Earnings call transcript: AXA reports strong Q1 2025 revenue growth

Published 07/05/2025, 09:04
 Earnings call transcript: AXA reports strong Q1 2025 revenue growth

AXA reported a robust performance for the first quarter of 2025, with total revenues climbing by 7% to €37 billion. The company’s diversified business model and strong market position contributed to these results. As a prominent player in the insurance industry, AXA has maintained dividend payments for an impressive 46 consecutive years, demonstrating consistent shareholder returns. The stock saw a slight decline of 0.53% following the announcement, closing at €40.69.

According to InvestingPro analysis, AXA currently shows a FAIR financial health score, supported by strong fundamentals and market position. Discover 8 more exclusive ProTips and comprehensive financial analysis with an InvestingPro subscription.

Key Takeaways

  • AXA’s revenues increased by 7% to €37 billion.
  • The Solvency II ratio decreased slightly to 213%.
  • Strong growth was observed in Personal Lines and Unit Linked sales.
  • The stock price fell by 0.53% after the earnings release.

Company Performance

AXA’s performance in Q1 2025 was marked by substantial growth across its core segments, including Property & Casualty (P&C), Life and Savings, and Health. The company highlighted its ability to maintain a robust balance sheet with a Solvency II ratio of 213%, despite a slight decline from the previous year-end. AXA’s diversified business model continues to mitigate financial market exposure, supporting its competitive position in Europe and beyond.

Financial Highlights

  • Revenue: €37 billion, up 7% year-over-year
  • Solvency II ratio: 213%, down 3 points from year-end 2024
  • Personal Lines growth: 7%, with strong performance in motor and non-motor segments
  • Unit Linked sales: up 16%, driven by strong demand in France

Outlook & Guidance

AXA remains confident in achieving its annual targets, with expectations of continued positive momentum from 2024. The company is focusing on margin expansion in its Health and Personal Lines segments and is preparing for potential macroeconomic shifts that could impact pricing dynamics.

Executive Commentary

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, emphasized the company’s solid start to the year, stating, "We are off to a good start this year, consistently with our plan." He also highlighted the strength of AXA’s balance sheet, noting, "Our balance sheet is strong and resilient, which is a key asset these days."

Risks and Challenges

  • Potential macroeconomic shifts could impact pricing dynamics.
  • The Solvency II ratio decrease may raise concerns about financial stability.
  • Competitive pressures in the European markets could affect growth.
  • Regulatory changes in key markets like the U.S. and Europe might pose challenges.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about AXA XL’s pricing dynamics, the Nat Cat budget, and the strategy for improving Health margins. Executives also addressed potential impacts from U.S. tariffs, providing clarity on how these factors could influence future performance.

Full transcript - AXA (CSP) Q1 2025:

Conference Operator: Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the AXA Q1 twenty twenty five Activity Indicator The host will be Mr. Abba Dumayinel and Ms. Anu Venkat Haraman.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Anu Venkat Haraman. Please go ahead, madam.

Anu Venkat Haraman, Investor Relations, AXA: Good morning, and thank you for joining AXA’s first quarter conference call. Our Group CFO, Alban de Mainal, will go through the highlights of the quarter, after which we’ll open up the call to your questions. Alban?

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: Thank you, Anu, and good morning to all of you. Thank you for joining the call today. So let me start with the key highlights of this first quarter. As you saw in press release, we achieved a strong performance in those first three months. We delivered robust growth across all lines of business: P and C, Life and Savings and Health.

Our total revenues increased by 7% to €37,000,000,000 with a healthy balance between volume and pricing. So that reflects a disciplined execution of our organic growth strategy and the continuation of the positive momentum that we saw last year. Our balance sheet is robust with a Solvency II ratio at 213%. That reflects strong organic capital generation. And our diversified business model focused on technical margins and our prudent asset allocation are key strengths in the current volatile environment and that makes us confident for the execution of our plan.

So let me now go through the key numbers of the quarter and I’ll start with P and C. So P and C revenues overall are up 7% with growth both in Commercial Lines and in Personal Lines. In Commercial Lines, and I exclude AXA XLRE for the time being, Commercial Lines are up 6% and pricing trends remain positive across all markets. AXA XL Insurance revenues were up 9%, reflecting both higher volumes and price increases, notably in Casualty and in Property. While reported growth in the quarter was impacted by a large contract with limited risk retention, underlying growth of mid single digit remains at healthy levels.

