And so it’s partly the environment, but that’s a reality. So we got to adapt to it, right? So we adapt to it in 2 ways. First of all, we are reducing expenses. We are seeing that coming through already in the first half year. Did not, of course, completely offset the loss in revenues, but we continue to drive more expense reductions and we have plans for that, which we are currently executing. It’s underway. It’s already visible in the first half year. But you will see more of that coming through in the future. That’s number one. The second piece of adaptation has to do with the focus that we have on those investment strategies that we believe are the strategies that we have a competitive edge and can compete successfully in the future. And those are alternatives fixed income strategies, real asset strategies, the CLOs, et cetera.
And we’re not only focusing on that in our sales efforts in getting new mandates in, but also, we actually have acquired a CLO platform, a CLO team to strengthen our CLO platform. We have expanded in the LBPAM, so La Banque Postale Asset Management business to also strengthen the capabilities there, and we will continue to do so. So it’s adapting to a new reality, expense reductions and efficiency and focusing on those strategies that have — that we have a competitive edge in, and increasing those capabilities and that attracts usually higher basis points over the assets managed. Matt, Individual Life.
Matthew Rider : So first, let’s talk about the manufacturing side of this, which is I think where the question is really coming from. So what you’ve seen is, as Lard has said in his remarks, we have seen good growth in Individual Life sales in the U.S. We like that. We are seeing consistently increasing New Business Strain, which we also like. Why do we like that? Because we’ve been able to maintain price IRRs of greater than 12% on the overall Life book. So this is a business that is extremely profitable. We like to write a lot of it. We’re doing more and more of it at younger ages. So this is extremely good business and it’s — so that one goes extremely well. The other one that I always mention is that the manufacturing is one side of the business.
We also have the WFG as a distribution channel within the U.S. So capital generation and WFG is through really just distribution type earnings, which are also increasing in line with sales and even a little bit of a leverage effect there. So — and on the Life side in the U.S., we are making some very good progress, able to maintain our pricing margins and you see things go generally in the right direction.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes the Q&A session. I would now like to hand the call back over to Hielke Hielkema for closing remarks.
Hielke Hielkema : Thank you, operator. This concludes today’s Q&A session. On behalf of Lard and Matt, I want to thank you for the interaction. If you have any remaining questions, please do get in touch with us in Investor Relations. Thanks again for your participation in today’s call, and have a good day.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
