Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is the operator speaking. Welcome to NN Group's analyst conference call on its second half year 2022 results. The telephone lines will be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. The lines will then be opened for a question and answer session. Before handing this conference call over to Mr. David Knibbe, Chief Executive Officer of NN Group, let me first give the following statement on behalf of the company. Today's comments are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or events to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement. Such forward-looking statements may include future developments in NN Group's business, expectations for the future financial performance, and any other statements not involving a historical fact.
Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and NN Group assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or for any other reason. Furthermore, nothing in today's comments constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation or an offer to buy any securities. Reference is made to the legal information on the last page of the presentation. Good morning, Mr. Knibbe. Over to you.
Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our call to discuss NN Group's results for the second half of 2022. I'm joined today by our CFO, Annemieke van Melick, and our CRO, Bernhard Kaufmann. I will start off this presentation by talking about the strategic and financial highlights of the year. Annemieke will take you through operating capital generation, the capital position, and the financial results in more detail. After wrapping up the presentation, we will open up the call for the Q&A session. Let's get started on slide three. At our investor update in November, we announced updated strategic targets to reflect our ambition to be an industry leader known for customer engagement, talented people, and contribution to society. This also includes actions to tackle climate change. Although it is still early days, we are making good progress on achieving these ambitious targets.
Let me give you some examples of what we are doing. We measure customer satisfaction based on Net Promoter Scores or NPS. Aim for the Netherlands units and the international units both to be significantly above the market average by 2025. Based on the latest scores, already eight out of 11 business units scored at or above market average NPS. No doubt the positive momentum supports both retention of customers and new business during the current cycle. We will continue to focus on the best customer experience in order to further improve these scores. Despite the significant transformation of NN in 2022, I am proud that the employee engagement has increased. This was confirmed in the most recent survey that we carried out in the second half of last year, which showed employee engagement increase from 7.7 to 7.9.
Given the current tight labor markets, it is even more important that we attract and retain the right talent to continue innovating and driving our business forward. All 10 of our international business units were certified as top employer for the 5th time in January this year, recognizing our leading people, policies and practices. To play our role in tackling the impact of climate change, we aim to invest net zero greenhouse gas emissions across our business by 2050. In our investment portfolio as well as in our underwriting portfolio and our own operations. We can make the biggest impact through investments, and we are on track to meet those targets. We have been making new investments in climate solutions, including green bonds, for a total amount of around EUR 3 billion in 2022.
We are well on track to deliver on our strategic KPIs, which ultimately drive our financial results. Financially, we have shown our resilience with positive new business in OCG development versus 2021. We achieved a strong operating capital generation or OCG of more than EUR 1.7 billion, up 8% on 2021. If we exclude asset management business that we sold in April, OCG on a like for like basis went up 16%, driven by strong business performance and higher rates. Thanks to our multi-distribution platforms and solid reputation, our commercial performance held up well, with value of new business slightly up on previous year. One of our strategic pillars is to maintain a resilient balance sheet. The NN Group solvency ratio was at 197% at the end of 2022, despite the negative impact of market movements.
Annemieke will talk in more detail about the drivers of the solvency ratio and the holding cash capital balance of EUR 2.1 billion later in the presentation. The strong performance and robust balance sheet allows us to continue to deliver attractive capital returns to shareholders. We are today announcing a proposed 2022 final dividend of EUR 1.79, bringing the total 2022 dividend to EUR 2.79. This represents an increase of 12% on 2021. In addition, we have announced a new share buyback program of EUR 250 million in line with our capital return policy. Let's look at the commercial performance of the business units on slide five.
Value of new business or VNB of the insurance units in the Netherlands, Europe and Japan was broadly stable at EUR 431 million in 2022. VNB at Netherlands Life was up on last year, driven by a higher volume of pension contracts as well as favorable impacts from an increase of interest rates. At Insurance Europe, the VNB was negatively impacted because we have to discount at higher rates given the interest rate rises in the region. However, this was partly offset by the contribution of the MetLife businesses that we acquired in Poland and Greece, and that are included for the first time in 2022. Excluding currency effects, VNB at Japan Life was stable as continued growth in protection driven by an improved margin was offset by lower sales of cash value insurance products.
Assets under management in the defined contribution pension business amounted to EUR 27.8 billion at the end of 2022, refracting strong net inflows of 2 billion during the year, offset by a negative market performance. NN Bank originated 8.7 billion of mortgages last year, of which EUR 1.2 billion was originated by our sustainable mortgage label, Woonnu. Let's now look at some other developments at the individual business units on slide six. All business units delivered a solid underlying performance in 2022. As I mentioned on the previous slide, we reported a higher new business at Netherlands Life, which is thanks to the strong customer retention and new sales, as well as NN's leading satisfaction scores among pension advisors.
Efficiency remains a top priority across the business. The acquisition of the ABN AMRO Life business will bring additional economies of scale and support our aim to reduce expenses in line with the portfolio run-off. The non-life business reported a solid combined ratio of 95.8% for the full year 2022, despite some exceptional events such as the large storm in February. The current high inflation is also impacting this business. However, we expect to be able to absorb this through premium increases and by leveraging on investments that we have made in the past years in our data and underwriting capabilities. Additionally, we have provisioned for higher inflation expectations within P&C and for the higher minimum wages within D&A. We are on track to meeting our combined ratio guidance between 93% and 95%.
We invest for growth in our European businesses, both inorganically to strengthen our market positions and customer propositions, such as the acquisitions of the MetLife business in Poland and Greece, and the Finportal in Slovakia. Also organically, for example, to enhance digitalization, including lead generation and digital processes and tools. Digital lead generation resulted in double-digit sales growth in 2022 in the countries where this approach is used. In Japan, too, we are investing in product innovation and customer engagement through platforms. Our focus is on the protection market, where we see growth opportunities combined with high margin, building on our leading position and strong reputation in the SME market in that country. For 2023, we expect some pressure on VNB as we move away from short-term savings products to protection and long-term products.
At NN Bank, an increase in market interest rates has led to a higher customer mortgage rates and improved margins also on savings. We expect these developments to support the net interest margin going forward. At the same time, we continue to invest in the digital capabilities of the bank, for example, the new system that makes mortgage application process more efficient and easier for mortgage advisors. Moving to slide seven. As you know, we are disciplined when it comes to delivering on our capital return policy of a progressive dividend per share and an annual share buyback of at least EUR 250 million. We have a strong track record of growing dividends and distributing excess capital in the form of share buybacks, as you can see in the graph on this slide.
Given the strong financial performance in 2022, in our robust capital position and balance sheet, we are today announcing a proposed final dividend per share of EUR 1.79, which will be tabled at the AGM on June 2nd for shareholders to approve. That brings the total dividend per share for 2022 to EUR 2.79, which represents an increase of 12% in 2021. We are also announcing a new share buyback program of EUR 250 million in line with our capital return policy that is expected to commence on March 1st. I will now hand you over to Annemieke to take you through the capital position and the financial results.
Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone. Let's start with the solvency position of NN Group on slide 9. Our solvency ratio increased to 197% in December 2022, up 1 percentage point since June. Strong operating capital generation of more than EUR 800 million added 9% to the ratio, and together with positive items in the bucket other, more than offset the impact of continued volatile markets and capital flows to shareholders. The impact from markets lowered the ratio by 10 percentage points, mainly reflecting changes from credit spreads and negative real estate valuations. This was partly offset by a positive impact from interest rates, driven by the flattening of the longer end of the curve. In the second half of last year, we used an opportunity to optimize our economic hedging while supporting our solvency ratio at the same time.
The bucket other includes the positive impact from these ALM transactions and to a lesser extent, some equity sales. Capital flows to shareholders reflect our final dividend of EUR 504 million and reduce the ratio by six percentage points. In the same period, NN Life solvency ratio increased from 187% to 191%, with similar underlying drivers as for the group movement. As such, both ratios showed resilience in continued volatile markets. Now looking on the next slide at the full year solvency development, you can see that strong operating capital generation of over EUR 1.7 billion added 18 percentage points.
This essentially covered the EUR 1.8 billion capital flows to shareholders, which included the full year dividend of EUR 790 million, the regular EUR 250 million share buyback, and the additional EUR 750 million share buyback related to the net M&A proceeds. The decrease in the ratio from 213% to 197% was mainly due to the impact from markets, which was only partly offset by some positive items in other. The impact from markets on a full year basis lowered the ratio by 22 percentage points, mainly reflecting a negative impact from credit spreads changes, mostly driven by government bond and corporates, and only to a lesser extent by mortgage spreads, as well as lower equity markets. These items were partly offset by a positive impact from flattening at the longer end of the curve.
The bucket other includes the net positive impact from M and A following the sale of NNIP in April, which was partly offset by the acquisition of MetLife Poland and Greece and several other items such as the reduction of the UFR to 3.45%. With a solvency ratio of 197%, a leverage ratio of 22.9%, and ample tiering headroom, NN Group continues to have a robust balance sheet supported by strong yearly operating capital generation. Let's move to that operating capital generation on slide 11. In 2022, OCG increased by 8% to over EUR 1.7 billion, or up 16% if you would exclude the impact of the sale of asset management.
The positive impact of higher rates on Netherlands Life, strong underlying business performance at Non-Life, and strong business performance in Europe more than offset the loss of fee income at NN Bank and the impact of higher SCR at Non-Life due to hardening of the reinsurance market. Zooming in on the developments in the second half of 2022, you can see OCG increase to EUR 812 million of one percent versus H2 last year. The OCG of Netherlands Life increased by EUR 111 million to EUR 561 million, mainly driven by the lower net negative impact of the UFR drag and the risk margin release due to higher interest rates. We also saw higher life new business contribution for both Netherlands Life and Europe.
Europe's OCG increased to EUR 190 million, mainly reflecting the positive contribution from the MetLife businesses whose integration is on track and a higher investment return. This was partly offset by lower pension fees. Japan Life posted a lower OCG, mainly due to a reinsurance transaction, partly offset by lower new business strain as a result of somewhat lower volume of sales. Non-Life OCG decreased to EUR 136 million from last year's EUR 163 million. That benefited from a positive impact from COVID on P&C, which was only partly offset by the floods of last year. The underlying performance of Non-Life was strong. However, results were impacted negatively by an increase in SCR following hardening of the reinsurance market and, to a lesser extent, some additional provisioning for the potential impact of higher inflation and for bodily injury.
This was partly offset by higher new business contribution, favorable claims experience on fire, and a higher investment return. The lower OCG at banking was largely driven by the lower statutory result, reflecting lower commission income, partly offset by a lower increase in risk-weighted assets. For 2023, we expect a strong underlying business performance within Non-Life and Europe to continue, and we expect NN Bank to improve its OCG contribution. If markets remain at year-end 2022 levels, this is expected to be offset by a lower contribution from Netherlands Life, reflecting market impact on investment return. As you can see on the next slide, the OCG generated in our businesses translated to a strong level of remittances totaling EUR 1.75 billion.
This is only fractionally lower than last year's EUR 1.84 billion that still contained EUR 110 million from asset management and elevated remittances from Japan, banking, and NN Re. Full year 2022 reflects a one-off dividend following the ABN AMRO Life transaction. In the second half of 2022, NN Life redeemed EUR 500 million of former Delta Lloyd legacy subordinated debt, which was replaced by an intercompany loan from Group to NN Life. NN Group, in turn, issued EUR 500 million of subordinated debt in August 2022. The intercompany loan is included in the bucket capital injections. Adjusted for this debt replacement, the full year 2022 free cash flow to holding, reflecting remittances less capital injection and holding costs, amounts to EUR 1.4 billion.
The EUR 500 million subordinated debt issued by NN Group is reflected in the change in debt and loans bucket, which also includes the repayment of EUR 600 million of senior notes in March, hence the -106. Other cash movements during the year are the proceeds received from the sale of asset management business, as well as cash paid for the acquisitions of the MetLife businesses. The main cash outflow during the year was the amount paid to shareholders in cash dividends and share buybacks. These movements resulted in a holding company cash capital of almost EUR 2.1 billion at the end of 2022, broadly stable versus 2021. On the next slide, I'll spend a few words on the IFRS results.
Excluding the sale of asset management, our full year operating result came in at EUR 1.7 billion, down roughly EUR 150 million from the EUR 1.85 billion in 2021, which included EUR 75 million of non-recurring benefits, largely related to the special dividends received within NN Life. Looking at the second half of 2022, the operating result, excluding asset management, came in at EUR 760 million, versus EUR 826 million in the same period last year. Netherlands Life reported a somewhat lower operating result of EUR 447 million, largely driven by the inclusion of EUR 54 million of special dividends last year. The operating result of the Non-Life business increased slightly to EUR 127 million, reflecting an increased operating result at D&A, partly offset by a lower operating result at P&C.
Looking through the various exceptional impacts, such as provisioning for the potential impact of higher inflation and bodily injury claims at P&C, the large increase of minimum wages, but also the positive impact of assumption changes at D&A, we do see a positive underlying trend in the Non-Life business, with an underlying run rate combined ratio in the middle of our guidance range of between 93 and 95 percentage points. The operating result of Insurance Europe decreased to EUR 134 million, as higher technical and investment margin and the acquisition of MetLife were more than offset by lower life and pension fees across the region. Japan Life reported an operating result of EUR 88 million, down almost 11% excluding currency benefits, mainly due to lower fees and premium-based revenues.
