11/14/2024

speaker
Thomas Fossard
Head of Investor Relations

Good morning, and welcome to SCORE Q3 2024 Results Conference Call. My name is Thomas Fossard, Head of Investor Relations, and today I'm joined on the call by Thierry Léger, Group CEO, and François De Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, as well by other COMEX members. Can I please ask you to consider the disclaimer on page two of the presentation? And now I would like to hand over to Thierry Léger. Thierry, over to you.

speaker
Thierry Léger
Group CEO

Thank you, Thomas. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining our call on a busy day for you all. Let me start with my four key messages for today. First, the underlying performance of our businesses, P&C, life and health, and investments is solid. In P&C, we achieved a very strong performance over the last three months and year to date. We are executing in a disciplined way on our strategic journey of diversified and profitable growth while continuing to build reserve buffers. In terms of outlook, we expect the P&C reinsurance market to remain attractive in 2025 and we look ahead with confidence. Life & Health has been impacted negatively by the 2024 Life & Health Review leading to an ISR of minus €210 million for the quarter. However, if you take this one-off impact out, the underlying life and health performance shows a positive trend, with an insurance service result of plus €81 million in Q3. Investments had another strong quarter. We achieved consistent and solid returns through a high-quality fixed income portfolio that benefits from ongoing high reinvestment yields. Second key message, our group solvency ratio stands at 203% at the end of Q3, comfortably within our optimal range. This demonstrates the resilience of our balance sheet and the effectiveness of our mentioned actions. Third, despite the very strong P&C and investments performance, we were unable to offset the negative results coming from the life and health review and have to report a net loss and negative ROE for the quarter and year to date. However, also here, without the impact of the one-offs, our return on equity is a strong 14% for the nine months. Fourth and last key message. The life and health assumptions review is now complete with an outcome close to the best estimate view provided at H1 2024. This allows us now to draw a line and to move on. We have made significant progress in the elaboration and implementation of our three-step plan to sustainably restore the life and health profitability, which we will unveil in full at our Investor Day on 12 December in London. Let me repeat and insist, SCORE has a Tier 1 franchise and a three-year strategic plan. Forward 2026 that will create significant value for its shareholders in the years to come. Let me switch to the results more in detail. In P&C, the combined ratio for the first nine months is at 87.4%. This reflects a very solid underlying performance, particularly when factoring in seasonal net cap events and continued accelerated buffer buildings. excluding the impact of the commutation of a large deal in Q1, the combined ratio would be at 86.3%, below, better than our 87 forward 2026 assumption. The reported life and health ISR is minus 467 million euros, negatively impacted by the life and health review. However, the underlying life and health performance is solid. with a 334 million euro ISR for the first nine months. This number is adjusted for one month. Following some difficult quarters, we start to see a more positive performance emerge in life and health. In investments, we continue to deliver excellent results with our high-quality, mainly fixed-income portfolio. The nine-month 2024 regular income yield is at 3.5%, at the higher end of our guided range for full year 24. Our solvency ratio stands at 203% at the end of Q3, despite a negative impact of the 2024 life and health review of 20 percentage points year to date. This demonstrates the resilience of our balance sheet, the quality of our management actions, and our strong operating capital generation notably from our P&C and investment activities. We are confident in our ability to maintain the solvency ratio within the optimal range for the rest of the year and beyond. Scores group economic value stands at 8.4 billion euros as of 30 September 2024. After 1.1 billion euros of pro-tax impact from the life and health review, our economic value per share is at 47 euros, well above the current share price. The annualized return on equity stands at minus 6.6% for the first three quarters of 2024, negatively impacted by the outcome of the Life and Health Assumption Review, excluding the one-offs. The return on equity for the first nine months of 2024 stands at 14%. At Q2, I outlined a three-step remedial strategy for life and health and committed to move fast and take decisive actions. Step one is about completing the 2024 life and health review. Our team worked extremely hard to complete this by Q3. I'm very proud about the quality and quantity of work they have delivered in addition to demonstrate the confidence we have in our life and health reserves, we have decided to mandate an external review performed by Milliman. Its conclusions will be shared at the Investor Day on 12 December. As I said, this important first step allows us now to draw the line under the topic of the life and health review and to move on. Step two is about increasing the profitability and improving the mix of our life and health new business. We have taken significant actions to steer our business toward... We have introduced a minimum margin for all our businesses. We are moving much faster into the structured solution space and we are expanding longevity outside UK at the higher pace. All of these actions have been thoroughly planned and are in execution mode as I speak. Step three focuses on maximizing value from our in-force book. As I said before already, the life and health segment is inherently more volatile under IFRS 17, prompting us to strengthen our in-force management and our end-to-end processes. We are centralizing the steering of our life and health in-force business to protect value. We are developing enhanced KPIs to monitor our business We will strengthen the incentives of our people and we will be leveraging advanced analytics to strengthen our measurement and monitoring framework. All of these actions will over time maximize the value extraction from our life and health in force and minimize volatility under IFRS 17. These three steps will bring us back on track in life and health with a more attractive new business mix and more stable results under IFRS 17. In P&C, we have maintained our underwriting discipline and continue to improve our diversification. As a result, we have achieved excellent combined ratios over the last quarters, and we have continued to build buffers at an accelerated pace. The P&C outlook is very positive in terms of margins and growth. The last quarters have been marked by a continued strong NETSCAT activity and the demand for reinsurances up across most lines of business. Overall, I see demand and offer in a good balance and strong discipline in structures, conditions, and pricing. SCORE will continue to lean into the hard market, exploit its T1 franchise, and dynamically grow its P&C business in a profitable and diversified way. We will present full details of our life and health remedial strategy as well as an updated forward 2026 targets and assumptions for our three businesses at our investor day in London on 12 December. With that, let me hand over to Francois to take you through the life and health assumptions review and our results in more detail. Over to you, Francois.

