Good morning and welcome to this Standard Life presentation focusing on the proposed acquisition of Aegon UK. I will now hand over to Andy Briggs. Andy, over to you.
Thank you, Clair, and good morning, everyone.
And thank you very much indeed for joining us at such short notice. I'm very pleased that today we've announced an agreement to acquire Aegon UK. It's an exciting development for Standard Life for many reasons, not least because it significantly accelerates our vision to become the UK's leading retirement savings and income business. We’re bringing together two businesses with shared goals and ambitions to create a new leader in one of the world's most attractive markets.
Together with Aegon UK, we will not only be stronger, we will be better, advocating for better retirements and helping our customers achieve better outcomes and greater financial security in later life. We believe that this is both a strategically and financially compelling transaction and the logic behind that is set out on this slide. First, it gives us increased scale. Standard Life will become the largest retirement savings and income business in the UK.
We will have a number two position in Workplace and become the number two player in Retail. And we will serve 16 million customers across the country. Second, we will be in an even stronger position to meet the evolving needs of our customers with enhanced digital, advice and distribution capabilities across Workplace and Retail. Acquiring Aegon UK also transforms our advisor offering, strengthening our ability to serve our customers across all stages of their retirement journey.
Third, it accelerates making us a more capital light business. With capital light earnings increasing from 47 to 57% of the enlarged group, the financial metrics for the deal are attractive. We expect to unlock £0.8 billion of net synergies and increase our excess cash by £0.4 billion over the next five years. That will give us even greater flexibility to invest or return capital in the future.
And finally, the funding structure is efficient and it enhances our capital strength. We've achieved an attractive valuation of 83% of unrestricted tier 1 owned funds and this transaction is consistent with our target leverage ratio of 30%. So, turning to look at the structure and key terms of the transaction, we have agreed a total consideration of £2 billion to acquire 100% of Aegon UK. We will fund this through a combination of cash, debt and 181 million new shares in Standard Life issued directly to Aegon.
As already mentioned, the consideration represents 83% of the acquired unrestricted Tier 1 capital, ensuring attractive returns for our investors. While the transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals, it is not contingent on a shareholder vote. Neither our own nor Aegon's. As things stand, we expect it to complete towards the end of 2026.
I'm also pleased to say that both of our key strategic shareholders, MS&AD and Aberdeen have expressed their strong support for this acquisition and finally we've entered into a strategic relationship agreement with Aegon which allows them to participate in the future success of the enlarged group. Let me first set out what we are buying. Aegon UK is a business that we've always held in very high regard and we know it well. It is a prominent player in the UK savings and retirement market, offering a broad range of Workplace and Retail solutions that complement well with our own.
Importantly, it is winning in structurally expanding areas of the market. With its assets growing at 9% per annum over the last two years, it serves just under 4 million customers across the country. As you can see from both the column in the middle and the pie chart on the right, Workplace is its largest area, followed by Retail and its advisor offering that makes Aegon UK a really neat fit for our business. As mentioned, this acquisition represents a meaningful step change in terms of our scale and reach in the market.
Aegon UK adds 160 billion of assets to our existing £317 billion. Given the combined group assets of £477 billion . On that basis Standard Life will be the largest player in the UK retirement savings and income market. Together we will serve 16 million customers leading to more opportunities going forward.
On the right hand side of this slide you can see that our pensions and savings business becomes by far the largest in the UK and within that we're right up at the top in Workplace as well. Increased scale gives us greater commercial advantage and it also gives further operating leverage as demonstrated by by the synergies. As well as giving us increased scale, this acquisition strengthens our capabilities and what we can offer our customers. Many of you will be very familiar with Standard Life's existing products and solutions which are set up along the top of this slide.
In the blue box, Aegon UK adds a number of areas where we have less of a presence today and regard as being very important to our offer going forward. So in particular that includes advisor platform capability extending our advisor reach and relevance significantly. Corporate advisory focused on small and mid sized Workplace clients. Financial advice and planning extending our customer engagement.