Banking came in slightly lower at EUR 49 million, mainly due to higher expenses, largely related to compliance and investments in digitalization, and the absence of a release in provisioning that occurred in the second half of 2021. Going forward, we expect the bank to benefit from higher interest income. All in all, the operating result in the second half of 2022 held up well versus a very strong 2021 that included non-recurring items. Few words on the net result on slide 14. Although the operating profit only declined roughly EUR 150 million to EUR 760 million versus the second half of last year, the actual decline in net result was larger and led to a net loss of EUR 444 million. In the middle of the chart, you see that the non-operating items are the main reason for this reported net loss.
In the second half of 2022, these non-operating items had a negative impact of EUR 1.3 billion, versus a positive impact of EUR 1.3 billion in the second half of 2021. They include EUR 479 million of impairment, mainly related to impairments on equity securities. In contrast, the same period last year included capital gains on the sale of public equities and government bonds. They also include negative revaluations totaling EUR 804 million, mainly reflecting negative revaluations on real estate and derivatives used for hedging purposes. Again, in contrast, the same period last year included positive revaluations on real estate.
The full year net result remained positive and came in at over EUR 1.5 billion, down from EUR 3.2 billion last year, driven by similar movements in non-operating items, which were for the full year, partly compensated by the gain on the sale of NNIP. With that, I hand over back to David.
Thank you, Annemieke. Our strategy is aimed at creating value for all stakeholders, so customers, employees, shareholders and society at large. We have set new ambitious strategic targets for 2025, with a focus on customer engagement, attracting talent, and working towards our net zero pledge. We are making good progress, and will continue to focus on them, because ultimately these targets also drive our long-term growth. We are today reporting strong operating capital generation for 2022, which is up 16% on 2021 on a like for like basis, excluding asset management, on the back of a solid business performance. Commercial performance was also resilient, with value new business remaining broadly stable despite pressure from higher discounting rates and lower sales volumes.
We have maintained a robust balance sheet in line with our first strategic priority, the NN Group solvency ratio at 197% at the end of the year. This allows us to continue delivering on our promise of attractive returns to shareholders with a proposed 2022 dividend per share up 12% on 2021. We have announced a new EUR 250 million share buyback that is expected to commence in March. For the coming years, we will continue to focus on delivering not only the EUR 1.8 billion of OCG, but also the mid-single digit growth of OCG and free cash flow towards 2030. With that, I will ask the operator to open the call for Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now start the question and answer session. To register for the Q&A, please press star 11 on your telephone. As a reminder, in the interest of time, we kindly ask you to limit the number of questions to two. Your questions will be answered in the order that they are received. Please press star 11 for your question or remark. Go ahead, please. We'll now take our first question. Please stand by. First question is from the line of Andrew Baker from Citi. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you for taking my questions. The first on solvency, are you able just to give a year to date market to market ratio about the group and the Netherlands Life? Are there any other management actions underway to improve the stock of solvency going forward? I'm thinking about obviously the ALM actions that you did in the second half. Where are you? Can you just give an update on where you are on reducing the volatility to mortgage spreads? Secondly, on OCG for 2023, Annemieke, were you saying that the, based on the markets at full year 2022, you're expecting 2023 OCG to be broadly flat? If so, can you just walk through those moving pieces for me? Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew. Let me give the questions on the solvency and management actions, and the market outlook 2023 to Annemieke. Bernhard will answer the question on the an update on the volatility of the mortgage spreads.
Morning, Andrew. First on your question regarding solvency ratio year to date. We've seen a small negative related to mortgage spread widening since the year end. We've also seen a bit of steepening, that was largely offset by higher equities. Net, net market impact, we expect the solvency ratio to be broadly stable for group, and that also goes for Life. In terms of management actions that we've been taking, the ALM actions that we have been taking in the fourth quarter of last year, were really related to market volatility actually, that we saw in the first half of the year and the model changes that we made in the first half of the year. That resulted in a suboptimal H1 position, also from an economic interest rate perspective.
That is what we have been adjusting also in Q4, and that had a positive impact on solvency. We don't foresee any of such actions now going forward. Related to your question on OCG and on forecast of the OCG. You know, obviously we've seen pretty good underlying strength in the OCG of non-life of Europe, and we would also expect that to continue. We would also expect the bank to actually start improving its OCG with net interest income coming up. We would expect that those improvements would broadly offset the negative impact that we would see of December markets having on the life business. To that extent we would roughly expect a flat or potentially slightly positive OCG for 23 based on December markets that we see.
Great. Can I just follow up on the mark to market? Have you seen anything from real estate evaluations in the first half of 2023?
Well, only very limited actually so far. The valuations updates that we see on the real estate, you know, they don't come through on a monthly basis that quick now. So far we haven't really seen anything there. It is our expectation that in 2023, most likely a bit related to the first half of 2023, we would envisage to see a decrease that's roughly similar to what we've seen in the second half of last year.
Great. Thank you.
Hi, Andrew. On your question, related to mortgage spread volatility, we are increasingly positive that we can mitigate part of the mortgage spread volatility impact on our Solvency II ratio. We want to achieve this by including a dampening mechanism, in the internal model, to allow for more adequate representation of the impact of the volatility adjustment in the solvency ratio. As this is a model change and because of regulatory approval timelines, we expect that this can be implemented in the second half of the year. The indication on impact is, that this mechanism should reduce mortgage spread volatility roughly by half.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Cor Kluis from ABN AMRO. lease go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, good morning, Cor Kluis, ABN AMRO. Two questions. Maybe first question on the solvency ratio, the category other in H2. You showed that it's positive 9 percentage points for the solvency ratio. You mentioned the asset liability action on interest rates, so that's included in it. Could you give a little bit more granularity? What was that asset liability action? How much was that positive? I think there was the ABN AMRO deal in it and, yeah, a few other comp. Could you give a few percentages that we have a little bit more grip on the plus 9%? That's my first question. My second question is on the Dutch non-life market.
We've seen, of course, everywhere in the world that the reinsurance premiums are went up quite a lot at the beginning of the year. It mentioned it quite a few times in the press release as well. Could you mention, yeah, have you reduced your reinsurance somewhat, or are you just paying the higher premiums in the market and what would the would be the effect on your own prices and profitability for the coming year? Because that seems to went up quite fast. Maybe one last final question on this market sensitivity. We saw that in one quarter the sensitivity declined there for 50 basis points. It went from -12% to -10%.
It seems that you're not yet after the model change with the DNB, why did that change in the last, the last quarter? That's, were my questions. Thank you. Thank you, Cor, and good morning. Annemieke, if you can cover the solvency ratio, and then I'll take it on the non-life and reinsurance with Bernhard.
Cor, good morning to you. The bucket other indeed, plus nine percentage points on the solvency ratio. I think the most large elements there to focus on in dividing that 9% would be roughly two third related to asset and liability management transactions that we did, and around one third to some equity sales that we did.
The reason why we sold some equity is really to ensure that we remain within SAA limits, post the market value adjustments that we've seen on fixed income, et cetera. Those are the main drivers.
Okay. Thank you.
