Good afternoon. On behalf of Aegon's executive board and supervisory board, I welcome you to Aegon's Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders, in which we ask you to approve the proposed transaction to combine the business of Aegon, the Netherlands with a.s.r. This meeting will be chaired in English. Simultaneous translation into Dutch is offered. For those of you who attend the meeting in person, headphones for the simultaneous translations were offered when you entered the meeting room and are still available on a table outside this room. For Dutch, please choose channel one. For English, please choose channel two. If you prefer, you can ask your questions in Dutch. They will be simultaneously translated into English, and I have my headphones here, and answered in English. I hereby open the meeting. We are very pleased to have some of our shareholders in person in the room here in The Hague. At the same time, we are offering shareholders who prefer to participate virtually the opportunity to participate in an efficient manner through a webcast. Shareholders who are participating virtually do have the opportunity to vote and ask questions in real time during the meeting. To accommodate live voting and keeping in mind the short delay of the webcast, the voting is now open and will remain open until after agenda item two. Our shareholders have also been able to cast their votes prior to the meeting, either by granting a proxy or by using the e-voting system. After the presentation by our CEO, Lard Friese, we will address the questions from our shareholders. No questions have been submitted prior to this meeting, we will first invite shareholders to present here in person to ask their questions. You can do so by using one of the microphones in the corridors. Thereafter, we will address the questions submitted by shareholders participating virtually who can ask their questions through the chat function. As this function is open throughout the meeting, I mandated our Head of Investor Relations, Jan-Willem van den Munnikhof, to moderate the questions that will be submitted via the chat. To give all of our shareholders the opportunity to ask questions, I would like to ask you to limit your number of questions or comments to three at any one time. Questions that cannot be answered during the meeting will be answered afterwards. These questions and responses will be added to the minutes. We believe that this approach will ensure a constructive dialogue with all our shareholders, whether they participate in the meeting in person or in a virtual manner. Present here today with me on stage are the members of the Executive Board, Lard Friese, our CEO, and Matt Rider, the CFO. Seated with me on stage is Bieke de Bruyne, our Company Secretary. Furthermore, we have Jan Reinier Kleipool, Civil Law Notary of De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, is present here in the room in The Hague. Here. My fellow Supervisory Board members attend the meeting virtually through a virtual video connection. On the front row in the room, the following members of the Management Board are seated, Allegra van Hövell-Patrizi, Elisabetta Caldera, Astrid Jäkel, Onno van Klinken, and Bas NieuweWeme. The other Management Board members will follow the EGM through the live webcast. Please allow me to make some further general announcements. For those of you who are present here in person, please note that audio or visual recordings are not allowed throughout the building. If you would like to speak, please go to the nearest microphone, wait until you are given the opportunity to speak, and clearly state your name for the minutes. In case you have chosen to use your own mobile device to exercise your voting rights during the meeting, you can use the link to the Lumi webpage. Alternatively, you can use the voting device that you have obtained at the registration desk. I will briefly explain this voting process in a moment. Upon registration, you have received a voting card. This voting card will only be used if the voting webpage does not work due to technical failure. For those shareholders participating in a virtual manner, you should have been registered through the e-voting portal prior to the start of the meeting and have been directed automatically to the Lumi environment in which you can vote and submit questions through the chat. I establish the following. This meeting was convened in time in accordance with required formalities by placing the notice and agenda and shareholder circular on Aegon's corporate website on November 24, 2022. The EGM documentation has also been made available for the inspection at Aegon's head office in The Hague. The attendance list of this meeting is currently being drawn up. We come back to this later. The minutes of today's meetings will be kept in English by the company secretary. The draft minutes of this meeting will be available for comments on the website for the three months as of April 17, 2023. I wish you all a good and interesting meeting. Before we go to agenda item two, I will briefly explain the voting process. Here you can see how you can vote live via the app. The voting app displays the following options: for, against, withheld. After having voted, the display will show your vote. If you want to change your vote, you can do so until the voting is closed. For the shareholders in the room, your, you have questions about your voting app, please raise your hand and someone will assist you. The voting is already open and will remain open until the item, agenda item two has been discussed. We will now move to agenda item two, the approval of the proposed transaction. Lard Friese, Aegon CEO, will give a presentation on the rationale of the transaction to ensure our shareholders are adequately informed of the facts and circumstances relevant to vote on the proposed transaction. After his presentation, we will address your questions. Lard, the floor is yours. Thank you, Bill. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. On October 27, 2022, we announced the agreement to combine our Dutch pension, life, non-life insurance, banking, and mortgage origination activities with a.s.r. Upon completion of the transaction, we will receive a 29.99% stake in a.s.r. and EUR 2.2 billion in cash. This is a strategically and financially compelling transaction. By combining our Dutch business with a.s.r., we will create a leading Dutch insurance company that will be well-placed to serve its current and future customers. The transaction is a catalyst that accelerates our strategy to release capital from our mature businesses and reinvest it in markets where we are well-positioned for growth. We believe that the transaction will create value for our shareholders and all other stakeholders. We will benefit from substantial synergies through our stake in a.s.r., and we intend to use the majority of the cash proceeds to return capital to stockholders. In aggregate, we expect this to result in accretion of our free cash flow per share over time. Now at our Capital Markets Day in December 2020, we outlined how we wanted to transform Aegon in order to change our performance trajectory and achieve better results. Since then, we have increased the speed of decision-making, and we have delivered on our commitments. The improvements that we have made in our performance, together with the transaction with a.s.r., allow us to increase our payout ratio and rebase the targeted dividend per share over 2023 from around EUR 0.25-EUR 0.30. The rationale to combine our Dutch activities with a.s.r. is compelling. Combining our companies will benefit all stakeholders. Both Aegon and a.s.r. are deeply rooted in Dutch society and share a long and rich history. Customers and distribution partners of both companies will benefit from a competitive product offering and improved service levels. Employees of the combination will benefit from greater long-term career opportunities within a much larger and more diversified Dutch company. Also, the combination will be well-positioned to further extend its role in the Dutch insurance market in the field of sustainability and ESG and contribute to finding solutions to the main challenges society faces that have a clear relationship with the core activities of the new