Managed Portfolio Solutions extending us further into the asset management part of the value chain and the wrapp platform including ISAs and general investment accounts, broadening our product range. Aegon's expertise in these and other areas therefore help us to significantly accelerate our growth ambitions and better meet our customers needs. The enlarged group will have broad waterfront capabilities, strengthened distribution with an enhanced digital and technology offer. Let me build on this a bit more by providing more colour on Aegon UK's Workplace and Retail offer.
Starting with Workplace, the slide shows the key focus areas to winning Workplace and what Aegon UK adds to Standard Life. In terms of its employer proposition, Aegon brings high quality trust and contract solutions to both large and smaller employers with a range of innovative accumulation and retirement offerings. Aegon has a customer centric culture and have invested significantly to meet the evolving needs of customers evidenced by their technology enabled administration and telephony to support consistent outcomes and it adds scale with particular strength in the Corporate Advisor and Advisor led employer segments to complement Standard Life strengths with employee benefit consultants. Together we will have an improved end to end Workplace offer by more effectively linking savings, engagement and service with downstream retail consolidation and decumulation pathways.
As I've said, together we become the second largest Workplace platform by assets and as illustrated on the right of the chart of the 80 billion market annual gross flows, the combination last year accounted for £18 billion. Turning next to Retail, again, this slide shows the key focus areas to winning Retail and what Aegon UK adds. The acquisition transforms our offer in this area. Aegon UK will materially strengthen customer engagement through AWS enabled data capabilities and digital tooling supporting more informed decision making and optimised customer experiences.
In terms of products and solutions, the combined business will have a modern scaled advisor led retail proposition underpinned by a robust advisor platform. This strengthens defence against outflows and support sustainable growth. We will gain access to a broader set of tax wrappers through platform technology, extending our relevance to advisors and customers across different wealth and life stages, offering holistic financial planning and finally our combined digital infrastructure will open up new opportunities. We will integrate their Mylo technology platform with our own enabling consolidation, personalised communication and pre retirement guidance.
On the right you can see that pro forma gross Inflow of £12 billion is a 70% increase in £150 billion per annum gross flow market. One of the major highlights of this acquisition is that it accelerates the business shift to capital earnings which as you know has been a focus for us. The pie chart on the left shows that Standard Life generated 47% of operating profits from capital-light business on a standalone basis in 2025. Looking at the combined business on a pro forma basis, including synergies, that number would move to 57% a material uplift.
It is important to highlight that we remain committed to allocating £200 million per annum of capital into annuities. We will also look to capture opportunities to participate further in the pension risk transfer market. Let me stop there and hand over to Nic to go through some of the key financials in more detail. Nic.
Okay, thank you Andy and good morning everyone. With Andy having covered how Aegon UK's business complements our core strategy, I will now cover how the transaction is financially attractive. The message I want to leave you with is that this transaction is value, cash flow and earnings accretive and it is also consistent with our balance sheet ambitions. Starting with transaction synergies on this next slide, the combination of two scale businesses offers multiple sources of cost and capital synergies, with an estimated value of 0.8 billion post tax.
We expect annual cost savings of 110 million from harmonising business operations and tech and from the removal of duplicate central function costs. As this is an open book transaction with an emphasis on maintaining and building customer and distribution partner engagement. The delivery of these savings is phased over five years with over half emerging by the end of year three. Capital synergies are estimated at 340 million reflecting diversification benefits and alignment of capital models and methodology.
Unlike previous acquisitions and in line with our philosophy of not hedging open business flows, we will not increase equity hedging beyond Aegon UK’s current 40% level. We have planned for model harmonisation to take place in year two and for a part seven transfer into PLL in year three, which means that over 70% of the capital synergies will emerge by 2029. Taken in aggregate, we estimate the undiscounted value of synergies to be 1.2 billion post tax before one off costs. The cost to achieve the synergies is estimated at 0.3 billion post tax, the phasing of which is broadly equivalent to the phasing of the emergence of the related savings.
