AEGON N.V.

AEGON N.V.
Quick Facts
Type	Public
sector	Financial Services
Headquarters (Benelux Organization)	Den Haag, Netherlands
Year of Origin	1983
Emissions (All Scopes)	19.97 Megatons of CO2 (2020)
NCI assessment	Low
Total Revenue	EUR 25.2 billion
Stock Exchange	New York and Amsterdam
Key People	Lard Friese (CEO and Chairman of the Executive and Management Board) Matt Rider (CFO)
Number of Employees	22,272
Subsidiaries	Aegon Asset Management Knab Aegon Cappital TKP Pensioen Nedasco Verzekeringen Robidus

Aegon N.V., stylized as Aegon, is a Dutch company that offers insurance to over 30 million customers worldwide. Aegon is a constituent of the AEX index and is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam. The company was formed from the merger between AGO and Ennia in 1983. The company has 22,272 employees. Aegon is active in several countries in Europe, Asia and America. In America, Aegon is known as Transamerica. Aegon's main brands are Aegon and Transamerica, but besides these two the company also has several stand-alone brands including; Knab, TKP, Futureready, and MAG. Furthermore, Aegon has one global asset manager Aegon Asset Management. Aegon Asset Management is active in the global investment business that manages and advises on assets of 410 billion euros. This money is from the global client base consisting of pension plans, public funds, insurance companies, banks, wealth managers, family offices, and foundations. In 2021, Aegon had a revenue of 25.2 billion euros.

Company Structure

Board of Directors

Executive Board

Name	Function	Remuneration x1000 EUR
Lard Friese	Chief Executive Officer	2,622
Matt Rider	Chief Finanacial Officer	1,999

Management Board

Management Board

Name	Function
Lard Friese	CEO and Chairman of the Executive and Management Board
Matt Rider	CFO and member of the Executive and Management Board
Elisabetta Caldera	Chief Human Resources Officer and member of the Management
Will Fuller	CEO of Aegon Americas and member of the Management Board
Mike Holliday-Williams	CEO of Aegon UK and member of the Management Board
Allegra van Hövel-Patrizi	CEO of Aegon the Netherlands and member of the Management Board
Astrid Jäkel	Chief Risk Officer and member of the Management Board
Marco Keim	CEO Aegon International and member of the Management Board
Onno van Klinken	General Counsel and member of the Management Board
Bas NieuweWeme	Global CEO of Aegon Asset Management and member of the Management Board
Duncan Russel	Chief Transformation Officer and member of the Management Board
Debbie Waters	Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and member of the Management Board

Supervisory Board

Supervisory Board

Name	Function	Remuneration x1000 EUR
William Connelly	Chairman	162
Mark Ellman	Member of the Risk Committee	102
Ben Noteboom	Chairman of the Remuneration Committee	107
Caroline Ramsay	Charimand of the Audit Committee	121
Thomas Wellauer	Member of the Audit Committee	111
Corien Wortmann-Kool	Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board	112
Dona Young	Chairman of the Risk Committee	119

Accountant

The external accountant of Aegon N.V. is PricewaterhouseCoopers Accountants N.V. or PwC. In the report attached to the Annual Report of 2021, climate change and climate related risks are mentioned. However, PwC concludes in the report that the risk of climate change does not lead to a material risk and thus, the risk of climate change is not a key audit matter.

Main Activities

Aegon is a company that offers investment, protection, and retirement solutions. The company has 31.7 million customers worldwide.

Government

Aegon is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam and is a constituent of the AEX-index. The company does not have royal status and did not receive NOW support during Corona times.

Shareholdings

Aegons shareholdings are:

• N.V. Levensverzekeringsmaatschappij "De Hoop" (33.3%) (Netherlands)
• Tenet Group Limited (22%) (United Kingdom)
• Seguros Argos (89%) (Mexico)
• Aegon Life Insurance Company Ltd[7] (49%) (India)
• Mongeral Aegon (50%) (Brazil)

Paris Agreement until Today

In 2019 Aegon signed the Climate Commitment of the financial sector. The 54 signatories committed to make a substantial contribution to the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the Dutch Climate Agreement. Concretely: they will measure the CO2 content of their relevant loans and investments and report on this from 2020 onwards and they will publish action plans by 2022 at the latest, including reduction targets for 2030 for all their relevant loans and investments.

Criticism on this commitment:

• This commitment is without obligation. There are no requirements set for the action plans to be published in 2022. Only 19% of signatories had an action plan in line with the Paris Climate Agreement by 2020. In addition, the commitment does not specify the relevant financing and/or investments on which the institutions must report. In 2020, only 9 out of 54 financial institutions report on all relevant asset classes.
• The pace of implementation of this commitment is too slow. Financial institutions such as ABN AMRO, Aegon, ING and Rabobank already committed themselves to the Spitsbergen ambition in 2018, in which they promised to combat climate change. In 2020, almost half of the institutions did not yet have a climate plan.

In Aegon's 2021 financial report an update on the company's sustainability actions is given.