Pricing has held well, plus 2% on renewals, which is broadly stable compared to full year 2024 and it’s plus 3% if you exclude financial lines. As we’ve said before, we see different pricing dynamics depending on the lines of business and we are managing therefore the cycle proactively. So in Property, pricing including exposures remains ahead of loss trends. In Casualty, pricing is up 7%, in line with loss trends, and the market remained very disciplined on both sides of the ocean, The US and Europe, and in Financial Lines, like last year, pricing remained soft. Overall, we have grown selectively.

We grew where the pricing was favorable and we also focused on retention and we did benefit from strong retention in the first quarter. Excluding AXA XL, we continued to see favorable pricing at plus 4% and volume growth notably in France and in Belgium. Moving to Personal Lines, revenues were up 7% with growth both in motor and non motor of 78% respectively. You know that we did a turnaround of The UK and Germany last year, so now all engines are working well on the Personal Lines, which allows us to grow our business, but we also continue to benefit from a very supportive pricing environment in our various jurisdictions. Therefore, net new contracts were positive in France and in Europe, and that includes Germany and The UK.

So we are growing volumes in Mouton by 3%, in particular in France Three Percent, in Germany also 3%, and we benefit from a good positioning, a competitive offering because many of our peers are still catching up on pricing. In The UK, we are growing the portfolio on a selective basis, in a context where prices are moderating, obviously following the strong repricing that you saw on the market last year. Last, on Reinsurance, revenues were up 12%. That’s driven largely by business that we write but cede to insurance linked securities. But pricing continues to be favorable and that comes, as you know, on top of strong price increases last year.

One last word in P and C, it’s on Nat Cat. As you know, group Nat Cat experience in the first quarter was below our prorated annual budget. The main event was the California wildfires, which are EUR0.1 billion as we told you at the February. Now that’s only one quarter, so we maintain our nat cat budget for the year of 4.5 points of combined ratio. I now move to Life and Health.

So in Life and Health, premiums were up 8% to €15,500,000,000 with two dynamics. As you know, we like having two areas of focus, short term and long term business. On the short term business, we delivered strong performance, Protection and Health, with revenues up 8%, in particular from favorable price effects in Health across geographies. And you know that for the first year, we are now also recapturing LIAR premiums in Ireland and that was EUR 400,000,000.0 for the quarter. But in case you had the question, there is a bit of seasonality, so if we don’t multiply that by four, Q1 is generally stronger than the other quarters, but it was EUR0.4 billion in Ireland in this quarter.

Then we have the long term business, for which we’ve seen a good sales dynamic and that is very much in line with our renewed ambition on the Life side. Unit Linked sales were up 16% with contributions from all our key markets, but notably France. GA savings were up 10%, in particular in Italy where sales were up 54%, as well as France plus 6%. As we told you last year, in Japan we are selling a single premium product and we have elevated sales of that product, but that will not last the whole year and that will probably moderate in the remainder of the year. And last, protection was up 5% and that’s mainly from the continued success of the Protection with Unit Linked product that we sell in Japan, but we saw also good growth in Switzerland and in Hong Kong.

So together with the decrease in surrenders, primarily in unit linked and general account savings in France and Italy, we saw strong net flows of €2,500,000,000 in Q1 twenty twenty five, that’s a EUR 1,800,000,000.0 improvement versus the first quarter of twenty twenty four. And so we expect that improving trend in net flows to fuel growth in CSM and therefore in earnings over time. A word on new business. So Life and Health PVP was up 5% and that reflects the unit linked sales in France and Europe that I mentioned, but also the general account savings in Italy, but also Health in Germany. NBV was down 1%, primarily due to an unfavorable change in mix and change in assumptions in France and Japan that we did last year in 2024.

And those changes partially offset the higher volumes. As a result, NBV margin is down 0.3 points, but remains at a very good level of 4.9. Then our last line of business, that’s Asset Management for a few more months. The average assets under management increased by 4%, reflecting the favorable market effects that we had last year. Net flows went negative EUR4 billion and that’s driven by a low fee mandate for which we expected termination in this quarter.

And revenues were up 8%, that’s driven by the higher management fees that are due themselves to the increase in average assets under management. And the sale of Axiom is progressing well, and we expect to close the transaction early July. Then a last word on the balance sheet with Solvency II. So we continue to operate at a high Solvency II ratio at 213% at the March, down three points versus full year 2024. Those three points are made of plus seven points from normalized capital generation, minus six points of accrued foreseeable dividends and annual share buybacks, minus two points from unfavorable impacts from financial markets and that’s two things: widening of government spreads in Europe, and a widening of government spread in Japan.

