Ladies and gentlemen, good day. Welcome, dear shareholders, dear friends. I'm very pleased to welcome you today at the Salle Pleyel for the General Meeting. It is an important moment in the life of a company. This is the moment which allows, each year, shareholders, directors, and the senior leadership to meet. More precisely, this is the moment that allows the senior leadership to set out its strategy, the Board to report about its work, and shareholders to raise the questions which they care for. For this important moment, I am surrounded by Thomas Buberl, the CEO, and Frédéric de Courtois, Deputy CEO. Dear shareholder friends, I would like to thank you for your presence and your loyalty.
Also, I would like to salute the presence in the front row of the Members of the Board, whom I thank now for their commitment and their active contribution to the work of our Board. By the way, I'd like to say a few words about the occurrences this year in our Board. First of all, to remind you that Ramon de Oliveira, who was the director of your company for over 16 years, decided not to request the reappointment. He will be leaving this Board at the end of this meeting. During the years that he spent with us, Ramon de Oliveira turned out to be a very mindful and committed director. He always put his in-depth knowledge of the U.S. market and his financial expertise to serve the Board and, more widely, the AXA Group.
On behalf of all the Board members, I would like to express my sincere gratefulness, and I wish him the best for the future. Besides, we are welcoming Ewout Steenbergen , who succeeded Rachel Duan several months ago, and Ewout will provide us with his solid experience of insurance, his digital experience, as well as his good knowledge of the United States, something that will be useful given the current context. We will now proceed with the preliminary formalities as we open this session and make sure we have this registration committee appointed. First of all, there are non-shareholders being present in the room. Our general session is a public meeting, and besides that, it will be broadcast directly and indirectly on our internet, axa.com. This General Meeting is convening on first notice today.
It was convened thanks to legal provisions through a notice of meeting published on the 28th of February, 2025, in the Bulletin des Annonces Légales Obligatoires, and through a notice of meeting published in the same bulletin on the 26th of March, as well as in the legal announcement journal, Les Affiches Parisiennes, on the 26th of March. I have just been informed that the meeting can be formally held in its ordinary and extraordinary form. Let me read now the interim quorum which allows to hold this meeting. 1,563,998,939 shares are represented today, and these shares represent themselves 1,930,738,728 votes, which gives us a quorum at 72.46%. I will let you know the final quorum before we vote resolutions once all the shares of the present or shareholders' proxies have been totaled. The general combined meeting will take place now.
I will now proceed with the formation of the Registration Committee. I will be Chair of this session in my capacity as the Chair of the Board, and I call scrutineers the two shareholders who have, on their own and as proxies of the largest number of votes, that is the company AXA Assurances IARD Mutuelle, represented by Mr. Philippe Guérand, director of that company, duly entitled, and also the company AXA Assurances Vie Mutuelle, represented by Mr. Benoît Soury, Director of that company, and also duly eligible. Mr. Gu é rand and Soury have let us know in advance that they accepted the roles of scrutineers if they were offered to them, which is the case. I thank them for their agreement. I propose that be appointed as secretary of the meeting, Mr. Frédéric de Courtois. The meeting panel is now formed.
Let me inform this session of the presence of Mr and Mrs. Carnagoré, bailiff appointed on request of the company, who will be charged to acknowledge the due process of this session. The auditors that were convened in accordance with the law by registered office are present here. It is Mr. Patrick Menard, Olivier Durand, who represents Ernst & Young Audit, and Mr. Antoine Esquieu and Pierre Planchon, who represent KPMG SA. Lastly, I'm making available to this session all the legal documents. Additionally, the shareholders who so requested have received the documents and information as per the law or were able to read it in the registered office or on the internet website of the company within the time framework as per regulations. Let's now, and sorry for these formalities which are maybe tedious but necessary, let's now come to the simplified agenda.
We are meeting today in a combined General Meeting so that you approve 29 resolutions. I suggest that we take as read in extenso the agenda. You can read now the simplified form of it, which is up on the screen behind me. I suggest that we also let go of the reading of the reports of the budget that was made available to you and the legal conditions. This will allow us to have more time for the presentation as well as to answer your questions. Let me point out that as for previous sessions, we'll be using electronic voting, whose modalities will be explained before we vote the various resolutions. Before we delve in the votes of the resolutions, we help you to carry out your powers as shareholders. A few words about the conduct of our meeting.
As I said, the General Meeting is a strong moment in the year which allows us to make sure there is a good alignment between the senior management of the company, the Board Members, and shareholders. For this, we suggest several sequences which will allow you first to listen to Mr. Thomas Buberl, who will present the strategic outlook of the Group, and Frédéric de Courtois, who will be outlining our KPIs. After that, we will hold a round table on the topic of the insurance today and tomorrow, given the context of the 40th Anniversary of our Group. This round table will allow us to gauge how much all the work we have done for this period and the major challenges tomorrow, given the increase in the risk and the changes, mainly technological ones, that upend our company.
This we will see before a small video that will be going over these 40 years which marked the existence of AXA. The third sequence will be dedicated to governance with a presentation by Guillaume Faury, Chair of the Governance and Sustainable Development Committee, as well as with the reports of the secretary auditors. We will open up to the Q&A session that are so important to allow us to understand properly your expectations and queries, especially given geo-economic and geopolitical context, which is uncertain nowadays. I was referring several moments ago to the 40 years of AXA when the company was formed by Claude Bébéar in 1985. We were living in a different world. That was before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
At the time when the world seemed to be fairly in order, where natural catastrophes were rare, where cyber risks didn't exist, today everything seems to be upended. It is on this new context that I would like to stop before I turn it over to Thomas Buberl for the strategy of the Group, as it comes out clearly from the last edition of our report on the future risk. Today, we are facing a sharp increase of the overall general level of risk with two new trends. Firstly, the simultaneous worsening of the major risk, especially geopolitical risk, economic risk, and climatic risk, and after that, their strong interconnection with risks that are self-feeding. As we are talking about risk, I'd like to say a few words about the climate risk. Today, climate risk is concealed by the political risk, but it still exists more than ever.
This is the reason why AXA decided to confirm, without any qualification, its climate-related strategy and even speed it up because the cost of not acting far exceeds the cost of adapting. It is felt that one euro invested into adaptation represents EUR 8 of less in damage. You will have the possibility of asking questions about this in the latter part of our meeting when we come back to the Q&A session. Beyond that very strong commitment to fight against climate imbalance, I would like to say that AXA appears today as a center of stability and performance. 2024 turned out to be a year of very strong growth, not only of our revenues but also of our earnings, and the Group is solidly equipped to continue to grow.
Even though the environment is deteriorating, such solidity of our Group and its level of performance are not owing anything to accident. This is the result of the in-depth transformation of the Group and the reduction of our exposure to risks, financial risks that was led this year by Thomas Buberl. Today, what we need is stability and continuity. For this reason, the Board has decided yesterday to propose the reappointment of Thomas Buberl as a Director at the next Annual General Meeting and then to renew him as CEO so that he can continue the action that he kicked in. As you know, Thomas is only the third top leader of our Group in the past 40 years. Claude Bébéar has headed AXA for 17 years and Ulrike Decoene for 16 years.
At AXA, we know that insurance is a long-term business and that action has to be part of that long-termness. This very strong conviction has led the Board to consider unanimously to offer the reappointment of AXA in 2026 would be the best decision to be taken. By extending his term of office, this decision will help him without any further ado to work on the strategic plan in 2027 and beyond. The world is moving quickly. No time to waste. We have to prepare ourselves to the challenges that come. Dear shareholder friends, a moment ago, I was underlining the excellent results for 2024. These earnings are the result of a very strong commitment of the Group as a whole. Before I turn it over to Thomas Buberl, I'd like to thank him and his team for the work that they have carried out.
My thanks also go to all the AXA teams in France and around the world. They also are intended to my director colleagues who were strongly involved in the life of the Board and have always been available when we requested that from them. I also thank you all, dear shareholders, for your trust. Constantly renewed. I will now hand it over to Thomas Buberl, who will present the strategic prospects of our Group.
Thank you, Antoine, and good day, everyone. I'm very pleased to meet you all again for this new shareholders' meeting of your company. I will start with a review of the strategic outlook for the AXA Group. 2024 was of significant importance for AXA, as it showed the kicking off of our new strategic plan, "Unlock the Future," which was presented to you last year in this same venue.
For this first year of implementing this plan, which aims at fostering our growth and expansion, AXA has delivered outstanding performance, which reflects the relevance of our strategy in a more and more unstable environment. Despite these tough conditions, AXA was able to maintain its performance levels. We remain strongly committed towards our clients, i.e., a commitment which is bolstered by our performance being delivered and our ability to meet the current challenges out there. AXA is celebrating its 40 years of existence this very year. Now, the key role played by an insurance company has never been as strong in a world which is characterized by high volatility and growing risks and perils of all types. We are determined to reinvent our services. We are determined to meet the new challenges and needs of our clients and to enable them to thrive in these very uncertain contexts and environments.
Now, let me go into some more detail of the key performance indicators. The growth of our revenue was 8% in fiscal 2024. Revenue reached EUR 110 billion, which is a record level for the AXA Group and which represents an increase of EUR 8 billion of gross return premiums compared with 2023. Now, this organic growth originates partly in a price effect as well as a strong business momentum which enabled us to increase the number of contracts and clients in many markets. Now, this good performance also builds upon the high degree of satisfaction of our existing customers and clients, as well as our ability to gain new targets, including micro and auto or self-employed auto entrepreneurs. Our underlying earnings have reached a record level, increasing by 7% to reach, for the first time, EUR 8.1 billion. This is the result of a strong pricing discipline.
This is the result of a high diversification of our risk portfolio, and it is also the result of better underwriting business. Now, these underlying earnings per share have increased by 8%, which is positioned in the top of the bracket of our guidance, which was in between 6%-8%. I would like to emphasize the fact that we have posted very strong growth in our net profit up 11%. Our balance sheet is very robust, with a solvency ratio, with a solvency to ratio being maintained at a high level at 216%. Given these excellent results, the Board of Directors of AXA Group carries that the dividend should be EUR 2.15 per share to the shareholders in meeting, up 9% over last year.
The Board also approved a new share buyback program in the amount of a maximum of EUR 1.2 billion, which was started on the 28th of February 2025. Now, AXA Group is thus very well positioned to reach its key financial goals in the context of its Unlock the Future strategic plan. I will now go into the detail of this performance by business line. Now, as I told you, our revenue increased sharply. We are having this very strong momentum across all lines of business. In P&C, revenues reached EUR 56.5 billion, up 7%. This growth originated both in commercial lines, which grew by 6%, as well as personal lines, up 7%. In life insurance, our revenues reached EUR 34.5 billion, up 9%. The health insurance business also showed outstanding momentum and dynamics, with revenues up 8%.
