Morning, I'm Nishimura. Thank you very much for attending our conference call today. From my side, I'd like to first review the overall results for the first half of fiscal year 2025. Please turn to page 2. The group adjusted profit reached JPY 231.1 billion, progressing steady at 56% of initial forecast, driven by higher-than-expected gains from security sales at Dai-ichi Life and reduced operating expense and the impact of agency sales at PLC . We announced on November 14th that we are raising this fiscal year's adjusted profit outlook to JPY 470 billion. Group VNB increased to JPY 106.3 billion, primarily driven by Dai-ichi Life affecting the impact of rising interest rates. Remittance from subsidiaries projected to total JPY 830 billion, with the increase of about JPY 600 billion for the current and next fiscal years.
We have raised JPY 3 for the share payout, expected to reach JPY 280 billion. For the ESR, as of the end of September, mass lapse risk was there, but despite that, we had the rising interest rates, and with that, we have the 8 percentage points increase from the previous fiscal year. For relative to ESR, we have been 7th place compared with 14 peer companies, and we are in our range. Next to this page, this is about the ESR. While lapse risk increased due to rising interest rates, eligible capital rose significantly, driven by higher domestic stock prices, higher interest rates, and an increase in the value of new business and expected earnings. This has been an increase since then. Compared with our initial plan, the environment itself has become more favorable.
We're above the range, but to the year-end, some cash-out for ESR, it could go up, could go down by 10 percentage points. With the volatile fiscal environment, this could be a factor that we have to be careful. On the right-hand side, regarding sensitivity, the trend remains unchanged from the levels indicated in June 2025. Please refer to the next page. Next, we'll explain the group risk profile. As part of the efforts to reduce market risk, we proceeded with the sales of domestic equities. However, this was offset by rising stock prices, and the proportion of equity risk within total required capital remained largely unchanged. On the other hand, due to the impact of rising interest rates, mass debt rates had increased.
The target for this fiscal year, we are considering to increase this fiscal year's target amount for stock sales from JPY 380 billion to approximately JPY 700 billion. We'll continue to closely monitor the market conditions and enhance capital efficiencies through risk reduction. Now, on to the next page. This is about the supplementary information on Dai-ichi Life's asset liability duration matching ratio. During the November 14 conference call, we disclosed that the matching ratio for the individual insurance block is 104%. Dai-ichi Life holds the majority of its assets as policy reserve matching bonds. These are assets that, unlike those held to maturity, can be rebalanced as needed. That's the asset classification. In the liability block of Dai-ichi Life, liability duration fluctuates due to new insurance contracts, policy cancellation, etc.
However, since assets are held in policy reserve matching bonds, the asset can be adjusted through rebalancing, and we proactively and flexibly rebalance the asset side to avoid over-hedging. Furthermore, in the sensitivity perspective, we are calculating using effective duration that reflects the impact of derivative asset interest rates, and the matching rate could be approximately 97%. This page is about holdings cash position. Following the upward revision of the group adjusted profit, remittance for fiscal 2026 is expected to increase by approximately JPY 60 billion compared to the initial forecast. Also, in light of the planned changes to capital regulation at the fiscal year-end, certain domestic subsidiaries are considering the release of surplus capital. It is not reflected in this diagram, but we would like to provide further details on this matter as soon as updated information becomes available.
Also, as announced in October, regarding the subordinated loan of Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company that reached its call date, Dai-ichi Life will repay its position. Also, Dai-ichi Life Holdings raised approximately JPY 210 billion in subordinated loans. Consequently, Dai-ichi Holdings' cash position increased to JPY 440 billion. If there are no specific uses for this cash, such as strategic investments, the leveraging is a potential option, and we're also considering allocating this cash towards repaying some borrowing scheduled for the next fiscal year. Combined with the last fiscal year's increased profit, free cash flow is approximately increasing, as you can see in this diagram. Please turn to the next page. Under our current medium-term plan, we are actively pursuing strategic investments. We are allocating this capital surplus generated by reducing Dai-ichi Life's risk to growth businesses, particularly overseas operations and asset management.