combination. This new combination will be the number 2 insurance company in the Netherlands with significant scale across different segments. It will have a leading position in the Dutch pension market. The combination is well-placed to capture opportunities from the upcoming pension reform, leveraging the expertise of Aegon The Netherlands. Combining the two companies will result in a strong player in the non-life space with leading positions in both the disability and property and casualty segments. This underscores that this is a highly complementary transaction. As this is an in-market consolidation, we expect significant revenue, cost, and capital synergies. Combining our businesses will lead to enhanced scale in the origination and servicing of Dutch mortgages and stronger distribution activities. What is more, the integration of the two close individual life portfolios onto one platform will enable these books to be run more efficiently. Finally, Aegon will bring to a.s.r. significant risk management capabilities and accelerate the implementation of a partial internal model for the combination, allowing for further capital synergies, reducing the amount of invested capital for a.s.r. As part of the transaction, we have entered into a long-term asset management contract with a.s.r. Aegon Asset Management will manage illiquid assets that are part of the combination's general account, the investments of Aegon Cappital, our premium pension institution, and a.s.r.'s mortgage funds. This agreement is earnings accretive for Aegon Asset Management and strengthens our position as a provider of fiduciary services, retirement, multi-asset and solutions, fixed income, and responsible investing. Upon closing of the transaction, we will become a large minority shareholder in a.s.r. with almost 30% of the shares. This strategic shareholding in a.s.r. enables us to participate in the benefits that the combination will bring. I'm allergic, and I'm afraid that these flowers are not helping. In addition, the proceeds amount to EUR 2.2 billion. Given our significant interest in the combination, we have agreed with a.s.r. on certain governance rights. We have the right to nominate two candidates for a.s.r. Supervisory Board, one independent and one non-independent member. I'm pleased that this morning, a.s.r.'s shareholders approved my appointment as non-independent member of their Supervisory Board with an affirmative vote on certain topics reflecting the size of Aegon's shareholding. Daniëlle Jansen Heijtmajer, who currently is the chair of Aegon, the Netherlands Supervisory Board, has been appointed as independent board member. Let me now tell you how we plan to deploy the EUR 2 billion of cash proceeds. Our intention is to return EUR 1.5 billion of capital to stockholders. We will maintain a strong balance sheet and plan to use up to EUR 700 million to reduce our leverage. Post the transaction, capital return, and deleveraging, we expect cash capital at the holding to be around the top end of our operating range of 0.5 billion to a 5 billion EUR. In the near term, we expect to maintain the cash capital at the holding in the upper half of the operating range. This will allow us to fund management actions to further improve our risk-return profile, as well as initiatives to drive additional sales growth with a focus on Transamerica, our business in the United States. We will remain disciplined in our management of capital and any surplus cash that is not used for value-added growth opportunities that will be returned to shareholders over time. This slide illustrates the impact of the transaction and the use of proceeds on our free cash flow per share. As you can see from the slides, we will replace the full ownership of our Dutch business with our strategic stake in a.s.r. upon completion of the transaction. This will result in a lower level of free cash flow. We plan to offset this by reducing our share count. Our free cash flow per share is expected to benefit over time from an increase in dividends from a.s.r. as synergies from the combination will emerge. In addition, our funding costs will decrease as we reduce our gross financial leverage. Our free cash flow per share will ultimately reflect the synergy value that is being created in the transaction. We expect the level of free cash flow will continue to comfortably cover our dividend commitments. Ladies and gentlemen, we have been delivering on our commitment to provide attractive capital distributions to our shareholders in the form of sustainable dividends and return of surplus capital. Since the Capital Markets Day in 2020, we have paid or announced EUR 2.5 billion in capital distributions to shareholders, or 39% of our market cap at that time. This includes the EUR 1.5 billion capital return that we have announced on October 27th, as well as the payment of a steadily increasing dividend since the end of 2020. The progress that we have made so far on transforming Aegon into a high-performing company provides us with confidence to increase our payout ratio and raise the targeted dividend by EUR 0.05 to around EUR 0.30 per share over 2023. I also wanna briefly touch on some of the IFRS impacts from this transaction. As previously announced, we expect the transaction to lead to a book loss between the difference, being the difference between the proceeds of the transaction and the accounting value of Aegon Nederland. We will record the majority thereof in the fourth quarter 2022 results, which will be published, I think, a couple of weeks from now in February. This is the result of the reduction of the carrying amount of non-current financial assets related to the transaction in accordance with the applicable accounting rules. Now, to be clear, this does not impact our solvency ratios and does not impact our ability to pay targeted dividends. This slide shows our delivery on the commitments that we have made to our stockholders. In less than two years, we have materially improved the performance trajectory of this company. We have done so by sharpening our strategic focus, by executing relentlessly on our operational improvement plan. By releasing capital from financial assets, by actively managing our risk and capital positions, and by investing capital in growth and growth opportunities. More work needs to be done to sustainably grow our business and become a leader in our chosen markets. The transaction with a.s.r. is a pivotal step in this respect, because not only does it create a leading Dutch insurance company, but it also brings increased focus and resources to better position the company overall for future growth. We will update you on our growth plans at the Capital Markets Day that we will hold in the second quarter of this year, 2023. The closing of the transaction that is before you today is subject to customary conditions, including regulatory and antitrust approvals. We are pleased that the Works Council consultation processes of both Aegon and a.s.r. have been completed. We are also engaging with our College of Supervisors, consisting of the regulators of our various subsidiaries, on the implications that the transaction may have for our group supervision. Regardless of the outcome of this engagement, we intend to maintain our head office in the Netherlands. Ladies and gentlemen, before taking your questions, I will wrap up. This transaction provides unique benefits to all our stakeholders. Customers, business partners, employees, and stockholders will benefit from the creation of a leader in the Dutch insurance market. We are excited about this transaction. Not only does it create value for our shareholders, it also strengthens our conviction in achieving our ambition to become a leader in our chosen markets outside of the Netherlands. As a final note, I wanna share my appreciation for the hard work and dedication of all colleagues to support our customers' needs, specifically our employees who are affected by the transaction with a.s.r. and who continue to work tirelessly to improve our performance despite the uncertainty that the transaction brings for them personally. It is thanks to the efforts of our employees that we are able to continue to improve our performance and to accelerate our strategy. Thank you. Bill, back to you. Thank you, Lard. Before addressing the questions, please note that I wanna give an update in terms of the attendance. In this meeting, there are 21 shareholders present. They represent, together with the shareholders who have voted through e-voting and via proxy voting, a total of 1 billion? 