Aegon reports second half year 2023 results

    Aegon reports second half year 2023 results

Please click here to access all 2H 2023 results related documents. 

The Hague, March 1, 2024 - IFRS results

• Net result of EUR 0 million with operating result offset by realized losses on investment portfolio; net loss of EUR 199 million for the full-year
• Operating result of EUR 681 million, down 32% due to previously executed management actions and one-time benefits in the prior period. Full-year 2023 operating result of EUR 1,498 million, a decrease of 17% from EUR 1,802 million in 2022
• Shareholders’ equity reduces by EUR 0.7 billion to EUR 7.5 billion following EUR 1.1 billion capital returns. Shareholders’ equity per share remains stable at EUR 4.27

Capital generation, cash and capital management

• Operating capital generation before holding funding and operating expenses increases by 16% compared with the second half of 2022 to EUR 660 million and to EUR 1,280 million for the full-year
• Capital ratios remain robust, above their respective operating levels
• Cash Capital at Holding at EUR 2.4 billion. EUR 829 million of the announced EUR 1.5 billion share buyback completed at year-end; reduced financial leverage to target level of around EUR 5 billion
• Free Cash Flow of EUR 429 million includes special dividend from Aegon AM of EUR 75 million; full-year Free Cash Flow of EUR 715 million exceeds guidance of around EUR 600 million
• Proposed final 2023 dividend of EUR 0.16 per common share, bringing the full-year dividend to EUR 0.30 per common share, up 30% versus the full-year 2022 dividend

Lard Friese, Aegon CEO, commented:
“The second half of 2023 saw Aegon maintain commercial momentum, driven by the strong performance of our US business, Transamerica, as well as our UK workplace business and our joint venture in Brazil. Aegon’s operating capital generation (OCG) from the units of EUR 660 million was solid during the period, bringing the total OCG for 2023 to EUR 1,280 million, exceeding the initial guidance for the year. Our business units remained well capitalized and our holding cash position continued to be robust. Free cash flow amounted to EUR 429 million for the second half of 2023, contributing to a total of EUR 715 million for the year, enabling us to exceed our guidance of EUR 600 million. The IFRS operating result of EUR 681 million was lower than in the second half of 2022, reflecting one-time benefits in 2022 that did not recur in 2023, as well as the impact of announced management actions in 2023. The contrasting trend in our IFRS results compared to our OCG results is caused by differences in the timing of recognition of earnings between the two frameworks. OCG continues to be the primary lens by which we evaluate business performance and steer the company.

At our Capital Markets Day (CMD) in June of last year, we announced Transamerica’s strategy to become America’s leading middle market life insurance and retirement company. In 2023, Transamerica again delivered a strong performance. The Individual Solutions business generated new life sales of USD 486 million, an increase of 13% compared with the prior year and the highest sales level in the past eight years. The number of agents at World Financial Group (WFG) grew by 18% compared with a year earlier to almost 74,000. Written sales of mid-sized plans for our Workplace Solutions business amounted to USD 6.7 billion, an increase of 72% compared with the prior year. This was driven by growth in sales of both single employer plans and pooled plans. Meanwhile, we continued to actively manage our Financial Assets, including recent actions to reduce the exposure of Transamerica’s capital ratio to equity market movements.

Our UK Workplace platform also performed well. Despite the loss of a large, low margin pension scheme in the third quarter, we reported positive net inflows for 2023 and expect continued net inflows as a result of the onboarding of new schemes and higher net deposits on existing schemes.

At the same time, both Aegon’s UK Retail platform and asset management business experienced net outflows as they were adversely affected by the macro-economic environment in 2023.

Moving to our insurance joint ventures: in Brazil, new life sales at Mongeral Aegon Group increased by 37% to EUR 144 million reflecting both business growth and Aegon’s increased economic stake, while new life sales in China increased by 19% to EUR 103 million in 2023.

We have completed 76% of our current EUR 1.5 billion share buyback program (on February 23, 2023) and we have executed upon our planned de-leveraging. We have proposed a final dividend of 16 eurocents per share. On this basis, the total dividend paid for the full-year 2023 will be 30 eurocents, in line with our target and up 30% compared with 2022.