The relatively high cost to achieve when compared to annual savings primarily reflects the very lengthy nature of property leases. In addition, we expect to incur a further 0.1 billion post tax to cover the cost of decoupling Aegon UK's operation from those of Aegon Group and the modest level of transaction costs. Overall, we expect the combined undiscounted value of synergies net of one off costs to be 0.8 billion, demonstrating the value that this transaction unlocks for shareholders when compared to the purchase price. Our execution plans are underpinned by a long standing track record of successful integrations from a decade of M&A transactions.
We have extensive experience of delivering cost and capital synergies in large and complex life insurance integrations. This transaction requires us to both separate from Aegon's parent and integrate the two businesses. We expect this to be a multi year programme which has been planned so as to complement the timing of existing in flight transformation and migration priorities and to dovetail with existing major model change and part seven plans. We will follow the standard three phase approach involving streamlining the corporate functions, undertaking the work to deliver capital synergies and integrating customer servicing and tech.
In addition to scale, the transaction delivers attractive financial returns when viewed through our normal lenses of cash capital and earnings. Starting with cash on a 2025 pro forma basis, Aegon UK adds an estimated 160 million to OCG. Consistent with the guidance on a standalone business, we expect the incremental OCG delivered by the transaction to similarly grow at a mid single digit rate. Over the first five years, the cumulative OCG net of the incremental dividends and interest combined with the synergies delivered net of costs is expected to generate an additional 0.4 billion of cash.
More of this on the next slide. On capital, the transaction and its funding structure is consistent with our balance sheet ambition to operate our business in the upper half of the 140 to 180 solvency ratio target range and at a solvency leverage ratio of circa 30%. On a 2025 pro forma basis, the transaction is positive to our solvency coverage ratio up by single digit percentage points and this uplift is expected to endure in the first five years after day one adjustments and reflecting the delivery of expected synergies net of costs. The transaction will not affect our plans to achieve the circa 30% leverage ratio at the end of 2026 and to maintain leverage at this level thereafter.
Aegon's UK pro forma IFRS adjusted operating profit in 2025 was at 190 million and its contribution is expected to grow from this level as the cost savings earn through. The transaction is expected to be mid single digit percentage points EPS accretive by 2029 on an IFRS adjusted operating profit basis net of interest. Overall these transaction financials further underpin our ability to operate a progressive and sustainable dividend policy. As I discussed at our results presentation in March, Standard Life expects to generate around 500 million of excess cash each year which after 2026 will be available to be deployed to the highest value opportunities in line with our capital allocation framework.
These standalone business dynamics remain intact. The waterfall on the left of this slide depicts the incremental excess cash that this transaction will generate over the first five years. Cumulative OCG of 0.9 billion is expected over this period, which more than covers the cumulative 0.7 billion of additional interest and dividends. One Time Capital and capitalised cost synergies are expected to add a further 0.6 billion in this period, which more than covers the cumulative one time cost of 0.4 billion.
We therefore expect to generate a net cumulative 0.4 billion of excess cash. So, alongside being strategically compelling, this transaction is additive to our standalone excess cash generation, thereby affording us further flexibility to both support our growth ambitions and deliver increased return to shareholders. As we have previously indicated, we will come back in Q4 and set out how we plan to use the excess cash post 2026 once our deleveraging programme is completed in line with our capital allocation framework. I will now hand you back to Andy.
Thank you, Nic. So, as I said at the start, we believe that the strategic and financial rationale for this transaction is very compelling and I hope you have a clear sense of how energised we are at the prospects for the enlarged group. Aegon UK is a great fit for Standard Life in terms of its footprint, capability and size. The acquisition significantly accelerates our ambitions and vision for where we want to take this business.