Thus, our revenues increased strongly across all our geographies, i.e., up 7% in France, up 6% in Europe, and up 15% in the emerging markets. Frédéric de Courtois will be reviewing the performance by business line in some more detail. Now, these numbers illustrate the relevance of our strategy and our ability to offer our policyholders those offerings and services which are the most adapted and most suited to their protection needs, be it in the field of insurance and/or prevention. Now, the business model which has helped us deliver this good performance is the result of the transformational process which AXA started a bit more than 10 years ago. Your Group today has been refocused on its core business, i.e., the insurance business.
Your Group now is equipped with very robust positions in those markets where we operate, and your Group benefits from an appropriate equilibrium between commercial lines and personal lines. Thanks to these strong fundamentals, we have successfully generated organic growth across all our lines of business and across all of our geographies, as I mentioned a minute ago. Now, I would like to share with you some successes which I'm very proud of. We are now the leading operator in the commercial insurance market, serving all types of businesses, large and small, large corporations, as well as SMEs, knowing that SMEs play a key role in our economic fabric. For a little while, we've been introducing new products and services which are well adapted to the micro and auto entrepreneurs to also gain new business in these fields, thanks to our inclusive insurance program.
We also are very well positioned on the protection segments, on the employee benefit segment, among others, which has been growing very steadily. Finally, in Japan and in Hong Kong, we hold historically strong positions in the protection and health insurance segments. Now, artificial intelligence has been a powerful instrument serving our insurance business, especially in the way we have been managing risks, as it has enabled us to build up advanced and sophisticated models which can anticipate perils and threats and simulate scenarios of crisis in real time. Over time, artificial intelligence will bolster the effectiveness and efficiency of our employees by letting them use large volumes of data which we've been collecting in our business units, but which we are not using and utilizing well enough. It will also enable us to focus on those high added value tasks and activities which require human intelligence.
Now, AXA placed innovation and artificial intelligence at the core of its new strategic plan, Unlock the Future, which was presented in the early part of 2024. Now, incorporating AI into our operations will help us better serve and support our clients and our employees in order to strengthen our market positions. AXA today has been engaging more than 2,000 experts, including a bit more than 900 data scientists and data engineers. We have identified more than 400 use cases, use cases involving data and AI solutions across the business units of the Group, covering all of the insurance value chain. AXA has been incorporating AI capabilities, including in large language models, those LLMs, into its operations with some special initiatives, such as making sure that AXA Secure GPT is being made available to more than 154,000 employees of the AXA Group.
Moreover, we've been developing use cases for processing claims, for underwriting, and for interacting with our clients and customers. In a context where environmental risks and perils keep growing and changing, AXA has been exploring innovative solutions to improve the safety and security and minimizing perils and threats, including by using AI and geospatial technology, which has helped combating forest fires, among others, via the AXA Digital Commercial Platform, which was recently introduced. By strategically incorporating AI into our operations, AXA Group has aimed to position itself as an innovative leader in the insurance industry as an operator which is ready to meet any types of challenge while improving customer and client experience and risk control and management. We are placing the efficiency of AXA at the service of all of our stakeholders.
Right from its inception some 40 years ago, AXA is determined to share equitably and fairly the added value generated by its operations. We have paid back more than EUR 50 billion of compensation to our policyholders last year. We've been investing more than EUR 30 billion each and every year in the economies. Last year, we have paid out more than EUR 13 billion of taxes, levies, duties, and social charges, including 36% of those in France only. We have returned some EUR 4.7 billion of dividend to our shareholders, compensating them for their support to our corporate strategy. Now, with respect to our employees, we are paying EUR 9.2 billion in compensation and bonuses. As I already said, our employees are the key assets in ensuring our success, and we have been engaged in a dynamic recruitment policy, by the way.
AXA remains the first insurance company to have received for the second year running the certification which certifies that all of our employees have been getting compensation higher than the local decent pay, i.e., a level of compensation which is sufficient to pay for the essential needs of a household. This certification is the result of in-depth discipline work which was carried out last year across all of our countries with the support of an independent organization which is affiliated with the United Nations and which is called Fair Wage Network, quote unquote. Our ambition goes beyond this certification because AXA Group committed to providing to all of its employees a cash compensation package which will be at least equivalent to 110% of the local vital pay level by the end of 2026.
Now, this commitment, which fosters an inclusive and supportive corporate culture across the entire world, comes as an addition to the program called We Care, quote unquote, as well as other types of compensation and employee benefits which are provided at the local level. Also, some 30% of our employees are shareholders of the AXA Group, and the employee shareholding scheme is a major scheme of AXA, has always been right from its inception, with our employees being one of the key shareholder groups in the AXA Group, holding more than 4% of capital stock and more than 6% of voting rights, which enables our employees to express their voices and to fully contribute to corporate strategy. Now, as I told you already, this year we'll be celebrating our 40th Anniversary.
These 40 years of service have been a great adventure, which was buoyed up by a spirit of boldness and innovation, with our mission of protecting people and property, which stemmed from an action to serve human progress. As a responsible civic-minded company, we keep claiming and maintaining our commitment towards our clients and customers, as well as towards societies and communities at large. I would like to pay a true and sincere tribute to my predecessors, Claude Bébéar and Henri de Castries, for this unique heritage that I strive to continue, and I have been trying to do so for the last nine years.
Now, the exceptional, outstanding story and history of AXA also builds upon the engagement, dedication, professionalism, and bold action of our employees and agents across the world, which have been contributing day in, day out to the social and economic impact of the AXA Group. It is important that we recognize them, and we are doing so through our shareholding program called Sharep lan, which was started in 1993 and which every year was rolled out, making it possible for AXA Group employees to become shareholders of AXA at preferred terms and conditions.
For this 40th anniversary, we'll be beefing up our Sharep lan offering, which is subject to your vote, of course, as every year, and we'll be adding an exceptional matching contribution, which will offer to beneficiaries up to 20 free shares for any 20 shares subscribed by the beneficiaries, provided that the French AMF Stock Authority approves the scheme and that the social partners approve this. Employees will have the opportunity to receive a total of 40 shares for 20 shares that they will have subscribed to at a discounted price. This initiative will recognize and reward our teams for contributing to the success of our Group while strengthening the community of the employee shareholders. AXA Group is also a dedicated player to serve and support its clients and customers for the last 30 years.
We are continually changing and modifying our contracts to meet their expectations and their needs at best and to best support them in the face of new needs and challenges and societal challenges. I would like to mention two examples. In 2024, we launched the so-called Green Insurance Cover, which has made the assistance to energy renovation expenses mainstream to all of our policyholders. In the last few weeks, to protect the greater number, the cover policy of our home insurance contract in France has changed, as we've recently included a legal and psychological support system, as well as a scheme to provide emergency rehousing in the event of domestic violence, because our role and vocation of an insurance company is to protect households and those living in those households.
For the last 40 years, AXA has continually reinvented itself and its businesses in order to best adapt to the key changes in our world. By incorporating digital solutions and advanced technology, we have been anticipating emerging risks and perils while making sure we strive for a safer and more sustainable future. In the face of climate change, we have continued to develop preventative actions. We have been developing offerings, helping our clients to adapt, be they individuals and businesses, and we've been maintaining investments towards transition and its factors and players. Similarly, we have extended inclusive insurance to the European market players. We want to protect more than 20 million clients with this inclusive insurance business by 2026 across the world.
In parallel to these commitments, the program called AXA Atout Cœur in French, which is called AXA Hearts in Action in English, testifies to our desire to actively contribute to the communities by bolstering and supporting local initiatives and by fostering the support and help and assistance provided to these communities. Now, we also wish that our employees be active participants in these changes, and our goal is that 50% of our employees can be pro bono volunteers in grassroots organizations being supported by this Hearts in Action program by 2026. In 2024, some 40% of employees were pro bono volunteers supporting these grassroots organizations. In this period of time, which has growing doubts on the social and environmental roles of businesses, it is key to recall that at the AXA Group, these values are deeply rooted into our DNA and into our history.
The societal and environmental challenges we are facing today will only be strengthening our dedication and commitment to take responsible and sustainable action to support this. In the face of the current challenges, we will resolutely continue in our mission. To us all, the cost of inaction, of not taking action, is higher than the cost of adapting to these changes. Altogether, I'm confident that we will keep reinforcing our social and environmental ro les at AXA. Thank you for your attention.
I'd like to thank Thomas for this very comprehensive presentation. Without any further ado, I will ask Frédéric de Courtois to introduce to you the performance of Fiscal Year 2024.
Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, good day. I will tell you more about the financial and extra-financial performance of AXA. I will start with the performance of our four main business lines.
Thomas reminded that revenue 2024, EUR 110 billion, a record, an 8% growth, and this revenue is made up of a very good performance in our four business lines. The first business line is the P&C business. You will recall that it represents nearly half of AXA's revenues. Total of premiums up by 7%, and such growth was driven not only by the good performance of commercial lines, but also due to the personal lines. Commercial lines sharply higher, as I said, by 6%, and commercial insurance, if you stick to it, 2/3 of our revenues, 50% P&C, out of which two-thirds for insuring companies, and 6% growth, highly balanced. Balanced on the one hand between the growth of large corporations with AXA XL, and also the growth of SMEs and smaller ones with all our companies.
It's a balanced growth as well between higher prices on the one hand and client gains about 3% each. In addition, I'd like to point out again, but that's very important, the excellent performance of AXA XL, which remains this year with AXA France, the second profitability engine for the Group. In the personal lines, that represents one-third of the P&C, good growth of 7%. Such growth is supported, first of all, by price-related steps in Germany and in the U.K., aiming at turning around the technical profitability of our portfolios, but as well due to client gains in the markets where we decided to grow, essentially France, Italy, Switzerland, and emerging markets. 50% of our P&C in our premiums, the second 50% is the life and health business.
The second business line I would like to focus on is the life business, which is a business line, I said this last year, which is strategic for us, with premiums up by 9%, driven by rising contracts in unit-linked accounts for 18%, as well as more contracts in euros, with a rise of 15%. Strong growth of protection as well, thanks to the momentum in the Japanese and Swiss markets. Now, in the life-related insurance, which is our third business line, which is very strategic for us, premiums are up by 8%, chiefly due to favorable price effects across our markets, as well as due to the growth of premiums as regards employee benefits insurance.
