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Scor Shs Prov Regpt
5/7/2025
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to ScoreQ1 2025 results conference call. My name is Thomas Fossard, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined today on the call by Thierry Léger, our Group CEO, and François Barin, 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. Thierry, over to you.
Thank you, Thomas. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining the call. Let me start with a few key messages. I'm satisfied with the first quarter results. The performance of our three business activities has been strong, delivering 195 million euros of net income, an 18.3% ROE, and an economic value growth of plus 6.8% at constant economic P&C performance was excellent in the first quarter on a reported and on a normalized basis. The combined ratio for Q1 2025 is at 85% ahead of our forward 2026 assumption of below 87%. This was achieved despite the 140 million impact from the Los Angeles fires. In addition, we have been able to build significant buffers thanks to an excellent nutritional loss ratio in the first quarter. In life and health, with an insurance service result of 180 million euros and a neutral experience variance for Q1, we are on track to reach our full year forward 2026 assumption of around 400 million ISR. We continue to execute on our three-step life and health plan established last summer to restore the profitability of our new and in-force business. After almost nine months in charge of our life and health business, I was particularly pleased last week to announce the appointment of Philippe Rude as the new CEO of our life and health business. I'm confident that Philippe, with his experience and expertise, will be able to restore the profitability of our life and health business As a reminder, Philippe will start on 1st of June. Investments. At another strong quarter, we achieved 3.5% regular income yield at the upper end of our forward 2026 range. This is thanks to our high-quality fixed income portfolio that continues to benefit from elevated reinvestment rates. Our group solvency ratio stands at 212%, an increase of two points compared to the end of 2024. This increase is primarily supported by positive net operating capital generation, while market variances are broadly neutral. This is a strong outcome in a volatile market. Our economic value in Q1 has increased by 6.8% as constant economic growth. This puts us well on track to achieve our 9% economic value growth target for the full year. Last but not least, the Q1 ROE stands at 18.3%, which is well ahead of our 12% forward 2026 full year assumption and the result of all three business activities strongly contributing to the group net income. The April P&C renewals have been successful. In a softening market environment, our teams executed in a disciplined way on our new business strategy to grow in profitable and diversifying lines of business, i.e., alternative solutions and specialty lines. We maintained our technical stance on U.S. casualty, which, as a result, continued to shrink in terms of premium income. Overall, scores each EPI increased by 1.5% at the strong and only slightly deteriorating combined ratio. For the mid-year renewals, we foresee pricing to remain competitive overall. However, we expect some payback for the Los Angeles fires and generally stable terms and conditions. In this context, the technical profitability of our portfolio should remain relatively stable and attractive overall. To conclude, overall, the first quarter results are a good start into the year and we are on track regarding our full year objectives. In P&C, the year-to-date renewals set a strong base for the rest of the year. In life and health, our efforts start to be a fruit. Our investments continue to contribute positively to the bottom line. There is still work to be done, of course, but I am looking ahead with confidence. I hand over now to our group CFO for more details. François, over to you.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Thierry, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm very pleased to present our first quarter results. I will focus on figures excluding the mark-to-market impact of the option on SCORE's own shares, as usual. For the first quarter, we're happy to report an adjusted net income of $195 million and an annualized return on equity of 18.3%. All three business activities deliver and contribute to the group results. As mentioned by Thierry, P&C continues to show an excellent performance with a combined ratio of 85% despite the Los Angeles wildfires impact. The strong underlying attritional performance also allows us to build a material buffer opportunistically. Life and health insurance service results continue to improve with a neutral experience variant this quarter, including the U.S., Investment delivers a high return on invested assets of 3.8% and a regular income yield of 3.5%. Now, let me walk you through those results in more detail. Starting with P&C. With the successful renewals in January 2025, the new business ESM increased by 9% year-on-year. This comes from our disciplined growth in strategic diversifying lines, as well as from the strong profitability of the business that we are underwriting. Our retrocession program as well, placed at the beginning of the year, also contributes positively on the next technical margin, fully offsetting the inward business margin erosion in a softening market context. The P&C insurance revenue is down minus 0.7% for the quarter. The already mentioned large contract communication impact the Q1 growth rate by minus 0.8 percentage points. Excluding this effect, the insurance revenue growth is flat, because of two different dynamics on our portfolio. The first