And it comes at a time when the opportunities in the UK market have never been as exciting as they are now. With financial wellbeing being at the heart of everything it does, Aegon's culture and values are aligned with our own. Together we will not only be stronger, we will be better. And I look forward to welcoming everyone at Aegon UK to Standard Life in due course and working together to capture the huge potential in front of us.
Let me stop there and we're happy to answer any questions that you have. I'm going to pass to Oliver who is going to run the question session for us. Oliver? Thank you, Andy.
If you’d like to ask a question today, you can do so in two ways. Either press the Q&A button in your Zoom app which will allow you to type a question, or press the raised hand button we'll then bring you into the meeting to ask your questions. So please be ready to unmute yourself at that point. If you're dialling in by phone, you can raise your hand using *9 and unmute using *6.
Our first question today is going to come from Farooq at JP Morgan. Farooq, if you'd like to unmute and ask your question. Hi, I hope you can hear me. Yes, please go ahead.
Okay, so my first question is on the kind of revenue synergies with this Retail business. So I mean Aegon obviously brings an advisor platform, so how will that interact with your kind of legacy customers? But also Aegon has a restricted advice and also an independent IFA firm. So what are your plans for that?
And secondly, could you talk in a little bit more detail about the strategic agreement you have with Aegon and how that will work in future? I'm guessing you're talking about asset management, but just wanted to clarify. Thank you. Thanks Farooq.
So, I'll take both of those. So in terms of the revenue synergy question, what's particularly attractive about this transaction is how complementary the capabilities are. So for example, in Workplace Aegon have a real strength through corporate advisors and IFAs with small to mid sized corporates. And we have a particular strength to employee benefit consultants with larger corporates, but particularly on the Retail side.
So for example, in the advisor space we have some excellent propositions such as our international bond and smooth managed funds. But coupling that with a really strong advisor platform, we think there's a huge benefit from bringing those elements together. And then when it comes to Retail direct, again it's complementary. So as you rightly say, Aegon have the origin advice business but also the nationwide advice business So about 150 advisors altogether.
We were already building out our advice capability but that accelerates and scales and complements what we're already doing there. They have a proposition called Mylo which is a direct to consumer platform which again is complementary to what we have. So we're really excited about the complementary nature of bringing these businesses together. Obviously the detail we already said we were going to do a market update in Q4 and we will stick to that market update in Q4 and say more then about how we're thinking about bringing these different elements together.
In terms of the strategic agreement with Aegon. So I mean obviously this was a competitive process and definitely one of the differentiators of why we were successful was our equity being part of that transaction. Aegon Group are really excited about the potential for the combined business Standard Life and Aegon UK in the UK but they were keen on having an equity participation. They committed to a lockup until into 2028 as part of that.
So as part of that relationship they have that shareholding. They will get a seat on the board as they're over 10%. And then of the 180 billion of assets. Sorry, the 160 billion of assets that we're bringing on board here, 20 billion of that roughly 20 billion of that, is managed by Aegon Asset Management and we have an agreement around that 20 billion as well.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question comes from Mandeep of RBC. If you'd like to unmute and ask your question Mandeep, thank you.
Hey, good morning. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Mandeep.
Hi, how are you? Great, yeah, good, thank you. Firstly, just on thinking about the dividend, in previous last transactions, you had a step up in the dividend and it looks like the transition delivers excess cash over five years. I'm wondering why you decided against doing anything on the dividend today.
And then secondly, on the, what will you do on the migration of the UK platform you're acquiring? I don't think Aegon UK uses the same platform provider that you currently use. So just thinking about how that migration will happen. Thank you.
Sure. So again, I'll take both of those. So basically, no change to our dividend policy. So we still have a progressive and sustainable dividend policy.
No change today to the dividend per share. And I think what I sort of point you to, Mandeep, is that we'd already set out that our stamp on a standalone basis, our operating cash generation each year is significantly exceeding the costs, including the dividend. And we have, we expect half a billion of excess cash this year. Obviously this year we're looking to use that to deliver.