speaker
François De Varenne
Deputy CEO and Group CFO

Thank you very much, Thierry, and good morning, everyone. Let me first cover the update of the 2024 Life and Health Assumption Review before moving specifically to the presentation of our Q3 results. As mentioned by Thierry, we are pleased this morning to announce that the 2024 Life and Health Assumption Review is now completed and its outcome is within the guidance communicated at Q2. The Q3 impact is negligible on the solvency ratio. There are only a few non-material open items remaining that can only be processed with our normal annual clause. This was an immense piece of work for which we benefited from the advice of external actuarial firms to benchmark our actuarial assumptions and to support with the documentation. This support also allowed a faster progress of the annual review with the completion for Q3. We have launched an external review being performed by Milliman. The outcome of this review will be communicated at the Investor Day in December, but we remain fully confident in the outcome of this external validation. Please note as well that we ask Willis Tower Watson to review our PNC reserve for the second consecutive year, and also the outcome of this review will be communicated at the Investor Day in December. In Q3, the completion of our life and health assumption reviewed had a minimal impact on both economic value and the solvency ratio. The outcome remains within the best estimate range of minus 500 million plus 500 million announced in Q2 for the second half of the year. Regarding economic value, the impact is slightly negative at 0.1 billion, including pre-tax impact of 0.2 on ISR, plus 0.2 on CSM and a minus 0.2 billion negative impact on OCI. Overall, the nine-month impact of the Life and Health Assumption Review reaches minus 1.1 billion post-tax on economic value and 20 points on the solvency ratio. Now, with regards to the impact by geography, we had already announced the main assumptions and geographies reviewed at Q2. The main geography has not changed, but the numbers have been updated and we are now at best estimate. U.S. impact on the CSM has improved by 0.1 billion, reflecting the completion of the analysis we had started earlier this year. Israel has deteriorated by 0.1 billion as we are taking a more prudent view for the future. We have also prudently pre-allocated the technical provision from profitable to onerous contract to anticipate the end-year financial adjustment and any potential P&L impact in Q4. This results in an improvement of the CSM by 0.1 billion and, of course, the deterioration of the loss component by 0.1 billion. Moving on to the presentation of the Q3 results, As usual, I will focus on figures excluding the mark-to-market impact of the option on scores on shares. Let me share a comprehensive overview of these Q3 results. As mentioned by Thierry, we are particularly pleased with the very strong performance of our P&C and investment activities. The very strong underlying performance in PNC allowed us to continue to build up a significant buffer in our reserves while absorbing a number of mid-size to large CAT events this quarter. We continue to deliver excellent investment results as demonstrated by a high regular income yield of 3.5%, supported by a reinvestment rate of 4.1%. In life and health, we see a positive trend in the underlying performance. This performance has been offset by two elements this quarter. I already presented the effect of the life and health assumption review in the ISR, mostly composited in the CSM. In parallel with the life and health assumption review, we decided with Thierry to conduct a review of our major ongoing arbitration, leading to a one-off true-up adjustment on this position and this quarter only, both under IFRS and Solvency II. Overall, we record a net income of minus 117 million, translating into an adjusted return on equity of minus 10.3% over the second quarter. Adjusted for the two one-offs, namely the impact of the life and health assumption review and the true-up adjustment on arbitration position, the group net income would be strong at 150 million euros with a return on equity of 12.8%. In terms of group economic value, it is down by 7% at Constant Economics to $8.4 billion, primarily driven by the Life Analysis Assumption Review impact booked over Q2 and Q3. Let's now focus on P&C. P&C delivered very strong results again this quarter. The new business CSM reaches $175 million, supported by the July 24 renewals, partially offset by higher retrocession protection purchased at the end of the summer. Note that historically Q3 is low in terms of new business CSM as on the reinsurance side it is only impacted by July renewals. The PNC insurance revenue is down 2.5% at constant FX versus Q3 last year. The two main factors for this decrease are the fact that last year included the effect of a large contract that has been committed earlier this year And also we see the impact of some actions taken by SBS to dynamically manage the cycle. Let's now move on the underlying performance of our PNC book, which has been highly satisfying. Our PNC combined ratio stands at 88.3%, slightly above the forward 2026 assumption of 87, driven by the CAT activity observed