Standard Life Aktie

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Standard Life plc Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, we would just like to submit the following poll. If you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And we will now begin the presentation and move to live Q&A at the end. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Standard Life's 2026 Half Year Results. Today, I'll begin with an update on how our delivery is building momentum across our strategic priorities. Nic will take you through the detail of our financial performance, which supports achieving our 2026 targets. I'll then return to update on our next phase of growth before taking your questions.

We're now in the final stages of our 3-year strategy, and I'm delighted with the progress we've made since 2024. First, the U.K. market is one of the most attractive globally for retirement savings and income, and we're uniquely positioned in that market because of the capabilities and platforms we've built, our leading brand and our commitment to putting our customers at the core of everything we do. Second, we're building momentum through execution of our strategic priorities, which is driving growth across our key financial metrics. That means we've already achieved some of our end 2026 targets with our strong half year results, and we're on track for the remainder. Third, we're poised for further growth and an acceleration of our strategy through both the GBP 2 billion Aegon U.K. acquisition and the recently announced GBP 2 billion U.K. PRT partnership.

Together, these are a step change in strengthening our capabilities and customer offering and provide access to a broader customer base, all of which means we are accelerating our vision to be the U.K.'s leading retirement savings and income business, a retirement champion, helping customers achieve better outcomes and greater financial security. And it also means we have even greater financial flexibility to further invest in growth and deliver strong shareholder returns.

As I mentioned, the execution of our strategy continues to translate into strong performance across cash, capital and earnings as demonstrated here. Once again, we have good growth in operating cash generation, and we remain confident in mid-single-digit percentage growth into the long term. Our growing business is generating surplus capital, which we've used to improve the quality of our capital by paying down debt while remaining in the upper half of our solvency range.

Finally, on earnings, we remain on track to achieve our GBP 1.1 billion operating profit target in 2026, having delivered another period of strong operational performance. And we continue to grow our dividend, bringing total dividend payments to GBP 1.4 billion across this phase of our strategy. In 2024, we set a highly ambitious 3-year strategy underpinned by 3 strategic priorities: grow, optimize and enhance. We've made excellent progress against all of these in the first half, which has contributed to the strong financial performance that I just covered.

Under Growth, we announced the Aegon U.K. acquisition and our U.K. PRT partnership. I'll come back to these later. Alongside these transformational developments, we're also continuing to innovate, launching Future Opportunities, a new alternative default solution designed to improve customer outcomes by opening up access to high-quality private assets. And we're increasing the allocation to private assets in our main default fund. The overall investment in our new business capability is driving strong outcomes. I'm particularly proud of the workplace wins in the first half, which I'll touch on later.

Under Optimize, we achieved our deleveraging target ahead of plan and increased the amount of annuity-backing assets managed in-house to GBP 12 billion. Under Enhance, we delivered GBP 210 million of cumulative run rate cost savings using technology, including AI to reshape our organization, enhance our colleague experience and create a more efficient and scalable business. The message is simple. We're executing with discipline, delivering against our strategy and building strong momentum for the second half and longer term.

Let's look at the market we operate in. I continue to believe that the U.K. market has never been this exciting and better still in this rapidly growing market, we're the only scale U.K. player solely focused on the full savings and retirement life cycle with strong existing market positions in workplace, retail and annuities. This slide will be familiar as we've used it before, but we've now added our pro forma market positions to reflect Aegon U.K. and our new PRT partnership, both of which significantly strengthened those market positions. Specifically in workplace and retail, we moved to having #2 positions in both markets. And annuities, we moved to a top 3 position.

Let's now talk to the progress we've delivered in the first half in our key markets. The themes on the left-hand side of the slide are the key reasons we're winning in our chosen markets, consistent with what we set out in March. Each of these are underpinned by a broad range of capabilities, which we continue to enhance to meet the evolving needs of our customers and which are further supported by the trusted Standard Life brand. I'm delighted that our relentless focus on delivering better customer outcomes is in turn translating into strong operational performance.

Starting with workplace at the top of the slide, where winning requires 3 things: a leading employer proposition, excellent customer service and cost-efficient administration. We're strong in all 3 as demonstrated across a collection of key customer metrics. We've seen our Net Promoter Score increase 4 points this year to 64. And we have maintained an exceptionally high level of client retention at 99.8%, which demonstrates how happy our customers are with us. We secured GBP 6.2 billion of new scheme wins in the first half, including the largest ever for Standard Life, which will support our flow trajectory into 2027.

Scheme wins are lumpy, but the GBP 6.2 billion compares very favorably to the GBP 1.5 billion of wins across the whole of last year. So more great progress and hugely exciting that this market will be further supercharged by market consolidation as minimum fund sizes in force and expected contribution increases.

Moving to retail. This is an area that we've more recently focused on. We're investing to ensure effective customer engagement and that we offer the right products and solutions at the right time. For example, to help our customers navigate some of the recent Budget changes, we've reentered into the onshore investment bond market, which you can see in the flow uplift on the right of the slide. We're also preparing to expand our advice proposition to include inheritance tax planning and aim to launch our first targeted support proposition around the end of the year.

I've called out in the dotted box that we still have a significant opportunity to leverage our digital infrastructure, and there's more to do here. This is an area Angela Byrne has been focusing much of our energy on since joining earlier this year and will be further bolstered by the arrival of Wendy Redshaw, who will join us in our newly created role of Chief Digital and Technology Officer in the coming months. The outcome of our existing efforts in retail are already encouraging visible on the right of the page.

Similar to Workplace, our retail customer satisfaction scores are improving with our Net Promoter Score of 61, a 6-point improvement in the first half. I'm particularly pleased that our advice proposition is resonating so well with customers with 95% of them rating it as good or excellent value. Lastly, the annuities business in yellow, which includes both individual annuities and PRT. Winning here is all about having a leading employer proposition, excellent member experience and competitive pricing. Our strength in all 3 is why we're winning in both these markets.

Growth in our new individual annuity products continues, up 14% year-on-year. Our disciplined approach to annuities is evidenced by the attractive returns generated with lifetime IRRs in our annuity business maintained at more than 20% in the first half. From a PRT perspective, our existing business is delivering strongly, actively quoting on a pipeline of about GBP 7 billion. And with huge client interest in our new partnership, it means that we expect an even stronger pipeline once it launches.

And with that, I'll hand you over to Nic, who will cover the financials in more detail. Nic?

Thank you, Andy, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to be presenting today another strong set of results at the half year point of this year as we navigate towards the delivery of all of our 2026 financial targets and prepare Standard Life for the next stage of its journey. Starting my presentation with the usual financial headlines, operating cash generation of GBP 745 million in the first half was in line with our mid-single-digit growth guidance, while total cash generation stood at GBP 900 million.

We have achieved the leverage ratio target at 30 June, while ensuring that our solvency cover remained in the upper half of our operating range at 169%. IFRS operating profit was 25% higher at GBP 563 million, supported by asset growth and cost savings, which reached GBP 210 million on a cumulative run rate basis. Adjusted IFRS shareholders' equity was GBP 2.7 billion, benefiting from strong growth in operating profit that now covers recurring uses, offset by the negative hedge-related market impacts. In line with our previous practice, we have declared an interim dividend of 28.05p per share, up 2.6% year-on-year.

Overall, we remain on track to deliver all the targets at the end of this year. I'm very pleased with the step-up achieved in our operating cash and earnings performance over the last 2 years. In line with what I indicated back in March 2025, this has provided us the headroom to reduce leverage, improving the quality of our capital and has lifted IFRS operating earnings to more than cover our recurring uses.

I will now take you through the financial results in more detail, starting with the performance of our main businesses. Backed by our leading propositions and brands, our Pensions and Savings business continues to grow assets, margin and profitability. Workplace saw gross inflows of GBP 4.9 billion in the first half of 2026, including GBP 0.8 billion from new schemes. A total of GBP 6.2 billion of new scheme wins have, in fact, been secured this year, most of which are expected to incept in early 2027, and we continue to see a healthy pipeline of new opportunities. Including -- excluding rather the contribution from new schemes, regular gross inflows were GBP 4.1 billion in the first half, highlighting once again the strong flywheel effect of this business. Outflows reflect the higher asset base and the natural attrition from members taking their pensions.

Turning to Retail. Gross inflows are up 9% year-on-year at GBP 3.6 billion, benefiting from continued momentum in international bonds and the early fruits of our retention efforts. Gross outflows remain sizable at GBP 7.3 billion, but we expect these to continue to improve as a percentage of AUA as our retention focus gains further traction. In the top right, you can see how these flows have combined with positive market effects to lift the overall AUA base to a combined GBP 226 billion, up 7% year-to-date. In the bottom half of the slide, I summarize the drivers of the financial performance for pensions and savings.

Given the capital-light fee-based nature of this business, we consider IFRS operating profit to be the most suitable performance measure. Average AUA grew 10% year-on-year to GBP 217 billion, which combined with an improved operating margin of 22 basis points, drove operating profit 36% higher to GBP 244 million, highlighting once again the power of our scale advantage and operating leverage. Our Retirement Solutions business also delivered a strong operating performance in the first half. As I have previously stated, new volumes are not the primary driver of profits here.

We run over GBP 40 billion of annuity assets, and it is the management of this large book that drives our profitability. We have 2 main product lines in this business, namely individual annuities and PRTs. For individual annuities, product innovation and rising consumer demand saw new premiums grow by 8% year-on-year to GBP 0.6 billion, supported by a 14% growth in premiums secured in the open market. PRT premiums in the first half totaled GBP 1.6 billion with a further GBP 0.4 billion completed or at an exclusive stage since the end of June. Our stated aim is to deploy up to GBP 200 million of capital to annuities this year, provided we secure sufficiently attractive returns.

As Andy mentioned, new business returns were broadly similar to those achieved in 2025. But given ongoing low credit spreads and competitive pricing, we expect these to be lower in the second half. We remain disciplined and confident in our ability to win in this market, and our competitive position will be further supported by our new U.K. PRT partnership with prominent global financial institutions. The drivers of performance for Retirement Solutions are covered in the bottom half of the slide. Given the capital utilizing spread-based nature of this business, we consider OCG to be the most appropriate performance measure. Our effective management of the in-force book, combined with our scale, efficiency and expertise in delivering asset portfolio optimization actions enabled us to sustain the annual spread-based margin at 222 basis points, which applied to our growing average AUA of GBP 42 billion, produced OCG of GBP 466 million, up 5% year-on-year.

I will now move to the group metrics, starting with operating cash generation. In line with our guidance, OCG increased 6% to GBP 745 million, reflecting both growth in the surplus emergence and higher recurring management actions, which contributed GBP 318 million in the first half. The composition of these management actions is broadly similar year-on-year with further detail provided in the appendix. We're confident in achieving our guidance of GBP 500 million recurring management actions each year as the capabilities and dynamics that underpin this performance are both differentiated and enduring. On the right, you can see the business segment analysis of OCG. P&S grew by 23% to GBP 203 million, supported by underlying business growth. As covered earlier, the OCG from Retirement Solutions grew by 5% to GBP 466 million, while that from with-profits, Europe and other taken together produced GBP 76 million.

Turning next to the group solvency walk for the first half. After covering recurring uses, we generated GBP 0.2 billion of net recurring capital, mostly in the form of own funds, which added 5 percentage points of solvency cover. Nonrecurring items netted to a small negative amount and included GBP 0.1 billion negative contribution from economics net of hedging. The operating capital generation in the period, combined with support from the opening surplus position, enabled us to retire GBP 0.5 billion of debt in June. The resulting shareholder coverage ratio declined to 169% but with the debt reduction program now behind us, we expect this ratio to rebound in the second half.

Turning next to leverage. Our ratio improved to 29%, reflecting the GBP 0.5 billion debt redemption outlined in the previous slide. We have achieved our 30% target in the first half of 2026 while remaining in the upper half of our solvency operating range. Since the end of June, we have issued a GBP 350 million RT1 debt instrument to fund a portion of the cash consideration for the Aegon U.K. acquisition and a further GBP 300 million debt raise will be undertaken ahead of completion. I would remind you that the mixture of debt and equity funding of the transaction has been structured to produce a leverage ratio on completion that is in line with our 30% target, a level which I consider appropriate for our business going forward.

Turning next to cost savings, where we remain on track to achieve our GBP 250 million target, net of inflation by the end of this year. On a run rate basis, we have achieved GBP 210 million of savings up to the end of June 2026. Savings on an earned basis in the first half of 2026 were GBP 95 million, which was some GBP 55 million higher year-on-year with broadly 2/3 of this uplift reported through earnings and the remaining 1/3 accounted through the CSM. The chart on the left depicts the delivery timing of the GBP 250 million cost savings with the final GBP 40 million component expected in the second half of 2026. On the right, the pie chart shows where the cost savings have come from, highlighting how we have structurally reduced the ongoing -- our ongoing cost base through a combination of migrations to end-state platforms and business simplification. These actions will both underpin and sustain the improvement in our operating margins as we grow the business from here.

Moving to the IFRS results. Our adjusted operating profit increased by 25% to GBP 563 million. Profits from pensions and savings grew by 36% to GBP 244 million, while those from Retirement Solutions increased by 13% to GBP 324 million. With the Pensions and Savings earnings growth outpacing that from Retirement Solutions, we have continued to improve the capital-light mix of our profits. These performance improvements were driven by business expansion, cost savings and higher investment margins, reflecting the successful delivery of our Grow, Optimize and Enhance strategic priorities. We are on track to achieve our GBP 1.1 billion operating profit target at the end of this year.

This next slide completes the IFRS basis picture. As you can see in the dotted box, the improved operating profit performance is now covering our recurring uses in line with what we said would happen in 2026. Nonoperating items include the planned investment spend to deliver our strategic priorities and GBP 25 million of expenditure relating to the strategic transactions announced in the first half. Adverse economic variances of GBP 473 million were almost entirely driven by negative marks on equity hedges following 11% blended rise in markets. As previously explained, this is a known consequence of our hedging strategy, which protects cash and solvency capital, but gives rise to an accounting mismatch volatility under IFRS. The resulting IFRS shareholders' equity level continues to pose no practical restrictions to our strategic and capital flexibility nor to our ability to pay a dividend. As I have previously indicated, this adverse variance is offset elsewhere in our financials, which I will come to next.

I have updated the slide that I first shared in March, which shows where these offsets come through in our financials, namely in the increases in our 2 key stores of future value. These are the insurance contract CSM and the investment contracts value in-force, which grew by GBP 0.1 billion and GBP 0.6 billion, respectively, year-to-date before tax, with GBP 0.5 billion of the combined increase coming from market effects. These future stores of value are now over GBP 10 billion on a pretax discounted basis and will emerge through IFRS earnings in future years, providing a strong underpin to our performance trajectory for many years to come.

In my final slide, I would like to take stock of the notable transformation in our ability to generate positive excess cash since 2023. By growing OCG and moderating our recurring uses, we have significantly improved our ability to both cover our growing dividend and generate a rising level of excess cash. In the first half, this excess was GBP 229 million, and we expect this to be GBP 0.5 billion at the full year, the level required to cover the 2026 debt redemptions from in-year capital flow. Also in 2026, we have announced 2 strategic transactions, namely the acquisition of Aegon U.K., which is expected to enhance recurring excess cash from year 1 and the new U.K. PRT partnership. Both will allow us to accelerate the growth of our main businesses and will provide further support to our mid-single-digit OCG growth guidance.

With these transactions in place and the leverage ratio target achieved, our capital allocation focus from 2027 will be directed to growth and shareholder returns. I will now hand you back to Andy.

Thank you, Nic. We continue to be focused on delivering our promises for 2026, and we are really excited about what comes next as we progress to our next phase of growth. So let me cover some of that now. When we started the strategic plan, we set out a clear vision to be the U.K.'s leading retirement savings and income business. We began building out the capabilities shown here in blue to achieve this vision. And the evidence of this comes through in our strong first half results. The light blue box at the top, a digitally enabled and personalized customer interface focused on data, guidance and advice is the last bit of the picture. Building this out is now very much our focus and expect to hear more on this in 2027.

Through both our GBP 2 billion acquisition of Aegon U.K. and the up to GBP 2 billion PRT partnership, we can scale and accelerate that same strategy. And in doing so, help more customers achieve better outcomes and greater financial security in later life. It's not just me who's excited about what is to come from Standard Life. It's fantastic to see the collective energy from our colleagues throughout the organization. With the Aegon U.K. transaction, we're bringing together 2 businesses with shared goals, ambitions and social purpose to create a new leader in pensions and savings. This transaction is both strategically and financially compelling. Let me remind you of the logic behind this as set out on the slide.

First, it gives us increased scale. Standard Life will become the largest retirement savings and income business in the U.K. Second, it's really complementary in terms of capabilities, which I'll come on to. Third, it accelerates making us a more capital-light business. Fourth, the financial metrics of the deal are attractive. We expect to unlock GBP 0.8 billion of net synergies and increase our excess cash by GBP 0.4 billion over the next 5 years. That will give us even greater flexibility to invest in growth and return capital in the future.

Finally, the funding structure is efficient and it enhances our capital strength. We continue to make good progress towards completion, which is expected around the end of the year, subject to regulatory approvals. And I look forward to welcoming Aegon U.K. colleagues into the Standard Life family at that point and working together to capture the huge potential in front of us all. As well as giving us increased scale, this acquisition strengthens our capabilities and what we can offer our customers. Many of you will be very familiar with Standard Life's existing products and solutions, which are set out along the top of the slide in the dark blue box. Aegon U.K. adds a number of areas where our Standard Life business has less of a presence today, and we regard as being very important to our offer going forward.

In Workplace, Standard Life tends to be stronger with EBCs, while Aegon's strengths lie more with corporate advisers focused on small to midsized workplace clients. In Retail, Aegon's adviser platform will extend our adviser reach and relevance, while the financial advice proposition will add significantly as well. And the additional products, including ISAs and general investment accounts that will broaden our range. Aegon's expertise in these and other areas will help to significantly accelerate our growth ambitions and better meet our customer needs. The enlarged group will have broader waterfront capabilities, strengthen distribution with an enhanced digital and technology offer.

Another important milestone this year is the announcement that we're expanding our PRT business through a GBP 2 billion partnership. This is, first and foremost, about helping more customers achieve greater financial security in retirement. As more defined benefit pension schemes look to secure member benefits over the coming decade, we see a significant opportunity to expand the strength of Standard Life's PRT business to schemes above GBP 2 billion. Schemes at this upper end of the market represent over half of the GBP 1.1 trillion of U.K. scheme assets, the majority of which are expected to be derisked over the next decade, and customers here are currently only served by 3 providers.

Second, we thought carefully about the best way to serve this part of the market and concluded that this structure creates a differentiated and unique proposition for trustees of the U.K.'s largest DB schemes. As the partnership combines Standard Life's trusted PRT expertise, customer service and operational capabilities with substantial long-term capital and specialist investment expertise from our partners. Here, our brand, a household name will be a key differentiator. Trustees have specifically told us they want Standard Life to participate in the larger end of the market.

We selected partners who have similarly strong brands and reputations. The partnership will bring access to diversified private market origination through multiple leading global institutions. This consortium approach gives us access to a broader range of asset classes, sectors and geographies than will be available through any single provider, which means more competitive pricing and structuring flexibility, and this is available to the whole of Standard Life.

Let me now touch on the attractive financials of the partnership. In addition to the attractive returns the partnership expects to generate, Standard Life will receive fee-based payments for its oversight of operational services and origination of PRT transactions, creating a new capital-light earnings stream for us. Together, these underline our confidence in delivering mid-single-digit growth in operating cash generation and also growth in operating profit over time. The partnership is expected to launch in the first half of next year, subject to regulatory approvals and will build volume over time.

On this slide, we outline the structures of our PRT businesses in a bit more detail. On the left-hand side, you can see our existing business as it stands today, a leading player in the PRT market that has completed over GBP 32 billion worth of transactions. We allocate around GBP 200 million per annum of capital to this business, which generates around GBP 6 billion per annum in total annuity volumes. This business remains unchanged, but will have the additional benefit of private market origination provided by the specialist capabilities of our partners. There is clearly a lot of private capital interest coming into this market, which shows the opportunity.

What makes our offering unique is the nature of the partnership. We've deliberately brought together multiple global institutions with very strong and complementary private credit origination capabilities, including CVC, Prudential Financial and Goldman Sachs. I'm also delighted to further deepen our long-standing strategic partnership with MS&AD. This investment reflects their confidence in both the U.K. PRT market and the strength of the proposition being created through this partnership. The potential is for GBP 5 billion to GBP 7 billion per annum of incremental business from the partnership. And of the GBP 2 billion total over 5 years, Standard Life expects to fund its GBP 500 million capital contribution from yearly excess cash generation.

So 2 different ownership structures, but trustees and sponsors will continue to engage with Standard Life directly and receive the same high standards of service, governance and member experience that have underpinned our success in the PRT market to date. Putting all this together, within the pensions and savings market, we'll be the largest player underpinned by a #2 position in both workplace and retail, as I outlined earlier. What is unique to us is that we're big in both of these markets, which brings real synergistic benefits, whereas the other players are only big in one or the other. And the additional annuities capacity from our PRT partnership on top of Standard Life's existing business moves us to being a top 3 player in the annuities market as well. But we will remain disciplined in our approach with a laser focus on value over volume.

Put another way, these transformational developments extend our participation. We're now able to play in the 1/3 of the retail profit pool, which we weren't before with the added products of ISAs and general investment accounts. And we're opening up the other half of the profit pool in PRT. Overall, we'll be the U.K.'s largest retirement savings and income player with GBP 0.5 trillion of assets. To give a sense of scale, the #2 player is around GBP 300 billion of assets. This scale supports greater commercial advantage and further operating leverage given a high proportion of costs in our sector are fixed. We'll use our expanded scale and expanded capabilities to be better for customers, advocating for better retirement and helping our customers achieve lasting financial security as we champion the belief that everyone's journey to and through retirement can be better.

So to summarize, we operate in one of the most attractive retirement savings and income markets in the world, and we are uniquely positioned to benefit. Our strong execution is delivering better customer outcomes. We're building momentum through executing on our strategic priorities, which means we're on track to achieve our 2026 targets. And we're poised for further growth with Aegon U.K. and our U.K. PRT partnership. Post 2026, the broad strategic direction for Standard Life will be in line with our current vision. In November, we'll share a high-level view on our future strategic priorities as well as new financial guidance. We'll also outline uses of excess cash for 2027.

