Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Momentum Metropolitan third quarter FY 2023 operating update. All participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions later during the conference. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal for an operator by pressing Star and then zero. Please note that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Hillie Meyer. Thank you, and you may proceed, sir.
Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this trading update. Thank you for your attendance. As is normal, you know, I'll give an introduction, and then I will hand over to Risto, who will just then highlight some of the financial features in a bit more detail. We're also joined today by Jeanette Marais, and I'll say a little bit more about our new CEO towards the end of my introduction. As we've indicated in the trading update, we pleased with the results under the circumstances. If, you know, just as far as earnings is concerned, obviously it's a very good comparative number. I mean, the prior period, you know, still suffered from some of the COVID-19 impact, so that, you know, the improvement is to be expected.
I think we're very pleased with the operating profit in particular. You know, I think sort of our reliance on investment results and so forth, or the contribution of investment results to this very, very good set of results was rather muted. Which I think is, you know, I think something that just sort of emphasizes a very strong operating result. I think also just, you know, I mean, I think the strong earnings number is proof again, that for a financial insurer, you know, the sort of current economic environment's impact on earnings is less than what it would be for other entities or probably what people would generally expect.
I mean, our earnings is really a function of what we've done over the last 15 or 20 years. Therefore, you know, what we do over the last year, doesn't necessarily impact earnings that much. Again, you know, one would expect the earnings to probably you know, not necessarily reflect, I think, a very tough trading environment. Moving on to new business. The PV, the present value of new business premiums declined by 8%. I think now we get to some of the numbers that probably reflect the environment. I think just, you know, especially if our results are compared to other companies that are also delivering results.
I'd just like to point out that for the nine months to 31 March 2002, in other words, today, a year ago, we reported, present value, new business premium growth of 16%. I think the decline of 8% should probably just be seen in that context. You know, it's still a growth compared to two years ago, and certainly, you know, also growth compared to the prior periods. Yeah. Maybe just one or two comments on specific business units. Metropolitan, you know, I think we're sort of reasonably happy with progress. Quite a number of actions are being taken and have been taken, and I think we...
I think we're pretty positive that we will start seeing the impact of that come through from this current quarter, first quarter onwards. You know, I mean, a lot of the I think if you look at the 9 months, a lot of the, I think, sort of, you know, the results are strongly impacted by what happened over the first 6 months. Even though in some areas, you know, not all, but in some areas, the third quarter results already, you know, have a little bit of improvement and we bottom up, but it's not apparent from a 9-month number. I think we've made, we sort of have turned the corner.
As far as Momentum Insure is concerned, you know, it was a tough quarter also from, you know, from an underwriting results point of view. You know, now, I mean, I think, we've communicated that you know, we're somewhat behind in terms of just adjusting our premiums. I think just from a weather and experience, you know, let's say, load-shedding related and so forth, the claims results, in other words, from a claims point of view, not so much from a premium point of view, was actually not a good quarter. It's probably the worst quarter in the history of Momentum Insure. Again, in Momentum Insure, there's you know, a lot of action, decisive actions being taken.
We're confident that we will see things improve, but I mean, we're quite happy, you know, and we know the market will wait for us to deliver on that. Happy with that. Just finally, you know, as you would have seen from the trading update, we announced last week that Jeanette Marais will succeed me on 1 August. Just sort of, you know, one or two comments. I think the one comment I would like to make is that we now getting close to the final year of our 3-year Reinvent and Grow strategic planning period.
It is not necessarily planned that way, but I think it's quite fortuitous that Jeanette, under her guidance now and the new team, you know, sort of her team, not a new team, but quite a settled team, will have a 12-month period before they will be in a position to share with the market what will happen from a strategy point of view beyond 2024. I think that's quite nice. I mean, the strategic planning for whatever we're gonna do beyond Reinvent and Grow, that process has started, and under Jeanette's leadership, it will now continue and conclude sometime next year. I don't know, May or there, thereabout, normally we, you know, announce our new sort of strategic objectives to the market.
Now when we get to the question time, Jeanette's here today, so you're welcome to also ask Jeanette any questions that you might have. With that, I'm gonna hand over to Risto.