• Aegon has joined the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, which is an UN-convened group of institutional investors committed to transitioning their portfolios to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
• Aegon Asset Management has signed onto the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.
• Aegon Asset Management and Aegon UK partnered up with Global Ethical Finance Initiative to introduce the new Aegon Global Sustainable Sovereign Bond Fund at 'COP26'.
• Aegon signed the United Nations Global Compact.

In 2018, environmental organization Greenpeace started a petition to get companies including Aegon to stop investing in tar sand oil companies. The extraction of tar sands is disastrous and very destructive to local nature. Hot water has to be used for the extraction and also chemicals are used to make the oil suitable for transport. One year after this petition, Aegon agreed to stop all investments in tar oil and to sell its investments in tar sands oil pipelines in Canada and the US. Aegon has decided to stop investing in oil companies that get 30% and more of their oil production from tar sands

Financial Results since 2015

The information that is collected here is focused on the data provided by Aegon.

Financial situation

Year	Revenue	Profit (loss)	Dividend
2015	33,902 Million EUR	(523) Million EUR	306 Million EUR
2016	33,655 Million EUR	586 Million EUR	294 Million EUR
2017	32,973 Million EUR	2,358 Million EUR	328 Million EUR
2018	28,941 Million EUR	741 Million EUR	309 Million EUR
2019	28,197 Million EUR	1,528 Million EUR	63 Million EUR
2020	25,657 Million EUR	55 Million EUR	118 Million EUR
2021	25,209 Million EUR	1,701 Million EUR	248 Million EUR

Current Emissions

GHG emissions

Investment Footprint	2021	2020
Corporate Fixed Income + listed Equity
Absolute Footprint (Megatons CO2e)	4.886	4.878
Weighted Average Carbon Intensity (metric tons CO2e/EURm revenue)	490	470
Sovereign Fixed Income
Absolute Footprint (Mt CO2e)	15.088	13.863
Weighted Average Carbon Intensity (metric tons CO2e/EURm revenue)	620	500
Total Absolute Footprint Currenlty Reported (Mt CO2e)	19.97	18.74

Climate Policy and Plans

Aegon the Netherlands commits to reduce emissions from their own operations by half in 2030 compared to 2018. It is worth noting that a majority of the emissions of Aegon comes from their investment rather than their own operations.

In November 2021, Aegon joined the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, a UN-convened group of institutional investors committed to transitioning their portfolios to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Aegon has said that this means that they are committed to transitioning its 156 billion euro general account investment portfolio. In order to reach this goal Aegon aims, by 2025, to reduce the weighted average carbon intensity of their corporate fixed income and listed equity general account assets by 25%.

There are no short-term targets for the rest of the portfolio. There are no absolute reduction goals for the short-term. On page 370 of the 2021 annual report, 6 targets are stated. 4 of these targets are in relation to the net-zero alliance and therefore do not include short term targets. The other two targets are about carbon-offset projects and responsible investments. The target about carbon-offset projects discusses the fact that Aegon's direct business operations have been carbon-neutral since 2019 (on a market-based measurement). Aegon has managed to do this through renewable sources and carbon offset projects. The one target that is important to be noted is the updated Aegon Responsible Investment policy. This policy shows which companies Aegon will not invest in based on their climate actions. For example, Aegon will no longer invest in companies that derive 25% or more of their revenue from the exploration, mining or refining of thermal coal. Another example of a company Aegon will no longer invest in is a company that produces more than 20 million tons of thermal coal annually and are actively expanding exploration, mining or refining operations. There is, however, no mention of a plan to stop investing in companies that produce zero oil or gas.

A recent update on the Aegon website states that Aegon Netherlands is currently working on a Climate Action Plan that describes in detail how its activities and investments will be aligned with the Paris Agreement. The plan is expected to be ready for publication by mid-2022.

Due Diligence

Due Diligence

A case study for the Fair Insurance Guide Netherlands named Insurance companies’ responses to human rights abuses in the extractive industry that was published in 2021, concluded that Aegon could not demonstrate that they are taking sufficient action against long-term human rights violations. The study selected eleven companies that are involved in structural human rights violations and then researched to what extent insurance companies were involved with these companies. Aegon achieved a total score of 4.4 out of 10, and is ranked as fifth among the insurance companies assessed in this study. Within the scope of this research, Aegon had financial links with nine out of eleven selected companies.

Scandals and controversies

Research from De eerlijke Geldwijzer (Fair Finance) showed that Aegon scored very low on both Climate Change (3/10) and Nature (1/10). When it comes to climate change it is shown that from Aegon's investment in the energy sector 93% went to fossil fuel whereas only 7% went to renewable energy. The score of 1 for nature is mainly based on the fact that Aegon invested 37 million euros into companies in which the risk is high that they are directly or indirectly involved in the deforestation in the Amazon.

Conclusion

Aegon is a Dutch company with a revenue of 25.2 billion euros and a great influence by serving 31.7 million customers worldwide. It is therefore important that Aegon takes enough action to meet the targets set by the Paris agreement. Currently, Aegon mainly has long-term net-zero plans and only a relative short-term goal for only a part of its portfolio. It does not report CO2 emissions on all of its portfolio.