Executing on our vision gives us greater financial flexibility and the luxury of generating excess cash and capital, and we'll look to strike the right balance between investing in growth opportunities and shareholder returns. In summary, I'm really confident and excited for what is to come from Standard Life.

So with that, let us move to questions.

[Operator Instructions] To remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can all be accessed via your investor dashboard.

Rosie, at this stage, if I may hand over to you to chair the Q&A with the team. And if I pick up from you at the end, that would be great. Thank you.

Thank you very much, [ Jake ]. So first question, what is the impact of rising interest rates and good yields? Is it a positive or negative for the company?

So from a company perspective, our economic balance sheet, which is our solvency balance sheet is hedged against the major financial risks, so whether interest rates rise, whether they fall, whether equity markets rise or fall currency, inflation, our economic balance sheet solvency balance sheet, which determines our ability to fund our strategy, our ability to pay dividends, , is immunized. From a consumer perspective, the higher interest rates are good for annuities, for those that want to take -- have opted for annuitizing their retirement pots, it's good news for consumers.

You've demonstrated strong progress in workplace and annuities, but still seeing strong outflows in retail. What is your strategy to address these outflows?

So obviously, if you go back when I started in 2020, 7 years ago, we were much more of a closed book consolidator at that point in time. And we've taken that there are 3 big market opportunities in the U.K. that are growing strongly, workplace pensions, which is generally younger age customers trading up towards retirement, what we call retail, which is 50- to 70-year olds, want to help to bring together different pensions and develop a plan to roll over to retirement income. And then annuities is more focused on the 70-plus year old and that's dominated by pension risk transfer business.

So our approach was to focus first on pension risk transfer business and then on workplace just because those are basically corporate transactions. So we only had to get to a small number of professional buyers in order to persuade them. And both those businesses have turned around very strongly and are growing very strongly. So it's only really now we're turning our attention fully to the retail side. But what's interesting in the U.K. market is that only 10% of the population will get -- will pay the fees to independent financial advisers as they journey to and through retirement. 90% of them won't do that, and they'll end up turning to one of their existing providers. And as we combine together with Aegon, 1 in 4 adults in the U.K. are customers of that enlarged Standard Life group.

And it really is all about building out the ability to proactively engage with customers and support them on that journey to and through retirement, and we're now focused on the investment to do that.

One for Nic here. Pension savings operating profit margin increased from 18 basis points to 20 basis points. How much further can margins realistically improve and what is a sustainable long-term level?

Thank you for that question. The underlying driver, the major driver for the improvement in the margin has been our efforts to reduce the operating cost base of our business. We have a GBP 250 million cost savings program. We are more than 80% through that program at this stage and the components that now are earning through our results are material, and that accounts for the majority of the increase that you see to 22 basis points.

As I said, there is still further runway for the margin to improve as we complete the remaining component of our savings program and as that fully earns through. And then from that point on, the margin will be -- the overall profit margin will be -- will move effectively with business mix. Some segments within our business have lower revenue fee margins than others. And as the various segments grow faster than others, then there will be a mix effect that comes through. That mix effect has been net-net negative over the last few years as some high-margin business is slowly running off.

Of course, from 2027, we will also onboard the pensions and savings business from Aegon U.K. that has different profit characteristics at this stage. The average margin is 11 basis points. We're targeting GBP 110 million savings, which should push that margin up to 18 basis points, so very attractive albeit a little lower than that for Standard Life stand-alone. It is very attractive given the mix of business that it has and indeed, very attractive when we benchmark that with other competitors, companies such as L&G or Aviva that operate around the 7, 8 basis points mark. So more headroom as savings -- as cost savings, be it the completion of our program or the Aegon cost savings and then from that point on, it's just a mix effect.

What is the progress with the journey to end state technology and policies? What percentage is done? And where do you expect to be at year-end?

So great question. Thank you. So we're basically working through that on an ongoing basis. And this is a reasonably time-consuming work because you obviously want to make sure you maintain very high standards of service and have complete accuracy as you migrate across the more modern technology. So at this stage, we're about 75% level. Since our results back in March, we haven't had a further migration go in. The next one is actually in the fourth quarter this year, so in November. And then the next one after that is in May of next year. And at that point, we would be up into the 90% done at that stage.

IFRS shareholders' equity was negative in the first half. You said you couldn't declare dividend. How is that possible? And how are your discussions with the regulator around this negative [indiscernible] share?

So being overall negative, it was -- what was something that wasn't a surprise for us given the market movements in the first half of the year on top of market movements in previous years, it's the outworking of our hedging strategy, which is designed to hedge out, as I said at the beginning, the big financial risks and protect our economic balance sheet, which is the solvency balance sheet. But because the IFRS balance sheet doesn't have all of the components, then you see that timing mismatch effect, which is a timing effect.

What determines our ability to distribute dividends is not the overall group reported IFRS shareholders' equity. It's the overall solvency level of the group, which remains very healthy at the upper half of our operating target range. Our ability to operationally deliver cash and earnings that cover our recurring uses, which on a cash basis, we're very comfortably covered, producing an excess of GBP 0.5 billion a year either to use to reduce leverage. And on IFRS earnings, as committed, we've now put the business on a basis where the operating profit covers our recurring uses, which is what we said will happen in 2026.

And finally, it's determined by the legal entity distributable reserves. In other words, the underlying statutory accounts of Standard Life plc and the [indiscernible] indeed the statutory accounts of our subsidiaries, which are prepared on a U.K. GAAP basis and continue to show very healthy level of profit and distributable reserves. So as we've said previously, the group IFRS shareholders' equity does not -- whether it's marginally positive now negative, has no bearing on the way we think strategically about the business and has no bearing on our ability to pay a dividend, which is why we've declared the dividend notwithstanding.

And just a point about growth regulator. So the regulator's focus is very much on the solvency balance sheet because that's the economic balance sheet that determines the economic health and well-being of the business. So the regulators tend to focus on the IFRS balance sheet.

Interestingly, I read earlier today, this is sort of the press that the government is consulting on whether they should determine dividend payouts only by reference to solvency balance sheets from here on.

The Aegon U.K. acquisition is very exciting and takes the company into new segments. What do you see as the major challenges and risks with this transaction?

So I would completely agree. It's very exciting. And what's attractive, it gives us real scale, as I said in the preprepared presentation that you saw earlier, it takes us to GBP 0.5 trillion of assets and the #2 players around GBP 300 billion. So it gives us a real scale advantage. But in particular, it's very complementary in terms of the capabilities. So the areas where Standard Life is strong, the area where Aegon is strong are very complementary and fit well together.

I mean I would say that the single biggest risk here is that we have so many different opportunities ahead of us as an organization. It's a very, very fortunate position to be in. With the excess cash we're generating, we can afford to invest into the business as well. And it's been really quite disciplined about choosing the most important priorities, sequencing the order we do things in, making sure we have great people and talent, but making sure we retain that talent and continue to build and grow the talent and capability in the organization going forward because we are in a very fortunate position with lots of opportunities. So I would say that's the element that I'm most focus on, really ruthless prioritization and sequencing and getting the very best talent.

You talked to the pension risk transfer market having competitive pricing, but at the same time, launched a new PRT partnership? Is this acceptable given the current market backdrop?

Yes, very much so in our view. So maybe first of all, let me touch on the market backdrop. So last year, the government was consulting on whether corporates with the defined benefit scheme could get a return of the surplus in that scheme from an ongoing scheme that's carrying on running. And that led to a number of corporates putting a foot on the ball and stopping and seeing how is that all going to play out.

Our observation of how it's playing through is, firstly, if you are the trustee of that defined benefit scheme, the gold standard remains doing a buy-in or buyout with an insurer. So that's the way you get the best possible security of the benefits that you're responsible for your members. Equally, if you're a corporate, what we're seeing emerge is corporates concluding that the best way for them to get a return of surplus is by doing a buy-in or buyout and extinguishing their liability because then what is left that they're able to get access to.

So we're seeing the pipelines in the market increase. And our view is as the inquiries in the market increase, then that competitor -- the real competitiveness we've seen will ease back to a more normalized level. The reason why the partnership is really attractive is that we are very keen at Standard Life to keep an overall diversified balance sheet. So we want to keep a balance of workplace, retail and annuities as our sort of 3 main lines of business. And so the way we've done that is we've just focused on PRT transactions up to about GBP 2 billion in size. And over half the market is PRT transactions above GBP 2 billion in size.

So Standard Life PRT Solutions is very much focused on that larger end of the market and we only contribute 25% of the capital. The capital partners contribute the other 75%. We will get a fee-based revenue stream for running it because it will be Standard Life as a business in the market that will be presented to customers, and we will run that on behalf of the partners. And then the other key benefit is that 3 of the capital partners all have really excellent private credit origination capabilities. And that's one of the most important competitive factors in a competitive market situation is what yield can you get on the private credit.

Now we will still make all of those private credit decisions that will be investment grade. We'll be very judicious and thoughtful and careful as to what we're doing, but we'll have access to a much broader range of private credit across the whole of our annuity business as a result.

And sticking with the partnership, perhaps one for Nic here. How much incremental profit or cash will Standard Life get from each GBP 1 of capital committed to the PRT partnership?

Yes. We -- great questions. We haven't disclosed that. Clearly, we have an objective to continue to grow our operating cash generation by mid-single digit over the long term. So we see this together with a host of other initiatives as underpinning our confidence and our ability to execute to that. Of course, it's not a spot amount, it's guidance, it's a range. And if you like, because it is a long-term objective that we have or a long-term target, this is us, if you like laying the tracks for our ability to deliver to that commitment for a long time to come.

Could you share with us an outline of your AI strategy, including in particular, the deployment of agentic AI customer-facing packages? Do you have a time frame for rollout? And are you confident of always maintaining human insights at all critical decision-making?

So again, very good question. So the first thing I'd say is I think it's really important when you come to think about any technology, including AI, which is a very powerful new technology, obviously, to be really clear on your business strategy first and foremost and then to think about how the technology and AI can help you execute on that business strategy. So our approach here is basically threefold. The first is getting the right AI tools, capabilities, upskilling that for workforce getting lots of use cases up and running and going across the organization.

So we rolled out M365 Copilot this year. The consultancy that helped support us doing that said that it was the fastest and sort of highest take-up rate, if you like, rollout they've seen anywhere. So we're really pleased with the progress we've made there. And on the back of that, we've also got lots of local use cases. We're now starting to think against that sort of strategic backdrop of where we're trying to go, what -- how can we really leverage AI as part of it. So I'll give you an example of this.

So we're putting AWS Connect, a new customer contact system in place as we speak at the moment. And we're basically using AI in 3 different ways as we do that. The first is we're looking through our customer database Customer 360 and identifying those customers at most risk from a retention perspective, going back to the retail flow question we had earlier. And so which customers particularly want to target in terms of engaging them from a retention perspective. A second example of AI in this is when a call handler is on the phone with a customer, while call handlers are very capable and do a great job, and they will think through what is the next best action that they can recommend to that customer, they're kind of doing it just real time.

So AI is now prompting those call handlers. We suggest in this case -- you suggest this or this or you explore that, that and that. And obviously, that's happening in a much more systemic way through the technology than call handlers just making that decision themselves. I mean I personally spend quite a bit of time customer call listening. It's a great way to keep in touch with what customers are saying to us what experience they're getting. And when I call listen with call handlers, at the end of a call, they'll typically spend 10 to 20 minutes doing a wrap-up of the call, follow-up actions, capturing things on the CRM, the customer relationship management database. And AI is basically doing all of that or preparing it all and then the call handler will just look over it and check that all makes sense.

And then turning to the part of your question about will there always be a human involvement. So as you can see in those examples in all of those, there's still a human involvement. So I think we're a way off letting AI just get on with customer engagement. And in fairness, I don't think customers would like that either. They're happy for AI to be involved in the engagement. But when it comes to making a decision on their retirement, they want to talk to someone. And then the final area we're focused on is just really building the capability and building the skills. And so in bringing Angela Byrne on board as CEO of our Pensions and Savings business at the start of this year, she's got an excellent track record of deploying AI and technology for customers very successfully. And then we've actually created a new role, Chief Digital and Technology Officer and hired someone called Wendy Redshaw, again, a very experienced AI native CIO, digital data character, who will join us later this year. So building the capability as well.

What would you like the government to be focused on? And what's your expectations for the upcoming budget?

So there are 3 things we think are really important from government to support our customers getting a better income in retirement, which is the whole purpose of our business. The first is pension adequacy. So at the moment in the U.K., only 1 in 7 people are saving enough for a decent retirement because the auto-enrollment contribution rates at 8% aren't sufficient for a decent retirement. And so the first point is a review of that, and that's in train. The government set up an independent pension commission. It did an interim report in the summer, which said people just aren't saving anything like enough, and they will come up with its recommendations that's expected in January.

The second is only 10% of the population get advice as they journey to and through retirement, as I referred to earlier. And therefore, the introduction of a new regime called targeted support, which is basically a soft recommendation. People like you tend to do this, we think is a great opportunity to get more and more people, more help as they journey to and through retirement. So we'll be launching our first targeted support proposition in the -- towards the end of this year. And then the third is that we think there's an opportunity for customers to get better returns if they had a higher allocation to private assets.

And again, there's a whole number of areas of government policy focused on that, including legislation that if you're -- as a provider of workplace pensions, if your assets as a provider aren't above GBP 25 billion by 2030, you can no longer trade. And that's driving a concentration down to a smaller number of bigger players, which then means you have the expertise, but also the breadth of assets to get a very good diversified range of private assets as part of customers' overall portfolios. So those are the things we're lobbying for.

In terms of the budget, what we basically want is a consistent direction of travel on those 3 areas and nothing else. What worries us most is the idea of tinkering around or the speculation about changes in pensions every year. We think that's quite detrimental for consumers because ultimately, people aren't saving enough and my concern would be they won't save if they think the goalposts are going to move between the point of saving and the point they then come to take that income. So we think pensions sort of strategy should be set on a long-term basis, not be a subject to speculation in each annual Budget cycle.

You talked to generating GBP 500 million of excess cash per annum. How will you look to utilize that going forward now you have reached your 30% leverage target. Could you increase your dividend growth? Or will capital be needed to fund the growth you are trying to achieve?

So what we won't be doing is using it to reduce debt further. We're comfortable with the 30% leverage ratio that we have achieved. I think it's the appropriate level for our organization in the way we think about the capital -- the cost of the capital that we're deploying, the returns we're securing on it. We're producing plenty of cash to cover the interest and it supports the rating that, maybe we want to secure from Fitch rating agency, the rating agency that we use.

From here on, it's -- and we will provide further guidance on our thinking around that at the Capital Markets event that is scheduled for the 30th of November. We will be extremely value-centric in our approach of how we deploy that. We will seek to deploy in opportunities that increase the intrinsic value of our business. And yes, GBP 500 or so million there's headroom to do several things, but more about that later this year.

And likely touching on that capital markets update aside from the uses of excess cash, what can we expect to hear about that event?

So the -- we're obviously on a 3-year strategy with targets associated for 2024 through to 2026. And so that comes to the end of this year. And therefore, we felt it was appropriate to update the market. I mean the timing isn't necessarily perfect because obviously, we won't have completed the Aegon transaction until the turn of the year. And so in reality, we'll be able to give you more color around that aspect of things post completion. We're pretty confident in the due diligence we've done, but all my experience in doing M&A, you do learn a bit more when you actually have the keys than you knew prior to getting the keys.

So in the context of that, the overall vision and strategic direction of the business won't be changing. It's the right strategic direction. We expect we will evolve our strategic priorities a bit. So for example, we had a priority called Optimize before, which included getting the leverage down to 30%. But now we've done that, we can evolve on from that one as an example. We'll be looking to give financial guidance going forward, having got to the end of this 3-year set of targets. But don't necessarily expect it to be another set of 3-year targets. We're still thinking through what our financial guidance might look like. And then as Nic was just covering, we'll also touch on the -- how we expect to use the excess cash in 2027.

That's the end of our Q&A session. I hand back to Andy for closing remarks.

Thanks very much, Rosie. Well, thank you all very much indeed for taking the time to join us today. Thank you for those of you I know that most of you are shareholders in Standard Life. So thank you very much indeed for your support. I hope you are pleased with the consistent, reliable dividends that we pay and a decent bit of capital appreciation over the last 18 months as well. But rest assured that as a management team, we feel we're only just beginning on the exciting journey ahead. Our market is huge, it's growing strongly. We are uniquely well placed as the #1 player to help more and more customers on that journey to and through retirement and hence, continue generating attractive returns for shareholders as we do that. So thanks very much indeed for your time, and we'll catch up again soon. Thank you.

Perfect, guys. That's great. If I may just jump back in there. And Andy, Nic, thank you once again for updating investors this afternoon. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback.

On behalf of the management team of Standard Life plc, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.

Good morning. Welcome to Standard Life's Half Year 2026 Results Presentation. I will now hand over to Andy Briggs, Group Chief Executive Officer, to introduce the session. Andy, over to you.

Thank you, Claire. You said that without moving your lips. It's quite impressive. Look, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Standard Life's 2026 Half Year Results. Today, I'll begin with an update on how our delivery is building momentum across our strategic priorities. Nic will take you through the detail of our financial performance, which supports achieving our 2026 targets. I'll then return to update on our next phase of growth before taking your questions.

We're now in the final stages of our 3-year strategy, and I'm delighted with the progress we've made since 2024. First, the U.K. market is one of the most attractive globally for retirement savings and income, and we're uniquely positioned in that market because of the capabilities and platforms we've built, our leading brand and our commitment to putting our customers at the core of everything we do. Second, we're building momentum through execution of our strategic priorities, which is driving growth across our key financial metrics. That means we've already achieved some of our end 2026 targets with our strong half year results, and we're on track for the remainder.

Third, we're poised for further growth and an acceleration of our strategy through both the GBP 2 billion Aegon U.K. acquisition and the recently announced GBP 2 billion U.K. PRT partnership. Together, these are a step change in strengthening our capabilities and customer offering and provide access to a broader customer base. All of which means we are accelerating our vision to be the U.K.'s leading retirement savings and income business, a retirement champion, helping customers achieve better outcomes and greater financial security. It also means we have even greater financial flexibility to further invest in growth and deliver strong shareholder returns.

As I mentioned, the execution of our strategy continues to translate into strong performance across cash, capital and earnings as demonstrated here. Once again, we have good growth in operating cash generation, and we remain confident in mid-single-digit percentage growth into the long term. Our growing business is generating surplus capital, which we've used to improve the quality of our capital by paying down debt while remaining in the upper half of our solvency range.

Finally, on earnings, we remain on track to achieve our GBP 1.1 billion operating profit target in 2026, having delivered another period of strong operational performance. And we continue to grow our dividend, bringing total dividend payments to GBP 1.4 billion across this phase of our strategy.

In 2024, we set a highly ambitious 3-year strategy underpinned by 3 strategic priorities: Grow, Optimize and Enhance. We've made excellent progress against all of these in the first half, which has contributed to the strong financial performance that I just covered. Under Grow, we announced the Aegon U.K. acquisition and our U.K. PRT partnership. I'll come back to these later. Alongside these transformational developments, we're also continuing to innovate, launching Future Opportunities, a new alternative default solution designed to improve customer outcomes by opening up access to high-quality private assets. And we're increasing the allocation to private assets in our main default fund. The overall investment in our new business capability is driving strong outcomes. I'm particularly proud of the workplace wins in the first half, which I'll touch on later.

Under Optimize, we achieved our deleveraging target ahead of plan and increased the amount of annuity backing assets managed in-house to GBP 12 billion. Under Enhance, we delivered GBP 210 million of cumulative run rate cost savings using technology, including AI, to reshape our organization, enhance our colleague experience and create a more efficient and scalable business. The message is simple. We're executing with discipline, delivering against our strategy and building strong momentum for the second half and longer term.

Let's look at the market we operate in. I continue to believe that the U.K. market has never been this exciting. And better still, in this rapidly growing market, we're the only scale U.K. player solely focused on the full savings and retirement life cycle with strong existing market positions in workplace, retail and annuities. This slide will be familiar as we've used it before, but we've now added our pro forma market positions to reflect Aegon U.K. and our new PRT partnership, both of which significantly strengthened those market positions. Specifically in Workplace and Retail, we moved to having #2 positions in both markets. And in annuities, we moved to a top 3 position.

Let's now talk to the progress we've delivered in the first half in our key markets. The themes on the left-hand side of the slide are the key reasons we're winning in our chosen markets, consistent with what we set out in March. Each of these are underpinned by a broad range of capabilities, which we continue to enhance to meet the evolving needs of our customers and which are further supported by the trusted Standard Life brand. I'm delighted that our relentless focus on delivering better customer outcomes is in turn translating into strong operational performance.

Starting with Workplace at the top of the slide, where winning requires 3 things: a leading employer proposition, excellent customer service and cost-efficient administration. We were strong in all 3 as demonstrated across a collection of key customer metrics. We've seen our Net Promoter Score increase 4 points this year to 64. And we have maintained an exceptionally high level of client retention at 99.8%, which demonstrates how happy our customers are with us.

We secured GBP 6.2 billion of new scheme wins in the first half, including the largest ever for Standard Life, which will support our flow trajectory into 2027. Scheme wins are lumpy, but the GBP 6.2 billion compares very favorably to the GBP 1.5 billion of wins across the whole of last year. So more great progress and hugely exciting that this market will be further supercharged by market consolidation as minimum fund size is enforced and expected contribution increases.

Moving to retail. This is an area that we've more recently focused on. We're investing to ensure effective customer engagement and that we offer the right products and solutions at the right time. For example, to help our customers navigate some of the recent budget changes, we've reentered the onshore investment bond market, which you can see in the flow uplift on the right of the slide. We're also preparing to expand our advice proposition to include inheritance tax planning and aim to launch our first targeted support proposition around the end of the year. I've called out in the dotted box that we still have a significant opportunity to leverage our digital infrastructure, and there's more to do here. This is an area Angela Byrne has been focusing much of our energy on since joining earlier this year and will be further bolstered by the arrival of Wendy Redshaw, who will join us in our newly created role of Chief Digital and Technology Officer in the coming months.

The outcome of our existing efforts in retail are already encouraging, visible on the right of the page. Similar to Workplace, our retail customer satisfaction scores are improving with our Net Promoter Score of 61, a 6-point improvement in the first half. I'm particularly pleased that our advice proposition is resonating so well with customers with 95% of them rating it as good or excellent value.

