're just emphasizing it's an untapped opportunity. We quote on them selectively. How do we think about them is a really good question because they are a bit more complex. You've got to think a lot more carefully about and plan a lot more around the timing of when you're going to bring assets in to match the investment premium. So that requires a lot more coordination, a lot more planning. They tend to be more complex transactions. The contractual negotiations tend to be more complex. Some of the aspects of the structure of the deal will—there'll be different expectations on a GBP 1 billion deal versus a GBP 10 million deal. So all of it requires a bit more time and effort. So we quote selectively, so don't think we're quoting the market on this. Great question about where we are in 5, 10 years' time, and as you imagine, might imagine, that is something which we do spend time thinking about. We're not just riding the crest of a wave and not thinking about tomorrow. We very much view this fantastic momentum we've got in the business as creating the time and the space, and the capabilities to think about a bit broader about, well, what place could we take in the retirement space? What part can we play in really fulfilling our purpose of helping people achieve a better later life? And so, as we think about that, we think about how can we play a broader role for customers, individual customers in particular, as they're not just at retirement, but also approaching retirement and in retirement. Because, you know, life's got a lot more different for people in retirement. They don't just kinda get to age sixty-five and either buy a GIFL or not. And so, we already have proposition live on drawdown platforms for customers who choose not to buy an annuity at age 65, but may need to shift some of their investment portfolio into guaranteed income as they get older. So that's quite a nascent market. We're the first to do it, and it's a nascent opportunity because, you know, you're just getting the first wave of people, post Pension Freedoms, who are into their 70s. But we see that as delivering as potential upside in the future, and we'll certainly update you as and when we get traction on that at a significant level. And then, you know, there's a broader question about, well, what we want to do to help people as they approach retirement. We're not talking about here people in their 20s and 30s and saving in the workplace, but more about... Again, people don't wake up 6 months from retirement and try to solve all their problems there and then. There's a kind of a journey into that, and how can we help people? That's one of the questions on our minds. So, we're very much in a mindset that we kick on from here, not that we just kind of ride it for the next 5, 10 years and hope something happens then. And just on costs, I mean, I think you, you've got it quite accurately already. So, technology is big, is a big component of our development expenditure. It's not just Beacon, though, it's across the group. It's making sure we maintain and develop the appropriate technology in the appropriate places, and you need to keep investing. It's not a, you invest and then you sit on it for five years. You know, you need to keep making sure, as David said, that things stay ahead of the competition, and then proposition development. You know, things like the proposition that David just described, take a bit of our development of strategic costs, and that's us investing in the future of the business. Uh, Larissa? Larissa van Deventer from Barclays. Two questions, please. The first one on ground rents. It made the headlines when it came through in the Labour manifesto. I haven't heard very much since. Can you give us a sense of where your investment portfolio is, and if you have any color on what you're hearing on how that may evolve? The second is on your ESG credentials. You have some very admirable credentials in the ESG space. How does that manifest in demand for your products, especially on the guaranteed income for life side, please? Great. Mark, do you want to go on ground rents- Yeah. - and I'll pick up ESG. Yeah, so as you highlighted, so we have a portfolio of financed residential ground rents. So this is where we've lent against the portfolios rather than owning them directly. It's about GBP 160 million worth, and at year-end 2023, you'll have seen that we've got a provision against those ground rents for the potential impact of the leasehold reform consultation. That was about GBP 45 million, again, disclosed. Since that point, we've had no concrete legislative proposals by either the outgoing Conservative or incoming Labour governments. As you know, Labour included leasehold reform in the King's Speech, but the King's Speech had a lot of things in it, and it's quite hard to tell how high up the priority list for the government it is or it isn't. So at the moment, pending any more information, we've essentially just kept the same provision on the portfolio as we had at year-end. I wouldn't like to second-guess- Mm-hmm ... the government. I think that's a, that's a tricky question, but, you know, we're, we're actively monitoring the position and treating it prudently. Great. Yeah, look, we've made a lot of progress on the investment portfolio from a green perspective. You know, again, we referenced it in the slides there, but our baseline is 2019. We've reduced the intensity, the carbon intensity of our investment portfolio by 40%. And we've done that through a combination of, you know, cycling out of what you might call dirty assets into cleaner assets, in a very controlled and at times, opportunistic moments where we can do so with minimal or no cost. And then combine that with making sure that the new business premiums get invested in relatively clean assets. How does that affect our proposition? It doesn't really impact the proposition much from how a customer feels it. It just feeds—it's an input into the pricing, is what assets you invest in, with the exception of lifetime mortgages. So we do have a range of green mortgages there, where if the customer improves their kind of carbon intensity ratings of their house, or if they meet a certain threshold, then we'll offer them a slight discount on the interest rate that they pay. So a little bit of an incentive there, but not material in the scheme of things. Great. So, yeah, a new face? Thanks. Dominic O'Mahony, BNP Paribas, and, so just two questions, for me, if that's all right. One, one is just on, new entrants into the