Thanks, Hillie. I'll just cover a couple of maybe not so obvious things in the results, just to give you a bit more sort of depth within the numbers. We do mention in quite a few places that mortality results were much better in the current period. I think what we didn't make clear is that mortality seems to be back pretty much to pre-COVID level. You know, in the previous few quarters, we have spoken about the fact that mortality is still above long-term norms in a few places, but now we seem to be back to sort of long-term levels. That's quite important because before COVID came, we were thinking about possibly making some basis changes on mortality. So we're back in a situation where we're considering maybe lowering some of the mortality assumptions.
I've spoken about the positive basis change because on the other side, on the expenses side, you know, it is obviously quite difficult in this environment. Our book is not really growing, so we need to keep our expense in place, growth below sort of 5% every year, which is quite difficult in light of, you know, like, professional salaries, administrative inflation, and so on. You know, if I'm saying mortality is looking really good on the expense side, we're gonna have to be quite diligent to not have a basis change at year-end. I also noted there was an analyst report today talking about yield curve impacts, which are always a feature of our results.
They were positive in those nine months, particularly in the third quarter, and the yields continued to increase during April, so those should be supportive of results in the fourth quarter. We always take the pain when they go down, so we'll take the credit now that they're going up. The other thing that we spoke about the interims, but probably worth highlighting again, is just the importance of annuities to our current value of new business. I looked this morning, I think about 80% of our VNB is from annuities. We are market leader in annuities, so it's a great position to be in, but it's maybe also just to take note of if there are sort of...
Well, we're not seeing it, but if there is a reversal of the demand for life annuities, then our VNB will probably reflect that change in trend as well. At this stage, it's a great thing, but it is something that obviously keeping an eye open. In terms of Momentum Insure, Hillie mentioned it's a tough quarter. One thing that I found quite curious, well, it's the wrong word, but one thing probably worth noting, is we had an unusual amount of claims coming in January from December. The reporting delays in this holiday period were quite a bit longer than usual. Part of the weak result in this quarter was actually claims from December being held over the holiday period.
That sort of made a tough quarter even tougher than it needed to be. Obviously, that's worked its way out of the system, April was already a lot better in terms of claims experience. We injected some capital into this business in December, which was in our interims. Obviously, we'll have to wait and see how the fourth quarter plays out, but, you know, there will probably be a need for a capital injection before end of June as well. And I saw in a few analyst reports that there were questions around the valuation of this business and the goodwill. You know, we'll check it at year-end, but obviously, the current results have been quite difficult from Momentum Insure. Yeah, beyond that, I don't think there's anything unusual in these numbers.
I mean, I've given you the five, six items that I thought are maybe not so obvious but relevant. I'll hand over back to Willie.
I think we're ready for any questions. I don't know, so it's probably back to the operator.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one on your touchtone phone or on the keypad on your screen. If you decide to withdraw the question, please press star and then two to remove yourself from the list. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. The first question comes from Michael Christelis from UBS. Please proceed with your question, Michael.
Hi, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks, thanks very much for the time. Couple of questions, if I can. Firstly, on Metropolitan Retail, and I hear your comments around being optimistic and some of the management actions being taken, but we've seen a marked deterioration in Q3 to a negative VNB number for the first time in a while. So maybe if you can just give us a bit more color as to why you are so confident that you're gonna turn this around in the relatively near term. If I'm not mistaken, you were targeting a margin of at least 3% by year-end, and it looks like you're a long way away from that where we stand at the moment. Secondly, if you could talk a bit about the deteriorating persistency. I wasn't sure whether your comments there related to the nine-month period or the 3 months since half-year end.
So m aybe if you can just talk about what persistency is doing relative to where you were as at the end of December. you know, I think you've touched on the yield impact. I mean, can you talk a bit about the quantum that we can expect if you'll say, for example, where they are, what sort of impact that would have on the full year number and maybe how much was in quarter three? That'd be quite useful. Thanks very much.
Okay. I think Risto and I will share at least a question around Metropolitan, and then Risto, you will deal with the Juncker. Michael, there are a few things that's happening. I think, first of all, as far as Metropolitan and the VNB is concerned, there's been some rate increases that's been put through recently, and it's in the process of happening, and it will start to reflect in the results in this quarter. That's the one point. I think the second point is, you know, a fair bit of I think the lapses relate to fraudulent activities in the sales environment.