And we also lost one point from a regulatory model change. So how are we positioned in the current macroeconomic environment, which is uncertain to say the least? So we have a diversified business model focused on technical risks and that obviously reduces our exposure to financial markets. We have a strong balance sheet with the 213% Solvency II ratio that I just mentioned. That is supported by the 25 to 30 points normalized capital generation that we have on an annual basis.

And we have lowered our sensitivity to market volatility over the past years. We know that we have transformed our Life business as we shifted from capital intensive traditional GA product with high guarantees to capital light GA savings and unit linked. We closed our duration gap and that has led to a significant reduction in our interest rate sensitivities. And our sensitivity to lifted equity is also fairly limited because it would be two points of solvency, minus two points, if stock markets were to go down by 25%. We have a disciplined asset allocation with low exposure to the most vulnerable sectors such as auto, travel, leisure, luxury.

And in the medium term, we have a positive view, we are constructive on the outlook for Europe, which is our main market, and that’s mainly due to the expansionary fiscal policies that will be implemented in Germany and that will obviously support growth in Europe and also the fact that there will be greater spending by governments and notably on defense. So to conclude, we are off to a good start this year, consistently with our plan. We are continuing the momentum of last year, with organic growth well balanced across lines of business and between pricing and volumes. We have an attractive and highly diversified business model built to deliver predictable earnings growth. Our balance sheet is strong and resilient, which is a key asset these days.

And we remain focused on the execution of our plan and we are very confident in achieving our targets. I’m now happy to take your questions.

Conference Operator: Thank you, sir. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. The first question comes from David Barma of Bank of America.

David Barma, Analyst, Bank of America: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, wanted to ask about the price trends at XL, both on the primary and reinsurance sides. I’m quite impressed by the plus 3% you’re mentioning, Alban, in commercial pricing ex financial lines and the plus one in reinsurance when market commentary for both has been much more negative, especially on North American property risk. So can you impact that a bit for us, please, and explain whether mix effects have a big impact in the quarter, please?

And then secondly, staying on reinsurance, the volume growth was very strong. Can you explain the increase in the transfer to ILS in this period? Why this is happening now? And if there’s any color you can share on the sort of margin on that business? And then lastly, on Personal Lines, the volumes have recovered in Europe, remained down year on year.

Can you give a bit of color on the trends by geography, where you’re growing and where you’re shrinking volumes? Thank you.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: Thank you, David, for your three questions. So, trends at XL. So, I said in my introductory speech, you see different dynamics. I know that some players in The U. S.

Have said that property prices were down. That’s not what we see. We see stable pricing in Property in The U. S, which together with the exposure effect is sufficient to maintain our margin, I. E.

Sufficient to compensate for loss trend. When you look at casualty overall, so prices are up 7%, that’s more in The U. S. And a bit less in Europe. But in both cases, we see a very disciplined market, very disciplined, I insist on this, which allows us to grow in both sides of the ocean and with good margins.

And where we obviously see still some deteriorating prices, it’s in financial lines, but there we are reducing our volumes in Q1, as we said we would, given all this. The other message I want to give you on Excel is also that we are focusing on retention, which is the best way to grow, which is not to lose our good customers. We have a good level of retention of 90% in the first quarter. And so this plus the discipline in our various lines of business, except financial lines, allows us to grow. On Reinsurance, so we don’t want to grow aggressively or at all our business in Reinsurance.

That being said, if we can grow our business in order to transfer part of the risks to alternative capital and insurance securities or sidecars, that’s something that we want to develop because that’s the way for us to accompany our customers and not take more risks and generate fees on that business. So that’s what we want to deploy, but clearly on a net basis, reinsurance is not something that we want to grow. And finally, on Personal Lines, we have good growth in meaning a positive net new contracts in most, if not all of our jurisdictions, so France, Germany, The UK, Switzerland, Italy. You may have seen that we announced that in The UK, starting a few days ago, we have now an exclusive agreement with Lloyds Bank that will distribute our motor products. So, we see a good dynamic in all those countries.