Now, if we look at the net new cash, that is premiums minus outflows, it stands at EUR 1.5 billion, mainly up thanks to the protection business in Hong Kong, in Japan, in France, as well as thanks to the health business in Germany, in Japan, and in France. To end with regard to our businesses, a few words about asset management now. Revenue of the asset management is rising by 8% at EUR 1.7 billion, thanks mainly to the increase of our asset average volume and the management and a favorable product mix. Now, about this asset management, again, as you know, we announced the disposal of AXA AM to AXA IM on the 2nd of August. We signed the disposal contract last December. The process is following through.
The transaction is undergoing to the EU and authorizations, regulations, etc., in order to be closed around the end of the second quarter 2025. Pertaining to the profitability of our business now, as you know, the insurance is a complicated business. It's one of the rare businesses where more earnings does not mean more income. The beauty of our 2024 earnings is that growth was profitable. We were able to grow our volumes together with margins that are quite decent. Our underlying earnings, as Thomas said, is exceeding for the first time EUR 8 billion, up by 7%. It can be accounted for, first of all, by the underlying earnings of the P&C business, up by 10% at EUR 5.5 billion, related to our operational and technical excellence.
To be more specific, the increase is driven by the growth in revenues and the P&C, the quality of our underwritings, which translates in a beautiful combined ratio, which is a key factor for us, which is the claims and the expenses divided by premiums, and the combined ratio reaches the excellent level of 91%. The third element is the increase in our investment income, both through the thanks to the skills of our team and also thanks to higher interest rates. Now, regarding the life savings and pension and health business, the second 50%, the underlying earnings are by 4%, and it stands at EUR 3.3 billion. That rise is fully aligned with our expectations and reflects mainly the recovery of the technical margin of our business in health in the U.K.
We dealt with this very well, so very sharp increase in the U.K. in terms of the health business. Now, the financial structure and the profitability of our shareholders' equity. Now, shareholders' equity stands at EUR 49.9 billion. They are increasing income minus dividend and buybacks of shares. Now, the underlying profitability of our equity stands at 15.2%, up by 0.3 percentage points, driven mainly by the rise of the underlying earnings that I commented just before. Now, the cash remittance, the cash in the holding in our accounts stands at EUR 4 billion, with the cash remittance organically from our subsidiaries amounting to EUR 7.1 billion, which is an excellent performance and allows to pay the dividend and do mainly share buybacks with a number of other investments. Now, to conclude, our Group is extremely solid financially. How does all this reflect and translate for the shareholders?
One significant aspect of our equity capital management policy and how we manage our earnings is striking a good balance between paying our shareholders and how we fund our growth. You also notice that our growth is very strong and even gain momentum. To finance that growth, we need equity capital to bolster it. If we now look at our earnings, we allocate 25% of our earnings to organic growth finance. We are financing it. We allocate 75% to our shareholders in the form of dividends on the one hand at 60% and through share buybacks, which represent 15%. All of this accounts, it is a math calculation. All of this accounts for the dividend of EUR 2.15, which represents a 9% increase, as well as the buyback program scheduled for 2025, amounting at EUR 1.2 billion.
To finish off on all of this, we announced and confirmed that we will have a share buyback at EUR 3.8 billion that will be launched once the sale of AXA IM has been finalized to compensate the dilutive effect on our earnings of our disposal of that particular asset. On the next page, just simply the state of our results compared to the targets of the plan, you can see that we are aligned with the main financial targets of the plan. All of this allows me as well to confirm that we are very well positioned to hit the main financial targets of our plan in 2025 and 2026. Now, a topic which is very interesting for you, which is the performance of the share. Despite the turmoil in the last few weeks, we are satisfied with our performance since January 2025.
See that the growth of the AXA share with dividend reinvested since January 2025 amounts to over 110%. What is even more important is that we outperformed. You can see it on these graphs: the CAC 40, the STOXX Insurance, the MSCI World, as well as the Euro Stoxx 50, which are the four indices that we track in particular. All of this is not the result of accident; it is due also to a good financial and extra-financial performance of AXA. A good strategy, well implemented, I would say. To end, I would like to spell out our extra-financial performance. I said last year that we can improve only what you can measure. We launched, therefore, in 2021, the AXA for Progress Index. This page is a bit complicated. I will try to be as clear as possible.
This index allows us to track several indicators, which testify to our commitments for the environment and society at large. There are three categories. The first one is our so-called insurance, which is our core business. We contribute as an insurer here. You see that we obtained in 2024, EUR 2.1 billion of premiums promoting climate transition. These premiums include assets and activities we contribute to mitigating climate change, to circular economy, and to biodiversity. We also include in these figures all the personal insurance that covers, for example, electric vehicles, renewables for domestic use, also the Green Insurance Cover mentioned by Thomas Buberl. Here it is to achieve EUR 6 billion accrued by 2026. Now, the second factor, the solutions provided to our corporate clients about services and adjustments to climate changes. Notice that in 2024, we want to propose over 9,000 of these solutions until 2026.
The second element, and Thomas mentioned it, is what we call the inclusive insurance, which started in emerging countries and extended recently across Europe, especially among which is France, and recovering today in 17.4 million clients with the ambition of reaching 20 million in 2026. The second category is AXA as an investor. We are a large investor, obviously, and there again, our goals are very clear. First of all, our goal is to invest at least EUR 5 billion per annum into a climate transition. In 2024, we widely exceeded this by investing EUR 7 billion. Alongside this, we wish to invest even more into the resilience of communities, and our goal is EUR 500 million per year, and we reached EUR 1.3 billion last year. We are quite widely beyond our targets. The third chapter is AXA as a responsible corporation.
First of all, we launched a new training program dedicated to the change to climate change for our employees, which is called the Sustainability Academy, and 80,000 of our people will be trained by 2026. The program was kicked off this year and will give the first figures updated next year. In addition, we wish also, and Thomas mentioned it, that our employees be actors of change, lead change. We want that we have an ever larger number of them be involved in AXA too. Today, 40% are, and the aim is to reach 50% in 2026 on the basis, of course, on voluntary service. All these topics, and I insist because the context is complicated, all these topics are ever more important for us, and it seemed important to me to spend some time on this extra-financial performance. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you, Frédéric. As we told you earlier, I suggest we watch a video showing the first 40 years of AXA's existence, and this short video will be followed by a panel session with AXA experts, and Nadia Charbit, a journalist, will be moderating this panel session, the topic being 40 years of bold action to innovate for the future. Let's watch the video.
[Foreign language]
Bonjour. Hello, my name is Nadia Charbit. I'm a journalist. I'll be moderating this session. It will be my great pleasure to do that for this shareholders' meeting of 2025 under the title being 40 years of bold action innovating for the future.
In this video, indeed, the first 40 years of AXA were bold actions which made it a global insurance company, an international corporation, and a French success model. This boldness builds upon senior leaders who are attentive to the world changes and is illustrated in AXA's capacity to anticipate market changes, new perils, taking advanced positions and taking on very strong decisions. All this at the service of the growth for AXA Group, as well as its clients, be they individuals and businesses which count on the expertise and know-how of the Group to meet their needs and invent the next generation insurance industry, which takes us to the second part of our panel session. Innovation is key to adapt to climate change, and the increasing loss ratio proves this, and also to combat and face up to new challenges, including new technology and AI.
Now, following these 40 years of bold action, what can we expect from AXA for the next 10, 20, or 40 years? Now, to discuss this, it is my pleasure to have four experts of the AXA Group, which I will introduce without further ado. Françoise Gilles is the Chief Risk Officer for the Group. Hello, Françoise. Hello, everyone, says Nadia. Pierre du Rostu, on my left, is the CEO of AXA Digital Commercial Platform. Hello. Marcin Detyniecki is the R&D Director and the Chief Data Officer for AXA Group Operations. Hello. To add up, we have Alice Holzman, who is Director for Client Branding and Marketing for AXA France. Hello, Alice. Hello, everyone. Now, I suggest we start this panel session with you, Françoise Gilles. We saw that in the video, the key perils and risks have been changing over time, sometimes very significantly.
As the CRO, as the Chief Risk Officer of AXA Group, can you tell us how the main perils and risks covered by AXA have changed in the last 40 years?
Thank you, Nadia. Interconnectedness of risks and perils and the intensity levels of the risks have changed tremendously in the last few years. Now, just looking at our major perils today, we have the geopolitical risks, we have the cyber risks, we have risks connected with climate change. Clearly, those risks are interconnected, inter-impacting each other. The cyber attacks will impact the geopolitical risks and vice versa. The same with climate change and climate transitioning. With respect to the intensity of climate change, you read this in the news daily, you can see changes on the global geopolitical front, right? With respect to cybersecurity attacks in 2024, every 11 seconds, there were cybersecurity attacks.
Every 11 seconds. With respect to climate-related risks, we all remember the huge forest fires in California, which reached unprecedented losses. In the face of these circumstances, jointly with the teams at AXA Group, we work on inventing new solutions. I would like to share with you some tangible examples of what we are working on to address these risks and help our clients to navigate this difficult environment. You mentioned the climate risk, the increase of the loss ratio, and you've made preventative policies mainstream to keep minimizing and combating these risks. Prevention and preventative action play a key role in AXA's strategy.
Turning to you, Pierre du Rostu, you're the CEO of the AXA Digital Commercial Platform. To start off, can you explain what this Digital Commercial Platform is about, DCP, which was introduced by AXA? Who is it addressed to, and what technology does it use?
This was very well explained by Françoise, right? The world we are living in is a world in transition for businesses, for individuals alike, for societies and communities at large. This transitional process requires that as individuals and as organizations, we adapt quickly to these changes. The good news is that we are strongly convinced that this transitioning towards new perils and new risks is supported by another transitional process, which is new technology, which is giving us new instruments, new tools to meet these new challenges.
This is why AXA Group, a bit more than two years ago, introduced the so-called Digital Commercial Platform with a very clear role and mission, which is to combine the very strong expertise and experience to understand risks and perils cumulatively by all of our data, by all of our employees, building upon the most modern next-generation technology to come up with new solutions to help our clients and customers anticipate risks, understand risks, and minimize risks. The way the DCP platform works is that around us, we've been putting together an ecosystem of partners, solutions, and services involving very small companies and very large corporations, which each of them come up with part of the answer. Our role as a platform is to orchestrate all this to support our clients in a resilience pathway, which is organized around understanding risks and minimizing risks.
This is a virtuous cycle because we've been co-innovating to come up with new solutions jointly with our clients. By making our clients more resilient, we are making communities and societies more resilient.