Yes. Maybe a couple broader comments on non-life first, Cor. The underlying trend of the non-life business is positive. There's obviously always questions around the impact of inflation. So far, the impact remains low. We have assumed also in provision for potential impact of higher inflation in the P&C business. On the D&A side, we've also seen obviously an unexpected increase by the government of the minimum wage of 10%. Also there we have adjusted our assumptions for that. We're also able to reprice quite a bit, including that we see that the impact of higher pricing of the reinsurance.
you know, so far we've been able to also take that into account into our pricing and our repricing to offset some of these pressures that we see. Overall, I think for the underlying business is healthy, and we're on track for our guidance of 93%-95%. Let me give it to Bernhard maybe, and can give a perspective on the outlook for reinsurance market going forward and also on the mortgage sensitivity, yeah.
Yeah.
David, on the reinsurance, did you increase your own risk, or have you kept the reinsurance levels at the same level?
Yes. Bernhard will cover that.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. Thanks.
Jaco, on this point, first, like David pointed out, the hardening of the market included price increases mainly driven by higher inflation loss experience, where we also see that we can adjust our pricing. So this is an impact that is not sustainable or will be also mitigated over time. The adjustment of our programs or having higher retention levels, also the adjusting aggregate covers, this is something we can do in addition to also react on higher reinsurance prices. The impact that we saw in 2022, was more related to the hardening of the market, terms and conditions, mainly that reinstatement premiums have to be paid upfront.
That was included in our capital requirements, and therefore we had this negative one-off that should be a one-off. On your question on sensitivities, the mortgage spread sensitivity decreased from -12 to -10% over the year, but that is mainly reflecting updates on assumptions related to prepayments that we saw over the year related to a higher interest rate environment and the assumptions to make there, and also the change in diversification in our internal model that led to this increase. The positioning itself has not changed. Okay, wonderful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Faruq Hanif from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, everybody, thank you very much. Just going back to the planned major model change on mortgage on modeling mortgage spreads, can you comment, given that you seem to have some view on this now, but can you comment whether this might have a negative impact on your Solvency II ratio as it has done for others, and how it would impact the steady state level of your OCG? My second question is, I saw a headline about the Japanese FSA issuing an improvement order. Is this significant for you, for NN Life? What does it mean, and does it kind of play to your comment on lower or change in business mix hitting earnings in or hitting VNB in 2023? That's it. Thank you very much.
Yes. Good morning, and thank you, Farooq. Bernhard, please take the question on the mortgage spread change and the potential impact on the ratio, and I'll cover the Japanese question.
Yeah. Good morning, Farooq. The impact on OCG, there should be none. That's the easy part to answer. The impact on solvency ratio is very much dependent on the time of implementation. If spreads are more wide or tight compared to historical average, that will mainly then also drive the impact on the date of implementation.
presumably if they are, wide, that has a positive impact? If you could just explain that.
If it's positive or if the mortgage spreads are widened, then there's a positive impact on solvency. That's how it's designed. That currently we have no compensation volatility adjustment for higher spreads or widening of spreads due to market volatility, and this is then more or less the impact that is mimicked in the modeling on the Solvency II ratio.
May I ask, I'm really sorry to keep asking additional questions, what would you view as a long-term mortgage spread? Are you willing to share that?
Maybe that's best then really to take up individually with the IR colleagues in more detail because that's a longer story to discuss.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'll do that.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks, Luke. Then on the FSA order. Well, I mean, please know that there's an Insurance Business Act in Japan that forbids any insurance company to disclose information on, let's say the interactions that we have with the regulators. What I can say is that, you know, our strategy for Japan is unchanged. We have been focusing on corporate life products in the SME market, which is, as you know, a very large market. We focus on the protection part. Historically, we've also sold quite a bit of more short-term savings products that are a hybrid product of savings and protection. We expect that market to become smaller and smaller.
We are replacing that with more protection sales and more long-term savings products combined with protection. For the short term, that will put some pressure probably and during that transition on the VNB over time. You know, Japan remains a very attractive market. We set a target of EUR 125 million of OCG in 2025, these targets haven't changed. For the short term, during that transition, we might see a bit of lower VNB due to, you know, the short-term products over time being replaced with long-term savings products and other protection business.
Okay. That's very kind. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of David Barma from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Two small questions from me, please. The first one is on cash, on holding cash. How does the amount of cash at year-end compare with your one in 20 year shock event? That's question number one. Question number two, can you talk a little bit about new business for Europe in 2023 please, and how we should see market movements impacting that? Thank you.
Yes, David. Let me start with the, the question on new business in Europe. Annemieke can answer the question on cash versus the one in 20 event. In Europe, there's obviously a couple trends. There is underlying, we still see a very positive trend on the demand for life protection products. I mean, we've always spoken about the under-penetration of the market. It's clear that COVID, when people spend a lot more time at home and also were became more aware of the vulnerabilities, you know, if people get sick or even pass away, what will happen to my house, what will happen to my family? This under-penetration has been there, but we see that there is a higher awareness now.
We have very strong mostly distribution platform. We're able also to reach out to these customers. That is one factor that is driving the underlying growth. Short term, obviously a lot of the markets have more than double-digit inflation, so that the purchasing power is lower. Wages haven't fully kept up. That makes it a bit more challenging. What we also see is that banks, you know, credit insurance comes down because banks simply sell less loans, and therefore also the credit insurance attached to debt comes down. So far we've been very successful also in offsetting debt. That is mostly done because we invest also in the further digitalization of our agent channel. Our leads driven sales has more than doubled.
Therefore, we're optimistic that also for 23 we can continue the growth path for Europe in sales because of the underlying need for customers, but also the distribution channels that we have in place to service all these customers. On cash, Annemieke.
On the cash capital we have, that is sufficient to cover the 1 in 20 event, the shock of all our underlying entities. The cash capital requirement actually fluctuates over time because it's also dependent on the underlying solvency levels. With the solvency level of NN Life being at 191%, that's a good start of position. We're still comfortable with the EUR 2 billion, and it is sufficient to cover the 1 in 20 event.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Nasib Ahmed from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thanks for taking my question. First question on the solvency ladder that you set at the Capital Markets Day. At what point between the 150%-200% do you think that you would look to retain more capital and look to do a lower share buyback than the EUR 250 million? Second question is on. You talked about sale of equity assets, and you're kind of in line with your SAA with interest rates being higher than 2 years ago. Would you reassess your SAA and move more into fixed income, because you could allocate more into fixed income and get the same return that you were getting previously now, with potentially a lower capital strain? Related to that, how often do you reassess your SAA? Thanks.
Thank you, Nasib. Annemieke, please cover the question on the solvency ladder, and Bernhard can speak about the SAA.
