Daiichi Life Group, Inc. (8750) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you very much for coming despite of very hot weather. I'm Akifumi Kai, the Managing Executive Officer of Dai-ichi Life Group for International Life Business. I'm a Head of the International Life Insurance business. So today, I'd like to talk about our international business current status and aspirations. And also, I'd like to cover an overview of our business and each country's strategy. First, I'd like to introduce myself. I joined in Dai-ichi Life in 1997. Well, currently, it's called Mizuho-DL Financial Technology. It's actually the company working on -- focusing on the cons, and I've been actually working in that company for more than 10 years. And I studied overseas temporarily. And from 2013, I've been involved in the international business in Hong Kong and Singapore for 6 years. And after that, I worked in investment planning and corporate planning departments and new field business. So starting from this fiscal year as the Head of the International Life business, I came to international business area. So we would like to grow our international life insurance business, which is the growth driver for the group. And leveraging my own experiences, I'd like to steadily progress each country's strategy. So that was a brief introduction of myself. So this is the current status of our International Life Insurance business. In 2007, we entered into Vietnam. And since then, we've been covering different stages of business in many countries. And by doing so, we try to improve our competitiveness globally. Largest market is the United States. And in U.S., we have Protective, and Protective actually purchased many companies, which is actually bolt-on M&A. And through those initiatives, we are now 15 out of 329 companies in the United States. And also in Oceania, we have TAL in Australia and their share in protection market in Australia is 33.6%, which is a top insurer. And in New Zealand, we have a Partners Life, and they actually grow the existing business, and they are currently #2 in New Zealand. So we established our leading position in Oceania. In Asia, we strengthened distribution channels. So we developed new products so that we actually grow our existing business. In Vietnam, we are #2 player. Among foreign lifers, we are #1. And in Cambodia, Dai-ichi Life Cambodia, well, we have a #4 rank in the market. And in Myanmar, we are #3. So we are steadily increasing our presence in each country. Most recently, as you know, we invested in M&G which is the entry into Europe. So we see a steady growth of the business in each country and the Protective performance is very good. And also, we work on the cost reduction measures as well. And as a result, adjusted profit for international business for last fiscal year is about 22% of group adjusted profit, which is JPY 119.2 billion, which is a record high. And for international business, 10-year average growth rate is about 10%, steadily growing in the last 10 years. Now these are the goals for our international business. By fiscal year 2030, we would like to be global top-tier life insurance group or company leading future of Japan's insurance industry. And our goal for market capitalization is JPY 10 trillion. For international life insurance, objective is to become the group -- the growth driver and contributing more than 50% to group profit. As I said before, since our entry into Vietnam in 2007, we've been complementing our domestic business through profit growth and dividend payment. However, for fiscal year 2030, we are going to increase our presence steadily. So we would like to be the core of the group profit. On the other hand, there are some challenges and risks. Most recently, we are suffering from Middle East conflicts, financial market volatilities and there are some regulation changes in the market that we operate. And there are some other geopolitical risks and volatilities in the market. So we like to establish resilient business portfolio, which can overcome volatility and environmental changes. And in the past, we have been operating in a balanced manner, but we would like to keep this good diversification of our business. As a core business for the group, we would like to generate profit on a steady basis. So like before, we focus on diversification through the North America, Europe, Oceania and Asia. And also in terms of business scope, we would like to, of course, cover life insurance business. But not only that, we would like to capture the growth opportunity of retirement area. And also, we'd like to expand our capital-light business so that we can improve our profit base and capital efficiency. And ultimately, we'd like to contribute to majority of the profit of the group. Now I'd like to talk about the strategy for international business. The adjusted profit for International Life business for fiscal year 2026 is expected to be JPY 160 billion. As I said before, by 2030, we would like to contribute more than 50% of the group profit. And for that purpose, we like to focus on organic growth and inorganic initiatives to achieve the goal. Regarding the organic growth for existing business, most of the growth will come from expansion of the business in North America. And in Europe, Australia and Asia, we will accumulate profit steadily, but about half of the growth will come from North America. For North America, we would like to tap individual life and annuity market, which are still growing. And on top of that, we would like to work on group insurance and asset protection business, which are capital-light business. We'd like to increase the share of this type of business so that we can actually improve the capital efficiency as well. For Europe, through our investment in M&G, we would like to receive the benefit of the retirement market growth. And also, we'd like to accumulate our know-how and knowledge in life and annuity area. In Oceania, we already have a leading position. In protection market, as I said before, we have more than 30% market share. But in addition to that, particularly in Australia, retirement