As we said in February, we believe that the environment is very supportive for Personal Lines and that will be for us a way to expand our margins in P and C. We know that our plan is to increase our margins by two points. We did 1.1 in 2024. The other 0.9 points will come mainly from Personal Lines and from Commercial Lines XXL. But in Personal Lines, we see both positive net new contracts and, as you saw, good pricing in all our jurisdictions.

It’s moderating in The UK, that’s for sure. And we also see good pricing in non motor personal lines.

David Barma, Analyst, Bank of America: Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Michael Huttner of Berenberg.

Michael Huttner, Analyst, Berenberg: Thank you very much. Great results. Three questions. The €2,500,000,000 net inflows, you said that would lift CSM growth and lift profit growth. I wonder if you can give us a feel for how much it could lift them.

The 4.5% budget for nat cats, I suppose I’ll cheat. I’ll ask two questions here. How much when you say lower, was it much lower? Was it a little bit lower in Q1? And also in the in your 7% addition to solvency from operating capital generation, did you put in the 4.5 or the actual number?

And then my last question is if we add Leia in Health, what would be in the growth? Thank you.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: Thank you, Michael. So the EUR 2,500,000,000.0 net inflows, I mean, you see I mean, the way to look at it is you see our CSM and you see our total amount of reserves. So the rule of thumb is to say how much is CSM compared to reserves and that gives you roughly the margin that you get. There’s no reason why those €2,500,000,000 net inflows will have a different CSM than the rest of the business. And I think that’s important to keep in mind.

We have new business CSM, we also have retention, and retention, as you know, progressively materializes in operating experience and that’s why it grows the CSM. On the Nat Cat, I would say, first, as you would know, our Nat Cat load, the 4.5%, and that’s different from some of our competitors, includes absolutely everything, and notably weather events. So it’s not only Nat Cat, it’s all events. I would say, at Excel, given the California wildfires experience was in line with budget, In the other jurisdictions, it was quite a benign quarter. But again, that’s only the first quarter.

And impact on solvency, we do estimate in Q1 and Q3, and we do a true up in half year. So that’s where we’ll see whether effectively, if we have a good second quarter in Nat Cat, that further materializes in our solvency capital generation. And last on Laya, you have the when you look at the Health in our appendices and you look at the health reported numbers on health, I think we would be at 17%, including the LIHA premiums, and that’s adjusted when we do like for like, so 17% including Lion.

Michael Huttner, Analyst, Berenberg: Super. Thank you very, very much.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Andrew Baker of Goldman Sachs.

Andrew Baker, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Great. Thank you for taking my questions. First one, just following up on the AXA XL retention of 90% that you mentioned in Q1. Can you just help us put that in sort of historical context? So what would that 90% look like over the past couple of years?

And then secondly, how are you thinking about the direct and indirect impacts of The U. S. Tariffs? And can you just remind me your EPS sensitivity to U. S.

Dollar weakening as well? Thank you.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: I’m just writing down your questions, not to forget any. So the retention of 90%, may certainly have in mind that when we bought Excel we did a lot of repricing and re underwriting. So, probably four years ago, it was in the low 80s, and now that the business is completely re underwritten, re priced and has been so for the last two years, we can be at 90%. So that’s the difference. On tariffs, well, you have the direct and indirect impacts.

What we see as direct impacts, that would be in The US, and that would affect mostly motor insurance. But we hardly do motor insurance at it’s only 2% of our premiums. So, we don’t expect to be affected by tariffs at XL in The U. S. Now you have the indirect effects and those are the impacts on financial markets, of which we had a glimpse a few weeks ago.

So, our scenario is in such a case that it would have an impact on GDP growth and therefore an impact on long term interest rates. But as you saw, our sensitivity to interest rates is low in general and if anything it has reduced since full year 2024. And the impact of low interest rates on our earnings would be through the discount, but we believe we have ways to manage that. When it comes to the U. S.

Dollar impact, the rule of thumb is 10% change is 2% to 3% impact on our EPS. But bear in mind that the average U. S. Dollar rate last year was 1.08, but that’s what you need to compare to when you do your sensitivities.

Andrew Baker, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Very clear. Thank you so much.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Hanif Farooq of JPMorgan.

Hanif Farooq, Analyst, JPMorgan: Hi. Thank you very much. I just want to clarify again on pricing at AXA XL. So can you tell us what the pricing that you’re seeing generally ex financial lines is sorry, in property is at AXA XL? You gave a number for casualty.

