Vienna Insurance Aktie

Thank you very much. Also from my side, a very warm welcome. Together with me is Liane Hirner, CFRO; and Nina Higatzberger from Investor Relations. We are happy to guide you through our half year results, which I think are pretty positive and a solid set of figures.

We have achieved more than EUR 9 billion gross written premiums, which is a growth of 5.4%, achieving a profit of EUR 640 million, which is up around 20% to the comparable period, having a net combined ratio of 91.4%, which is an improvement of 0.5%, even though we had a little bit higher nat cat claims activity. Our solvency ratio stays at 272%, including already in NÜRNBERGER, but that a simplified method and having an operating return on equity of 17.8%.

On the next slide, you see our economic environment, which is continuously outperforming the Eurozone. So we have in the European countries, Central Eastern Europe, a GDP growth of 2.2% and in Western Balkans of 2.5%. But also looking forward, the next 2 years also here, the forecast is even growing in the GDP grow.

On the next slide, we want to illustrate you our robustness of our business model, just showing how we have developed approximately the last 20 years with different developments at the time, starting with the impact of the global financial crisis, 2008, 2009. Also during this period of time, we were able to have stable profits and paying dividends. We had then 2013, a significant flood event in Central Eastern Europe, but also here due to our conservative reinsurance strategy, we had a stable profit, and we are paying dividends.

During the periods of low and negative interest rates, 2015 and 2022, we further developed our profitability. The same in the hike of inflation and interest rates after COVID. Also here, our business model proved to be robust. And in the end, what we had 2024, which was our largest nat cat event with around EUR 630 million gross claims. Also here, we were able to keep our promises and pay our dividends as projected. I think this is showing despite growing and reaching size and becoming more profitable, also with these external events, we proved to be pretty resilient.

On the next slide, we are further working on increasing this resilience. You see the composition of our profit. So the diversification of profit streams is more and more diversified. Just here showing you the example. And -- just taking the example from 2020 to 2025, where Poland extended CEE and Special Markets were 18% of total profits 2020, and they are accounting already for 40% in the year 2025. Midterm, this will also further diversify with NÜRNBERGER joining us.

On the next slide, showing an overview of where stand VIG in the context of the European primary insurance groups. We are now on the 13th position, excluding NÜRNBERGER. But you see on the first column, we are top 3 growing company. All this with our focus in the region of CEE, where we are a market leader. And having in mind that our region still is characterized by low insurance penetration, but also, as mentioned before, combined with a higher economic growth, this will also enable us in the future to have an attractive growth rate.

To give you also on the next slide, a short update on the NÜRNBERGER acquisition. So we had the closing on the 18th of May, achieving 99.2% of the shares. Nominating my colleague, Mr. Löger and Mr. Lahner in the Supervisory Board. And we also initiated a squeeze-out process. I think it's also remarkable that between signing and closing, we have been pretty fast with just 7 months, which allowed us to immediately start the integration process with NÜRNBERGER. There is a special focus on the developing and implementing an IT transformation strategy as promised already in our earnings calls of the first quarter. We will update our financial targets of evolve 28 once the integration of NÜRNBERGER and IFRS 17 is completed at the year end.

With this, I'm handing over to the section of the financials to Liane, please. Liane?

Thank you, Peter. Let me start on Slide 10 with the gross written premiums and a short reminder why premiums are up by 5.4% compared to the stronger insurance service revenue growth, which amounts 7.1%. As we already explained in the first quarter, it is a topic of the special market segment and the restrictive approach in 2026 in the motor business in Turkey.

As shown on the slide, the Special Markets are the only segment with a slight premium decrease of 1.6%, whereas the growth rate for the insurance service revenue is still supported by the new production in the second half year 2025 in Turkey. At the same time, the countries in our CEE core market continue to deliver strong growth rate.

For example, Poland with 8.3% premiums growth or Czechia with 8.1%. Of the markets in our Extended CEE segment, Hungary and Bulgaria stand out with double-digit growth rates of 15% and [ 2% ], respectively. Serbia with 9.7%, Croatia with 9.3% and Slovakia with 7% showed strong premium development as well. All of these markets outperformed the overall extended CEE segment's premium growth rate of 6.4%. Last but not least, also Austria being part of our CEE core market, achieved 3.6% premium growth, contributing more than 20% to the overall premium increase of plus EUR 462.1 million.

On Page 11, the group income statement is shown. I will go into details on the following slides. I would only like here to mention the complete goodwill impairment of EUR 72.8 million for Hungary that impacted the development of the comparison period and highlights the net profit after taxes and noncontrolling interest of EUR 473.4 million, up by 15.8%, leading to annualized earnings per share of EUR 7.28.

On the next 2 slides, the details of insurance service revenue growth of 7.1% to EUR 6.8 billion are shown. Here, you can see all segments as well as all lines of business are growing and contributing to the additional EUR 453 million in insurance service revenue. In addition, the growth rates shown on this slide, ranging from 3.6% for Austria to 10.9% for the Special Markets. These segments with the highest absolute contribution were extended CEE with plus EUR 173 million, followed by Czechia with plus EUR 95 million and Austria with plus EUR 65 million.

Here, I again would like to mention those markets in our Extended CEE segment that recorded double-digit growth rates. These are Ukraine, plus 18.5%; Bosnia, plus 16.2%; Hungary and Albania, both plus more than 13%; Croatia with close to 13% and Bulgaria with plus 11.3%. You can find also the full overview of each market development on Slide 30 in the appendix.

Over the page, the previously mentioned solid revenue growth in all lines of business is shown. Non-life altogether grew by 6.3%, Health grew by 8.8% and the Life business overall increased by 9.3%. Trends that underpin that our diversified growth profile and leading to a portfolio split of roughly 78% Non-life, 14% Life and 8% health business, all of this not yet including NÜRNBERGER Group.

The result before taxes growth of 20.7%, shown on Slide 14, is strongly supported by solid performances of the segment Extended CEE plus 98%; Austria, plus 11%; and Special Markets plus 35%. Extended CEE adjusted for last year's entire goodwill impairment in Hungary recorded double-digit growth of close to 14%. In Poland, the strong operational performance forms the basis for technical reserve strengthening leading to this 12.8% decrease in result before taxes in the first 6 months. Slight decline in Czechia is primarily driven by an increased combined ratio.

Markets in the Extended CEE segment that I would like to highlight in terms of profit growth are Romania, plus 33% and Bulgaria, plus 15%. In the Special Markets segment, the growth is driven by the performance listed here with profits up by EUR 19 million based on a strong capital investment result.

On Slide 15, the combined ratio details and the split between claims and cost ratios are shown. The net combined ratio of the group improved to 91.4%, including discounting impact of 3.6%. The increase in Poland is impacted by the already mentioned strengthening of the technical reserve. In Czechia, the combined ratio increase is due to the rise of the motor claims frequency, which triggered lower reinsurance commissions. Net weather-related claims of roughly EUR 81 million in the first half year 2026 are only slightly above the level of EUR 73 million in the comparison period last year.

Now let's move to Slide 16 and the contractual service margin in the Life & Health business. The Life/Health CSM increased by 1.3% in the period. This is primarily driven by interest rate changes and also a new business contribution, triggered the mentioned growth in Health and Life. Also the CSM release of EUR 299 million could not be fully offset by the new business of EUR 252 million. The sustainability ratio improved to 84% compared to 80% in the first 6 months '25. The new business of EUR 252 million came with an ongoing strong new business margin of 9% for the half year 2026, which is a comparable value to the first 6 months of 2025.

Over the page, we present the details of the total capital investment result of EUR 373.5 million, up by 26.4%, driven by higher interest rates in the bond market. The significant increase in the remaining result from financial instruments stems mainly from higher unrealized gains and lower unrealized losses as well as higher currency gains. In addition, we have also achieved growth in current income due to an increase of the average return on our fixed income investment portfolio.

I would now move on to the next Slide 18. Here, you can see the investment overview as of end of June '26. Investments held at VIG's own risk further increased to EUR 39.1 billion, up by EUR 1.1 billion compared to year-end. The most significant change in asset class split is in affiliated companies. Related to the acquisition of NÜRNBERGER and the still pending initial consolidation, the share in affiliated companies increased from 1.4% at year-end to 5% at the end of June. So we show NÜRNBERGER as a share in not consolidated companies. This will disappear, of course, with the full consolidation at year-end again. Share in bonds is now at 72.2%. Other than that, there were only minor shifts, both by rating and by issuer.

This brings us to Slide 19 and the solvency ratio. The solvency calculation includes for the first time, but based on a simplified method, NÜRNBERGER. What does this mean? First of all, there is no consolidation as of 3rd of June -- 30th of June 2026 yet. And we use the data from NÜRNBERGER from the consolidation -- from the first quarter 2026. Thus, the solvency ratios, both including and excluding transitionals as of end of June might still move in both directions and the first set of consolidated Solvency II figures will be provided for year-end 2026.

As of June 2026, based on the simplified inclusion approach and data from NÜRNBERGER as of first quarter, VIG solvency ratio came in at 272%. This is 24 percentage points lower due to the inclusion of NÜRNBERGER compared to the solvency ratio of 296% at year-end '25. The SCR increased by EUR 873 million with plus 22% stronger than the own funds plus 12% compared to year-end. The largest SCR driver was the increased market risk, particularly the equity rate. Solvency ratio, including transitional measures of 200 -- excluding transitional measures of 258% decreased by 18 percentage points compared to year-end for the same reason. However, our capitalization is and stays strong, even with more impact from NÜRNBERGER, which might be the case after full consolidation as of 1st July 2026, VIG will remain with its solvency ratio well above the 200% threshold.

That brings me to the end of my presentation, and we come to the outlook. Based on our sound performance in the first half year 2026, including the premium and profit growth, the improved combined ratio and the ongoing strong profitability in Life, we are confirming the given guidance. Still without NÜRNBERGER, we target profit before taxes within a range of EUR 1.25 billion to EUR 1.3 billion for 2026. We hope the market continues to value our healthy growth trajectory as currently reflected in the favorable share price development.

With this, I have come to the end, and I will hand back to the operator. We are now ready and happy to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Qian Lu from UBS.

This is Qian Lu from UBS. Two questions from me, please. The first one is on Poland. The growth was very strong, but at the same time, you strengthened reserves and the combined ratio moved up year-on-year. Can you help me understand what's behind that reserve strengthening? Is it mainly a prudent build? Or are you seeing any adverse claims trend in the book? And if it's the latter, do you feel your recent pricing has adequately reflected those trends?

And the second one is on the solvency ratio, including NÜRNBERGER. So should we think of that number as broadly excluding any diversification benefits? And if so, how should we think about the potential capital synergies from the transaction over time?

Thank you for your questions. I'll take the first one, Poland. yes, it's a prudent measure. We are back on a growth dynamic, and we are using the favorable results to further make our balance sheet in Poland more robust. This is the reason for it.

Very happy to take the second question regarding the solvency ratio. As I explained, we had included them in a simplified -- a simplified method and with Q1 data. What we did is we added the SCR sub modules and took the own funds of NÜRNBERGER. So there is some diversification effect, of course, included on SCR module level, but there could be a different effect when we really do the full consolidation at year-end. So there might be some volatilities also when we have the full inclusion with the full consolidation and full inclusion as of year-end. I hope this answers your question.

Then the next question comes from Thomas Neuhold from Kepler Cheuvreux.

I have two questions regarding the development of the P&L in the first half of 2026 on Page 11. I was just wondering if you can explain in more detail why the lines insurance service revenue result reinsurance held and other income and expenses deteriorated so strongly year-on-year in the first half of 2026.

I'm happy to take your question. If I understood correctly, it was the insurance service revenue reinsurance help. This has to do with a large loss occurred in the second half of 2025. So this was an impact -- the positive impact in last year. And when it come to other income and expenses, there is a one-off included, which does not have an impact on the net or mainly a one-off that does not have an impact on the net result. It's due to consolidation of reinsurance balances.

[Operator Instructions] And we do have another question coming from Thomas Unger from Erste Group.

I'd like to come back to the solvency ratio and the impact from the inclusion of NÜRNBERGER. I'm not sure if I missed it, but can you mention the impact that you have from that inclusion on the solvency ratio?

And then secondly, on the solvency ratio, own funds development, Page 33 in your presentation, there's a strong move in the taxes other category. If you could explain that as well, I'd appreciate that. And then I'd like to talk about Hungary. This showed the strongest improvement on profit before tax year-over-year, obviously, because of the impairment last year and also very strong top line growth in the first quarter. What do you see on the market? Do you see any feeling effect of the political change in the first half? And what were the effects of the sector-specific taxes in H1? And what are your expectations for insurance sector taxes under the new government going forward?

So thank you for your questions. Your first question regarding the solvency ratio, it stands at 272 percentage points, including NÜRNBERGER. If we would not include the effect of NÜRNBERGER, the solvency ratio of half year would be 296%, so 24 percentage points higher. And this is also the same solvency ratio as of year-end 2025. So without NÜRNBERGER, the solvency ratio remains stable and the 24% is the effect of NÜRNBERGER.

Your second question was on Page 33 regarding the development of the own funds, the column taxes and others. And here is a strong movement of plus 964%. Here included is the additional funds from NÜRNBERGER, which are approximately EUR 1 billion and a negative tax effect of EUR 100,000. So this is mainly NÜRNBERGER own funds effect.

I come to your last question, which is concerning Hungary. I start here with the topic of taxes and the taxes, nothing has changed until now so there is no effect of changing of taxes. It is too early to give any concrete evaluation for the future. We do hope that there will be short to midterm positive changes for the insurance sector, but I think it's too early to have here a clear message in this direction. Our growth is on one hand side, also supported by FX effects, one has to say. On the other hand side, there is a positive mood and atmosphere in the economic environment where we are benefiting, and therefore, we're also here generating this growth in Hungary.

Can you give me the specific impact of the sector taxes that you had, the additional sector taxes that you had in the first half?

You mean on Page 33, it's EUR 120,000. Sorry, this was a different...

For Hungary.

For Hungary, exactly.

It's EUR 24 million.

[Operator Instructions] It looks like there are no further questions at this time. So I would like to turn the conference back over to Nina, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for participating in today's call. Our next results call covering VIG's results for the first three quarters of 2026 is scheduled for the 26th of November. If you have any further questions in between, Investor Relations is there for you. Otherwise, we wish you a good afternoon, and thank you once again. Bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the VIG Key Figures and Update First Quarter 2026 Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Mathilde, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Peter Hofinger, Deputy CEO. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and welcome to our first quarter call. We had a quite a solid start in the year '26 with insurance service revenues growing more than 9% and our profit before tax with around 19% growth. We also had changes in our Management Board. On one hand side, we are enlarging our Management Board due to the expansion of our group. Mrs. Judit Havasi and Ms. Sonja Raus are joining us. These are managers which are already for some time in our group and well experienced. Mr. Riener will succeed Mrs. Havasi as CEO in Donau Insurance. Mr. Gerhard Lahner, our Group COO, has been appointed second Deputy CEO, and this new Management Board has been appointed until the 30th of June 2031.

Furthermore, we finalized in Ukraine a cooperation with DFC with a facility where we are now able to insure against war risks. This will support the economic resilience of Ukraine, and we got all the final approvals in May in Moldova of the acquisition of Moldasig, which makes us the clear #1 in Moldova.

Furthermore, on the next slide, ahead of the time plan, we got all the approvals of Nurnberger, and we were closing Nurnberger in May. I think this is a very positive sign, having received these approvals ahead of time and shows also that we are able to deal with all the different authorities in Germany, but also on European level and gives us a quicker grip in managing and integrating Nurnberger to our group. On this slide, you can see the pro forma combined illustration, how the Nurnberger deal will further diversify our portfolio on one hand side, geographically with then Germany accounting to 20% of our portfolio, but also in the product lines where we will then increase our life share of our total portfolio to 31%.

On the next slide, we are also further strengthening our position in Central and Eastern Europe in fostering our partnership with IFC from the World Bank. We had announced in May that the World Bank is going to acquire a stake of 10% in our pension fund in Romania, Carpathia Pensii. This will support us for specifically the voluntary pension fund business in Romania, where we see a lot of potential in the market and increasing our positioning here in Romania in the pension fund business.

Furthermore, IFC also holds a 10% stake in Bulgaria. In Bulgaria our other pension fund, which is the #1 in Bulgaria, also here, IFC is supporting us in the third-pillar products, but also in the digitization of our business model. Furthermore, we closed -- we signed an agreement in December 2025, where IFC is participating into a capital increase and therefore, we will have a 20% stake of our Ukrainian insurance companies, Kniazha and USG, which will make our company more resilient, but also in the view of hopefully a certain kind of end of the war and therefore, a post-war reconstruction will give us a very strong positioning in supporting these developments in Ukraine.

On the next slide, despite geopolitical tensions and recent energy price shocks, we are showing here the most recent forecast report for economic development from April 2026. Even though this is a little bit slowed down, I think still attractive GDP growth figures, specifically also in relation to the euro area, as well as the EU members in Central and Eastern Europe, but also Western Balkan far above what is the growth rate in the euro area, which again shows the resilience of the region where we are and the dynamic which we are having in the region where we are benefiting with our businesses.

With this as an introduction, I'm happy to hand over to Liane to go in more details in our figures. Liane?

Thank you, Peter. Let me start with an overview of our key figures for the first quarter of 2026. Overall, we are very pleased with the development in the first 3 months of this year and also with the continued strong operational performance, which we can see across the whole group. The insurance service revenue increased by 9.1% to EUR 3.4 billion, reflecting continued healthy business growth across all our segments and all our lines of business.

Profit before tax rose to EUR 310.3 million. This represents an increase of 18.8% year-on-year, supported by solid underwriting performance and continued growth momentum across all our markets. Combined ratio stood at 91.8%, improved by 0.5 percentage points compared to the quarter 1 of last year and demonstrated the resilience and the quality of our underwriting portfolio.

Now the solvency ratio as of end of March 2026 stood at 290%. This also underlines our strong capitalization and continuous financial flexibility. Excluding the transitional, the solvency ratio amounted to a favorable 274%. Please note that based on the published SSCR report, we have added 2 slides, #14 and #15, for the year-end '25 solvency details and also the sensitivity analysis. Given the headline figures for the first quarter and a good start into the year, we see VIG well positioned and on track to achieve the full year targets.

Let's now take a closer look at the development of the insurance service revenue across our segments. Overall insurance service revenue increased by 9.1% to EUR 3.4 billion, with growth contributing -- contributions coming from all our regions. Czech Republic and Special Markets recorded double-digit growth rate of 10% and 11%. The insurance service revenue increase of close to 9% of Extended CEE was driven by the favorable business development in nearly all markets, but especially in Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and the Baltics. Growth in Poland was 7.7% and in Austria, it was 4.5%. Both were supported by positive developments in non-life, life and health lines of business.

Turning to insurance service revenue by lines of business on Slide 10. We can see that there was a solid growth across all lines of business during the first quarter. Life insurance overall grew by 14.3%. This was clearly pushed by the strong double-digit increase in the life insurance without profit participation. This was followed by health, which grew by 9% and motor and also other property being up by 6.9%. Overall, the development across lines of business confirms the balanced structure of our portfolio.

On Page 11, the gross written premiums by segment are shown. In total, premiums increased by 4.4% to EUR 4.9 billion. The major difference compared to the 9.1% growth in insurance service revenue is the development in special markets, a topic of premium deferral in motor. Premiums in this segment declined by 3% in Q1 '26. Given a recorded higher claims frequency in the Turkish motor business, the local company adopted the tariffs leading to substantially less new business and a decline in premiums in motor in Turkey. This development is not yet reflected in the insurance service revenue due to the deferral of last year's strong business growth in Motor. Other than this, the trends in Austria, Czech Republic, Poland and Extended CEE are those shown and explained on the previous slides.