Since the launch of the plan, we have executed approximately 10 strategic investments of varying sizes, including bulge-on deals. Concurrently, we actively manage capital circulation through measures such as existing or tight operations and selling unprofitable blocks via PLC. When executing investment projects, we set appropriate harder light variables based on risk and make disciplined decisions. Going forward, we'll enhance capital efficiency through capital light projects, pursue projects that contribute to asset formation, and leverage bulge-on acquisitions overseas to realize synergies, thereby driving early corporate value growth. Please turn to the next page. This is reviewing profit contribution from overseas businesses. Since entering Vietnam in 2007, our group has expanded into a total of 10 countries. Considering each country's market environment, we have steadily grown the scale and profit of contribution of these companies.
In developing overseas operations, we partner with local management teams who are deeply familiar with each country's regulations for the insurance sector, an area where we possess deep and affluent expertise. To leverage our extensive experience in insurance, we also actively invest in human capital to achieve mid-term value enhancement. While ROI figures are presented, not all projects have achieved such numbers from the outset, day one. In the regulated insurance sector, heavy day-one costs during the initial acquisition phase often result in lower initial ROI calculation at the beginning. However, by taking time to refine these operations, we enable them to generate stable and long-term profits. Our overseas operations now generate profits exceeding JPY 100 billion, accounting for approximately one quarter of the total group profits. We will continue to thoroughly refine each country's operations to drive value enhancement. Now, next page.
This is about the future outlook for profits at Protective in the U.S., one of the pillars of our overseas operations. Following the acquisition in 2016, PLC expanded its business's scale through large-scale block acquisitions in 2018 and 2019, supported by capital assistance from our company. However, due to impacts, including the novel influenza outbreak, COVID-19, and the failure and the default of U.S. regional banks, PLC experienced several years of persistently low profit levels. However, these were all a temporary negative event. We received tough criticism from market participants regarding Protective Life Corporation. Amidst all this, since 2023, factors such as temporary downward pressure dissipated. In the recent years, we have actively pursued initiatives, including reducing operating expenses to improve business efficiency and driving unprofitable blocks.
We focused on enhancing the profitability of existing businesses, and through measures like improving investment yields, re-portfolio restructuring, and expanding the balance of retirement products, we were able to enhance PLC's capital efficiency and also improve the contribution to group ROE. We also recently announced the acquisition of a portfolio operator warranty business in the U.S. The company is a capital-light business model, generating the majority of its revenue from fee income, including ShelterPoint acquired last year and our existing APD businesses. We aim to actively expand these capital-light businesses across areas going forward, and we will target the generation of approximately $200 million in profit from these areas by fiscal 2030 to achieve its group adjusted profit targets for fiscal 2026 and 2030, and to realize the vision envisioned at the time of PLC's acquisition.
PLC will accelerate initiatives to expand earnings and shifting away from the trend of subsidiaries several years. I would like to talk about Group EV. In addition to realization of value of new business and expected earnings, the rising interest rates and changes in the yield curve that are steepening pushed up the Group EV significantly. Regarding EV disclosure, we are currently considering disclosing information based on ESR in light of the introduction of economic value regulation in the end of this fiscal year. Please note that we are considering disclosing useful information to investors so that the disclosure level will not drop. That is all from me.
Thank you, Mr. Nishimura. Next, Group CEO Kikuta will give a presentation.
I am Kikuta, and thank you very much for giving us time today and participating in this meeting. I will explain to you our growth story for 2030.
Let me start by talking about the progress of the mid-term management plan. As Mr. Nishimura explained, group adjusted profit and adjusted ROE significantly exceeded targets thanks to the favorable economic environment. As it has already been announced, we have revised our full-year forecast upwards, and we continue our efforts to enhance corporate value. We see steady progress in M&A activities in overseas and non-insurance businesses, and we are taking steps to improve capital efficiency and drive growth. In domestic businesses, the recovery trend in Dai-ichi Life's sales performance continues. At Dai-ichi Frontier Life, the sales of yen-denominated products expanded thanks to the higher interest rates. Its AUM is growing steadily, and we can expect a stable profit going forward. Dai-ichi Life is working on initiatives to improve operational efficiency. In the beginning of the next year, we will have a business strategy presentation by group heads, and Mr.