And you seem to be implying that you’ve grown your exposure to casualty versus property. So is that correct? And what are the relative margins between sort of the casualty business and the property business that you’re seeing? So that’s question area number one. Secondly, just looking at the health business, you seem to be suggesting there that there’s been positive pricing trends as well as volume.

How is this sort of comparing to your kind of expectations for margin improvement in Health? Thank you very much.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: Thank you for your questions. So pricing at XL. On property in The U. S, prices are stable as such, so it’s 0% to put it very clearly. But then you have what we call the exposure effects, which is for a given line of business, if you reduce your exposure but you keep the same price, that’s equivalent to an increase in price.

So, net net, we see loss trend for property probably in line with general inflation, and when you combine the price, which is stable, and the exposure effect, you are in line with loss trend. So you don’t see an increase or a decrease in margin in Property in The U. S. But we have grown our volumes in Property, as we have grown them also in Casualty for the reasons I said. In a number of Casualty lines in The U.

S, we see price increases like last year at 10% or above. So that’s what I meant when I said that the market was very disciplined. On the Health side, so we see significant price increases, which allows us to be confident in the fact that, and you know that on the Health side we wanted to improve our margin by three points over the planned period. We did 1.4 in 2024, and we should see a further improvement in line with our plan over 2025 and hopefully 2026.

Hanif Farooq, Analyst, JPMorgan: Just to return maybe if I quickly can on the AXA XL points that you made. So presumably, you have increased your exposure to casualty versus property on average. What are the relative margins? So I know the pricing is very strong, but is it a weak combined ratio business?

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: So we’ve grown both businesses, and I’m not sure that Q1 is representative for the whole year. I think what you should keep in mind is that at XL this year, as we said in February, we want to maintain our margins overall while keeping investing on our developments in mid market and E and S. That’s the main message that we want to give for XL.

Hanif Farooq, Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay. Thank you very much.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Will Hardcastle of UBS.

Will Hardcastle, Analyst, UBS: Hi there. Thanks for taking the question. Just one from me left. In Personal Lines, and you’ve touched on it a little bit, but just a bit more color. If you can give the current strategy on pricing and volume in some of those major markets like France, Germany and The UK, I guess, how much volume did you actually achieve in these markets in the first quarter, if you’re willing

William Hawkins, Analyst, KBW: to give that? Thank you.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: So, we grew, as I said, in Personal Lines in our European markets. When I look for instance at Motor in France, we had a growth of 9% and that’s a mix of three percent in terms of volume and 6% in terms of prices. When I look at Europe, it’s closer to 1% in volume and the rest in pricing. When I look at international markets, that’s 2% in volume and 8% in pricing.

Conference Operator: The next question is from William Hawkins of KBW.

Andrew Baker, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Good morning, Alban. Thank you. Sticking with Personal Lines, can you help me interpret the change in the nominal rate increase that you’ve published? So the headline figure is 6%, which is much lower than 10% last year. Can you talk a bit more about what’s happening to loss cost inflation against that?

If I were assuming that maybe loss cost inflation was a stable 5%, then the real rate increase that affects the claims ratio would have gone from five point to one point. But obviously, inflation will have been changing quite a lot. So with that background, can you just help me understand what’s happened to your real rate increases that affect the claims ratio against that 10 to six change in nominal rates, please? Secondly, yes, can you talk a bit about Switzerland? What’s happening there?

That’s an area where you’ve seen an acceleration of nominal rate increases, quite a big one in Personal Lines relative to the history, but also in Commercial Lines as well. So could you just give us a bit of a narrative of what’s happening in Switzerland, please? And then lastly, sorry, just to clarify, I’m still a bit confused. If it’s been a light nat cat quarter, why your cap gen impact on the solvency is only in line with the budget. I would have thought either there’s an offsetting negative or something else.

Did you answer to Michael Huttner that you effectively just booked the budget even though you’re telling us the cats are light? Or is there some offset against the light cats that brings your cap gen back down to normal? Thank you.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: Thank you, William. So, to make a long story short on Personal Line pricing, I’m much happier with what’s happening in Q1 this year than last year. So effectively last year, you could say that price increases overall were 10%, but in fact, it was driven by the two turnaround that we needed to execute in Germany and in The UK. Price increases in The UK were 30%, thirty five %. So now, it’s much more distributed in Q1 twenty twenty five and on businesses that all have profitable Personal Lines businesses.

