Phoenix Financial Ltd. (PHOE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello. This is David Alexander, Deputy CEO of The Phoenix Holdings. Thank you for joining us today for the group's financial review for the second quarter of 2023. The call today will be led by Phoenix Holdings CEO, Eyal Ben Simon, and CFO, Eli Schwartz. The presentation for the call can be found on our website or the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange website. The presentation provides key points on the financial statements released this morning and should be read together with the full financials. At the end of the call, we'll answer questions that were discussed today on Hebrew call. You can send any additional questions to us individually or to the e-mail address [email protected]. We'll also make ourselves available to meet with investors to discuss performance, strategy or to answer any questions you may have. Please note that this call will include forward-looking statements that the actual future results may be different. In addition to the presentation and the call, the group's performance can best be understood together with the full financial statements available on our website. In terms of the agenda, Eyal Ben Simon, CEO of Phoenix Holdings, will first highlight key results and discuss our strategy and targets. Then Eli Schwartz, the Group CFO, will review the financial results and segment breakdown in more detail.

Hello, and thank you for joining the call today. The Phoenix is a leading Israeli financial group with broad insurance, asset management distribution and credit activities. The insurance businesses had ILS 400 million core income in the first half of the year, with nearly ILS 9 billion premiums and contributions. Asset management at over ILS 100 million core income and reached over ILS 400 billion assets under management, over $100 billion. The distribution of our agency business is ILS 80 million core income and over ILS 160 million in EBITDA in the first half. And the credit segment, which is mainly Gama had ILS 26 million core income. The group has strong resilience and flexibility with a strong balance sheet and solvency ratio. Based on our strong market position and capital adequacy and S&P Maalot raised the Phoenix insurance rating to AAA. And recently, Moody's assigned Phoenix Insurance an A2 international rating, both the same as the large Israeli banks. In the last 5 years, the Phoenix has grown assets under management by 20% annually with an average return on equity of 15%. The Israel economy, like many other regions, continued to experience uncertainty in the second quarter. Israeli capital markets were volatile and underperformed leading U.S. and European stock indexes. Looking ahead, market volatility is expected to continue in the coming months. At the same time, GDP is expected to grow by 3% this year. Inflation is lower and the unemployment rate remains low. Phoenix prepared and properly manage risk, while taking advantage of opportunities. In the second quarter, The Phoenix created ILS 217 million in comprehensive income and a comprehensive income of ILS 298 million in the first 6 months of 2023. This was driven by strong income from core businesses, including asset management agencies and P&C. Assets under management grew to ILS 417 billion due to continued inflows in assets from 2 acquisitions: Epsilon and Psagot portfolio management and funds. However, performance was negatively impacted by capital markets, both investment performance and interest rates due to a lower liquidity premium. Q2 core income of ILS 357 million reflects normalized return on equity of 15% and H1 core income of ILS 650 million reflects normalized return on equity of 13%. Solvency remains high, 208% as of March 31, with, of course, transition measures. Finally, we announced today a dividend of ILS 120 million for the first half of 2023. Here, we see a breakdown of income. The blue is core income from insurance, not including capital markets and special items. The orange is core income from services, mainly stable fee-based income. The gray is nonoperating income, including investment performance above and below 3% real yields, interest rate effects and, of course, special items. We continue to grow core income despite the challenging year. During the first half, we reported ILS 435 million core income from insurance, 215 million from fee-based services. At the same time, there was ILS 352 million negative impact from nonoperating income. For the quarter, we see ILS 243 million core income from insurance and ILS 114 million from services with negative of ILS 140 million from nonoperating income. Return on equity for the quarter was 9%, but when looking at the core income, the normalized core return on equity was 15%. An important driver of group performance is the corporate account of Nostro. During the first 6 months of the year, returns were nominal 6.2% on an annual basis and 1.2% on a real basis. This is below the 3% real yields we use for planning and transparency. We have a significant allocation to Israeli investment, which also underperformed during the second quarter, but a little better than in Q1 2023. Our accounting mark-to-market on the one hand, this creates quarterly volatility like what we see in Q1 and Q2. On the other hand, it creates better transparency internally and for investors than accounting based on hold to maturity, which has created problems for U.S. banks this year. You can see the broad allocation of our Nostro investments on the right with roughly 70% in fixed income. We remain focused on dynamic investment and risk management, especially in this period, including regarding changes in interest rates and balance sheet management. Shareholders' equity is above ILS 10 billion, and we continue to have a strong balance sheet. We announced today a dividend of ILS 120 million for the first half of 2023, which is roughly 40% of 6 months income. This is in line with our policy of at least 30% of annual income and highlights our strong capital positive and liquidity, which allows us to provide a slightly higher dividend rate in a period of lower income. Our goal is to build a track record of relatively stable growing dividends. Together with the dividend of ILS 177 million in April, the total dividend distributions year-to-date are ILS 297 million, representing over 3% dividend yield. The group will continue to distribute dividends from its profits based on our dividend policy, building our track record while strengthening the group's capital. We will now review the execution of the strategy and the progress towards