Lastly, the annuities business in yellow, which includes both individual annuities and PRT. Winning here is all about having a leading employer proposition, excellent member experience and competitive pricing. Our strength in all 3 is why we're winning in both these markets. Growth in our new individual annuity products continues, up 14% year-on-year. Our disciplined approach to annuities is evidenced by the attractive returns generated with lifetime IRRs in our annuity business maintained at more than 20% in the first half.

From a PRT perspective, our existing business is delivering strongly, actively quoting on a pipeline of about GBP 7 billion. And with huge client interest in our new partnership, it means that we expect an even stronger pipeline once it launches.

And with that, I'll hand you over to Nic, who will cover the financials in more detail. Nic?

Okay. Thank you, Andy, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to be presenting today another strong set of results at the half year point of this year as we navigate towards the delivery of all of our 2026 financial targets and prepare Standard Life for the next stage of its journey.

Starting my presentation with the usual financial headlines. Operating cash generation of GBP 745 million in the first half was in line with our mid-single-digit growth guidance, while total cash generation stood at GBP 900 million. We have achieved the leverage ratio target at 30 June, while ensuring that our solvency cover remained in the upper half of our operating range at 169%. IFRS operating profit was 25% higher at GBP 563 million, supported by asset growth and cost savings, which reached GBP 210 million on a cumulative run rate basis.

Adjusted IFRS shareholders' equity was GBP 2.7 billion, benefiting from strong growth in operating profit that now covers recurring uses, offset by the negative hedge-related market impacts. In line with our previous practice, we have declared an interim dividend of 28.05p per share, up 2.6% year-on-year. Overall, we remain on track to deliver all the targets at the end of this year.

I'm very pleased with the step-up achieved in our operating cash and earnings performance over the last 2 years. In line with what I indicated back in March 2025, this has provided us the headroom to reduce leverage, improving the quality of our capital and has lifted IFRS operating earnings to more than cover our recurring uses.

I will now take you through the financial results in more detail, starting with the performance of our main businesses. Backed by our leading propositions and brand, our pensions and savings business continues to grow assets, margin and profitability. Workplace saw gross inflows of GBP 4.9 billion in the first half of 2026, including GBP 0.8 billion from new schemes. A total of GBP 6.2 billion of new scheme wins have, in fact, been secured this year, most of which are expected to incept in early 2027, and we continue to see a healthy pipeline of new opportunities.

Including -- excluding rather the contribution from new schemes, regular gross inflows were GBP 4.1 billion in the first half, highlighting once again the strong flywheel effect of this business. Outflows reflect the higher asset base and the natural attrition from members taking their pensions.

Turning to Retail. Gross inflows are up 9% year-on-year at GBP 3.6 billion, benefiting from continued momentum in international bonds and the early fruits of our retention efforts. Gross outflows remain sizable at GBP 7.3 billion, but we expect these to continue to improve as a percentage of AUA as our retention focus gains further traction. In the top right, you can see how these flows have combined with positive market effects to lift the overall AUA base to a combined GBP 226 billion, up 7% year-to-date.

In the bottom half of the slide, I summarize the drivers of the financial performance for pensions and savings. Given the capital-light fee-based nature of this business, we consider IFRS operating profit to be the most suitable performance measure. Average AUA grew 10% year-on-year to GBP 217 billion, which combined with an improved operating margin of 22 basis points, drove operating profit 36% higher to GBP 244 million, highlighting once again the power of our scale advantage and operating leverage.

Our Retirement Solutions business also delivered a strong operating performance in the first half. As I have previously stated, new volumes are not the primary driver of profits here. We run over GBP 40 billion of annuity assets, and it is the management of this large book that drives our profitability. We have 2 main product lines in this business, namely individual annuities and PRTs.

For individual annuities, product innovation and rising consumer demand saw new premiums grow by 8% year-on-year to GBP 0.6 billion, supported by a 14% growth in premiums secured in the open market. PRT premiums in the first half totaled GBP 1.6 billion with a further GBP 0.4 billion completed or at an exclusive stage since the end of June.

Our stated aim is to deploy up to GBP 200 million of capital to annuities this year, provided we secure sufficiently attractive returns. As Andy mentioned, new business returns were broadly similar to those achieved in 2025. But given ongoing low credit spreads and competitive pricing, we expect these to be lower in the second half. We remain disciplined and confident in our ability to win in this market, and our competitive position will be further supported by our new U.K. PRT partnership with prominent global financial institutions.

The drivers of performance for Retirement Solutions are covered in the bottom half of the slide. Given the capital utilizing spread-based nature of this business, we consider OCG to be the most appropriate performance measure. Our effective management of the in-force book, combined with our scale, efficiency and expertise in delivering asset portfolio optimization actions enabled us to sustain the annual spread-based margin at 222 basis points, which applied to our growing average AUA of GBP 42 billion, produced OCG of GBP 466 million, up 5% year-on-year.

I will now move to the group metrics, starting with operating cash generation. In line with our guidance, OCG increased 6% to GBP 745 million, reflecting both growth in the surplus emergence and higher recurring management actions, which contributed GBP 318 million in the first half. The composition of these management actions is broadly similar year-on-year with further detail provided in the appendix. We're confident in achieving our guidance of GBP 500 million recurring management actions each year as the capabilities and dynamics that underpin this performance are both differentiated and enduring.

On the right, you can see the business segment analysis of OCG. P&S grew by 23% to GBP 203 million, supported by underlying business growth. As covered earlier, the OCG from Retirement Solutions grew by 5% to GBP 466 million, while that from with-profits, Europe and other taken together produced GBP 76 million.

Turning next to the group's solvency walk for the first half. After covering recurring uses, we generated GBP 0.2 billion of net recurring capital, mostly in the form of own funds, which added 5 percentage points of solvency cover. Non-recurring items netted to a small negative amount and included GBP 0.1 billion negative contribution from economics net of hedging.

The operating capital generation in the period, combined with support from the opening surplus position enabled us to retire GBP 0.5 billion of debt in June. The resulting shareholder coverage ratio declined to 169%, but with the debt reduction program now behind us, we expect this ratio to rebound in the second half.

Turning next to leverage. Our ratio improved to 29%, reflecting the GBP 0.5 billion debt redemption outlined in the previous slide. We have achieved our 30% target in the first half of 2026 while remaining in the upper half of our solvency operating range. Since the end of June, we have issued a GBP 350 million RT1 debt instrument to fund a portion of the cash consideration for the Aegon U.K. acquisition and a further GBP 300 million debt raise will be undertaken ahead of completion.

I would remind you that the mixture of debt and equity funding of the transaction has been structured to produce a leverage ratio on completion that is in line with our 30% target, a level which I consider appropriate for our business going forward.

Turning next to cost savings, where we remain on track to achieve our GBP 250 million target, net of inflation by the end of this year. On a run rate basis, we have achieved GBP 210 million of savings up to the end of June 2026. Savings on an earned basis in the first half of 2026 were GBP 95 million, which was some GBP 55 million higher year-on-year with broadly 2/3 of this uplift reported through earnings and the remaining 1/3 accounted through the CSM.

The chart on the left depicts the delivery timing of the GBP 250 million cost savings with the final GBP 40 million component expected in the second half of 2026. On the right, the pie chart shows where the cost savings have come from, highlighting how we have structurally reduced the ongoing -- our ongoing cost base through a combination of migrations to end-state platforms and business simplification. These actions will both underpin and sustain the improvement in our operating margins as we grow the business from here.

Moving to the IFRS results. Our adjusted operating profit increased by 25% to GBP 563 million. Profits from pensions and savings grew by 36% to GBP 244 million, while those from Retirement Solutions increased by 13% to GBP 324 million. With the Pensions and Savings earnings growth outpacing that from Retirement Solutions, we have continued to improve the capital-light mix of our profits. These performance improvements were driven by business expansion, cost savings and higher investment margins, reflecting the successful delivery of our Grow, Optimize and Enhance strategic priorities. We are on track to achieve our GBP 1.1 billion operating profit target at the end of this year.

This next slide completes the IFRS basis picture. As you can see in the dotted box, the improved operating profit performance is now covering our recurring uses in line with what we said would happen in 2026. Non-operating items include the planned investment spend to deliver our strategic priorities and GBP 25 million of expenditure relating to the strategic transactions announced in the first half.

Adverse economic variances of GBP 473 million were almost entirely driven by negative marks on equity hedges following an 11% blended rise in markets. As previously explained, this is a known consequence of our hedging strategy, which protects cash and solvency capital, but gives rise to an accounting mismatch volatility under IFRS. The resulting IFRS shareholders' equity level continues to pose no practical restrictions to our strategic and capital flexibility nor to our ability to pay a dividend. As I have previously indicated, this adverse variance is offset elsewhere in our financials, which I will come to next.

I have updated the slide that I first shared in March, which shows where these offsets come through in our financials, namely in the increases in our 2 key stores of future value. These are the insurance contract CSM and the investment contracts value in force, which grew by GBP 0.1 billion and GBP 0.6 billion, respectively, year-to-date before tax, with GBP 0.5 billion of the combined increase coming from market effects. These future stores of value are now over GBP 10 billion on a pretax discounted basis and will emerge through IFRS earnings in future years, providing a strong underpin to our performance trajectory for many years to come.

In my final slide, I would like to take stock of the notable transformation in our ability to generate positive excess cash since 2023. By growing OCG and moderating our recurring uses, we have significantly improved our ability to both cover our growing dividend and generate a rising level of excess cash. In the first half, this excess was GBP 229 million, and we expect this to be GBP 0.5 billion at the full year, the level required to cover the 2026 debt redemptions from in-year capital flow.

Also in 2026, we have announced 2 strategic transactions, namely the acquisition of Aegon U.K., which is expected to enhance recurring excess cash from year 1 and the new U.K. PRT partnership. Both will allow us to accelerate the growth of our main businesses and will provide further support to our mid-single-digit OCG growth guidance.

With these transactions in place and the leverage ratio target achieved, our capital allocation focus from 2027 will be directed to growth and shareholder returns.

I will now hand you back to Andy.

Thank you, Nic. We continue to be focused on delivering our promises for 2026, and we are really excited about what comes next as we progress to our next phase of growth. So let me cover some of that now.

When we started the strategic plan, we set out a clear vision to be the U.K.'s leading retirement savings and income business. We began building out the capabilities shown here in blue to achieve this vision. And the evidence of this comes through in our strong first half results. The light blue box at the top, a digitally enabled and personalized customer interface focused on data, guidance and advice is the last bit of the picture. Building this out is now very much our focus and expect to hear more on this in 2027.

Through both our GBP 2 billion acquisition of Aegon U.K. and the up to GBP 2 billion PRT partnership, we can scale and accelerate that same strategy. And in doing so, help more customers achieve better outcomes and greater financial security in later life. It's not just me who's excited about what is to come from Standard Life. It's fantastic to see the collective energy from our colleagues throughout the organization.

With the Aegon U.K. transaction, we're bringing together 2 businesses with shared goals, ambitions and social purpose to create a new leader in pensions and savings. This transaction is both strategically and financially compelling.

Let me remind you of the logic behind this is set out on the slide. First, it gives us increased scale. Standard Life will become the largest retirement savings and income business in the U.K. Second, it's really complementary in terms of capabilities, which I'll come on to. Third, it accelerates making us a more capital-light business. Fourth, the financial metrics for the deal are attractive. We expect to unlock GBP 0.8 billion of net synergies and increase our excess cash by GBP 0.4 billion over the next 5 years. That will give us even greater flexibility to invest in growth and return capital in the future. Finally, the funding structure is efficient and it enhances our capital strength.

We continue to make good progress towards completion, which is expected around the end of the year, subject to regulatory approvals. And I look forward to welcoming Aegon U.K. colleagues into the Standard Life family at that point and working together to capture the huge potential in front of us all.

As well as giving us increased scale, this acquisition strengthens our capabilities and what we can offer our customers. Many of you will be very familiar with Standard Life's existing products and solutions, which are set out along the top of the slide in the dark blue box. Aegon U.K. adds a number of areas where our Standard Life business has less of a presence today, and we regard as being very important to our offer going forward.

In Workplace, Standard Life tends to be stronger with EBCs, while Aegon's strengths lie more with corporate advisers focused on small to midsized workplace clients. In Retail, Aegon's adviser platform will extend our adviser reach and relevance, while the financial advice proposition will add significantly as well. And the additional products, including ISAs and general investment accounts that will broaden our range.

Aegon's expertise in these and other areas will help to significantly accelerate our growth ambitions and better meet our customer needs. The enlarged group will have broader waterfront capabilities, strengthen distribution with an enhanced digital and technology offer. Another important milestone this year is the announcement that we're expanding our PRT business through a GBP 2 billion partnership. This is, first and foremost, about helping more customers achieve greater financial security in retirement.

As more defined benefit pension schemes look to secure member benefits over the coming decade, we see a significant opportunity to expand the strength of Standard Life's PRT business to schemes above GBP 2 billion. Schemes at this upper end of the market represent over half of the GBP 1.1 trillion of U.K. scheme assets, the majority of which are expected to be de-risked over the next decade, and customers here are currently only served by 3 providers.

Second, we thought carefully about the best way to serve this part of the market and concluded that this structure creates a differentiated and unique proposition for trustees of the U.K.'s largest DB schemes. As the partnership combines Standard Life's trusted PRT expertise, customer service and operational capabilities with substantial long-term capital and specialist investment expertise from our partners. Here, our brand, a household name will be a key differentiator. Trustees have specifically told us they want Standard Life to participate in the larger end of the market. We selected partners who have similarly strong brands and reputations.

The partnership will bring access to diversified private market origination through multiple leading global institutions. This consortium approach gives us access to a broader range of asset classes, sectors and geographies that would be available through any single provider, which means more competitive pricing and structuring flexibility, and this is available to the whole of Standard Life.

Let me now touch on the attractive financials of the partnership. In addition to the attractive returns the partnership expects to generate, Standard Life will receive fee-based payments for its oversight of operational services and origination of PRT transactions, creating a new capital-light earnings stream for us. Together, these underline our confidence in delivering mid-single-digit growth in operating cash generation and also growth in operating profit over time. The partnership is expected to launch in the first half of next year, subject to regulatory approvals and will build volume over time.

On this slide, we outline the structures of our PRT businesses in a bit more detail. On the left-hand side, you can see our existing business as it stands today, a leading player in the PRT market that has completed over GBP 32 billion worth of transactions. We allocate around GBP 200 million per annum of capital to this business, which generates around GBP 6 billion per annum in total annuity volumes. This business remains unchanged, but will have the additional benefit of private market origination provided by the specialist capabilities of our partners.

There is clearly a lot of private capital interest coming into this market, which shows the opportunity. What makes our offering unique is the nature of the partnership. We've deliberately brought together multiple global institutions with very strong and complementary private credit origination capabilities, including CVC, Prudential Financial and Goldman Sachs.

I'm also delighted to further deepen our long-standing strategic partnership with MS&AD. This investment reflects their confidence in both the U.K. PRT market and the strength of the proposition being created through this partnership. The potential is for GBP 5 billion to GBP 7 billion per annum of incremental business from the partnership. And of the GBP 2 billion total over 5 years, Standard Life expects to fund its GBP 500 million capital contribution from yearly excess cash generation.

So 2 different ownership structures, but trustees and sponsors will continue to engage with Standard Life directly and receive the same high standards of service, governance and member experience that have underpinned our success in the PRT market to date.

Putting all this together, within the Pensions and Savings market, we'll be the largest player underpinned by a #2 position in both Workplace and Retail, as I outlined earlier. What is unique to us is that we're big in both of these markets, which brings real synergistic benefits, whereas the other players are only big in one or the other. And the additional annuities capacity from our PRT partnership on top of Standard Life's existing business moves us to be a top 3 player in the annuities market as well. But we will remain disciplined in our approach with a laser focus on value over volume.

Put another way, these transformational developments extend our participation. We're now able to play in the 1/3 of the Retail profit pool, which we weren't before with the added products of ISAs and general investment accounts. And we're opening up the other half of the profit pool in PRT. Overall, we'll be the U.K.'s largest retirement savings and income player with GBP 0.5 trillion of assets. To give a sense of scale, the #2 player is around GBP 300 billion of assets. This scale supports greater commercial advantage and further operating leverage given a high proportion of costs in our sector are fixed.

We'll use our expanded scale and expanded capabilities to be better for customers, advocating for better retirements and helping our customers achieve lasting financial security as we champion the belief that everyone's journey to and through retirement can be better. So to summarize, we operate in one of the most attractive retirement savings and income markets in the world, and we are uniquely positioned to benefit. Our strong execution is delivering better customer outcomes. We're building momentum through executing on our strategic priorities, which means we're on track to achieve our 2026 targets. And we're poised for further growth with Aegon U.K. and our U.K. PRT partnership.

Post 2026, the broad strategic direction for Standard Life will be in line with our current vision. In November, we'll share a high-level view on our future strategic priorities as well as new financial guidance. We'll also outline uses of excess cash for 2027. Executing on our vision gives us greater financial flexibility and the luxury of generating excess cash and capital, and we'll look to strike the right balance between investing in growth opportunities and shareholder returns. In summary, I'm really confident and excited for what is to come from Standard Life.

So with that, let us move to questions. We'll start with questions here in the room. We'll then go to any questions online.

So Abid, hand first up there, very quick and keen.

It's Abid Hussain from Panmure Liberum. I've got 3 questions, I think. The first one is on PRT partnerships and the economics there. Just wondering if you can explain how the credit risks are shared between the partners and what you will receive in terms of the economics. You gave us some flavor there. But just, for example, on a GBP 1 billion PRT transaction, what would be the absolute OCG or OCG margin on AUA or IRRs, if that's still a relevant metric? That's the first question.

And then the second one is on Europe and other. It looks like there's an OCG drag there coming through the numbers. Just wondering what the stable base there is. Is there anything structural or strategic that we should be aware of? And then finally, on the transformation of the group, you're acquiring Aegon and you're launching a PRT partnership. Are there any other capabilities that you need to add to the group? I'm thinking here of asset management more broadly.

So I'll take the third of those and then get Nic to take the first and second. So I mean, we're pretty happy already as we sit here today with the capabilities we have. And I think you can see that in the strong operating momentum that we're delivering in the business. I think the move to bring Aegon U.K. in and the PRT partnership, both add to that. And I covered in the prepared words, in particular, adding ISAs and general investment accounts opens up the other 1/3 of that retail profit pool, their strength in the small to midsized employers in workplace, the adviser platform. And similarly, we're basically playing in just under half of the PRT market with schemes up to GBP 2 billion in size, and we're now playing in the whole market.

So from here, very confident that we can build out everything we need organically. I mean I wouldn't rule out capability-based bolt-ons, but equally don't feel that we need those, very confident that we can go organically from here. There's a lot to do. We're launching a new partnership. We've got the Aegon U.K. business to integrate as well as all the further steps we want to make on the retail side to drive the positive flows. So we've got a lot on our plate and I'm quite happy to get a heads down and crack on with all of that. Nic, do you want to take the first two?

Okay. Let's start with the second one, which is the simplest, and I'll come back to the PRT economics. So you will recall or you may recall last year, we reclassified the AUA from international bonds out of Europe and other and into U.K. retail. We didn't move the profits of the OCG that related to that. We -- the numbers were small. But we have reflected them in the half year 2026 numbers, and they were GBP 8 million on IFRS and GBP 12 million on OCG for the 6 months this year.

On the PRT partnership, now clearly, it will take a little time for the business to ramp up. and to deliver OCG and operating profits. We have been careful to guide you to say that this is a component of us delivering the mid-single-digit guidance, which isn't changing of OCG growth. And think of it, if you like, as this is us laying the tracks further down the line for continued growth in OCG because the mid-single-digit guidance is over the long-term guidance, which I believe is very attractive given a business of our size with the base of OCG that we have today, soon to be augmented by another GBP 160 million plus from Aegon.

When we look at the economics, I mean, clearly, the vehicle itself will produce an attractive overall return. I mean that's why ultimately, both us and our partners are investing. We will be able, as Andy said in his preprepared notes, we'll be able to augment the return when we bring it into the totality of Standard Life because of the deal origination fees and the servicing fees that we will levy on the vehicle. Therefore, if you like, the underlying performance of the entity plus those fees should mean that the business we transact is written on roughly the same economics of what we're doing in PLL today, which benefits from bigger diversification.

From the partner's perspective, they'll be able to augment the underlying entity returns from the fixed income for fixed assets, private assets origination fees. So we're excited. As I said, this is -- we are excited by the transaction. We're excited by the fact that it gives us access to half of the value pool that we didn't have previously. We're doing it with partners that bring not only capital but capability. And as I said, this is us laying down the tracks for the long-term delivery of our OCG guidance.

Farooq?

Farooq Hanif from JPMorgan. I've got 2 questions, but it may feel like 4. So I apologize for that. So the first question is on Retail. Can you talk about what you see as your kind of in-house addressable market as in your own retail customers? I mean what is addressable there for you? How would you attack that with additional capability? And what is this digital tool about that you're talking about? Is that just a platform? Is that what you mean? That's question one.

And question two is kind of the philosophy that you see in terms of capital management going forward. So I mean one end of that could be we're going to use all of our surplus cash to grow and to return to shareholders because we think we're adequately capitalized and we have a good leverage ratio, for example. And the other end would be, well, actually, we want to keep some surplus going forward because we feel like it's important for our cost of equity to do that. So I just kind of wondering how you're thinking about it philosophically.

Sure. Okay. So I'll take the first, and Nic will take the second. So on the first, Farooq, if you look across our total customer base, it will be around 10% will have an active intermediary relationship. And where there's an active intermediary relationship, we work with that intermediary to serve the needs of the clients. But 90% won't have an active intermediary, and therefore, they'll turn to us for help and support and guidance as they journey to and through retirement. So the opportunity is massive, absolutely massive because there are more and more of these customers getting into 50-plus age bracket. They've got multiple pension pots from different employments. They don't really understand it all, and they need help and support.

So basically, delivering that help and support is really all about 3 things. It's about having the right means by which to engage with customers. So the fact we're launching our first targeted support proposition later this year, the fact we're extending our advisers into inheritance tax planning is great and Aegon adding 100-plus new advisers really helps that engagement side. We need all the right products and services, and we have those in the pension space, but adding on the ISAs and general investment accounts just enables us to broaden and deepen that relationship with customers. So that's in train as well. So most of the residual work is actually the digital infrastructure, that sort of third box on the retail slide.