That still remains the expectation. But the Aegon UK business basically adds to that. We still expect OCG to grow mid single digits, but the excess cash OCG above uses post this transaction is greater than the half a billion before. So that's clearly positive for shareholders.
What we had said is that we expected to come back in Q4 with a market update and as part of that we would talk about future dividend trajectory in Q4. And also we talk about what we would plan to use this excess 0.5 billion per annum of cash for. So that's now a bigger number than 0.5 billion. We still expect to come back in Q4.
The one observation I would make is obviously of those potential uses in our capital allocation framework, M&A becomes less likely, so it's much more focused around growth and capital returns in terms of that. But we'll come back in Q4 on all of those points. In terms of the platform, so our platform strategy, again is unchanged here. It's all focused on simplification, automation and digitisation, and that doesn't change here.
So we will be bringing on board a number of platforms. Underpinning the synergy numbers, there are a number of assumptions around what we would do, but in practise, the way we run these acquisitions is we make assumptions that underpin the synergies and then when we actually take control of the business, the combined teams come together and work out what is the best way forward. So we have some assumptions of what we would do consistent with that platform strategy, but in reality we would then look in more detail and determine exactly what is the right things to do. And as and when we make those final decisions, we'll obviously communicate that more fully.
But I think that the capabilities that this brings, so Aegon UK have very strong capability with AWS, with data and telephony, a lot of digital tooling as well. We think that the suite of tech and digital capability is enhanced as a result of the acquisition, which is exciting for us. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Nasib at UBS.
If you'd like to unmute and ask a question. Hello, can you guys hear me? We can hear you, Nasib. Yes, please, go ahead.
Sorry, the unmute button came up twice. I've got quite a few questions, but maybe just following up from that Mandeep's question and your response, Andy, on the uses of the excess cash, you have that 400 million of investment into the business, right? Does that become part of that use of that excess cash as well? And then kind of on the 400 million, does that.
I believe it excludes the Aegon UK standalone investment that they're already doing in the business, or does that drop into the 400 million? I guess. Second question on kind of where does IFRS leverage land and what is the free cash flow per share impact? On my numbers, kind of, IFRS leverage improves by 10 points.
Free cash flow per share is neutral. Is that kind of, if you can check my maths here. Maybe that's a Nic question. And then finally on kind of the stakes that you have now in your equity.
Sorry? Yeah, sorry, I was just joking. So far they're all Nic questions. I always pass the difficult ones to Nic, so.
But go on. Sorry, you had a final question. Final one. Final one might be for you or maybe for the companies that have a stake in your equity.
Aberdeen and Aegon. Now Aberdeen's got some dilution. How does that impact their board seat, etc, if you can comment on that. And Aegon, would you, kind of, if Aegon sell down, I know there's an 18 month lockup, would you kind of participate as share buybacks?
I know ASR do that with their Aegon stake. Thank you.
Sure. Okay, so I'll take the final one of those and ask Nic to take the first two and he can add a bit more colour around the thinking on the uses of excess cash.
So first of all, in terms of Aberdeen, so we obviously, you know, wall crossed our strategic shareholders in advance. Aberdeen are strongly supportive of the deal. It will mean that their shareholding goes below 10% and therefore they would no longer have a board seat at completion. But there's no practical consequence of that in any shape or form.
The strategic partnership we have with them is very strong. It’s focused on the 140 billion of assets they manage and the shareholding they have. There's no change to their shareholding as a result of this. They have no plans to do anything different with that shareholding.
It's an important part of that overall strategic partnership. And there'll be opportunity for Aberdeen here because ultimately a group that was 320 billion of assets is now 480 billion of assets and they are our key strategic asset management partners. So there'll be additional opportunity there for them. Jason and I have an excellent relationship.