Yeah, I think on Solvency letter, our focus is really on sustainable and predictable capital returns. If we're within the 150%-200%, we really focus on a progressive dividend yield per share and a EUR 250 million buyback. It's not mechanical, so there is not a specific turning point. Having said that, we've continuously delivered on the 250 since 2019. Even when market circumstances, you know, led to a drop to lower ratios, actually also lower than the 196% for Group and 187% for Life that we've seen in July and August. We've always just continued on the regular quarterly remittances out of Life and also the regular dividend and the buyback at the Group.
We're comfortable with the current capital and solvency position that we have there, and we're also confident with the current capital return policy that we have.
Nasib, to your question on strategic asset allocation. First on the process. We on an annual basis reassess the strategic asset allocation for our key business units. 2022 was special, therefore, also we reassessed our positioning, like Annemieke pointed out, not on ALM, on interest rate positioning, but also with respect to risky assets, that resulted in this also sale of equity. In the end, it's a refinement, it's an optimization. The outlook, we want to continue with our slow and continuous shift from liquid to illiquid assets. There we are targeting mainly investments in loans, but also to contribute to our climate solution investments in green bonds.
That is more the long-term strategic outlook, coming out of the assessments.
Thanks. Just to follow up on the shift from liquid to illiquid. What OCG uplift do you expect? Previously you had a target, but maybe it's not material, or do you have a target on OCG uplift?
No, as it's really a optimization, and then also the current economic environment, we see not really a potential for additional OCG uplift coming from the SAA.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. Well done on some lovely results. I've got two questions. One is on debt and the other one is on the ROE. On debt, I see from the slides you repaid EUR 500 million. That's cash. I wish I could do that. I a bit beyond me, I think. Which is lovely. You do have the EUR 1.8 billion kind of not a cliffhanger, it's in 2024. It's a sub-debt. I just wondered how much of a focus is that at the moment, and how you're kind of looking at it.
The other thing is on the ROE, my number's probably wrong, but EUR 1.7 billion divided by owned funds excluding sub-debt of, call it EUR 13.7 billion is around 12%. Now, I know you pay a lot out in cash, but you do retain a bit. I would assume, you know, the normal, if you pay out, I don't know, 75% and you keep a quarter, so your normal progression of earned funds, of capital would be around 4% or 5%. You'd break a bank, you'd get to more than EUR 1.8 billion by 2025. To get from, to EUR 1.8 billion from the count level, you only need 2% of annual growth.
Here I'm kind of thinking actually the numbers suggest you're at 5. Can you talk a little bit about this ROE, which is extraordinary? I didn't know NN is such a high ROE company. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael. Let's start with the question on the repayment of debt. Then I think we're trying to follow your reasoning on ROE. Annemieke will cover both of them.
Hi, Michael. Yeah, on the debt. At full year, we had a leverage of around EUR 5.7 billion. We're actually confident with the leverage position that we have there. We had a maturing EUR 500 million senior in January, which we funded by cash capital at the holding. I obviously am aware that we have around EUR 1 billion of tier two and EUR 750 million of tier one actually coming up in 2024 as well. You know, we will consider refinancing these notes, including the EUR 500 million senior in the context of optimizing our capital and leverage structure. We'll be looking at that obviously. Now on the ROE, we don't have an ROE target out there, given that we really focus on operating capital generation.
We also focus on kind of the mid-single digit growth guidance for the free cash flow. Those are really the main metrics that we also steer on. I'm to be honest, I couldn't really follow everything of your calculations on the ROE. I would suggest we probably take that offline with IR, then take you through some of the calculations that you've been making what we see there.
Well, let me rephrase the question 'cause I feel a bit sad that only one of my questions has been answered. You had EUR 1.7 billion of OCG in 2022, so whether on an adjusted or real basis, it's the same figure, more or less. You're targeting EUR 1.8 billion in 2025. That's a 2% implicit annual growth. That seems very, very low. Can you explain why you don't think you can do more?
That is more related then to the operating capital generation, rather than to the growth in there. What we see in terms of OCG and why we're still confident that we can have a long-term mid-single digit growth there, is we do still see growth in the European insurance business. We still see growth in the non-life business, and we also see some uplift in the banking business going forward. On the life business, there, the growth is obviously related to a large extent to market impact, and we also have a declining book there that's running off over time.
If we look at the OCG towards 2023, as we've alluded to a little bit earlier on the call, we would expect that growth in non-life Europe and then also the Bank from these levels would actually be able to compensate a little bit the market impact as we would have seen in the December levels and lead to a roughly flat OCG in 2023. Thereafter, as we continue to grow in specifically Europe, that would ultimately lead to a continued growth of OCG with the EUR 1.8 billion, the target that we have out there for 2025.
I'm really going to insist here. If you say mid-single digit growth, whether you start, if you start from EUR 1.7 billion, you'll get to EUR 1.8 billion within a year, not three years or not even two years, if we assume that EUR 1.7 billion is a 2023 number. This is the thing I can't quite reconcile. I'm saying it's positive. I don't doubt it, but I sense that you're not. It's not squaring. Mid-single digit doesn't square with EUR 1.8 billion is what I'm saying.
Well, the mid-single digit growth target long-term that we indicated at the investor update was related to the EUR 1.6 billion OCG that we had in 2021. At that investor update, we also gave an OCG target of EUR 1.8 billion for 2025. That was based on a couple of reasons. For non-life, we've seen some exceptionally strong 2021 levels where there were large COVID benefits in there, et cetera. We had to adjust for those, and we still see some growth in non-life, but that is gonna be more muted than we've expected before. For Europe, we do see growth. We take a bit the current economic environment into account, but we still do see growth going on there.
On the bank, we obviously in 2022 did see the impact coming through of lower commission impact. That actually had a lower growth in the 2022 year. On the life business, we're a bit dependent on markets, and we also know that that's a run of business. All those movements together led us to the investor update where we based on full year 2021 OCG set long-term, we would have a mid-single digit growth outlook. Towards 2025, we would have an OCG target of around EUR 1.8 billion.
Thank you for that. That's very clear.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Farquhar Murray from Autonomous. Please go ahead.
Morning, all. Just have two questions, if I may. Firstly, just on Non-life, you've taken a provision for inflation, but at the same time you seem quite confident you can price for inflation. I just wondered if you could square those for me. In particular, was the provision you took really just claims inflation in the second half of the year of 2022? Was it just the minimum wage and the bodily injury issues, or was it broader than that? If so, why take it? Secondly, just coming back to the asset liability management transaction in other, is there a cost in terms of OCG from that transaction at all? Thanks.
Hey, good morning, Farquhar. Annemieke.
Hi, Farquhar. Good morning. on the non-life bit, the there was this distinction between P&C and between D&A. on P&C, we did indeed take an additional provision for inflation. To be quite honest, we don't see it yet coming through in the claims, or hardly anything. We've also been able to reprice on P&C. given the more sticky level of inflation expected also going into the next year, out of prudency, we took a provision there for inflation. We have to see how that goes the coming year, and whether we need to uphold that provision or whether we would be able to price everything through there. That was really related to P&C.