Let me now conclude with a short summary and outlook. We are very pleased with the strong start, which we saw in 2026 financial year with continued insurance service revenue and profit growth and an ongoing strong capital position. At last Friday's Annual General Meeting, our shareholders approved a dividend of EUR 1.73 per share for the 2025 financial year. Payout date is today, March 28.

Based on the positive development in the first quarter, we confirm our outlook for the 2026 financial year. As already communicated, we continue to target a profit before tax within a range of EUR 1.25 billion to EUR 1.3 billion for the 2026 whole financial year. This without taking into account the Nurnberger acquisition. The decentralized business model of VIG, our diversification across markets and also lines of business, our strong customer focus and our solid capitalization continue to provide a strong foundation for sustainable growth and resilience in a volatile environment. Thank you very much. We are now happy to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Rok Stibric from ODDO BHF.

I have two questions actually. First one is related to net investment results. If you could share any kind of color on trends there, if there was some impact from market volatility in the investment portfolio, that would be really helpful.

And the second question is related to Nurnberger. I mean you've been pretty vocal about the next steps, but I was still trying to understand whether we could expect some pro forma numbers already at H1 results date.

Thank you for your questions. I'm happy to take them. The first one relating to the net investment result. What I can say is in the first quarter, the financial result in absolute figures remained stable. So there's not really an impact or a direct impact of the market volatilities out of the Iran war. So investment result did not increase in the same amount as revenue increased.

I would also like to point out that the interest rate curve changed in the first quarter. So we see an increase in interest rates in the especially first 20 years. So in the non-realized gains and losses, net, in this area, we see a decrease. But overall, the financial result is stable, and I also expect this for the next quarters or months.

Second question regarding the Nurnberger acquisition and when we will be able to present financial statements or numbers. The acquisition, as Peter Hofinger said, has been recently completed. And now after the closing, we can really start to work together. I would like to remind you again that Nurnberger so far only provided German GAAP numbers. So they have no IFRS numbers, and they started quite a major finance transformation project.

I would also like to remind you, there are several public interest entities, several insurance companies, non-life companies, life company, health company, pension fund and also one bank. So it's not only one company, it's a group. And we have to shift the accounting now from the German GAAP to IFRS, especially tricky IFRS 9 and 17. So we have to introduce models there. We have introduced -- to introduce IT systems like SAP FSL, for example. And also, I would like to point out that in VIG, this project took 5 years. So we have to do that in the next months. We expect the first time consolidation with the financial year 2026, including the Nurnberger for 6 months.

So the first-time consolidation will take place or will start beginning of 1st July 2026. What I can say is also that we plan to participate them in our planning cycle starting in the next weeks. And we expect pro forma financial statements to be available by the end of the year. This whole procedure is also confirmed with our group auditor. So this is the plan and what I can say from today and a lot of work ahead of us. I hope this answers your question.

[Operator Instructions] And gentlemen, there are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Nina, Head of -- sorry to interrupt, we have a last minute registration coming from the line of Youdish Chicooree from Autonomous Research.

I've got two questions, please. The first one is on the growth you are reporting in Poland at around 5%, which is quite solid. I mean one of your major competitors are seeing prices in motor falling and growth flatlining. So I was just wondering if you could give us some color on how you're managing to grow by that amount? So that's the first question on Poland.

Then secondly, on Nurnberger, I was wondering whether when you provide pro forma financials, whether you'll be in a position to tell us a bit about the synergies, the cost synergies and the revenue synergies you are able to -- or you are targeting on this acquisition?

Thank you for your questions. I'll take the question for Poland. You know that we had -- last year, we were merging our non-life as well as our life company. So we were quite busy over the last year in reducing the complexity in Poland. It's also always -- less maybe focused on the market and more focused on the internal topics. As we have finished this merger last year, this year, we are again fully back on the market and looking on the market. Therefore, we are able now to have this growth also in relation to the other competitors on the market.

What I do agree, the pricing competition in motor stays very fierce. Although we are pretty flat in the motor business in Poland, where we grow is property insurance, quite successful in here on the medium-sized corporate business and in health business. So these are the elements which is generating our growth here in Poland.

I'm happy to take the second question regarding Nurnberger. As I already explained before, right after the acquisition or the closing, we started the finance transformation project as part of the post-merger integration, which will take the next months to get to IFRS 9, 17 numbers. So we will be able to present pro forma financial statements by the end of this year. And at this time, we will also be able to give detailed information on efficiency measures and synergies.

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, there are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Nina, Head of Investor Relations, for any closing remarks.

So thank you very much for your interest and your questions. In case of further topics to be discussed, please reach out to the Investor Relations team. We have the next planned results release on the 26th of August with the half-year results 2026, still excluding Nurnberger.

Thank you, and have a nice afternoon.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, as Chair of the Supervisory Board, I hereby call to order today's 35th Annual General Meeting and warmly welcome you to the AGM held in person of Vienna Insurance Group AG Wiener Versicherung Gruppe, in particular, the shareholders present and their representatives, the members of the Managing Board and also the First Deputy Chair of the Supervisory Board, Dr. Simhandl as well as all the other deputies and members of the Supervisory Board. Ms. Tumpel-Gugerell, the Audit Committee Chair. Mr. [indiscernible] from KPMG Austria [indiscernible] appointed as auditor for the 2025 financial year.

Our notary public, [ Mr. Stephan ], who is going to notarize the resolutions to be passed at this AGM and draft the minutes in accordance with Section 120 of the Austrian Stock Corporation Act. The independent attorney, Dr. Arlt, who will be available as needed to read out questions from shareholders during this AGM. The interpreters as well as the technical staff and also the entire team that will be available to assist with answering questions during this Annual General Meeting.

I hereby state the convocation was published on the electronic announcement and information platform, EVI, on the 21st of April 2026, as well as on the company's website, including the agenda and all other information required under Section 106 of the Austrian Stock Corporation Act as well as via the electronic information dissemination system, EQS on the 21st of April 2026, published throughout the EU too. The documents to be disclosed pursuant to Section 108, PRSA 3 and 4 of the Stock Corporation Act were published on the company's website on the 23rd and 28th of April 2026.

The registration list shows that within the registration period stipulated in the Articles of Association, 110,658,639 shares were registered. There are no proposals for additions or amendments to the agenda, which means that the AGM today can also discuss and pass resolutions on the agenda items announced in the invitation. In accordance with the Austrian Stock Corporation Act and the Articles of Association, today's AGM has a quorum for all items on the agenda.

Attendance at today's AGM will be calculated for each vote on each agenda item and announced by me in the course of the respective vote. I will make the list of participants available for inspection with our notary public before the first vote. The respective attendance will then also be announced after each vote together with the voting result.

With regard to the holding of today's AGM and the rules of procedure established by me as Chair of this meeting, I refer you to the written documents available in your meeting folders. I would like to point out that I might also amend these rules of procedure during the meeting if I deem it appropriate for the orderly conduct of this meeting. Should this be the case, I will make an explicit announcement to this effect. If deemed appropriate, for example, if the AGM lasts longer or for other reasons, I will hand over the chairmanship of the meeting to the Deputy Chair of the Supervisory Board, Mr. Simhandl. It is therefore possible that he and I will alternate chairing the AGM. In addition, I reserve the right to interrupt the meeting and also take short breaks.

I would now like to turn to the agenda of the AGM, which has been published on the electronic announcement and information platform, EVI, and also on the company's website as recorded in the commercial register. I note that no objections have been raised to the agenda. There are no proposals for additions or amendments. I will, therefore, proceed with the agenda in the order announced. I would now like to ask [ Mr. Stephan ], our notary public, to read out today's agenda.

Presentation of the approved annual financial statements for 2025, including the management report, the consolidated corporate governance report 2025. The consolidated financial statements for 2025, including the group management report containing the consolidated nonfinancial report, the proposal for the appropriation of profits and also the report of the Supervisory Board Section 96 of the Stock Corporation Act. Two, resolution on the appropriation of the net profit for the year as per the annual financial statements as of December 31, 2025. Three, resolution on the remuneration report 2025. Four, resolution on discharging the Managing Board members for the financial year 2025. Five, resolution on discharging the Supervisory Board members for the financial year 2025. Six, election of the auditor and group auditor for the financial year 2027 as well as the auditor of the consolidated sustainability reporting for the financial year 2027. Seven, resolution on the increase of the maximum number of Supervisory Board members permitted by the Articles of Association to 14 by amendment of Article 10 (2) of the Articles of Association. Eight, resolution on the reassessment of the remuneration for the Supervisory Board members.

Thank you very much to you, [ Mr. Stephan ], for reading out today's agenda. I would now like to turn to the resolutions proposed by the Managing Board and Supervisory Board on the individual items on the agenda, which have been published in full on the company's website as entered in the commercial register. The documents required by law have been made available for inspection. A general debate, a Q&A session will take place following the presentation given by CEO, Mr. Löger. The motions for resolutions on the individual agenda items will be read out in full as part of the voting procedure, which will then take place after the end of the general debate. I therefore assume that it is in your interest if the proposed resolutions are not read out again in full before the opening of the general debate. However, if a shareholder so wishes, I will ask [ Mr. Stephan ], our notary public, to read them out.

This is not the case. So therefore, let me now move on to agenda Item 1 on the agenda. I would now like to give the floor to Mr. Löger, and I would like to ask him for his oral report on the 2025 financial year, which will be broadcast live on the Internet.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders of Vienna Insurance Group, members of the Supervisory Board, dear colleagues, it's a great pleasure for me to be able to welcome you to our AGM of Vienna Insurance Group on the financial year 2025 held here at the Wiener Stadthalle. This is literally what this venue looked like a couple of days ago when the Eurovision Song Contest was held here. It was literally the center, the heart of European pop music. The song contest, which may resonate even a bit, well, of course, you can discuss everybody's taste in music. This is up for debate, but I have been asked not to commend the winner song Bangaranga from Bulgaria or to give a musical performance. But still, I would like to try to build a bridge to move from the ESC to Vienna Insurance Group.

And what you see here is an overview of those countries where Vienna Insurance Group operates and these countries also participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. So if we were to build a bridge from the ESC to CEE, which is to say our core markets, Central and Eastern Europe of our insurance group, then 17 countries participated in the finals of the ESC. And all in all, it was actually 21 countries that are marked here on the map of our country portfolio of Vienna Insurance Group. And I do believe that this is quite remarkable. And it speaks to the great diversity of our regions, of the regions where Vienna Insurance Group has been operating. And if we have a look at our current map, you will be able to see that we operate in 30 countries. And we have more than 50 insurance companies, asset management companies, pension funds included. And that is, of course, a remarkable, a significant and a very sound approach that we have been taking in the CEE region and also in some special markets.

And also, you will be able to see the number of clients we have, 36 million customers that we have, and we service them in the 30 countries where we operate. And the core market is the CEE market. And here, we have managed to consolidate our leading market position. Let's have a look at the financial year 2025. And there is no doubt, and later on, I'm going to give you a more detailed presentation. It was a year full of many highlights. A brief overview.

First off, we managed for the first time in the history of our group to increase the profit before taxes to more than EUR 1 billion. And we have announced our interest in 2024 to acquire NÜRNBERGER. And this week prior to the AGM, the closing took place, which is something we take great pride in. So this week, -- the acquisition of NÜRNBERGER has been validated. So far, the largest acquisition of any single company in the history of our group.

Also, on a very pleasing note, in 2025, Standard & Poor's raised our rating from A+ once a year. Now there is a positive outlook. So A+ with a positive outlook. So also, this speaks to our strong market position, and it is an acknowledgment for the development over the previous years. And down below, on a brief note, and this is something that is very interesting to you as shareholders. And apart from the fact that we celebrated our 20th anniversary in the prime market and also in the ATX, which means that since 1994, we have been listed at the Vienna Stock Exchange. But also, we were able to report an all-time high as regards to the VIG share price at EUR 67.20. This was a highly dynamic development and also that meant that our share price more than doubled to 121.4%. Actually, this was an increase by 121%.

Here at this chart, you will be able to see that the ATX performed very strong. And the share price of Vienna Insurance Group recorded an all-time high of 67.2% (sic) [ EUR 67.2 ]. So clearly, an overperformance. And it is great for me to be able to report this to you because yesterday evening and some of you were present at this event, I have the great opportunity and honor on behalf of all our employees and also, this is the responsibility of Investor Relations, the entire team headed by Nina Higatzberger-Schwarz, and I have a great honor to accept the ATX stock market price. I would like to thank everybody, especially our IR team. They have been doing a great job. This applause goes to you.

Now moving on to the development in 2025. I already mentioned and showed you the map, and I would like to pick out a couple of highlights of our activities aimed at strengthening our operations in that region. I would like to start with Poland in yellow. Now in 2025, at the beginning, that is we managed to acquire an acquisition in the largest financial company organization Phinance in Poland.

And this meant that our position for further organic growth was strengthened. And this meant that in a very large significant market in the CEE region, namely in Poland, we now have an excellent starting position for future organic growth. In Ukraine, we mentioned, and of course, we sincerely regret that the stressful war is still going on and raging. But with the close cooperation with IFC, which is a member of the World Bank Group, we managed to increase their participation in our companies in order to be able to have a sound international basis for future reconstruction in order to be able to have a sound position there later on.

At the same time, we managed to cooperate with global partners. Thus, we created the prerequisite for reinsurance in case of war risks. So we made a very important contribution to be able to take efforts in terms of reconstruction. On stairs piece, a small country, Moldova. But in 2025, we achieved the acquisition of Moldasig, which means literally that we have a leading market position supporting the country of Moldova and to pushing the country, leading the country towards Europe. And as a European investor from within Europe, we have been giving a strong signal towards the social development for the country towards the EU Europe.

Albania, for example, -- many insurance companies have been withdrawing from this country. We did quite the opposite. We established a new company, Vienna Life. Also, we are investing in the future growth of these markets. The same goes for Montenegro, also a small country. With the support of our Serbian companies, we set up a non-life company. Now in this area, we have been taking many activities, and this is something we are hoping for, of course, a positive future development of these regions.

Germany, so far, a very small, InterRisk company in Baden, a very small but highly profitable company. And we have been cooperating with this company to achieve the acquisition of NÜRNBERGER, but more about this later on. Many other activities in 2025 have managed to further consolidate our market position in our core region of CEE. As you can see here, at the end of 2025, roughly 18% is our market share, the market share that we held. This means that we are the leading market -- the market leader in this country, outperforming our peers and also on an international scale.

Something that is very important for us, and that is literally the backbone and the strength of our group. Why have we been able to continuously push up growth and increase results? The reason is very simple. From the beginning onwards, we've always focused on the diversification of our company. Let us have a look at the premium results by line of business. The picture is quite balanced, for example, in the motor business and still -- but more about that later on, there is great potential in health insurance.

Also life here performs quite well by regions, by segments, by countries. Austria still continues to be very strong. Austria is still developing quite strong, above market. And still when it comes to the development of the international markets, Czech Republic, Poland and also the extended CEE countries as well as the special markets. We continue to perform very strong here. Special markets, for example, account for a 10% share. And it's quite pleasing to see that the profit before taxes also shows us a very balanced picture. And this is, of course, something that is very interesting for you as shareholders in the long term. Austria still quite strong, 37%. We can say only 37% in the light of Austria's sound development, which means that the other countries also recorded a very strong performance, very pleasing.

Key financial ratios of 2025. Let me start by showing you the gross written premiums. We managed to push this up by 7.1% to EUR 16.3 billion. That is really an amount that is quite significant even by an international comparison, even excluding the acquisition of NÜRNBERGER. Insurance service revenue, which is the new KPI under IFRS, an increase of 8.7% to EUR 13.2 billion. And I've already mentioned the profit before taxes, an increase of 31.7%, which is quite remarkable to EUR 1.16 billion. That is the combined ratio. Very pleasing. We improved this. If you see a minus here, that means that this is an improvement to 90.1%. The challenge in that regard is that the underwriting, the technical result, of course, has to be profitable.

Operating return on equity, also very strong increase to 2.5 percentage points in comparison with the previous year to 18.7%. And also the solvency ratio was increased once again to 296%, which means that we are well capitalized, which means that we will be able to invest further. And here, the acquisition of NÜRNBERGER has not even been included. This is a time line speaking to the significant increase in our results. And when Elisabeth Stadler, together with Mr. [indiscernible] and also Franz Fuchz, so the structure was a bit different, but still, they announced record results in 2022.

Many of you had the opportunity to listen to that announcement. That was a great announcement. And for the first time on the balance of IFRS 17 and 9, so the new balance sheet structure, EUR 585.7 million in terms of profit before taxes were announced. At that time, the foundation was laid. The Managing Board team of VIG at that time laid the foundation to create a stable foundation, a strong regional positioning. And when the new managing team came into place, we had a great basis to operate on. And in 2023, we increased the profit before taxes to EUR 772 million. In 2024, it was EUR 882 million. And despite great difficulties, remember the NatCat, the Storm Boris, and this meant great losses for our group.

And at that time, in 2024, the Great Diligent and Precautionary Reinsurance Strategy by [indiscernible] and Peter Höfinger paid its worth, and this literally saved us. And despite this great -- or these heavy losses, really, we were able to achieve a great profit before taxes. But once again, in 2025, we were able to increase this by almost 32% to the EUR 1.1 billion, as I explained before. And that shows you how strong, how stable due to the diversification strategy we have been taking our group is.

Let us have a detailed look how this is allocated to the individual regions. And that is what I deem to be extremely positive. The strong development of profit before taxes is not just fed by one company or by a handful of company, but across the board by all the regions, by all the countries. And you see that Austria has contributed to this for the most part, the CEOs of the individual country companies are present here. Also the Czech Republic, very strong extended CEE, Poland, we should not forget Poland. The Slovak Republic is very strong. Vladimir Bakeš is here today. Welcome to you, sir. And also in the special markets without NÜRNBERGER that is, we see that in all the regions, a continuous increase overall.

When it comes to the development of profit before taxes, insurance service revenue on the basis of IFRS 17, you will be able to see that in all the regions, we were successful. If we have a look at the gross written premiums by segment, this is the KPI that we still use. And you will be able to see that we increased the premium by 7.1% in all of the countries, in all of the segments, and that supports the resilient basis that we have laid. When we break this down by line of business, once again, diversification is still very important in this connection.

You will be able to see that in all of the lines of business, whether it is motor third-party liability, motor own damage, other P&C, life and health were increased in 2025, and that once again emphasizes the strength of our group. Without going into too much detail, I can show you that our strategic partner with Erste Group has been excellent. We have been cooperating with them for several years. Erste Group has been a key partner in Austria, but also in Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, also in Romania, and we have seen a considerable boost in growth here. We have seen growth being above average in a 2-digit figure, both in Life, which has been boosted significantly with our cooperation with the banks. Also, thanks to growth in P&C, we have seen disproportionate growth there. This has also benefited from promoting digital sales channels, George in Austria as well as other channels of similar nature in other countries.

Here, you can see our combined ratio, 90.1%. This is an excellent ratio in all of our countries and all of our companies we have seen a positive development over the last year. This is an excellent and very stable foundation for our company. And this is also a confirmation for the path we have taken. Here you see the operating return on equity, operating ROE, 18.7% for 2025. This is also an excellent figure, and this has been very well received by the capital markets. Solvency ratio has continued at a very high level. So you can see we saw a significant increase in 2025 and a year-on-year comparison. This also provides an excellent foundation, not just for the acquisition of NÜRNBERGER, as we've said, but also to provide stable capital inflow for further expansions in Central and Eastern Europe and other types of investments elsewhere.