Thank you very much, very clear. To keep innovating and better meeting the needs of policyholders, the key stake and challenge is to keep banking on this new technology and embrace its full potential. Marcin Detyniecki , you are the Head of R&D, you are the Chief Data Officer for AXA Group Operations. What is AXA's strategy to tap into this new technology at best, including AI, artificial intelligence, which has been a buzzword in the last fe w years?
It has been a buzzword, and we have been discussing for the last two and a half years, only two and a half years that these large language models were discovered, you know, that the general public have discovered that which can do wonderful things. I, being an expert of this field, I wonder with the ability to come up with executive summaries, sorting of emails, and do so many things as a large language model.
Now, what have we done?
As usual, and you saw that in the video, we addressed this with some bold action and some practicality. We looked at how we could use it, and we looked at the associated risks, especially with respect to the data feed, the data leaks, and data breaches.
Already back in 2021, we launched a program called Secure GPT, quote unquote, and we are one of the first global financial service companies to give access to this solution. Today, 150,000 employees have access to this incredible technology. Since then, we, of course, tried and systematically integrated and merged this technology on the back of a number of use cases, and Alice will tell you more about it. It's been fantastic, really, as a journey. It so happens that artificial intelligence is not such a new thing for the world and not such a new thing for AXA either. We've done lots of things in the past with digital models, which are machine learning and artificial learning models. What have these models been doing? They learn to predict things using examples on developing new examples. Prediction, predictability is key in our business operations.
You know, just look at the historical loss ratio. You can predict the loss ratio of your future portfolio, but you can predict many other things like fires, right? Or other natural catastrophes. You can predict the pathways of hurricanes, but you can also predict operations. You can forecast the required scalable size of a call center to meet the needs of our clients and customers.
You mentioned strategy. What is our AI-related strategy?
It builds upon an inventory of some 400 use cases which are already operational, which already have been generating added value, as you heard a few minutes ago. We have been investing significantly in the IT systems. By combining these two factors, strategy is crystal clear. It's a question of industrializing to scale up these use cases, which are fragmented here then everywhere, and to scale them up across the Group.
Much for the strategy. Now, what about practice, right? I will turn to you, Alice Holzman, who is a Director for Client Branding and Marketing for AXA France. How has AI changed the game, and how have you been putting it at the service of AXA's clients and customers?
I will focus on AI as applied to customer experience. Why customer experience? Because perceived and lived experience is as important for our clients than the quality of our insurance coverage. AI will meet a key concern for our clients to have a more straightforward, more personalized client and customer experience, a very tangible experience. Thanks to AI today, we've been offering our clients to report a simple motor claim, like a scratch or a little bump in your car body, in a very straightforward, simple manner.
By just sending a few photographs via the mobile application, in just 24 hours, you can come up with a reimbursement offer and pay back the claim instantly. Very simple, very automatic. Another example to support our relationship managers and our agents and distributors, we enable our agents and employees to access our library of information on access contracts and contractual terms simpler and more intuitively so that they can better answer and quicker answer their clients. We can make available offers and services which are already customized, which are already contextualized to meet the exact and precise needs of the customers they are facing with. AI will be simplifying the lives of our agents, our distributors, and of our relationship managers and our clients and customers.
What about the changing needs of these customers and clients? How has AXA France been meeting these new societal changes? What are we talking about when we speak of inclusive insurance?
Our key role has been and will be to protect all people, all French people. There are 18 million French people, about 27% of the French population, which have low to medium income levels, which are very often very poorly insured, most often for cost reasons, but not only. One of them being they do not know the insurance covers, they do not understand them well, or they do not find insurance products that meet their needs. In order to meet these needs of these clients, we basically engage in inclusive insurance under the AXA EssentiALL Program, and we come up with products and services which meet their needs. Recently, we have launched the Mon Entrepreneur Pack Program. It is a very simple package with a one-stop shopping kind of contract, which protects the individual and the business of the small entrepreneur.
Above and beyond this specific customer segment, we need to remain connected to societies and their weaknesses and fragility. Thomas Buberl mentioned the domestic violence, which is a critical issue. Above and beyond these cases, we've been supporting households and societies. Today, 11 million French people have a weak dependent they are taking care of. In our contracts, we have administrative support and psychological support for these people. Another example is school harassment, which unfortunately has become a reality in French schools and all over. As part of the school insurance package, we have psychological and legal support services for victims of school harassment cases. AXA has been strongly and fully connected to societies. We are a dedicated player, and we keep innovating to launch products and services which meet the new needs of our customers and clients.
Thank you very much for that. When we talk about new needs, but also new clients with specific needs, I guess that it involves new strategies. Françoise, on what pillar is based the risk management strategy, and how do you adjust it to align it with the new needs of your clients?
The new needs, because even if you have a difficult world, it is insurable. Main topic, we try to maintain the insurability around the world through different pillars, which are prevention of risks. We talked about innovation in solutions and also diversification when it comes to risk portfolios. Thomas mentioned this. Diversification of this kind is what allows us to cover risk for our clients. We can do it because we have a robust balance sheet with solvency at a level of 216%. It's a solvency which is resilient thanks to the diversification of risk.
We have risks which are spread out through regions, through the lines of businesses, through the types of risk, and through client segmentation. It is not the result of accident. It is a work that helps us to be resilient and to support this risk for our clients.
Thank you for this explanation. Sticking to strategy and the tools to implement it, Pierre du Rostu, back to you. You explained what this DCP platform was. Can you share now some examples that are tangible that illustrate how DCP can become a Group prevention strategy pillar and make sure there is still insurability for some highly exposed goods?
Now, the value offer is about prediction. That is how you diagnose risk and can anticipate them. Also, prevention, how can you reduce such risk? Taking a few very concrete examples now.
Last summer, it was mentioned by Thomas, we are working with the AXA France teams, with Guillaume's team, to put in place a new model that watches in real time the forest-related risk. In real time, you can score any type of point in the world to know a risk for a given client. This is the prediction part. Once it's started, we can anticipate how it will evolve in the next 24 hours, 48 hours, etc. Much for the prediction. Now, for the prevention part, we have made available agents, tied agents of AXA France who have the most exposed clients, very straightforward tools so that they can kick in a dialogue with their clients to provide them some prevention actions to be carried out, maybe clean up things around buildings and put in place some steps in order to reduce these risks.
Now, a second example on cyber risk, our value offer is organized around solutions that will scan or assess the weaknesses of a company. This is about prediction. For the prevention part, we launched the Cyber Academy. You know the Climate Academy. The Cyber Aca demy is the same principle.
How can you make available to the employees, to our customers, to our clients, to train them on cyber risk? The last step is what concrete solution can we provide?
This is based on a part ecosystem of partners who can give an answer to the weaknesses identified. One last example. You all remember the major floods that took place in Valencia in Spain or the fires in Los Angeles.
There again, by innovating, we were able to make available claims, teams of AXA Spain or AXA XL tools, which in real time help to know if a site is impacted, if it was fully or partially destroyed. This is key in our relationship with our clients. There are many clients, by the way, who told us, "Look, I cannot go on site because no one during the event can go there." We transform the relationship with the client by being in a position from a distance to provide them a concrete answer to say whether their building is being hit or not. This again transforms fully the relationship between the insurer and the client.
Thank you very much for these examples. Now, we talked about changes in the risk and use of AI. Marcin, according to you, what are the major opportunities and the major challenges that AXA will have to anticipate in the next 5-10 years to guarantee an ethical use and a beneficial use of this technology?
I would like to quote something. A major power involves great responsibilities. No, it was not Spider-Man. His uncle told him this. Maybe he was not a major philosopher, but it's really true. Look, we have an ethics and responsibility at the center of our strategy. We didn't wait for a law enacted by the European Union to have authorities dedicated to the control of such technology. Why? Because our conviction, it's not purely a technological leap. It's also a human challenge. As a matter of fact, its challenge is about trust.
Without trust, you cannot be into insurance because trust helps to guarantee that we will be where we need to be when we are needed. This is the guiding logic and helps us to be ethical and responsible. Now, of course, the world is changing. Risks are evolving, as you said. Of course, our challenges are waiting for us. I am very enthusiastic with regard to the collective adaptability we have. We saw this in the last 40 years. I am also enthusiastic about science, research, and technology will be playing in all of this. In reality, I am convinced the technology and high tech will do better, will help us to do better what we are already doing, that is protect everything that matters for each one of us.
Thank you very much. On your enthusiasm, we will complete this in 20 minutes.
We have talked about new technologies, concrete examples, risk management, new needs of clients, and innovation and prevention strategy so that hopefully we can respond to some of the many numerous questions from shareholders. I thank you heartily for participating in this roundtable. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Nadia.
Thank you, Françoise, Alice, Pierre, and Marcin for such exchanges.
I will now ask Guillaume Faury, who is the Chair of our Compensation, Governance, & Sustainability Committee, to present the governance of the company and the compensation policy of its senior executives here overview.
Ladies and gentlemen, good day. As a Chair of the Compensation, Governance, & Sustainability Committee, I will report about the governance and the work of the AXA work in 2024 and also the compensation policy of its senior leaders. Let's start with the governance and the work that was conducted in 2024.
You can see on the screen a simplified representation of AXA's governance. There have not been any major changes in the organization relative to the last AGM. However, as part of the earnings of the annual evaluation of the Board and its committees in 2023, and to take into account the feedback since we started thinking about this in 2022, we have reconsidered our internal rules. In particular, in order to be able to continue to connect the various roles of the various committees as far as ESG goes. As you know, the Compensation, Governance, & Sustainability Committee follows the questions related to the strategy of the Group as regards to sustainability, while the Audit Committee follows or tracks the process of reporting in terms of information related to sustainability, given the interconnectedness between these two committees.
Joint meetings were put in place especially to ensure the quality of the information when it comes to sustainability included in the management report. The Financial and Risk Committee is reconsidering the appetite to risk in terms of sustainability as well as the responsible investment policy. We also specified in 2024 the role of the Board and of the Audit Committee as it regards risk management related to the technologies of information and communication, including AI and the strategy of digital operational resilience, including cybersecurity. I will come back with further details on this when we take up the business of the Board in 2024. Let's now look at the makeup of the bBard in 2024. Last year, we saw François- Poncet who left, who did not request reappointment during the last AGM, as well as Rachel Duan, who resigned due to agenda conflicts with its various responsibilities.
She was replaced by Ewout Steenbergen , who was co-opted by the Board and in force on the 1st of January 2025. Let's now take a look at the short video where we present Ewout's track record.