When you discover these things, you know, it takes a little while for it to work out of the system. We, you know, I would say if you go back sort of 12, 15 months, there was still quite a growth in sales with numbers. That's, you know, we actually stopped really focusing so much on recruitment and recruitment and rather focused on quality, you know, let's say from 9 months or so ago. Again, those things take a little while to come through. For the last few months, the focus been on quality. I don't think we're gonna see, you know, the same level of fallout from fraudulent activities and so forth. You know, I think that will come through.
Also, you know, I think there are a number of activities around improving debit order collections. Also, you know, a mix of stop order, debit order business, a bit of a refocus there. Yeah, you know, again, I mean, those things, we're beginning to see that there are improvements in the quality around that. Just finally, you know, we're keeping our eye on cost and manage and so forth, and I think we sort of, you know, gonna see a bit of discipline, that will also assist a little bit. I think, you know, there were quite a few initiatives over the last sort of 9, 12 months that impacted the cost side of the equation a bit.
I don't know, Risto, what else, you know. I would just say that, you know, we're sort of targeting a VNB as a percentage of premium, and we look at the recent, you know, numbers that the guys have produced for us, that it would return back to, you know, maybe not exactly 3, but 2.5% in the next financial year. You know, I think we're definitely positive that there will be an improvement even this quarter that we will see it. Look, I mean, it was a particularly bad quarter. You know, I mean, even if you look, if you compare it to the last eight quarters, it's, you know, I mean, normally, Metropolitan VNB would be...
It was a, you know, not a very good period, but it's between ZAR 50 million and ZAR 80 million per quarter. This quarter was ZAR 4 million. I can't see it, you know, staying at that level.
Yeah, Mark. I mean, the only additional thing I'll say is MiC normally has a weaker Q3 , because December and January falls in May. In the holiday months, we pay the guys a basic salary, even if they're not really producing enough business to be validated using our jargon. Normally, our commissions are a bit higher in January, in particular, compared to production volumes. VNB is normally a bit seasonal for MiC. Sorry, the question? Yeah. Go for it. Sorry, the persistency question in MiC, has it deteriorated from December, or is it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I'm getting to the last two. Right. Persistency. Apologies. Yeah. The third quarter was almost exactly half of the first 6 months.
From an earnings perspective, basically a straight run rate from the first 6 months. What it may be a bit different is that in the first quarter, we had a few technical issues. Remember we changed, operating, well, line of business systems, yeah, which resulted in some lapses not happening when they should have, so they came through in the first quarter this year. Now, I think it's more of the underlying lapses, they're not improving. I think that's probably behind the persistency comment. Then the yield impact, I mean, I'll give you the numbers to the nearest ZAR 100 million. In the first 6 months, we had about a ZAR 100 million positive investment yield variance, yield curve variance. It was ZAR 200 million in this quarter.
This quarter had ZAR 200 million gain from yield curve movement, and it was another ZAR 100 million in April. I mean, you have to watch the 15, 25 year bonds in June to see what the impact is at year-end.
Michael, the only other thing I could have mentioned, and should have mentioned, was in Metropolitan, you know, there are quite a number of sort of management activities around, you know, activity management in the sales force, you know, commission payments, you know, and, you know, sort of higher, you know, more discipline required to earn bonuses at management levels and, that sort of thing. I mean, a whole number of activities are just designed around improving the discipline, the quality in the sales environment.
Thanks very much, guys. Very clear.
Thank you. The next question comes from Warrick Bam from RMB Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question, Warrick.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity. Just two from me. If you could just elaborate on Momentum Corporate, you mentioned a release of COVID-19 reserves. Just how material was that, and did that all come through in the third quarter? Then just the comments around Momentum Insure and the potential need for more capital. How material will that be when it comes to assessing the group dividend at year-end? Could it have an impact on that decision? Thanks.
Yeah. I can deal with the Insure one. I don't know about Corporate. Why the corporate? Was it a question on mortality?
In your comments, you mentioned-.
Reserve releases.
There was a COVID-19 reserve release. Obviously t here was positive mortality experience and a reserve release. Just trying to get a sense of how material the reserve release was.