And that's basically about 2 real key elements to it. The first is getting our customer data into Customer 360, is what we call our customer database, hooking that in with the Salesforce CRM system and then developing a series of proactive nudges to customers to engage them on that journey to and through retirement. At the moment, others are basically engaging them before we do, and that's why we have the outflows. We need to get that proactive engagement going earlier. And then the second thing we need to do is basically sort of to drive up the coverage across that because the real focus there prior to the Aegon acquisition is the 7 million pensions and savings customers. Of those 7 million, 4 million are Standard Life branded and half of them are engaged with us digitally.

So let's get the other half engaged digitally. And then we need to build the digital front end across the Phoenix Life and ReAssure branded customers as well to engage those as well. So there is some investment in that. It's not big, big numbers. There's some investment because we're focused on our existing customers. It is going to take a period of time, but and ultimately, it will take time for 2 reasons. Firstly, if you think of the pace of turnaround we delivered in workplace and PRT, but you've got a small number of professional buyers there in kind of buying in bulk for a corporate as a whole. Here, we're trying to engage 7 million existing customers, the 11 million existing customers when Aegon comes on board.

And secondly, you try out these different proactive nudges and different approaches, but you actually want to see what works well and what works less well before you scale it. So summary of all of that is we've got a massive unique advantage over peers in having all these customers with the trusted Standard Life brand. There's work to be done, not massively expensive, but there's work to be done to get all those capabilities in place, really confident in the long term, but it will take time for all of that to come through.

Okay. On the second, Farooq, it's not lost on us that we have an existing capital financial management framework that has served us well over the last few years and that elements of it have been completed. So fully appreciated that it needs to evolve. And we're going to tell you in November. What I will say at this stage is that however we deploy this capital, will be entirely value-driven. We will look to do the best we can to improve and enhance the intrinsic value of this business, completely value rational.

And the other thing I'd just quickly add is what we'll cover is the plan in 2027. Firstly, things will change over the ensuing year, and we'll want to make the right allocation decisions for 2028 when we get there because different options will have different returns over time. And secondly, let's recognize that we only actually get the keys for Aegon at the turn of the year. And while we've got a very good sense of the business from our due diligence, in my experience, you always learn a bit more when you actually own a business. And so we'll be able to give a lot more color as we take full ownership of that business.

Where next we go to? Andrew, behind.

Andrew Baker, Goldman Sachs. First one, apologies, can I return to the capital framework. So you've been pretty clear that sort of next phase is growth, shareholder return for '27. Obviously, there's a bit of an interplay between shareholder return and leverage. I guess, how do you think about that interplay? And what would be the sort of maximum amount of shareholder return you could do before, I guess, leverage grows? Any thoughts there and just how you're generally thinking about that would be helpful.

Second one, I think, apologies if I've got the numbers wrong, but you said a GBP 7 billion PRT pipeline in the release this morning. Should I assume that's just for schemes under GBP 2 billion? And if so, do you have a sense of what that pipeline could look like if you were to include schemes above GBP 2 billion?

And then finally, just on the shareholder equity walk, obviously, good to see the sources in excess of usage. Notice that doesn't include nonoperating expenses, which I appreciate will come down next year, but should still be a bit of a drag and also tax is a positive. Next year, should we expect, if we were to expand that sort of to include those categories, should we expect that still to be covered on that basis? And I guess just directionally, are taxes going to be a positive or negative into next year on that equity walk?

So I'll let Nic take 1 and 3, and I'll take the second one. So the GBP 7 billion pipeline we talked about is very much dominated by the existing sub GBP 2 billion PRT business because we only launched the partnership 3 weeks ago. But what I'd say in terms of potential, I think it's huge because to date, most of the PRT that's been done has actually been what I call small to midsized cases, so up to around GBP 2 billion. What we're seeing now is that the larger schemes and of the GBP 1.1 trillion of DB assets in the U.K., over half of it is schemes above GBP 2 billion. More and more of those are actively looking at derisking and buy in or buy out.

So for example, the 5 major banks in the U.K., 4 of the 5 are actively engaged in this. I was talking to one household name client recently where they were wanting to explore this. And they actually were really -- they basically only want to deal with a household brand and their scheme is in the teens of billions. And they were very keen that Standard Life were participating in this market because they wanted a larger number of household names that they could put to their customers -- sorry, their employees and members of their scheme. So I do think the Standard Life brand will be even more powerful and important at this larger end of the market as well. So I think the pipeline, I would expect to grow very significantly now as we get that partnership launched.

Okay. On leverage, as I said in my prepared remarks, 30% is where we want to manage the business kind of going forward. It's what I believe is appropriate for this group when I have regard to the kind of 3 criteria that are central in making that judgment, that decision. One is what do we want the weighted average cost of capital of the business to be vis-a-vis the returns that we can execute strategy, how we generate value, when I look at our ability to cover the ensuing interest payments and when I look at the kind of rating that I want to have for our business.

So 30% is what we're going to target. There is a mechanism for managing that, whether it's bringing it down or taking it back up because we have a lot of debt that needs refinancing over the next 3 years. So if we need to do a little less, we need to do a little more, then it provides us kind of a ready-made mechanism.

On the shareholder equity walk, yes, on a stand-alone Standard Life basis, our commitment was that it would -- excluding economics, it will be positive. Of course, it would capture the tax. The tax is not difficult. It's roughly 25% on the totality of the profit. So -- and in the interim financial report, we give the split how much of that attaches to the operating performance as opposed to the nonoperating, so you can form a view. You can take out the component that relates to economics. So that's the plan -- that was the plan. Of course, everything else being equal, everything else isn't equal. We have the Aegon acquisition. So that will bring its own pluses and minuses. And as Andy said, when we get -- when we're in control of that business, we'll be able to update any guidance.

What I would say, I guess, in case it needs saying, at the moment that the acquisition completes, we'll see a big step-up in the stock of our IFRS equity, which will be the amount equivalent to the market value on the date of completion applied to the 181 million shares that we're issuing to Aegon Group.

So Andrew, then Nasib.

It's Andrew Crean, Autonomous. Could I ask on 2 or 3 areas. Firstly, on the cost saving program, which is completing at the end of this year. How do you view that going forward in terms of the ability to release a second -- another cost-saving programs? And this is basically a function of you bringing all those closed books together, I can see it, whether you can continue on that.

Secondly, could you talk a little bit about the competition in the PRT market at the moment, how you're seeing that this year? And then thirdly, on Europe, do you have any plans for that business in terms of maybe extricating yourself from some of those businesses?

Okay. So I'll take the second and third and get Nic to cover the first. So the PRT market has definitely got much more competitive this year. I think the team did an outstanding job to write the GBP 1.6 billion we did in the first half at the margins we did. I was really, really pleased with that outcome. As Nic said, we don't expect margins to stay at that same level in the second half. The market has got a lot more competitive. Our real edge here is our brand, the fact we're far more diversified than most of our peers. We have real innovation in terms of the longevity swaps. So we're very confident that we can win. We continue to build and add to that capability. So we've now got GBP 12 billion of the assets in-house, for example.

But broadly, Andrew, my kind of view of this is that most of our competitors are monolines. And there is a focus in some of them around volumes that they've committed to generate either internally or externally. And so when the market has been a little bit smaller, then that competition has been more intense. I think when market demand increases again, the reason market demand has been a bit less is there was a focus last year around the government consulting on getting a return of surplus from an ongoing scheme. What's basically transpiring there is that trustees continue to see that the buy-in or buyout is the gold standard in terms of member protection for their members, but also the corporate sponsor is seeing that the best way to get a return of surplus is to do a buy-in or buyout because you're effectively extinguishing your liability and therefore, that the surplus becomes available.

So what we're seeing is the pipeline is building up strongly again now. We just had a bit of a period of lower volumes. When those volumes get greater again, I would expect pricing to be not as competitive as it is currently in the market. From our perspective, being a multiline player, we will remain very disciplined. And if we write less volume for a period of time, we will not be the least bit concerned about that. We'll be very disciplined. We'll only allocate capital where we can generate attractive returns. It's one of the advantages of being a diversified multiline player.

In terms of Europe, the performance of the Europe business is strong. So in particular, the international bond is -- so the international bond is one of the key parts of our U.K. Retail business, but it's actually manufactured in our Dublin operation. The Irish domestic business is also performing strongly. So we talked about this before. We're still working through some of the work on the internal model, in particular, the migration to more modern technology. That will give more optionality in the future.

But at the moment, I'm pretty pleased with how the European business is performing for us. And in reality, the value opportunity lies much more in successfully integrating Aegon U.K. and launching the PRT partnership alongside all the BAU activity we've got going on in the U.K. at the moment.

Nic, do you want to take the cost question?

Yes. On costs, really our focus post the completion of the GBP 250 million program will be twofold. The first one will be to extract the cost savings that we committed to at the time of announcing the Aegon U.K. acquisition. We said we would target GBP 110 million on a base of roughly GBP 360 million. So that's around 30%. So that will be high on our agenda.

Beyond that, in terms of Standard Life stand-alone, the -- my expectation, ambition target would be or objective would be to ensure that we can absorb inflation in relation to the proportion of our costs that relate to maintenance. Clearly, acquisition costs are good costs if they bring flows and business at good returns. So that will be what we'll be striving to do from 2027 onwards.

Nasib?

Nasib Ahmed from UBS. Firstly, on operating surplus emergence, that's not growing 5%. It's not growing mid-single digits on cash. That's growing about 3%. And also on own funds, the growth in own funds over the first half was 0.2%. Last year was 0.3%. So what -- given the business has grown 12 months, what's driving that?

Secondly, on management actions, nonrecurring and recurring. Recurring, you've done more than GBP 300 million. So double that, you're above the GBP 500 million. Is there any reason why we shouldn't be doubling? And on the nonrecurring, you've achieved the GBP 700 million, but you're still doing the with-profits migration, so we should expect something more in the second half. Is that correct? And then finally, on U.K. GAAP earnings within the subsidiaries, Nic, can you give an update on what you've generated in the first half?

They're all you, Nic, I'm afraid.

Yes.

I'll sit back for this one.

I didn't quite understand the first point. The -- I mean the surplus generation -- the operating surplus generation, I think your question, these are rounded numbers. I think it's growing broadly in line in unrounded numbers to what we're seeing on OCG. Look, own funds, there's -- yes, inevitably, there's many moving parts in any 6 months of the period. Again, we're not concerned by the shape in which the -- whether it's the OCG or the OSG coming through. It's delivering to our -- what we want to see from capital formation in our business.

On recurring management actions, inevitably, we -- the target is the target of GBP 500 million. Inevitably, in the course of the year, you will see events or actions that create a first half or second half skew. You saw that to an extent last year. For example, on the yield optimization, there was the Liberation Day event created a market dislocation. We delivered more yield reoptimization actions in H1 as a result of that. This year, we had the Iran crisis created the dislocation to undertake the activity that we needed. Also capital formation actions are also optimization actions that also have a skew. So, as I said the target is 500 million. We were very disciplined when we set targets, and we set them at a challenging level, and we try hard to deliver them. And if we can, then we will outperform.

The U.K. GAAP capital formation was positive in the Life businesses in the first half, notwithstanding taking the hedge-related gains. And our expectation is that at the end of the year, we'll be broadly similar levels of U.K. GAAP distributable reserves with what we entered the year. Based on the filed statutory accounts in our Life businesses, we came into the year with GBP 1.5 billion U.K. distributable reserves. GBP 1.8 billion if you include Ireland. And as I said earlier, the -- barring what happens to markets, subject to what happens to markets from here, my expectation is that I would be back at roughly the same levels.

Alexandra?

Alexandra Psillos from Morgan Stanley. Just on the first one, possibly the quicker one. In the retail growth outflows, are you able to tell us how much of the negative GBP 7.3 million (sic) [ billion ] is from legacy business and runoff and from drawdown? And then kind of sticking to a similar theme, within pensions and savings, you're building quite a sizable Solvency II VIF. Can you just talk us through the lapse risk embedded in that value? Solvency sensitivities in the presentation suggest a potentially meaningful exposure to higher lapses.

And I think Nic mentioned some initiatives in terms of working on retention there. So if you can just chat us through that exposure and if you're seeing any evidence of this risk playing through customer behavior at the moment? And then just the last question on funded reinsurance. So if I'm not mistaken, you have used some levels of funded Re in the past. The deadline is coming up at the end of this month. How are you thinking of the proposed changes going forward? Is there still value in continuing to use funded Re? And if you stop using it entirely, how can we think about the impact on new business strain and your lifetime IRRs?

Sure. Great question, Alex. Thank you. So I'll take the first sort of 1.5 billion and then get Nic to do the Solvency II and the Funded Re. So when you look at the retail gross outflows, so it's roughly 1/3 is customers taking income in retirement and roughly 2/3 is basically transfers to competitors, yes. And so the 1/3 taking income in retirement, delighted. That's what we're here for. It's our whole social purpose, and that's a payroll of U.K. pensioners taking income in retirement. The 2/3 that go to competitors we're very unhappy about. And if I annualize the number, it's probably easier.

So basically, of our inflows, so annualized, it's about GBP 15 billion of outflow, GBP 5 billion is income to customers, GBP 10 billion is transfers to competitors. Of that GBP 10 billion that's is transferring, I should say, is transferring. GBP 2 billion transfers internally with us. So we keep 20%. We need to make that much higher than 20%. Far more should be staying with us. But then also for each pound the customer has with us, they have GBP 3 elsewhere. So the other opportunity is even for the GBP 2 billion we keep, persuading those customers to bring their GBP 6 billion they have elsewhere across to us.

And so that's basically the focus. We are making progress on this. And so the retention efforts that we've undertaken to date, the outflows as a percentage of AUA are coming down, but relatively slowly, but they are coming down. We're really confident of the potential for all of this going forward. And to Farooq's question a moment ago, the key things we need to do, I answered there. The other thing I would say as well, though, just to sort of put this picture in the round when I look at pensions and savings as a whole is that the net fund flows on pensions and savings as a whole, retail does mean the overall is slightly negative, but it's about 1% of AUA in the first half and market growth was 6%. And that's why the assets grew overall. And of course, because we're then reducing cost, we saw further expansion in the margin.

So the margin at the whole of last year was 19 basis points. We're up to 22 basis points in the first half. And I was really delighted with that. We're seeing the benefit of operating leverage. Our revenue margin actually stayed broadly flat at 44 basis points, but we're growing assets and reducing absolute costs, we see the benefit of that operating leverage come through. And of course, there's more to come still in terms of not all the cost -- the GBP 250 million cost reductions have been delivered and certainly haven't been earned through into the P&L.

And while I mean, I'll get Nic to answer the question on the VIF side. But ultimately, we're running this on an IFRS basis. That's the way we run it and operate it. So we're looking to acquire more customers through workplace. We're looking to retain them for longer, do more for them. We'll start focusing on ISAs and general investment accounts with these customers as well going forward post the Aegon acquisition to grow that revenue and then be very disciplined in leveraging technology, AI to be more efficient on the cost side and see those jaws continue to widen over time.

Nic, do you want to pick up on the VIF lapse risk and the Funded Re?

So the lapse risk we carry in our SCR is directly correlated to the future profits that we bring on to our solvency balance sheet onto own funds. And as you saw from the slide I put earlier, that's gone up from 5.9% to 6.5% for the investment contract business. So what is that -- and that 6.5% actually is -- captures our existing persistency -- our current persistency experience. If we do better, which is the plan in terms of retaining our customers, then the persistent -- then that should be upside in terms of what we can bring into the calculation.

Therefore, the increase that you see in the SCR is a function of that increase in future profits. The solvency rules require us to apply a mass lapse test which is roughly at the 40% level, what happens if. But a lot of that diversifies away with other financial and non-financial risks. But yes, the fact that the weight of assets on P&S, the fact that AUA and therefore, future profits are higher is what's driving the slight increase in the proportion of our diversified SCR that comes from lapse business. We don't expect 40% of the business to lapse. It's just what we're required to do.

On Funded Re, we're waiting to see where the PRA comes out. We've provided our own response. We've done it through our participation of the ABI. The reality is we will adapt to the new requirements. And if it increases new business strain, then yes, this is one of several factors that determines kind of returns on pricing. We will simply adapt to the new reality wherever that lands.

We'll move this side. Come to you.

Thomas Bateman from BNP Paribas. Can I just come back to the capital build? I think in the slide, you show 5 points this period from recurring uses. I don't know if we have a clean year. But do you think that is the type of run rate that this business can achieve, so around 10 points annualized or should be a bit higher, a bit lower, obviously, based on current capital return expectations? And then the second question is just actually a small follow-up to the last question on the retail outflows. Do you think it's products or advisers or the pricing of those products that's the key reasons for those outflows?

I guess what I'm looking for is what's the trigger that changes it materially, and it may be the introduction of the Aegon Adviser network. And just the third question is on recurring management actions. Again, a small follow-up to Nasib's question. Does that grow one-for-one with retirement solution assets? Or I think as Nic is alluding to, is it more event-driven, i.e., Iran, whatever it may be?

Yes. Okay. So I'll take the second of those, and Nic will take the first and third. On the retail outflows, the it's not a product-related or a service-related point. It's basically others are proactively engaging our customers, particularly 50-plus year olds who have these multiple pension pots from different employments, don't really understand it all. And they are saying, well, we can help you with all of that. So the single biggest thing we need to do is to build out that digital engagement and proactive nudges to our existing customers. The big advantage we have is we know who the customers are. We know more about them. We know where they live, they're our customers already. So in some cases, the customers are consolidating to another pot with another provider.

But more often than not, it's actually a new adviser getting hold of a customer or another player in the market that doesn't have any of the pots currently that are targeting them. So we have a real structural edge here with the scale of our customer base that, frankly, we're not fully leveraging at this stage. And it will be that proactive engagement that will be the biggest differentiator there.

Take the other 2, Nic?

Yes. So on the recurring -- net recurring result, on an annualized basis, 10 to 12 points is what you've seen us do over the kind of the last 2 and a bit years. That's -- so the 5 or so were pretty much where we thought we would be. There's so many moving components there. But as a guide, that wouldn't be a bad one. And on the recurring management actions, yes, it is on the I guess I illustrated the example because to demonstrate that there is a skewness. But ultimately, it is driven. We're talking about 40 or so transactions every week that we execute. It is primarily driven by the overall size of the asset base and actually probably more so the non-illiquid portion, the liquid and the government component.

So that's what drives it going forward. And I don't want to overemphasize kind of those 2 specific events. But hopefully, we've been doing it now for a number of years. You've seen us deliver consistently year in, year out since we've set the target. We've done it when spreads have narrowed. We've done it when spreads have widened. We've done it when treasuries and gilts were high yielding. We've done it when they were low yielding. So it's really -- it's the -- yes, there's a certain level of volatility that you need in the market, but really what drives this is the capability that we have in-house to unlock it.

Sorry, I'm conscious that...

Kailesh?

I didn't answer earlier the question on the non-recurring management actions. We...

Nearly Kailesh.

Nearly Kailesh, yes. Look, the -- we there is with profit simplification to go. We're around 60% of the way through that program. We'll look to get that to 90% by the end of the year. So -- and remember, the primary reason for -- or the primary driver of that is to ensure that we cover -- we generate the cash and the capital in this instance to make sure that we cover the one-off cost of our strategic priorities. So I would expect that balance to be broadly the same as we come to complete the program at the end of this year.

Now we can go to Kailesh.

Now Kailesh. Just at the front there.

Kailesh Mistry, Bank of America. Two questions remaining. Just on the P&S expense margin. Obviously, I think you highlighted the operating margin improvement was driven by that. If I go back to Nic's slide on expenses, I think you said something like GBP 95 million had been earned through. So when it all gets earned through, given 2/3 are through the P&L, is the best way to think about it that, that all drops to the P&S margin? That's the first one.

The second one is almost coming back to the beginning. On the U.K. PRT consortium, can you just talk a little bit about those fees that Standard Life will earn, how they're spread between the new business origination fee and then the ongoing fee and how we should think about that in terms of basis points?

For sure.

Let me talk a little about the P&S margin. And let me start by giving you the walk between the improvement that we saw this year. And actually, the right comparative to use is not the half year, it's the full year of 19 basis points. We introduced an investment margin. So the like-for-like is the full year figure. So 19 up to 22, that has 2 components. The first one is kind of a business underlying component, business-driven component. And that was 3 basis points for the cost-related aspect, minus 1 for the natural attrition that we see as kind of the kind of the higher-margin business runs off. So that accounted for 2 points of the increase. And the other point was what I said I referenced earlier in relation to including now in the numerator, the contribution from international bonds. There was a small adjustment to the denominator, but that was less significant. So 22 is the right clean number as we go forward from here.

As regards the cost saves, 2/3 of the cost saves come through earnings and just over half of the difference comes through the P&S with the rest going to a number of other lines. Therefore, there is more to come through. The 22 has some tailwind to come in relation to earning through that should get us, as we've said previously, somewhere in the mid-20s. And then working against that will be the mix-related effects as the high fee business continues to run off. Now clearly, from next year, we will also have Aegon. Aegon operates at roughly 11 basis points now. The cost saving program on a pro forma basis would lift it to 18. Aegon has a slightly different mix of business. Think of it as their mix of business is roughly half workplace, half the other half retail compared to ours, which is 1/3 workplace and 2/3 retail.

So yes, lots to -- sorry, lots to work through. I appreciate for your models in that regard. But the overall message is we have these businesses are already at scale. They've been heavily invested in. We've moved them a lot of the administration into modern end state platforms. We simplified the business. And in quarters, half years, years where you see a big appreciation in equity values in assets, then that operating leverage pops, which is what you've seen in the 6 months this year.

Okay. And then on the U.K. PRT consortium. So effectively, the Standard Life business is running this and is doing all of the work other than where asset management is going to the private credit capabilities of the partners. So we're getting -- some of our costs are paid by the vehicle directly. And then we have this origination fee. And so that is based on the premiums written. So it's not a annual thing. It's based on the origination. Roughly 2/3 of it comes upfront, roughly 1/3 is then performance related based on the performance of the Standard Life PRT solutions.