Hello, everyone. My name is Ewout Steenbergen . I am currently Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Booking Holdings, but have been working in more than 20 years in the insurance industry. In 1993, I began my career at ING Group, where I had the opportunity to hold several leadership positions across Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and in the United States. In 2010, I went on to join ING U.S., later on rebranded as Voya Financial Inc., a U.S. financial services company, where I served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer until 2016.
During my time at Voya, I successfully led the initial public offering of the company. From 2016 - 2024, I was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of S&P Global. During that time, I was actively involved in the merger between S&P and IHS Markit in 2022 and was also appointed President of the S&P Engineering Solutions Division. In 2018, I also took on the leadership of Kensho Technologies, a company specialized in artificial intelligence. Finally, I joined Booking Holdings in March of 2024. In addition to carrying out my professional responsibilities, I was a founding member of the Accounting for Sustainability US Network. I also had the honor of chairing the Board of Directors of UNICEF USA until June 2024, where I continued to serve as a Board Member.
Moreover, between 2018 and 2024, I served on the Board of Chrysler Limited, an Indian publicly listed company in the data, analytics, and ratings business, and served last year as the Chair of this Board. Throughout my career, I have been passionate about insurance, finance, data, technology, and innovation. My extensive experience has allowed me to acquire in-depth knowledge of the global capital markets and their strategic challenges. [Foreign language] .
What a track record. You have to work a little bit on the French accent. This appointment is part of the evaluation of the B oard in 2023, which had identified as a goal the appointment of a director with previous experience in the insurance business.
Besides, given his expertise in the fields of finance, technology, as well as artificial intelligence, as well as in the ESG, the Board decided to appoint him as a member of the Audit Committee and of the Financial and Risk Committee. It is proposed to you today to ratify his co-opting. You will note, besides, that three terms of office will be expiring at the end of this meeting, those of Ramon Fernandez, the one of Ramon de Oliveira, as mentioned by Antoine Gosset-Grainville, as well as mine. It is suggested to renew the terms of office of Ramon Fernandez and mine for a period of four years, as indicated by Antoine previously. Ramon de Oliveira, who has been sitting for nearly 16 years, has not offered himself for the reappointment and will not be replaced.
The Board will continue the move of the reduction of its size initiated in 2023, moving from 17 down to 14 members. Depending on your favorable vote, the Board will be made up at the end of this session of eight women and six men, out of which are nine independent directors. With regard to the makeup of the committees on the screen, they will be made up in the following way. This composition is satisfactory in our view to make sure there's a proper functioning of the Group. Let's move on to the activity of the Board in 2024. As you can see, I was. It's not easy to read everything. As you can see, it was supported this year again with nine Board meetings, out of which today, strategic seminar, four so-called executive sessions, and many training courses, as well as 22 committee meetings.
You will note also the large number of people who attended the Board with an average rate of 98.8% attendance rate, and that's indicated 98.55% for the Board itself. Among the points of attention of the Board, there's a launch and tracking of the strategic plan, Unlock the Future, the geopolitical environment, the disposal of AXA IM, and more generally, the strategy of when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. Also, the implementation of the directive on the reporting about sustainability known under the name of CSRD, and also the succession plans of senior management, also the risk management related to technology of the information and communication and the digital operational resilience strategy.
In addition, as is the case each year, the Board has made the assessment of its operation. That exercise conducted internally this year has highlighted the positive perceptions of the directors about the compensation, the organization of the Board and the committees. The directors have acknowledged the progress made following the previous evaluation, especially with the appointment of Ewout Steenbergen , reviewing the approval process when it comes to mergers and acquisitions, the revision of the internal rules of the Board, the organization of the joint sessions of the committees to handle ESG topics that I mentioned before.
The main points of improvement that have been identified are the following ones: continue to more even ever more operational the organization of the responsibilities between committees and the Board in terms of sustainability, talk more regularly about the competition in which AXA is, and regarding the risks for the Group, and continue to refine the project approval process when it comes to mergers and acquisitions, and also dive into the evolution and strategy when it comes to human resources within the Board, and also provide more information on regulatory changes and the potential consequences for the Group.
Finally, several trainings have been organized by our Chairman about the CSRD Directive and the analysis of double materiality, as well as the ESRS standards, which is new, and also the transition low carbon via the climate AXA platform dedicated to the Board, also mitigating the carbon intensification in terms of the investments of the Group, decarbonation of their own operations, and also alignment with the compensation policy of the Group with the sustainable management and responsibility when it comes to the forest. We visited one of the forests managed by the Group. To end, and you cannot escape this, the risk related to information technologies, including cybersecurity. Following this third part dedicated to the governance of AXA, let's now move on to the compensation of senior managers in line with legal provisions.
You are to approve the policy in terms of compensation of the executive ones for the company for 2025 and 2024. The various components of the Chief Executive are presented up on the screen. First of all, the remuneration is made up of a fixed salary to which you add a variable remuneration, out of which 30% is deferred over a period of three years. For 2025, the Board, upon proposal of its Remuneration Governance and Sustainable Development Committee, decided to maintain unchanged the target annual remuneration in cash of the Chief Executive, made up of EUR 1,650,000 fixed part and of a variable part standing at EUR 1,750,000. The Chief Executive receives also performance shares submitted to a three-year performance period, as well as to an accrual year of two years. The Chief Executive does not benefit from any additional defined elements for hers.
He receives a Share plan dedicated to his pension fund, and this is assessed annually. This part is allocated to all the Senior Executives of the Group in France. He also will be benefiting from a severance compensation if his role is terminated, subject to performance terms and conditions, the amount being set on a value of 12 months of compensation being increased by one additional month per an additional year of service without exceeding 24 months in total. For more detail, I would encourage you to look at the universal registration document for fiscal 2024. This compensation structure, which is subject to strict and consistent performance terms and conditions, aims at aligning the goals and targets of the CEO with the interests and targets of the company and its shareholders over the medium and the long term.
These performance terms and conditions are displayed here behind me, up on the screen. I would like to draw your attention on the change of performance shares with respect to the performance terms and conditions. In the context of our process of shareholder engagement, some investors and voting advisory agencies have challenged us as to the choice of performance conditions related with the proportion of women in the leadership of the Group, pointing out that this condition was not sufficiently holistic, nor connected with the commercial strategy of the Group. Based on these insights, the Board decided to replace this condition by new targets connected with AXA Essential, i.e., the inclusive insurance strategy of the Group, i.e., increasing the number of clients covered by AXA Essential.
This new criteria is consistent with the Group's ambition to place and put financial inclusion at the core of its strategy and is a key part of the Unlock the Future program. This is an internal auditable and actionable indicator, which is directly connected with the CSR and ESG strategy of the Group, with the general weight of non-financial criteria remaining 30%, 70% being the financial criteria. I now suggest we look at the variable compensation portion for the CEO for fiscal 2024. As mentioned earlier, the assessment of the annual performance of the CEO builds upon two components. Number one, Group performance being weighed 70%, and his individual performance being weighed 30%.
The Group performance is assessed based on the change in four criteria: underlying earnings per share, number one, cash remittance, number two, reduction of carbon footprint in the assets, proprietary assets of the Group, and number four, the recommendation index by clients. For fiscal 2024, performance level reached 108%. Much for the Group performance. With respect to the CEO's individual performance, it was assessed based on the targets and goals set by the Board in the early part of 2024. Number one was to finalize and start the strategic plan, quote, "Unlock the Future," unquote. Number two, implement this plan, roll it out, and achieve the goals and targets set for fiscal 2024. Number three, to ensure the stability of the management Board, building upon the robust succession planning and strong collaboration between the members while growing diversity and inclusion inside the leadership team.
Number four, managing the Group while taking into consideration the complex political and geopolitical environment with the associated risk. Number five, continue the review of opportunities to optimize the scope of the Group with merger and acquisition aspects, which I mentioned earlier. Now, the individual performance of Thomas Buberl for fiscal 2024 was assessed by the Board to be 116.25%. The total performance ratio for Thomas Buberl reaches 110.48%, which represents annual variable compensation of EUR 1,933,313, including the deferred part of this compensation package. As mentioned earlier, a deferred payment mechanism covering 30% of the variable portion over a three-year period will be applied.
The amount of the deferred variable portion of Thomas Buberl's compensation for fiscal 2024 will be paid out in three equal blocks in 2026, 2027, and 2028, with the total amount being actually paid, varying depending on the change in the AXA stock price during the deferred period, with a limit of a ceiling being 130% of the deferred amount without any floor level being set. I suggest we review the compensation of the Chairman of the Board of Directors in line with the French AFEP-MEDEF code. The Board considered that the most appropriate compensation structure was to pay out a fixed compensation to the Chair of the Board while setting the amount of this amount to EUR 925,000. The proposal is to maintain this compensation unchanged in fiscal 2025. AXA has also been engaged in a policy to grant performance shares to its French and non-French employees.
In 2024 and 2025, some 6,000 employees were granted performance shares, which, irrespective of their statutes, were subject to performance conditions. These performance conditions and criteria, as reviewed and revised by the Board in late 2024, cover the performance of the operating entity, the weighting being 35%, financial performance of the Group being weighted 35%, and performance with respect to sustainability of the Group being weighted 30%. Finally, and this is in line with the best practice in the industry, as well as with the recommendations of the financial regulators and supervisors, as well as other stakeholders, the performance shares granted to the CEO, in addition to being subject to a vesting period of three years, are associated with a mandatory lock-up period of two years. In March 2025, 117,997 performance shares of an IFRS value of EUR 3,149,994 were granted to the Chief Executive Officer of the AXA Group.
I would like to emphasize the fact that the granting of performance shares are effected without any dilution for the shareholder, given the fact that these are existing shares which are being granted. Now, some information about the involvement of employees in AXA's capital stock. As you know, the Group reserves an employee shareholder plan to all shareholders, French and non-French, called Sharep lan, in the form of a capital increase which is reserved to them. In fiscal 2024, some 26,000 employees benefited from that out of 40 countries, which is an increase of 12.6% for a total subscription amount of some EUR 400 million in total. In order to eliminate the dilutive effect of the transaction for shareholders, it was proceeded, as with in the previous years, to the buyback and the cancellation of an equivalent number of shares.
As of the 31st of December 2024, the employees and agents of the AXA Group were holding 4.26% of AXA's capital stock and 6.25% of the voting rights of the AXA Group. So much for what I wanted to share with you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Guillaume, for this presentation. You will have noted, as Guillaume said, that our Board of Directors is made up of a larger proportion of women than of men. Now, the report on corporate governance has drawn up in line with Article L.225-37 and sequel and L.22-10-8 of the French Commercial Code are displayed in the fiscal 2024 Annual Report of the AXA Group. Now, I will ask Mr. Olivier Durand of Ernst & Young and Mr. Pierre Planchon of KPMG to please report back on their auditing work in the shareholders' meeting.
Dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, Olivier Durand and I will report back on our role as statutory auditors for the AXA Group. In this capacity, as statutory auditors for AXA SA as a parent company and the AXA Group, in a consolidated manner, we've audited the annual financial statements of the AXA parent company, as well as the consolidated financial statements with the additional procedures and diligence work on related party agreements and transactions. We audited the transactions connected with marketable securities and capital stock of the company, and we verified the sustainability chapter connected with the European taxonomy. Now, the goal of our role on the auditing of the parent company and consolidated financial statements is to vouch on the truth and sincerity of the financial statements and that they are free from material misstatements.
We build upon the auditing work conducted by our firms and their agents across the consolidated scope of the Group. Now, with respect to the parent company financial statements for AXA S.A., we are issuing an unqualified opinion without any observation on these financial statements, which were approved by the Board of Directors. Just to mention, as provided for by law, we are conducting more detailed verifications and procedures on the most significant items on this balance sheet, especially everything with respect to interest and investments into companies and business units of the Group. For the reinsurance business, the assessment of the provisions for claims that the reinsurance business are lodged with, and we gave the report on these specific procedures, and we have no observation to make with respect to this auditing work, with respect to the consolidated financial statements.
If the remote control works, we've applied the same rationale, unqualified opinion being issued with some justification on our assessment on three aspects. The assessment of liabilities connected with the life and health insurance contracts, which are extremely complicated with the introduction of the new IFRS 17 standards, which are quite complicated and complex. Obviously, in the P&C insurance and long-term insurance branches covering many periods of time, we paid special attention to that. Finally, as very often in such large corporations, we assessed the value of recoverable goodwill. No observations on the fact that the financial statements are fair and true to the information and representations in the management report. No further information to be reported on, and Olivier will mention the other reports n ow.
Our report on related party transactions and agreements was very straightforward.
We are not informed of any authorized related party transactions and agreements signed during the fiscal year, nor of any such agreement or transaction being continued as being previously authorized and approved. Now, the report, which is a new one, is the so-called Sustainability Certification Report. This report is being published in its first year of application, which we are explaining in our report. Its goal and purpose is to issue a limited degree of assurance with respect to compliance with the sustainability reporting requirements as to what AXA implemented with respect to practices and standards and compliance with the respective requirements. Now, based on the procedures being conducted and based on our auditing work, we have not identified any misstatement, any errors, or significant and material non-compliance.
We are just coming up with two observations, which are connected with the fact that it is the first year of application of this sustainability report, as well as the way this information and representation were produced. We then have four pages describing the various reports on capital-related transactions and with respect to transactions connected with transferable market securities. Resolution number five connects with reduction in capital. No observation on Resolution 17 - 23 relative to increase of capital with and without preferential subscription rights. We have come up with some observations on three of these transactions relative to information which is missing. Having said that, we are not coming up with any material observation. A number of these Resolutions will be the subject of an additional report on our part. Now, Resolutions 24 and 25 covering increase in capital reserved for employees.
Same thing, no observation to be made with respect to these resolutions, and we will be coming up with additional reports if the needs be when these transactions will be effected. Finally, as to Resolutions 26 and 27 covering the granting of free shares, we have no observations to make. Thank you very much for your attention.
I would like to thank our statutory auditors for their review of their reports. Now will be the time for questions and answers with you, and I suggest we watch a short video on the investor relations system being set up in the Group.
Bien. Je vous informe que...
I would like to inform you that we received four emails, four pieces of emails with questions in writing, which were addressed by the Forum for Responsible Investment, by Mireille Vouillamoz, by Mr. Frédéric Millet, and by Reclaim Finance. Reclaim Finance.
These questions, as well as the answers being provided in writing by the Board, are displayed on the website of the AXA Group in a section for the written questions being put to the management. During this session, I will ask Ulrike Decoene, the Head of Communication, Branding, and Sustainability for the Group, Alban de Mailly Nesle, CFO, Guillaume Borie, CEO of AXA France, as well as Karima Silvent, the HR Director for the AXA Group, to come to the stage for this Q&A session. They are now on the stage, and we'll start. Before we take any questions, I would ask you to please, for those of you who want to ask questions, to please raise your hand so that the hostesses can see you and can bring your microphone so that the greater number can speak and that as many questions as possible be addressed.
I would like to be concise and short in your points and in your questions. Last point of information, if your questions are connected with a specific contract or with a specific claim, I would ask you to please go directly to the client booth, which is in the lobby of this venue, and our expert teams are available to answer you, and they will do this more effectively, more efficiently than we would be doing this as we speak from the stage here. Let us start with the first question.
Let's start on the right-hand side, number one.
Hello everyone, I am Olga Villano. I am. AXA shareholders have been so since half of its life.
I have a question pertaining to AXA's position relative to the demands from the U.S. government to relinquish the diversity, equity, and diversity that is protecting the diversity in their decisions, which generate programs that promote the hiring of people who are victims of discrimination. Concretely, have you received any documents read at AXA XL or AXA Group requesting your commitment and signature?
Thank you for your short and accurate question. I will try to be as accurate and short. No, we have not received such requests, nor any observation, nor any remark of this type. In addition, and this is part of the genes of our AXA, we have a DEI policy and have had this since the very beginning, and this is embodied in particular in the actions that we undertake to help progress constantly, equality of men and women.
By registration, I mentioned that the Board was made up of a larger number of women than men. If we look at the management team around Thomas Buberl, the 40 top managers of the Group, the number of women, I mean, it's 48% are executives, and this trickles down. To sum up, no requests, no changes, and a very proactive policy still in this regard.
Now, let's move to the other side, number six.
Hello, I have been a shareholder for half of my life. I have a question pertaining to how you distribute the values to shareholders. You mentioned 75% in the form of dividends and 25% in the share buybacks. I'd like to know if it's a strategy, whether it's part of a long-term period.
Also, in terms of taxation of the company, is there a tax cost difference between the dividend part and the buyback part?
Thank you very much. I will let Thomas answer, but yes, this is for us for the long term to give enough visibility to our partners and shareholders. It is not an indication for one given year only; it is an indication for the medium term.
Thank you for your question, Thomas Buberl now. Of course, we are looking always at this remuneration policy for the shareholders versus our earnings and the nature of our earnings, because sometimes an insurer has suffered some volatility. We try to reduce it as much as possible. If we look now today, as you said, we have 75%, which are made up of 60% of dividend, and 15% is made up of share buyback. It represents a good combination for the dividends.
We want to continue to constantly show a good trajectory, which is more on the very stable part of our earnings, and then the 15% of share buyback, which is also decided each year. We find that this combination is, on the one hand, a good combination, also a combination that can be here for the long term if the Board of Directors wishes so, and which can be compared to our peers, the 25% that remain are invested in the company. If you look, you certainly look at the value of these 25% that are invested or reinvested. Growth is also very attractive, and this is why we want to keep alive such stability always with the order of priority. First of all, the dividends followed by share buybacks, the 15%, and after that, the additional investment in our business beyond the organic investment.
If there are transactions that present themselves, and you have seen in the last few years some transactions of a level of a medium-small size, like in Spain, in Ireland, in Italy, in Turkey. You also raised the question about the cost factor, the additional cost following the legal provisions that were decided. It is true that the share buyback has become costlier this year relative to last year. Having said that, it's a cost that can be measured. It's just under 2%. It will not negatively impact the dividend or our profits because that cost goes directly through the balance sheet and the capital. This is why we really want to continue with this policy that you underlined.
Very well. Question, next question, number seven.
AXA is an inclusive insurance company. You mentioned that AXA invests in prevention, in protection. I insist on the last term.
As AXA shareholders, may I ask the following question? According to the report by the ECHO and American Friends Service Committee, NGOs based on data coming from the independent research profile group, AXA has investments in at least 14 weapons companies. Thirteen of them produce uranium, nuclear arms, and phosphorus. AXA owns also, according to this report, shares and bonds in 11 weapons companies involved directly in the Israeli genocidal war in Gaza. The report underlines the investments by AXA in weapons companies such as Boeing and General Dynamics, whose weapons were directly connected with Israeli attacks against the civil population in Gaza, in particular of massacres when in Rafah, bombardment against the refugee camp in December 2024, and at night, the one in Al-Mawasi on the 10th of December 2024. Here's my question.
In light of the responsible policies of AXA and your policies against, how do you account for these investments in weapons companies, and what is the situ ation today?
Thank you for your question. I must reassure you, many of the things that you indicated actually are not right based on facts. More generally, I believe that one should not oppose responsible investment policy and investing in the defense sector. On this point, we have a very clear policy. We move away from any weapons prohibited by international treaties. On the other hand, we do not exclude ourselves in being involved in sectors that are authorized, bearing in mind that the strengthening of our defense tool is necessary to protect our freedoms.
When it comes to respecting international treaties, more generally speaking, because your question was going beyond investments in this field, I can assure you that AXA is extremely mindful to strictly comply with all the agreements that exist and that are in force.
Now, on the other side, perhaps, question number three.
I am a student at HEC, the business school. I'm highly interested in finance and insurance, and additionally, I'm highly committed when it comes to environment issues. I have followed everything that you said about this, and my generation is very much sensitive to all of this. Be sure of that. To me, there's a red line about the fact that AXA continues to insure the oil-gas expansion projects. In relation to this, is it possible for AXA to stop this?
It's an effort that is, first of all, necessary to be consistent because also it could constitute a real factor of appeal for a generation like mine. Also, it's an effort that can be overcome. First of all, it's generally the Italian insurer who decided last October to stop, to insure projects about natural gas that is the GNL. The second point is to underline the fact that AXA was a pioneer when it comes to coal in 2015. Thirdly, in 2021, it even decided to say no to the ICOP Summit of Total Energy. My question, therefore, is straightforward: Are you ready to commit yourselves in this view so that you don't deprive yourselves of young talents?
Thank you very much for these points and the questions. We need engaged and dedicated people because climate dysregulation is an existential challenge for all of us.
As Thomas Buberl said in his introductory remarks, climate transitioning, climate change is at the core of our strategy. We are an active participant in transitioning. We are very much engaged in preventative actions. When I am saying that we are an active participant in transitioning, what I mean is that we are even more engaged and committed than in the past. In fiscal 2024, we invested some EUR 7 billion in investments related to accelerating this transitioning process. With respect to the plants and projects you are talking about in the field of oil and gas, they account for a very small and slight share in our investments. At the same time, we tripled our investments in renewable over the same period. We can support transitioning, and we want to do so in the most responsible manner as possible.