Okay. It would not be massive in the context of total earnings. We started the year with a lot lower provisions than the previous year. You probably measure that impact in ZAR tens of millions, if not ZAR hundreds of millions. It doesn't explain the strong result. It's more your underlying mortality and disability experience.
I'll deal with your final question as well, Warrick, and that is that, I don't think the, any, you know, capital that we, you know, pass on to Momentum Insure would impact dividends at all. It won't be sizable enough. You know, I mean, it's not, it's not, gonna impact earnings, so it won't impact dividends at all.
Thank you.
Yeah, I agree. I suppose the capital injection will be a function of how the last quarter goes, but I think you can look at a quantum between ZAR 200 million-ZAR 400 million. That will not affect our ability to pay a normal dividend. I mean, that, I agree with you. We will still be able to pay as per the dividend policy, which is based on earnings. Yeah, and by the way, I've got a number here. The provision release, the reserve release for COVID-19 has been ZAR 101 million for the 9 months. You can use, like, a ZAR 30 million-ZAR 40 million run rate in terms of the corporate COVID-19 release.
Thanks, Risto. Thanks, Willie.
Thank you. The next question comes from Matthew Pouncett from Laurium Capital. Please proceed with your question, Matthew. Matthew, you may proceed with your question. If your line is muted, please unmute your line so that you can pose your question. Unfortunately, we cannot hear anything from Matthew's line. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star and then one. If you'd like to ask a question or a follow-up question, please press star and then one. We will pause to see if we have any further questions. The next question comes from Cornette van Zyl from Sanlam. Please proceed with your question, Cornet.
Hi, guys. Risto, you did allude to this in your commentary earlier. Generally looking at the trading statements that have come out of the life insurance companies, it looks like guaranteed annuity sales are holding up well, and in fact, they're actually looking surprisingly strong. Could you maybe comment on that in your own businesses and just sort of, you know, even after March, what it's looking like? Thanks.
Okay, I think Jeanette's probably the best person to comment, but I would say that, you know, it persisted for longer than I would have, you know, thought it would be the case. Yeah, we had stronger results this quarter and even the last few months. I mean, it continues. Jeanette, I don't know.
Hi, Cornet. Thanks for the question. I actually shared with Willie earlier today that February was the record month in the history of Momentum Investments for annuity sales. Yesterday was closed off, and, you know, just about an hour ago, we heard that May was actually now the record month of annuity sales that we've ever had. March and April were very strong as well. Actually, this quarter, from that perspective, I mean, it's made a very strong start already. I mean, I think it's unlikely that whatever happens in June is going to be able to influence that in any material way.
Thank you.
I could maybe just add, sorry, one thing. We are literally on a weekly basis, managing this balance between the margin that we take on our annuity business versus our rates. I mean, we have found, it's just for me to interject, that we monitor it quite closely. We found that you almost don't need to be the number one with your rates in order to get, still get, you know, a lot of the business. We're managing that on a, like, very, very closely, that kind of difference between where you come in the top five in terms of the rate that you offer versus obviously the impact that that have on your margin. I mean, we far better at that now than we were, for instance, a year and a half ago.
Thank you, Jeanette. That was useful.
Thank you. We have been rejoined by Matthew from Laurium Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks very much. Can you guys hear me now?
Yes.
Okay, perfect.
Yes.
Thanks so much for your time, guys. Just a quick question on Momentum Retail. That's still been a negative VNB. There was some commentary in the results about the, you know, decent growth in the risk product and, I suppose you alluded to a shift to kind of a more smoother underwriting process. Just trying to gauge management's confidence in terms of seeing that VNB turn positive, potentially in the coming quarter.
Yeah. Look, the Momentum Retail, I think it's gonna be, yeah, a tough game for a while still, and I'll unpack and explain a bit more in rest time. You guys must come in, if I'm forget something or miss something. I think, first of all, keep in mind that Momentum Retail includes the Myriad, the protection sales, and then there's a fair bit of savings business, which includes retirement business, which is obviously very sort of, you know, a good... relatively good margin business, you know, in a sort of savings environment. Overall, the savings VNB is negative. I think if you look at Myriad, the VNB margin is also, you know, it's almost a zero VNB or very close to zero.
