2025 Annual General Meeting

George Culmer:
Good morning and a very warm welcome to Aviva's 2025 Annual General Meeting. I'm George Culmer, your chair, and it's a great pleasure to see you all here today. Aviva has been in Bristol for over 200 years, and we've been in this location for nearly 30. Today, this site hosts over 1000 Aviva colleagues which taps into the rich talent in the area, and I believe this is the first time we have held our AGM here. As I've said before, I find these meetings valuable in giving us the opportunity to update you on how the company is performing and a forum to hear about what matters to you. Alongside me this morning are Amanda Blanc, our CEO, our CFO, Charlotte Jones, our company secretary, Susan Adams, Pippa Lambert, chair of our REM committee, and Patrick Flynn, our senior Independent Director and chair of our Audit committee. I can confirm that in line with our articles of association, we have the necessary quorum of shareholders joining online and, in the room, so we can get underway. Your notice of meeting sets out today's resolutions, so I'm not going to read them to you, but I will give an overview of the formal business of the meeting later on to give those joining virtually time to place their votes online.

I now declare the voting open on all resolutions for any shareholder, proxy or corporate representative, and it will remain open for the duration of the meeting. For online attendees, the resolutions and voting options should appear on your screen under the vote icon at the top right-hand side of the page. For those of you in the room who are entitled to vote, you have been given an iPad at registration and the resolutions should now be available on the screen. To vote, simply select one of the options to cast your vote. Once you have selected your choice, you will see a message on your screen below the resolution confirming that your vote has been received. Please then press the resolution number at the top of the taskbar to move to the next resolution. If you have any problems, please raise your hand and a member of the team will be on hand to help. If you make a mistake or would like to change your vote, simply press ‘Click here to change your vote’. There is no final submit button as the voting is now live.

In a moment, Amanda will give her take on Aviva's progress over the last 12 months. But for me, the headline is that 2024 was another outstanding year for the business. Wherever you look, there is strong momentum. We're implementing our strategy, transforming the experience we offer customers and delivering an impressive performance. Importantly, despite this success, we're only really getting started and we have big ambitions to go faster and to go further. Aviva is full of promise and opportunities for growth. We've got the people, the products, the brand and the strategy to build on where we are and do even better. And by making sure we serve our customers brilliantly, we will be able to keep delivering for all of you, our shareholders.

So with that, Amanda, over to you.

Amanda Blanc:
Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. Thank you to everyone who is here in Bristol today. And a warm welcome to those of you who are joining us online, wherever you are. I'm delighted to report it has been another excellent year for Aviva. We are delivering what we said we would, increasing the momentum built up over the last five years. Growing right across the group, and we are well on track to hit our 2026 financial targets. We are delivering for our customers, with more people turning to Aviva to protect their future. And with strong and reliable earnings and a growing dividend, we are delivering for you, our shareholders. In 2024 we increased operating profit by 20% and announced a final dividend of 23.8 pence with our total dividend, up 7% year on year. Underpinning these results is our powerful, diversified model. We've once again shown it's working with strong performances in all our businesses. The UK and Ireland general insurance business has delivered 16% growth, and we secured double digit growth in Canada and supported customers through a challenging storm season with leading customer service. In wealth, we hit £50 billion of assets on our advisor platform, extending our number one UK wealth position with nearly £200 billion of assets under management in total, and we captured 65% of workplace pension flows into Aviva Investors.

In protection and Health, we are also growing strongly and profitably, with protection sales up 42%. And we are progressing with the integration of AIG at pace with all new business now on Aviva's platform.

And finally, in retirement, we delivered record bulk purchase annuity sales and met our three-year ambition. These results are only possible because of our fantastic people in the UK, Ireland and Canada. Their insistence on doing the right thing for our customers every single day is the driving force behind our success. So a very big thank you to the whole Aviva team.

Before I conclude my remarks, I wanted to briefly recap, especially in these uncertain times, on the five key reasons that we think Aviva is a compelling investment case for shareholders. First, we are the UK's leading diversified insurer with a majority capital light portfolio. Our broad product offering means we are uniquely able to look after customers throughout their lives.

We also have the benefit of geographic diversification with material businesses in Canada and Ireland. Nobody in this market can replicate our successful model. Second, we have a consistent customer centric strategy and the largest customer franchise of any UK insurer with 17 million customers. This is a key source of growth, with more than 40% of new business sales being to existing customers. We are also serving more customer needs, with 5.4 million individual customers in the UK with two or more policies with Aviva. Third, we have strong organic growth in all our markets, accelerated with targeted strategic M&A such as our proposed acquisition of Direct Line Group. This deal is on track and will make us a leader in UK personal lines, accelerating our move towards more capital light business and bringing the best of Aviva to millions more customers. Fourth, we have a track record of delivery built over the last five years. We've completely transformed Aviva and as you can see, that comes through in the strength and consistency of our results.

We have grown each year and by operating more efficiently, we're driving greater profitability. Finally, we have delivered superior returns for our shareholders, returning £10 billion in capital and dividends since 2020. That represents around 70% of our current market cap and a very attractive yield for our shareholders. So Aviva is a very different business to the one I inherited. We have achieved a huge amount, but we are far from being done. As I say time and time again, there is so much potential for Aviva to go after and I have real confidence in our ability to unlock this and deliver the next phase of growth. Thank you for your continued support and thank you for listening.

George Culmer:

Thank you, Amanda. Thank you everyone. I now propose that we move to the formal part of today's agenda. I hope that you've had full opportunity to consider the resolutions and cast your vote. As I said, I will take the notice of meeting as read. However, I would like to draw your attention to the items of business first. In resolution one, the directors are proposing to receive and consider the annual report for the financial year ending 31st December 2024. Resolution two, is proposed to approve the directors remuneration report and resolution three to approve our climate related financial disclosure set out in the company's annual report. Resolution four, the directors are recommending a final dividend for the year ended 31st December 2024 of 23.8 pence per share. The dividend is payable on Thursday, the 22nd of May, to ordinary shareholders, whose names are on the register of members at the close of business on Friday the 11th of April. Resolutions 5 to 17 concern the election and re-election of all directors who retire in accordance with the company's articles. In resolutions 18 and 19 we are seeking approval for the reappointment and remuneration of Ernst and Young as our auditor. Resolution 20 covers political donations. I know that shareholders have raised concerns in the past about the company seeking authority for this matter, but I would like to be clear that it is not the company's policy to make political donations or incur political expenditure, and it has no intention of doing so. Resolutions 21 and 22 refer to the authority conferred on the directors to allot ordinary shares. Resolutions 23 and 24 relate to the disapplication of pre-emption rights and seek authority in line with the guidelines to give the board a maximum flexibility in order to raise capital. I should again emphasize that directors have no present intention of exercising this authority. Resolutions 25 to 27 relate to the authority for the company to purchase its own shares, and resolution 28 relates to the authorisation for the company to call general meetings on no less than 14 clear days’ notice.

Now, as a final reminder, if you've not placed your votes, please do so now. And if you have already submitted your votes prior to the meeting by proxy, and do not wish to change the way you're voted, you do not need to resubmit your vote. If there is anyone present who is entitled to vote but who does not have an iPad, please raise your hand and a marshal will assist you. Once you've submitted votes on all resolutions, if you are using an iPad provided by Computershare, please return the iPad to Computershare on your way out. The final results of the voting will be announced to the London Stock Exchange and posted on the company's website as soon as possible. With that, and thanks to all of you for taking part. I will now formally conclude today's meeting and thank you all very much for making the effort and coming today. So thank you very much.