If you look at the D&A business, there was a kind of indirect link to inflation because there, due to the inflation, the Dutch government increased minimum wages with 10%, which obviously is something that we immediately had to take on board in our in our assumptions. That was actually to a large extent also offset by some of the other assumptions that we took there that were not related to inflation. So that on the, on the two different inflation
Assumptions, going into the non-life business. On the ALM transactions that we did, they actually do not have an OCG, don't really have an OCG impact. You know, I said earlier, it was really related to the model adjustments that we've seen in the first half of the year and the end of 2021. Those combined with the market volatility really led to an economic interest position at H1, which was suboptimal. Throughout H2 we've been addressing that also in Q4. By addressing that economic interest rate position, you know, that also led to some increased solvency to duration, which actually from a market risk perspective was helpful. That in itself does not have an impact on the OCG.
Just as a follow-on question, was most of that transaction done after the investor day?
Yeah. Yes.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. We'll now take the next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Ashik Musaddi from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning. I just have a couple of questions. First of all, Annemieke, you mentioned that the next year OCG, 2023 OCG will be flat because on one hand, Non-life and Europe and bank will grow, but that will be offset by market, December market impact on Life business. I mean, if I'm not wrong, in December, interest rates went up, at the same time equity markets went higher. That should be positive for OCG, for Life business. Why would it be negative? Can we get some color as to what is offsetting factor in the Life business for the OCG? A second thing is you mentioned that, just a point of clarification, how do you think about dividend going forward?
Because if your OCG is growing by 2% for next three years, let's say your share count will reduce by 2%, are we talking about DPS growth of 2 plus 2, 4? Are we still sticking with the guidance of mid-single digit growth in normal dividend plus lower share count, say 7% DPS growth? The reason why I'm asking this is clearly, on one hand you have the long-term growth guidance of 5%, but at the same time for next three years, you have a growth guidance of just 2%. Just trying to square that up. Just related to that, just a point of clarification, is holding company cash of EUR 2.1 billion, you reckon appropriate?
Is that the number you need to hold or is it just because of the bottleneck of the sustainably above 200% solvency ratio? This is the reason why you're holding EUR 2.1 billion or would you say no, actually EUR 2 billion is the cash we need to hold at the holding company? Thank you.
Thank you, Ashik. Let me say a couple things on the dividend. Annemieke can cover the question on OCG and HoldCo cash. Our dividend guidance hasn't changed. We, what we said is that we expect up to 2030 OCG to grow mid-single digit. Of course, we have a target of EUR 1.8 billion. Our free cash flow, we said also for the coming years, we expect a mid-single digit growth and in fact it actually did a bit more than mid-single digit. Indeed on top of that you have the lower share count. Our guidance there hasn't changed. Annemieke, on the OCG outlook for 2023 and the HoldCo cash.
Yeah. On the outlook for 2023, yeah, I said we do believe that, you know, the underlying strength in Non-life and Europe and Bank, should be able to compensate the impact of markets on life. If you look at the markets on life, you also have to take into account that we did sell some equities, as I said, which was also part of the other bucket, in the second half of Solvency. We sold around EUR 400 million of equity. That also has an impact on the OCG going forward. We've seen some spread tightening on December markets. We've obviously also seen the impact on real estate valuations coming down.
Those impacts would lead to, if markets wouldn't change, a negative for life, but we expect that that would be compensated by non-life Europe and the bank. We would have a flat OCG with still some upside to have a higher OCG there coming out of those other three units. In terms of the cash capital buffer that we have, we don't hold that cash capital buffer related to the 200% solvency, if that's what your question is. We do hold it because on all the models that we run and in all the ORSA analysis that we do, we just need to have in various scenarios a cash capital buffer to cover the 1 in 20 shocks at the entities. I know some insurance companies hold that within the entities.
We hold that at the group. We always run those analysis of the 1 in 20 for the various entities, and that then leads to a cash capital requirement that fluctuates during the year. Historically over the last, you know, 2 years, EUR 2 billion, was the right number to also be within that, within that requirement. That's the reasoning for the cash capital, for the cash capital position.
Just to be clear on this cash capital, so if, let's say cash capital goes to EUR 1.7 billion, what does that mean? Does that mean that you're, you have shortage of capital?
If you look at the composition of the cash capital to a large extent, if that would go down, that would also impact the solvency position because it is capital.
Okay. Well, not necessarily because you might actually. It might be the case that subsidiaries has more capital and holding company has less cash. Your solvency will not change, but your holding company will have less cash. Does that still mean that you have less capital if holding company cash is EUR 1.7 billion? I guess what I'm trying to understand is what is the relevance or, I mean, do you need to hold EUR 2 billion at the holding company or is it just one in a 20-year event on a entire group basis is what is more important rather than just looking at one number of holding company cash?
I think it is looking at a 1 in 20 event shock for all underlying business units that should be able to be covered from a HoldCo perspective. If the solvency levels of the business units, which tend to fluctuate as we've seen, if they are at very high levels, then you would need less holding, less cash capital at the holding. If they are at subdued levels, you need more cash capital at the holding.
Yeah. Okay.
That fluctuates.
That makes sense. Yeah.
That fluctuates throughout the year. We typically look at a range there, what we need and what is sufficient to cover that.
Yeah. Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Benoît Pétrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Just a couple of questions on my side. First one will be just a follow-up on the mortgage spread modeling. Based on the current market spreads, what will be kind of the day one impact from model changes on the ratio? The second one is on the DPS growth of 12% this year, which is kind of pretty high also. Well, it's progressive, but it's quite high. Also in the context of a lower capital ratio. You know, you have 187% end of the year. I think you could argue you have a pro forma including real estate, down further, the buyback and maybe some technical items, you know, around the 186%.
How do you reconcile in a year where your capital is down, this strong DPS growth? Is that to reflect the strong OCG or do you expect maybe something positive we don't see for 2023? Then the last question will be on remittance outlook for 2023. Say you have a mid-single digit free cash flow growth. Can we expect 5% for 2023? What is the remittance outlook for Europe? I think for the rest of the businesses or life, non-life, it's quite clear, but what is the outlook for Europe? Thanks.
Yes. Thank you, Benoît, and good morning. Bernhard will cover the question on the mortgage-.
Sorry.
-spread, modeling, and Annemieke will cover the other questions on DPS growth and remittance outlook.
Yeah, Benoît, to start with, the impact, day one impact, again, it's very much depending on the, on the level. If it's about the volatility and the levels that we saw over the last half year, it's a few percentage points solvency up and down. End of the year, for example, would have been slightly negative. If I look at July where mortgage spreads widened a lot, and it was a few percentage points, then a positive impact on solvency. That is, I think, the order of magnitude that is a good indication for the impact.