Now, it's 2 big numbers, you know, that you sort of deduct from one another. Obviously, we all know that. We do see some cost benefit coming through, because, I mean, we've actually implemented a number of initiatives. That, I think it will assist us to keep expense growth on the new business side to fairly moderate levels. In spite of, you know, I think sort of a relatively high inflation rate generally, you know, and in spite of quite, I think, sort of significant improvements in the IT environment and so on and so forth. And I think that would have been fantastic if we foresaw anything more than a 3% or 4% growth in, in new business volumes. That's the, that's the unknown factor.
I mean, we're sort of planning, you know, internally, we're saying to ourselves that we might just find that two or three years from now, you know, the market, the risk protection, premium income, new business premium income in this segment of the market might, in two or three years' time, be the same as it is today. Which will make it very difficult to really improve VNB. That's really the dilemma. I mean, so far, the Myriad launch, you know, it went well. We're seeing a good take-up of the new technology that we rolled out, but we haven't really seen a positive impact on premium levels or relative market share, I would say. That will be a bit of a bonus.
It's something that we, you know, we think we can probably do, but until, you know, until we actually start taking business away from competitors, it remains, I'd say, you know, a target or an objective or whatever. You know, we still need to see whether we can do that. You know, the proof will, you know, the proof will put in the line of testing. I mean competitors are also improving their stuff, so we'll have to see. I think that would be the one factor that can improve things. We don't think that there's gonna be, over the next year or even 2 years, a significant improvement on the VNB front for... even for Myriad. I think it's gonna be tough for the market overall.
I think all the VNBs will come under pressure. Because my sort of sense is just that overall, looking at all you know, all classes of business, you're gonna see probably new business growth levels maybe lower than cost inflation.
Matthew, does that address your questions? Do you have anything else?
It does. Perfect. Just one more question, maybe on Aditya Birla. I'll see you guys report a quarter in the rear, as it looked like in the last quarter, Aditya Birla Health was almost at, you know, counting break even. Maybe just your thoughts on that. Is that kind of just one quarter, is it too little to, you know, really read into? Are the losses there closing? Maybe just another view on your confidence around the fact that in terms of capital injections into that business, that you've kind of reached the end of having to do that after this, you know, injection from Aditya, how you just reflected on that?
Yeah. Matthew, your line is quite bad, but I got two parts of it. The first one was that you noted that Aditya Birla announced results recently, which is true, and the fourth quarter was quite strong. You'll see there's normally seasonality in the results. India has a March tax year-end, so we get a huge amount of business in the January to March period, which is then what we report as fourth quarter. You know, we actually generally have a better fourth quarter in terms of results than in the other three quarters. You're right, the results at year-end will look a bit better. Losses are narrowing, and they're tracking a little bit below the rate curve we wanted, but they're definitely trending in the right direction.
Top-line growth has been very good since we increased focus on revenue growth. It wasn't just you. There's a few people who seem to have spotted the comment about focusing on growth as being almost like a signal that they need more capital now. It's probably not a bad connecting the dots in that with the growth being accelerating, we are looking at likely, I wouldn't say certain, but likely capital injections maybe two years from now. You know, the capital we got in through the Abu Dhabi deal, that capital will probably be consumed about one year quicker than we thought. All three shareholders will be expected to inject, I think, some capital in there in 2025, and maybe 2026. Breakeven should be 2026.
Risto, would it be fair to say that the need for, let's say, capital two or three years from now, when we sort of originally anticipated that, you know, it should be self-funding by then, is a function, not so much of the revenue growth, that was also always in the plan. I mean, the capital, you know, the capital that Abu Dhabi injected was there to fund the growth. It's more around the, you know, the claims ratios actually not improving to pre-COVID levels, and it's more a function of claims experience than it is of new business growth. The new business growth, the funding was there for it, and it's working according to plan.
No, you're right. I mean, it's not only the growth, I mean, obviously the mix of growth as well that has an impact. A bit more of the growth is coming in lower margin products, so that has a.... And, yeah, there is some claims ratio keeps being a bit higher than we expect, and a lot of reasons for it. You know, one being obviously the suppliers in India seemingly having quite a bit of pricing power, so medical inflation has been quite high in India. Getting into the weeds and the details, but Matthew, we are repricing that book quite aggressively.