So, I look at price increases in the first quarter, that allows us in all countries to grow our margins because and that’s your question on the real rate increase we see in Q1 twenty twenty five, let’s call it loss trends as if it was XL, better loss trends in Q1 twenty twenty five than we did in Q1 twenty twenty four, and that’s also due to the fact that general inflation is more muted. So, our ability to grow margins, as we said we would when we talked at the February, is materializing. We have good price increases overall and higher than our loss trends. In Switzerland that you mentioned, it’s true that prices increased by 6%, simply because in Switzerland we have seen a small increase in frequency and that we needed to compensate. As a reminder, the current year combined ratio undiscounted that we have in Switzerland for Motor is 90%.

So we have a very healthy business in Switzerland, but we just needed to adapt on this. On the Commercial Light side of Switzerland, same, we want to make sure that we are keeping up with the trends. Workers’ compensation has a higher loss trend in Switzerland that we needed to reflect in our pricing, and that’s what we did. Then, on Nat Cat and Solvency, there’s no offset, nothing that compensates the Q1. So, to put it more clearly, more bluntly, when we do the true up in half year, if we have a Q2 in Nat Cat, which resembles Q1, then you should see a better capital generation.

Michael Huttner, Analyst, Berenberg: Excellent. Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Fahad Shangazi of Kepler Cheuvreux.

Fahad Shangazi, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Hello. Thank you for taking my question. Just two brief ones. On the health business, actually, could you just expand in terms of your you’ve done 1.4% and you’re looking to do 3%, and it was going to be driven by pricing, claims initiatives, and The UK recovery. Could you just sort of update us where you are in each of these three aspects as you attain your target?

And sorry, just one quick, quick question on Solvency Is it is the SCR development Q1 in line with the previous guidance of 3% growth, which is incorporated in the 25% to 30% capital generation target? Thank you very much.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: So, on Health, so in The UK, by definition, the turnaround that we did last year gave its full effect at the end of the year. So we are still earning in Q1 ’20 ’5 percent what was put in place over the year in 24%. So yes, there is an improvement to be seen in our margins in The UK this year. Then on pricing and claims management, just to make sure because I didn’t completely hear your question, the three points improvement that we want to have in Health that comes from The UK, but that also comes from the rest of our business, and to be clear, and we do see some good prices as you saw across our entities on Health, and we are continuing with our efforts to improve claims management through pathways. That’s why I said that we are confident in our ability to grow our margins on the Health side, in line with our plan.

And on your question on SCR, yes, it’s in line with our growth, in line with what you saw last year.

Fahad Shangazi, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Okay, thank you very much.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Andrew Graham of Autonomous.

Anu Venkat Haraman, Investor Relations, AXA0: Good morning. Can I delve a little bit more into the nat cats? I mean, the California wildfires are point 5%, and your budget is 4.5%. I mean, just how much better than average are you? I know Storm Ewan and Hermannia were quite big in UK and Ireland for Intact.

Second question, a bit of detail. Can you give us a sense of The UK motor pricing through the quarter? I mean, when you say moderating, I assume that’s a tactful way of saying prices were being cut. But my understanding is that pricing in motor UK Motor actually stabilized as you went through the quarter. Is that your experience?

And then thirdly, a slightly odd question. 2024 operating profits from your U. S. Subsidiaries, can you give us what they were? It would be presumably part of the XL profits, but I’d be interested to know what that figure was.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: Sorry, Andrew. When you asked your third question, I was still writing down your second. So can you repeat your third? I’m sorry.

Anu Venkat Haraman, Investor Relations, AXA0: Third one is in full year ’24, what were the operating profits from your US subsidiaries? So maybe a question today later.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: So, in the Nat Cat, the impact was clearly the California wildfire. It’s true that you also had you in The UK and Ireland. That’s I would say Ireland, you know that our business there is mostly motor and health. So, it had an impact, but it was not significant. And in The UK and the storm hit Ireland more than The UK.

So, we have an impact in both, but after that, when you look at the rest of Europe, that was pretty benign really. So it was a good quarter in Nat Cat. On UK motor pricing, you’re exactly right. It was slightly down at the beginning of the quarter, but what you see in March and April is prices that are now stabilizing in Motor. And we don’t disclose the operating profits at XL by geographies.

I would just say that roughly 50% of our business at XL comes from The U. S. And that The U. S. Is slightly more profitable than the rest of the XL geographies.