I am very proud of everything the teams have achieved in 2023, and I am grateful for all their work during another transformational year. We will continue to work hard executing our strategy in 2024. Our strong commercial performance, together with the important steps we took to realign our company, have given us a solid foundation on which to sustainably grow our dividend per share. We also look forward to presenting the strategy for our UK business in more depth during a teach-in session on June 25 this year.”

Please note that all comparisons are versus the second half of 2022 unless stated otherwise. 

Additional information

Presentation
The conference call presentation is available on aegon.com as of 7.00 am CET.

Supplements
Aegon’s second half 2023 Financial Supplement and other supplementary documents are available on aegon.com.

Conference call including Q&A
The conference call starts at 9:00 am CET, with an audio webcast on aegon.com. To join the conference call and/or participate in the Q&A, you will need to register via the following registration link. Directly after registration you will see your personal pin on the confirmation screen and additionally you will receive an email with the call details and again your personal pin to enter the conference call. To avoid any unforeseen connection issues, it’s recommended to make use of the ‘call me’ option. Two hours after the conference call, a replay will be available on aegon.com.

Click to join

With ‘Call me’, there’s no need to dial-in. Simply click the following registration link and select the option ‘Call me’.
Enter your information and you will be called back to directly join the conference. The link becomes active 15 minutes prior to the scheduled start time. Should you wish not to use the ‘click to join’ function, dial-in numbers are also available. For passcode: you will receive a personal pin upon registration.

Dial-in numbers for conference call
United States: [phone] (local)
United Kingdom: [phone] (toll-free)
The Netherlands: [phone] (toll-free)
The Netherlands: [phone] (toll)

Financial calendar 2024
Integrated annual report 2023 – April 4, 2024
First quarter 2024 trading update – May 16, 2024
Annual General Meeting – June 12, 2024
Aegon UK Strategy Teach-In (webinar) – June 25, 2024
First half 2024 results – August 22, 2024
Third quarter 2024 trading update – November 21, 2024

The conference call and Q&A can be followed via a live audio webcast on our website.

About Aegon
Aegon is an international financial services holding company. Aegon’s ambition is to build leading businesses that offer their customers investment, protection and retirement solutions. Its portfolio of businesses includes fully owned subsidiaries in the US, UK and a global asset manager. In addition, Aegon has partnerships in Spain & Portugal, Brazil, and China, which create value by combining strong local partners with Aegon’s international expertise. In the Netherlands, Aegon generates value via a strategic shareholding in a market leading insurance and pensions company.

Aegon's purpose of helping people live their best lives runs through all its activities. As a leading global investor and employer, Aegon seeks to have a positive impact by addressing critical environmental and societal issues, with a focus on climate change and inclusion & diversity. Aegon is headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands, and listed on Euronext Amsterdam and the New York Stock Exchange. More information can be found at aegon.com.

Contacts

Media relations	Investor relations
Carolien van der Giessen	Yves Cormier
[phone]	[phone]
[e-mail]	[e-mail]

Forward-looking statements
The statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The following are words that identify such forward-looking statements: aim, believe, estimate, target, intend, may, expect, anticipate, predict, project, counting on, plan, continue, want, forecast, goal, should, would, could, is confident, will, and similar expressions as they relate to Aegon. These statements may contain information about financial prospects, economic conditions and trends and involve risks and uncertainties. In addition, any statements that refer to sustainability, environmental and social targets, commitments, goals, efforts and expectations and other events or circumstances that are partially dependent on future events are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Aegon undertakes no obligation, and expressly disclaims any duty, to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which merely reflect company expectations at the time of writing. Actual results may differ materially and adversely from expectations conveyed in forward-looking statements due to changes caused by various risks and uncertainties. Such risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to the following::