Here, we see a very positive investment growth. This was also marked by a 4.3% increase in this area as well in 2025 to EUR 38 million (sic) [ EUR 38 billion ]. All of this together brings us to the Managing Board, the dividend proposal, and this is, of course, a main focal area of this AGM. And we would like to present this today at our Annual General Meeting for our shareholders. We have decided to increase last year's dividend from EUR 1.55 to EUR 1.73 per share. This is a double-digit increase over the last year. And once again, this underscores our understanding of our dividend policy. On one hand, we want to provide certainty to our shareholders. We want to maintain a secure foundation of the previous year. We want to say that, that is a minimum benchmark for moving forward into the next year.

And you can see how we have increased our dividend proposal in the last several years, and this certainly underscores the strength of our dividend policy. So the outlook for 2026 is very positive. Thanks to the excellent level of diversification that we have achieved. This has also confirmed the disproportionate growth we have seen throughout our regions. We are active in the right countries and in the right regions, and in the right markets. Unfortunately, we do not have numbers that are hot off the presses, but I can present to you the following figures.

When you look at the CEE region, this is Central and Eastern Europe, within the European Union, we see GDP growth, which is nearly twice the figure that we have for the rest of the EU. This is for 2026. It is also very interesting to point out that we are very active in the smaller countries in the Western Balkans in Montenegro, Albania, et cetera, because growth there is even higher, above 3%. Here, once again, we recognize the value of our market activities in those areas. And once again, we believe that this will lay the foundation for further growth, not just for 2026, but also, as I said, into the near future, we believe that the most recent result was truly excellent because we had very few NatCats in 2025. In 2025, we are expecting profit before taxes to come into a corridor of EUR 1.25 billion to EUR 1.3 billion.

Allow me also now to outline our strategic framework titled evolve28. I'm going to do this really in just a rough sketch. From 2026 to 2028, we have drawn up a 3-year strategic program with key objectives. This program was developed over an entire year in close cooperation with our regional partners. And this is based on the individual responsibility of all of our CEOs. We spent an entire year drawing up this program to ensure that it would be supported by our regions, and it would also benefit our regions. We also wanted to increase the local identification with this group. We have 4 elements of our strategic program, as you can see on the slide.

At the very top, we have our group programs. What are these? Here, the focus is on the key elements of our group. These are programs where the entire group can be responsible for the success or failure of these. We also have country portfolios and company strategies. This is a supporting pillar. In the next 3 years, each company has its own strategy within a common structural framework. I will come back to that in a moment. So once again, we do not have a one-size-fits-all strategy for 30 countries. We have a strategic framework where each company can position itself in accordance to the market environment that they find themselves in.

We have this with collaboration, communication and cooperation. This is our CO³ pillar. We decided to name this CO³. We wanted to make sure that it had a very positive connotation, particularly as a play on CO2. And at the very bottom, the foundation of our strategy are the values and our principles. This is what underpins our strategy. Allow me to reiterate that all of these strategic programs would be -- would provide us with enough food for thought and discussion to fill an entire day's agenda.

The first program, which we put at the very top of our list is sustainability. Of course, this has a pride of place. This was also extremely important in our VIG 2025 strategic program. This is something that we have had to permeate our entire group, and this is something that we want to boost to greater effectiveness from 2026 to 2028. And we have very clear objectives in this framework to achieve sustainability, not just from an ecological point of view, but also from a social point of view. We want to make sure that these are very deeply enshrined in our strategy. These are very important pillars for our evolve28 program, and they will be continued into the future.

Capital management has been introduced as a pilot program in a number of countries. This is a program that will be introduced to all of our countries and all of our regions. We want to improve our internal capital management and internal capital flow. We want to create the right preconditions to make sure that the streams are flowing properly in order to provide the optimal foundation for our dividend policy.

Banking cooperation, as already mentioned, this is symbolized by one of our key strategic partnerships with Erste Group. Erste Group is also extremely active and expanding in CEE. We know that Erste Group has recently acquired the Santander Bank in Poland. So we are working hand-in-hand with Erste Group in that context.

In addition, we have also taken upon ourselves to reach out to banks. This is in countries where Erste Group is not active or not yet active right now. We have already made some forays into some of these markets.

AI, this is a very key topic, and I'm looking now to [indiscernible] because last year, -- his objective was to gather more information on this issue. We have many more activities involving AI. Many use cases, many other programs have been developed in our countries. We have a plethora of opportunities at hand in our group. And in the context of our group project -- our program, we are working together with all of our partners to develop activities and future activities and to scale these across the group.

Data governance is one idea, and this extends into our joint data processing foundations. There are many measures and activities that tie into artificial intelligence and its use in our group. Once again, we can go into a little bit more detail on that if you have any questions later in the Q&A period.

Diversification is extremely important. We have seen a great deal of potential when it comes to health, of course, health insurance as a classic product, but other services that are already present and available in digital formats. And these are things that we can grow. We see a great deal of demand for these products, not just in Austria. I'm no longer politically active, but I can say how long and wearying discussions about reforms have gone on in Austria, but there are the preconditions in other countries where we, as a private insurance company, will have to step up to the plate. and we will be able to make a significant contribution on that front as well. I don't want to go into too much detail here. I don't want to go beyond my allotted speaking time, so to speak, but we have country portfolios and company strategies. We have created in-depth analysis of the markets. We also wanted to examine the current trends and modern digital solutions.

We have done this. For each country, we have written up strategic implications for the next several years. We know exactly how we want to proceed and what we expect from our activities by 2028. We have also asked our local CEOs to draw up their objectives and to underpin these with corresponding KPIs.

CO³, once again, this is meant symbolically. This gives us an opportunity as a group, and this was, of course, called by Harald Riener as a swarm intelligence, so to speak. We want to make sure that we can draw on the broad-based expertise in our group. We have a great deal of this in many of our countries. We have 30,000 employees. And we want to draw on this swarm intelligence to boost communication, collaboration and cooperation. We want to benefit from best practices and be able to create added value on that basis, values and principles.

Again, this is just -- these pictures are meant only symbolically. These are not models or actors or actresses. These are examples. There's the woman on the left to personify diversity and plurality. She is active as an artist. We have a gentleman here representing entrepreneurship. He is a pastry chef. We have a broad range of products and languages and cultures that we cover. Diversity is something that we live and breathe every single day throughout our group. And this is a core value in how we approach our business.

We know that responsibility plays an important role, particularly on a regional point of view. We cannot decide top-down from Vienna what is taking place and what should be done in Poland, Ukraine and what have you. It is extremely important for the local CEOs and managers to shoulder that responsibility. This is also key for sustainability reasons. We have a transition plan as well. This comes under the heading of sustainability, and we want to be a pioneer on that front.

Two, we have laid the groundwork for long-term responsibility for the climate on one hand, but also when it comes to social issues. And it is important to make sure that everybody throughout our group understands that we all shoulder responsibility for the success of these objectives. Excellence is extremely important. This is an important objective for all of us. It's important for us to develop excellent products and services and to reflect this to the market as a whole and also to embody these within our group.

When you are shareholders or our customers, you, of course, have witnessed our passion and how we approach the issue of insurance and the passion for further developing our company. This has also been defined on the basis of financial objectives to 2028. We want to make sure that our gross written premiums come to or exceed EUR 20 billion. We will be able to do this aside from the acquisition of NÜRNBERGER. I will come to that in a minute. By 2028, we want to make sure that our profit before taxes comes to at least EUR 1.5 billion. Again, this is even before we've integrated NÜRNBERGER into our group.

The operating ROA is something that we want to -- ROE, we want to keep that at a very high level at 17%. We want to make sure that our combined ratio remains at 91% at the very most. The foundation for our very strong solvency ratio should be maintained despite NÜRNBERGER and perhaps other acquisitions that are already in the pipeline that will further boost our growth. We want to make sure that this remains in the corridor of 150% to 200%. We want to keep a very close eye on that as well. So these are the important quantitative targets for 2025 that we have defined within our strategy program moving forward.

Now let me come to NÜRNBERGER. This is something that we have finalized this week, but we were going to continue to evaluate this moving forward. Just a few key facts on NÜRNBERGER. NÜRNBERGER Insurance is an unbelievably strong brand in Germany. It has a long tradition, 150 years. 1.5 years ago, we were able to celebrate our 200th anniversary of our company, but 140 years is nothing to sneeze at. And this is a company that is active throughout Germany, even though Nuremberg is a city in Bavaria. Of course, as many people say, it is located in Franconia, in the Franconian region of Bavaria, but it is extremely active throughout Germany. This is something I'd like to emphasize. They have over 2.5 million customers, and they enjoy an excellent rating.

They have even been upgraded this week to A+ by Fitch. The background for that is not just the integrative foundation for integrating NÜRNBERGER into our group as an independent company in Germany with a very strong brand, but also the very successful begin to the transformation and financial reform process that NÜRNBERGER has undergone. It has recently experienced some turbulence, but its positive year 2025 has contributed to this positive outlook. And we see this as a confirmation of our own approach. And based on all of these criteria, Fitch has decided to upgrade their rating to A+. They have a very strong own funds basis that will bolster our own strength.

We were talking about the diversification of our group. This was an important strategy. And this is one of the ideas that led us to consider NÜRNBERGER. We thought that it would be an excellent fit. They are extremely strong in life insurance, and you could see here that in the slide, they are extremely strong in the biometrics. And in Germany, they even occupy a leading position in disability insurance. This is an area in Austria that is in the insurance realm to only a very small degree. And here, we see enormous potential both in Austria and in CEE.

So once again, this lays the foundation for even greater diversification and growth potential, thanks to the acquisition of NÜRNBERGER. NÜRNBERGER will be seen as a competence center for this type of expertise. And this is something that we have seen only confirmed on the German market. And this will give us a positive boost moving forward.

What are the next steps? This week, we've been able to achieve the closing. This is much faster than many people had originally expected. The team led by Gerhard Lahner from our Managing Board and Claudia Ungar-Hubber and [indiscernible] have all contributed to this amazing feat in achieving this very rapid closing. Please, I think they deserve a round of applause. Thank you to you and your team.

NÜRNBERGER will be holding its AGM on the 2nd of June. And here, we will be taking our first steps toward integrating NÜRNBERGER into our group. We will see a reconstitution of the Supervisory Board. [indiscernible] will be assuming responsibilities on behalf of VIG there. We will do everything in our power to implement IFRS. Currently, they are drawing up their accounts according to the German laws, and we will harmonize their accounting practices and financial reporting practices to those of the VIG Group. We will also be evaluating the strategic implications for Germany. This will be extremely important for that enormous market. That is right on Austria's doorstep.

And this will be added as an addendum to evolve28. We hope that we will be able to finalize this by the fall of this year so that we can clearly define what NÜRNBERGER means for our further growth. And we want to be -- achieve more clarity in our objectives, both for NÜRNBERGER, but also for our group. One very important factor, and I think that we have been able to draw on a very positive experiences in Austria, we have plans for an IT transformation strategy. We had an excellent project in Austria called Move. And this will be implemented in the near future in NÜRNBERGER. We want to be able to create the appropriate framework based on our experiences in Austria, we also want to be able to cooperate between Germany and Austria more closely.

Once again, here, you can see the extreme diversity in our group. We have a diversity of countries, a diversity of cultures, but also diversity of brands. We have many companies that have a very strong regional brand, not just Städtische in Austria or Donau, for example, Kooperativa in Slovakia or Compensa in Poland and Asirom in Romania and so many more. NÜRNBERGER is an excellent fit because it has a very strong regional brand with a very long tradition. And they will be able to complement our group excellently. They have wonderful expertise that will only bolster our footprint. NÜRNBERGER will be able to integrate wonderfully into the broad diversity of our brands and our insurance companies across the region.

Allow me just to look ahead past 2026, you may have heard of the decision taken by the Supervisory Board in its most recent meeting. The decision was taken to make some changes to the Managing Board of VIG that will be effective as of the 1st of July. I can anticipate the results of that decision. Here, you see that we will be expanded to 8 positions, also due to the needs that the integration of NÜRNBERGER will entail. And I'm very happy to show you a photograph of our new management team. This is the Managing Board that will be ready to go as of the 1st of July. And we will be focusing on ensuring the group's success for 2026.

You see that there is a colleague who is present here responsible for 2025, and he will be here, and he'll be able to take your questions. Harald Riener is here. He decided to take the opportunity as the CEO of Donau to be here. He has excellent experience -- wide-ranging experience in the group also for Donau. He's well versed in marketing issues. He also has wide-ranging experience in other areas. In Austria, outside of Austria and Italy, for example, he has done great work in Croatia, for example. He's also been very active in Poland and has been able to drive the excellent results that we've achieved in Poland. I would like to thank Harald. Don't be celebrating too soon, of course, we still have some weeks ahead, but I would like to thank you for all that you have done for the Vienna Insurance Group. Thank you very much, Harald.

So again, I'm not here to sing Bangaranga, Bulgaria's winning song at the ESC. But once again, I will be here to answer any questions you may have in the Q&A period. Thank you very much for your support, and we are very happy to lead this company on your behalf.

Thank you very much, Mr. Löger, our CEO, for your remarks. This terminates the live webcast of the Annual General Meeting. The recording of Mr. Löger's presentation as well as the supporting documents will be available online following the Annual General Meeting.

[Statements in English on this transcript were

spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Preliminary Results for the Financial Year 2025 Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Mathilde, the Chorus Call operator.

[Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Hartwig Loger, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Warm welcome and best regards from Rinktor from Vienna. We're happy and glad to present today the 2025 preliminary results of Vienna Insurance Group. And I will do this together with our CFO, Liane Hirner. And also for the Q&A on our side is our Deputy CEO, Peter Hofinger.

So from my side, I would start with maybe also the key proposition we have and our positioning, which is quite strong, as you know. And I think on the Slide #2, just a flavor about the main topics we have on our side. So market leader in Central Eastern Europe, still with growth prospects. As you know, we have a high diversification in sales and all over the regions of Central Eastern Europe, we are quite strong also for the next years in targeting the growth.

We have clear decentralized business model. So our understanding is being a group, the picture to that we need is the fleet with strong ships with also responsible captains on the boats, and they are the backbone and the basis for our strong development in the current situation, but also as we will see in the strategic planning for the next years also for the future.

Financial strength, it will be touched deeply by Liane Hirner. So we have a stable and strong basis, not only in solvency ratios, but also on the current basis all over. And we are also focusing in a responsible way to the future, which means that we are also very active in the programming about sustainability.

Let's go on with the highlights we can present for the year 2025, which really was an exceptional year in the results we will present today. So very strong top line and also earnings growth overall, which is, I would say, high above peers. And this also remarks that we are on a strong way in the focus of our business, especially in our core markets in Central Eastern Europe. The profit before taxes, first time reached the EUR 1 billion mark. And out of that, it's also, I would say, an important year, which we could fulfill in our targets '25.

As you know, we already presented in the Q3 session that we were successful in the public purchase offer for NURNBERGER. So out of that, we already secured 99.2% of NURNBERGER share capital. And out of that, we are now in the phase that we expect the closing, which will take on maybe some months, but to the beginning of the second half of '26, we think it will be solved out of that.

The new group strategy, evolve28, of course, to mention today, but I also remark that we did a broad presentation during the Q3 session, but we will come back today about the targets, which are following this program in the midterm also perspective and outlook till '28.

Standard & Poor's also gave a highlight in '25. So our rating with A+ was raised in the outlook from stable to positive. So also a strong signal from Standard & Poor's, confirming our financial strength and also our potential of growth for the future. And I think the most important, also the share price performance was top performing the [indiscernible]. We have an increase of 121.4% with a closing price of EUR 67.20 at year-end '25, and this is all-time high in this way till now. So out of that, we will go on in the fulfillment of our outlooks.

On the next Slide #5, you see the key figures of the full year. The main KPIs I will touch, and Liane Hirner will go deeper then. So gross written premium, we reached EUR 16.3 billion, that's an increase by 7.1% up on the year '24. The insurance service revenue from IFRS basis increased by 8.7%, up to EUR 13.2 billion, hence, which is for us, yes, the highlight is the increase more than 30% of the profit before taxes, up to EUR 1.16 billion. As I said, it's, yes, I would say, a new mark also on the way of our success.

The KPIs on the quality of business P&C net combined ratio, we have an improvement by 3.3 percentage points, down to 90.1% Also, this will be deepened by Liane over the regions. The solvency ratio on a higher level now up to 296%. This is also our strong basis for investments, not only in the payment for NURNBERGER, what is expected, as I said, but also for the acquisition possibilities in Central Eastern Europe for new growth also in strengthening our position. Operating return on equity, 18.7%, also a very strong remark with an uplift from 2.5 percentage points to last year.

The strength of our group already mentioned diversification. You see on Slide #6 that it is not only a good balanced situation in between the markets, the gross written premiums, as you can see, Austria still on a high level with 30%, but already extended CEE with 31% now in the lead. We see that also besides Czech and Poland, also special markets with 10%. We will see later on that NURNBERGER will go up in this way if it works as it is expected. Insurance service revenue nearly on the same base. And as you see on the right side, the results before tax is also well balanced. Here, Austria is still in lead, followed by Czech, but we see a strong improvement also in Extended CEE and Poland and also Liane will give you details about that.

Out of these very positive results and KPIs, we also, as the Management Board will give the proposal for the dividend payments and the proposal to the general meeting will be EUR 1.73 per share. which is important because, as you know, our dividend policy is formed in the way that this dividend yearly gives automatically the base also for the next year. So we increase up from EUR 1.55 to EUR 1.73 by about 12%, which gives a new earnings per share of EUR 6.46. And out of that, we are a reliant and continuous dividend payer as we started in 1994 on the stock exchange Vienna. So this is our policy where we, with also our shareholders agree on a stable long-term development.

Now I will hand over to Liane, and please go forward Liane to deep in detail about the KPIs.

Thank you, Hartwig. Now I'm very pleased to present our strong preliminary full year results '25 in more detail to you.

Let's start on Page 9, where you can see the breakdown of gross written premiums per segment. Overall, premiums increased by more than EUR 1 billion with all market segments contributing to the growth. Markets in the Extended CEE added an additional EUR 409 million in premiums with more than 50% of this growth coming from our countries, Romania, Slovakia and the Baltics. Austria and the Czech Republic are the second and third largest contributing segments with additional premiums of EUR 209 million and EUR 194 million, respectively. In terms of premiums, we recorded growth also in each line of business with double-digit percentage increases in the Life business without profit participation, the unit and index-linked life as well as the health business.

With this, I move to our IFRS 17/9 reporting tables on Slide 10, we show the group income statement. I will go into the details of the relevant positions in the following pages. Here, I would just like to explicitly mention the adjustments totaling EUR 96.3 million preliminary arising from the entire goodwill impairment of EUR 72.6 million in Hungary. This compares to EUR 116 million goodwill impairment taken for Hungary already in 2024. In '25, there were also smaller impairments of customer portfolios in Poland and of software in special markets. Regarding the tax ratio of 26.1% in 2025, one quick comment here. We expect this to decrease further and consider a tax ratio of around 25% to be a fair estimate for 2026, of course, currently without the planned acquisition of NURNBERGER.

With this, let's move to the next slide, Page 11, and the insurance service revenue. Here, overall insurance service revenue increased by 8.7% to EUR 13.2 billion. Given the different growth patterns, it's visible that diversification over markets, lines of business and sales channels began pays off. Extended CEE was the biggest contributor of this growth, generating an additional EUR 308.5 million, almost 2/3 of which came from our countries, Romania, Slovakia and the Baltics. The strong performance of the Special Markets segment, up by 26.6% was driven by Turkiye and increased volumes there in the motor business and the life insurance business. These lines of business are also the basis for the solid growth in both Austria and the Czech Republic, each adding more than EUR 200 million in insurance service revenue. Worth mentioning are also the double-digit percentage growth rates in health, not only in Austria and the Czech Republic, but also in Extended CEE.

