Swiss Life Holding AG

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for dialing in and for your interest in Swiss life. Today, we are reporting on selected top line figures for the first quarter of 2024. We will focus, as usual, on fee income, premiums, and direct investment income. I will provide a quick overview of today's key messages, and then I am happy that our new Group CFO, Marco Cherusi, is with us today. He will walk you through the segments in a minute. In the first three months of 2024, Swiss Life increased its fee and commission income by 11% to $639 million. Drivers were our own IFAs, own and third-party products and services, and asset managers. Cross-written premiums, fees and deposits received increased by 2% to $7.5 billion. Direct investment income grew to 1.02 billion, which corresponds to a non-annualized direct investment yield of 0.7%. The SST ratio at the end of March 2024 was around 210%. With that, I hand over to Marco, who will take you through our segments in more details.

Thank you, Mattia. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is my first conference call as Group CFO and I'm very much looking forward to our discussions and to meet many of you in person in the coming months. I'm pleased we have made a good start to the financial year 2024 and that the Swiss Life Programme 2024 is well on track to achieve or exceed all Group financial targets. Now let's move to Q1 2024 and the segments in more detail. As usual, all group figures are in Swiss francs, and figures for each business division are in local currency. All figures are unaudited, and growth rates are mentioned in local currency. I will start with our segment Switzerland. Premiums decreased by 1% to 4.4 billion. The life insurance market decreased by 1%. Premiums in individual life grew by 9%, but the market was up by 5%. Periodic premiums increased by 2%. Single premiums grew by 22% driven by a modern traditional product. Premiums in group life declined by 2% to 3.9 billion while the market was unchanged. Periodic premiums decreased by 4%. Single premiums grew by 3% primarily due to higher new business. Assets on the management in our semi-autonomous foundations were at 7.5 billion compared to 7.1 billion at year-end 2023. Fee and commission income was up by 5% to 82 million, driven by Swiss Life Select. Turning to our French, German, international business divisions that all report in Europe. I will start with France. Premiums increased by 9% to 1.8 billion. In our live business, premiums were up by 10%. The overall market grew by 15%. The unit link share in our live premiums was unchanged at 65%. This compares to the market average of 39%. Live net inflows were 0.5 billion versus overall market net inflows of 9.3 billion. Health and protection premiums grew by 8%. Driven by price increases, the market was up by 7%. P&C premiums grew by 4%. As stated at our full year 2023 disclosure, for 2024, we expect operating result contribution from our French non-life businesses to improve significantly and clearly turn into positive territory. P&C income rose by 19% to 144 million. We had again a strong contribution from the banking business given continued high revenues from structured products. Unit-linked fee income also increased due to higher unit-linked reserves compared to the prior year period. I continue with Germany. Premiums grew by 4% to $402 million due to modern, modern traditional and disability products. The market decreased by 7% driven by lower single premiums. Fee and commission income rose by 20% to $216 million due to our own IFAs following a successful campaign in the context of governmental inflation compensation. The Unilinked insurance business also contributed to this increase. The number of financial advisors increased by 1% to 6,011 year-on-year. Turning now to the international segment. Premiums declined by 1% to 1.1 billion. Higher premiums from corporate clients were more than offset by lower premiums with private clients. Ellipse Life was the main driver of this premium increase. The acquired business was fully re-insured. The renewed and the new business is partially re-insured and therefore we see a shift from fee income to risk premiums as expected. Fee and commission income declined by 3% to 97 million. Owned IFAs reported an increase in fee income due to higher recurring income with JSTV. Income from corporate clients declined given the above mentioned effects. Moving to asset managers with reports in Swiss francs. As usual, the update in Q1 and Q3 focuses on commission income and does not include other net income from real estate project development. Asset managers' commission income increased by 4% to 220 million. In our PAM business, commission income increased by 4% to 83 million. About half of the increase is due to higher recurring income. The other half comes from higher real estate transaction income. In our TPAM business, commission income was up by 3% to 137 million, driven by higher average assets under management. Non-recurring fee income slightly increased in local currency, but was fully offset by negative ethics translation effects. To make figures comparable to full and half-year disclosures, the share of total non-recurring income for TPAM was 31%, total TPM income compared to 7% in the prior year period. Total non-recurring income includes commission income and other net income, essentially from project development. Three-quarters of the increase relates to a revaluation gain on an ongoing development project in Germany. This positive TPM development underpins what we already mentioned at full-year 2023 disclosure. For 2024, we expect the share of total non-recurring income to be around 30%. This is in view of our project development pipeline, and it remains reliant on the expected normalization of real estate markets in Germany and France. Net new assets in our TPM business amounted to 0.7 billion compared to 2.5 billion in the first quarter of 2023. We achieved inflows in real assets of 0.3 billion, thereof 0.2 billion in real estate. Inflows in other asset classes amounted to 0.2 billion in bonds, 0.1 billion in equities, and 0.1 billion in money market funds. By year end 2024, we expect total net new assets to be above the 2023 level of 9.8 billion, given our pipeline. Overall assets under management in our TPAM business were at 117 billion compared to 112 billion at year-end 2023. Increase is driven by positive performance from securities and positive ethics translation effects. Turning to our investment result. Direct investment income increased by 87 million to 1.02 billion, driven by higher income from bonds, loans, equities, and real estate. This was partially offset by negative FX translation effects. The non-annualized direct investment yield was at 0.7% compared to 0.6% in the prior year period. Regarding real estate, real estate continues to be an attractive and important asset class to back our long-dated liabilities. Vacancy rates overall marginally increased to 3.2% from 3.4% at year-end 2023. For the full year 2024, we expect vacancy rates to remain at about today's level. Real estate fair value changes were negative at around minus 0.4%. For the full year 2024, we expect negative real estate fair value changes to be in the range of minus 0.5% and minus 1% as communicated during our full year 2023 disclosure. Moving to solvency, cash, and payout. Our SST ratio was 212% on the 1st of January 2024. At the end of the first quarter 2024, we estimate our SST ratio to be around 210%. Therefore, we continue to remain well above our ambition range of 140 to 190%. At the end of the first quarter of 2024, liquidity at holding amounts to around 0.75 billion after we have completed the 300 million share buyback by the end of March 2024. With that, I hand back to you, Matthias, for the wrap-up.

Thank you, Marco. Let me sum up. Swiss Life has made a good start to the 2024 financial year. We achieved a significant increase in fee income in the first quarter of 2024. Now let's look forward to the entire year 2024. In terms of the fee result, we expect to reach the lower end of our ambitious target range of 850 to 900 million Swiss francs. The developments of asset managers give us confidence in this respect, while the target achievement remains reliant on the expected normalization of the real estate market in Germany and France. Regarding the other financial targets, we are confident that we will exceed the targets for return on equity, cash remittance, and dividend payout ratio. In addition to that, we have already exceeded our share buyback target. We are therefore well on track to achieve or exceed all of the group financial targets of our Swiss Life 2024 program. Thank you for listening. We are now ready to take your questions.