And what we've said is that, obviously, the wholly owned business, existing business today benefits from this diversification with the other lines of business that we have. We don't have that diversification in the Standard Life PRT solutions. And therefore, the start off margins there, if you like, aren't as high as the wholly owned existing business. Once you add these fees in, it will be broadly the same margin from a Standard Life perspective. The other key point to just emphasize again, though, is that what I'm particularly pleased and excited about is we've got the 3 partners, CVC, Pru Financial and Goldman Sachs, all of whom bring very different strengths in private credit origination.

So having the 3 is a real advantage over a single partner. And of course, that's available to the whole of Standard Life. So the wholly owned business, the existing GBP 41 billion and the GBP 6 billion a year of business we write there in the wholly owned existing business will have benefit to that same private credit origination as well as the Standard Life PRT Solutions business. Any...

We have someone online.

Question from Marcus Rivaldi at Jefferies. Firstly, what's the group regulatory Solvency II ratio at half year '26? And secondly, you have over GBP 2 billion of debt needing refinancing over the next 3 years. Are you comfortable with the group's debt profile and refinancing schedule, especially in 2029? And would you consider addressing the shape of your debt refinancing profile early?

Thank you, Marcus. Both for Nic. You are working hard today.

It's Okay. So it's 146%. It's disclosed on Appendix 13, Slide 44. And you can see the comparator coming into the year at the end of 2025, which was 153%. So kind of the drop-off is roughly consistent with what you're seeing in the shareholder ratio for the same reasons as I outlined in relation to that. For debt, there's nothing I want to announce on stage at this point. We -- our focus is on raising the balance of what we need to finance the transaction, and then we'll come to what we do from 2027 onwards at the appropriate point.

No more questions online.

No more online. Any more questions in the room? Farooq, Ben, did you have your hand up earlier? Okay.

It was answered.

Very quick one. What happens beyond 5 years in your partnership? I mean it's a 5-year partnership. Is there a kind of run on? I mean what's going to happen?

Yes. So we've set it up for effectively a focus on this initial 5-year period. And I mean, I -- you could definitely see a scenario where there's still substantial PRT business to be written in years 5 to 10, and therefore, everyone commits further capital to that follow-on period. Equally, one of the bits, I think when you think sort of longer term is that the decumulation solutions in the U.K. market are pretty thin and sparse at the moment. And our research tells us that 78% of consumers want some degree of guaranteed income in retirement.

So if you look forward 5, 10 years, it seems to me one of the possibilities of this venture is actually to develop propositions for DC customers that want some degree of certainty of their income in retirement into the long term. So we purposely kept it flexible at that point in time in order to evolve and change with evolving market conditions in our experience, any JV structure, that's important to do. But at this stage, we're kind of heads down looking to get the change control and regulatory permissions, get the venture launched in the first half of next year and get out into the market where there's a lot of appetite for Standard Life to be present in that larger end of the market.

Okay. Well, look, thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Very much appreciated. Obviously, we'll be following up, we'll be on the road with buy-side investors and be following up with sell-side as well over the weeks, weeks ahead. So I'm sure there'll be plenty of chance to talk further. But thank you for your ongoing interest and then covering us. It's very much appreciated, and we'll catch up again soon. Thank you.

Good morning, and welcome to the Standard Life presentation focusing on the proposed acquisition of Aegon UK. I will now hand over to Andy Briggs. Andy, over to you.

Thank you, Claire, and good morning, everyone, and thank you very much indeed for joining us at such short notice. I'm very pleased that today, we've announced an agreement to acquire Aegon UK. It's an exciting development for Standard Life for many reasons, not least because it significantly accelerates our vision to become the U.K.'s leading retirement savings and income business. We're bringing together 2 businesses with shared goals and ambitions to create a new leader in one of the U.K.'s -- in one of the world's most attractive markets. Together with Aegon UK, we will not only be stronger, we will be better, advocating for better retirements and helping our customers achieve better outcomes and greater financial security in later life.

We believe that this is both a strategically and financially compelling transaction, and the logic behind that is set out on this slide. First, it gives us increased scale. Standard Life will become the largest retirement savings and income business in the U.K. We will have a #2 position in Workplace and become the #2 player in Retail, and we will serve 16 million customers across the country.

Second, we will be in an even stronger position to meet the evolving needs of our customers with enhanced digital advice and distribution capabilities across workplace and retail. Acquiring Aegon UK also transforms our adviser offering, strengthening our ability to serve our customers across all stages of their retirement journey.

Third, it accelerates making us a more capital-light business with capital-light earnings increasing from 47% to 57% of the enlarged group. The financial metrics for the deal are attractive. We expect to unlock GBP 0.8 billion of net synergies and increase our excess cash by GBP 0.4 billion over the next 5 years. That will give us even greater flexibility to invest or return capital in the future. And finally, the funding structure is efficient, and it enhances our capital strength. We've achieved an attractive valuation of 83% of unrestricted Tier 1 owned funds, and this transaction is consistent with our target leverage ratio of 30%.

So turning to look at the structure and key terms of the transaction. We've agreed a total consideration of GBP 2 billion to acquire 100% of Aegon UK. We will fund this through a combination of cash, debt and 181 million new shares in Standard Life issued directly to Aegon. As already mentioned, the consideration represents 83% of the acquired unrestricted Tier 1 capital, ensuring attractive returns for our investors. While the transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals, it is not contingent on a shareholder vote, neither our own nor Aegon's. As things stand, we expect it to complete towards the end of 2026. I'm also pleased to say that both of our key strategic shareholders, MS&AD and Aberdeen, have expressed their strong support for this acquisition. And finally, we've entered into a strategic relationship agreement with Aegon, which allows them to participate in the future success of the enlarged group.

Let me first set out what we are buying. Aegon UK is a business that we've always held in very high regard, and we know it well. It is a prominent player in the U.K. savings and retirement market, offering a broad range of Workplace and Retail solutions that complement well with our own. Importantly, it is winning in structurally expanding areas of the market with its assets growing at 9% per annum over the last 2 years. It serves just under 4 million customers across the country. As you can see from both the column in the middle and the pie chart on the right, Workplace is its largest area, followed by retail and its adviser offering. That makes Aegon UK a really neat fit for our business.

As mentioned, this acquisition represents a meaningful step change in terms of our scale and reach in the market. Aegon UK adds GBP 160 billion of assets to our existing GBP 317 billion, giving the combined group assets of GBP 477 billion. On that basis, Standard Life will be the largest player in the U.K. retirement savings and income market. Together, we will serve 16 million customers, leading to more opportunities going forward.

On the right-hand side of this slide, you can see that our Pensions and Savings business becomes by far the largest in the U.K. And within that, we're right up at the top in Workplace as well. Increased scale gives us greater commercial advantage, and it also gives further operating leverage as demonstrated by the synergies. As well as giving us increased scale, this acquisition strengthens our capabilities and what we can offer our customers. Many of you will be very familiar with Standard Life's existing products and solutions, which are set up along the top of this slide in the blue box.

Aegon UK adds a number of areas where we have less of a presence today and regard as being very important to our offer going forward. So in particular, that includes adviser platform capability, extending our adviser reach and relevance significantly. Corporate advisory focused on small and midsized workplace clients; financial advice and planning, extending our customer engagement; managed portfolio solutions, extending us further into the asset management part of the value chain and the replatform, including ISAs and general investment accounts, broadening our product range.

Aegon's expertise in these and other areas, therefore, help us to significantly accelerate our growth ambitions and better meet our customers' needs. The enlarged group will have broad waterfront capabilities, strengthened distribution with an enhanced digital and technology offer.

Let me build on this a bit more by providing more color on Aegon UK's Workplace and Retail offer, starting with Workplace. The slide shows the key focus areas to win in workplace and what Aegon UK adds to Standard Life. In terms of its employer proposition, Aegon brings high-quality trust and contract solutions to both large and smaller employers with a range of innovative accumulation and retirement offerings. Aegon has a customer-centric culture and have invested significantly to meet the evolving needs of customers, evidenced by their technology-enabled administration and telephony to support consistent outcomes. And it adds scale with particular strength in the corporate adviser and adviser-led employer segments to complement Standard Life's strengths with employee benefit consultants. Together, we will have an improved end-to-end workplace offer by more effectively linking savings, engagement and service with downstream retail consolidation and decumulation pathways.

As I've said, together, we become the second largest workplace platform by assets. And as illustrated on the right of the chart, of the GBP 80 billion market annual gross flows, the combination last year accounted for GBP 18 billion.

Turning next to Retail. Again, this slide shows the key focus areas to win in Retail and what Aegon UK adds. The acquisition transforms our offer in this area. Aegon UK will materially strengthen customer engagement through AWS-enabled data capabilities and digital tooling, supporting more informed decision-making and optimized customer experiences.

In terms of products and solutions, the combined business will have a modern, scaled adviser-led retail proposition underpinned by a robust adviser platform. This strengthens defense against outflows and supports sustainable growth. We will gain access to a broader set of tax wrappers through platform technology, extending our relevance to advisers and customers across different wealth and life stages, offering holistic financial planning.

And finally, our combined digital infrastructure will open up new opportunities. We will integrate their Mylo technology platform with our own, enabling consolidation, personalized communication and pre-retirement guidance. On the right, you can see that pro forma gross inflow of GBP 12 billion is a 70% increase in GBP 150 billion per annum gross flow market.

One of the major highlights of this acquisition is that it accelerates the business shift to capital-light earnings, which, as you know, has been a focus for us. The pie chart on the left shows that Standard Life generated 47% of operating profits from capital-light business on a stand-alone basis in 2025. Looking at the combined business on a pro forma basis, including synergies, that number would move to 57%, a material uplift. It is important to highlight that we remain committed to allocating GBP 200 million per annum of capital into annuities. We will also look to capture opportunities to participate further in the pension risk transfer market.

Let me stop there and hand over to Nic to go through some of the key financials in more detail. Nic?

Okay. Thank you, Andy, and good morning, everyone. With Andy having covered how Aegon UK's business complements our core strategy, I will now cover how the transaction is financially attractive. The message I want to leave you with is that this transaction is value, cash flow and earnings accretive, and it is also consistent with our balance sheet ambitions.

Starting with transaction synergies on this next slide. The combination of two scale businesses, offers multiple sources of cost and capital synergies with an estimated value of GBP 0.8 billion post tax. We expect annual cost savings of GBP 110 million. from harmonizing business operations and tech and from the removal of duplicate central function costs. As this is an open book transaction, with an emphasis on maintaining and building customer and distribution partner engagement, the delivery of these savings is phased over 5 years with over half emerging by the end of year 3.

Capital synergies are estimated at GBP 340 million, reflecting diversification benefits and alignment of capital models and methodology. Unlike previous acquisitions, and in line with our philosophy of not hedging open business flows, we will not increase equity hedging beyond Aegon UK's current 40% level. We have planned for model harmonization to take place in year 2 and for a Part VII transfer into PLL in year 3, which means that over 70% of the capital synergies will emerge by 2029. Taken in aggregate, we estimate the undiscounted value of synergies to be GBP 1.2 billion post tax before one-off costs. The cost to achieve the synergies is estimated at GBP 0.3 billion post tax, the phasing of which is broadly equivalent to the phasing of the emergence of the related savings. The relatively high cost to achieve when compared to annual savings primarily reflects the very lengthy nature of property leases.

In addition, we expect to incur a further GBP 0.1 billion post tax to cover the cost of decoupling Aegon UK's operation from those of Aegon Group and the modest level of transaction costs. Overall, we expect the combined undiscounted value of synergies net of one-off costs to be GBP 0.8 billion, demonstrating the value that this transaction unlocks for shareholders when compared to the purchase price.

Our execution plans are underpinned by a long-standing track record of successful integrations from a decade of M&A transactions. We have extensive experience of delivering cost and capital synergies in large and complex life insurance integrations. This transaction requires us to both separate from Aegon's parent and integrate the 2 businesses. We expect this to be a multiyear program, which has been planned so as to complement the timing of existing in-flight transformation and migration priorities and to dovetail with existing major model change and Part VII plans. We will follow the standard 3-phase approach involving streamlining the corporate functions, undertaking the work to deliver capital synergies and integrating customer servicing and tech.

In addition to scale, the transaction delivers attractive financial returns when viewed through our normal lenses of cash, capital and earnings. Starting with cash, on a 2025 pro forma basis, Aegon UK adds an estimated GBP 160 million to OCG. Consistent with the guidance on a stand-alone business, we expect the incremental OCG delivered by the transaction to similarly grow at a mid-single-digit rate. Over the first 5 years, the cumulative OCG net of the incremental dividends and interest, combined with the synergies delivered net of costs is expected to generate an additional GBP 0.4 billion of cash. More of this on the next slide.

On capital, the transaction and its funding structure is consistent with our balance sheet ambition to operate our business in the upper half of the 140% to 180% solvency ratio target range and at a solvency leverage ratio of circa 30%. On a 2025 pro forma basis, the transaction is positive to our solvency coverage ratio, up by single-digit percentage points. And this uplift is expected to endure in the first 5 years after day 1 adjustments and reflecting the delivery of expected synergies net of costs. The transaction will not affect our plans to achieve the circa 30% leverage ratio at the end of 2026 and to maintain leverage at this level thereafter.

Aegon's UK pro forma IFRS adjusted operating profit in 2025 was at GBP 190 million, and its contribution is expected to grow from this level as the cost savings earn through. The transaction is expected to be mid-single-digit percentage points EPS accretive by 2029 on an IFRS adjusted operating profit basis, net of interest. Overall, these transaction financials further underpin our ability to operate a progressive and sustainable dividend policy.

As I discussed at our results presentation in March, Standard Life expects to generate around GBP 500 million of excess cash each year, which after 2026 will be available to be deployed to the highest value opportunities in line with our capital allocation framework. These stand-alone business dynamics remain intact. The waterfall on the left of this slide depicts the incremental excess cash that this transaction will generate over the first 5 years. Cumulative OCG of GBP 0.9 billion is expected over this period, which more than covers the cumulative GBP 0.7 billion of additional interest and dividends. Onetime capital and capitalized cost synergies are expected to add a further GBP 0.6 billion in this period, which more than covers the cumulative onetime cost of GBP 0.4 billion. We, therefore, expect to generate a net cumulative GBP 0.4 billion of excess cash.

So alongside being strategically compelling, this transaction is additive to our stand-alone excess cash generation, thereby affording us further flexibility to both support our growth ambitions and deliver increased return to shareholders. As we have previously indicated, we will come back in Q4 and set out how we plan to use the excess cash post 2026 once our deleveraging program is completed, in line with our capital allocation framework.

I will now hand you back to Andy.

Thank you, Nic. So as I said at the start, we believe that the strategic and financial rationale for this transaction is very compelling. And I hope you have a clear sense of how energized we are of the prospects for the enlarged group. Aegon UK is a great fit for Standard Life in terms of its footprint, capability and size. The acquisition significantly accelerates our ambitions and vision for where we want to take this business. And it comes at a time when the opportunities in the U.K. market have never been as exciting as they are now.

With financial well-being being at the heart of everything it does, Aegon's culture and values are aligned with our own. Together, we will not only be stronger, we will be better. And I look forward to welcoming everyone at Aegon UK to Standard Life in due course and working together to capture the huge potential in front of us.

Let me stop there, and we are happy to answer any questions that you have. I'm going to pass to Oliver, who is going to run the question session for us. Oliver?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today is going to come from Farooq at JPMorgan.

I hope you can hear me.

Yes, please go ahead.

Okay. So my first question is on the kind of revenue synergies with this Retail business. So I mean, Aegon obviously brings an adviser platform. So how will that interact with your kind of legacy customers but also Aegon has a restricted advice and also an independent IFA firm. So what are your plans for that?

And secondly, could you talk a little bit -- in a little bit more detail about the strategic agreement you have with Aegon and how that will work in future? I'm guessing you're talking about asset management, but just wanted to clarify.

Thanks, Farooq. So I'll take both of those. So in terms of the revenue synergy question, what's particularly attractive about this transaction is how complementary the capabilities are. So for example, in Workplace, Aegon have a real strength through corporate advisers and IFAs with small to midsized corporates, and we have a particular strength to employee benefit consultants with larger corporates.

But particularly on the Retail side. So for example, in the adviser space, we have some excellent propositions such as our international bond and smooth managed funds. But coupling that with a really strong adviser platform, we think there's a huge benefit from bringing those elements together. And then when it comes to Retail Direct, again, it's complementary. So as you rightly say, Aegon have the Origen advice business but also the nationwide advice business, so about 150 advisers altogether. We were already building out our advice capability but that accelerates and scales and complements what we're already doing there. They have a proposition called Mylo, which is a direct-to-consumer platform, which again is complementary to what we have. So we're really excited about the complementary nature of bringing these businesses together. Obviously, the detail -- we already said we were going to do a market update in Q4, and we will stick to that market update in Q4 and say more than about how we're thinking about bringing these different elements together.

In terms of the strategic agreement with Aegon, so I mean, obviously, this was a competitive process. And definitely one of the differentiators of why we were successful was our equity being part of that transaction. Aegon Group are really excited about the potential for the combined business, Standard Life and Aegon UK in the U.K. They were keen on having an equity participation. They've committed to a lockup until into 2028 as part of that. So as part of that relationship, they have that shareholding. They will get a seat on the Board as they're over 10%. And then of the GBP 180 billion of assets -- sorry, the GBP 160 billion of assets that we're bringing on board here, GBP 20 billion of that -- roughly GBP 20 billion of that is managed by Aegon Asset Management, and we have an agreement around that GBP 20 billion as well.

Our next question comes from Mandeep of RBC.

Can you hear me?

Yes, Mandeep.

Firstly, just on thinking about the dividend. In previous large transactions, you had a step-up in the dividend, and it looks like the transition delivers excess cash over 5 years. So just wondering what you -- why you decided against doing anything on the dividend today?

And then secondly, on the -- what will you do on the migration of the U.K. platform you're acquiring? I don't think Aegon UK uses the same platform that you currently use. So just thinking about how that migration will happen.

Sure. So again, I'll take both of those. So basically, no change to our dividend policy. So we still have a progressive and sustainable dividend policy. No change today to the dividend per share. And I think what I'd sort of point you to, Mandeep, is that we'd already set out that -- on a stand-alone basis, our operating cash generation each year is significantly exceeding the costs, including the dividend, and we have -- we expect GBP 0.5 billion of excess cash this year. Obviously, this year, we're looking to use that to delever. That still remains the expectation. But the Aegon UK business basically adds to that. We still expect OCG to grow mid-single digits but the excess cash at OCG above uses post this transaction is greater than the GBP 0.5 billion before. So that's clearly positive for shareholders.

What we had said is that we expected to come back in Q4 with a market update. And as part of that, we would talk about future dividend trajectory in Q4, and also, we talk about what we would plan to use this excess GBP 0.5 billion per annum of cash for. So that's now a bigger number than GBP 0.5 billion. We still expect to come back in Q4. The one observation I would make is obviously of those potential uses in our capital allocation framework, M&A becomes less likely. So it's much more focused around growth and capital returns in terms of that. But we'll come back in Q4 on all of those points.

I mean in terms of the platform, so our platform strategy, again, is unchanged here. It's all focused on simplification, automation and digitization. And that doesn't change here. So we will be bringing on board a number of platforms. Underpinning the synergy numbers, there are a number of assumptions around what we would do. But in practice, the way we run these acquisitions is we make assumptions that underpin the synergies. And then when we actually take control of the business, the combined teams come together and work out what is the best way forward. So we have some assumptions of what we would do consistent with that platform strategy.

But in reality, we would then look in more detail and determine exactly what is the right things to do. And as and when we make those final decisions, we'll obviously communicate that more fully. But I think that the capabilities that this brings. So Aegon UK have very strong capability with AWS, with data and telephony, a lot of digital tooling as well. We think that the suite of kind of tech and digital capability is enhanced as a result of the acquisition, which is exciting for us.

Our next question comes from Nasib at UBS.

Can you guys hear me?

Yes. Please go ahead.

Sorry, the unmute button came up twice. I've got quite a few questions but maybe just following up from that Mandeep's question and your response, Andy, on the uses of the excess cash. You have that GBP 400 million of investment into the business, right? Does that become part of that use of that excess cash as well? And then kind of on the GBP 400 million, does that -- I believe it excludes the Aegon UK stand-alone investment that they're already doing in the business? Or does that drop off -- drop into the GBP 400 million?

I guess second question on kind of where does IFRS leverage land? And what is the free cash flow per share impact? On my numbers, kind of IFRS leverage improves by 10 points, free cash flow per share is neutral. Is that kind of -- if you can check my math here, maybe that's a big question.

And then finally, on kind of the stakes that you have now in your equity...

These are all, Nic, questions, Nasib. I was just joking. So far, they're all Nic questions. I always pass the difficult one to Nic, you know that. So they all are his question.

Final one might be for you or maybe for the companies that have a stake in your equity. Aberdeen and Aegon now. Aberdeen's got some dilution. How does that impact the Board seat, et cetera, if you can comment on that. And Aegon, would you kind of -- if Aegon sell down, I know there's an 18-month lockup, would you kind of participate as share buybacks? I know ASR do that with their Aegon stake.

Sure. Okay. So I'll take the final one of those and ask Nic to take the first 2, and he can add a bit more color around the thinking on the excess -- the uses of excess cash. So first of all, in terms of Aberdeen, so we obviously cross our strategic shareholders in advance. Aberdeen are strongly supportive of the deal. It will mean that their shareholding goes below 10%, and therefore, they would no longer have a Board seat at completion but there's no practical consequence of that in any shape or form. The strategic partnership we have with them is very strong. It's focused on the GBP 140 billion of assets they manage and the shareholding they have. There's no change to their shareholding as a result of this. They have no plans to do anything different with that shareholding. It's an important part of that overall strategic partnership. And there'll be opportunity for Aberdeen here because ultimately, a group that was GBP 320 billion of assets is now GBP 480 billion of assets, and they are our key strategic asset management partner. So there'll be additional opportunity there for them. Jason and I have an excellent relationship. We've known each other a long time, and we will continue to collaborate very strongly strategically in exactly the same way as we have done to date.

In terms of Aegon, I'd say, Nasib, it's too early to speculate. But with the business having in excess of GBP 0.5 billion of excess cash every year, clearly, that would be a potential option. But we're into 2028 before we get to that. So I wouldn't want to speculate ahead of time on that.

Nic, do you want to pick up the first 2 questions?

Yes. So the one-off costs will be funded by the one-off capital benefits. So the timing is such that those benefits, capital synergies and cost synergies will emerge in a way that allows the one-off cost to be paid.