Now let's move on to Slide 12. Here, you can see the insurance service revenue development by lines of business. Health is up by 15.5% and for the first time, exceeds the EUR 1 billion, followed by a combined growth of 12.5% across all 3 life lines of business. In absolute terms, the other property business recorded the strongest growth with an additional EUR 291 million of insurance service revenue, followed by the motor third-party liability insurance with an additional EUR 242 million.

Moving to the profit development on Slide 13. The bottom line growth was even stronger than the top line increases. So we have profitable growth. Result before taxes is up by 31.7% or roughly EUR 380 million. Yes, this substantial improvement is supported by a more favorable claims experience with significantly lower weather-related claims compared to the previous year. However, it also demonstrates the positive impact of economies of scale and sound insurance technical results, particularly in many Extended CEE, following Austria, which contributed EUR 98 million to the profit increase based on an improved combined ratio, the Extended CEE segment added EUR 77 million.

I would like also to highlight Poland. Thanks to our group companies concentrated market presence, they have lived up to the ambition of accelerated growth in both Life and Non-life business. Despite the impairment of customer portfolios mentioned before, profit before taxes increased by 62.4% to EUR 106 million, a plus of EUR 40.6 million. Also, we are not currently among the top players, top 3 players in Poland as a group, this demonstrates our strength and profitable setup in this country.

Details of the net combined ratio improvements for the group and the market segments are shown on Slide 14. We achieved net combined ratio of 90.1% is based on a clearly improvement claims ratio of below 59.7% and also a slightly better cost ratio of 30.4%. The discounting impact of the claims ratio was 4.2% in 2025 after 3.4% in 2024. Czech Republic and the special markets recorded the most substantial combined ratio improvement. Apart from the positive weather-related claims effect, the drivers in Czech Republic were a favorable motor development and an increased profitability in the household insurance, whereas the better net combined ratio in the special markets is based on positive motor development in Turkiye.

Now let's have a look at the profitability KPIs on the Life side. On Slide 15, the CSM roll-forward of the Life & Health business is presented, and I'm pleased about the ongoing strong CSM new business margin of 9.8%, only slightly below the 10%, which we recorded last year. The increase of 12.9% in the CSM roll-forward was mainly driven by the changes in VFA, reflecting the positive impact of the rise in long-term interest rate curves. New business of EUR 528 million in relation to a CSM release of EUR 568 million led to a sustainability ratio of 92.9%, which is, again, only slightly below the exceptional ratio of 93.6% in 2024 and supported by the new business volume from Turkiye.

Table from the total capital investment result is shown on Slide 16. Here, higher interest income and volume from the bond portfolio has driven the increase of 12.3% to EUR 489.3 million.

The increased volume of the bond portfolio is also reflected in the investment split, which is shown on the next Slide 17. Compared to EUR 36.5 billion in 2024, capital investments held at own risk increased by EUR 4.3 billion to EUR 38 billion. The proportion of the bond portfolio increased from 73.8% to 74.6%, reflecting additional bond investments totaling around EUR 1.5 billion.

Regarding the rating split, upgrades from BBB+ to A- increased the proportion of A investments, while downgrades of France and the European Financial Stability facility affected the proportion of AA investments.

Further information on the bond portfolio and the rating breakdown of various bond issuers are shown on the next Slide 18. VIG's well-known conservative approach is also reflected in the rating distribution of the bond portfolio shown on the left-hand side. Compared to last year, the ratings of government, covered and financial bonds improved. The country split on the right reflects VIG's focus on diversification. Poland and the Czech Republic are represented with a share of 13.9% and 13.4%, respectively, followed by Austria with 10.6% and a share of 8.6% of supranationals, very similar to what we have presented to you already last year.

Now let's have a look at the solvency ratio for 2025 on Slide 19. Our solvency ratio, including transitional measures after 261% in 2024 was 296% at year-end 2025. This reflects substantially increased own funds of around EUR 12 billion, mainly based on the profitable business performance and positive capital market developments in relation to an only slightly higher SCR of around EUR 4.1 billion. The solvency ratio, excluding transitional shows an equal robust trend rising from 238% in 2024 to 276% by the end of 2025. Please here, bear in mind that the purchase price becomes due upon the completion of the planned acquisition of NURNBERGER Group. However, VIG will remain a solidly capitalized group, ready to take advantage of any opportunities offered by our region and well prepared to handle the ongoing geopolitical challenges. Being active in the CEE region, which we know extremely well and where we can rely on the expertise of our local management teams is a huge advantage in this respect.

With this, I will now hand over to Hartwig for his closing remarks and the outlook.

Okay. Thank you, Liane. And before I go on with the outlook '26 and also the midterm outlook in the targets of program evolve28, I just want to focus on Slide 21 about the favorable situation we have with our core markets, Central Eastern Europe. As you can see on this slide, the midterm also growth forecast in the region, where we see clearly nearly doubled or even more in the area of the European Union CEE markets and also on the Western Balkans, which we also worked out here. You see that starting with '26, it's on the European Union level, 1.4% and GDP growth, we have in the countries on the European Union level CEE 2.6% and even 3.1%, which is still going up on the way to 3.5% and 3.7%. And even also the EU markets from Central Eastern Europe up from 2.6% to 2.7%. So this is really the right positioning we have in our group. And out of that, we also can expect that this will also support our growth perspectives and the targets we still are in mind are important for development for our group.

On the next slide, the outlook '26 in detail. So the guidance, I think shortly just mentioned, as Liane already did on the capital basis, we are strongly capitalized in the way of solvency as we have seen even with the upcoming investment to NURNBERGER, we are ready to invest also in the growth parts of Central Eastern Europe. The strong broad diversification already mentioned by myself and by Liane, which also gives the resilience besides, of course, influence of geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions. But we, over the last years, we were ready also to fulfill our targets besides that. And so the impact out of what is going on also now in the area of the Arabic countries, we expect not directly but indirect consequences, but we are on a strong base.

And out of that, as you can read and see on this slide, the Management Board is also clear in the targeting for this year. So we achieved the profit before taxes in the targeting with a range of EUR 1.25 billion to EUR 1.3 billion for the financial year '26, excluding NURNBERGER, what I mentioned already in the starting part that the closing is expected till mid of the year. And out of that, we will come back to you in the time when it is possible after closing also to include the targeting for NURNBERGER. But besides that, with the exceptional result of '25, which was already mentioned with all-time high of EUR 1.16 billion, we are still ambition in the outlook and targeting for '26.

And on the next slide, as I said, we touched the strategic program for the next 3 years, the midterm program. And out of that, we have clear detailed financial targets for '28. We already mentioned them and presented during the Q3 session. But just to repeat and to remind you on that. So gross written premiums up to more than EUR 20 billion, profit before taxes in business development up to EUR 1.5 billion in '28. Combined ratio. even this year, we have exceptional results on that, also regarding to the [ lucky ] situation in combination to the weather-related claims, but we are targeting ambitiously to 91% in '28 and operating ROE more than 17% and altogether, keeping the range of EUR 150 million to in mind. And as we mentioned, we have the power out of our capitalization not only to directly finance the plans taking over of NURNBERGER, but we are ready also to invest further on, but still being and keeping a stable position for VIG.

That's the part of presentation. And now we are happy to get your questions and we'll answer immediately. Thank you very much.

The first question comes from the line of August Marcan from UBS.

I have 3, if that's okay. First one is on the combined ratio. Could you please help us with a bit more details on the underlying drivers of the combined ratio, particularly how much was the NatCat impact in 2025? I think at 9 months, you gave a number, which was, I think, EUR 170 million, correct me if I'm wrong. What was that number for full year? And what is kind of the normalized level of NatCat that you take into account when you're planning?

Second one on the dividend. I appreciate you grew the dividend 12%. However, your earnings grew 30% and your payout now is one of the lowest in the sector below 30%. Did you maybe consider stepping up dividend as a one-off step-up to use as a new base? And if not, I'm just curious as to your thoughts in that segment.

And then finally, on Slide 35, the solvency box that you give is very helpful. Could you just give a bit more detail on the EUR 580 million other changes? What were they? And how should we think about them going forward? Should they trend around 0 in the long term? Or should they be positive in the long term?

Peter Hofinger. Thank you for your questions. I will answer the first one, the combined ratio topic. If you look on the drivers of the combined ratio, there are various drivers. One of it is inflation. We have been quite successful over the last years to increase rates according to inflation. What we have seen in last year is that there was a slowing down of the dynamic of the inflation, which was supporting us in claims costs. Nevertheless, we had before that, and we are still able to increase certain rates, which was positive to our margin.

On the motor book, we have been specifically successful. We have new pricing tools in many of our markets, and we were able with a more precise segmentation to increase the profitability in our motor book. And yes, we have been also supported by the NatCat activity. The difference of the NatCat topic to our combined ratio from the year '24 and the year '25 is 1.1 percentage points.

There is one topic which is slightly seen then in the overall result, which is on the cost ratio. In more and more markets, we are reaching economies of scale, which is then allowing us and also for the years to come to see a continuous decrease of our cost ratio. I hope this is answering your question.

I'm happy to take your next 2 questions. The first was regarding the dividend policy. We have decided to have a dividend at least in the basis for the last year. So there will be an increase or at least a stable dividend, but we expect an increase as the business volume and the results are increasing also in the next years. There are no plans to change the dividend policy currently. And the increase of 12% in our view is also a positive sign.

On the other hand, the group is growing very strongly and also new acquisitions regarding NURNBERGER is financed by our own funds. So this year, the payout ratio was some percentages below 30%, but I expect that this will increase again in the upcoming years.

To the EUR 508 million other changes in the own funds development table, these other changes are the valuation differences or the change of the valuation differences between, especially Solvency II best estimate and IFRS 17 reserves and also a main portion of these differences is deferred taxes. These changes are supported by the positive interest rate development of the last year. So the valuation differences further increased for the next upcoming quarters, I would rather expect a stable development here as I do not really expect big changes in the interest rate curve. I hope this answers your question.

The next question comes from the line of Youdish Chicooree from Autonomous Research.

So I'll ask 3 questions as well, if possible. The first one is on your guidance. As you said, 2025 was an exceptional year, and your guidance basically implies you're looking for growth of around 8% to 12%. So maybe if you could just comment on how you see the various moving parts that will drive this growth in terms of top line, life, non-life and whether you expect the combined ratio to improve further. So if you could just talk around that, that would be helpful.

Secondly, on the combined ratio improvement year-on-year. I think for a few countries, especially Czech Republic, Turkey, you talked about favorable motor trends in motor. Could you expand on that, whether you're seeing better frequency, better severity, a combination of both and whether you think it's sustainable near term?

And then finally, on the CSM, I mean, obviously, there was a big help from according to your slide, higher interest rates that gave a boost of 15%. But looking at interest rate changes, I think they moved around 50 to 65 basis points. So I was wondering, is that the kind of sensitivity we should expect in your CSM I think roughly 50% -- 50 basis points can produce an uplift of roughly 10%.

I will start with your second question, which is about the combined ratio. There are 2 different effects in Czech Republic and in Turkey. In Czech Republic, it is on one hand side, a lower frequency, but at the same time, very disciplined claims management, which enabled us to keep the average claim flat, even a bit reduced last year, which is supporting the results in Czech Republic.

In Turkiye, we are more and more stronger in the segmentation and are able to get the right segments, which we are desiring, and this is shown also by the results. Nevertheless, one has to say in Turkiye, we do have here the challenges of inflation and the devaluation of the currency, having in mind that some of the spare parts still are in euro equivalent, but the segmentation, obviously, we have been successful here in Turkey.

I'm happy to take your answer for your question related to the CSM development. You are right. There was quite a positive impact in the VFA business, which relates to the changes in the variable fee and the increase of something. This was mainly driven by the interest rates. But please bear in mind that also the interest rate structure or the structure of the interest rate curve here plays an important role because in 2024, we had an inverse interest rate curve. And in 2025, this disappeared and especially the interest rates in the midterm or longer-term period increased, not so much in the first years, but from the fourth year onwards, the interest rate curve increased substantially.

So I will go on with your first question, Youdish. Thanks for that. You mentioned the guidance I gave for '26 and midterm also out of evolve28 till '28. So from the growth perspective, what we see is that we expect also following what I mentioned, the dynamic growth situation in the Central Eastern European countries where we are strong located, there is still the potential also on organic growth. We have the diversification we showed on the slide of regions and business lines also in sales. And there, we see that also on the one side with our strong partner, Erste Group, there is potential in the existing countries. Erste is also expanding on Central Eastern Europe part, and we see here also the potential for higher growth out of that.

Besides that, there are many countries where is not located where we are active and we already have, but with a strategic group program on that will also come in, especially in life business, where we see also the possibility being a strong part of the growth in this all over targeting. I hope this answers your questions.

Can I ask a follow-up question on the second topic actually? Because I think you mentioned a couple of times that you're using new pricing tools for more precise segmentation, and that's improving margins in some countries. To what extent are these newer tools, more sophisticated tools being rolled out across all your markets, i.e., what is the potential for further improvements coming from these new techniques?

I cannot now really quantify the further improvements of this topic because it always has to do on one hand side with the size of our portfolio, which we have in the respective market and also with our market share, which depending on the market share, it's a different room of maneuver, which we have with our pricing tools. But I think it shows that it is successful, and we are looking forward to see further improvements on it.

[Operator Instructions] We now have a question from the line of Rok Stibric from ODDO BHF.

I have actually 2 questions. The first one is related to combined ratio. And you mentioned before the delta arising from NatCat on '25, '24. I was just wondering if there is like a number or a budget that you have in mind going forward? What percentage do you allocate to NatCat events, for example, in your strategic plan?

And the second question is related to the U.S., Israel, Iran conflict, and you elaborated before that you have like limited direct exposure. I fully understand that, but I was thinking more in the direction of other adverse effects, for example, if some missiles or drones are being shut down over the area of Turkiye, which is one of your very promising markets. My question here is, is there like a cap to claims that you would expect coming from these kind of events?

Thank you for your questions. I start with the second one. I hope that I understood it fully. Principally, for claims which are done out of the war activity, there is no coverage. Therefore, we are not expecting out of war activity to have here any claims. We are not really in the international marine business. So this area, which potentially could be affected is not something which should affect our book here. So it will be more secondary effects on one hand side, which is stock markets and increasing of inflation, which will challenge us in managing our claims costs.

On the other hand side, what we also have seen in the past, rising petrol prices also to have a certain effect on our frequency, a more positive one. So there will be different effects in it, but there is not really a direct effect out of it.

To your first question, which is combined ratio. Yes, we do have a budget. You have to differentiate. So first of all, due to our structure, which we have in our planning logic, which we have, there is a budget for each and every company. And there we differentiate between NatCat events and weather-related claims. NatCat events as we have proved and seen 2 years ago when we had the big flood events, even if there is a very big event, we are buying in quite a resilient coverage with a low retention. So also big events in the end do not have a major impact overall. It is more the frequency. And the same is true for weather-related claims, but this is very much budgeted on a local level, and I cannot tell you here now the exact.

We have a follow-up question from the line of August Marcan from UBS.

Just 2 quick ones. One is on the Solvency II review in EU. Do you have any estimate on potential impact for VIG?

And then the second one is just on the adjustments we had from mostly Hungary. It was about EUR 100 million last year, about EUR 100 million this year as well. Do you think it's all done now? Or do you expect this number to still be a bit of a drag? And if so, where do you think that would come from?

So I'm happy to take 2 questions. Regarding the goodwill in Hungary, the write-down of the goodwill this year was the entire write-down. So there's nothing left for the upcoming years. So we have no goodwill anymore in our books regarding Hungary.

Regarding the Solvency II review, this has different impacts depending on the portfolios of the companies. So it very much depends on if you have a life portfolio or a non-life portfolio, long term or short term. Overall, for the group, I would not expect a big difference. So rather stable development, positive or no big negative effect. That's due to our diversification. I hope this answers your question.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Nina Higatzberger-Schwarz, Head of Investor Relations, for any closing remarks.

Thank you for your participation and for listening in. The 2025 Group annual report will be published on the 28th of April. If you require specific information for your models or analysis, please get in touch with Investor Relations. We're happy to help. And up to now, thanks, and goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure to be able to welcome you here today together with my colleagues, Liane Hirner and Gerhard Lahner. Once again, we have a great view here of Vienna. The sun is shining out, and we are happy to be able to present the figures. And also, we are going to present you an outlook of the next quarters.

So we are going to present the preliminary figures of VIG of 2025. And the outlook is going to be the first of the financial year 2026. Actually, 2 months have been recorded and also Evolve 28 will be presented. We're also going to have a look on the next 3 years. And in addition to what Gerhard Lahner is going to present, we are going to talk about the expected takeover of NÜRNBERGER, an insurance company that was something that was a significant event in 2025, but more about that later on.

I would like to start my presentation. And once again, I would like to show you our market position, the market position of Vienna Insurance Group. Our core market continues to be in the CEE region. The colorful map speaks to the diversity of the countries. We operate in 30 countries, 20 of which are in our core market. They have a highly diverse structure and also a diverse corporate culture. But together, we are successful. All in all, we have more than 50 insurance companies and also pension funds, which operate in various brands.

And we are happy to have more than 33 million customers in all of these insurance companies in our special markets and in the core markets in the CEE region.

In 2025, once again, we managed to consolidate our market position. As you can see here on the slide, we are the clear market leader. We hold a market share of 19%, followed by international competitors, peers that are quite strong, but we are well aware of the fact that this leading position and role in CEE gives us a strong basis. But at the same time, this is a challenge for us not just to consolidate this basis, but also to expand it.

Let me just give you a couple of examples of what happened in 2025, which helped us to consolidate our market position. At the beginning of 2025, -- we acquired an investment in the largest Polish financial service provider, Finance, which meant that organically speaking, we laid the foundation for strong future growth on the Polish market.

And the situation in Ukraine is, of course, extremely difficult. We have 2 insurance companies there. And in that difficult situation, those insurance companies did not just manage to take care of their own customers, but to be successful, in fact. We entered into a partnership with IFC, the International group, if you will. This is part of the international monetary fund. And this meant that we strengthened our financial basis.

And we, of course, very much hope for peace to come about quite soon. And that will mean for us, as Peter Höfinger and his team has managed to create the foundation for future partnership between Aon and also via Lloyds in order to be able to provide coverage for risk reinsurance actually. In Moldova, we are about to conclude the acquisition of Maik in a small but strategically very important country. This is very important for us. So the closing is imminent. In Albania, we set up a new life insurance companies.

So in those markets, as you can see, we have expanded our lines. And also now with our global assistance company, we are now in a position to provide assistance services, emergency assistance services. In Montenegro, we set up a non-life company. Before that, we operated in life only, which meant that especially in the southern region of Europe, this will be a motor for the Life and Non-life business.

And in Germany, we had a public purchase offer regarding NURNBERGER. My colleague later on is going to present this in greater detail. We're now in the closing stage in order to be able to consolidate our group here in this special market of Germany. And the strategic rationale behind this will also be presented later on by my colleague. This is a brief overview of the preliminary figures of 2025. This is excellent actually in all of the key figures, this is reflected.

Let me start by talking about gross written premiums. In the traditional written premium business, we managed to increase our results by 7.1% to EUR 16.3 billion. Insurance service revenue which is the new KPI as IFRS requires that, we managed to increase this figure by 8.7% to EUR 13.2 billion. And what is extremely pleasing is that this result is also reflected in the result before taxes.

We increased the result before taxes by more than 30% to EUR 1.16 billion. So the results recorded in 2024 was actually great. But on top of that, we managed to increase it even further. And remember, when we presented the results for Q3, the target that we wanted to achieve was even surpassed. So the upper range of this corridor actually -- was actually surpassed.