Kai, the Head of Domestic Protection Business, will give you an overview of the initiatives there. As you have just heard, in overseas businesses, PLC is driving profit growth through capital-light M&As and reinsurance of non-profitable blocks. It is moving toward operations with focus on capital efficiency. On the other hand, the Asia-Pacific region, TAL and Dai-ichi Life Vietnam are struggling. In case of TAL, there is a bad claim environment, and in Vietnam, there are regulatory changes, and these companies are struggling to perform. TAL is repricing products with high claim payments. We can expect some improvement with respect to claims. In Vietnam, stagnant sales of bancassurance have hit the bottom, and we are now seeing a sign of recovery.
In non-insurance business, capital and investment made during the period of this medium-term plan, and DMRE, for which the EJV started to operate, start to contribute to group profit. The revenue of the asset management segment is expanding. It is coming closer to JPY 20 billion. In Benefit One's employee benefit business, the share of Dai-ichi Life channel is growing, especially the sale to the large corporations. Some major sales will come next year, but we are making steady progress. As you may know, we have revised upward the fiscal 2025 full-year forecast of adjusted profit from JPY 410 billion to JPY 470 billion. Favorable economic environment is indeed a tailwind, but Dai-ichi Life has been generating profits steadily, and both organic and inorganic initiatives have heightened our profit generation capacities, capabilities.
As for group adjusted ROE, assuming the achievement of this fiscal year's full-year forecast, it will be 11.8%, bringing us closer to the mid-term plan target of 12%. Dai-ichi Life's plan to sell domestic listed stocks is progressing according to the plan. Its ROE forecast for the next fiscal year is around 13%. There is a high probability of achieving group adjusted ROE of 12%, and we will move forward with greater speed and steady progress toward our target of 14% or more by fiscal 2030. Considering current performance and future forecast, we have revised our fiscal 2030 profit target to JPY 700 billion from JPY 600 billion.
Domestic businesses are expected to generate scalable profit, and we also take into account profit growth of overseas businesses driven by Protective's profit expansion and increase of profit contribution from non-insurance businesses as the profit of asset management segment grows in the mid to long term. Profit levels have risen under the current medium-term plan, enabling us to generate more cash than when plan first began. We will think about inorganic investment to allocate more capital to income remittence, and at the same time, we will be reviewing our KPIs. This shows the outlook for 2030. In our current medium-term management plan, we have made improvement of capital efficiency a top priority and have steadily strengthened our founding of growth by expanding profits, reducing risks, and accelerating growth in overseas business, and entering adjacent non-insurance markets.
The target of ROE larger than 10% and adjusted profit of JPY 400 billion have been adjusted upward to JPY 450 billion and ROE of 12%. In light of these circumstances, the most important goal of the medium-term plan is achieving capital efficiency that consistently exceeds capital costs as we approach the third year of the plan. We have previously stated that when that is achieved, we would raise our dividend payout ratio to 50% and allocate more capital to growth investments to accelerate growth toward 2030. We believe that the time has come for that. First, we will focus on achieving our full-year forecast for this fiscal year and hope to raise our dividend payout ratio to 50% as early as possible. Furthermore, we will increase capital allocation to growth investment and accelerate profit growth.
However, these changes do not mean a weakening of our shareholder return policy. We expect shareholder returns to expand in line with profit growth, especially the dividends. As a means to improve our capital efficiency, share buyback is one of the possible measures. However, we would like to decide the timing very flexibly, taking into consideration such factors as capital and cash positions, a pipeline of strategic investments, and the share price. That is how we would like to change the announcement of share buyback, backed by stable profits and cash generation. We have been able to steadily increase dividends for over the past 10 years. We are proud of our dividend per share growth rate of 18%. It is a very good number. As for EPS, the growth rate is 11%, and it demonstrates a stable profit growth.
By steadily implementing our growth strategy, focusing on profit growth and accelerating our growth, we aim to further expand shareholder returns. Now, I would like to conclude my explanation here. Thank you very much for listening.