• Unexpected delays, difficulties, and expenses in executing against Aegon’s environmental, climate, diversity and inclusion or other “ESG” targets, goals and commitments, and changes in laws or regulations affecting us, such as changes in data privacy, environmental, safety and health laws;
• Changes in general economic and/or governmental conditions, particularly in Bermuda, the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom;
• Civil unrest, (geo-) political tensions, military action or other instability in a country or geographic region;
• Changes in the performance of financial markets, including emerging markets, such as with regard to:           
  • The frequency and severity of defaults by issuers in Aegon’s fixed income investment portfolios;
  • The effects of corporate bankruptcies and/or accounting restatements on the financial markets and the resulting decline in the value of equity and debt securities Aegon holds;
  • The effects of declining creditworthiness of certain public sector securities and the resulting decline in the value of government exposure that Aegon holds;
  • The impact from volatility in credit, equity, and interest rates;
• Changes in the performance of Aegon’s investment portfolio and decline in ratings of Aegon’s counterparties;
• Lowering of one or more of Aegon’s debt ratings issued by recognized rating organizations and the adverse impact such action may have on Aegon’s ability to raise capital and on its liquidity and financial condition;
• Lowering of one or more of insurer financial strength ratings of Aegon’s insurance subsidiaries and the adverse impact such action may have on the written premium, policy retention, profitability and liquidity of its insurance subsidiaries;
• The effect of applicable Bermuda solvency requirements, the European Union’s Solvency II requirements, and applicable equivalent solvency requirements and other regulations in other jurisdictions affecting the capital Aegon is required to maintain;
• Changes in the European Commissions’ or European regulator’s position on the equivalence of the supervisory regime for insurance and reinsurance undertakings in force in Bermuda;
• Changes affecting interest rate levels and low or rapidly changing interest rate levels;
• Changes affecting currency exchange rates, in particular the EUR/USD and EUR/GBP exchange rates;
• Changes affecting inflation levels, particularly in the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom;
• Changes in the availability of, and costs associated with, liquidity sources such as bank and capital markets funding, as well as conditions in the credit markets in general such as changes in borrower and counterparty creditworthiness;
• Increasing levels of competition, particularly in the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and emerging markets;
• Catastrophic events, either manmade or by nature, including by way of example acts of God, acts of terrorism, acts of war and pandemics, could result in material losses and significantly interrupt Aegon’s business;
• The frequency and severity of insured loss events;
• Changes affecting longevity, mortality, morbidity, persistence and other factors that may impact the profitability of Aegon’s insurance products;
• Aegon’s projected results are highly sensitive to complex mathematical models of financial markets, mortality, longevity, and other dynamic systems subject to shocks and unpredictable volatility. Should assumptions to these models later prove incorrect, or should errors in those models escape the controls in place to detect them, future performance will vary from projected results;
• Reinsurers to whom Aegon has ceded significant underwriting risks may fail to meet their obligations;
• Changes in customer behavior and public opinion in general related to, among other things, the type of products Aegon sells, including legal, regulatory or commercial necessity to meet changing customer expectations;
• Customer responsiveness to both new products and distribution channels;
• Third-party information used by us may prove to be inaccurate and change over time as methodologies and data availability and quality continue to evolve impacting our results and disclosures;
• As Aegon’s operations support complex transactions and are highly dependent on the proper functioning of information technology, operational risks such as system disruptions or failures, security or data privacy breaches, cyberattacks, human error, failure to safeguard personally identifiable information, changes in operational practices or inadequate controls including with respect to third parties with which Aegon does business, may disrupt Aegon’s business, damage its reputation and adversely affect its results of operations, financial condition and cash flows;
• The impact of acquisitions and divestitures, restructurings, product withdrawals and other unusual items, including Aegon’s ability to complete, or obtain regulatory approval for, acquisitions and divestitures, integrate acquisitions, and realize anticipated results, and its ability to separate businesses as part of divestitures;
• Aegon’s failure to achieve anticipated levels of earnings or operational efficiencies, as well as other management initiatives related to cost savings, Cash Capital at Holding, gross financial leverage and free cash flow;
• Changes in the policies of central banks and/or governments;
• Litigation or regulatory action that could require Aegon to pay significant damages or change the way Aegon does business;
• Competitive, legal, regulatory, or tax changes that affect profitability, the distribution cost of or demand for Aegon’s products;
• Consequences of an actual or potential break-up of the European Monetary Union in whole or in part, or further consequences of the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union and potential consequences if other European Union countries leave the European Union;
• Changes in laws and regulations, or the interpretation thereof by regulators and courts, including as a result of comprehensive reform or shifts away from multilateral approaches to regulation of global or national operations, particularly regarding those laws and regulations related to ESG matters, those affecting Aegon’s operations’ ability to hire and retain key personnel, taxation of Aegon companies, the products Aegon sells, and the attractiveness of certain products to its consumers;
• Regulatory changes relating to the pensions, investment, and insurance industries in the jurisdictions in which Aegon operates;
• Standard setting initiatives of supranational standard setting bodies such as the Financial Stability Board and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors or changes to such standards that may have an impact on regional (such as EU), national or US federal or state level financial regulation or the application thereof to Aegon, including the designation of Aegon by the Financial Stability Board as a Global Systemically Important Insurer (G-SII);
• Changes in accounting regulations and policies or a change by Aegon in applying such regulations and policies, voluntarily or otherwise, which may affect Aegon’s reported results, shareholders’ equity or regulatory capital adequacy levels;
• Changes in ESG standards and requirements, including assumptions, methodology and materiality, or a change by Aegon in applying such standards and requirements, voluntarily or otherwise, may affect Aegon’s ability to meet evolving standards and requirements, or Aegon’s ability to meet its sustainability and ESG-related goals, or related public expectations, which may also negatively affect Aegon’s reputation or the reputation of its board of directors or its management; and
• Reliance on third-party information in certain of Aegon’s disclosures, which may change over time as methodologies and data availability and quality continue to evolve. These factors, as well as any inaccuracies in third-party information used by Aegon, including in estimates or assumptions, may cause results to differ materially and adversely from statements, estimates, and beliefs made by Aegon or third-parties. Moreover, Aegon’s disclosures based on any standards may change due to revisions in framework requirements, availability of information, changes in its business or applicable governmental policies, or other factors, some of which may be beyond Aegon’s control. Additionally, Aegon may provide information that is not necessarily material for SEC reporting purposes but that is informed by various ESG standards and frameworks (including standards for the measurement of underlying data), internal controls, and assumptions or third-party information that are still evolving and subject to change.
  