Thomas, would you like to add anything?
First, we have lots of young talent in the AXA Group who love these activities of ours and who are pushing us to go the extra mile and to go further. I encourage you to look into what AXA can offer you so that you can help us. Climate transitioning, as Antoine just said, is a dimension which is very dear to us, to our strategy, and that we want to keep promoting and pushing. Despite that, we've had some different trends and dynamics happening recently, but we need to take in the reality of things today, and we need to take in the geopolitical trends, and we need to acknowledge the fact that energy transitioning takes longer than thought. There's also the question and issue of the need of the communities and population.
This is why AXA, after this very clear decision to move out of oil and to re-channel our investments into green projects and green investments, so as to support companies and to focus our means and resources on those companies who really want to transition, who really want to transform via very credible climate transitioning plans. Knowing that we have a highly diversified balance sheet, right, and our exposures for the insurance business and for the investments vis-à-vis the oil and gas segments is less than 2%, exposures less than 2%. Out of these 2%, as you mentioned, the oil fields and deposits we stopped since January of 2024. We stopped investing into oil fields, i.e., we are continuing with great discipline and a sense of direction. We need young talent to do that, to help us. I do encourage you to come and help us. Thank you.
Let's move on to the other side of the hall. Question number eight.
Yes. Hello, Mr. Chair, Christian Chevroni. I'm an individual shareholder.
I have first a comment to make. Congrats and kudos to your teams for anticipating the technicality of the AI solutions and data solutions. I've seen that you've been an active participant of this front for years and even decades, outstanding for a French corporation. My question was on the health insurance side of things. We heard the French Minister of Health speak about preventative action, prevention. What do you think you'll be doing on this aspect? What can you tell us about your business activities in connection with the personal health data?
It's a very good point and very good question because health and health insurance is one of our strategic priorities. Basically, health and prevention and preventative action go together.
To our system, Aboubel, health insurance is a key business. We discovered this very early on, right from 2014 already. We expanded in this health insurance field. In the health insurance business, there is a big issue, i.e., medical cost inflation is increasing much faster than general inflation. This is very much connected with a number of factors, including misaligned interests in the stakeholders of the health and medical sector. Our role and mission is and has been and will be to help our policyholders to have a better life and to remain protected, to remain insured. This is why the aspect of prevention and of making policyholders play, making sure the policyholders are put back at the heart, at the core of the process, and make sure they have an active participation. There are such question marks as whether the climate risks are still insurable.
I'm convinced that health and climate-related issues are insurable, provided that we help policyholders and patients to engage in more preventative activities to avoid the next claims, to avoid the next issues and the next disasters.
Thank you. Back to this part of the hall. Question number one.
Thank you, Mr. CEO. My name is Paul de Torres. I'm an employee representative of the AXA Group, but I'll be speaking in my capacity of the Secretary and Steward for the First Trade Union Organization of the AXA Group. First, I would like to thank you for this information on the matching contribution of the AXA Group in terms of performance share. It's been a long-term request of ours. It's important that you increase the share of employee shareholding. As you know, profit-sharing amounts can be used to contribute to the Share plan.
This is a very much appreciated measure, very much appreciated by employees. Can you tell us whether all French entities will be benefiting from the same amounts, i.e., this additional contribution, this additional matching contribution you mentioned?
This is a question for France, right? We may ask Guillaume Borie, the Head of France for AXA, to answer this question.
Hello, everyone, says Guillaume Borie. Thank you very much for your question. Indeed, in the context of what Thomas Buberl indicated earlier and provided once again that we get regulatory clearance and that the employee representative bodies approve this, we are contemplating a transaction which will make it possible for all Sharep lan beneficiaries, which is usually during the fall, to benefit from 20 free shares for any 20 shares being acquired in the context of this transaction.
Then the usual mechanisms connected with the profit-sharing and incentive plans, including these matching contributions, will be repeated in line with what has been usually done with the same quality of sharing and exchanging and information and consultation with the employee representatives. I would like to thank the employee representatives for the high quality of industrial relations we enjoy in AXA. Is Karima Silvent, the HR Director, with us? Do you have anything to add?
Yes, says Karima. I would like to say, first, hello, everyone. I would like to add, yes, that this transaction, we are very happy to launch this year. It is an exceptional transaction for our 40th anniversary, which will cover all of the AXA employees in the world, i.e., all of the companies and business units where the Sharep lan scheme is being implemented.
I know that there are many employee shareholders following us. I would like to send out a large call for participating. We have 26,000 employees who took part in the Sharep lan scheme last year. This exceptional transaction, which will make it possible for employees to get a free share for a share you will be subscribing with a limit of 20 shares, i.e., a total of 40 shares, including 20 such shares being acquired at a discount. It is a very preferable and attractive transaction, especially for young junior employees who are new in the company.
I do concur with this call for participation, says Antoine Gosset-Grainville. Let's go on and go back to this side of the auditorium at the very back, number 10.
Yes, hello. My name is Tom Sa. I'm an individual shareholder. I have two questions on AXA IM.
Can the regulators and authorities delay the disposal of AXA IM to BNP Paribas? Can you share some light about their grievances and the reasons why they might want to delay? The second question on AXA IM. They teamed up with Vandel to acquire an American company, which I'm a shareholder of. Do you have any synergistic strategy with this acquisition?
Thank you very much. Now, the quality of the audio feed was not great, so I found it difficult to understand you. With respect to your first question, let me reassure you, our partner, BNP Paribas, did confirm that there would not be any delay in the execution of this disposal transaction, which will go ahead according to the planned timeline. With respect to the second question, Thomas has a keener ear and will answer you more effectively.
On your second question, sir, AXA IM and AXA Prime Business, which is the company which has investments in general partners in GPs, did team up with Wendel to facilitate the acquisition of Monroe Capital by Wendel. This is something that AXA Prime does from time to time. The terms and conditions were very attractive at the time to go ahead with this transaction.
Great. Thank you. Moving on to that part of the auditorium, question number three. Question number three disappeared. Question number four.
Hello, everyone. My name is Lucm an Languignon. I'm an individual shareholder, and I'm very much committed to and engaged with issues connected with disability. In 2015, AXA signed the ILO, International Labour Organization's charter on businesses and employees with disabilities, which requires that such corporations roll out policies for employees with disabilities.
Now, 10 years after this convention was signed, what about the disability policy of AXA? And what about the rolling out of this policy on the African continent?
This is a question of great importance. I would like to thank you for this question. Karima Silvent will answer you.
Thank you very much, sir, for your question, which indeed is of great importance for the AXA Group. When we surveyed our employees, because every year we have a so-called inclusion survey administered with all of our employees, the question items of disabilities and age are the two questions which generate the highest degree of concern for employees of AXA in the world. For a number of years, we have put together a global program on employees with disability. I would like to thank Frédéric de Courtois, who accepted some years ago to sponsor this program.
As part of this program, practically speaking, what have we been doing? First and foremost, we've been looking at the products we have on offer to our customers. This is a program we started, for example, with policyholders who have children with disabilities. There is a special cover that we include in our products. We are looking at what we can do better as part of our product offerings. For our employees, we take measures to adapt and adjust the working environment, making sure that our venues and premises are disability-friendly. I have Guillaume next to me, and AXA France is one of these business units which improved a lot in the hiring of employees with disability. You spoke about the African continent. I went to Africa not so long ago in a number of countries.
I was very pleased to see what progress was achieved. It's not enough. We need to continue. We need to keep pushing everywhere in the world to hire more employees with disability, to adapt and adjust workstations, and also to work on changing the corporate culture. Because very often, we have employees with disabilities on our teams, but this remained a taboo, and they don't speak about it, or they don't want to, or dare to speak about it. We're trying to make this more public, make this more visible. We're working on this via our policies. I would like to thank above and beyond Frédéric de Courtois. I would like to thank all of our managers and all of the employees who help us in this effort. Thank you very much for your question.
Thank you.
Thank you, Karima. We'll take the last two questions. Question number six.
Hello, everyone. I'm an individual shareholder. I'm a member of the Advisory Committee of the shareholders of the AXA Group. You've spoke at length about the support you're giving to the small and middle-sized companies. I would like to focus on those very small, yet innovative SMEs who are working for the French Ministry for Defense. You may know that these small businesses are undercapitalized, so they need to strengthen their equity before they are capable of investing into long-term production programs for the defense sector. My question is as follows. I would like to know how you will be doing and what action you will take to engage private funding to benefit this type of small companies operating in the field of defense.
Thank you very much. In order to answer you in some general terms, in Europe, there is a volume of savings in Europe at large, which is sufficiently high and large to meet the needs for investing in this industry. The question is to know how these can be channeled into such type of funding and investing. I believe there are three conditions possible. Number one, and this was discussed earlier, we shouldn't be opposing socially responsible investments and defense and military-related investments, even though we need to make a distinction between what's lawful and what's not. Number two, these small businesses also must be open and transparent as much as possible, i.e., so that an investor has sufficient visibility on the assets and operations of the company and on the operations they want to carry out.
The third term and/or condition is that there be a European framework, which is to be set up in order to give investors sufficient visibility and insight on the long-term programs by the European states and by the European governments. This European framework involves that true European preference is applied, sharing and pooling of purchasing and procurement with a set of clear rules which will make it attractive for investors to invest into these areas.
Right. Let us take a very last question. Number three came back. It had disappeared. It's come back.
Hello. My name is Ariel Le Bourdonnec for the Reclaim Finance Organization. Dear Board Members, dear Chair, dear CEO, in this meeting of shareholders, you have reviewed and reported on unprecedented performance numbers. AXA is being presented as the yearly blockbuster in the stock exchanges.
Such performance and numbers were made possible thanks to strategy to protect the profitability levels of the Group in the face of climate change, which involved continual increases in prices and reinsurance post-natural disasters. All this to profit and to benefit these shareholders who are here attending this meeting and to the detriment of your employees who do not see any connection of your unprecedented profit in excess of EUR 7 billion with their own pay levels. At the same time, EUR 400 billion were the cost of natural disasters, costing several dozens of thousands of fatalities. Your solution seems to be preventative action and affordable home insurance. Now, my question is as follows. How can you call simultaneously on more preventative action against climate change on the part of your policyholders while continuing with your insurance policies and contract to support the development of building new natural liquefied gas terminals?
I'm talking about natural liquefied gas. I'm not talking about oil. Thank you for my question, and I will be delivering a letter to you in the name of my organization, Reclaim Finance. Thank you in advance for your answer.