In relation to the IFRS leverage, I can't confirm the numbers. I don't estimate or calculate the leverage based on IFRS. It's not a meaningful way of calculating leverage. We track clearly what it does on a solvency basis. And as I have said in my preprepared remarks, the funding structure is such that it falls within our -- on a combined basis, it falls within the 30% level.

In terms of free cash flow, the average over the 5 years is around -- is GBP 150 million, GBP 750 million in aggregate over the first 5 years. So I guess, on a per share basis, your math is about right.

Sorry, Nasib, I know, you said about the stand-alone investment Aegon are already making. So most of that happens this year, and we've allowed for that in all of the numbers. So most of that stand-alone investment is completed this year. And just to be sort of crystal clear, the GBP 400 million net of tax cost of delivering the synergies is funded by the synergies themselves. So it has no impact on that. The GBP 0.5 billion of excess cash every year we generate, which is available from the end of this year, having completed the deleveraging program, that gets bigger and none of that is needed to fund the delivery of the synergies, just to be crystal clear.

Our next question comes from Abid at Panmure Liberum.

Can you hear me?

Yes, loud and clear.

Great. Okay. I've got a few questions as well. The first one is on the return metrics. I'm just wondering what the deal IRRs pre and post the synergies look like. It clearly looks accretive on the price to UT 1. So well done on that. But it would be helpful to have some IRR metrics just to sort of talk to the generalists, if possible, and perhaps what the payback period looks like. It sort of looks like 3 to 5 years from the outside.

And then the second question is on the margins. Just wondering what the target platforms look like for the business that you're acquiring in terms of the Workplace and Retail pensions business and what the margins are on the Aegon business versus the Standard Life stand-alone business, if you could sort of just compare and contrast that for me?

And then just finally, on the synergies, slightly surprised that the synergies are going to take some 5 years to fully realize. Could you just talk to a little bit more on that, please?

Sure. So I'll take the first and just add a quick comment on the third and then pass to Nic to cover more of the third and the second. So what we don't provide IRR metrics when we do M&A deals, we haven't done in the past. Suffice to say the returns are significantly in excess of our weighted average cost of capital.

In terms of the synergies, I mean, the point I want to make here is the kind of strategic point. So what we're looking to do here is to build a strong growing customer franchise and business. And so from our perspective, that customer retention is really important and critical. And therefore, we are going to take a considered approach to working on the platforms and so on and so forth to make sure we take the market and our customers with us because we think that will be the highest value way forward from a shareholder perspective and from a customer perspective.

Nic, add on the synergies and then the second question.

Yes. Thank you, Andy. I mean you covered the cost in relation to capital. We will need to harmonize their internal model with ours. There is a pathway that we're following with the regulator on major model change. So we needed to dovetail with that. And similarly, once that is completed, we will then move on to a Part VII transfer. So again, we will incorporate -- we'll seek to incorporate transferring Aegon UK's policyholders into PLL alongside those of ReAssure and Sun Life of Canada. So it's linked with the time. We're trying to be efficient in the way we do these things. Now clearly, if we can do it faster, then we will do that.

In relation to margin, the GBP 190 million of operating profit on an IFRS basis is roughly made up of GBP 170 million relating to the P&S equivalent of the business and GBP 20 million relating to annuities. At GBP 170 million on 160 billion asset base, the average profit margin is around 10.5%, rounds to 11% before synergies. So it's lower than our current 19%. But once you incorporate the synergies, which -- all of which will go against the P&S business, then that margin improves to 17.5%, around 18 basis points, so much closer to what we're delivering today.

So as I said, this isn't just about acquiring scale for the sake of it. It does give us the opportunity to transform the economics of that business and to make it look a lot closer to ours.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Corinne of Autonomous.

Question on the debt leverage. You're talking about continuing the deleveraging for this year. So you've got a couple of issues that are callable in June. Is that what we're referring to there with the continued deleveraging?

And then the timing for the new debt issuance, is there any attempt to sort of dovetail those? Or will you literally just do some opportunistic before the [ deal closes? ]

Sorry, Corinne , it's a very crackly line. Okay. Do you get them?

Yes. So our stand-alone business continues on its trajectory to get to the 30% at the end of this year. There are 2 instruments, as you indicated, as we have indicated previously that come up to maturity in June of this year. And so that affords us the vehicle to achieve the stand-alone target. In relation to the raising of the GBP 650 million debt to support the acquisition, this will be done in the second half of the year in anticipation of completion around the year-end.

Our next question comes from Thomas at Mediobanca.

Thomas Bateman from Mediobanca. Could you just talk about the overall cost base for Aegon UK? I just want to get a sense of how much you're being able to take out of that?

And the second question is kind of linked to that. You alluded to property leases being a key reason why the time line on the synergy realization is quite long. How much of the cost savings are related to property leases?

And the third question is just going back to Nasib's question on free cash flow per share. In your calculation, did you include any of the nonoperating OCG in that calculation? I might get it a little bit better, maybe slightly positive if I include that or maybe I've done the math wrong.

And I'm sorry, the final question, you alluded to the one-off costs being paid for from the capital benefits. I'm assuming that then the capital is complete -- is all cash basically or can convert into cash to pay that. Maybe that was implicit in your answer but any color there would be helpful.

So we'll let you away, Thomas, with 4 questions, and they're all for Nic.

So the overall cost base of Aegon UK is GBP 360 million. So that kind of gives you a sense of how the GBP 110 million compares. But kind of in our own minds, the GBP 110 million is on the combined cost base, which is, I guess, at the point at which we own it will be around the GBP 1.3 billion, GBP 1.4 billion.

In relation to the property leases, the savings are relatively modest. They're less than 5% of the total. It's not -- it's the length of these leases. We have 2 properties in Edinburgh. Both have very elongated lease terms. We haven't yet made a decision, which of the 2 we will keep. But at the point at which we bring one of those to a decision, we will have to provide for the onerous lease costs. It's not a timing issue. It's more of a size issue. And within the GBP 300 million post tax that I indicated will be the one-off costs, around GBP 95 million relate to the -- to providing for those onerous leases.

In relation to the OCG, no, that was on an operating minus the net recurring uses. Yes, you're absolutely right. It will be additive to EPS if you took the one-off capital synergies and spread them over a period. And in relation to the capital benefits, yes, they -- clearly, there is availability of funds to support the funding. So yes, the excess will be cash like to enable the payment of those costs.

Thank you very much for all your questions today. I'm now going to hand back to Andy for your closing comments.

Thanks very much indeed. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. So look, just to summarize, we're very excited to announce this transaction today. It brings together -- it very much moves us further forward on our vision to be the U.K.'s leading retirement savings and income business. It brings together 2 complementary businesses and makes us, by some margin, the market leader in the really exciting and fast-growing U.K. retirement savings and income market.

So thanks very much indeed for joining us. If you have further questions during the day, don't hesitate to reach out to the team, and we'll catch up with all of you soon. Thanks very much indeed. Thank you.

Welcome to Standard Life's Full Year 2025 results presentation. I'd like to introduce the stage, Andy Briggs, Group Chief Executive Officer. Andy, over to you.

Thank you, Claire. Good morning, and welcome. It was a privilege to be here just 2 weeks ago, ringing the opening bell on the London Stock Exchange, and I'm delighted to be here today presenting a Standard Life plc.

For more than 200 years, Standard Life has been standing beside its customers. And today, as real life for customers is less predictable, our role as a retirement specialist is more important than ever.

So to our agenda today. I'll begin with an update on progress on our strategic priorities, and the operating momentum we are building across the group. Nic will take you through the detail of our financial performance. I'll then return to outline the strategic developments to come before taking your questions.

When we set out our 3-year strategy in 2024, we were clear on the scale of the opportunity in front of us. Two years on, I'm delighted with the progress we've made.

First, we are uniquely positioned in our markets. The U.K. market is one of the most attractive globally for retirement savings and income. Second, strong execution means we're driving better customer outcomes and meeting even more of their needs, deepening our relevance. Third, that, in turn, is driving profitable growth, which is translating into a stronger balance sheet. We are firmly on track to deliver our 2026 targets. All of this supports strong shareholder returns and creates financial flexibility that gives us more strategic optionality than ever before.

Our strategy is underpinned by 3 strategic priorities: grow, optimize and enhance. Two years into our 3-year strategy, we delivered material progress across each. To grow, we strengthened our products and engagement capabilities. Following product launches in 2025, we now have a full product suite to support customers across all stages of their retirement journey.

The launch of our advice proposition and our wide range of digital offerings from our family finance hub to our mixed income builder tool are all helping customers navigate their retirement journey, unlocking the ability to further engage and support households with excellent budgeting and planning options.

Within optimize, our in-house asset management expertise continues to enhance returns and deliver better customer outcomes. Deleveraging remains a clear priority, and we're driving progress here. We paid down a further GBP 200 million of debt in December, which was underpinned by business growth, improving our leverage ratio to 33%.

On enhance, we've delivered GBP 180 million of run rate cost savings, ahead of expectations again as we leverage technology to reshape our organization. Lastly, our migrations are progressing well with 75% of customers now on end-state platforms, up from 45% in 2024. To summarize, our colleagues have delivered 2 years of meaningful operational progress across the board. And I know that there's much more to come from Standard Life.

Our strategic progress is translating into strong financial performance across cash, capital and earnings. Operating cash generation has grown at 13% CAGR over the past 2 years, and we remain confident in mid-single-digit percent growth into the long term. Our growing business is generating surplus capital, which we are currently using to strengthen the capital position by paying down debt. Even through our deleveraging program, we remain in the upper half of our solvency range.

Finally, on earnings, we remain firmly on track to achieve our circa GBP 1.1 billion operating profit target in 2026 having delivered another year of strong operational performance. And we continue to grow our dividend up by 2.6%.

Now I've had the privilege of working in this sector for nearly 40 years. And maybe it's just me, but I think the U.K. retirement market has never been this exciting.

The GBP 3.6 trillion market is set to grow by 70% over the next decade, driven by structural long-term demographic trends, including the aging population and the shift to defined contribution. On the top of that, on the right of the slide, we see encouraging regulatory and political proposals to create additional tailwinds to our industry. These will accelerate the existing structural growth drivers in the market, so we see growth potential beyond this 70%.

Through our active role in shaping the market and the strategy we've defined, Standard Life is well positioned to benefit from these tailwinds. And better still, in the fast-growing market, we're the only scale player, solely focused across the full retirement and savings life cycle. And our ambition is to grow faster than the market and gain further market share. On this slide, we can see strong flows in each market.

In Workplace, our ambition is to consolidate our top 3 position as this market grows rapidly and concentrates down to fewer providers. In Retail, we're looking to move from a top 10 to a top 5 position, again, in a rapidly growing market. And in Retirement Solutions, we aim to maintain a top 5 position across individual annuities and PRT combined.

Our success is underpinned by our competitive advantages. I will come on to these in more detail later, but I will highlight here that the diversification of our business model across the capital-light Pensions and Savings and capital utilizing Retirement Solutions brings capital efficiencies and customer benefits. Whether it's joining the Workplace 18 years or staying in consolidating in Retail or securing income in retirement through our annuities business, we are well positioned to serve our customers and their evolving needs at all life stages.

In Workplace, we're a scale player with 3 million and growing customers. Winning in Workplace requires 3 things: a leading employer proposition, excellent customer service and scale-driven cost efficiency, and we are strong on all 3 of these. Employers are the key decision makers here and our leading employer proposition is underpinned by our award-winning Master Trust. And our sustainable multi-asset proposition, one of the U.K.'s largest sustainable default funds supporting millions of Workplace members.

In 2025, we delivered several sector firsts, ranging from new tools to supporting families to FCA-aligned sustainability labeling to Shariah-compliant offerings. Very high on the agenda for employers is excellent customer service. I hear from employers time and again that the quality of our service is a key differentiator here. I'd like to join some of our Workplace pitches and employers consistently highlight that we genuinely care about every client and member, with quality of service their #1 priority and they say this really stands out when they visit Standard Life. This is enabled by our brilliant colleagues and our digital-first member engagement, reflected in our app rating of 4.7 stars, again, with continuous developments.

Thirdly, cost efficiency is delivered by leveraging technology and our ongoing migration program, which in turn means our margins continue to expand and are ahead of peers.

On the right, you will see that our winning Workplace formula is translating through to strong outcomes. An excellent Net Promoter Score of 60. We welcomed 247,000 new Workplace members in 2025, up from 226,000 in 2024, and we won over 200 schemes in 2025. So this market is key for customer acquisition.

Thirdly, Workplace assets are up almost 40% in 3 years, importantly, driven by strong positive net fund flows. With GBP 10 billion of gross flows reached this year, our market share grew well into double digits. So great progress and hugely exciting that this will be further supercharged by market consolidation as minimum fund size is enforced and expected contribution increases.

Turning to Retail. Success in this market is driven by 3 things: effective customer engagement, offering products that meet their evolving needs and using digital infrastructure to do all this proactively. We have the first 2 and a significant opportunity to leverage the third.

On the left, we engage customers through multiple channels, including our award-winning app and telephony guidance. And of course, the rollout of our advice proposition, which launched last year. Here, we're pleased that we can support customers in providing financial advice for a single flat fee regardless of pot size.

Second, our full product suite addresses customer needs and now supports them across their entire savings and retirement journey. Distribution has widened as our products are now on both the Quilter and Fidelity platforms and continue to scale with strong investment performance.

Thirdly, we have a significant opportunity to leverage digital infrastructure. A key area of focus is building out our Salesforce CRM integration. This is improving our outflows, which Nic will come on to. It gives us deeper insight to support customers so we can proactively help by nudging customers to make active decisions to ensure they're doing enough at each stage of their journey to and through retirement.

I was call listening last week and heard a great example. In our new pension consultation service, our CRM system uses propensity modeling to proactively target customers who will benefit from this service. The outcomes of our efforts in Retail are visible on the right of the page. Our customer satisfaction scores are in the 90s, with 93% of customers rating us good or excellent. This is translating to more digital customer engagement with total log-ins up 50% in 2 years.

Lastly, on this slide, we're seeing positive customer outcomes feed through to flows. Gross Retail flows of GBP 7 billion, up nearly GBP 3 billion over the last 3 years. But the bottom line is that we're only scratching the surface, and there is so much more to come here. I'm delighted to have welcomed Angela Byrne as CEO of Pensions and Savings this year as we build the next stage in our journey.

In the Annuity business, which includes both PRT and individual annuities, winning is all about having a leading employer proposition, excellent member experience and competitive pricing. And our strength in all 3 is why we're winning in these markets. Our comprehensive buy-in and buyout capabilities and a full product suite means that we can serve customers however complex their needs may be.

Member experience is critical in this market. Members want clarity, speed and service, all of which we provide. Our digital capabilities allow customers to understand their position in real time. For example, our digital quote platform underwrites and returns over 90% of individual annuity quotes within seconds. Our core service rates are excellent versus peers, and we're also Amazon Web Services largest European insurance client, a testament to our scale.

Our diversified business mix is a huge advantage with most peers effectively undiversified mono lines. We also continue to leverage our in-house asset management capabilities to deliver superior returns, particularly through recurring management actions, all of which means we can price competitively and generate attractive returns.

All these factors are driving strong outcomes. We've nearly doubled our individual annuity market share to 15% from 8% in only 2 years and expect to grow further. We also wrote our largest-ever PRT deal of GBP 1.9 billion. As outlined earlier on this slide, our comprehensive capabilities, which includes our innovative market-leading track record for longevity swap novations was key to winning this deal.

We are disciplined in our approach to Annuities, choosing to deploy up to GBP 200 million of capital and seek value over volume. This is evidenced by the attractive returns generated with lifetime IRRs on our annuity business of more than 20%.

This strong performance across Workplace, Retail and Annuities is driving growth in our key financial metrics operating cash generation. We are confident of mid-single-digit OCG growth going forward. Our GBP 1 billion of free cash flow has doubled from 2023, now comfortably covering our growing dividend of about GBP 550 million. This means dividends and excess cash will both grow as OCG grows, particularly as recurring users are reducing.

2026 is our final year of using this excess cash to delever. So from the end of this year, this financial flexibility will enable us to deploy excess cash to the highest returning opportunities in line with our capital allocation framework.

And I'll now hand you over to Nic, who can run through the numbers in detail. Nic?

Thank you, Andy, and good morning, everyone. When I stood here a year ago, I talked about how our balance sheet pivot had lagged the strategic business pivot and highlighted the key role that operational performance plays in improving our balance sheet quality and enhancing our financial flexibility. The upgraded 2026 financial targets were set with exactly this in mind. One year on, I'm pleased to be reporting a strong set of results for 2025, alongside clear progress on the balance sheet.

Starting my presentation with the financial headlines. Operating cash generation grew by 5% to GBP 1,474 million, with total cash generation at GBP 171 million, both in line with previous guidance.

The solvency leverage ratio improved to 33%, while our solvency cover increased to 176%, remaining in the upper half of our operating range. IFRS operating profit was 15% higher at GBP 945 million, supported by asset growth and cost savings, which reached GBP 180 million on a run rate basis. Adjusted IFRS shareholders' equity was GBP 3.1 billion, benefiting from a strong increase in the CSM, which partly offset the negative hedge market-related impacts.

We have recommended a final dividend of 28.05p per share, up 2.6% year-on-year, bringing the total dividend for the year to 55.4p per share. This performance puts us firmly on track to deliver all of our 2026 targets.

I will now cover the financials in more detail, starting with the performance of our main businesses. Backed by our leading propositions and brand, our Pensions and Savings business continues to grow assets, margin and profitability.

Workplace saw GBP 10 billion of inflows in 2025, GBP 1.5 billion of which were from new scheme wins. We have carried good momentum into 2026 with around GBP 1 billion of wins secured so far this year. Excluding new schemes, gross inflows were GBP 8.5 billion, highlighting the strong flywheel effect of this business. Outflows reflect the higher asset base and the natural attrition from members taking their pensions. Scheme retentions remain high, with only GBP 200 million of scheme losses for the second year running.

In Retail, our gross inflows continued to improve, up 16% to GBP 7.1 billion in 2025, benefiting from a greater take-up of our drawdown product and a 60% rise in international bond sales. Outflows include GBP 5 billion of withdrawals from customers accessing their retirement savings in the form of annuity income, drawdown payments or tax-free lump sums. They also include GBP 2 billion of internal transfers to more modern retail products. While the remaining outflows are sizable, we expect them to improve as a percentage of AUA as we increase our focus on retention.

In the top right, you can see how these flows have combined with positive market effects to lift the overall P&S asset base by 9%. In the bottom half of the slide, I summarize the drivers of the financial performance for this business. We now publish both OCG and IFRS operating profit driver analysis for our main businesses, which enable us to better explain their respective performance and to express the results as a basis points margin on AUA.

Now given the capital-light fee-based nature of the P&S business, we consider IFRS operating profit lens to be the most suitable performance measure here. Average AUA grew by 7% in 2025 to GBP 204.6 billion, which combined with the improved margin of 19 basis points drove operating profit 23% higher to GBP 389 million. This performance highlights our scale advantage and operating leverage with further margin improvement expected near term as the full benefits of our cost savings program come through.

Our Retirement Solutions business also delivered a strong operating performance in 2025. As a reminder, new volumes are not the primary driver of profits here. We run over GBP 40 billion of annuity assets, and it is the management of this large book that drives most of our profitability. We have 2 main product lines in this business, being individual annuities and pension risk transfers.

For individual annuities, product innovation and rising consumer demand saw new premiums grow 20% to GBP 1.2 billion, which is double the 2023 level. PRT premiums were lower at GBP 3.9 billion, reflecting reduced market volumes and our disciplined approach to pricing. In a narrow credit spread environment and competitive market, we took the decision to protect economics and forgo volumes. Our overall capital efficiency improved in 2025, with the reduction in capital invested outpacing the overall decline in new premiums.

As we look forward, our aim is to deploy up to GBP 200 million of capital to annuities this year, provided we secure sufficiently attractive returns. We remain confident in our ability to win in this market with GBP 1.6 billion of PRT transactions completed or at an exclusive stage in 2026 so far.

The bottom half of the slide depicts the drivers of performance for Retirement Solutions. Given the capital-utilizing spread-based nature of this business, we consider OCG to be the most appropriate performance measure. Our effective management of the in-force book compared with our scale, efficiency and expertise in delivering portfolio optimization actions, enabled us to sustain the spread-based margin at 219 basis points. Applied to our growing average AUA of GBP 40.2 billion, produced OCG of GBP 879 million, up 3% year-on-year.

I will now move to the group metrics, starting with operating cash generation. The OCG increased to GBP 1,474 million, was driven by a 6% increase in surplus emergence to GBP 914 million and by another strong performance in delivering GBP 560 million of recurring management actions, driven by our developed asset management capabilities. The contribution of the 3 components that make up these actions are broadly similar year-on-year, with further detail provided in the appendix. We're confident in achieving our guidance of GBP 500 million recurring management actions each year as the capabilities and dynamics that underpin this performance are both differentiated and enduring.

On the right, you can see the business segment analysis of OCG, which we disclosed for the first time as promised. P&S grew its OCG by 13% to GBP 396 million, equivalent to 19 basis points on AUA. Three quarters of this margin reflects the release of in-force profit based on real-world returns and the benefit of actions to reduce operating costs. The balance reflects the uplift from simplifying fund structures.

Retirement Solutions accounted for over half of the group's OCG at GBP 879 million, equivalent to 219 basis points on AUA. This reflects the steady release of capital and spread margins as our liabilities run off, and the benefit from both yield reoptimization and capital improvement actions. Taken together with profits, Europe and other produce a steady level of OCG at around GBP 200 million per annum.

Total cash generation on this next slide combines OCG with cash generated from items that are one-off in nature. As previously stated, we are targeting GBP 5.1 billion of TCG over '24 to '26. Two years into this 3-year period, we have delivered TCG of GBP 3.5 billion, comprising GBP 2.9 billion operating and GBP 0.6 billion nonoperating capital generation. A further GBP 1.6 billion TCG is expected in 2026, primarily from operating sources.

On the right, you can see how the GBP 5.1 billion cumulative TCG is expected to fund our planned recurring uses and the onetime investment to deliver our strategic priorities over this period, generating GBP 1.2 billion of excess cash. This excess is what provides us with the means to reduce our debt stack over the '24 to '26 period.