Combined ratio, the net combined ratio, very strong, a market improvement by more than 3 percentage points in comparison to the previous year, which means the combined ratio is extremely good at 19.1%. The operating ROE was once again increased to 18.7%. This is an improvement of 2.5 percentage points in comparison to the previous year. And all in all, the solvency ratio was 296%, which means that this will be extremely helpful when it comes to the planned acquisition of NURNBERGER, but also to funding our planned growth in the CEE region.

Now the strength of our group, not just capital-wise, but also when it comes to the great diversity of the countries and the segments is shown here. This gives us resilience for the future. Here, you see the diversification of our group. What you can see here is on the left-hand side, the premiums by lines of business, both when it comes to motor business, other property, life great potential is still available in the Life business.

If we have a look at the regions by segments, we will be able to see that Austria is still leading. If you put this really in relationship with the extended CEE region, and you regard this in the line of fact that these are different countries and diverse countries in a region, you will be able to see that by revenue, we have an excellent basis.

Looking at the result before taxes broken down by segment, you will be able to see that [ Wiener Stadtische ] in Austria led the country to record excellent results. Czech Republic, excellent, also Slovak Republic, Hungary and others did great. But also Poland added its contribution to revenues.

And all in all, all of these were great contributors really to what you see here, diversification is not just reflected in the countries and in the lines of business, but also in the sales channels. In our individual countries, we operate with brokers, for example, with independent companies and also a very important factor for us, especially as concerns our cooperation with our banking partner.

I would like to mention the strategic partnership with Erste Group. We recorded above average growth. Growth was higher than 11%. We originated from a great basis in 2024, mind you. And the share of Austria with roughly 50% is still quite strong, very strong indeed. And on the right-hand side, you will be able to see the development, especially in the CEE region within Erste Group took on a dynamic development. And also the expansion of Erste Group itself gives us the further potential for additional growth in Central and Eastern Europe, also within the scope of our strategic partnership.

Now that basically completes my overview of the results of 2025. And now I would like to give the floor to Liane Hirner, our CFO.

All right then. Thank you very much. I would now like to give you a more detailed presentation of the figures. Gross written premiums, a new record at EUR 16.3 billion. Diversification is really great, as you can see here on the right-hand side in the pie chart, growth across the board.

On the left-hand side, in green, health, quite small, mind you, but recorded a growth of 11.4%. So this was the highest growth, not just from Austria, but also from the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries. This is followed by Life. And all 3 lines of business together recorded a growth of roughly 9%, especially life without a profit participation recorded excellent growth.

Also motor, MTP, a plus of 5% and motor on damage, a plus of 6%. Now the largest line is really other property with a share of 43%. Here, growth of 4.8%. So highly diverse.

Moving on to the gross written premiums by segments. What can we see here? On the right-hand side, you will be able to see that a plus of EUR 1 billion was recorded here who contributed to this a plus of EUR 2 billion from Austria and the Czech Republic, followed by Poland, a plus of EUR 180 million. Also, I would like to highlight the extended CEE with a plus of EUR 10.4 million. This is a plus of 9% in terms of growth. Roughly 50% of those premiums come from Romania, the Slovak Republic and the Baltics.

Also, I should like to mention the fact that many countries operate from a smaller level. They recorded 2-digit growth, especially Bosnia, Albania, Croatia and also Ukraine. And you will be able to see the extended CEE in dark red. They've actually managed to surpass Austria. Insurance service revenue, that is our KPI.

According to international accounting standards, a record of EUR 13.2 billion was recorded here. Remember, gross written premium, EUR 16.3 billion. So EUR 3.1 billion in terms of savings is something that is no longer recorded as savings, and that accounts for the difference. Great diversification once again, EUR 200 million insurance service revenue. So an additional revenue, Poland, a great plus EUR 310 million from the extended CEE region, Romania, the Slovak Republic and the Baltics region accounting for this plus at a rate of 2/3. So the regional diversification of VIG has been progressing.

Let's have a look at the development of the individual lines of business. Health, the biggest plus, 15.5%. I already mentioned this before, not just Austria contributed, but also the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries. In absolute figures with roughly EUR 290 million. This is accounted for by other property and MTPL, a plus of EUR 240 million. Another very important figure in P&C is the combined ratio. So -- what does that really tell us? So actually, the costs incurred and the claims are accounted for as a ratio, and this is favorable that speaks to our profitability, which means you are no longer -- you no longer rely on financial profits.

So a market improvement by 3.3 percentage points, and this is really something we can take pride in also in an international comparison. In the claims as well as in the loss ratio, we recorded excellent figures, especially in the extended CEE. This was supported by lower number of nat cats. Remember, in 2024, the largest nat cat, the Boris storm was recorded. And in 2025, in contrast, not so many natural disasters.

All right. If we have a look at the results, the results before taxes by segment here, it speaks to our profitability. You will be able to see that our results were increased by 31%. This is a greater plus than the plus recorded in revenues. What does that mean? Our profitability is great, EUR 380 million was recorded here in addition or in comparison to the previous year.

All the countries contributed to this clear 2-digit growth, a plus of EUR 100 million from Austria, EUR 75 million from the Czech Republic, CEE, a plus of EUR 77 million, a plus of EUR 38 million from the special markets. Also, I would like to briefly mention Poland. In Poland, we saw a plus of EUR 40 million, a plus of 62% that is. In 2024, there were a couple of mergers from 6 insurance companies. This was reduced to 3%.

And in 2025, the first success, if you will, the first positive impact was recorded as a result of those mergers. We are not among the top 3 players in Poland. But with the existing companies at an operational scale, we're in an excellent position in order to be able to be profitable in the future.

Now operating ROE, this is a KPI that shows you the operating result of the group that is the result before taxes plus goodwill. And that is something roughly EUR 100 million that was mint. And this has nothing to do in terms of our actual operations, but this is put in proportion to our profitability, and this is excellent in a peer comparison in Europe, and that shows you how great really our profitability is.

Another highlight I would like to briefly present is our solvency ratio, a plus of 35 percentage points. Where does this plus come from, from the profitable growth in the first place and the profitable development of all of our companies, but also this was supported by the capital market trends, an increase in interest rates, no inverse interest rate curve unlike in 2024. And all of this combined together accounted for the high solvency ratio.

So what does this 300% means? This means we have 300% more equity than required by the regulator. And this means that this is an excellent foundation with the solvency ratio. And we are planning to acquire the Nurnberger Group in Germany, and we will be able to fund this out of our own funds. And even after the acquisition, our solvency ratio will be 200. The corridor is up to 250%, which means that after the acquisition of Nurnberger, we'll still be able to tap into opportunities that may present themselves in other countries. speaking about M&A activities here.

And last but not least, a brief look at the capital markets and capital investments. Our own risk, which means without unit and index-linked life insurance products, a plus of 4.3%. We now recorded EUR 38 billion. We continue to pursue a highly conservative investment approach because we know that we invest our clients' money. On the right-hand side in the chart, you will be able to see conservative investment in bonds, government bonds. Also real property, roughly EUR 1.5 billion were invested in our bonds, so more in comparison to the previous year. So highly conservative. I would like to give the floor to my colleague.

Thank you very much. We were talking about the market, of course. So we have a very positive development for 2025. And this is also reflected in our share price performance. In 2025, we were one of the main drivers in the ATX index. And as of the end of the year, we saw an additional surge compared to the ATX. We have a share price. Of course, this is very pleasing for our shareholders.

We saw skyrocketing 121.4% -- so you can see the growth here. This is an enormously dynamic growth rate. This is reflective of the fantastic growth that we have seen across all of our countries. And this was very positively received from the capital markets. So we're very, very pleased to be able to present that to you today and that we are certainly a leading light in the Austrian market.

The dividend proposal, of course, is also very important for the capital market. In the Executive Board, we have also decided to put forward the following proposal for dividend for the 2025 business year. This would be EUR 1.73 per share, and this will be a proposal that we will make at this year's AGM. This underscores once again the fact that what is reflected in our dividend policy that, of course, depending on operating earnings, we are planning to boost our dividend payout.

Our philosophy is that we will not pay less dividends than the year before. The dividend compared to the previous year, of course, will increase by additional 12%. This naturally depends on the voting result on the AGM. As I said, this is not only a very positive development with regard to the share price growth, but we also can report a healthy increase in dividend payout. This takes me to the initial outlook for 2026. This is a very positive outlook.

I'm not going to read all of this out, but let me touch on this very briefly. We've seen that the current geopolitical situation now confronted with a new conflict in Iran that we are facing new challenges. But our group has emerged even more resilient from the many crisis that we faced in the last several years. This is, of course, based on -- or thanks to the large degree of diversification that we've had in terms of sales, in terms of products offered. This is extremely positive.

And in our outlook for 2026, this is reflected quite significantly. And we can see what the positioning of our group is on a regional basis, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. Here, we can see the forecast for 2026 in the EU. We're looking at a growth rate of 1.4% in EU and Central and Eastern Europe, but this is considerably higher at 2.6%. And we wanted to point this out separately.

If you look at the Western Balkans, these are the very small countries in Southeastern Europe. We can see here that the growth forecast is even healthier, even more robust at 3.1%. This is what I said at the very beginning. This is extremely important and even exceedingly positive for our overall group development with regard to our core markets. And we have even aimed at even more ambitious goals.

We would like to take the extremely positive results from 2025 and increase it even further this year. Here, we would like to achieve a profit before taxes in the quarter of EUR 125 billion and EUR 130 billion for this year, excluding Nurnberger. And this takes me to my second outlook for this year. And this dovetails with our new strategic program. This is Evolve28. This means that we are building on the successes from the last several years and the fantastic results from 2025, and we are continuing to grow dramatically. This is not a revolution. This is a dynamic evolution.

The program is as follows, and I'm only going to touch on this very briefly. This is laid out for you in much more detail in your documentation. Evolve28 is made up of 4 different elements. They form the framework of this program. These are key pillars that we have defined for our group. And let me point out to all of you who are present today.

This is an adaptation of our 5 values. We've passed out [ Rubik's cubes ] to all of you reflecting this. So you could see that the Rubik's cubes are not completed, but you have the opportunity to develop those 5 values on your own and to figure those out. So this is the backbone of our strategic program. These are our country portfolio and company strategies. We don't have just one strategy for our VIG.

The VIG sees itself as a group, of course, but we are a fleet of 50 different companies in a variety of countries. We can't just have one strategy. It wouldn't be feasible to formulate just one strategy that would be just as successful in Poland or in the Czech Republic, in Austria, Albania and Georgia or in Moldova, for example. There's no one size fits all. This is our strength, and this is how we see our strength.

For that reason, we have been spending the last year developing this program and incorporating all of the CEOs from our companies. And we have developed their own individual company strategies for the next 3 years. And this is building on the targets for the next 3 years in our individual companies. And this is what we have defined in the context of this program.

We have built this on the foundation of our individual company strategies, and we have 5 group programs taking that a step further. These are key strategic areas that will be our focus in the next 3 years. And this is where we will be focusing our energies in the next 3 years.

CO3, of course, remains another backbone of our strategy, communication collaboration and cooperation. As you can see, each of these words begins with the CO. That's why CO3. This means that all of our companies pull together when it comes to innovation and pooling best practices to learn from one another. So for those of you who have yet to see the Rubik's Cube or have yet to complete it, here, these are the 5 values and principles for our groups. This is plurality. This refers to our regions, our companies as well as the plurality of markets, cultures, et cetera.

They have their own identity in that country and a name recognition comp in Poland, the cooperative in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Alfa in Hungary and of course, depending on what other country we are present in. And the results for 2025 come from the results of our companies in the group. We are the holding company for all of these companies.

We are the framework for this very strong group, but the bank, of course, and our companies form the substrate for this. We would like to thank our over 30,000 partners, employees, agencies, for example, who are displaying their commitment and strength on a daily basis. You are the backbone of our company. You are the ones, of course, that implement our top-down strategies, but you are the ones who breathe life into our company on the ground.

We work not just for our stakeholders, but we are shouldering social responsibility as a company. We do this in terms of all of our companies. We have many faces. We do this in shouldering responsibility for ecological changes against the backdrop of climate change. We want to make sure that we show up the value of what we are developing in our company.

With regard to our personal philosophy in our daily activities in our group, we strive for excellence. This is an important ambition in service for our customers, but this also applies to the relationship that we have in -- with our partners. We want to develop in terms of quality and optimize our services. We want to make sure that our passion is also felt, so that people understand why we're doing what we do. This is a basic philosophy that we have that we are tackling our business and our strategies with women vigor.

Here, you see our country portfolio and company strategies. I can't go into a great deal of detail now because this is the internal core of our in-depth strategies, but we have provided you with this slide. We have a market landscape and fact sheets that we provided you with as well for every country that we are active in, also based on the KPIs, I can give you the example of Slovakia, where we in an in-depth analysis have generated a forecast for the next 3 years with regard to growth in the market with regard to our companies.

And what we can derive from that, what we can clean from that are the goals that we wish to achieve as a company in that region, in that country. This is the strategic implication. For each country, in this case, Slovakia, we have a very clear defined goal that we are planning to achieve in the next 3 years. For [ Comonana and Corporativa ] in Slovakia. Based on that, our individual companies, here, you can see Corporativa Slovakia is broken down to a structured table. We have customers, operations, processes, employees, partners. For example, we have 5 total strategic areas.

And here you can see the breakdown of the strategic goals. These are also then flanked by measures and activities that are aimed at achieving those goals in the next 3 years. So you can see that goes down to a very granular level. This is not just an VIG strategy, but we have also individual strategies for each of our 50 companies that we operate. And this is all cast within a strategic framework. This is how we wish to shore up the success of our company.

So I just ask you to understand that as I've presented it. I cannot go into any more detail on that count. But I think that, that is something that you can certainly understand. We have 5 group programs. These are additional programs that we are implementing on the group level. These are coordinated by our holding company, and we bear responsibility for implementing this. So you can see these are very substantial.

Sustainability is a key buzzword in the next several years, we plan to pursue that further. Of course, this is also very important with regard to our values. We want to focus on our customers as usual, but we wish to pursue ecological and social challenges, and we want to make our contribution. This is not just meeting our obligations with regard to regulators for sometimes rather excessive reported obligations. But of course, we want to make a contribution to society in all of the countries where we are active. Capital management is also extremely important. This is something that we have talked about in the last several years.

We want to increase transparency -- we also wish to, as I said, inject transparency into the equity capital level of our company -- of our group. We want to focus on upstream elements, dividend. We want to shore those up in terms of substance so that we can strengthen our group even further. Banking cooperation, as I've touched on already, this is an important factor in our success.

Here, we have an opportunity to work together with our strategic partner, Erste Group, and to take that growth a step further, particularly in those countries where Erste Group is not yet active. We wish to actively work together with banks in those countries and develop our banking cooperation activities even further. Artificial intelligence, of course, that could be a topic of -- in and of itself for a press conference. But allow me to sketch this out very briefly. This is something that we have seen a great deal of innovation in our company in there will be hundreds of programs here that will be continued. They will be rolled out and accelerated even. This is something that we wish to even strengthen further.

We are going to be increasing our focus on AI in the next 3 years. Health insurance will continue to be a very important issue, but we are seeing that from an even broader perspective, not just health insurance, but health. This will be a complement to classic health insurance. But in many countries, we see telemedical products. These are AI-driven. -- for example, we have excellent opportunities to provide products and services that can build on the very strong customer base of our group. And this is an excellent foothold for further implementation.

CO3 is extremely important. You can see that symbolically represented in a number of images. This is the cornerstone of our group, and we wanted to build on that even further. Just one example, for instance, we have a number of internal platforms that we have developed that service as an excellent example for artificial intelligence and how to use that. We have experts, over 600 of them, in fact, that are focusing on the issue of AI within the group. and in all of our companies. They are sharing best practices, ideas, innovations within the group on a regular basis.

We are able to develop this further within our group. This is only one of our communities. We have over 60 such communities, underwriting, for example, that discuss pricing for motor insurance. And they are sharing their experiences and tools and new elements across the group. P&C, for example. As you can imagine, this affects all of the core elements of our insurance business. NCO 3 has enabled a very robust exchange amongst many of our employees. This is, of course, part of our DNA.

We have a very strong regional responsibility, accountability of our company, and this is how we are able to create this network. We have also a focus on synergies that can be fostered between our various countries. Wienerstettch and are a very good example for this when it comes to claims development and claims processing. They are also very strong brands in the market, and they are able to draw on synergies when it comes to IT systems. And this is also true in all of those countries where we have several companies operating on the same market. This is the foundation of that program.

Allow me to come to the quantitative targets for 2028. What all of this is aiming at. We have defined very specific goals for the group, and these have been developed on the basis of our group strategy. So we are aiming at EUR 20 billion in gross written premiums by 2028 for all of our companies. We wish to increase profit before taxes to EUR 1.5 billion. This is a significant increase in the net combined ratio. We wish to aim at 91%. In 2025, we had an excellent environment with very few nat cats. But with this very ambitious goal, we are aimed at coming in at 91% net combined ratio.

Operating ROE will be at around 17% in 2028. And as Liane has already laid out, our capital strength will be reflected in our solvency ratio of a corridor of 150% to 200%. This is something that we see as an excellent and robust foundation for bolstering our solvency ratio and to help finance the acquisition of Nurnberger, we can continue our growth in Central and Eastern Europe. All of this will provide us with a robust foundation for further developments and in achieving our goals for 2028.

I would like now to give the floor to Gerhard Lahner in a moment. But allow me to point out that all of this is excluding the possible acquisition of Nurnberger. We can and must, of course, lay out goals and strategies for Nurnberger, but we can only do that officially after closing and only after integrating Nurnberger completely and consolidating it within our group.

Gerhard Lahner will be talking about what this means if we are successful in integrating Nurnberger for our group. And then we will be able to even increase our ambitious goals for 2028.

On that note, I would now like to hand the floor over to Gerhard Lahner, who in his role has been very active in implementing this project of acquiring Nurnberger and with great success thus far.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. As CEO, Mr. Loger has already said right now, we cannot report very much on a shared future with Nurnberger, but allow me to take you on the journey through time. Just 1 year ago, this journey began, and we began to focus very intensively on the question of what Nurnberger is, what are the values that Nurnberger represents and how we'll be able to incorporate that into our group.

What would that mean for us in this phase back then, we have seen changes taking place in the summer. We had a nonbinding offer for the Nurnberger Group.

We realized that in this process, speed was of the essence. And the Vienna Insurance Group has demonstrated agility and speed in its expansion in CEE and has demonstrated time and time again that it is fully capable of acting quickly. We carried out a due diligence that lasted until the fall. And in the fall, we issued a binding offer for Nurnberger. This also made it possible for us to issue a takeover offer that led to a positive result for our group. I will come back to that in a moment as to what that means in numbers.

In the summer and the fall of last year, we have to underscore this was a very competitive process. Our assumptions were confirmed from what we expected to see in Nurnberger. We see that they are an all-round insurer throughout Germany, throughout the Federal Republic of Germany, and they are very unique there as a company and a group. And this is also extremely important. You are, of course, very familiar with the Vienna Insurance Group. You know that we have a very strong focus on brands. And we know that Nurnberger has a very robust brand here.

Here, they are an insurance company in a turnaround. And this is also a very positive value for us, and they have proven that they have very loyal sales channels, for example, brokers, structures, et cetera. There is one other point that is extremely important. This is something that points to the very similar corporate culture. They have a company history that dates back 140 years. And they are built on a philosophy. It's good when you make decisions for the region in that region, expressed in figures.