our strategic targets. During the quarter, we continued to implement the strategy across all activities in all 4 growth engines: insurance, asset management, distribution and credit. The strategy consists of 4 value drivers. The first is accelerating growth in high ROE activities and shifting our mix to more valuable capital-light activities. For example, we grew in P&C and asset management. Second, we continue to organize for improved client focused with innovation and efficiency, deepening our competitive advantage. Here, we are moving fast on digitized activities -- in digitizing activities and have set up agile teams to bring product and technology close together. We're also focusing on efficiency as part of the strategy execution to keep costs down during this period. Third, we actively manage the group and our business portfolio to unlock and create value. We made acquisitions in asset management, for example, and are looking to unlock value. And fourth, we're increasingly deploying capital effectively against our priorities to reduce volatility and generate higher returns. For example, growing solvency and obtaining international ratings. We manage each of these value drivers across the group's activities. This strategy aims to create value with several catalysts, growing income and shifting the mix towards fee-based income, expanding margins and deepening competitive advantage, executing M&As and unlocking value across the group, and driving cash flow and excess returns. Regarding our targets, capital markets had an impact this first half on income and return on equity. Still, we are confident in the targets we set and our ability to achieve them. Our core return on equity was 13% for the first half, when normalizing for capital market impact. And service core income on the top right continues to grow towards our target of 50% at least of total income. We can now look at each business separately. First, in the insurance businesses, we see a decline in total premiums and contribution, compared to last year, but an increase in the strategic P&C segment. P&C showed strong growth from ILS 900 million to ILS 1.2 billion premiums in Q2. And ILS 2.4 billion in the first half, compared to ILS 2 billion last year. Overall premiums and contribution declined due to primarily saving policies and executive savings solutions, which are cyclical and impacted mainly by capital market performance. In terms of insurance business targets, P&C premiums continue to grow, and we expect to be on track for the medium-term target. Expense ratios were higher than last year, mostly due to inflation, and we are focusing on efficiency to push them down back -- back down, sorry. Solvency remains high at 208% as of March. And core comprehensive income without capital market effects grew to ILS 435 million during the first half. The second business is asset management, assets under management. As of end of second quarter, our assets under management stood at ILS 417 billion, up from ILS 371 billion in December. The growth is due to both continued inflows and also inorganic growth. The organic inflows across our activities are due to the group's capabilities, track record, distribution, service and branding, of course. In terms of acquisitions, we completed the Epsilon acquisition earlier this year and then the acquisition of portfolios and funds from Psagot. We're also progressing toward our targets for asset management. We're on track for ILS 0.5 trillion under management by 2025. During the first 6 months, we saw growth in pension and provident contributions as well as small growth in investment services, revenues from our investment house activity despite challenging market conditions. The third business is distribution. The Phoenix agencies is the leading platform in Israel for insurance agencies and brokers, including benefit and payroll administration and financial planning. The agencies continue to grow fee revenues to ILS 407 million in the first half of 2023. But with only 6% market share, there is still a lot of potential. They are managed on a stand-alone basis with the goal of creating value, not just distributing Phoenix products. They generate strong cash flows, are capital efficient and have attractive business models. As we already announced, we have started to assess options to attract a new investor to the Phoenix agencies. We're assessing preliminary interest from international investors and if we decide to do this, it would help accelerate value creation in the medium term and also unlock value in the short term, given the value at which they are held on the balance sheet. We will update further if and when it is appropriate. The fourth strategic business is credit. The group portfolio is over ILS 5 billion, mostly in SME financing through Gama and real estate, and project financing under the insurance business. This also does not yet include consumer credit, which are building -- which we are building in [indiscernible]. Recently, we published a full tender offer for Gama's shares held by the public. We owed roughly 77% of the shares today, but believe that taking Gama private would help accelerate business development and value creation. Even if private, Gama would remain a reporting entity, and we believe it is for the benefit of both the company and its shareholders and will positively impact any future raising capital. Going forward, we believe credit will be an important source of value creation in the years to come. In August, we published our 2022 sustainability report. We are working to integrate environmental issues across all group operations and investments. In addition, we reduced our direct carbon footprint by 20% between 2019 and 2022. On social issues, we continue to emphasize diversity within the group. At the same time, we focus on client service privacy and satisfaction across all activities. In terms of governance, we work to promote best practice corporate governance and sustainability, not only in the group, but across our investment portfolio. Going forward, we continue to focus on resilience, growth and value creation. We continue to focus on execution and are positioned well for market volatility with a strong balance sheet and very good liquidity. We're assessing opportunities and can make acquisitions if they have a good strategic and economic fit. We continue to invest in capabilities as part of the strategy and at the same time, are focusing on efficiency across our activities. I would now like to hand over the presentation to Eli Schwartz, the Group CFO, who will review the financial results and segments in more detail.