1,396,778,399 votes. This number represents 70.69% of the voting shares and of the issued and outstanding capital as of registration date for this meeting. We will now address your questions. I would like to ask shareholders who are participating virtually and who would like to ask live questions through the chat to enter those questions now, so we can address them immediately after having answered the questions from the shareholders here in the room. If feasible, please be so kind as to ask your questions in English. Questions can be asked in Dutch and will be simultaneously translated into English. We will now address the questions from the shareholders in the room. May I invite those of you who wish to speak to go to the nearest microphone? I already see a gentleman ready. Please be so kind as to clearly state your name for the minutes. To ensure we have an orderly discussion, please be so kind to restrict your question, restrict your questions to the subject on the agenda. Who would like to start? I have a gentleman at number one. Please, sir. Thank you, Mr. Voorzitter. Mr. President, I am Stevenson. I represent the Foundation of Legal Protection for Investors. I'll be asking my question in Dutch. Otherwise, I will run into problems with my constituents. First, let me congratulate you on the transaction. We believe it's a fine transaction. We think a bit further down the line because there's quite a bit of nice income and quite a few shares that could be sold. We're curious about what you plan to do with the income in the bank, and we believe that you would like to achieve the best possible return. We understand that in the Netherlands, you'll keep the Aegon branch open. Will you be investing in Transamerica? And will Aegon be renamed to Transamerica? We understand that you'll be keeping the asset manager. What about the head office? Do you plan to move something to Cedar Rapids? In the sense of concentration, we'd like to know what lies ahead there too. In what measure do you think there, you'll be able to gain something there? As for remuneration of the board, will that continue to be based on Dutch standards, or will U.S. standards be introduced? As for reporting, will that remain in euros? Will that be converted into U.S. dollars? What will the future be of the dividend? Will that remain in euros, or will that also switch to U.S. dollars? By now, we understand that your English branch will remain as is. Have you shelved the plans to divest this branch? Do you wish to retain this operation? Let's see, other questions. You expect to grow the cash flow through increased, dividend from your holding in a.s.r.. Are you counting your chickens before they hatch? In what measure will this deal strengthen debt deleveraging? The entire package of shares has been floated on the market for about six months. Perhaps this will impact the a.s.r. Share price. How do you expect to avert this? Those were our questions at this time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. We'll take them in a bit of order. All right. Lard, would you like to first address those? Maybe on the currency, that's something we could pass to the CFO, and I'll address the one on board remuneration. Yes. Mrs. Davidson, thank you very much for your questions. Nine questions in total. And Matt, I hope you were able to catch some of them. I will allocate some, if you don't mind, Mr. Chairman to you. First of all, what am I gonna do with the money? Yeah. Right? Big, big problem. I would say it's a great opportunity. First of all, we are receiving roughly EUR 2.2 billion in cash, we're gonna get 29.99% stock in a.s.r. We have disclosed that we will buy back the number of shares that Aegon has in the market, we're gonna spend EUR 1.5 billion on that to reduce the number of shares that Aegon has in the market. Secondly, we have announced that over time, we want to delever the group debt structure up to EUR 700 million. We have also financial flexibility in the cash buffer at the holding company. We hold a cash buffer at the holding company that we, in general, keep between half a billion and EUR 1.5 billion. We are operating at the high end of that buffer after we've done the actions that I've just mentioned. This allows us financial flexibility to invest. We want to invest in in-force management actions in the U.S. We have done a number of them over the last years to improve the overall profile of our U.S. business, the risk profile, the predictability of their cash flows, the predictability of their results. We think that we have opportunity to use to invest, let's say, cash in value creating in-force management actions, and we're gonna use that part of the money for that as well. We also wanna invest in growth, in growth opportunities to grow the company. The priority of that will be in the U.S. with Transamerica, where U.S. is a massive market. There is a lot of dynamic there that allows us to tap into certain growth, selected growth areas that we wanna grow in and then add more capital to invest in growth. Also, we have a stated strategy that we wanna grow in the chosen core markets, which are not only the U.S., they're also the U.K., for instance, and I'll get to that in a second, or China or Brazil or Spain and Portugal. With the financial flexibility that we will have, that's the general direction that we want to take the group. In the second quarter of 2023, we will give a Capital Markets Day in which we will update you and all your fellow stockholders about the plans that we have in more detail on what we wish to accomplish. By the way, the same goes, I didn't list Bas's business, our global Aegon Asset Management business, but also that is a business we aim to invest in and grow. The second question you had is, are we going to invest in Transamerica? The answer is yes. Are we going to rename Aegon to Transamerica? We have no plans for that. We have no plans for that. We have disclosed, and I've, I think, reconfirmed that today, that we aim to keep our head office in the Netherlands. Consolidation in the U.S., is that an opportunity? Potentially, let's see. We are mainly focused on improving our business, and there's a lot of work that we need to do to ensure that organically we improve our business and grow profitably. The third question was about remuneration of the board. Is that gonna be American style or European style or Dutch style or whatever style you wish to have it? We have a current remuneration policy in place, and that has not changed. That is what I can say about that. It's been approved, I think, at the last or the pre-last EGM, and as you know, it needs to be regularly approved in every four years. Two questions for my good friend, Matt Rider, our CFO, is our reporting in euros are we gonna move to dollars? Dividends, are gonna be paid in euros or in US dollars? Would you please take those? Yes. The transaction itself doesn't change our functional currency, so you can still expect to receive a dividend in euros, and everything goes on really as before. Okay. Reporting as well. Your next question, are we now gonna skip our plans, you said, to or postpone our plans to divest the U.K.? We never had plans to divest the U.K. Oh. To the contrary, the U.K. is one of our core markets. When I came in in 2020, we did an analysis strategic review. At the Capital Markets Day in December of that year, we've announced that our chosen markets and businesses are the Netherlands, the U.S., the U.K., the growth markets, China, Brazil, and the Iberian Peninsula, so Spain and Portugal, and our global asset management business. The U.K. is a core market for us. We aim to grow it further and expand our presence there, through, you know, through the work that we do. Your question number seven was, you know, are you not a bit too quick in counting with a increase of your free cash flow because the work still needs to be done? You are right? The work indeed has to be done because the synergies will only emerge after the transaction is closed and after Jos Baeten and his team are going to