Here, you see the key facts for Nurnberger. These are not prospective, but these are based on Nurnberger's own reporting. They have 2.6 million customers throughout the Federal Republic of Germany. But what is also extremely important for us -- they have a very solid rating. This is very important for us in terms of financing. And they have an excellent capitalization, EUR 1.9 billion. This is unrestricted Tier 1. And this is something you have to see in relation to the purchase price.

For that reason, we believe that in the medium term, Nurnberger Group, together with [indiscernible] that we have been cooperating with or active with for 35 years in Germany. This is yet another pillar, and this will form another element of the backbone for increased growth. Nurnberger and its profitability is extremely important. They have a very profitable foundation in life insurance. This is extremely important as a diversification factor for the Vienna Insurance Group.

Here, you can see the premiums for 2024. The focus is on life insurance. Our focus here is on the biometrics and disability. In the next several years in Central and Eastern Europe, we will be looking at disability insurance as a key product as a decisive factor in that region. And Nurnberger is a competence center for developing that focus further in Central and Eastern Europe on behalf of the VIG.

I'm going to focus here on the diversification factors. I'm going to be skipping a slide for you who are following along, you can see the VIG premiums for 2024. You can see how that reflects our regional focus. And you can see the premiums for Nurnberger. Just to give you a side-by-side comparison, this is a before and after effect when it comes to broader diversification issues.

If you look at this as a big picture, you can see the lines of business with regard to 2 lines of business, non-life, life and health insurance. You see a very similar effect that Vienna Insurance Group approximately has 25% life and has over or will be increasing that to over 30% in its portfolio against the backdrop of the largest acquisition of the Insurance Group. This was Aegon. This was where the focus was on non-life. And this underscores once again this diversification effect, particularly when you look at this in terms of lines of business.

Just a brief status update of where we stand in terms of the planned acquisition. All of this is subject to relevant regulatory approvals, which we assume will be issued. We have shares representing 99.2% of share capital. The regulatory procedures are currently underway. This is so why are limited in the statements we can make by law with regard to the acquisition. But this concerns the ECB and BaFin, for example, we have many other regulatory approvals. So we have a third country control mechanism. So you can imagine what that entails. So we have other regulatory approval procedures in Turkey, for example.

But we are in constant contact with the authorities. Right now, everything is -- has been greenlighted, and we are looking at a closing in the near future. This underscores once again that Nurnberger will boost VIG's diversification, laying the foundation for continued resilient growth in Central and Eastern Europe, which is our long-term goal. And this will help put that within reach.

Thank you very much, Gerhard, for the outlook for 2026 of the expected closing in the Nurnberger acquisition. As you can see, there were a number of strategic components that, that entails. What this means symbolically for us, just to round out our -- the presentation of our press conference. You can see the diversity represented here on the markets across countries in our 30 countries.

And if this is, in fact, something that we can close out, we will be able to rely on Nurnberger to complement our wide array of companies and countries. And this will have a key effect on our company organization, but we'll be able to specialize in product areas. And in lines of business, we'll be able to shore up our capitalization as well. We are very much looking forward to this, and we're also looking forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you very much for your attention.

And I would like to hand off to [ Karol Cabi, ] who will be moderating the questions.

Thank you very much, Dr. [indiscernible] this first. we need a microphone for the interpreters.

So to what extent will the war or the various wars actually have an impact on your international insurance business. So insurance.

Let me talk about insurance in general and as far as underwriting is concerned and the capital market and exposure in general will be covered by my colleague. It is really a disaster that another war scenario has opened up in Iran and also in the Europe region in general. But the more direct effects really felt by the war in Ukraine, where we operate 2 insurance companies as a group, we don't suffer from any direct consequence by the attacks of the U.S. and Israel on Iran. Of course, war risks are not covered in general. So having said this, this is just an indirect effect that we will suffer. However, what we are going to see that there will be secondary effects.

I'm talking about inflation, energy prices, et cetera. And that will affect the markets. And once again, this will be a challenge for us when it comes to costs, inflation, et cetera. We need to be even more consistent than before, also always with a view to market opportunities. And that will be an additional challenge. But as we have seen by the dramatic war ofkestion in Ukraine, we have seen that we have been able to come up with a good solution to this. So against this background, we don't see a dramatic effect of these new wars. Gerhard, maybe you would like to add to this.

Well, thank you very much. Now what Hartwig Loger has said for our business at large goes for the capital market as well. So secondary effects remain to be seen. Also, we do not know how long those conflicts will last. I do believe it was one of the last slides shown by Liane, how great our portfolio is. That is one of the foundation for our long-term perspective. And in the region that is under attack now, there is hardly any exposure. So we do not expect any direct effect, maybe in the long-term, secondary effects, but those remain to be seen.

I'm curious to know more about the market in Poland. There was an acquisition of Erste Group, correct? Now are you planning for a future cooperation there? Is that an interesting growth potential for you, banking cooperation. So with what banks have you been cooperating where Erste Group does not have a presence?

Thank you very much for this question. Remember, I briefly talked about the significance of Erste Group as a strategic group as a partner located in the middle, if you will. And that concerns all of the countries where we cooperate. We expect that after the closing, and that was the factor really that was relevant for Erste Group, we will be in a position to check within a mutual process, the potential, the potential existing from within Erste Bank Poland. Santander Poland is going to be renamed.

Right now, Santander Poland is in a partnership with Allianz Poland. This is limited in time. And right now, we are reviewing together with Erste Bank Group, what prerequisites really we have and what foundation we have in order to further develop our strategic partnership in Poland.

You asked about the countries, about what kind of banking partners we cooperate with. Right now, this would be way too much if I gave you all of the names. There is a broad spectrum of regional partners.

Banks in the CEE region. There are banking groups without mentioning any specific names, there is another Austrian banking group that is interested in cooperating with us selling a couple of our products. A lot of partnerships also with international groups at a regional level. We will have the opportunity to be able to act as an interesting partner for big international players because they have a presence in the region, but also in special markets like Georgia and Turkey, for example. So if you're interested in that, I could give you the list of names, but that would take way too long right now.

Mr. [ Ginger, ] please. from the Austrian newspaper.

Health insurance, you talked about the strong growth. How about Austria and how about the other countries in Austria? Do you need to contribute to this or encourage this actively?

Very pleasing development in Austria. We grew above the market rate. both at Wiener Städtische. Sonia Bram is responsible for that. She's here today, and maybe she would like to add to this. But Wienerstettisch in Austria grew above the average in 2025. Dona also represented here by Ms. [indiscernible], who's directly responsible for the Donna segment posted significant double-digit growth. So growth in Austria above the market average.

Now we have identified the opportunity to grow beyond the traditional portfolio in life, something that Wiiderstettch and Dona have been doing to offer additional health-related services in order to take care of our customers even better. But the greatest potential is still in CEE, but that is something that cannot be turned around fast. That is long-term investment that is necessary.

What we lack there very often is the proper infrastructure in order to be able to provide those insurance products and services in the manner that we are striving at. However, there is a great dynamic development as far as alternative products and services are concerned in the CEE region. We have partnered up with many other service providers here. [indiscernible] is our Managing Board member responsible for that.

And in a certain niche market, health-related services have been offered. Sonja, I'm not sure and you did. Would you like to add to this? -- because the question was pointed at Austria, right?

So thank you very much for your interest in life, health rather in Austria, especially in Austria, health insurance has been the motor in the insurance business. It all started with the pandemic and the population at large grew or attributed more attention really to health-related topics. And of course, public debates of the health system, we have regardless of what line of business we're talking about focus and act as a kind of motor to additional business. And this is something we have seen in Austria.

Donau and Wiener Städtische have an excellent position on the Austrian market. And it goes without saying that not just with our products, but also with the innovative services that Hwiglger talked about, we are going to increase our market shares. So no doubt about that. Thank you very much to you, Sonia.

Next question, Mr. Ginger.

Three small questions. Nurnberger, you have talked about. in Austria, you have talked about the significance of the CEE region in relation to Nurnberger. How come? It depends on the market situation as a whole. And I do believe that individual markets in the CEE region, there are many markets that are more comparable to Germany than to Austria.

If however, this is something you try out in a new market, and it's good to have a center of excellence that can look back on many years of experience and data in order to be able to have a highly efficient market launch. Occupational disability, where is it located in life? That's something I'm curious about.

In the health insurance we have in Germany, well, all of this has to do with the reporting obligations in Germany, a plus of EUR 1.5 billion was invested in bonds. How come -- and the 8.3%, is that gold or Bitcoin? Maybe you can comment on that.

Well, other investments, certainly no crypto assets, no gold or whatsoever. It's just other risk-free investments, mind you, and the EUR 1.5 billion is additional bonds that arose from the need to make additional investments, bonds is government bonds, Austria, Poland, primarily in the Czech Republic. So we invest the money in government bonds in the countries themselves. So the question is, you have tried to make use of interest rate yields. The answer to this is yes, to come back to the diversification of plurality of the group.

It looks really interesting. However, are you trying to say the more saturated market is the more lucrative it is? So how come maybe you can explain this, 30% in Austria, 37% of the share. The same goes for the Czech Republic and all of the other countries ranked below.

Well, maybe my answer is a bit overly dramatic. However, in the core markets of the CEE region, we want to have a leading market position. And in many countries, we already have this. In Austria, we are the market leader as a group in the Czech Republic, we are the clear market leader in the Slovak Republic as well and also in Hungary. Now there is a chance for us, the opportunity to use this market position and also to have an impact on the development of the market as a whole because by doing so, we will be able to use the, let us say, the dynamics that the market has and to use this to our profit. That is the momentum. And developed markets, of course, are not as volatile, and that is something you can see throughout the years.

Peter Hofinger is here. Romania could be an excellent example. If you have a look at the development of Romania throughout the years, you will see how profitable our increasingly strong market position is and greater stability has been accounted for. And that does not mean that unpredictable events cannot occur 2 years ago, the natural disasters, for example, had a great adverse impact on the results recorded in 2024. But in the core, and that is something we saw -- in the Czech Republic, the combined ratio is clearly below 90%. And that is due to the fact that those are developed markets.

Next question, Bloomberg, Mr. [indiscernible].

Two questions actually. First is a follow-up question. You talked about the smaller exposure in reinsurance. Could you elaborate on that? What market segments are you referring to? And what is the scope really of that exposure?

Okay. I'm going to give you the first answer and then my colleague is going to add to this. I was not talking about one exposure in Iran. But in the field or within the scope of international reinsurance, we, with our own reinsurance company, VIG, cannot let us say, prevent or exclude the opportunity of any negative impact here. But Peter, maybe you can elaborate on that.

Well, I do believe you have answered the question sufficiently here. Basically, there is no market exposure, but maybe some, let us say, insignificant exposures may occur, but there is no reinsurance of war risk.

Second question, dividend policy. The way I understand your strategy is you are aiming towards higher dividends. However, when it comes to the payout ratios in the past 5 years from more than 40%, you have gone down to 26%. Now of course, I understand that you need to set money apart for this Nurnberger deal. The price is expected to be high. So my question is, in the future, after this acquisition, do you see any opportunity to increase the payout ratio?

Let us say, other stock -- another stock-listed company has a payout ratio of more than 55%. We do not want to compare ourselves to other peers. The reason for that is quite simple. Maybe I can come back to what I tried to show you earlier, our dividend policy actually. Since our IPO in Vienna in 1994, every year, mind you, every year, the shareholders have had the opportunity to participate by means of the dividend. Even in hard times, even in the economic and financial crisis, VIG proved to be a successful and reliable partner, paying out the dividend. That is our basic understanding.

Our dividend policy focuses on that. It is not our interest to be caught up in any peer comparison, doing better than others. We are aiming at being successful and reliable in the long term. However, within the scope of our operating results, we have been providing stability. And apart from the positive share of price, the dividend is the second pillar of the strategy.

Now the solvency ratio, I hope that I can explain what I mean. There are some companies that fund their acquisitions by reducing the dividend. This is not something we are doing. Our dividend policy is aimed at a higher dividend. Now I already explained that what we have as a solvency ratio will continue to be strong even after a potential acquisition of Nurnberger, we are going to spend this to fund further growth in the CEE region and our shareholders do need this common perspective that we share. And then we will be able to also participate in the future result. A higher payout rate would not be in line with our DNA.

Mr. Per, please.

Just a very brief question. If the acquisition of Nurnberger actually takes place, would Germany become a core market or remain a special market?

Well, I can give you a direct answer to that. Thank you very much for this very decisive, very key question. It will remain a special market. Maybe we could show you the map briefly. I think I put this in another answer. The core market is Central and Eastern Europe. These are markets where we have a leading role. And this is something that we are aiming at attaining.

Nurnberger is active throughout Germany. But when you look at this compared to the other very strong German companies, Coburg and Allianz, for example, Nurnberger will be looking to develop -- will not be looking to develop a market dominance in Germany. This would not make sense, and this would not even be feasible. So it will remain a special market touched on the profitability of that segment. And it will, of course, help us to shore up our diversification basis and create further investments and further growth potential for Central and Eastern Europe, which is our core market. Are there any other questions?

The solvency quota -- the solvency ratio, you said on the slide, 150% to 200%. This is, of course, excluding Nurnberger,as that a mistake? With that fall, not taking Nurnberger into consideration, this is simply the corridor that we have set for ourselves to remain between 150% to 200%. This is our goal. We are far above that. And when we acquired Nurnberger, then we would be above 200%, but this corridor has remained stable. I'm not sure if you are referring to this. These are transition -- this is excluding transitional measures. This is a technical component in cushioning the solvency ratio. So you're saying that it will be expanded. Will there be additional transitional measures? And is there some kind of idea that you can give us with regard to the solvency ratio against the backdrop of the acquisition? What is possible here?

Well, we'll have to wait and see. On our near-term radar, we have investment opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe. We are planning for acquisitional growth and investments that go beyond the acquisition of Nurnberger. I ask you to please understand that I cannot go into any further details today on that front. This would, of course, disrupt many of the talks that are ongoing.

Can you give us a ballpark figure of what this means for Nurnberger?

This is EUR 1.4 billion for Nurnberger, and this would be one of the largest in our company's history. Aegon, of course, was also a very large acquisition with a focus on Hungary and other countries. This is a company that came to EUR 100 million in terms of purchase price, if I'm recalling correctly.

All in all, this could result in a great deal of potential in this area because they have a very strong solvency ratio of just under 300%, and this is an excellent opportunity for us that we wish to seize. Are there any other questions?

If that is no longer the case, then once again, I would like to thank all of you for coming today. I'm happy to see so many members of the media present today. I would like to thank our international guests from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Gerhard Lahner, of course, was able to greet you in your native language. Thank you to all of you who are following the press conference on the Internet. We were happy to present the results of 2025 and give you an adequate outlook for 2026. All the best for the rest of the day.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to today's VIG Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Matilda, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Hartwig Loger. Please go ahead.

Yes. Very warm welcome from Ringturm in Vienna, and thanks for joining our call with information to the main topics we have prepared for you. So we already last week announced the outstanding performance of our group for Q1 to Q3. So today, we have the chance to deepen the information about this very successful first 3 quarters of this year and which was also announced that we already raised the outlook for our profit before taxes for this year 2025 to EUR 1.1 billion to EUR 1.15 billion. And Liane Hirner, our CFO, will then give more details to the topic of the results of the first 3 quarters.

The second big topic, and we know that there is big expectation also from your side that we today are ready to give you first information about our interest in Nurnberger, and we also released the information that the public purchase offer, which ended on the 21st of November this year at an acceptance rate of 98.38%. So out of that, Gerhard Lahner, he is responsible Board member of VIG for this project. He also will give some information in detail about this topic.

Myself, I will then follow with information about the new strategic program in the name of Evolve '28, which will be the new strategy for '26 to '28, and which will not only further strengthen our group, but mainly will focus also on the long-term profitable growth.

Today, I will offer you the structure, the main topics. And I have to excuse that the targets to this strategic program will be approved by the Supervisory Board next week. So we will come to the detailed targets back to you as soon as possible after the approval of next week. We also are happy and glad that Peter Hofinger, Deputy CEO of Vienna Insurance Group is also attending this meeting and is also ready for questions from your side after our presentation.

Saying this, I hand over now for the first topic about the performance to our CFRO, Liane Hirner. Please go onward.

Thank you, Hartwig. Let's start on Slide 4 with the key figures over the first 3 quarters this year, which highlights the ongoing strong performance of VIG. Insurance service revenue of EUR 9.7 billion is up by 8.6%. Here, both P&C and Life & Health showed top line growth of more than 8% each, and I will go into more detail on that on Slide 6 in terms of the individual market development.

Profit before taxes as preannounced last week and despite the goodwill impairment taken already at half year for Hungary increased by 31% to EUR 872.8 million. Main driver for this outstanding profit before taxes growth in the third quarter was an excellent technical result in P&C supported by low net combined ratio. The biggest contributor to this more than EUR 200 million additional pretax profit in absolute terms was Czech Republic, followed by Austria in the Special Markets segment.

VIG's P&C net combined ratio improved to 92.1%, driven by favorable weather conditions. Our strong capitalization is reflected in a solvency ratio of 286% compared to the solvency ratio at half year of 278%, the SCR of roughly EUR 4.1 billion remained fairly stable, mainly due to the slightly higher capital requirements for non-life, life and health insurance, reflecting the increased business volume.

The own funds of VIG of about EUR 11.7 billion increased by almost 4% or more than EUR 400 million in the third quarter. This is driven by operating earnings and the positive development also on the capital markets, resulting in higher market values of our investments. The solvency ratio, excluding transitional measures, stands at equally very strong 267% and increase also compared to the half year. It is clearly above our solvency target range of 150% to 200%, which does not consider transitional measures, and this also underpins the capital strength and the resilience of our group.

Now on the next slide, we show the gross written premium development by segment. Premiums overall increased by 8.6% to EUR 12.5 billion. Double-digit growth rates were recorded in Poland, plus 13.5% and the Special Markets segment, plus 18.4%. The strongest contribution in absolute terms is coming from the Extended CEE segment, plus EUR 314 million, where especially Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and the Baltics made up for close to 3/4 of the additional premium.

Special Markets, mainly driven by Turkiye as well as Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic, all increased their premium volumes by more than EUR 130 million each. In IFRS terms, this relates or translates into a very solid insurance service revenue development, which is shown on Slide 6. Here, in line with gross written premiums, the insurance service revenue also increased by 8.6% to EUR 9.7 billion.

I would like to draw your attention to the Extended CEE segment. Insurance service revenues of overall EUR 2.87 billion already exceeds the level of Austria. Again, it's the market in the Extended CEE segment, for example, Baltics, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, performing extremely well. In the Special Markets segment, it's a dynamic business in Turkiye despite hyperinflation, which accounts for the significant increase.

This segment also includes Germany, Georgia and Liechtenstein with Germany and our Life and Non-Life companies InterRisk, they are contributing EUR 140 million in insurance service revenue. Last but not least, Austria, Czech Republic and Poland, all 3 with solid growth rates and a strong performance also in the first 3 quarters this year. The dynamic top line development of our group supported by weather-related claims translated in the third quarter into an exceptionally strong increase of our profit before taxes.

On Slide 7, you will find a short summary of the results development and the figure for the net weather-related claims recorded in the first 3 quarters. Compared to about EUR 338 million in last year in the first 9 months last year, which were related to storm Boris, we recorded only EUR 160 million of weather-related claims so far this year, thanks really to the absence of the severe nat cat events.

As already mentioned by Hartwig, the strong performance of our group so far this year provides us with the confidence to raise the target range for the group profit before taxes between EUR 1.1 billion to EUR 1.15 billion for the whole year 2025.

Finally, I would also like to highlight the rating upgrade by Standard & Poor's, confirming VIG's excellent A+ rating and raising the outlook to positive. This was driven by our progress in broader diversification and followed the announcement of our intention to acquire a controlling stake in NURNBERGER, which was very positively received by Standard & Poor's.