Thank you, Eyal. During the second quarter, group income was ILS 217 million after tax. We saw a good growth in fee-based income, mostly investment service and credit, compared to the last year. Nonoperating income from investment performance and interest rate effects related to the insurance had a significant negative impact. On interest rates, this is due to the liquidity premium. On the right, you see a full breakdown. The analysis is similar to the analysis shown in the previous quarter, where the left is the simplified and the right side has even greater details. During the first half, the total comprehensive income was ILS 298 million. We see a growth in the core income from insurance and service to ILS 583 million and ILS 348 million before tax. But we see the negative impact of nonoperating factors, investment income and interest rate effects. This is -- this was ILS 565 million before tax, a significant impact for the first half. Looking at the breakdown of the segment during the second quarter, the total income was achieved mainly due to P&C and services segments. Our health and life segments were impacted by nonoperating factors. However, we see the strong contribution from services, which drove income for the quarter. We see a similar trend in the first half of the year. P&C income before tax grew to ILS 173 million and services continued to deliver a strong contribution, including asset management agencies and credit. The strong balance sheet, the debt breakdown and the solvency position provides financial strength to the whole group. They support the group ability to capture business opportunities going forward. Currently, the debt is demand in shekels. However, with international credit rating, we expect in the future to be able to raise capital internationally in dollars. By doing this, we opt to further improvement our capital position and to reduce exposure to exchange rate. For the first time, we are reporting solvency and quarterly basis with a lag of 1 quarter. Today, we reported solvency for the end of March was 208% with transition measures. In November, we will report solvency for the end of June, including full breakdown with and without transition measures. Going forward, we will provide greater details for the end of June and December and highlights for the end of March and September. This strong solvency positions allow us flexibility in strategic choices and investment allocations and give us a room for when interest rates come down. We will now review each segment in more details. The P&C segment continues to show improvement with ILS 173 million underwriting profit in the first 6 months of the year. In the second quarter, the underwriting profit was ILS 106 million. We see continued growth in premium and improved underwriting profit despite challenging market conditions. In motor, we see combined profit, compulsory and property together, of ILS 45 million in the second quarter and ILS 70 million in the first half, compared to negative contributions last year. Overall, we are seeing improvement in the market, but we are still in the cycle and continue to fill its impact. The health segment contributed ILS 73 million during the first half of the year. Lower underwriting profit is mainly due to long-term care and claims. We also see a negative impact of interest rate of ILS 187 million in the quarter and negative ILS 81 million in the first half. This interest rate effect is due to a lower illiquidity premium, which impacts reserves. The life segment are the loss before tax of ILS 83 million in the first half of -- and ILS 6 million in the second quarter. Underwriting profit decreased and segment income was also impacted negatively by investment performance. We are working on improving efficiency to improve underwriting profit. Other equity returns were impact negatively by the capital market. Moving to the asset management segment. In pension and provident funds income, contribution was stable with a profit of ILS 40 million for the second quarter and ILS 60 million for the first half. The second asset management segment is investment service. This includes Phoenix's Investment House, formerly Excellence and Phoenix Advanced Investment. Since last quarter, we break out the conversion from the different activities and provide more transparency on the business. These activities contributed ILS 111 million in the first half of the year and ILS 60 million in the second quarter. This growth was driven by brokerage service and credit margin rates. The agencies segment delivered stable ILS 142 million profit from operation in the first half of the year. Overall income before tax was ILS 155 million, below last year due to a special items in 2022. What was lower than the past due to a lower rate of new employees, hiring in the Israeli market. We are assessing a preliminary interest of international investors in the agencies platform with the goal of unlocking value and creating more value going forward. The credit segment, which include Gama results generated income of ILS 55 million in the first half and ILS 27 million in the second quarter before tax. Gama continued to perform above 2021 and 2022 levels and had reduced exposure to check clearing, while increasing exposure to the other types of credit. Recently, we announced a full tender offer of all Gama shares held by the public, and we will update as the process will proceed.