We've known each other a long time and we will continue to collaborate very strongly strategically in exactly the same way as we have done to date. In terms of Aegon, I’d say, Nasib it's too early to speculate, but with the business having in excess of half a billion of excess cash every year, clearly that would be a potential option. But we're into 2028 before we get to that, so I wouldn't want to speculate ahead of time on that. Nic, do you want to pick up the first two questions?
Yes. Good morning, Nasib. So the one off costs will be funded by the one off capital benefits. So the timing is such that those benefits, capital synergies and cost synergies will emerge in a way that allows the one off cost to be to be paid.
In relation to the IFRS leverage. I can't confirm the numbers. I don't estimate or calculate the leverage based on IFRS. It's not meaningful way of calculating leverage.
We track clearly what it does on a solvency basis and as I have said in my pre prepared remarks, the funding structure is such that it falls within, on a combined basis, it falls within the 30% level. In terms of free cash flow, the average over the five years is around 700, is 150 million, 750 in aggregate, over the first five years. Yeah, I guess on a per share basis your math is about right. Sorry, I know Nasib, you said about the standalone investment Aegon are already making.
So most of that happens this year and we've allowed for that in all of the numbers. So most of that standalone investment is completed this year. And just to be sort of crystal clear, the 400 million net of tax cost of delivering the synergies is funded by the synergies themselves. So it has no impact on that.
The half a billion of excess cash every year we generate which is available from the end of this year having completed the deleveraging programme, that gets bigger and none of that is needed to fund the delivery of the synergies, just to be crystal clear. Perfect. That's very, very helpful, thank you. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Abid at Panmure Liberum, if you'd like to go ahead and ask your question. Oh, Hi. Morning all. Can you hear me?
Yes, loud and clear. Great. Okay, so I've got a few questions as well. The first one is on the return metrics.
Just wondering what the deal's IRR pre and post the synergies look like. It clearly looks accretive on the price to UT1, so well done on that. But it'd be helpful to have some IRR metrics just to sort of talk to the generalists if possible and perhaps what the payback period looks like. It sort of looks like three to five years from the outside.
And then the second question is on the margins. Just wondering what the target platforms look like for, for the business that you're acquiring in terms of the Workplace and Retail pensions business and what, what the margins are on the Aegon business versus the Standard Life standalone business. If you could sort of just compare and contrast that for me. And then just, just finally on the synergies.
Slightly surprised that the synergies are going to take some five years to fully realise. Could you just talk to a little bit more on that, please? Sure. So look, I'll take the first and just add a quick comment on the third and then pass to Nic to cover more of the third and the second.
So we don't provide IRR metrics when we do M&A deals we haven't done in the past. Suffice to say the returns are significant in excess of our weighted average cost of capital. In terms of the synergies, I mean, the point I want to make here is the kind of strategic point. So what we're looking to do here is to build a strong, growing customer franchise and business.
And so from our perspective, that customer retention is really important and critical and therefore we are going to take a considered approach to working on the platforms and so on and so forth to make sure we take the market and our customers with us, because we think that will be the highest value way forward from a shareholder perspective and from a customer perspective. Nic, add on the synergies and then pick up the second question. Yeah, thank you, Andy. I mean, you covered the cost in relation to capital.
We, we will need to harmonise their, their internal model with ours. There is a pathway that we're following with a regulator on major model change, so we needed to dovetail with that. And similarly, once that is completed, we will then move on to a Part 7 transfer. So again, we will incorporate, we will seek to incorporate, transferring Aegon UK's policyholders into PLL alongside those of Reassure and Sun Life of Canada.
So it's linked with the time. We're trying to be efficient in the way we do these things. Now, clearly, you know, clearly if we can do it faster, then we will do that. In relation to margin, the 190 million of operating profit on an IFRS basis is roughly made up of 170 million relating to the PNS equivalent of the business and 20 million relating to annuities.