bulks market. There have been a few, names. And I'm just wondering whether you've observed any difference in, in market dynamics, whether you see more in the, in the large versus the, the small, size deals or, or perhaps any types of deals? And the, and the second was just on the supply of private credit. It sounds like actually conditions are very buoyant, that lots of deals are being brought to you. It sounds like there isn't any spread compression. From the outside, you might think, gosh, the, the mortgage market is growing so much, that's gonna create lots of demand for private credit. The interest rate environment is not conducive to the lifetime mortgage pipeline. So, I was wondering if you could expand a bit on the dynamics you observe in the pipeline, and indeed, whether there's any real change from the Matching Adjustment reforms. Thank you. Great. I'll speak to new entrants, and Mark, I'll let you speak to private credit. You saw new entrants. We've seen, like, two confirmed new entrants in the market who are actually quoting, and one that's announced that it intends to do so. In terms of your question, though, impact on the market dynamics is at the moment negligible. The volumes that they've indicated that they want to write are relatively modest in the context of a GBP 50 billion per annum market, you know, in combination, like sub 10%. And of course, going the other direction, you've had Scottish Widows who've exited the market and who previously kind of supplied what? Maybe up to 3-4% of the market. So, we're not seeing a massive impact. I guess the only thing, it underscores for me, though, is the wisdom of investing in technology, because as you grow, you've got a lot more to do, and you don't want to be relying purely on getting more and more people in through the door. Because that's where new entrants, each new entrant does need to man their own team, as it were, and so therefore, it's been a, I think, quite a wise move to invest in technology, which we have done across all ends of the DB process, both from the front end, where you're quoting, all the way back to the back end, where you're bringing on, the operations. So, that's probably what we're seeing playing out there. Yeah, and just on private credit, so, you know, the ability to invest in private credit is, of course, a critical part of our, of our business model, and it's a place that we've been investing in for a number of years. Just a quick background, we have a, a panel of, different external managers that source private credit for us. We have also started complementing that with in-house private credit capabilities. So we are very confident that we're able to see good pipeline of assets going out into the, the near-term future, you know, 2024 and 2025, to, support the business that we, that we see. You've asked a then more general question about, you know, there's all this business to be done. Can the overall market, supply enough illiquid assets to, to support the overall market? And that's when, over the longer term, you, you look to other things. So, so firstly, out of, outside of the U.K., you know, it's not 100% U.K. investments already now. We do a lot of U.S. dollar investments, fully cross-currency swap back, so we're not taking currency risk, but, but, you know, when you then look globally, you suddenly have a, a much bigger universe of, of investment opportunities. And then structurally, in the U.K., there is a lot of investment that is needed, particularly in the sort of greening and decarbonization agenda for the whole, the whole country. And things like, the Investment Delivery Forum and the Mansion House Compact are those kinds of, ways in which we, the industry, are wanting to support the government's ambitions to invest in this agenda. So, you know, we and our competitors will be looking to finance the transition of the UK long-term real stable funding against long-term real infrastructure and similar assets in the UK. Great. And just on that final point, just to emphasize what Mark has said, you know, as an industry, we've committed to investing GBP 100 billion in productive UK assets over the next decade. And back to the, I think it was, earlier question on, are we seeing anything coming out of the new administration? What's very clear is they're very committed to getting the sector and creating the investment opportunities for the sector to invest in those productive assets. These things take time. It's not like a tap you turn on, but if you extend your question over a multiple-year horizon, I'm actually quite optimistic that we're going to see an uptick in investable assets for us and our peers in the UK. If there's no more questions in the room, we've got one online. Last chance in the room? No. Okay. Steve? Thanks, David. Thanks to David Young and Guy Thomas, whose questions have already been answered. Nasib, UBS. Question for clarity, probably for you, Mark. Do we hold assets to maturity, or do we look to trade credit to improve returns for similar risk on the MA book? Yep. So, first of all, we invest all of our assets such that we could hold them to maturity, and we manage them in that way. So we have a liability profile of cash flows that we need to pay, and we invest in assets that meet every single one of those liability cash flows with asset cash flows. So if we all stopped, the assets exist to pay all the claims, all the cash flows for the rest of the run-off of the business. So we invest with that mindset that these are long-term, real assets. On the illiquid assets, a little bit harder to trade by definition. They are a bit illiquid, so those ones we are almost by definition holding and retaining. You know, maybe a bit of shaving around the corners, but essentially, by buying and maintaining. On the liquid side, it's a bit easier to be a bit more active in the management of those, and so we do, you know, move in and out of certain assets when we see them. The other thing we also do is we're also, because we're a growing company, we are always adding new assets into the portfolio, and so we're able to shift the mix of the portfolio, not just through trading, but through how we choose to invest our new premiums. And that's quite material when you look at the size of our new business versus in force. You can make quite a material shift to the portfolio just through that mechanism as well. Brilliant. Thank you, Mark. And thank you, team, for delivering a great set of results, and thank you all for your attention today. Enjoy your day. Thank you.