Thank you for your question, sir. I will let Thomas Buberl answer you. Let me say first, by way of an introduction, that the AXA Group is extremely active and engaged in the field of natural disasters. Just looking at France last year, there were 11 major climate events, and AXA was very much involved to support its policyholders to protect them. Eleven events, up from seven the year before, which just shows the pace of change. Number two, you spoke about prevention. I didn't understand whether you found it a good idea or not. We are convinced that it is totally essential.
I gave you earlier this number, which is not off the cuff, i.e., EUR 1 being invested in adaptation solutions avoids EUR 8 of loss and damage. Anything which can be done to encourage and promote preventative action goes to benefit our policyholders. I will let Thomas Buberl answer you more precisely on the other aspect of your question.
Thank you first for your question, sir. Yes, indeed, I will take your letter following this meeting. Please come to me to deliver this letter. Now, there are two questions I find in your question. The first question is on our exposure to natural disasters. Truly, generally speaking, we did reduce our exposure to natural disasters, while at the same time, we've experienced events, including so-called secondary perils like flooding and droughts and heat waves have increased significantly.
It is true to say that climate-related protection and insurance coverage comes with a higher cost year in, year out. For insurance activity to work over time, premiums need to be connected with the disasters, which means that there are always increases in pricing. We also know, and I will share with you very tangible examples of this. If you take the Katrina hurricane, which went over Louisiana at the time, and the Irma hurricane 15 years after Katrina, the second hurricane event came with a lower cost than the first, which shows that preventative action has been effective and has been working. Today, unfortunately, this notion of preventative action remains a marginal one and underinvested one. As you said, rightly so, we are extremely active in promoting preventative action.
You heard in my remarks with the so-called Green Insurance Cover that we really want to forge ahead in this direction. My dream would be that preventative action would become a key mandatory component in each and every insurance contract over time. Because truly, jointly with policyholders, jointly with our clients and customers, we can help and do much more to reduce the levels of claim. Now, as to your second question, sir, on the liquefied natural gas, this falls within the answer I indicated earlier when I answered the question by the student of the HEC Business School. Basically, today, we are engaged in a position to support climate transitioning, supporting our clients and focusing on means and resources and focusing on those businesses which are really engaged in a transformational pathway. There is a reality with this climate transitioning.
This is connected with the very words, the climate transitioning, quote unquote, i.e., we need to use transitioning energy sources, including LNG and liquefied natural gas. Clearly, these are transitioning sources of energy. This is why AXA decided that it wanted to commit to this, yet in a very restrictive manner. Restrictive in the sense that we want to focus on those LNG terminals based in Europe and in the U.S. to help meet this European-level challenge of changing our paradigm in the field of energy and to help our providers transition before the 22nd of February 2024. We know that this source of energy is not a low-carbon energy, but this is a transitioning source of energy. Once the transitioning is over, then we will terminate our exposures and our commitments in this respect.
Okay, great. I would like to thank you all for your questions and your comments, which were very challenging and stimulating, yet varied. I suggest we go on to voting the resolutions.
In order to proceed with the voting of the resolution, Frédéric de Courtois will present the terms and conditions of this voting. Before that, I have just received, and let me indicate the final quorum that has just been transmitted to me. It's a bit tedious, but it's important. We have in shares represent 1,565,024,734 that represent all in on 1,932,358,798 votes. All of us giving us a quorum, actually the final one of 72.5%. I thank you very much for staying here until the final voting of the resolution. To this effect, you have an electronic personalized keypad. The screen helps you to check the number of votes that you represent or hold for our session.
You can see it up on the screen. To vote on each resolution, you must press firmly onto one of the following keys: in favor, that's the green one; abstaining is the yellow one; or against is the red key. Your vote will be displayed for several seconds on the screen of your keypad. In order to vote within the allotted time, wait for the indication the vote is open and limit yourself to one single vote per resolution. If you do not press on any one, you will be considered as having abstained from voting. As I said at the early part of our meeting, the vote is taken under the control of Maître de Carnagoré, who is the justice representative. The voting key parts will have to be given back to the hostesses. You would not be able to use them for yourselves.
I thank you besides for switching off your cell phones during the voting period. All these details having been made, we will now move on to voting the resolutions on the agenda of our session.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The moment we are all waiting for, the vote, you are requested to approve or not 29 resolutions, 14 of the ordinary session, 15 of the extraordinary session. By the way, the resolutions of the ordinary session require in order to be approved more than 50% of votes expressed, whereas the resolutions part of the extraordinary session require a majority of more than two-thirds of the votes to be approved. I suggest that we do away with the texts as indicated before. This is in the notice of the meeting published in the mandatory January in February 2025. It was made available to you under the legal conditions.
Now, moving to the 14 first resolutions of the ordinary shareholders' meeting. First esolution aims at approving the parent company consolidated financial statements for the 2024 fiscal year. The vote is open. It is now closed. The resolution is passed. Now, the second resolution, which aims at approving the consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024. The vote is open. It is now closed. The resolution has been approved. The third resolution aims at the income appropriation for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, setting of a dividend of EUR 2.15 per share. The vote is open now. It is now closed. The resolution has been passed. Now, the fourth resolution relates to the information required by Article L.22-10-9 of the French Commercial Code and concerns all corporate offices of the company. It is now open to vote. It is now closed.
Resolution has been approved. The fifth resolution relates to the compensation paid or allocated for the period of 2024 to Antoine Gosset-Grainville, Chairman of the Board of Directors. The vote is open. It is now closed. The resolution is approved. The sixth resolution relates to the compensation paid out for the financial year ended December 2024 to Thomas Buberl, Chief Executive Officer. It's now open to vote. It is closed. The resolution has been passed. The seventh resolution aims at approving the remuneration policy of the Chair of the Board. The vote is now open. It is now closed. The resolution has been passed. The eighth resolution aims at approving the compensation policy of the Chief Executive Officer. The vote is now open. The vote is closed. The resolution is carried. The ninth resolution concerns approving the compensation policy of the directors. The voting is open. It is now closed.
The resolution is passed. The 10th resolution is about the statutory auditors, special reports, and agreements referred to in Article L.225-38. The voting is open now. It is now closed. Resolution has been passed. Now, the 11th resolution aims at the renewal of the mandates of Guillaume Faury for a period of four years. The vote is open. The voting is closed. The resolution is carried. Congratulations, Guillaume. The 12th resolution aims at renewing the mandate as a Director of Ramon Fernandez for a period of four years. The voting is open. It is now closed. The resolution is passed. Congratulations, Ramon. The 13th resolution aims at ratifying the cooptation of Ewout Steenbergen as Director. The voting is open. It is now closed. The resolution is carried. Congratulations, Ewout.
The 14th resolution aims at authorizing the Board to operate on the shares of the company within the limit of 10% of the equity for the maximum unit of EUR 45 per share and for a period of 18 months. The voting is open. It is closed. The resolution has been approved. Moving on to the 15th resolution, which is part of the extraordinary session. The 15th resolution aims to authorize the Board to reduce the share capital through cancellation of treasury shares within a limit of 10% of the treasury shares for a period of 18 months. The voting is open. It is now closed. The resolution has been approved. The 16th resolution aims at delegating authority granted to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital through the capitalization of reserves, earnings, or share premiums. The voting is open. It is now closed. Resolution is carried.
The 17th resolution, delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing shares and/or securities giving a right to shares to be issued by the company or one of its subsidiaries either immediately or in the future with preferential subscription rights of the shareholders. The voting is open. It's now closed. The resolution has been carried. The 18th resolution is about delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing shares and/or securities giving a right to shares to be issued by the company or one of its subsidiaries either immediately or in the future without preferential subscription rights of the shareholders in case of public offerings other than those set forth in the Article L.411-2 of the French Monetary and Financial Code. The voting is open. Voting is closed. The resolution has been passed.
The 19th resolution relates to delegating authority to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing shares and/or securities giving a right to shares to be issued by the company or one of its subsidiaries either immediately or in the future without preferential subscription rights of the shareholders through public offerings as set forth in paragraph one of Article L.411-2 of the French Monetary and Financial Code. Voting is open. Voting is closed. This resolution is passed. The 20th resolution relates to delegating authority to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing shares and/or marketable securities giving a right to shares to be issued by the company either immediately or in the future in the event of a public exchange offer initiated by the company without preferential subscription rights of the shareholders. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The resolution is carried.
21st resolution relative to delegating authority to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing shares and/or securities giving a right to shares to be issued by the company either immediately or in the future in return for contributions in kind of shares or securities giving access to share capital outside of a public exchange offer initiated by the company. Voting is open. This resolution, sorry, voting is closed. This resolution is passed. 22nd resolution relative to delegating authority to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing shares without preferential subscription rights of the shareholders resulting from the issue by the subsidiaries of the company or securities giving a right to shares to be issued by the company. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The resolution is approved.
23rd resolution relative to delegating authority to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing shares with preferential subscription rights of the shareholders resulting from the issue by the subsidiaries of the company or securities giving a right to shares to be issued by the company. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The resolution is passed. 24th resolution relative to delegating power to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing shares or securities giving a right to the company's shares reserved for employees enrolled in an employer-sponsored company savings plan without preferential subscription rights of the shareholders. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The resolution is passed. 25th resolution relative to delegating power to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing shares without preferential subscription rights of the shareholders in favor of a specific category of beneficiaries.
Voting is open. Voting is closed. The resolution is passed. 26th resolution relative to authorizing the Board to freely grant existing or to be issued shares subject to performance conditions to eligible employees and corporate officers of the AXA Group in the limit of 1% of the total number of shares making up the share capital without preferential subscription rights for a three-year period. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The resolution is passed. 27th resolution authorizing the Board to freely grant existing or to be issued shares dedicated to retirement and subject to performance conditions to eligible employees and corporate officers of the AXA Group in the limit of 0.40% of the total number of shares making up the share capital on the date when the Board grants these shares for a three-year period. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The resolution is passed.
28th resolution relates to harmonizing the bylaws with the legal and regulatory provisions. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The resolution is carried. 29th resolution relates to—and last resolution relates to amending Article 14 of the Bylaws relative to the meetings of the Board of Directors to allow the Board of Directors to take decisions by written—by way of written consultation. Voting is open. Resolution is passed. My role is done. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you all for being here with us today. I hope this meeting was conclusive and gave you all the insights and answers you expected. I would like to thank the meeting panel for their efficient support so that you can organize next year's meeting. Please note that the AGM should take place on the 30th of April 2026.
With no further matter on the agenda, I adjourn this meeting. I would like to thank you all again.