With this, I hand over to Gerhard, who will now share his insight to NURNBERGER with you. Gerhard, please go ahead.

Thank you, Liane. Let me provide you with some background and also my personal take on the NURNBERGER transaction to explain you the strategic rationale and why we are highly confident that this is an excellent fit and will increase shareholders' value over the mid and long term.

The following slides in this presentation will substantiate my top-down view and provide you with further details on German market and NURNBERGER. Let me draw your attention to the disclaimer on Page #8 and specify that we are still in the nondisclosure phase of the due diligence. And let me stress out that any figures published by NURNBERGER are seen in -- are to be seen as National GAAP German accounting principles, which are not comparable to IFRS 17/9.

Well, earlier this year, VIG was approached by NURNBERGER management whether we would be interested to start talks about potential strategic partnership. Given the attractiveness of the German insurance market for VIG as a Special Market, with a high insurance density and penetration while being one of Europe's largest and most mature markets, well governed by BaFin, we entered into these discussions with a clear aim to increase our exposure in Germany in combination with our local company just recently mentioned by Liane, InterRisk Life and Non-life. So it should be clearly stated that this is not a market entry, but this is an expansion on an existing market that is with the VIG portfolio for 35 years plus.

After first talks, both sides quickly realized that joining forces and simplifying the shareholder structure would be the most efficient way to return NURNBERGER back to a profitable and stable company. With a state-of-the-art IT landscape to best leverage on the strong brand and the sales footprint in across Germany. From our perspective, it became clear right away that NURNBERGER management has a clear strategic vision for the company to become a profitable player in the German market with a clear focus on prevention, occupational disability and a restructured Non-Life portfolio.

Well, against this backdrop of the strong commitment of NURNBERGER's management, the cost efficiency program started by them Back to Black for the Non-Life part, but also the further diversification potential through the partially complementary life insurance portfolio and the experience in turnaround and IT transformation that VIG would bring to the table, we intensified our discussion. We strongly prepared for the nonbinding offer phase and we were finally granted exclusivity for a detailed due diligence.

And in this due diligence, we clearly found ourselves confirmed in our basic assumption, which was further supported by the publication of NURNBERGER half year's result that the management is well on track to deliver. Right from the beginning, it became clear that the solid solvency position of NURNBERGER is, of course, combined with the attractive brand, the countrywide operating sales force and the strong determination of the local team to get back to the historic level of profitability, a very attractive asset.

The unrestricted Tier 1 of EUR 1.9 billion will strengthen VIG's resilient foundation for further expansion in CEE, which clearly remains the strategic focus of our group. Through this transaction, right after closing the deal, all Tier 1, Tier 2 and 3 limits will increase as NURNBERGER has become part of VIG Group and therefore, provides the potential for further growth in CEE without diluting existing shareholders.

At the same time, the risk profile of the SCR of NURNBERGER will provide a buffer when it comes to VIG's sensitivity of shifting interest rates downward out of the Austrian life back book. Most importantly, the investment can be financed from VIG's own liquid funds, providing us with the flexibility to optimize our funding structure in a more opportunistic way and taking benefit of deleveraging the last period.

In addition to VIG's own funds, there is also a EUR 500 million revolving credit facility in place. So given the spirit of local entrepreneurship at NURNBERGER, the multichannel distribution system across Germany and a conservative reinsurance policy, we are very confident that the multi-brand approach with a strong NURNBERGER brand, combined with the additional scope for further diversification is going to support our operations in Germany in a profitable way, providing a resilient internal financing structure source when it comes to the future expansion in CEE region.

As we are convinced that biometric risk in connection with occupational disability is a core competence that will be increasingly relevant to support our business in different Central and Eastern European countries, the addition with NURNBERGER team and their know-how in this field is just a perfect fit for VIG.

In terms of cultural fit, with NURNBERGER being an independent insurance group for the last 140 years, the entrepreneurial management style as well as the historical proximity for Germany and Austria will provide a good foundation for NURNBERGER to become a strong member of VIG.

In summary, we had a chance to look into the books of NURNBERGER and are confident that the company's turnaround will be successful. And through the acquisition from VIG truly supported by our involvement. So given, first, VIG's experience in turnaround non-life portfolios in challenging market environment; second, VIG's experience in IT transformation, especially in Austria, where the digital landscape is very similar to the ones at NURNBERGER and was successfully completed in 2023, a strong NURNBERGER management with a clear vision how to generate consistent cash streams for VIG's further growth in Central and Eastern Europe and VIG to leverage on the know-how of NURNBERGER in biometrics and occupational disability, VIG will benefit from the NURNBERGER's strong solvency position from day 1, enhancing its internal financing capacities over the midterm.

Please note that after the announcement, intention to acquire NURNBERGER, Standard & Poor's, as mentioned by Liane, upgraded our rating A+ with a positive outlook with a particular focus on our financial strength and diversification potential for further growth in Central and Eastern Europe. If you allow me now, I would like to go -- to hand over to Hartwig Loger, CEO, for the presentation about the strategy.

Thank you, Gerhard. I will now give you the first insight about the structure of the new strategic program for '26 to '28. As you all know, we are still in the end spirt of the group-wide strategic program, VIG '25 ending this year. And I think with the expected performance, we raised, as we already said, to EUR 1.1 billion to EUR 1.15 billion, we see also the success of the activities of our running strategic program.

With Evolve '28, as you can see also on the Slide #16, we used also a name which gives the first intention what we are looking for. It is not the big revolution, but a dynamic evolution, which is built up on the success of the last years and also the current performance we can show as VIG. The frame, which is shown here is in our understanding of the, I would say, USB model we are living as VIG. Our understanding is not being a big tanker in a centralized form, but being a dynamic fleet with responsible ships and this framing, which is shown here in these 4 parts will secure that this fleet has a common direction and the strategic performance also in the upcoming years.

To start, maybe also in the description, you see on the bottom Values and Principles. I will go deeper afterwards, but we already were sure that it is the need maybe also to evaluate and also to a little bit, yes, renew the values and principles for the upcoming years and the challenges we are seeing in front.

On the left side, with country portfolio and company strategies, this is more or less the backbone of this strategic part for the next years. What is meant, and I will also show afterwards, there are 50 individual company strategies. So over the last year, we developed under a common structure and on the basis of deep analysis of each market, a common strategic implication for each market of our group. And then the CEOs of the companies in the markets developed their company strategies for the next 3 years, and they were following a common structure of 5 strategic fields. This means that this framework for the next 3 years already has a detailed definition for each company of our group in targeting and action plans for their activities to improve the performance also for the next years.

You see the group programs. We defined also 5 group-wide programs. These programs are not initiatives as we have defined it in VIG '25 because initiatives have been the offer to the companies in our group if they will also join these initiatives, the 5 group programs now we are focusing are really for group-wide activities seen, and they are coordinated by the holding or also competence centers out of our group.

On the right side, you see also the fourth part, which is ongoing in CO3. Here, we define our activities in communication, collaboration, which is needed to really bring added value out of the best practice and the innovation and creative projects in between the group and cooperation, which is focusing also to find the synergies in between the companies working on one market.

On the next slide, you get the overview. I will not now present in detail, but we clearly define the 5 values for our group. Plurality, which is the basis for our fleet. We have not only 50 companies in 30 countries, we also have a very high diversification in between also the different markets, the different brands, also the different sales channels. We are active all over our brands and companies. We have the basis of our 33 million customers already, which will be improved and increased also by incoming NURNBERGER customers in Germany soon. And this is the Plurality basis, which is also our understanding that this Plurality in the activity of the fleet is the added value of our model.

Entrepreneurship following this Plurality idea means that especially the local entrepreneurship, the self-responsibility in between the management of the ships in our fleet and the companies, it is the strength and the motivation and identification of all our managers and leaders.

Responsibility on one side, of course, to the society, but also as we know, out of the challenges of climate change, there is a broad basis in our understanding that we want to make sure that our economic value today is not in any form destroying the future of our society.

Excellence, which is clear in the focus of our company activities on the customer basis to make sure that in all our services, products, processes, we are focusing also to deliver excellent services and products, and that's the base of our performance.

And passion, it is needed also to create and find out the right form that we are clear for our 33 million customers, yes, I would say, best partner in all our solutions.

The Principles on the next slide, we also evaluated to make sure that the description in the way how we work together in this group. And I'm open to say that the interest also in the partnership, which was developed now also in the purchase of NURNBERGER that NURNBERGER, as it was also said by Gerhard Lahner, it will be a perfect strategic fit also in the understanding of a group-wide common activity also in the future.

Now a little bit deeper in the content on Slide #19. You see here the 5 strategic fields. This is the common structure of each individual strategy of each company of our group. The one field, the most important and the first one is the expand of the customer base and also the enrichment in the activities that there, we will focus in all the companies in also cross-selling and upselling potential out of this base we already have and this base, we also want to increase in the number of customers.

The second topic in line is to enhance the distribution footprint. As you know, we have a very strong diversified sales channel activity. And including also bank and direct sales, it will be the basis to improve on a better way and also to use also the challenges and advantages which will come up in the development also on digital basis. And also, we will come further on to that in artificial intelligence solutions in services which are provided in this form.

Next part is Products. We enlarge also the product offerings. It was mentioned that here, we use the collaboration in between the group really to improve also the broad Plurality of offerings we have. And also besides this, there will be added services also as basis to strengthen our customer experience.

Next is Operation. This field, the strategic field in each of the strategies of the companies is focusing on the effectiveness and effectivity of processes in our operations and also with improving the automation in between these processes in best practice forms in between the group.

And last but not least, the fifth and very important basis employees to foster the people who are already active and to find also the best experts in our companies, which are needed for the innovation transformation we see all over our base.

On the next slide, here, you see the 5 already mentioned group programs. which were developed also on a broad discussion basis in between the CEOs of our group. Here, we build on the relevant trends. We also discussed on broad basis, the trends already existing and upcoming for the next years and the challenges. And out of that, we clearly defined the main programs on one side, sustainability, which is an ongoing program, which has already been started 3 years ago. But there will be, again, a strong focus in delivering also solutions on the basis of underwriting as our key activity, but also in the asset management and operations field and which is important also for VIG to not only focus on the ecological part, but also on the social part, which includes society, our customers and also our employees.

Capital management. In the understanding of the group, it's very important also for the efficiency in between the capital management of our companies in the group.

And Gerhard Lahner is leading this capital management program starting in a pilot last year, and we will work out for the next 3 years that we have a very professional also management of the upstream of dividends out of the performance of our companies. Banking cooperation, which is mainly driven by the backbone, which we have in the strategic partnership with Erste Group, but we will not only work on the improvement of this strategic partnership with Erste, where we are active already in 7 markets together.

And we also see the opportunity all over the group in all the other markets to expand with additional partners beside the 7 markets of Erste. Artificial intelligence, I think it's clear for all of us that there has to be a focus in the activities, which already is on a broad basis. I sometimes already mentioned that in the activities of our VIG Accelerate program, more than 50% of the projects which are brought in by the companies in this kind of platform of project for digital solutions, we have more than 50% already on the basis of AI. But it is needed, and this is what we will focus in the next 3 years to optimize also the efficiency in the use of the use cases in between the group and all over the group. And the fifth program, focusing on health, which we see in all the markets in different forms as a high potential for developing not only on product, but especially on service basis, and there, we also will have a focus in analyzing and then also supporting our companies in a group-wide form on these solutions.

The next slide, evolve28, CO3, I already mentioned, I will not go deeper. Just repeat, collaboration here shown in the symbol of Spider-Net. This is really supporting the added value created out of the broad innovation and creative basis of all our companies. This is really, I would say, a boost in the way of creating new solutions in all forms in between our business. Cooperation, yes, inside, we say ensures independence in the way that there is a clear focus in the optimization of the cooperation in between our companies in one market.

For example, in the back office optimization between Wiener Stadtische and Donau in Austria, also other companies in Czech, Slovakia, Poland, and there is a big range where we can deepen also the optimization, partly also automization of common activities. Communication already mentioned, we have as information already provided more than 40 communities, which are active in between our experts and specialists in between the group. So there is also a very strong interlink between our fleet.

Last but not least, on the Slide #22, I offer to you also knowing your expectation. And we already mentioned by myself and also Gerhard Lahner, there is still a little need of patience from your side. Why? We have now the performance of Q1 to Q3 for this year, and we also raised our outlook for the result of '25. Regarding now the program evolve28, which I shortly presented in its structure and content, there will be the next week, our Supervisory Board meeting where we will approve the targets for the next 3 years, including also the targets coming up from evolve28 strategic program.

What we can offer is then next week after the Supervisory Board meeting, there, we will also then comment and declare the targets and the figures for the next 3 years to you. And Peter Hofinger and me, we will join also in a dance program, all bank conferences, which are offered in London, in Frankfurt, in Hamburg and also the others, where we then hope that we will have the chance also to present to you maybe also in personal talks then not only the program, but also the targets and some interesting discussions. The closing of NURNBERGER. And I know that there is a big expectation also regarding the detailed KPIs and targets from the inclusion from NURNBERGER, but we still have the need that the closing, which we expect until the second half -- beginning of second half of '26, there will be then the start of the financial integration, which cannot be done before.

But immediately after this financial integration phase, we will also have the chance then to integrate the targets of NURNBERGER also in the strategic targets of this evolve28 program. And then we really can not only opens, but give a deep insight in also the calculations and also the valuation of all this influence of integration of NURNBERGER. So I know that there might be a bigger expectation, but there are also the legal frameworks we have to declare. And out of that, we are also open now to answer your question, and we are looking forward to the first questions you have.

[Operator Instructions] Thank you very much. The first question comes from the line of August Marcan from UBS.

I have too many, but let's start with 3. First one on the combined ratio. This year, the 9-month combined ratio benefited a lot from benign weather. And last year, we had worries. So in the last 2 years, we kind of had the opposite extremes. So I was wondering if you could tell us what you see as a normalized combined ratio level for the group going forward?

Then the second question, a rather simple one, apologies for that on your new strategic plan. I'm not sure I fully understood the time line. You said that next week, you're going to have the approval from the Board. Are you then immediately going to have an event or publish this? Or what exactly is the time line? And if -- again, on the CMD, you said that the financial targets are going to be published there. Could you just tell us now if -- what the KPIs are, not the numbers, but what the metrics are that we're going to be looking at because I think your last strategic plan didn't have a lot of financial KPIs. So I'm not sure what this one will include.

Thank you for the question to the combined ratio. Yes, you are quite right that the comparison of last year to this year is quite difficult as having Boris, which was a gross claim of but you know and we have presented this that we do have a quite conservative reinsurance policy. We are still able also over the last years in the hardening of the reinsurance market, keeping low self-retention.

So also last year, for the first 9 months, we had a combined ratio of 94.3%. This year, it is considerably better with 92.1%. But you also see that the difference, if you compare the amount of the events is not so significant as we have as a mitigation element, reinsurance, which we are willing to buy in quite in a bigger amount. What was beneficial this year to our results, and this is outstanding is the phenomenon of having less frequency of small- to medium-sized events.

So this has had quite an impact on our improvement of our loss ratio. The mild climate and the absence of this frequency of small to medium events, we are not impacted in a year by the big events due to our reinsurance. So therefore, I think you see the limited volatility of our combined ratio from last year to this year, having a very big event and having this year an outstanding event. So I think between 92% and 94% is what is our combined ratio to be expected going forward.

Okay. Thank you, August, for your question. I will take question 2 and 3 from my side. First, yes, there will be also an information immediately next week when we have the approval from the Supervisory Board to the targets 26 to 28 next week. And what you can expect, there will be a very transparent basis also in the information about these targets. It will be a target about the growth a target about profits. It will also include combined ratio, which you asked before to Peter Hofinger.

And there will be also a target clear on return on equity as an operative return on equity, and there will be also targeting the solvency ratio. So these are the targets which will be discussed in the Supervisory Board, and then we will clearly make it transparent to the capital market about the targets we have for the next 3 years out of our program.

Next question comes from the line of Rok Stibric from ODDO BHF.

Yes, I would have just one question and it's -- forgive me if I'm being a bit impatient. Usually, you disclose these things with half year and full year results, but I would still like to hear your view on future investment income expectations. So the question is, do you expect future investment income to be roughly at the same level as this year? Or do you expect this line of your P&L to improve in the future or maybe given the changing interest rate environment to even decrease? I was just wondering what your thought is on developments in the future.

Liane, I'm happy to take your question regarding the investment income. What I can say is that we have a very positive development in the investment income in the first 3 quarters. So this year, so no impairments, no one-offs. Also, we have a positive development of the interest rates, especially in CEE also, for example, including Turkiye. And due to the increased business volume, also interest income or financial income is increasing. So I would expect a positive development also on this side in the upcoming quarters. I hope this answers your question.

We now have a question from the line of Youdish Chicooree from Autonomous Research.

I've got 2 questions. The first one is on the top line development. I was wondering whether you could provide a split between Life and the main lines in Non-life, like [indiscernible] other property, et cetera? And then secondly, on NURNBERGER, could you tell us, I mean, how long will the turnaround of this business take? And are you able to share what your view is of the sustainable earnings power of that company, please?

Okay. I'm happy to take the question about the development of the business lines. If you look on our non-life portfolio, so we are growing all over the group in health business. And what is very positive to see, we are growing by 12% in health. What is very positive to see that we have a quite very good dynamic in health business in Central Eastern Europe.

We see a growing demand by our clients and by our markets getting health insurance, and we are having quite innovative concepts and also offering this market-to-market depending on result. On the framework of the social security laws there. We do have a growth in property and casualty of around 5.6% all over the group. Also here, you will see a stronger growth dynamic in Central Eastern Europe as this is also linked to the overall GDP growth and the economic dynamic. And as you know, there is a quite positive GDP growth in Central Eastern Europe, where we are benefiting with our property business. When we come to the motor business, we have to differentiate between motor TPL and motor own damage. In motor TPL, it is around 11%. And in motor own damage, it's more than 6%.

The background here is over the last years, we have seen in Central Eastern Europe quite an overproportional salary inflation. Differently to maybe Western Europe, increased salaries more or less go immediately into consumption and not just on the savings book. Part of this consumption also goes in cars and buying new cars. This is the growth driver for motor own damage, but also in motor TPL. If you look on the Life business, I think you also asked, overall, the life business is growing by more than 8%.

Here, it is the classical life business, which is growing, but also in unit-linked, we are closer to 6% of the performance. So also here, we have, I think, a quite attractive dynamic. The same true, what I said for the other business lines. The driver of this growth is Central Eastern Europe, where the demand for old age savings is growing, and we also see this as one of our further future potentials of growth in the years to come. I hope I have answered your question.

Let me take the second one on NURNBERGER. I will -- in my first part of the answer, I will refer to publicly available information. NURNBERGER itself has announced that the turnaround for the non-life part will last until 2027. We have seen quite a strong development this year, supported, of course, also by favorable claims development as well as a positive market cycle on the German insurance market when it comes to non-life profitability. So we trust the management to be well on track with the turnaround of the non-life part.

The IT part will take probably a little longer. Nevertheless, given the status as which -- in which we are as of today, I think that we will have the chance to have more deep dive with NURNBERGER management on that issue when the closing has been done. Nevertheless, we are aware of that this will, of course, also long term decrease the cost base. So I think that from our point of view, we are -- I think that the NURNBERGER management is well aware of that we are expecting them when you ask me to return to historical profitability levels. As you know, not only you are impatient, but we as well -- I guess this is also well known to the NURNBERGER management.

And can I ask a follow-up question, please?

Yes.

So you're expecting the closing in the second half of next year. So do we have to wait till then to get, let's say, IFRS 17 numbers for NURNBERGER basically?