integrate the business with our colleagues of Aegon Nederland. The integration synergies will then emerge over time. Together with lowering of the group debt, which will reduce our debt cost, that will lead in the end to our expectation to a higher free cash flow per share than before the transaction. Question number eight, are you going to lower the group debt? The answer is we've announced that up to EUR 700 million, we are going to lower the debt. Your final question was, what about your share holding of 30% or 29.99% in a.s.r.? Will that now be an overhang for the stock, and how are you gonna deal with that? Well, let me be clear. The stake that we are going to receive in a.s.r. of 29.9%, nearly 30%, is a strategic stake with an indefinite timeframe. We have no plans to divest that. I think those were the nine questions. I would just add, you mentioned the U.K. Our last board meeting in December was actually took place in the U.K. That is certainly consistent with what the CEO mentioned. Okay. Well, one other thing comes to mind. Let me see. That concerns the closing. Second quarter at 2023, but a.s.r. was in July. If you don't mind, Chairman. The closing process is a process that we aim to have as much under our control, but we're not fully in control because we need the approvals of the antitrust authority, the ACM, approvals for the transaction of DNB, the AFM, because there's a bank involved also, the ECB will be involved here, and they have to make up their own minds. Now there are all kinds of timelines for that, but we basically have said that it cannot be done before. We do not expect it to be closed before the start of the second quarter, and the start of the second quarter is July first. We do not expect it to close before. Okay. Thank you. There was a question here. Number two. Thank you very much, Mr. Connelly. Thank you, Mr. Friese, for giving out the explanation, on top of. I'm sorry. Could you just identify who you are? My name is Erwin Evertse. I represent the Dutch Shareholders' Association, we also represent European investors, hence no problem in approaching you in English. We represent about 30,000 members, also the 2 million Dutch individual shareholders. Thank you for the explanation and the presentation. How refreshing to have an in-person meeting. We very much appreciate that, we count on your continuous support to help in-person meetings also in future in the new situation. Of course, facilitate remote participation, this is very important for us shareholders. The most important issue, our appreciation for the deal, the economic rationale. I won't repeat what I've said at a.s.r. this morning. Those who are really interested, of course, follow the live stream. The first half of the friendly match was promising. However, as Mr. Frieser already has proved and so visibly, the flowers will only be given to you after the match. Hence, we are here, of course, for a reason. First to share our wholehearted compliments for all those here around the table, but also those others and engaged in preparing the deal, as well as those employees that would follow Aegon Nederland to Utrecht or also here, but have the head office there, and in the warm, welcoming hands of a.s.r. We've been there this morning, and it's a good functioning company with good functioning general meetings, with a clear strategy, and also a thorough interaction between management, employees and their representatives, which is, I think, for everyone here involved, very important. A question I have, the asset management division that will stay with Aegon, was any consideration given to sell or allow a.s.r. to continue with the asset management division they had? Is this division too much integrated with other Aegon activities? Do you envisage any benefits of scale, any synergies which have not been explained yet? What has been the consideration for the swap, meaning that the illiquid equity would go to Aegon, and part of the mortgage portfolio, and a.s.r. will be provided with the bond portfolio. How, as they call it, earnings accretive is this swap, is this beneficial for Aegon? Is it correct that the swap is only valid for a period limited to 10 years? What happens after that period of 10 years? On the shareholder notification, it states that Aegon is engaging with its College of Supervisors on the implications for group supervision upon closing. Can Aegon provide a status update? What would be the preferred lead supervisor for Aegon? Would it be the U.S. regulator? Please explain. Exposed, ultimate question I have. Will Aegon be ready with its transformation as included in its strategy after the transaction? Do you envisage more exits in other countries? We would have expected, sir, to be honest, the relatively minor U.K. activities to be a candidate for exit. However, I've heard this morning or this afternoon, sorry, clearly that the U.K. will continue to be a chosen growth market and the core markets for Aegon. A final word on behalf of the typically Dutch shareholders. Please be considerate and remain in the Netherlands as Aegon, which as you confirmed, is your intention. We have a very solid financial sector. We have a very solid ecosystem here in the Netherlands. Please remain part of that and continue to support this, and also in its strength, which is very important for our national economy. Thank you. Thank you. I think those questions are for you, Lard. Thank you very much. Yes. Mr. Evertse, thank you very much for your questions. First of all, thank you for your compliments, and especially your compliments to our employees who First of all, our employees in the Netherlands have made it possible through the very hard work that they have done over the last years to transform and improve the business so that we in fact were in a position to start these discussions with a.s.r. and create this company together. Your compliments, especially in that direction is something that I will pass on to them through their CEO, by the way, Allegra Patrizi. I thank you very much for that. Secondly, your considerations about the asset management business. Your question about the asset management business. No, we've never considered to sell our asset manager. Our asset management business is core to our group. What we have tried to do in, and I think succeeded to do in this transaction is to strengthen our asset management business in those strategies, investment strategies that our asset management business wants to expand. Those are in the area of multi-asset, in fiduciary, in retirement solutions, in illiquids, in mortgages, et cetera. We were able to negotiate that with a.s.r., where the thinking that we had was, okay, you have an asset management business, Jos. We have an asset management business. Let's both use this opportunity to strengthen both. Where Jos and a.s.r. and his, and their business are more focused on liquid assets, through this acquisition, they will expand and create more scale. Through this acquisition, because, you know, we've agreed to move those assets that are illiquid or that are part of the strategy I just mentioned, plus the mortgage origination, and the mortgage funds of a.s.r., they move to the management of Aegon Asset Management and strengthens Aegon Asset Management in the fields that we aim to expand further. This was how we thought about it. Financially, what this means is that for us, for Aegon Asset Management, it is accretive in revenues. Meaning that if you compare the situation before or after this transaction, the revenues increase. That's I think, very good. The 10-year relationship, we've agreed 10 years that our asset manager, Aegon Asset Management, will be a strategic partner for the combined company. What happens after those 10 years? Quite frankly, we are not bound by a contract at that point to be a strategic partner. Let's wait and see what happens over time as the two companies will work closely together. One thing I do wanna mention on the specifically for mortgages, is that we agreed that the mortgage origination partnership will also be for 10 years, but thereafter, the mortgages that have been accumulated will run off indefinitely and will be managed indefinitely over time by our Aegon Asset Management. Your second point was an update, a request for an update on group supervision. The