market, which is expected to grow more will be our focus so that we can actually receive the benefit of the growth of the individual annuity and group pension market. For Asia, for the future phase of profit contribution, our priority is to increase the scale of business in each country. In addition to those organic initiatives, in order to fill the gap for fiscal year 2030 profit goal, probably bolt-on M&A or group direct M&A transactions will be considered. Particularly, we'd like to focus on the inorganic deals where we can expect early profit contribution and cash recovery. By doing so, we can actually fill the gap between the current status and the goal. Now I'd like to talk about more specific strategy for each region. Now on North America. For our group, as I said before, North America is a core market for our international business for the growth and capital efficiency. For fiscal year 2025, adjusted profit of Protected is about JPY 80 billion. By 2030, we expect growth in individual life and annuity and capital-light businesses. And if we add recently announced Obsidian transaction, I think that profit will be increased to USD 1 billion. Well, for individual annuity, Peak 65 is very important factor. These are the baby boomer generation, and they're actually entering into the phase of retirement and 65 and above population is increasing by 4 million a year. So the aging is proceeding quite fast in the United States as well. And also due to insufficient access to public and corporate pension plan, increasing -- we are seeing increasing need for self-advised investment. That means that the demand for annuity products will be high. For individual life, we see population and economic growth and mortality improvement, and that will lead to higher profit. Now for capital-light business, in existing business like asset protection, we see repricing due to inflation and also efficiency improvement are expected. And also in the new business, we expect the other profit, the contribution from portfolio that we purchased. And Obsidian's purchase and integration, we are making efforts to complete this transaction as soon as possible. For group insurance, and also we will actually improve the quality of protection in New York State. And also, we can actually expand the business to other states as well so that we can distribution channel more connected. So through those initiatives, we are aiming at the profit of $1 billion by 2030. In addition to those organic initiatives, we continue to look for inorganic opportunities proactively to achieve higher growth for the future in the United States. Now moving to Europe. Well, the biggest market in Europe is U.K. and M&G has a strategic asset in the United States -- United Kingdom. And we actually acquired 15.7% voting right of this company through strategic partnership. We're actually trying to send directors and try to make M&G our affiliate for this fiscal year so that we can actually create new opportunities. For international business department, the first, we focus on the life insurance and annuity. We would like to capture the needs from retirement market so that we can actually increase our group profit through M&G. In addition, in the life and annuity area, we would like to collaborate like by sending directors. so that we can create synergy across the organization. Most recently, we actually the considering to mutually develop the products in the asset management area. But in life and annuity area as well, we consider joint investment and the accumulation of the know-how of the bulk purchase annuity BPA business, and we try to share knowledge in the group as well. Regarding the collaboration in asset management area, or example, we consider jointly investment strategy, and we might actually invest in M&G's fund or our group's investment outsourcing and product development, leveraging group's asset management capabilities, that would be a good idea as well so that we can actually create new business opportunities. So together with asset management unit, we'd like to collaborate in those areas as well. The operating profit on the license insurance side is actually manage M&G's total number this is not the consensus disclosed in April by M&G nor our interest in company. But we assume M&G will generate about 8% level of profit growth. So as a best partner for M&G, we would like to further work on the collaboration with them in life insurance and asset management area. And also through an interest and the dividend, we will receive the benefit of European market growth. We would like to grow this U.K., European business further. Now moving to Oceania. In this region, we have a high market share in the protection market. So we'd like to take advantage of our competitiveness in this area so that we can actually contribute steadily to the group profit. And also in Australia, we'd like to leverage the growth potential of retirement business. For protection, negative impact of last year's claim increase subsided for this year. So after this year, stable profit growth phase will be expected. Well, TAL actually acquired about 30% of the market share, 20% in retail and 40% in group insurance market. And in total, their market share is about a little bit more than 30%, which is a top share. And for New Zealand, the P&G is a relatively young company. However, they are #2 in the industry and 20% or so market share. Towards 2030, these 2 companies maintain leading position. And because of the improvement of the profitability that we are working on, we believe that the profit from protection business will steadily grow. For retirement business, in Australia, retired population is increasing. Therefore, retirement business is an expanding business. So we'd like to receive the benefit of that. And last year, through TAL, we actually invested in Challenger, which is a company who has a 90% share in annuity. So we can actually get the benefit of the growth of the annuity market through Challenger. But also TAL's relationship with superannuation can be leveraged. So for example, we can actually develop the products, which can