I would like to give you a different answer, but the answer is clearly yes.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Thomas Unger from Erste Group.

I'll connect to the last question and answer on.

NURNBERGER. What can VIG do here to advance and accelerate the transformation process for NURNBERGER? And you already said that the time line remains about the same as what NURNBERGER guided. But when do you expect the first dividends from NURNBERGER to VIG? That will be my first set of questions.

And upon closing, do you expect any significant one-offs to be incurred or immediate major investments that you anticipate for the second half of 2026? And then also, I'd like to ask you now that you're in the process of this takeover, how does that affect your growth strategy in Central and Eastern Europe? Are you able to take advantage of any M&A opportunities or other growth opportunities that may arise in the next 1 to 2 years? I don't know you haven't said anything or any details given any details on the capital hit that you'll be taking as you attractive opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe in the next 1 or 2 years?

And if you allow me to also ask you on the dividend, the upcoming dividend from 2025 earnings. Will the NURNBERGER acquisition in any way affect the management Board's decision process leading up to the dividend proposal from 2025 earnings?

On what can VIG bring to the table? I think that in different markets and especially in challenging market circumstances, I guess that VIG has shown that we know what it means to turn around, especially non-life portfolios. But I think that what we see is that the NURNBERGER management is very well in place and know what they do on the restructuring and turning around the non-life portfolio.

Nevertheless, I guess that we can bring some know-how. In addition, I think that I'm not sure if everybody is aware of, but VIG has taken advantage of IT transformation program executed by Wiener Stadtische and Donau [Insurance] the last years ended in 2023. And what VIG can bring to the table is that given the fact that the IT landscape is very, very comparable to -- between VIG in Austria and NURNBERGER IT landscape, we are very confident that we know what needs to be done, first point.

Second point is when it comes to talent, we have the team that was successfully doing this transformation in the DACH region still on board. You just should probably know that we decommissioned a lot of all systems in Austria which finally gives you also going forward, quite some flexibility on the digital journey that, of course, you need sooner or later.

Second of all, dividend expected. I think that, in general, our intention is that NURNBERGER will keep on paying dividends in general. Nevertheless, of course, we -- and this leads to, I guess, your third question, one-off investment, we will need to judge what is the best way to finance the long-term IT transformation program of NURNBERGER. Nevertheless, we don't expect this to be a big upfront amount, but probably be spent over several years. And then we would probably judge on what is the most efficient way to deploy capital in NURNBERGER or within the entire group. I guess the fourth question is twofold. One is the financial part of the flexibility for further -- taking further advantages of inorganic growth or M&A transactions in Central and Eastern Europe. And the second one is the managerial question. I would take the first part.

So definitely, given the deleveraging that VIG has gone through the last periods and the financial flexibility that we have from our balance sheet, I do not see any immediate restriction out of either the transaction nor anything upcoming. The managerial part of the answer, I would ask probably Hartwig Loger to give you the answer.

Okay. Thank you, Gerhard. I will take also the question about our possibility also to invest and go on in the growth of Central Eastern Europe. This is clear the target, and we also including our investment in NURNBERGER, we are ready and also in part of the program of evolve28, we are still interested in possible profitable growth and also investment in the enlargement of our activities in Central Eastern Europe.

And as we expect maybe coming up soon also with some targets, we have also already on our radar. I think the most important thanks also for that question, our investment in NURNBERGER will not have any impact to the dividend payment out of the outperformance of '25, which is expected. So we have the clear definition of our policy to dividends. So there is the floor, and we are clear that with the performance on the operative side, there will be also the definition and the increase on the dividend payment for this year. I hope this gives security to you.

We have a follow-up question from the line of August Marcan from UBS.

Two quick questions on NURNBERGER. One is with this acquisition, you're getting some businesses that maybe are not core for Vienna like the banking business. Have you considered what you want to do? Do you want to keep the business, keep NURNBERGER as a whole? Or are you looking to dispose of the non-insurance asset that NURNBERGER has? And then the second question, you're also bringing from NURNBERGER a sizable investment portfolio and their asset allocation is quite different from yours. They have much more equities and a bit more real estate than you do and much less bonds. Have you considered what the plan is here? Are you going to move them to your strategic asset allocation? Or are you going to leave it as is?

Thank you very much for those questions. The first one is it's probably still too early. Definitely, the focus of the acquisition for us is the core business, which is the entire insurance business of NURNBERGER. So this is the focus. The rest we will see further down the road when we are able to judge immediately after closing.

The second one is on the asset allocation. VIG will not move away from the conservative asset principles that we have in place. Of course, there is an interlink between the asset portfolio of NURNBERGER. So we will first very thoroughly analyze what are impacts. But definitely, we are supposing to continue VIG's conservative investment approach in the long run.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Nina, Head of Investor Relations, for any closing remarks.

Thank you for your participation in today's call and your questions and interest. As mentioned by Hartwig Loger, our CEO, our evolve28 targets will be announced next week. Investor Relations is available to provide support and assistance with any further questions or requests for meetings. And I hope to be in touch soon. In the meantime, goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines.

Hello, everyone, and a very warm welcome to the Austria ON AIR Conference. It is a real pleasure to have you all here today for this very last but not least call and in the special roundtable session. This session is dedicated to the Vienna Insurance Group AG, and we are truly delighted to have the chance to hear from the Investor Relations Manager, Katarzyna Bizon, who will share insights with us in just a moment. So without further ado, let me hand over to you, Katarzyna. The stage is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm so delighted to welcome you to today's presentation of -- behalf of Vienna Insurance Group or as we use it, VIG. Thank you for your interest and taking the time to getting to know VIG. My name is Katarzyna Bizon, and I'm part of the Investor Relations team here in Vienna. Over the next 20, 30 minutes, let's see how it goes. I will walk you through VIG's introduction, our strategic direction, performance highlights and future outlook as of October.

Let me move to the Slide #2. This would be a snapshot of who we are. VIG is well diversified, operating in 30 markets, serving around 33 million customers through more than 50 insurance companies and pension funds. VIG also has a diverse portfolio. Our insurance service revenue of EUR 12.1 billion at the year-end 2024 is well split between lines of business. Other Property and Casualty are our largest line at nearly 50%, followed by Motor business at around 30% and then Life and Health business at around 20%. VIG's solid capitalization represented by a solvency ratio of 261% at the year-end 2024 is also reflected in its S&P rating of A+ with stable outlook.

Based on this strength and the very robust performance of the group in 2024, our dividend for that year was EUR 1.55 per share. I would like to highlight here that this marks a consistent payout history since VIG's IPO in 1994. [ For ] curiosity last October, we are celebrating 30 years on the Vienna Stock Exchange. Over the next slide, VIG's unique footprint in the CEE region is shown. We are the leading insurance group there. We distinguish between core markets and special markets. In our core markets, we aim to reach at least a top 3 position. The red colored countries, we have already achieved our goal with strong market shares and as market leader, for example, in Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. How have we achieved this? VIG has built a strong footprint in the CEE through early market entry, long-term partnerships and the local brand approach, key differentiator from many other insurance groups.

Central and Eastern Europe remains our focus and home market, and at the same time, it's a growth engine in Europe. Insurance penetration is still significantly below Western Europe, meaning there's plenty of room to grow. For example, while Austria's insurance density is above EUR 2,300 per capita, by far, most markets in the CEE are not reaching even half of that level with markets like Romania, Bulgaria or Serbia remain well below EUR 400. While insurance density remains low there, the economic fundamentals in the CEE region are quite strong. GDP growth in the next 4 years in the region is forecasted to outpace Western Europe and is led by countries like Poland or Croatia. EU members of Central East and Southeast Europe are expected to grow around 3x faster than the euro area in 2025 and twice as fast as the euro area the next year 2026.

On the next slide, you can see the elements of VIG's success. Our diversification across countries and lines of business, combined with prudent management principles are essential to the resilience that VIG has demonstrated in recent years. Local entrepreneurship gives our group companies the flexibility they need to do business. We believe that local management and employees know best about the people, their needs and specifics of their markets. Multichannel distribution provides access to different customer groups and VIG's multi-brand policy focuses on regionally established brands. In addition, we follow a conservative investment and reinsurance policy, which ensures safe and profitable investments and protections against nat cat events like Storm Boris in September of last year.

So in order to expand our leading position in CEE being the main objective of our still ongoing VIG '25 strategic program, we have set initiatives to optimize, enhance and expand our business model, which includes simplifying processes, adopting hybrid sales models and expanding into asset management and pension services. Very much connected to our strategy is sustainability, which is integrated into the strategy and complemented. VIG's group-wide sustainability program identifies 6 spheres of impact, divided into environmental focus and social focus. Through social focus, we understand fostering risk literacy, inclusion and volunteerism across our workforce and communities. Sustainability for us, it's not an add-on. It's how we ensure long-term value creation for all stakeholders today without doing so at the expense of tomorrow.

Over the next slide, you see in more detail our environmental focus, the other side of the spheres. We target net zero by 2050 across our underwriting, asset management and operations. Prior to that, as an interim target by 2030, we aim for a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions from our 2023 baseline.

So let's turn to our financial performance. VIG has paid dividend to shareholders every year, as I mentioned already before, since its listing in 1994 and aims to continue this track record in line with its updated dividend policy. Our dividend for 2024 increased to EUR 1.55 per share, which is a 10.7% rise consistent with the policy of at least maintaining the previous year's level and increasing continuously depending on the operating earnings development. In the first half of 2025, we delivered strong growth, higher -- and higher profitability despite one-off impacts such as goodwill impairment in Hungary.

Profit before taxes rose by over 10% and our combined ratio improved to 91.9%, reflecting very disciplined underwriting and fewer weather-related claims. Our merger and acquisitions experience and the strong capitalization enable us to pursue our strategy of profitable growth and to achieve a positive performance even in a challenging and volatile market environment. On the M&A topic, in August, we have communicated that we have acquired an 80% stake in MOLDASIG and with that becoming a market leader in Moldova with an estimated market share of around 30%. Additionally, we have communicated as well that we are starting an exclusive due diligence process of a potential acquisition of a controlling stake in NÜRNBERGER, which is a German insurance company. As our VIG '25 strategy runs until the year-end, the new strategy 2026 to '28 is currently in development. We plan to share the first insights with the 9 months update, which will be on the 25th of November. And the KPIs and target details should follow in January 2026. So stay updated.

Let's jump to our highlights of the 6 months. Insurance service revenue grew by 8.1% to EUR 6.4 billion. Profit before taxes increased to EUR 531 million, while earnings per share reached EUR 5.92 on an annualized based, and our annualized operating return on equity rose to 18.9%. So here, just a short sentence, our broad diversification in the top and bottom line supports our resilience and robust performance.

Moving on to the Slide 16. This is our group income statement. So with regards to the goodwill impairment taken in Hungary that I already mentioned, please note that the profit before taxes in Hungary adjusted for this goodwill impairment would have amounted to EUR 16.8 million. So we have recorded an increase of 2.8% in the insurance service revenue to EUR 324.5 million, and the net combined ratio improved to 94.8%. So given the market environment, we are satisfied with the development in Hungary. However, the additional premium tax got prolonged until 2026 and further governmental initiatives cannot be excluded in Hungary. So this would be the reason why VIG fully in line with our conservative approach decided to go for this complete goodwill impairment and wrote down the remaining EUR 72.8 million of the goodwill. But despite this measure, we are able to achieve group profit before taxes of EUR 531 million and a net profit after taxes and noncontrolling interest of EUR 386.7 million and both up by around 10%.

On the next slide, we show the details for the insurance service revenue of EUR 6.4 billion, being up by 8.1%. So our biggest segment with around EUR 1.9 billion in revenues and an increase of 8.6% is Extended CEE. So compared to the first 6 months of last year, 2024, Extended CEE contributed EUR 148.8 million more in revenue. It's worth mentioning that several CEE markets achieved double-digit revenue growth, for example, Slovakia with plus 12%, the Baltics with plus 11.5% and accounting for about half of the additional revenue. Just on a side note, our Extended CEE segment comprises nearly all core markets. They are not a separate segment. For example, the Baltic states, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Croatia, Moldova and a few more.

We are very pleased about the continuously sound insurance service revenue growth of 4.7% in Austria, 6.7% in the Czech Republic and 8.9% in Poland. However, outperforming all other segments in terms of revenue growth is Special Markets, up by 29.7%, driven by the ongoing very dynamic business development in Türkiye. So let's take a look at the breakdown of insurance service revenue by line of business. So MTPL with plus 11.2%, health with plus 15.1% as well as unit and index-linked life and life without profit participation with each roughly plus 11%. The present robust double-digit growth from an already high revenue level of more than EUR 3 billion. Other property grew by 3.9%, contributing around EUR 120 million of additional revenue. Again, this slide illustrates the diverse growth profile of the VIG. And currently, only the life insurance business with profit participation remains flat, but on a favorable level.

On the next slide, the result before taxes is shown in a little bit more detail. So strongest growth contributor with plus EUR 21.2 million is Poland, followed by Czech Republic with plus EUR 17.9 million, both markets supported by significant improvements of the combined ratio. To be fair, if we adjust for the goodwill impairment, the one in Hungary, the segment Extended CEE would have been the top performer. Nevertheless, despite this impairment, we achieved double-digit profit growth of 10.5%, which demonstrates the strength of the business model. Over the page, the combined ratio details and the split between claims and cost ratios are shown. The net combined ratio improved to 91.9%, including a discounting impact that increased from 3.1% to 4.4% on the claims ratio.

Significantly lower costs arising from weather-related claims and nat cats in the first 6 months of this year compared to the same period of last year were supporting this overall positive development. The substantial improvement by more than 4 percentage points, both in the Czech Republic and in Poland were additionally driven by positive developments in Motor. Moreover, Polish household insurance profited from higher average premiums. The deterioration of the combined ratio by 5 percentage points in the Special Markets is due to 2 factors. Firstly, one-off effect in the previous year; and then secondly, negative developments in Motor and other property in Türkiye this year.

And let's move to Life and Health business and the contractual service margin. So the SM is the component that represents the future unearned profit expected to be earned over the duration of an insurance contract. So on the left, the Life/Health CSM roll-forward shows an increase of plus 8.9% for the period to a net CSM of EUR 6 billion, which was supported primarily by the rise in long-term interest rate curves. And although the CSM release of EUR 283 million could not be fully offset by the new business of EUR 228 million. The sustainability ratio improved to 80% after 77% in the 6 months 2024. The new business CSM in Life/Health was strong at EUR 228 million with a still favorable new business margin of 8.9% for the half year 2025, though slightly down from 10% at the year-end 2024.

On the Slide 22, the investments held at our own risk further increased to EUR 37.5 billion, up around EUR 1 billion compared to the year-end. The split between the different asset classes is hardly changed with the vast majority of 74% invested in bonds. The total capital investment portfolio as of June 2025 amounted to EUR 45.6 billion. As there are only minor shifts in the bond rating split due to the portfolio quality improvement, I would move on to the solvency ratio. So the solvency ratio, including transitionals as of June 2025 increased to 278% after 261% at the year-end and 271% at March 2025, while the SCR of around EUR 4 billion, only slightly increased by 1.5% due to higher capital requirements for health and non-life insurance, the own funds of around EUR 11 billion increased by more than 8%, impacted by the positive interest rate development and the capital measures taken.

The solvency ratio, excluding transitional measures of 238% underpins the strong capitalization of the VIG and allows us to successfully further develop our business model and to look at the business opportunities in our markets. So I would summarize here that VIG remains on track for a record year. We expect to close 2025 at the upper end of our profit target range of between EUR 950 million and EUR 1 billion with solid growth, strong solvency position and a clear strategy for sustainable expansion, we are quite confident in the ability to continue delivering value. I would like here to thank you for your attention and give back to [ Judith. ] Thank you.

Thank you so much, Katarzyna, for this insightful presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, it is your turn now as we move forward into our Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] The VIG 2025 strategic program from 2021 to 2025 has 3 pillars, efficiency, customer proximity and value creation. What are the top 2 to 3 stretch goals under each pillar that you consider most challenging to hit? And what contingency plans exist if you fall short?

Let me maybe jump, efficiency, customer proximity and value creation. To be fair, this is very much also the first country-to-country. And as one of our key business model that differentiates us is the decentralization, meaning on the like business decisions, meaning customer proximity, a lot of decisions are taken locally by the local companies by their management as they know their markets best. On the efficiency, we try to combine sometimes and support the back-office processes and support.

We have newly established CO 3 department, which stands for communication, collaboration and cooperation. And we focus very much on connecting our company so they can exchange with their experience with their sometimes challenges and how they solve and where they can connect strength. Sometimes, it's challenging to be top 3 among top 3 players in our core markets. We managed to have -- to achieve this in many countries. But for example, Poland, we are still their top 4, which is quite challenging. But last year, we had mergers after the Aegon business acquisition. So we are working on this very hard. So yes, I hope this brought a little bit more light to this question.

And one more, VIG emphasized hybrid distribution like digital and personal and multichannel sales, agents, brokers and bancassurance, in which markets or product lines is the digital channel growth most advanced and where is adoption lagging?

So again, this is a very decentralized structure. So the distribution channels are actually also again decided by each company. I would say that usually the online sales is slightly slower in countries like Austria, where a lot comes from the history when -- where people are more connected to the agents, the online sales or bancassurance, which actually is super growing in Austria as well through our Erste cooperation, but is faster growing in Eastern Europe countries, which do not have that long history of the sales agent.

And I don't know if it's okay to say they're more open for changes or like new technologies. It's sometimes easier to introduce. But again, it really differs market to market. One might actually wonder that the online sales should be growing slightly faster. But still, when people are checking online and comparing insurance products and offers, a lot of times, they still like them to go and sign the contract in person. So me as a millennial, I would -- thought this should be like growing a little bit faster, but here we are.

And in the meantime, we have received no further questions. I will hold the room for another moment. And one more is coming in. How are you using data analytics like AI, fraud detection, pricing, claims automation? In which markets are you most ahead and policy on transparency and fairness?

So this is very much now in -- a big topic, and it's -- also AI and data analytics is a big part of the next strategy program, and I hope we will be able to tell more. So far, we also have digital hubs. They are like connecting groups or like companies. So this will be an example where we try to join forces and support. So it's less each company by themselves. And the fraud detection is like very much supported by AI solutions. And there's a hub in Czech and in Poland. So this is very much -- I cannot yet now tell you, I would need to actually double check. So very much happy to follow up maybe with some numbers, but big topic, we have a customer experience hub and connecting the companies and big topic for our next strategy program 2026, 2028.

And one more question. Assuming you acquire NÜRNBERGER, will Germany become one of VIG's core markets?

So I have to admit this is a very, very hot topic. I was last month on a few conferences, and it's very, very like NÜRNBERGER is a big question. So we are ongoing now the due diligence process, hoping to be able to communicate the results still this year. But no, even with the potential acquisition of NÜRNBERGER -- I understand the question because of the size of the company, Germany will remain our special market, meaning where we focus to be a niche player on the profitability to be experts in one or the other specialty products, but Germany will not turn into a core market. We see it as an opportunity that potentially might sustain or support our further focus and growth in the CEE and CEE remains our home and core and focus.

And as no further questions have come in, we now come to the end of today's roundtable and also our today's Austria ON AIR conference. Should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact us from Airtime or the Investor Relations team of Vienna Insurance Group AG. Thank you dearly, Katarzyna, and to all of you for attending this call and our Austria ON AIR conference. I wish you all a lovely beginning autumn. Stay healthy. And with this, I hand over again to Katarzyna for some final remarks.

So thank you again for your time and your interest. And as Judith already mentioned, of course, if you'd like to follow up or if you have further questions, please reach out Investor Relations team and me, we are always available and really, really happy to stay in touch. Goodbye. Have a lovely evening. Thank you.