I would like to spend a moment to take stock of the notable transformation in our ability to generate positive excess cash since 2023. By growing OCG from GBP 1.1 billion to nearly GBP 1.5 billion and by moderating our recurring uses depicted in blue, we have significantly improved our ability to cover the growing dividend shown in orange and generated a rising level of excess cash being GBP 296 million in 2024 and GBP 423 million in 2025. We expect this pattern to repeat in 2026, generating around GBP 0.5 billion of excess cash.

We deploy excess cash in line with our capital allocation framework, which remains unchanged. Our near-term priority is to deleverage to our 30% target. We expect to complete this by the end of '26, after which this excess will be directed to the most attractive return opportunities across growth investment, targeted M&A and increasing returns to shareholders. We're very optimistic about the potential future opportunities for our group.

Turning next to the group's 2025 solvency walk, where I'm pleased to report an improvement in the drivers of solvency capital. After covering recurring uses, we generated GBP 0.4 billion of net recurring capital, mostly in the form of own funds, which added 9 percentage points of solvency cover. Nonrecurring items netted to a small positive amount, which includes a GBP 0.1 billion positive contribution from economics net of hedging. Delivering a broadly neutral nonrecurring component has been one of my key areas of focus since joining the group. As a result, we were able to return GBP 0.4 billion of debt while growing both our solvency surplus to GBP 3.6 billion, and our coverage ratio to 176%.

Turning next to leverage. Our ratio improved to 33%, reflecting the own funds growth and the GBP 0.4 billion of debt redemptions outlined in the previous slide. We remain firmly in control of our path to 30%, which will be managed within the upper half of our solvency operating range. With our capital emerging in a broadly even pattern through 2026 and with 2 debt instruments having June maturity or call date, the in-year leverage and solvency ratio paths will not be linear.

Moving to the IFRS results. Our adjusted operating profit increased by 15% to GBP 945 million. Profits from pensions and savings grew by 23% to GBP 389 million, while those from Retirement Solutions increased by 19% to GBP 563 million. These performance improvements were driven by business expansion, cost savings and higher investment margins, reflecting the successful delivery of our grow, optimize and enhance strategic initiatives.

Turning next to cost savings. Here, we have accelerated delivery from faster progress on migrations and from leveraging technology to enhance our business and adopt a more efficient operating model. On a run rate basis, we have achieved GBP 180 million of savings across '24 and '25, meaningfully ahead of our planned delivery profile.

Savings on an earned basis were GBP 110 million last year, up from the GBP 28 million in 2024. The year-on-year benefit is, therefore, GBP 82 million, with GBP 55 million coming through our segmental results as operating margin improvements or reduced non-attributable expenses. The cost savings that relate to insurance contracts are driving meaningful increases in our CSM.

This next slide completes the IFRS basis picture. As you can see in the dotted box, the improved operating profit performance means that we're now close to covering our recurring uses. The uncovered portion last year was only GBP 29 million, significantly better than the GBP 182 million in the previous year.

The 2026 operating profit target of GBP 1.1 billion will comfortably cover recurring uses. And by 2027, we expect to cover all uses, enabling us to grow our contribution to shareholders' equity before economic variances.

Nonoperating items include GBP 264 million, reflecting the planned investment spend to deliver our strategic priorities. This is expected to normalize to below GBP 100 million after the end of our current investment program.

Adverse economic variances of GBP 604 million were almost entirely driven by negative marks on equity hedges following a 19% blended rise in markets. As I have previously explained, this is a known consequence of our hedging strategy which protects cash and solvency capital, but gives rise to an accounting mismatch volatility under IFRS.

Specifically for 2025, the GBP 604 million represents an accounting timing effect and is not an economic loss. This is because of the negative equity hedge effects from the rising markets is booked in full through earnings, while the related positive effect from higher future fee revenues will come through earnings over time. You can clearly see these future benefits elsewhere in our financials, and I will come back to this on the next slide.

Adjusted shareholders' equity, shown on the right, stood at GBP 3.1 billion at the end of 2025. While this is still a partial picture, it remains the most relevant measure of a life insurance balance sheet under IFRS as it includes the future store of value of insurance contracts. I referred to it as a partial picture because it excludes the investment contract value in-force, which is recognized in our solvency capital.

Let me now demonstrate where the offsets to the GBP 604 million adverse economic variance are evident elsewhere in our financial results. The related benefits are captured within 2 stores of value. The first being the insurance contract CSM and the second being the investment contracts value in-force, which forms part of the Solvency II own funds.

Both of these are significant in size with a combined value of almost GBP 10 billion on a pretax discounted basis. Both have increased at a strong double-digit rate since 2023 driven firstly by our operational actions to drive flows, reduce costs and improve risk-adjusted yields, but also from the equity market appreciation over this period. In 2025, positive market effects accounted for GBP 0.1 billion of the increase in pretax CSM and for GBP 0.5 billion of the increase in the value in-force. These stores of value will come through earnings in future years and provide a strong underpin to our performance trajectory for many years to come.

Turning briefly to dividend where our approach remains unchanged. We're a highly cash-generative business. We operate a sustainable and progressive policy and have a strong track record of consistent dividend growth. The metrics that the Board considers when undertaking the annual dividend assessment are repeated on this slide, being OCG, solvency coverage ratio and parent company distributable reserves, which stood at GBP 5.8 billion at end '25. These metrics remain at very healthy levels.

So to conclude, we have made significant progress last year in growing our operating cash and earnings metric, and we have improved the quality of our balance sheet. This performance puts us firmly on track to deliver all of our 2026 targets. Our business is now tuned to generate sizable recurring excess cash, which will enable us to complete our deleveraging this year and provide us with enhanced strategic and financial flexibility thereafter.

Thank you for your attention. I will now hand you back to Andy.

Thank you, Nic. So we're 2 years into a 3-year strategy. And while I'm encouraged by the progress we've made so far, I'm focused on the year ahead and delivering on our promises for 2026. In Q4, we'll come back and talk to you about what next, but the broad strategic direction will be in line with our current vision.

When we started this strategic plan, we set out a clear vision to be the U.K.'s leading retirement savings and income business. We began building out the capabilities shown here to achieve this vision. The green ticks highlight areas where we've made material progress or are complete. We've streamlined our group structure, optimized asset management, completed the rollout of our full product suite.

The light blue box at the top shows our next area of focus, as I outlined earlier, a digitally enabled and personalized customer interface focused on data, guidance and advice. This is more about building capability rather than material investment. We deliver this strategic vision by executing on our strategic priorities, so let's move on to what that means for 2026.

Under grow, we're further enhancing our technology and customer engagement capabilities. Our Salesforce CRM platform gives us a richer view of customer needs, enabling us to proactively nudge and support them at key life stages when decisions matter most. Targeted support will be a further unlock going forward as we engage more deeply with customers, supporting them in making the right decisions as they journey to retirement.

We're focused on scaling our products and deepening our intermediary partnerships, widening our access to potential customers. While for Workplace and Annuities, it's about continuing to deliver excellent performance. For optimize, we remain firmly on track for our leverage target, and we will bring more assets in-house, which increases certainty of delivering recurring management actions.

Lastly, on enhance, we'll complete our cost savings target, and we'll progress our migrations with only 25% of customers to be transitioned to their end-state platforms. We're also embedding technologies into our culture. We want AI to enhance the human skills, judgment and expertise that make us great.

Let me finish by bringing this all together and reminding you why Standard Life is winning today and why we will continue to win. Across the top of the page, engaging with our customers, combined with our capital and cost efficiencies, uniquely positions us to win in this exciting market.

Starting with customer engagement, we delivered over GBP 15 billion of net fund flows in Workplace over the last 3 years. This was a barely in positive territory when I started 6 years ago. Our group rebrand has brought our strongest brand to the fore. Walking around our offices last week, it's been really energizing to see how enthusiastic colleagues are about the name change and what it means for us. With 12 million U.K. adults, a customer Standard Life Group, we are uniquely positioned to engage them about their futures. Looking ahead, we will proactively support far more of our customers, helping them in further turbocharging our growth.

Moving to capital efficiency. This is particularly important in our capital utilizing annuities business. The fact that we're more diversified than peers is a key driver of our lifetime IRRs of greater than 20%, which is attractive compared to those peers. These IRRs are supported by recurring management actions, driven by the excellent asset management capability that we've built. Looking ahead, we will manage more assets in-house, and we continue to explore strategic partnerships here.

Thirdly, our cost efficiency continues to strengthen as we grow. This is particularly important in our capital-light Pensions and Savings business. Our sector-leading margin expansion from 11 bps in 2023 to 19 bps in 2025 reflects the scale of our business and how we leverage technology. It compares favorably to our major peers who typically report single-digit margins here. And looking ahead, we will utilize technology advancements as we scale and drive operating leverage further. I'm very confident that we will continue to win, given these competitive advantages, which will drive our growing operating cash generation over the long term.

To summarize, we operate in one of the most attractive retirement and savings markets in the world, and our strengthening competitive advantages means we are well placed to benefit. Our strong execution is delivering better customer outcomes. And all of this is translating into shareholder returns and provides attractive financial flexibility.

So with that, we will move to questions. We'll start with questions in the room. We'll then move to questions online. If you have a question in the room, please raise your hand and wait for the microphone and state the organization you're from. We'll do the questions in the room first and then online. And Nic looks like he's staying sat here. You are actually coming up and joining me, Nic. You don't get away without that. So the other thing Nic also offered this time to chair the Q&A, and why am I doing that? Because you ask all your questions, I decide the ones I like the sound of and then pass the rest to him. So let's start with Thomas here, and we'll go across from there.

First question is just on the P&S margin. The 20 bps, I think, in the second half of the year seems pretty good to me. But I'm just trying to gauge that relative to what you assumed in the GBP 1.1 billion guidance that you had. I can't work out if we're running a bit ahead or not. And similarly with the costs because I think we've only earned about GBP 80 million out of the GBP 180 million. So I think you said you're ahead on costs. So I'm just trying to put those 2 things in context, the GBP 1.1 billion.

And then the second question is just on the Lifeco free surplus. A number of my friends on the buy side highlighted Slide 44 to me this morning. Could you explain what the outlook is for the Lifeco free surplus? Because my message that I take away is that capital returns can increase at the end of the year, but that seems different to what the Lifeco free surplus is doing. So can you explain maybe the difference in your message versus what's happening there?

Sure. Yes. I mean I'll make a brief comment on the second and then pass to Nic to give a bit more color, and Nic will pick up the first. So I mean, I would look at the group solvency walk because that's what kind of matters in terms of what the group has overall. The Lifeco free surplus is basically the surplus above the capital management policy. So it's got a higher bar in the first place. And ultimately, having GBP 1.5 billion above the capital management policy means we've got excellent excess cash there. But we run the capital and cash of the group at a group level primarily, and that's our primary focus. But Nic, do you want to add to that and then pick up the first question?

Okay. I guess what I would add to what Andy has said is that we do manage the balance sheet in aggregate, not just at the Lifeco level, there are interaction effects between the Lifeco balance sheet and the rest of the group. To give you an example, we carry a lot of the deferred tax asset in -- at the group level, which the group has losses. They will be recovered from future earnings in the Life business. So that has an interplay as to the location of the capital between Life.

And also, I guess, part of the overall solvency picture is contributed to particularly on the nonrecurring management actions from our Irish business, which completed its work on the partial internal model, but there was some additional mass lapse reinsurance that's kind of contributed to the overall picture. I reinforce what Andy said that the -- at any given point in time, the excess in the Life company is only a partial picture. Our GBP 1.5 billion, it's plenty enough over our capital management policy.

In relation to your question on P&S, when we -- the GBP 250 million, just to give you some guidance around that, roughly 70% of that or 30% of that will relate to insurance contracts and will be accounted through the CSM. The balance will come through earnings, which will be about GBP 170 million. And we expect roughly 2/3 of that, around GBP 110 million to come through onto the P&S result. At the moment, the -- what you've seen so far is a GBP 26 million benefit in the P&S results. So there's another GBP 80 million or so to come through as we complete and as the full costs earn out. So that will correspond to a 3 or 4 further basis point improvement in the margin before any mix effects as that portfolio evolves. So already, we're seeing benefits that are coming through in improving the performance, but more to come as the full GBP 250 million program is completed and earns through in the next year or 2.

Mandeep?

Mandeep Jagpal, RBC Capital Markets. Three questions for me, please. First one is you have significant excess recurring capital generation versus your dividend cost. Nic mentioned the potential to use this for buybacks. I mean what are the largest constraints for buybacks once the leverage target is achieved? For example, is a negative IFRS equity viewed as any kind of constraint by you?

And Andy, you touched on targeted support. Could you provide an update on what Standard Life is doing in respect of targeted support? And could this be a meaningful opportunity for you to retain more of your heritage clients over time?

And then finally, on DC decumulation, some of your peers have recently announced hybrid investment and annuity solutions. What do you think could be the scale of demand for this type of product? And are you working on something similar?

Okay. So thanks, Mandeep. I'll take the second and third of those and then let Nic take the first. So targeted support, we are working on. We've recently had further detail from the FCA on how all that works through. And we definitely think it could be really helpful. The reality is, at the moment, only about 10% of consumers in the U.K. are getting advice as they journey to and through retirement. So 90% really aren't getting the help and support they need, and we see targeted support as being a really helpful way to do that. I think it's a huge opportunity for us. And I'm pleased with how we're going in the annuities market and how we're going in Workplace. We're only scratching the surface of the opportunity in Retail at the moment. And with 1 in 5 adults in the U.K., customers of Phoenix Group for each GBP 1 they have with us, they have GBP 3 elsewhere and only 10% are going to pay for advice. So the opportunity is huge there, and that's why we're building out our capabilities in that space.

On the DC decumulation, what you're seeing roughly at the moment, so last year, about GBP 60 billion went over into retirement income in the U.K. About GBP 20 billion of that was taken as cash, so effectively 25% tax-free cash plus some smaller pots. And the balance of GBP 40 billion, roughly GBP 30 billion went to drawdown and GBP 10 billion went to annuities. That was kind of roughly how that went. But if I sort of roll the clock forward 10 years from now, the GBP 60 billion will be more like GBP 120 billion. I still think maybe GBP 40 billion of that will be cash. But our view would be the residual GBP 80 billion would be much more half and half in terms of annuities and drawdown, particularly as more customers get to sort of age 70 plus, I think more and more will say, with rates being higher, I can turn my accumulated pension pot into a 10% per annum income for life, and I know I've got it for life, and I don't have to worry about it. I think we'll see more and more of that.

We offer -- we already offer a range of hybrid solutions. We offer fixed annuities. We have the smooth managed fund that's now got a 10% per annum performance over the last 2 years. So we have a good range of propositions to feed into this. And I completely agree that -- and we offer this already to customers, a number will want to take some of their income in guaranteed form and some in more variable drawdown form. Nic, do you want to take the first question?

Yes. I mean I'll repeat what I've said before that kind of IFRS is not a good reference point for the economic capital picture of the organization. Solvency II is. So for as long as we generate the cash, which we have been doing over the last few years, for as long as the overall level of solvency is healthy, which it is at 176% and as long as we have healthy distributable reserves, GBP 5.8 billion, there are no constraints to either paying a dividend or indeed undertaking any share buyback should we opt to do that.

Distributable reserves is key. I'll repeat what I said at the half year point. Those are sustained at the group level from the U.K. GAAP basis distributions in our Life companies. On a U.K. GAAP basis, our Life companies delivered GBP 550 million of profit, actually up on last year, notwithstanding the fact that the hedge -- the negative marks on the hedges go through those accounts and retain GBP 1.4 billion of distributable reserves within those Life companies.

So for as long as all these numbers remain healthy, then there's no constraint to the way we think about capital that are no constraint vis-a-vis the IFRS lens. What might prevent us from doing it ultimately is what it competes with. So we will be entirely value rational. And we will undertake any of those 3 options on our financial framework based on value metrics.

We'll keep going across Andrew.

Andrew Baker, Goldman Sachs. So Nic, I appreciate everything you just said on shareholders' equity not being a constraint, but the first one is on shareholders' equity. Just give us a sense of what you're expecting for the nonoperating expenses for 2026? And then anything you've seen in terms of year-to-date mark-to-market impacts would be helpful.

Secondly, just on Europe. I think you did the strategic review here in 2021. I think at the time, obviously, the decision was to replatform and it would take probably 2 to 3 years. Is that now done? And then I guess, how should we think about Europe in the context of your wider vision for the group being U.K.'s leading retirement savings and income business?

And then thirdly, on -- we've seen some press reports on alternative asset manager, BPA partnership. Anything you can say there would be really helpful. And I guess, more generally, just what would you be trying to achieve if you did go down the partnership route there?

Sure. Yes. So I'll take the second and third. So in terms of Europe, the -- basically, we've migrated 75% of customers to target platforms, 25% haven't. Europe is part of the 25%. So that hasn't happened yet. Frankly, we prioritized the U.K. customers in that transition. So our position on Europe remains the same, as I said before. The thing I would say is that one of our strongest propositions is actually our international bond. Nic mentioned that the sales there are up 60% year-on-year. That comes from our Standard Life international operation in Dublin sold back into U.K. advisers with the changes around inheritance tax we're seeing far more customers using international bonds now as a result, and we're keen to have that full and comprehensive suite of products.

On the BPA side, so we're very determined that we want to keep a balanced diversified business mix across capital-light pensions and savings, Workplace and Retail and the Annuities business. And therefore, we're disciplined in the amount of capital we allocate to Annuities. The way that plays out in practice is we basically participate in the market up to about GBP 2 billion premium size. We wrote our largest scheme of GBP 1.9 billion last year. And that's just under half of the total market, just over half the total market that we expect over the next decade is schemes above GBP 2 billion.

So what we're exploring is could we partner with third-party players that want to deploy more capital into this space to use our brand and our origination capability to take origination fees and participate in that larger end of the market and potentially also then get some really differentiated unique private credit capability as well. So that's what we're exploring. We explore lots of things as a business in terms of looking to drive stronger returns for shareholders. As and when -- if and when something comes of that, we'll obviously tell you more at that point in time. Nic, do you want to take the first one?

Okay. So Andrew, on the nonoperating items, I'd expect those to decline in 2026 as the investment on our strategic initiatives tapers off. And as I said in my pre-prepared remarks, once we get to '27, it will be under GBP 100 million. In relation to economic movements so far this year, so what are the kind of the 4 hedged indices? Currencies are flat, so no impact. Equity markets as of Friday blended to a net neutral, just over 0. Again, no impact on IFRS. At the 15-year end of the curve, interest rates were 37 basis points higher. That's negative on IFRS, but inflation was also at the 15-year point, 35, 37 basis points higher and the 2 on the IFRS metric offset.

Net-net, the IFRS impact on all the market movements this year is neutral. And of course, it goes without saying that on a solvency basis, they're also neutral. We've given some additional disclosure on the Solvency II sensitivities this time, if you go to the sensitivity slide on Solvency II. Before we used to give you the impact on the surplus. Now we break that for each one of those between the impact on own funds and the impact on SCR, so that you're better able to model those 2 components separately. And I hope that you find that useful on a go-forward basis.

Farooq?

Farooq Hanif from JPMorgan. Just going back to the Lifeco surplus. Would you be able to tell us what the capital ratios are of your subs just so that we can build comfort around that?

Secondly, on your greater than 20% IRR on annuities, I mean that's really high, I think, compared to what other companies tell us online and offline about what they're targeting. So is that a target? And has that been the main driver of your drop in volume? Or have there been other factors? So it was quite a big drop in bulk annuity volume. I'm just kind of trying to understand where that leaves you going forward. I know that you can offset that with other products and retail, especially.

And the last question is on your ambition to be top 5 in retail. If you wanted to do that organically, how quickly do you get there? And what are your -- what are the things that you will launch that will accelerate that?

Sure. So again, I'll take the second and third and Nic take the first. So on the annuity side, I wouldn't describe over 20% as a target. I mean, ultimately, our cost of capital is materially lower than that. We would consider annuity business at less than 20%. It's more a recognition of what returns we're actually achieving because we are more diversified. I mean we -- I don't sort of view last year as kind of a poorer year for annuity volumes. This is sort of lumpier stuff generally. The market was generally lower. We've already written GBP 1.2 billion so far this year. We've secured a further GBP 0.4 billion. So we kind of look at it in the round over time in terms of what we're doing. We're very confident that we can compete going forward because as I say, most of our competitors are either monolines or effectively monolines. We have a really material advantage in being diversified.

We're also have a real capability on the asset management side that Nuwan sat in the front here and Nuwan Goonetilleke and his team have built out to do these recurring management actions, which creates additional value and is part of that 20% lifetime IRR. So we're confident in our ability to compete going forward for those reasons.

In terms of Retail, the market is actually quite spread. So we sort of talk about the gross flows, and we're up at GBP 7 billion now of gross flows. You need to sort of get north of GBP 10 billion of gross flows to be top 5 in that market. So we're confident we're on a trajectory to do that. What that's all about? I mean, just sort of recapping what I said before. But basically, we've got this huge structural advantage of a large customer base where only 10% will pay fees for advice. So we've got a great opportunity there. We've now built out -- obviously, targeted support is nascent at the moment, but we've built out a really strong app, really strong telephony guidance capability, now have the advice capabilities. So all the ways customers want to engage, we have.

All of the propositions they might want from a product perspective for that journey to and through retirement. Again, we have all those in place. But what's happening is all of that is basically still happening reactively. And what we need to do is to build out that digital infrastructure, the CRM system to be much more proactively targeting customers. And we'll be using AI as part of all of that to really use the propensity modeling to identify what sorts of propositions will be attractive to which segments of customers at which stage of the journey.

I see Angela sit in the front here. So Angela used to run all of this as the interim CEO of the Retail bank at NatWest, where they've got, I think, 94% now of their customer engagements are digital. So we're very focused on building out that capability. This will take a period of time. It's not going to happen overnight because we've made brilliant progress on Annuities and Workplace, but in those markets, you have a small number of professional buyers, the employee benefit consultants and the corporates, so you can move the needle quite quickly. When it comes to the Retail side, you've got thousands of advisers, you've got millions of customers. It will take more time there, but we're really confident over time that we've got, again, structural advantages to compete and win. Do you want to take the first one, Nic?

So the solvency ratio, at least on a shareholder basis of the subsidiaries have typically been in the high 170s, low 180s. There are a handful of points of that. But also relevant to kind of where they land in a particular year is the timing of when we take the dividend out. Clearly, if we take a dividend out in October, then capital will replenish in the 2 months. If we take the dividend out later in the year, that replenishment will be lower. So we're not concerned by the overall solvency level of the subsidiaries.