background of this is the following: when this transaction completes, we do not have any longer, in this jurisdiction, licensed insurance activities as Aegon N.V. DNB is currently our group regulator. The question is: if you have no licensed activities any longer, who will become your group regulator? This is not something that we choose. I mean, the company cannot choose, pick and choose and say, "What's our regulator? Who's our regulator?" The College of Supervisors, which is basically all the supervisors that we are supervising our companies, the US supervisor, the Bermuda supervisor from our business of TOB, the Spanish supervisor, other supervisors, they are together in a college, a so-called College of Supervisors, which is chaired by DNB. We are in discussions with them on what is the most appropriate group supervision to ensure that our group maintains to be appropriately supervised, taking into account that the composition of our group, of course, is changing. We are still in those discussions. They will take time, and they are constructive, and we will await the outcome of those discussions and then announce the results of those at the time that it is appropriate. At this point in time, we have active discussions, but we have not completed those. Are you done with your transformation after a.s.r.? Oh, no. Oh, no. It's just the next step. We aim to build leading franchises in the chosen markets that I listed earlier and chosen businesses. We think there's a lot of opportunity with this business, with our company, and while the transaction with a.s.r. marks a very important step, thereafter, many more things need to happen, and it will take... it's a long journey ahead to transform this group to a sustainably strong and well-positioned group. Thank you for your final point, which is about your plea to consider to remain in the Netherlands. As I mentioned and confirmed today, that we intend to maintain our headquarters of Aegon N.V. in the Netherlands. Good. Good. Thank you. We have another question. Number 1, please. Thank you. My name is Frank Johnson. I'm from the biggest labor union in the Netherlands especially for you to know, Mr. Connelly. Thank you. The FNV. I will make a statement in Dutch. Please. Because of our members and my own board. As I said, the FNV is the biggest labor union in the Netherlands. We're not only involved in employment conditions, working conditions, but we're also a shareholder of Aegon, just as we are shareholders of a.s.r. As a shareholder, we consider ESG policy to be very important, and transparency is also very important, i.e., which information do you share with your stakeholders, including your shareholders. That information has prompted a number of questions. Also, since we are involved in employment conditions consultation, I'd like to make this following statement. Everything I say is based on the information that you have shared with shareholders or have published in as public information in newspapers, etc. A merger like this one is subject to the Dutch merger rules. These merger rules imply that trade unions need to be involved at an early stage so that they can still have an impact on the results of the merger. The works councils can take into account the opinion of trade unions. For further details, I'd like to refer you to Article 4, Sections six and seven of the merger rules of the SER. On the basis of the information provided and the explanation, it has become apparent that the Works Council of a.s.r. on 21 October 2022 issued a positive opinion. The press release on the merger was issued on 27 October. This leads to the fact also because you are selling part of your own company to a.s.r. This prompts a number of questions. Why doesn't the information of Aegon to shareholders, stipulate that the SER merger rules are applicable? This automatically leads to the following question, when were the trade unions involved in the discussions? More specifically, as I said, the press release of a.s.r. makes it clear that there was a positive opinion issued by the Works Council regarding a.s.r.. My question is, in which measure? I am assuming that you support your ESG policy and you consider it important to comply with your ESG policy. Did Aegon check whether a.s.r., in this case, was complying with the merger, code of conduct or the merger rules? Aegon's actions, how does that relate to your own ESG policy and your own governance? In addition, I have a number of other questions. You have just pointed out that it is your intention to continue operations in the Netherlands, and intention is by no means a guarantee. Now, I know that several workers are worried as to whether Aegon will remain in the Netherlands in the short term and long term. Given that context, I'd like to ask you whether any commitments were made to the Works Council and/or the workforce with respect to Aegon staying in the Netherlands. Finally, you already pointed out that EUR 1.5 billion will be paid out in dividend to shareholders or in cash. You have also pointed out that your employees have contributed to this success, that this success would not have been possible without your employees. In which measure are these employees benefiting from this deal, financially speaking? At the end of the day, they were the ones who contributed to the realization of this money and this action. Those are my questions. Thank you. Lard? Mr. Johnson, thank you very much for your questions. First of all, we have a tradition that we hold constructive and good relationships with our partners, our labor market partners, so our trade unions, etc. It's not only in the Netherlands, but also in the other markets where we operate. Obviously, we find the adherence to rules and regulations that are available in many dimensions very important, and we adhere to those, including the SER Fusiegedragsregels. The fact that we have not mentioned that specifically, point taken. However, there are many other rules and regulations that we need to observe in this entire process which we also have not completely listed in our notification. You know, point taken, but again, we adhere to all rules and regulations that we need to deal with when it comes to a transaction like this, including the SER Fusiegedragsregels. When it comes to the at what time do you inform and start the process, for instance, of an advice proceeding with the Works Council, etc. We have had to make a trade-off between a number of important things that we need to adhere to as a company. We are listed at two stock exchanges, at Euronext in Amsterdam and the New York Stock Exchange in New York. We also need to observe the market abuse regulations, which are very strict and confidentiality, which in these large transactions is not that easy to maintain, is absolutely crucial. We felt that it is absolutely crucial to do that and therefore to limit as much as we can the number of people in the know and involved. So really on a need to know basis and not a nice to know basis, did we include people with that confidential information. Because it's something that we really want to observe the Market Abuse Regulation. We have informed your union the morning of the announcement. The Works Council was slightly earlier informed under Article 20 and have started the proceedings on advice which was not given on the 21st of October in our case. It was much later after the transaction was announced. It was a number of weeks later. That's the reason I mentioned a.s.r. and not Aegon. Correct. Correct. You are right. You are right. Not us, but that's... We have in the meantime, and I find that the most important thing actually, we have had meetings with your union and with the other unions. I think in December, the meetings have taken place and started, and we believe there is ample opportunity until the completion of the transaction to deepen our engagement and discussions, so that, you know, we can take all views into account. Mm-hmm. As you know, the advice has been given only on one element, which is the transaction itself, but all the integration steps that need to happen are, you know, advice is still needed on those. We believe that we have observed our adherence to all rules and regulations in this process. We find those very important to adhere to. About the head office in the