  

This document contains information that qualifies, or may qualify, as inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation (596/2014). Further details of potential risks and uncertainties affecting Aegon are described in its filings with the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets and the US Securities and Exchange Commission, including the 2022 Integrated Annual Report. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this document. Except as required by any applicable law or regulation, Aegon expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in Aegon’s expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

WORLD FINANCIAL GROUP (WFG):

WFG CONSISTS OF:
IN THE UNITED STATES, WORLD FINANCIAL GROUP INSURANCE AGENCY, LLC (IN CALIFORNIA, DOING BUSINESS AS WORLD FINANCIAL INSURANCE AGENCY, LLC), WORLD FINANCIAL GROUP INSURANCE AGENCY OF HAWAII, INC., WORLD FINANCIAL GROUP INSURANCE AGENCY OF MASSACHUSETTS, INC., AND / OR WFG INSURANCE AGENCY OF PUERTO RICO, INC. (COLLECTIVELY WFGIA), WHICH OFFER INSURANCE AND ANNUITY PRODUCTS.
IN THE UNITED STATES, TRANSAMERICA FINANCIAL ADVISORS, INC. IS A FULL-SERVICE, FULLY LICENSED, INDEPENDENT BROKER-DEALER AND REGISTERED INVESTMENT ADVISOR. TRANSAMERICA FINANCIAL ADVISORS, INC. (TFA), MEMBER  FINRA, MSRB, SIPC , AND REGISTERED INVESTMENT ADVISOR, OFFERS SECURITIES AND INVESTMENT ADVISORY SERVICES.
IN CANADA, WORLD FINANCIAL GROUP INSURANCE AGENCY OF CANADA INC. (WFGIAC), WHICH OFFERS LIFE INSURANCE AND SEGREGATED FUNDS. WFG SECURITIES INC. (WFGS), WHICH OFFERS MUTUAL FUNDS.
WFGIAC AND WFGS ARE AFFILIATED COMPANIES.

Attachment

• 20240301_PR_Aegon reports second half year 2023 results