We go behind to Don, just so we don't miss him out.

Dom O'Mahony, BNP Paribas. So 3 questions, if that's all right. First, just operationally, you spoke at the beginning about the impact of minimum DC fund legislation. Could you just play through what you think is going to happen to the market there? I mean, presumably some funds will set up shop. Is that going to create M&A opportunities? Does it create organic non-M&A opportunities? What do you think will happen to that market? And what does it mean for Standard Life?

And then a couple of sort of financial questions. The nonoperating cash spend, you very helpfully break it down between the sort of the planned restructuring, the FX hedge collateral call and there's GBP 153 million of other. Could you just help us understand what's driving that, that GBP 153 million?

And then the last question is just playing through the financials. I think bond yields started the year lower than they did a year ago. How much, if any, of a headwind is this to the profit or indeed the capital generation?

Okay. So I'll do one. You do 2 and 3, yes. Happy with that?

Yes.

That's good. So minimum DC funds. So I mean, the legislation is still working through. And I think there's still some question in the market about how kind of rigorously it will be driven through by government. Will it be sort of a complete red line? Or will there be an easier sort of comply and explain bar across, if you like. But the overall driver here, so the workplace market is growing really fast because ultimately, sort of 10, 20 years ago, pensions in the U.K. were done in DB. It's set outside of the world of insurance. For 10, 20 years now, it's been inside -- DC has been inside the world of life insurers like ourselves and substantial GBP 80 billion of flows coming into that sector every year. So it's growing really strongly anyway with market growth as well.

We've got the review of auto enrollment contributions with the Independent Pension Commission, and I'm delighted that's been set up as an independent commission because there's no way you can conclude 8% is sufficient for a decent retirement. That has to recommend an increase in contributions. But then you've got the minimum DC default of GBP 25 billion. And what that's going to do is it's going to drive both the smaller players out of the market. M&A-wise, that's possible, although generally, I think what will happen is corporate trustees will move to -- want to move to a bigger provider quite soon as well. So there will be an organic way that will happen. And so M&A is possible, but potentially, it remains to be seen how desirable that is.

What we're seeing a lot of, though, Dom, is you kind of have 3 regimes you can use. You can have your own trust. It used to be just 2 own trust and then a contract-based scheme. The challenge with contract base is it's much less sort of bespoke to you as an employer. But now you have a Master Trust in the middle ground, Standard Life is one of the largest Master Trust in the U.K. That gives you the sort of the benefits of bundling and the efficiencies of bundling, but also gives you a high degree of personalization of what you put in the scheme.

So our pipeline on workplace at the moment is over GBP 10 billion of scheme inquiries because an awful lot of larger own trust schemes are wanting to move to Master Trust. So I think that the regulation is definitely driving that, but you're seeing a market drive in that direction anyway. And that's good news for all of us as the big insurers playing in this workplace pension space because the own trust is unbundled and generally outside of our remit to a degree, and it will come into our world. Nic, do you want to take the second and third?

Okay. So in relation to the nonoperating items, look, the reality is when we announced the program on to the strategic priorities 3 years ago, we plan to spend the money that we said that we will spend, and we're on track with that. But the world doesn't stay still. There are new pronouncements, -- there's new activity that comes on to our work plan. And -- and that's what drives a proportion of those additional costs. Importantly is that we have funded that out of the outperformance that we've delivered in our overall capital generation. So we started our journey at 176% solvency ratio. You've seen us retire about 13 points of debt. And at the end of 2025, we're finishing at 176%. So yes, there is additional spend for that because the world doesn't stay still because additional thing -- additional initiatives that we have in mind, not least some of the additional -- to support some of the additional disclosures that we're providing you, but they're funded by the outperformance. Sorry, I didn't catch your third question. It was in relation to IFRS.

It was basically bond yields being start of the year lower, what impact does that have on operating profit? I mean I know just while Nic thinks about that, the equity markets higher and the AUM in pensions and savings higher is definitely a positive effect for operating profit for the year ahead. But I'll let Nic comment on the rate side. I don't think [indiscernible].

No. On the operating result, no, no, it doesn't.

Yes. So I think the starting year economics is probably positive for IFRS profit outlook for the year. Right. If we come down to Abid. Have I missed anyone on this side of the room? All right. If you come down to Andreas, then we'll go across to Abid, then we can get across.

Andreas van Embden from Peel Hunt. On pension savings, would it be possible to compare the profit margin on the inflows versus the outflows? How much extra margin can you or are you capturing on the inflows versus the book that is flowing out?

Obviously, part of the outflows you're recapturing in individual annuities. So there's a margin uplift there, I suppose. I just want to triangulate that and compare that. And the second question is on your, on the VIF on investment contracts, I just want to test how sticky that is. Obviously, financial markets help, equity markets going up, AUM going up helps. But in terms of your lapse assumptions, what are your current lapse rates?

And what is your target lapse rate once you've gained the scale that you want and address the outflows over time?

Okay. So I'll take the first and Nic will take the second. So the best way to kind of think about that on pensions and savings is that we have a kind of blended revenue margin of 43 basis points. And it's kind of 43.4% or something. And last year, it was 44.6%. So numbers won't be exactly accurate, but it's down just over 1 basis point in a year. And what's basically going on there is that new workplace business is kind of coming on typically in the high 20s of revenue margin. Obviously, the average of the book is around that sort of mid-40s level.

Then some of the older business will be running off at sort of above 50 basis points. So the net effect of all of that is roughly a basis point per annum kind of reduction in the revenue margin. So the revenue margin is GBP 212 billion of assets at 43 basis points gets you around the sort of GBP 900 million level of revenue, yes.

So there's roughly a basis point reduction there. But then when you look at the cost side, we've got growing assets, and we've got the absolute costs reducing. So the cost basis points is coming down more rapidly. And what that means is we still expect the blended margin of pensions and savings, which was 19 -- so 2 years ago, it was 11 basis points then 17 then 19.

As we earn through the rest of the cost reductions and benefit from this operating leverage, we expect that to get up towards mid-20s as all that works through. That just hopefully gives you a kind of sense of it. We don't split it the profits down by the different segments because basically, so much of the cost is fixed, you just end up making bad decisions, yes.

So we look at the -- internally, we look at the variable cost associated with each line of business and the revenue margin because we then make better commercial decisions to optimize value creation for shareholders, yes. Do you want to pick up the second one, Nic?

Maybe if I can add to the I mean the P&S.

This is what I get wrong.

No, no, no, that's entirely right. But just to put it in maybe a slightly different way to frame it in a different way. The P&S result increased by 23%, 17 percentage points of that 23% came from literally the combination of fee income of a bigger -- a higher asset base, less the costs, which benefited from the savings. So yes, nearly 2/3 of that uplift, more than 2/3 of that uplift have come from the operational leverage that you see in the business model with the reducing expenses.

On the VIF, we saw a GBP 1.3 billion increase on the IFRS 9 investment contract VIF. 40.5 billion of that, as I said in my preprepared remarks, 40% of that came from the improvement or the higher markets.

Another 25% of that came from the new business flows that we attracted in the year. A further 25% came from the capitalized effect of the efficiency savings to the extent that they relate to this business. And the final 10% came from experience and other assumption changes.

The biggest component of that was persistency. So actually, on persistency, we're seeing that as a tailwind, not a headwind into our business.

It's Abid Hussain from Panmure Liberum. I've got 3 questions. The first one is on margins. Just coming back to the annuities business. I think it's the first time we've seen a print of more than 20% IRRs -- just wondering, does that assume new business strain after the capital management policy, so holding the sort of 150-ish percentage points on Solvency II capital? And then just more broadly, curious how you're achieving the sort of 20% IRR because I think some of the diversified peers are still in the sort of mid-teens IRRs region. Is it just the -- essentially you're including the recurring management actions? Is that the sort of the missing piece, I think you touched upon earlier. The second question is on...

That was 2 questions.

It was 1 with 2 subparts. On shareholders' equity, so you've said the IFRS adjusted equity will increase from '27 onwards. What's the timing of the own funds, so the regulatory balance sheet? When does that start to increase? And then just finally on excess cash generation and the uses there.

So beyond the debt retirement, which opportunities are you seeing for reinvesting for growth? And then in terms of M&A within that associated with that, is something like the Aegon U.K. book of interest to you, would you consider that? Or would you hold capital back for when spreads finally do widen and then redeploying that into annuities?

Sure. Yes. So I'll take 1 and 3 and let Nic take 2. So on your first question on the annuities, yes, so the over 20% lifetime IRR is -- it includes capital management policy. It includes the recurring management actions that we would expect to do as well on that book of business over time. And I think it is because most of our peers are monolines or effectively monolines that that's the main reason why that number is higher.

But also, we have built out a really strong capability in managing assets of annuity business in doing these recurring management actions, and that definitely helps that outcome. And I think the key point I'm sort of trying to land is we are able to generate very attractive returns in this space.

In terms of your third question, I mean, ultimately, the priority in the short term is using the excess cash. So as Nic said, we expect GBP 0.5 billion of excess cash this year on top of the north of GBP 550 million dividend.

The plan is we use that to delever and get to the 30% leverage ratio target. Then from the end of this year, we'll be able to use against whatever the highest return opportunity is, be that organic growth, be that considering M&A or be that additional shareholder returns. Specifically on M&A, you mentioned Aegon U.K. So I won't sort of comment on specifics.

But the way I think about this, what's kind of changed for Standard Life compared to Phoenix 5 or 6 years ago. And by the way, I'm so pleased so far. I've not said Phoenix in the wrong place. It's -- I got away with Bloomberg TV and radio, and I've got it right. So we've got a square box that it will be expensive if I do. But what's changed for us is that back then, we relied on M&A to grow at all.

We've now really built out a very strong franchise that's growing strongly organically. And therefore, firstly, we no longer need M&A. Secondly, there's a higher bar for considering M&A because we can deploy capital against organic growth options. Having said that, when any business is available in the market, we will always take a look.

And what we're basically looking at is 2 things. Firstly, strategic fit. So for example, does it bring capabilities that accelerate the strategic journey we're on. And then secondly, financial attractiveness. But it will be a high bar given the alternatives that we have available to us. Nic, do you want to -- I think own funds are already increasing before debt reductions.

On a recurring basis, after funding our recurring uses, own funds is accretive -- we're striving to make sure that the nonrecurring items are flat, whether it's on a surplus basis or on an own funds basis, and we're kind of almost there on that. And what's -- therefore, what is reducing own funds at the moment is the debt program. So once we get kind of past this year, ultimately depending on what use we put that excess, we're going to be own funds accretive. Unrestricted Tier 1 increased. So it just gives you a sense that the underlying performance of the business is coming through.

And on equities, yes, we -- I'll repeat what I've said earlier that excluding the economic effects, we should get to a place where we are increasing our shareholders' equity from 2027. But the market effects, we can't control.

I don't want to -- if markets go down this year, I don't want to claim early victory any more than if markets continue to ramp up in 2027, again, we can't control that. So the bits we control will -- which is everything before that on an IFRS basis, we will manage in 2027 to put it on a positive tack.

Michael?

Thanks very much. Three questions. So GLP-1, credit and Makastream. So GLP-1, does it change the world at all either on your mortality or longevity or how you look at developments there? I've asked the questions of some of your peers. The answer so far has been not really not yet or it's in our assumptions or whatever, but I'd be really interested.

The second on credit, you -- I think you said something on Bloomberg, Andy, about 20% Yes, if you repeat it, but also if you give us a little bit more color, that would be hugely helpful. It really is a topic where it seems that my salespeople are really worried and you're obviously not, so there's a gap here. And then the making us dream, so you gave us numbers, the current mix of what the money is doing.

So I took a figure of EUR 10 billion going into individual annuities, I have individual annuities rather than the rest and then EUR 40 billion maybe at some stage in the future. Can you say what that does to your own metrics? I'd be most interested, obviously, in the cash.

Okay. So I think I'll ask Nic to do the first. I'll repeat what I said to Bloomberg for those that weren't on Bloomberg, but then I'm sure Nic will add to that, and I'll take the last question as well.

I mean what I'd say, Michael, is that we're pretty agnostic. So if we want to basically help more and more people on their journey to and through retirement. If it's right for the customer to go into drawdown, then we'll take our circa 20 basis points margin on that. but it's capital light. And then whereas if customers prefer individual annuities, then we'll support them with that as well.

We can comfortably manage that within the -- because ultimately, we can then be more selective about how much PRT we do to stay within the overall amount of balance of business we want. So we're really keen to -- in the same way as we offer an excellent digital app, award-winning app. We offer telephony guidance. We'll add targeted support. We offer advice. So however customers want to engage with us, we want to be there. We very much see ourselves as customer orientated, having the right propositions to meet their needs. What I said on Bloomberg on the credit side, and say Nic will add to this is that -- so we've got GBP 317 billion of assets overall for our 12 million customers.

About GBP 40 billion of that is the shareholder assets backing the annuity business. GBP 3.7 billion of that is private corporate credit. Within that GBP 3.7 billion of private corporate credit, only about 20% is the U.S. and we've got no exposure to software, for example, within that. I even had a journalist earlier saying, you're underexposed, should do more of this.

So yes, so all of what we're doing is investment grade. We have a 500 strong team in -- on our asset management side that are doing really rigorous detailed work, exploring the credit risk of anything we're doing. We're very diversified in what we're doing.

In the private asset side, a large proportion is either government-backed and/or secured against physical assets. It's very diversified. Do you want to add anything to that, Nic? And then I'll let you do TLP1s.

Yes. On the overall $42 billion now sort of fixed income book that backs the annuities, no change in credit quality. It's 100% investment grade. only 17% is BBB. And when you get a chance to study the detailed disclosures, you'll see that the proportion of that 42 billion that's now invested in government bonds, gilts, other sovereign bonds, supranational has increased from EUR 6 billion to EUR 12 billion.

A lot of the money that we've taken this year, partly our pricing strategy was on new flows on annuities has been parked in gilts, even the component that relates to the liquid credit. Spreads are quite narrow. We're warehousing that temporary strain at the moment on our balance sheet, and we're waiting for spreads to normalize.

But in doing so, it's increasing, if you like, the government-backed component of our overall portfolio and is actually giving us more in the hopper, so to speak, at the point at which spreads normalize in terms of rotating out of gilts at that point.

We are GBP 4 billion to GBP 5 billion longer in U.K. gilts alone this year-end than we were at the previous year-end. And to the earlier question, that's another tailwind to own funds at the point at which spreads begin to normalize to historic norms, and we come out of gilts into that. In relation to the GBP 3.7 billion of corporate private credit, there's 62 securities names that back that.

We have -- we're highly selective in our approach on what we onboard in terms of private corporate credit. We want to make sure that it meets the matching adjustment requirements. It meets the duration requirements, that we're getting appropriately rewarded vis-a-vis equivalent credit risk on the liquid side and that we're getting appropriately rewarded if there's any complexities.

So we execute less than 3% of the ideas that come across our desk. That's how selective we are on that particular piece. On your question on longevity mortality, we undertake our own reviews each year. We consult medical experts.

We factored in societal trends, kind of the impact of potential impact of weight loss drugs, any movement in health treatments and project forward what might happen. We do that annually. We repeated it this year. And if anything, that study unlocked some additional longevity assumption benefits, which are part of the reason why the CSM increased in the course of this year.

The CSM has been driven by a combination of market movements, which I highlighted, expense savings and also sort of positive experience and some assumption changes, including longevity.

Andrew?

It's Andrew Crean,Bernstein Autonomous. Three questions, if I can. The first one is on your P&S margin, where you said you're higher than everyone else. How do you know that? You've got within there basically a legacy business, the individual pension business.

Can you tell us what the profits are on that? And then we can look at more sort of capitalized elements and make comparison there. Secondly, on the uses of excess cash from '27 onwards, -- the debt leverage on a shareholder basis is still well above 30% at that point. Is debt deleveraging off the table from '27? Or is that part of the choices of which you could do?

Those are the first 2 questions. And then the last question, I wonder whether you could talk a little bit more about third-party capital in BPAs relative to -- I mean you've lost quite a lot of your management team there in the last month or 2 as to whether that may affect partners coming in with you.

Okay. I'll take the first and third, and Nic, let you take the second. So look, let me just talk about what we do. So the reason all of our pensions and savings business is capital-light. So it's all unit-linked non-guaranteed capital-light business.

The reason we run it as a business as a whole is ultimately, we want to make sure we're engaging with all of our customers and helping them on the journey to and through retirement, given only 10% take advice, the other 90% need our help and support. And as people get into their 50s, very, very few, hardly any, have a strong existing advisory type relationship, so we want to be the place they turn to.

As I say, for each pound they have with us, they typically have GBP 3 elsewhere. and they have no particularly strong allegiance at that stage in any particular direction. So that's why we run the thing holistically as a whole. And I think that's the right way to run that business. And ultimately, we're then looking to meet the needs of those customers over time.

I mean the numbers we quote for others are just what they publish, yes. So I'm -- you're probably better placed than we are to comment on that.

What we're doing in our business is incorporating all the customers in capital-light retirement savings propositions and looking to meet their needs to and through retirement, and we make a 19 basis points margin on doing that.

Workplace margins, I think the best in the market around 11.5 basis points. Is that where you are?

Yes. So the way we run the business is we look at it holistically, and I talked earlier about the revenue margins, yes, and we manage those. But the reality is -- and one of the reasons why our margins are strong is because an awful lot of the costs of being in this business are fixed costs, and they then spread across the scale of business that you have.

So yes, we're running it looking at the revenue margins and the variable costs is how we run internally. On your third question, so the level of interest in terms of third-party capital and BPA is really high and very strong, and I haven't seen that dim at all.

Yes, Mike Eakins has got the group CEO role at PIC pleased for Mike. He's a great guy, and he's done a great job by us. He's got a group CEO role and good luck to him. One of the things that's the only sort of person we've lost there. The -- one of the reasons that Mike has been so successful in that business is the strength of talent and capability that he's built in the team.

And Nuwan is Nuwan Goonetilleke's the interim CEO of that business. Nuwan is the guy who runs what we call capital markets. It's basically all of the annuity investing, the private assets, private credit, shareholder assets, the recurring management actions. We've got strength in depth across that team. We're very confident we can continue to compete and win. And as -- yes, the external capital interest in this sector has not dimmed in the last 2 weeks in any shape or form. Do you want to take the second one, Nic?

On debt. When we get to 30%, Andrew, we'll be much more market approximate than we've been historically. As to what is an appropriate debt leverage for this business, throughout my entire career, I've come to that question in the various organizations that have worked by asking myself 3 questions. One is what is the weighted average cost of capital that makes sense for that entity in the context of its strategy and the returns that it wants to generate for its shareholders. That's question number one. The second one has been what is the company's ability through the free cash that it generates to cover the interest burden. And the third question is what rating is appropriate for that organization and what are the constraints imposed by that.

At 30%, I think that will be the appropriate level of leverage for Standard Life as we go forward and prosecute our strategy. So I will be comfortable to stop there. Maybe let as own funds grow, let the thing drift down organically or not as a case maybe depending on how I view the weighted average cost of capital and the opportunities that we have. So no, once we get there, then the other 3 aspects of our financial framework will loom larger in our option list.

So I'm conscious we kept people on the phone waiting. I'm going to go to online, if that's all right, Michael. Joe, do we have any questions online?

No questions online, Andy, no.

No questions online. So right. Final 2 questions then. One for Michael, and I can't see in the dark there, but there's a hand over there. From Kailesh, Sorry. yes.

Just one, the over 20% IRR, how much of that is management action? And how much is a day 1, if you like, margin? I'm probably expressing myself completely wrong here.

Yes. So in summary, day 1, we would talk about mid-teens and then recurring management actions being the balance, yes. Kailesh, sorry, I need my glasses and i'm 60 a week tomorrow, yes. So the glasses are needed more often now. So apologies.

Just a couple left. First one is on Slide 56. Could you just clarify, there's a line in there, trading profit. Is that -- that's basically asset optimization. So what's the bridge to the OCG world? Or are there other trading profits in other business lines? Second one is just on U.K. PRT. How are competitive conditions are evolving given the international players coming in? And obviously, one of your peers last week talking about with profits annuity with potentially lower hurdle rates.

Okay. So Slide 56 is definitely a mix.

Do you want me to start with that?

Go for it.

Yes, it is the yield optimization actions. I mean, clearly, when we undertake them on an OCG lens, some of the benefit may be in the form of reduced capital requirements, some of it will be in the form of own funds. So it's the own fund component that is driven here. So practically, the difference between the 2 lenses is the form that the optimization takes and then clearly, the IFRS component doesn't include the capital release. But more broadly, if you wanted to bridge the 219 basis points, roughly 220 basis points that you see on OCG to the 140 basis points that you see on -- this is at the overall profit level that you see on IFRS, 60 points of that is to do with the capital requirement and the other 20 points is just differences in the way you look at the sources of value.

For example, if we save costs, we're able to capitalize that effect in OCG, but it will go into the CSM and amortize more slowly. So there are valuation differences. But hopefully, that broad bridge gives you a sense.

Thanks, Nic. And then on your second question, yes, the U.K. PRT market is competitive. Obviously, last year, it was a bit smaller and there definitely was increased competition then from [indiscernible] who felt that they really needed to get certain levels of volume on board. It remains competitive coming into this year. But as I said earlier, we've already either written or secured exclusivity on GBP 1.6 billion. So we're comfortable we're confident we're in a good position. What I would say though is, say, throughout my nearly 40 years in the sector, annuity markets -- so I've seen, for example, companies offer with profit bonds 20-odd years ago with bonus rates that just weren't sustainable, and we all know where that ended up.

And I've definitely seen people go into capital-light markets offering low prices that just aren't economically rational -- but I guess it's sort of lower risk being capital-light. Annuities has always been economically rational always. So when rates move, when longevity moves, people reflect that and are economically rational. So I'm not at all concerned that new capital coming in will behave irrationally. I think people will be rational. And then ultimately, it's about the asset management capability and the yields you're able to get. It's about the strength of proposition and customer offering that you have. And obviously, from our perspective, it's the diversification that is a real advantage we have in that market.

So look, I think we're timed out there, but thank you very much indeed for coming along and listening to our first results as Standard Life plc. Management team will be around for a few minutes afterwards if you have any further questions you want to catch up on. But otherwise, thank you very much indeed. We look forward to seeing what you all write. Thank you.