this quarter. The NAT-CAT ratio is at 13.2%, driven by a number of mid- to large-size events, namely Storm Boris, Hurricanes Debbie, Ellen and Beryl, and the Calgary Ales. While Hurricane Milton is not included in our Q3 number, we also provide our expectations. Based on our latest estimation, we see this event having a mid to high double-digit euro-million impact in Q4 2024, of course, pre-tax and net of retrocession. Our attritional loss ratio, including commission of 76.5%, is very strong, as it includes a significant level of prudence built into our P&C reserve this quarter. On the discount effect, at minus 7.7%, it is in line with our expectation between minus 7.5% and minus 8.5% for 2024. Overall, a very strong quarter for PNC, allowing for an accelerated build-up of additional prudence, despite an active quarter in terms of NatCal. Let's now focus on Life & Health. The Life & Health business generated a new business ESM of plus $116 million in 27 million higher than last year, supported by growth in both financial solution and protection. The insurance service result comes at minus 210 million euro this quarter, primarily due to the impact of the assumption review and the true-up adjustment on identified arbitration position. Adjusted for those two one-offs, we are starting to see a positive underlying trend for the life and health performance with an ISR of 81 million. This is driven by the CSM amortization of 78 million, resulting into a 6.6 amortization rate in Q3 and impacted by the 2024 Life and Health Assumption Review. The risk adjustment release of 29 million is in line with our expectation, and the experience variance of minus 27 million this quarter is back to an acceptable range of volatility. Now, let's have a look at the significant one-offs during this quarter. Firstly, The completion of the 24 Life and Health Assumption Review accounts for minus 163 million. This impact mostly includes movement on the loss component. As I mentioned, a more prudent approach taken with regard to the Israel business and also a prudent pre-allocation of a negative provision taken at Tehran initially booked in CSM. This reallocation is, of course, neutral on economic values. Secondly, we booked a minus 128 million euro impact for true-up adjustment on identified arbitration position. This reflects our most updated view of the evolution of risks in terms of expected outcome, and we are today at best estimate on those major arbitration, both under IFRS and Solvency II. Now moving to investments. We benefit from an excellent performance on the investment side, with a regular income yield reaching 3.5% this quarter, supported by an elevated reinvestment rate at 4.1%. As mentioned in Q2, we have taken a tactical approach to selectively reinvest at a longer duration, benefiting from the attractive level of interest. This again adds an impact in Q3, with an average duration of our fixed income portfolio slightly increasing to 3.5 years this quarter from three years at the end of 2023. The return on invested assets is at 4% this quarter, benefiting from positive mark-to-market movements on asset classes at fair value through P&L and from impairment recoveries on the real estate portfolio as well. With 9.6 billion of cash flow expected in the next 24 months and a still elevated level of reinvestment rate, who are confident in the continued strong performance from investment. Our economic value per share stands at 47 euros per share, compared with 51 euros at the end of 2023. As announced during H1, the group economic value group target of 9% per annum at Constant Economics is unlikely to be met for full year 2024. We will provide more details during our investor day in December. Our economic financial leverage increases to 22.7% from 21.2% at the end of 2023. We are highly satisfied to report a solvency ratio of 203% compared to 201% last quarter, with again a negligible impact from the completion of the 2024 Life and Health Assumption Review. The main driver for the improvement is the implementation of an efficient third-party capital solution, providing us with eight points of solvency relief this quarter, covering P&C and life risk, and starting from 1st January 2025. We are proud to have implemented such a retro structure in short time, with a cost which is very efficient per additional points of solvency. From interaction with investors and analysts over the last few weeks and months, we know that there have been concerns about our ability to maintain our solvency position within the optimal range since the announcement of the impact of the 2024 Life and Health Assumption Review earlier this year. We have listened and believe this structure should provide comfort in our capital position. Another element impacting the solvency ratio this quarter is the true-up adjustment on identified arbitration positions for minus 4 points, which has been mentioned earlier. Again, we are today at best estimate on this position under both IFRS and Solvency 2. On the usual quarterly movement, the market variance and dividend accruals each add an impact of minus 2 points. On that, I will hand over to Thierry for the conclusion and we can switch then to Q&A.

Disclaimer

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