Now, I don't know what Aditya Birla has said, but we're targeting sort of, let's say, 10%-15% premium increases to combat the medical inflation, so that should help. Yeah. Anyway, the short answer is, probably need to inject some capital in 2025.
Okay. Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Saul, from Truffle Asset Management. Please proceed with your question, Saul. Saul, you may proceed with your question. If your line is muted-
Hi. Sorry.
Unmute yourself.
Can you hear me? Yes.
Yes.
Your targets for 2024, Are you still comfortable with meeting those? I think it's sort of ZAR 4 billion-ZAR 4.6 billion-ZAR 5 billion.
Look, I mean, if you look at, you know, earnings numbers, currently, you know, the run rate is, you know, a bit more than ZAR 1 billion a quarter, you know, ZAR 1.2 or even more in a good quarter. I think it will be. You know, I think we're probably comfortable, Saul, that we'll be successful in achieving the lower end of the range again. Again, I mean, there, obviously, you know, there's basis changes and there's spreads and stuff, but I think sort of, you know, as a long-term run rate, we're probably getting to the point where we can probably do ZAR 1.2 billion per quarter. You know, keep in mind, the final quarter is always the quarter where there are valuation basis changes that happened.
I mean, we'll have to see what happens in the final quarter of this year. Barring those sort of circumstances, we're probably getting to the point where we can be, you know, somewhere between ZAR 1 billion and ZAR 1.2 billion per quarter. That puts us in line for ZAR 4.6 billion at least.
I just asked because I stripped out the yield curve move that you gave and sort of annualized the nine-month number. It looked like it could be a bit below that sort, but if it is sort of one, I suppose if you are on one, between ZAR 1.1 and ZAR 1.2, then that's fair enough.
Just remember that Hillie is an eternal optimist.
I didn't want to hear that, but okay.
Yeah. We'll try. We'll try.
Keep in mind, you know, Momentum Insure is quite a drag. I mean, Aditya Birla, you know, I mean, is also a bit of a drag. I'm sort of relying on both those actually, you know, showing some, I don't know, some positive impact.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is a follow-up question from Michael Christelis. Please proceed with your question, sir.
Hi, guys. Very quick one, I think. I noticed you haven't given us an update on the RMI asset management deal. Can you give us just a bit of an update as to what the progress is there and when it'll likely close, if it's still ongoing?
Thank you, Michael. I'll take the question. We have some of our affiliates in the room, so I'm sure they'll also be, you know, quite interested to hear. I would say that we are very, very close to actually finally, you know, shaking hands and agreeing on final price. I mean, there were a few outstanding items that, you know, we've concluded over the last week or so. At the moment, it really looks like we'll be able to conclude the deal very soon.
Can you give us an indication of what sort of excess capital levels you've got at the moment once you've settled that? I'm trying to get at, is there potential for another buyback to resume, or is it not, or not?
I mean, Michael, remember, we don't build up required capital exactly in the same way some of the other companies show, but we have internal targets of sort of high quality, liquid assets, everything else. We have historically said, and it holds now still, that we generate about ZAR 500 million a half more than our dividend payment that we need for the dividend payment. The RMI deal is not gonna eat up all of that. I mean, it's gonna eat up a portion of it. It comes back to the fact that the RMI deal, the insurer injection, none of them put any pressure on the normal dividend. I think it reduces the likelihood of further buybacks after year-end. Would that be at a year-end? I mean, so the short answer is surplus capital is, t here is some there, and it, but it will be quite small after the RMI deal and the insurer injection. Modest surplus capital, but, I mean, the point is, we don't want to hold massive amounts of surplus capital.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. That does conclude the Q&A session. Mr. Meyer, if I may hand over to you for closing remarks. Thank you, sir.
Yeah, no, look, I mean, I've got nothing to add, except to say that, you know, this is probably the last time that, you know, I'm the CEO reporting on the results. I mean, my term comes to an end after our year-end, so I'm still, you know, fully accountable for the year's results, and internally at board meetings and so forth, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be the guy taking responsibility when we discuss our results and so forth. When it comes to the year-end results, you know, there's gonna be somebody a lot prettier than me presenting the results. Thank you very much for your interest and support. Cheers!
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference. Thank you very much for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.