cater to the needs of each group. So for this year's adjusted profit will be JPY 64 billion for Oceania as a whole. By diversifying profit sources through above-mentioned initiatives, we would like to further grow our profit towards 2030. Now Asia. Asian business, the only profit-making company -- the country is actually Vietnam, and we'd like to actually recover the profit level of Vietnam. And for other countries, we'd like to improve the market share so that we can actually have more the markets which can give us more profit. In 2007, as I said, our first international transaction was achieved, that is actually Dai-ichi Life Vietnam. As for first year it will be, they are actually #2 and among foreign company, they are #1. For last year's adjusted profit, the bancassurance new business underperformed. And because of the onetime factors such as impairment of upfront fee, the profit declined to JPY 2 billion. Currently, in Vietnam, they are working on repricing and improvement and enhancement of the major distribution channel so that they can improve persistency rate. So top line will be improved and the quality of the product will be enhanced as well. By 2030, our goal is actually to go back to the profit level of the last several years, which will be JPY 13 billion to JPY 15 billion or more. Other focus areas include India, which is a very big market. And we expect that this market will grow towards 2030. We like to benefit from high growth of this market and Star Union, the profit will be improving. And in other Mekong area, excluding Vietnam, we focus on partnership with banks and also through organic growth of the existing business. In Cambodia, for example, the market share improved from 6th to 4th in the last 3 years. And Myanmar improve their ranking from 8th to 3rd. So we are actually having leading positions in each market. But by 2030, Cambodia and Myanmar business will turn to be profitable. So for Asian business, in Vietnam, we are going to go back to the profitable growth. And for other countries, we'd like to benefit from the growth potential and work on the initiatives so that the profit will be returned earlier. Now lastly, I'd like to talk about our initiatives for inorganic growth. In May, our CEO, Kikuta, explained on this. So from 2026 through 2030, we expect to spend JPY 1.5 trillion for strategic investment. For insurance and asset management areas in developed nations, we focus on the investment where we can actually expect early contribution to the profit and cash recovery. And through that, we can enhance our profit base. And in addition, for emerging markets and the new businesses, mainly in Asia, we'd like to focus on mid- to long-term growth opportunity so that we can actually diversify our profit source for the future. This strategic investment budget, about 70% of that will be allocated to overseas developed nations. And the remaining 30% will be allocated to emerging markets like Asia and domestic non-life business area. Well, depending on the opportunities and the transactions available, we may actually change plans, but that's the current goal. For international life insurance business, we'd like to maintain financial discipline in finding inorganic opportunities using this investment budget together with organic growth opportunities. So that's briefing for International Life Insurance business. This year is the last year of the current midterm plan. So we'd like to achieve our goal for this fiscal year, which is JPY 160 billion. And towards 2030 through existing business expansion and inorganic transactions, we'd like to contribute to enhancement of our group enterprise value. Thank you very much.

I'm Ogata, Business Head of New Fields of Business at Dai-ichi Life Group. I was here last year, and I think that was about 2 weeks after I joined the company. And then I've been thinking about the new strategy for 1 year. So I would like to share with you the strategy we have worked out. Well, now let me introduce myself. I joined Dai-ichi Life Group in July last year. And currently, I am the Managing Executive Officer. And also, I am the Senior Managing Executive Officer of Benefit One. And I am responsible for new fields of business. And this is today's agenda. I will look at the review of the current medium-term management plan, and then I would like to talk about the new strategy for the new businesses at Dai-ichi Life Group. The first the review of the current medium-term plan. So currently, one big theme is to lay the foundation for the transformation into insurance and related services provider. We have set the goal of generating 10% of the group adjusted profit from noninsurance businesses by fiscal 2030. This is the asset management and other businesses combined. And one important factor is Benefit One. So we have to do the PMI and enhance the value, and then we have to build new businesses. So we have less than 1 year for the current medium-term plan. So we work out the strategy and lay the foundation. And after next year, in the next medium-term plan, we will use the newly acquired assets, and we would like to realize cash generation. And based on that, in 2030, fiscal 2030, we would like to contribute more than 10% of the group adjusted profit. So this is about the transformation of business portfolio. And we are now thinking about transforming ourselves into the insurance and related services provider. In addition to the insurance business, we will focus on asset-light businesses, which will be a new source of revenue. So one of them is the asset management business and the other one is the new businesses. By combining the businesses, which has very different way of stream of the revenue, we would like to enhance our businesses. Now I would like to talk about the positioning of the new businesses at Dai-ichi Life Group. So this shows how we view the world we are facing. From now on, AI will prosper. And the role of the human beings will change significantly and many of the tasks involving knowledge processing and efficient execution are shared with technology. And especially in Japan, we will see the decline in