William Hawkins, Analyst, KBW: Thanks.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Ray Shah of Deutsche Bank.

Anu Venkat Haraman, Investor Relations, AXA1: Hi. Thank you. Just three quick questions for me. So the first one is, Alwyn, I think you mentioned that the XL underlying growth rate, if you exclude the impact of a large contract with mid single digits in the first quarter. Is that how you expect the growth to be over the rest of the year?

Second question on asset management. Is there any more you expect in terms of these large redemptions ahead of July? And then the third question in terms of solvency, could you quantify the impact of the widening Japanese spreads, to the solvency ratio within the first quarter?

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: Okay. So, look, what we see in terms of pricing at XL, we don’t see at this stage a reason for a change in the sense that inflation is stable and reinsurance prices are stable. And that’s an end on casualty, you don’t see a significant increase in loss trend with more nuclear verdicts. But as we know, some of those assumptions and also some of those items can change very quickly in the current environment with any significant political or macroeconomic decision. So at this stage, we believe that what we’ve seen in the first quarter should carry on for the rest of the year, but that can change if suddenly tariffs are put in place in The U.

S, inflation goes up, general inflation, because then everybody will need to adapt notably on the property side, but that’s as far as we are concerned. But that’s not what we see for the time being. On Asset Management, we don’t have in mind other redemptions that are planned. Now, it’s not that we do not care, but the price at which we sell AXA I’m is fixed and not dependent on the volumes of assets under management at the time of closing. And solvency, what came from Japan, it was slightly above half a point, between half a point and a point.

Anu Venkat Haraman, Investor Relations, AXA1: Great, thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Dominik Omani of BNP Paribas.

William Hawkins, Analyst, KBW: Hello. And you’ve given very comprehensive answers to all the questions. I’ve already got a couple of detailed ones. One is just on Liar recaptures. You were clear that the €400,000,000 for the quarter is we should multiply that by four.

I had in mind about 800,000,000 for a full year. Is that right? Or have I got that wrong? Just another detailed point on the ILS sessions. You’ve been clear that you are not looking to grow reinsurance.

Should I infer that essentially all of that 12% growth is then ILS or is it a subset? And then the third point, broader point, you mentioned quite helpfully the listed equity sensitivity is only two points for 25% drawdown, which is clearly much lower than the published sensitivity. I just thought I’d ask you to maybe explain a bit how you would how the valuation of the unlisted equities would respond to a drawdown in the region of 25%? I mean, is there a mechanical feed through so that you would essentially mark to market in a similar way for the unlisted? Or would you expect it’s been more muted because of the way you value them?

Thank you.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: Thank you, Dominik. So, Laina, at this stage, I think EUR 800,000,000 would be slightly conservative for the whole year. We’ll see at the end of the year, but that’s more than that that we expect from the business. On XLRE, if you exclude the business ceded to ILS, growth is closer to 1% or 2%. So the bulk of the additional business, to put it that way, was ceded to ILS.

And then on your third question, so I gave it on purpose the 2% on listed equities because to some extent what we published is a bit fallacious because you don’t see the same real drawdown on private equity and even more on infra equity as you would see on listed equities. So, is no correlation as such. The three buckets are valued separately. Obviously, listed equity is just looking at markets. On private equity, it really comes from the GPs we work with and we take a prudent stance in the approach.

And infra equity is not very sensitive to the listed equity market. So, gave the 25% impact overall, so that you have a view, but I don’t think it makes sense to think that the private equity and infra equity would react as listed equities would.

William Hawkins, Analyst, KBW: Very helpful. Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Michael Huttner of Berenberg.

Michael Huttner, Analyst, Berenberg: Just one. The nine percent growth at AXA XL, which includes, what I take a captive, what should be the kind of more underlying number, I guess?

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: So excluding the captive, we would be closer to, as I said, mid single digit. The growth we had at XL.

Michael Huttner, Analyst, Berenberg: Super. Thanks so much.

Conference Operator: Mr. Dumay Nel, there are no more questions registered at this time, sir.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: Well, thank you all for your questions then.

Anu Venkat Haraman, Investor Relations, AXA: And I’ll just remind you that, we have our next roundtable session, scheduled for September 15. So we look forward to seeing you all there. And if you have follow-up questions on the first quarter, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Thank you and have a good day.

Alban de Mainal, Group CFO, AXA: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over and you may disconnect your telephones.

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