At 170 million on 100 billion asset base, the average profit margin is around 10 and a half rounds to 11 before synergies, so it's lower than our current 19. But once you incorporate the synergies, which all of which will go against the PNS business, then that margin improves to 17.5, around 18 basis points. So much closer to what we're delivering today. So, as I said, this isn't just about acquiring scale for the sake of it.
It does give us the opportunity to transform the economics of that business and to make it look a lot closer to ours. Thank you very much. If you would like to ask a question, a reminder that you can do so by using the Q&A button or you can press the raise hand button and then we'll bring you into the meeting. Our next question comes from Corinne of Autonomous.
If you'd like to unmute and ask your question. Good morning. Yes, please go ahead, Corinne. Good morning.
Question on the debt leverage, you're talking about continuing the deleveraging for this year. So you've got a couple of issues that are callable in June. Is that what we're referring to there with the continued deleveraging and then the timing for the new debt issuance? Is there any attempts to sort of dovetail those or will you literally just do it sometime opportunistically before the deal closes?
Sorry, Corinne, it's a very crackly line. Okay. Did you get them? Yes.
So our standalone business continues on its trajectory to get to the 30% at the end of this year. There are two instruments, as you indicated, as we have indicated previously, that come up to maturity in June of this year. So that affords us the vehicle to achieve the standalone target. In relation to the raising of the 650 million debt to support the acquisition, this will be done in the second half of the year in anticipation of completion around the year end.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Thomas at Mediobanca. If you'd like to ask your question and unmute.
Thank you. Hi, morning all. Thomas Bateman from Mediobanca. Thanks for taking my questions.
Could you just talk about the overall cost base for Aegon UK? I just want to get a sense of how much you're being able to take out of that. And the second question is kind of linked to that. You alluded to property leases being a key reason why the timeline on the synergy realisation is quite long.
How much of the cost savings are related to property leases? And the third question is just going back to Nasib's question on free cash flow per share, in your calculation, did you include any of the non operating OCG in that calculation? I might get it a little bit better, maybe slightly positive if I include that. Or maybe I've done my maths wrong.
And I'm sorry, the final question you alluded to the one off cost being paid for from the capital benefits. I’m assuming that there then the capital is all cash basically or can convert into cash to pay that. Maybe that was implicit in your answer, but any colour there would be helpful. So we'll let you away Thomas with four questions and they're all for Nic.
So the overall cost base of Aegon UK is 360 million. So that kind of gives you a sense of how the 110 compares. But kind of in our own minds the 110 is on the combined cost base, which is, I guess at the point at which we own, it will be around the 1.3 1.4 billion. In relation to the property leases, the savings are relatively modest.
They're less than 5% of the total. It’s the size, it's the length of these leases. We have two properties in Edinburgh, both have very elongated lease terms. We haven't yet made a decision which of the two we will keep.
But at the point at which we bring one of those to a decision, we will have to provide for the onerous lease costs. It’s not a timing issue, it's more of a size issue. And within the 300 million post tax that I indicated will be the one off costs around 95 relate to the to providing for those onerous leases. In relation to the OCG.
No, that was on a operating minus the net recurring uses. Yes, you're absolutely right. It will be additive to EPS if you took the one off capital synergies and spread them over a period. And in relation to the capital benefits, yes, they, you know, clearly there is availability of funds to support the funding, so yeah, the excess will be cash-light to enable the payment of those costs.
Thank you very much for all your questions today. I'm now going to hand back to Andy for your closing comments. Thanks very much indeed. Thanks everyone for joining us.
So look, just to summarise, we're very excited to announce this transaction today. It brings together, it very much moves us further forward on our vision to be the UK's leading retirement savings and income business. It brings together two complementary businesses and makes us, by some margin, the market leader and the really exciting, fast growing UK retirement savings and income market. So thanks very much indeed for joining us.
If you have further questions during the day, don't hesitate to reach out to the team and we'll catch up with all of you soon. Thanks very much indeed. Thank you.