Netherlands and whether we have given assurances, well, we've been clear in our press release that we intend to be here. Why? Because we don't forget that a large stake in a.s.r., and we still need to do all this. Number two, we have asset management activities that will stay in the Netherlands. Our, our HQ will remain here. That's our intention, we expressed that both in a press release, and I confirmed that again today. That's the extent to which we have had our communications, both internally with all stakeholders and externally. The EUR 1.5 billion, why we are re-using that, this is the question of what do you do with the overall financial flexibility of the group? Given the fact that we are moving a business and a balance sheet and a capital position to another listed company, we will get a lot of cash in return. How do you deal with the proceeds? I've given you earlier in this meeting an exposé on how we are gonna allocate that, and part of that is the EUR 1.5 billion buyback that we're gonna do. Why? To make sure that all the metrics that are very important, like earnings per share, like dividend per share, like all these metrics are held in an appropriate manner because you're a smaller company and therefore you need to reduce the share count. We've decided to do that in the form of a buyback, EUR 1.5 billion. But still, we have a lot of financial flexibility to invest, and I've given this on the back of Mr. Stevens's question, I think, some examples of how we think about that. Further detail will be given at the Capital Markets Day in the second quarter. The final point you made is our employees. Our employees have, like all employees in the group, are working every day very hard to service their customers, to grow the company, and to ensure that Aegon continues to improve and to grow. We have employment benefits in place which are attractive. We are an attractive employer, financially and non-financially, in the way that we develop people, that we offer career opportunities, an exciting workplace, an inclusive workplace, and that we have attractive financial terms where what people are, you know, for the jobs that people have and how they are being paid, and we have social plans in place to ensure that we deal with any potential redundancy, et cetera. Regularly with our trade unions and with our trade partners like yourselves, we negotiate new terms, et cetera, over time, and not only here, but also in other markets. With that, I think that we have an adequate and good and attractive financial compensation for all the work that our staff is doing. I would just add that from the supervisory board's perspective, this is a process of negotiation that took place with a.s.r. for many months, and their supervisory board did meet very regularly in terms of providing our fiduciary role. One of the top points of attention from the supervisory board was consistently the ensuring that we fulfill all our commitments to all our stakeholders and particularly the employees. That was a top point of attention, just so you know. I'm sorry, did you want to make a final comment? Yeah, I wanted to make two comments, if it's possible. Sure. First of all, I'm not going to say anything about the current wages, etc, etc. What I mean is that when you sell the company, you get a lot of money. That is not part of the regular negotiation. In our opinion, not only the shareholders should benefit from a amount of money like this, also employees should benefit because they made it possible. They made the value possible, and stakeholders, shareholders have to remind that. Regarding what you said about the SER Fusiegedragsregels. The SER Fusiegedragsregels, I do it in Dutch because- The merger rules contain a clause on confidentiality. Both Aegon and a.s.r. can require confidentiality from trade unions. Ordinarily, we will observe that confidentiality. As soon as you say that you have taken a decision or a.s.r. has taken a decision and you use the argument confidentiality, I would say yes, the rules in place in the Netherlands imply confidentiality. In that respect, I don't really see what the problem is. Additionally, on this point, my question had to do with the takeover and not really your position, because you quite rightly said that you went through the process with the works council, and when you announced it, there was no positive opinion yet, that was the case at a.s.r.. ESG also implies governance, you have to play by the rules of the game. You haven't answered my question. How do you feel about the fact that another company that you're doing business with possibly might not have complied and abided by the rules? The is on the last point, I'm not gonna comment on behalf of another company. I was in the meeting like you were this morning, and I think Mr. Baaten has given on the similar question, I think his response, and I think it's appropriate for him to do that, and I think his response was clear to you, I think. That's number one. Number two, when it comes to the other point that you were raising, which was about confidentiality. It's not enough that that's... That's where we need to make trade-offs. Our requirement, according to the Market Abuse Regulation, is not only that we have an NDA in place, so a non-disclosure agreement with somebody in place, or that somebody else agrees in writing even that they will be silent and they will be confidential about it. That's not enough. We need to ensure that we can maintain that confidentiality. The more people that are in the know, the simply, the more chance you have that things start to leak. We're all humans, we can all leak stuff somewhere, etc, and we need to make trade-offs. We are quite strict in those trade-offs to make sure that the confidentiality remains intact. I'm quite proud actually that for such a large and complicated transaction that has been negotiated for a pretty long period of time, we were able to maintain that confidentiality until the very moment that it was announced. Okay. One last remark regarding the confidentiality. I understand the market rules, and I can tell you here that we are used to have more in power than confidentiality. It's not only the SER Fusiegedragsregels. If a company asks us as a labor union, "Can you arrange the confidentiality?" We can arrange it, but we never get upfront the question. Duly noted. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Please. Good afternoon. My name is Alexander van der Graaf. I'm a private investor. My first question concerns the main countries that Aegon has operations in. Aegon, since Mr. Friese is CEO, has communicated quite emphatically that Aegon is mainly concentrating on three countries, three market-- core markets, the Netherlands, U.K., and the U.S. You just said so. That was your narrative. Those are the key markets for Aegon. Operations in other countries could be sold. Aegon is mainly concentrating on the Netherlands, U.K., and U.S. Never, ever have you hinted that operations in one of these three countries would qualify for any sale. You always emphasized in annual reports and in presentations during shareholders' meetings that the three key markets for Aegon were the Netherlands, U.K, and the USA. The sale of Aegon Nederland, the way I see it, does not tally with this vision that you conveyed. I was absolutely gobsmacked when I heard about Aegon selling the Dutch operations in the Netherlands, and the share price increased. That was a good thing, but we have to put it into perspective because I don't think it's really that perspective that it's that wonderful. The stock exchange always looks forward. I don't know whether this was actually worth it. The share price did increase, but if the share price is very low, then the percentage wise increase may seem impressive. It's not very much. Even if we would add another EUR 2, the share price, as far as I'm concerned, is at a historically low level. Is this truly something that Aegon really needs to sell off one of your key markets? If we look further back, we see that the share price is still low. There's a positive effect. If you look at the response, apparently investors don't really see this as a big success, a really good thing. Should we really go ahead with it? It's like I'm in the casino and all of a sudden I have won a prize of EUR 200 instead