Thank you, Eli. We'll now review the questions that were discussed in the conference call in Hebrew. The first question. Capital markets and interest rates still have a negative effect on results. What are the key factors for this negative effect? There was no significant interest rate decrease. Why is there an effect of interest rates?

So in the insurance balance sheet, as the sensitivities to capital market and interest rate, you can see in the note in the annual report, a detail of these sensitivities. The Israeli capital market under performed in the first half, compared to the international market. Regarding to the interest rate, the illiquidity premium decreased in the second quarter, so it's affected the reserves.

Second question, in the motor segment, we're seeing an improvement, but still performance is below peak levels. Do you expect continued improvement? We're witnessing a significant slowdown in buying of new vehicles.

First, if we combine all motor activities, we see improvement if we take the MBI and the property as well. So generally, performance is improving. We are not at the end of the cycle yet. What we do see, which is a bit more problematic is more fast than expected. But still, if we take the preadjustment that have been made in the last few quarters, it's still -- it shows better results than expected. Regarding the decline in new cars getting into the circle is practically something that actually followed or represent inflation and general slowdown, but still Phoenix threw a much better pricing models and, of course, brand and capabilities, we believe we can capture more market share to create more size and, of course, meeting our medium-term targets.

Next question. Why is the lower underwriting profit in health and in life?

Actually, the main reason for that low performance is in health and represented or actually mainly by the LTC activity, which we already said a few years ago and we continue seeing that health and LTC, of course, is not a strategic goal for Phoenix. Mainly back-book elements that need to be treated. But from time to time, we see such phenomena of a bit more claims than expected, but it's managed. But still, as I said, this is something we don't put as strategic, and we take care of that activity very carefully.

You say that you're thinking about bringing an investor into the Phoenix agencies. How will this benefit the agency activity?

Well, if we decide to bring in investors in the short term, it could unlock value since the agencies are held at historic costs on the balance sheet. In the longer term, we're growing the business and experienced investor with national perspectives can help significantly to make that value creation happen faster, bigger and, of course, if you compare that activity to what we see overseas, it still have a lot of space to grow and improve.

Next question. How will the transition to IFRS 17 impact your earnings and dividend distribution?

So we are still working on implementation and it's still early. But it's worth to mention that in Europe, insurance company are implementing successfully without significant impact on earnings and dividends. We have a very good solvency position. So we believe that it's also give us a huge advantage, compared to the peers, but it's still early.

Next question. How is your international credit rating likely to affect financing costs? Is there any intention of expanding the company's debt abroad as well?

So international rating opened the door for international debts and also for international investors. We are able to raise debt in dollar that is very, very correlated to our asset and is in the bank's have a very good model and very good progress. And we believe that there is opportunities for insurance company as well.

And last question, you recently completed the acquisition of Psagot funds. Are you still looking for additional acquisitions that will increase the scope of assets under management for the group?

The Psagot acquisition was successful and attractive with very strong in synergies. And we're always looking for possible acquisitions that are attractive financially and strategically. And we believe that once those opportunities will come, we'll be there to execute. We have the size of balance. We have liquidity. And as we said in the last half an hour, we're mainly focused on meeting our targets. And of course, if we can exceed them even better. So if it meets our medium-term or long-term targets, we'll be there.

Those are the questions. Investors are welcome to contact us directly at any time or via e-mail. And as mentioned, we'll be happy to answer questions or range of conversation to discuss in more detail. Our e-mail address is [email protected]. Finally, I'd like to mention that you'll find the presentation and other materials, including the recording of this call, all on our website. Thank you again for joining the call.