population. And resource constraints such as those related to energy and public finances will intensify. So the meaning of work and meaning of life will be questioned. So we have to start thinking about what Dai-ichi Life can do in such a world. And as a new field of business, we do not think that Japan is shrinking or Japan is declining. Rather, we think that Japan is condensing. So even with fewer people, each of us can enhance our individual capabilities and become richer, freer, and maintain the level of GDP. or else, Japan will not be invigorated, and we are betting on the potential. On the other hand, a condensing society has challenges. While we have achieved material affluence, A significant gap remains regarding whether people are truly living fulfilling lives. A long working hours and the burdens of house work and childcare have little time -- leave little time for people to expand their potential and opportunities to redesign one's life through reskilling are limited and social connections are weakening. So we aim to create a society where every individual can lead a more fulfilling life. So we have to redefine prosperity. When prosperity means that one's life is not confined to a single story. So traditionally, prosperity was defined as being safer, live longer and owning a lot. However, in contrast, prosperity in the future lies in the possibility of redesigning one's life again and again regardless of the change in age, roles and/or location. And Dai-ichi Life Group aspires to be an entity that transforms this change into new possibilities. So we have a 124-year history. And we continue to challenge and -- our theme is that the Dai-ichi Life Group opens up the opportunities and possibilities for everyone. And I think this is a very important point. And we are trying to build an ecosystem that extends life and driven by 2 cycles. And the first one creates a room in the B2B and B2E areas, we enrich working environment, foster growth opportunities, create time and increase the meaning of work. The second one enriches that room in the toC area, we diversify choices and deepen connections to enhance the meaning of life. Enriched working environment creates a room, which leads to a more enriched life, which in turn reinforces the meaning of work. These cycles drive service adoption while continues to serve as a foundation for both LTV and the recurring revenue. Now I would like to look at the values new fields of business can deliver. So for a long time, we wanted to be an entity that protect the lives of customers, but now we want to be a company that expands them. So we deliver value to companies such as improved productivity and benefits to employees. And for individuals, we offer better quality of life and wider range of choices. So a company grows and the workers get richer, new consumption and challenges emerge, fueling further growth of companies. We create this virtuous cycle. And 70% of the workforce belong to the small and medium-sized companies, and they have a lot of management issues. So we would like to respond broadly to such issues. And we combine solutions such as transaction digitalization by Infomart, employee benefit by Benefit One and recruitment and retention support through group insurance and pension plans. And in doing so, we generate multiple revenue streams derived from transactions, membership fees and insurance from a single customer base. Now let's look at the toC, the consumer sector. So here, we focus on experiences such as eating, traveling and training areas that still offer significant room for growth in Japan. Through platform centered on Benefit One, we will expand Dai-ichi Life Group's rich consumer content across categories such as dining, traveling and entertainment. And we would like -- we are hoping that, that would lead to the transactional revenue through fees and customer referrals. The mission of the new field of business is to lead the expansion of the noninsurance businesses and contribute to increasing corporate value over the medium to long term. Our goal is to generate 10% of group adjusted profit of JPY 700 billion from noninsurance businesses. That is a new business plus asset management business. by combining various methods, we would like to earn strong recognition from the market and customers and build sustainable organizational capabilities. There are 3 approaches. The left-hand side, buy. This is acquisition. We can strengthen the platform by M&A. And also we enhance value after the acquisition. So we can, of course, buy everything. So we have to borrow and this focuses on alliance and develop new business. And the last one is build. We will have a business contest in-house. So we would like to improve the ability to develop the businesses. We will focus on the areas where we can quickly expand earnings. And then -- we would take an approach of capital allocation, which enables us a disciplined management of invested capital and time. First, approach of buy. This shows the growth of Benefit One. The revenue was JPY 45.3 billion, 114% of the previous year. Compared to the time of acquisition, the number of client companies increased by 28% and number of members increased by 12.5% to 13.5 million. The sales synergies derived from the Dai-ichi Life sales channel significantly boosted Benefit One sales performance. And the synergy extends beyond Benefit One sales, contributing to Dai-ichi Life's corporate insurance sales as well. Approximately 800 new corporate clients have been acquired by Dai-ichi Life channels with some of them -- some of these clients also purchasing business owner insurance. There are 4 levers for enhancement of Benefit One's values. The first is the membership expansion. Second is the strengthening profitability improvement. The third is the productivity improvement. Fourth is the usage rate improvement. As for the usage rate improvement, -- the MAU of Benefit One -- we are aiming to increase that to 10 million. And also, we will have multiple streams for monetization. So MAU is not just a headline figure, but we would like to monitor that as the leading indicator for the