of the jackpot. Aegon is traditionally and originally a Dutch company and is a well-rooted brand name. Are we gonna chuck that over the fence? What are the operations that will remain in the Netherlands, and how long will that even remain the case? Aegon is selling its operations in the Netherlands, one of the key markets. Aegon is acting contrary to what Aegon has emphatically said over the past few months. How does this tally with what you said? Please explain. I'd like to have a more detailed explanation for this. My second question is the share in a.s.r. I don't know about that. Aegon acquires 29.39% in a.s.r. As far as I know, you have to make a bid if you want to acquire more than 30%. Imagining that a.s.r. starts buying back its own shares and canceling shares, so that the share is over the 30%, then what? Your share would increase because shares are being bought back and canceled. Would you then have to or be obligated to make an offer to make a bid? If you don't want to do that, would you be forced to sell shares then perhaps even at a lower share price at that point in time? My third question, and my last question is, what Aegon intends to do now? You are now saying that Aegon is going to concentrate on certain countries, how much value should we attach to that? I'm really wondering what Aegon is intending to do in the longer term. What is the strategy? Are you gonna strip the entire company? When are you going to sell off the U.K.? When are you gonna sell off the U.S.A.? Does Aegon really intend to leave its head office in the Netherlands? You say you won't leave the head office in the Netherlands, that's what you say today. What about future? What about plans that can change? Will Aegon really remain listed at the stock exchange in the Netherlands? Does Aegon have a consistent strategy? What can we expect, can we really rely on what you say? Over to you. Thank you very much, Mr. Van der Graaf, for your thoughtful questions. I will take them one by one and start with the rationale. Our strategy is and remains to be, to build leading businesses in the markets that we have chosen, which is the US, the UK, the Netherlands, and then Spain and Portugal, Iberia, China, Brazil, and the global asset management business. All other businesses that we still have are, either we've sold them or divested them, or we are running them very tight capital, so they don't consume a lot of capital. That's our strategy. I've announced that at the December Capital Markets Day in 2020, and that is, and will continue to be our strategy. The question is, but how does this fit in? I understand that. The question that we've asked ourselves is, if we look at our Dutch business, what is the status of the Dutch business? What is the underlying dynamics that we see in the Netherlands? And what is the best way to strengthen that business, grow it over time, and create value? And we've done a lot of work on that. And we had discussions in our board, with our supervisor board multiple times on the various options that we would have. We landed on the deal that is on the table today, the transaction with a.s.r. Because what we are doing is we are building a leading franchise in the Netherlands. By combining our business with a.s.r., we are building a champion in the Netherlands. a.s.r. is a champion then. It's a.s.r. Of which we own 30%. 29.99. Right. I'll get to that point later. Of which one we own 30%. If you look at Aegon Nederland stand alone, it is a business which has a strength in pensions, especially contemporary pensions, where it is a market-leading business. It is a market-leading business in mortgage origination, in origination and servicing. When it comes to property and casualty, it's a very small player. When it comes to disability, it's the smallest player. When it comes to other, it's small. Then there is a big, big balance sheet, a big closed block with no new sales of individual life insurance business, which is every day, every morning you wake up a little smaller because it doesn't grow. There's no sales anymore. No. We said, you know, we can try to pursue a niche strategy, but there is a unique opportunity in front of us that allows to build a champion business where we will become together, the number one in pensions, the number one in disability and pensions. The number two overall, the number three in property and casualty, overall. Which for our employees will provide much better career paths, which can benefit from massive amount of synergies that are attractive in terms of value creation for stockholders. It will be a sustainably strong powerhouse business. We said, "I'm gonna talk to Jos Baartman and see what we can do." We wanted to work on a deal structure that allowed us two things. One, that we maintain an interest, a sizable interest, 29.99% in this case, 30% of the combination. It releases a lot of additional financial funds that allow us to invest also in the other core markets to build leading franchises there. I would argue it is very consistent from that perspective with the strategy that we have. Let's not forget, our involvement doesn't stop. This morning at the a.s.r. meeting, I've been voted in together with Daniëlle Jansen Heijtmajer, who is the current chair of Aegon Nederland, in their board. We have arranged a relationship agreement with certain rights to ensure that, you know, our large stake, massive financial stake that we're gonna have in the company is there. Why? We wanna be involved and remain to be involved to ensure that the integration, the creation of this champion truly takes place. That's one thing. That's why we think the rationale is a unique opportunity and very compelling. The remaining activities in the Netherlands will be the asset management activities, and of course, the corporate center, the head office of Aegon N.V. globally, that will remain to be in the Netherlands, as I've said. Even over 10 year? You know, I have no plans other than this. Okay. 10 years from now, no idea. This group is in transformation. There was a question, you know, is this Mr. Davis asked a question, okay, after a.s.r., is that it? No. We will continue to transform this group and, you know, we need to. I'm not gonna speculate on, let's say, the future. I can only deal with what I know. What I know is that we're gonna maintain the headquarters in the Netherlands. When it comes to the other plans, I think I've mentioned it in response to an earlier question. At the Capital Markets Day in the 2nd quarter of this year, we're gonna give you much more disclosure on the next leg of our journey. The general gist of it is that we aim in the markets that we have defined to invest and to build growing, healthy, strong, leading franchises over time. Your question about how do you maintain, you know, this. It is indeed true. You're completely correct. If there is a legislation in the Netherlands that says that if you own 30% of the company, you need to do a mandatory public offer on the entire company shares. That is not what we want. Mm-hmm. It's not what we want. We need to make su... That's why it's 29.99%. Yes. That's exactly what it is. if a.s.r. is gonna do a buybacks, if they would do that, we would indeed need to manage below that 30%- Right. -threshold. Yes, that will likely mean to divest some stock to make sure that we maintain below that 30% threshold, because we have no appetite to get into that, into that, 30% point. 29.99% is the maximum, that we aim. Yep. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Any other question? Yes, in the back. We will remain listed at Euronext and New York, and New York Stock Exchange. I'm Mr. Dekker. I'm from Utrecht, and I'm speaking exclusively on my own behalf. About page 14. Looking at regulatory conditions to transaction, we can read, "We need, at least a.s.r. needs, various declarations of no objection from the Dutch Central Bank. Mm-hmm. Now, it's my experience that the Nederlandsche Bank is a rather slow operating bank, giving permission for takeovers. I doubt whether it, whether it will be the 1st of July or before that date. Do you have any feelings about the progression in all steps that are needed to satisfy the Nederlandsche Bank? The second is the declaration of no objection regarding to ABN Bank, but that's not that important, I presume. In my opinion, a) could be rather complex. Second is more my opinion than a question. A match of cultures is essential in integrating the employees, and I do hope you do use a lot of financial means for this task. If there are differences in cultures, you can have, problems with it for years and years. The third question, will be, with any other business. Thank you, Mr. Dekker. On the regulatory side first, it's not only the central bank that we need a or a declaration of no objection from. The following regulators are involved here. We have the DNB, to your point. For the bank, we need ECB DNOs. The Dutch Central Bank is playing a very important role in that, in advising the ECB of their opinion there, but still it's ECB. We have the ACM, which is the antitrust regulator, which needs to provide its clearance, and we need the AFM because there's asset management elements involved, and they are the regulator for that, also to provide their regulatory approvals. There's a number of regulatory approvals that we will need to obtain. That's work in progress. It's simply work in process. This is a complex transaction. This is not an easy thing. This is a very large transaction. We are supporting a.s.r. in the filings that need to take place in an appropriate manner to make sure that with all those regulators, that they have all the material they need to arrive to their own considerations and their own views in this. That's why we believe that closing of this transaction should not be anticipated before July first or before the third quarter of this year. Your point about the cultures and how important that is, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. Actually, it was a very important part of the considerations that we had internally, that we said, "Look, if we combine with a.s.r. Would it work? Would it work? Now I know Jos Baeten, I think for 30 years. We grew up in this industry, and during the discussions that we had together on this, we had many discussions around this topic as well. a.s.r. has been very successfully created after the financial crisis in the form of an IPO, a public offering that they did, and they built their own identity. They have a deep commitment to ESG, and to the wider Dutch society, the same as our business has in the Netherlands, which is a deep commitment to Dutch society and has long Dutch old Dutch roots and a strong commitment to ESG. You know, we did a match on that. We thought, "Where is the issues around this," et cetera. We felt actually very comfortable with that. That while every integration will come with its challenges, that this is something that is manageable. It is a risk that you're rightly pointing out, and it is taken into account. I have no doubt that under Jos Baeten's leadership, who's a very experienced CEO, and we're very happy to see that he's been appointed for another term, and his team, that they will do the integration, creating that strong combined culture over time in a thoughtful manner. Good. Thank you. Any other question? Good. Just double-checking in the back. Okay. If there are no further questions from the shareholders in the room, I would like to ask the moderator if there are any live questions submitted through the chat. Nope. Nope. We have confirmation that is not the case. Thank you for your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, as mentioned, prior to extraordinary general meeting, our shareholders have been enabled to cast their votes either by granting a proxy or by using the e-voting system. Furthermore, the option to vote live during the meeting was enabled. Ladies and gentlemen, within a few minutes, we will close the voting. Please submit your votes now if you have not already done so. Does anyone need assistance? Does anybody need technical assistance? Yeah. Hmm? We're good. We're good? Okay. The voting is now closed. Within a few moments, we will show the voting results for the proposed transactions. The proposed transaction. Vike, are you ready? Yeah. Okay. Vike, could you please read out the voting results for the proposed transaction? I can. With respect to the approval of the transaction, 99.95% has voted in favor of the resolution, 0.05% against. Thank you, Vike. I now establish that the meeting has voted in favor of the transaction. We would like to thank all shareholders for supporting this transaction. Ladies and gentlemen, this almost concludes the Aegon's extraordinary general meeting of shareholders. Before I close this meeting, I have a couple announcements to make. Some drinks will be served outside this room, the hall, where we will look forward to engaging with you in further conversations. If you have used a voting device from us, please make sure you return the device at the exit of this room. This also applies to the headset if you have already used one. If there are no further questions for this meeting... I'm sorry, in the back? I'm Mr. Dekker, and I would like to make a statement at any other business. I'm going to ask this question in Dutch because my English is not up to the task. In insurance companies, the triad of assets, liabilities, and. Actuarial interest is essential. All insurers, generally speaking, maintain a higher actuarial interest than pension funds which encountered intriguing problems in that respect. What I'm wondering is whether that actuarial interest might have a significant negative impact on the a.s.r. transaction. I don't expect it will. Since the previous questions were fairly general, the second question concerns the allocation of means. Now and again, I am concerned about the pension funds ensuring parallel assets and liabilities which may lead to risks for insurance companies because they enjoy the facility of a slightly elevated actuarial interest, so that if the assets decrease in terms of actual interest. We saw that in the U.S., interest rates soared, and that impacted bonds. We see that the share markets are quite turbulent. Wouldn't it be wise if, since the transaction may take some time, shouldn't you make some provisions in reservations regarding the allocation because you might need your financing available? This is based on my own view. I consider this transaction to be an important step to shorten the foundation of Aegon, because sometimes I worry about everything that could happen in Transamerica, and I've seen a few transactions that do appear to have shortened that front line. You appear to be shortening the front line at Aegon. How do you view the trends that exist and arose from synergies between unpredictable banks? That's my view. What do you think if that were to continue both on the stock markets, because stock markets are suffering by soaring interest rates, especially the transactions at the absolute level because... Of course, you're much younger than I am, but we have both seen very different interest rates. I'm not so concerned about how high the interest rate is, but I am worried about the transaction which could seriously impact assets. Jason? Thank you for your quite important question, I think. First of all, asset liability management at an insurance company is the beating heart of the organization. I can say that interest rate matching that you referenced, so the matching of the assets and the liabilities, and let's say the interest that we pay on the liabos is closely managed. We've been very successful, I think, over the past year in very turbulent markets in maintaining the solvency ratios of our insurance companies and maintaining that very close match. I would say we've been extraordinarily successful in maintaining that thanks to the actuarial talent, I think, that we have across the industry, but specifically in Aegon the Netherlands. I think that, a.s.r. is going to benefit, very strongly from bringing our actuaries over to be able to maintain that kind of close matching. Thanks. Good. Thank you. Any final questions before I close? Good. Thank you all for your questions, for your contribution. I will move to closing of the meeting. On behalf of the executive board and the supervisory board, I would like to thank you all very much for your support and your active participation prior and during the meeting. I look forward to seeing you all again on May 25 at our annual general meeting of shareholders. I now close this meeting. Thank you.