Yeah. Referring to the dividend per share and which you kind of link to the Benoît, you kind of linked it to the more or less a forecast of solvency also for this year. If we look at the kind of year to date solvency, based on the strong underlying OCG result that we, you know, previously discussed and our expectations for that in 23, which is flat potentially with some upside, that should be broadly sufficient to cover the capital outflows of our regular return policy. It should also be able to cover further pressure on real estate that we would expect.
And then there are some of the smaller items such as growing into the countercyclical buffer at the bank and some typically 1% non-available loan funds at the European business, you know, all based on December markets other than having some additional pressure on real estate, as far as we know, that outlook would be broadly flat on solvency. With that in mind, if we, you know, we looked at the dividend, we have a progressive dividend per share policy, but I think we also indicated in the past that for the EUR 750 extraordinary buyback that we've been doing this year, you know, that would not be taken into the equation of the DPS.
We put out our dividend, and this year that actually leads to a higher dividend per share, growth of 12% because of the buyback that was included in there. That I think in terms of linking the dividend per share to actually the solvency outlook that we have. Talking about the remittance, the remittances outlook that we had, the full year 2022 remittance of EUR 1.4 billion, it's a strong remittance.
It is a bit elevated, mainly reflecting the one-off dividend of EUR 124 million that we see in there from the ABN AMRO Life transaction. That's then again partly offset a little bit to a bit lower dividend than we would have usually seen out of NN Re. Also for the European business, we would just be expecting a healthy remittance coming out of it. Net, net full year 22 seems a bit elevated still, largely because of this special dividend coming out of AAL. We are on track to deliver here on our mid-single digit free cash flow growth from the adjusted basis that we had in 21, the EUR 1.2 billion, as that contained all the COVID catch-up dividends, et cetera, towards 25, just as we explained on the investor update.
Great. Thank you. EUR 1.3 billion free cash flow 2023 will be a reasonable starting point.
That's for your calculations.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Anthony Yang from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you very much. Just two quick questions from me. The first one is on Insurance Europe. 'Cause I think, could you give us an update on the lapse experience from in-force business, please? 'Cause I think that's important for your OCG sustainability. The second question is just on the pension reform in the sector in Netherlands. Could you also give us some update on that, please, if that's still expected to happen from mid-year or from this year? Thanks.
Yes. Thank you, Anthony. On Insurance Europe, the retention of the portfolios, as I was saying, that is holding up well. The, I think all the efforts we've been putting in customer and good customer experience and good customer service and active reach out with distribution channels is also paying off. Therefore, we're positive on the development of Europe because you're right, the existing portfolios drive to a large extent the OCG. Combined with, you know, an increase of interest rates, and also some new business, positive new business development, the overall outlook for Europe is positive. We also set a target of EUR 450 million OCG for 2025.
Then, yeah, so Europe is well on track there. On the pension reform. Yeah, so the pension reform passed through the second chamber. It's now in the Dutch Senate. We will have elections in March, but so far the expectation is that unless we get a very adverse outcome, that also in the new, let's say after the elections, there would be a majority for this pension reform. It's still much more likely that this will happen than not. Questionable whether they will make this summer. There's also a good chance that it will actually start January 1, 2024. We are, in any case, well prepared. We're preparing products.
Whether it will start in the summer or in January 1, we are preparing, let's say, the products that fit the new pension reform. Overall, this is still a positive development for us.
Thanks, David. Can I just quickly follow up on that? I think it's just more medium or longer term. Considering you guided mid-single digit growth in OCG and cash, in the future, does that bake in some of the pipelines, if the pension reform happens or it doesn't include that?
Well, it for the short term, it was not included because we always assumed that this would be a reform that would take a while. Most important, there is a grace period of five years for pension funds actually to decide on what to do. The general expectation is that quite a few pension funds will need some time to make up their mind and then decide on where they're going to bring their new business and whether they will do a buyout or not. Short term, we didn't expect a lot of impact, maybe a bit more new business.
If you project it a few years out, we do expect an increase in, if all of this happens, in the number of buyouts, and also in a further increase of DC new business. The longer term outlook, that has been taken into account in the mid-single digit guidance that we have given. Depending on how it goes, there could be some upsides in there.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Steven Haywood from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you very much. On non-life business, obviously, there were a couple of, items you mentioned here. Can you give us a description of what the assumption changes in the D&A book were? Can you give us an indication of what sort of price increases, the level of price increases that you're putting through on the motor book on the P&C side is currently, whether you're seeing, consumers willing to accept these price increases? Definitely, just for my clarification on the dividend, can we link the nominal cost of the dividend?
The sort of mid-single digit growth expectations for free cash flow and OCG. Can you sort of link those two together? Thank you.
Thank you, Steven. Let me say a couple words on pricing for Non-life and then we can talk about the, some of the assumption changes and dividend related to mid-single digit growth of cash flow. I think in general, so far we've been able to adjust pricing, and the market has been, you know, accepting that. It hasn't led to a loss of market share. Motor combined ratios are a bit up in the market. On average, we have seen more price increases, let's say, on the motor side than on fire.
It's a bit complex to give an actual number because, you know, we are getting more and more sophisticated in underwriting and data analytics, so there's not a uniform premium increase. You probably need to think about mid single digit, sometimes high single digit type of increase for motor to offset some of the increased claim costs that we see. Fire, which is, you know, also an important book, is a bit more muted in terms of premium increases. That's also because the, let's say the performance of that book is going very well.
Overall, we still see from a product view, also from a distribution view, whether it's mandated agents or broker business or a bank business, we see a healthy development of the non-life, including the ability to reprice to offset some of the upward pressure on expenses. Annemieke, on the D&A assumption changes in dividend.
Yeah. On the D&A assumption changes, that's really a mixed bag of a whole lot of parameters that got updated related to the run of results, also related to some expense handling assumptions, et cetera. It's a mixed bag there. On dividend, can you maybe repeat your question there, Steven? Because I think we failed to pick it up here.
Sorry. I was just trying, to, you know, sort of link the nominal dividend cost, to the mid-single digit growth target, and whether that's the best way to think about your dividend progression going forward.
Well, we've given a free cash flow mid-single digit growth target. In terms of the dividend per share, we've also said that that would be progressive. I think historically it has been, including the EUR 250 buybacks that we've done. I think it has been more around the mid-single digit range there in terms of a DPS per share as well.
Okay.
Yeah, maybe. Sorry, Steve, maybe to add there. We always said mid-single digit growth of progressive dividend, and then a share buyback would come on top of that. That's for if you would do a dividend or a DPS, if you would look at it per share. I think in general, you know, when you're thinking about linking the nominal dividend cost to the growth target, I think is a good way to think about it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Dominic O'Mahony from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hello, folks. Thanks for taking questions. I just have two really very specific ones left, actually. The first is just looking at slide 22, and the EUR 500 million senior note that was repaid in January. I think I heard you say that you would consider refinancing that. Is there anything to stop you refinancing that with capital or do you have a strong view that that should be refinanced with senior? The second question is very, very specific. What was the real estate decline that you processed in your mark-to-market in H2? Thank you.
