Investec Group (INL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Investec Pre-Close Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Fani Titi, the Investec Group Chief Executive. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Irene, and good morning, all, and thank you for joining us for today's pre-close trading update. This update reflects financial performance for the 11 months ended 28th of February 2023 and highlights trends expected for the full year to 31st March 2023. I'm joined this morning by Nishlan Samujh, Group Finance Director; Ruth Leas, Chief Executive of Investec Bank Plc; and Richard Wainwright, Chief Executive of Investec Bank Limited in South Africa. I'm pleased to report that the group has achieved strong performance year-to-date despite a complex macroeconomic backdrop. The period under review has been characterized by persistently high inflation driven by global supply chain challenges and the war in Ukraine. The record levels of inflation experienced by many economies led to an aggressive monetary policy tackling by major central banks. Our diversified business model and strong balance sheet enable us to support our clients, notwithstanding the evolving environment. We have seen continued client acquisition with our lending franchises benefiting from higher average advances and also benefiting from the rising interest rate environment. Market weakness negatively impacted our Wealth & Investments and U.K. Equity Capital Markets businesses. Looking at the underlying drivers of our core division being Specialist Banking and Wealth & Investment, starting with Specialist Banking, core loans grew by 9.3% in the U.K. and 9.1% in South African rands. For the Wealth & Investment business, funds under management declined by 3.7% to GBP 61 billion, driven by market weakness, which was partly offset by net inflows of just under GBP 400 million. Significantly, today's trading update shows that the continued execution of our strategy has enabled the group to achieve its financial year 2024 targets. For the year ending 31st March 2023, we expect group adjusted earnings per share to be between 66p and 70p or 20% to 27% ahead of the prior year. Adjusted operating profit before tax of between GBP 782.8 million and GBP 833.6 million compared to a figure of GBP 687.4 million for the prior year. Adjusted operating profit of the U.K. business to be at least 15% higher than the prior year, which was GBP 302.8 million. Specialist Bank to be at least 30% higher than the prior year. The adjusted operating profit for the South African business to be at least 10% ahead of ZAR 7.8 billion reported in financial year 2022. The Specialist Bank in South Africa is expected to be at least 15% higher than the prior year in rands. Return on equity is expected to be within the group's financial year 2024 target range of 12% to 16%. Fixed operating expenditure increased in line with the first half, driven by continued investment in people and technology and post-pandemic normalization of certain business expenses. Variable remuneration grew in line with profitability. The cost-to-income ratio has improved as revenue grew faster than costs. Investec has made significant progress on its capital optimization strategy. Today, the group has acquired circa 52 million shares or an equivalent of circa 5.2% of the shares outstanding before the announcement of the share buyback and share repurchase program in November last year and returned circa ZAR 5.4 billion or GBP 245 million to shareholders through this program. In conclusion, the group is well capitalized and has strong liquidity, both above board-approved minimums and is well positioned to continue to support its clients and pursue growth opportunities in line with our strategic objectives. I will now turn the call over to questions. But before doing so, please note that this is a trading update. So there is only a certain amount of detail we can provide at this stage. Our full year results for the 12 months ending 31st March 2023 will be published on Thursday, the 18th of May 2023. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from Stephan Potgieter of UBS.

And just if you could provide some color around what the impact would be on Investec from the global volatility that we're seeing in financials, maybe in terms of your funding and liquidity, but also fundamentally on the earnings outlook, potentially, where would it have an effect, maybe cost of funding?

Thank you for your question and for joining the call. We obviously have given the current trading update with the volatility that we see today in mind. We are funded both in the U.K. and SA very conservatively in terms of interest rate risk policy. So we haven't seen much impact as a consequence of the way we are funded. And we would ask Ruth and Richard separately to talk more specifically about the SA and the U.K. environment. Needless to say, we haven't really seen much movement with respect to depositors. We are comfortable that we have the funding that will require our capital levels above the minimum that are set by the Board and significantly above the regulatory minimum. But I'm going to just ask for them to give you color because this is an important question. As you know, with SVB, they were concentrated in a particular sector of the market, particularly fintechs, both on the asset side and on the liability side. And clearly, there was concern around the quality of the assets. And with that, they begin to bleed some deposits. And as a consequence, they needed to liquidate some assets. And given that the duration of the securities portfolios, in particular, bond portfolio was quite long, and they had bought these when rates were very low and rates had shot up quite significantly. They suffered significant losses and -- with capital. As I said, our interest rate policy completely against that type of situation. And of course, the fact that is a point there was a worry about whether depositors would lose their money led to smaller banks getting affected as well. And thankfully, in the U.S., that issue of potential risk of deposits have been dealt with in the U.K. and South Africa. I think the funding of banks is much more solid. Stress tests are conducted in line with regulatory policy. So I do not think that there is any potential contention of the run. There's obviously an impact on confidence in particular with the likes of Credit Suisse having been affected the way they have. But Credit Suisse is not a new issue. I think they've had concerns for quite some time. And so the overall banking sector, whether in the U.S., U.K., Europe and across the world, there is a level of risk concerns. But as I say, we were quite comfortable with where we are. Ruth and Richard, just give them a fairly region-specific answers.

Stephan, it's Richard Wainwright. Just to confirm what Fani was saying, we've seen very little contagion effect into the debt capital markets or the deposit markets here in South Africa. Obviously, we've seen some impact on share prices. But in terms of our funding, we've seen a little contagion effect. Even in fact, on our dollar funding, all South African banks do run dollar funding books as well. We're actually in the market at the moment for a syndicated loan. And our appointed lead banks who are running that syndication have also indicated a very little impact on it. So for us, fortunately, it's business as usual. I mean we're still facing SA Inc. Issues, as you know, but from a funding and liquidity point of view, very little impact.

Stephan, Ruth here. Very similar to what Richard said in the U.K., very comfortable for our cash and liquidity perspective. We've always, as you know, running very cautiously from liquidity perspective and continue to do so. We've seen various movements on deposits. If anything, we have seen a net inflow from clients of SVB in the U.K. looking to open accounts with us. And this continues. Clearly, there is disruption in the market around with the news of SVB and more recently, overnight around Credit Suisse. But that continues to run as business as usual from our perspective.

Thanks very much. It's useful color there. Probably just a follow-on question on your asset side, any concerns in terms of the fund finance business, private equity, those sort of areas?

Ruth, you may take on from that.

Yes, sure. Thanks, Stephan. Again, no stress at this stage. We're not anticipating stress. The asset books are very resilient, and we are not seeing any trends in terms of asset quality deterioration in any of our books.

Our next question is from Alexander Bowers of Berenberg.

Just it's the same question from me. I know in the past, you've given some guidance around the sensitivity of both the U.K. and South African business to interest rate changes. I was wondering if there's any change in that guidance today?

Alex, I'm going to ask Nishlan just to cover that off.

I think we've obviously moved on in the interest rate cycle. So as we indicated before, I think we're probably at the low end of that guidance of GBP 10 million to GBP 15 million per 25 basis points. And similar in South Africa, I think it was about ZAR 100 million. So no real changes to that. Obviously, as you move forward, we -- it's hard to tell in terms of the overall interest rate outlook, but I think that guidance will remain pretty much in...

[Operator Instructions] And since we have no further questions on the conference call at this time, sir, would you like to make any closing comments?

Thanks, Irene, and thank you all for your time this morning. As usual, if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our team. Thank you for your interest in our business.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.