one, in reinsurance, revenue is up 3.7%. This is driven notably by alternative solutions and diversifying specialty lines, such as marine, IDI, and engineering. Property and property cuts are up 4%. These are very much in line with our expectations. The offset this quarter comes from our proactive actions to further reduce our exposure in U.S. casualty in each and every renewal since the 1st of January 2024. The impact is flowing through the IFRS insurance revenue, which is down 12% for this specific line of business in Q1. Excluding this U.S. casualty effect, the reinsurance portfolio grows by 5%. Second, if we look at the score business solution portfolio, we see an 8% decline for three drivers. Our strategic decision to stop underwriting a single-risk U.S. casualty business from London and Paris announced at the beginning of 2024. The second effect is linked to a timing effect on the renewals of some contracts in Q1 on which we expect the revenue to flow through in the upcoming quarters. and we have also a cycle management in relation to the current pricing environment on SBS. Our P&C strategy for Forward 2026 focuses on most profitable and diversifying lines, successfully resists to a softening market context, and ensures an end-change net technical margin at a very attractive level. This is evidenced by the 9% growth in new business ESM, which is going to be released into the P&L over time. We are very pleased about the results of this strategy. Before moving on to the next slide, I would like to remind you that we communicated in last December a minus 150 million impact of the large contract communication for H1 2025. In the Q1 accounts, we are seeing only a small part of the minus 150 million. The rest of the impact is likely to come in the Q2 accounts and can significantly and can significantly weight on the Q2 insurance revenue growth rate. On a full-year basis, I reiterate that the impact on the full-year 2025 growth is around minus 2%. Moving on to the underlying performance of our PNC book. Our PNC combined ratio stands at 85% in Q1, better than the forward 2026 assumption of below 87, in a quarter of elevated NATCAT losses for the industry. The NATCAT ratio is 12.1%, including 148 million net losses from California fires, consistent with the estimation that we provided earlier in the year. The rest of the CAT losses are limited in the quarter, accounting for less than two points of the CAT ratio. In such a quarter, our contained CAT ratio continues to demonstrate the underwriting discipline and the effectiveness of our NATCAT strategies. The 74.7% reported attritional loss and commission ratio is our lowest level since the transition to IFRS 17. In addition, this includes a significant level of prudence that we are able to build opportunistically given the excellent underlying performance this quarter. The minus 9.3% discount effect is higher than expected, reflecting mostly a larger share of U.S. claims this quarter, including the Los Angeles wildfires and some man-made claims, on a lower base of insurance revenue. And as you know, the discount rates are locked in when we write the contract, and this reflects the higher interest rate in the U.S. at the time of underwriting. So overall, if you adjust for CAT and discount, the normalized combined ratio would be 84.7%, so really, again, an excellent quarter for PNC. Now let's have a look at the life and health contribution. The life and health business generates a new business ESM of 76 million in Q1. This figure appears below our full year guidance of roughly 400 million on a quarterly basis, But remember that we have shifted the strategy of life and health toward higher return hurdles on the protection portfolio and the new business mix, mostly on longevity and financial solution, and this is just the first quarter of implementing the new strategy. In December, we mentioned of around 400 million new business ESM expected for year 2025 and 2026, and that it could be slightly lower in 2025, given that this is the first year, but we expect new business to ramp up in 2025. The insurance service result is at $118 million this quarter, with CSM and risk adjustment release in line with expectations and a neutral experience variance, including in the U.S. The business performance continues to improve this quarter, and we will wait for a few quarters before claiming any victory on this specific topic. Now moving to investment. We continue to benefit from an excellent performance on the investment side with a return on invested assets of 3.8% this quarter. This comes from an elevated regular income yield of 3.5% as well as from a positive fair value change on our private equity and infrastructure investment portfolio. As you know, we have gradually increased our value creation assets portfolio for a couple of years and we start to see the benefit coming through the P&L. In addition, we continue to reinvest the rest of the portfolio at a high reinvestment rate of 4.3%. Our economic value is up by €0.4 billion in Q1, representing 6.8% growth at Constant Economics from year-end 2024. This is driven by the successful P&C renewals at the 1st of January, as well as by the good performance from all three business activities. This translates into an economic value per share of €51, up 3 euros compared to the end of 2024. In consequence, our financial leverage decreased to 23.6% from 24.5% at the end of 2024. To conclude, I just would like to thank all our shareholders who maintain their trust in SCORE and their continued support since the beginning of the year in a context of geopolitical uncertainty which is not in the hands of the management. And with this, I will hand over to Jean-Paul Cosmechante for the April Reunion Walls with us.
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