Thank you, Dominic. Annemieke.
On the refinancing, you know, as said, we're confident with the leverage position that we had at full year. We did, you know, repay that EUR 500 million senior. We'll look at refinancing the senior plus the maturities coming up for the tier one and the tier two next year. You know, we'll look at that whole package and then consider what the best way is in terms of optimizing our capital and leverage structure. In terms of the real estate decrease, in the second half of the year, we saw around 6% in terms of revaluations on real estate.
That's great. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. This is from the line of Jason Kalamboussis from ING. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. More follow-up questions on the non-bank side, you have a combined ratio that was 95.4%. How much in there is for the different elements, so that we have the underlying one?
The underlying one. Before inflation and, if you could, give us the numbers, that would be great. If the underlying is around 94%, which my understanding, this is a great combined ratio. Do you find there that, for example, compared to the comments earlier on that, you know, the 2021 basis was very good due to COVID, but then, you know, your 94 underlying is great. I don't see exactly why, you know, you're saying that, you know, your targets have to take into account that the starting base is in 2021 was very high, whereas you're doing great on an underlying basis on the Non-life because you specifically mentioned the Non-life. The second question is around Japan.
I mean, I appreciate you cannot comment a lot, but you have had already, in a certain way, two accidents in four years. Do you find that if you get a third accident, it would be probably a good time to call it a day and probably reconsider an exit of Japan? The third question is just to understand comments that Annemieke made on the cash. You said that historically, you have always been looking over the last two years at a EUR 2 billion cash balance as being, you know, covering for the 1 in 20 shocks, et cetera. You know, two years ago, it was more like EUR 1.5 billion.
I just curious to understand, is it something that you brought in and you said, "Okay, no, actually we need to be higher." Was there any difference in how it was viewed? Or maybe I misunderstood something there. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Jason. Annemieke will take the question on cash and the, say, the underlying of non-life. Let me respond to Japan and first briefly on non-life. I mean, you are right, the underlying trend is very healthy. Please keep in mind, yeah, we think that our OCG is around, would be now around on a more normalized base around EUR 300 million, but we also still have to grow further to EUR 325 million. We do see more upside also in the non-life on the back of the attractive combined ratio that we see, but also some business growth and some other elements that give us a positive outlook for non-life.
Still in line with our guidance of 93-95, which is an, you know, an improved guidance versus the 94-96 that we had. On Japan, I'm not really sure what you mean with two accidents or three accidents. I think we, if you look at our history in Japan, I think we're, we've been there for 37 years. So we've been there for a very long time. It's a very attractive business for us because it gives us the opportunity to deploy, let's say, at least EUR 100 million of capital. And we've been making an IRR of 14% and on the protection products, at times even higher. Payback period of 6 years. So deploying a significant amount of capital against these returns is not something we can easily do in other markets.
Also, we have a number one , number two position in the corporate life space, which is also quite unique because it takes a lot of time and knowledge to build up distribution capabilities that enable security houses, banks and brokers to actually sell corporate life products. Therefore, that's why I think we've also been so successful over a long period because it's not a model easy to copy.
Overall, yeah, despite, let's say, the FSA announcement, we're still on track to deliver the EUR 125 million of OCG, and Japan remains an attractive business for us by itself, but also from a diversification perspective between Japan and some of the other businesses that we have in the Group. Let me give it over to Annemieke.
Yeah. On your question, on the cash capital position, I think it has been around EUR 2 billion for quite a while now. I think historically we've guided around a EUR 1.5 billion more or less requirement for 1 in 20 shock. That was obviously based at a slightly higher underlying solvency ratios also for the main entity of life. Plus the 1 in 20 shocks that we currently run, they just require a bit more capital. So to that extent, I don't think the actual end position has changed a lot with the EUR 2 billion versus last year and also, probably during last year or 2021. We feel comfortable with that.
Thank you.
On the non-life, if you could give us the elements, that are, you know, the exceptionals in the second half in the combined ratio?
Yeah.
Are they in euros or quantified? It's correct that the underlying is 94%, so that we have 1.4 percentage points in there, for the two.
Yeah. We don't, we have not fully disclosed that, and we don't give out all the separate elements there. I think what we've said on the non-life is that there are several one-offs in there, you know, that relate to both the inflation top up as well as hardening of the reinsurance market. On the D&A side, we've also seen some minimum wage impact, and we've also seen the positive impact of some changes in modeling and assumptions. We look at the combined ratio, as you said, it's 95.4%. That was the reported combined ratio. We now give the guidance that we feel that underlying, that would be around 94%. Thank you very much both.
Thank you. We'll now take our final question. Please stand by. The last question is from Michele Ballatore from KBW. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. The first question is on real estate. What you model is based on a market benchmark, or is it related to your own book of portfolio or real estate assets? The second question is from the contribution of the business in CE, so the one you acquired from MetLife, and what are the developments, the key developments there? Thank you.
Thank you, Michele. Let me start with the contribution of MetLife and Annemieke can give more background on the valuation of real estate. We're very pleased with the progress of the MetLife acquisition. We're beyond day two. The day one obviously being the start of the integration and onboarding of people and distribution channels. We've done the legal merger both in Poland and in Greece. It really strengthened our position in Poland to number three, in Greece number one, which is very helpful to strengthen your purchasing power when you're dealing with a lot of hospitals and medical providers. The sales forces of MetLife are already selling NN products.
We earlier, we disclosed as a target that we set EUR 50 million uplift of OCG in 2024 and another EUR 10 million additional expense synergies pre-tax coming through in the Solvency II balance sheet. It's very clear that we're delivering on that. The deal is immediately accretive and, you know, we're very confident that we will make also these targets that we set on the integration of MetLife. Because the integration is just running well. On real estate, Annemieke.
Yeah. On real estate, the expectations that we gave, they're actually based on our own portfolio rather than on a benchmark. You know, I think it's fair to say that in our own portfolio, it's a European portfolio, but we're underweight to U.K., we're overweight to Dutch residential, and we're underweight offices. As well as our portfolio has a relatively low leverage. That's kind of that composition, geographically and also in terms of content, where we have quite a large chunk of industrial, predominantly logistics. We have a bit of residential, and as I said, lower offices than regular. That's the basis of that, of that forecast.
Thank you.
Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference back to Mr. David Knibbe for closing remarks.
Yes. Thank you, operator. I think, yeah, for us, in summary, we've shown a very solid underlying performance of our business units, deriving strong OCG growth. We've seen very resilient commercial performance. We maintained a strong balance sheet. We saw an opportunity to optimize also our hedging and support our ratio. This is translated in a DPS growth of 12% and the announcement also of a new buyback. We also continue to expect that over time, our OCG will grow, and that will support also our Solvency II ratio for the coming years, which is of course positive for the potential of capital returns. With that, let me close off and thank you very much for all your questions in the discussion and have a good day.
Thank you. This does conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.