future performance. And in February 2026, we entered into capital alliance with Infomart. Infomart is a leading provider of DX services for businesses, serving approximately 1.27 million corporate users. By leveraging their capabilities in the digitalization transactions, we will enhance operational efficiency for small- and medium-sized companies and establish a revenue base driven by recurring transactions. So we would like to enhance the value by acquiring new assets. So we will acquire a suite of services primarily in the B2B sectors and leverage our sales networks and customer base to drive cross-selling, increasing revenue per customer and retention rates. And this is approach of borrow. The first initiative is collaboration with Resona Holdings. We have signed a basic agreement to launch a consumer service Resona Plus. We plan to offer benefit preferential content via Resona Plus by late September 2026. This allows us to create unique service by leveraging the strength of the 3 companies, including JCB. We can borrow access to financial service touch points with minimal capital investment. The second initiative is a business alliance with start-up miive. In response to the tax revision in April that expanded the tax-exempt allowance for meal subsidies, we aim to agilely capture market demand. We launched Bene-One Smart meal subsidy powered by Miive on May 18. Starting with meal subsidies, we will roll out coupons, cafeteria plans and other programs based on usage data. And we will realize new services by borrowing the strength of other companies through alliances rather than relying solely on M&A. We expand our customer base through collaboration with large enterprises and financial institutions and enhance our capabilities through partnership with start-ups in order to fill in missing pieces quickly. Through these efforts, we will build highly distinctive ecosystem of Dai-ichi Life Group. And last one is our approach to build. In August 2025, we established an internal venture program. In order to adapt to the ever-changing social environment, we foster a corporate culture that encourages taking on challenges, improve our business development capabilities and diversify our development -- deployment methods. This may not contribute to profit immediately, but we can acquire ability to cope with changes. Next, I will show you overall picture of our platform and business model. This is an illustration of the new business platform with Benefit One at its core. It is the core not simply because it is an employee benefit company. Rather, it is because it has membership of approximately 13.5 million individuals and 21,000 companies, enabling us to connect with those businesses and individuals. Using this platform as a starting point, we will expand the services into the areas of health, learning, work styles and consumption. We will deliver value to B2B clients, employees and individuals, building ecosystem unique to Dai-ichi Life Group. The business model for the new field of business features the 2-tiered structure, a solid B2B foundation serving as the primary revenue pillar with B2E revenue streams layered on top. In the first tier, we will leverage Dai-ichi Life's sales resources to expand our corporate client base, strengthen recurring revenue from employee benefits and increase the number of employee users. Furthermore, we will expand B2B services on the platform to generate transactional fee revenue linked to transaction volume. By expanding our B2B foundation, we aim to reach 10 million employee monthly active users and use this as a springboard to generate transactional revenue from B2E customer referral and advertising. So we'll be able to obtain the data of the users. And then we'll be able to provide a service that is competitive in the era of AI. By establishing through the 2-tiered business structure, we established a stable and growth-oriented revenue base. Our future in 2026, we focus on sales promotion and value enhancement to expand the Benefit One membership base while continuing to strengthen and scale the platform. We aim to boost the value of the entire group by fostering synergies among group companies and investees, including Benefit One and inform. Through these measures, we will lead our business portfolio transformation to achieve 10% of gross adjusted profit in fiscal 2030, we will swiftly implement the buy, borrow, build strategy. In addition, we will continuously monitor how leading KPIs such as MAU and LTV as well as the metrics like the number of members, number of client companies and the unit price and profit margins, how these translate into revenue. While maintaining the stability of the insurance business, we will also build up growth by noninsurance businesses. So our new direction is not move away from insurance, but rather leverage the trust and corporate relations established through insurance. Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you very much for the introduction. I'm Hanyu, and I assumed the post on June 1, 2026. So since this is the first time, I would like to introduce myself. Here's a slide that shows my background. Half of my career was B2C marketing. I used to work in the food, restaurant and retail and also health care listed companies, IPOs. So I've known Ogata for 15 years. So we've been working together as consultants. It so happened that we work together for Dai-ichi Life Group, and that is quite impressive for me. So it's been only 1 month since I assumed this post, and I'm trying to understand the company and the company's businesses. So I'm having conversations with employees, customers and my colleagues. And there are 3 missions. First is the creation of the value based on customer perspective and strengthen the collaboration with Dai-ichi Life and enhance sales and utilizing AI and digital and realize strength. And as a center of the new business of Dai-ichi Life, we would like to establish the Benefit One. Maybe we'll have more opportunity to see you, and I hope that we will have built a good relationship. Thank you very much. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]