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

Hello. This is David Alexander, Deputy CEO of Phoenix. Thank you for joining us to discuss the group's financial review for the first half of 2024. The call will be led today by Phoenix 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. This 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 on the Hebrew call. You can send any additional questions to us individually or to the e-mail address www.ir.fnx.co.il. Will make ourselves available to meet with investors to discuss performance, strategy or 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 on the call, the group's performance can best be understood together with the full financial statements available on our website. First, Eyal will highlight the key results for the quarter and discuss our strategy and targets. Eli will then review the financial results and the segment breakdown in more detail.

Hello, and thank you for joining the call today. Phoenix is a leading Israeli financial group with $130 billion in assets under management and distinct competitive advantages. We have 2 lines of activities. First, a broad multiline Insurance businesses, including leading P&C operation, as well as significant Life And health businesses. And second, growth engines, including asset management agencies and credit businesses. This include the market-leading investment house, a growing Wealth business, leading financial distribution footprint and a growing SME credit platform. Both activity lines are growing, generating profit and cash flows. The group has grown assets under management by 19% annually over the past 5 years with an average return on equity of 15%. At the same time, Phoenix has a strong capital position and solvency ratio with local and international ratings from Moody's and S&P. The group utilizes its strong cash flow to grow, distribute dividends and execute buybacks. The Israel economy remains resilient despite the war and its challenges. As the largest Israeli investor and asset manager, we believe in the potential of the Israel economy and invest actively across a full range of sectors. Israel's potential is supported by very positive long-term structural trends. The Bank of Israel expects GDP to continue to grow in 2024 with a rebound already in the first half after a difficult end of 2023. National debt remains low and foreign currency reserves are high, making Israel very resilient from a financial perspective. Capital markets have been liquid and resilient. Inflation is now at lower levels. Unemployment after the conflict is expected to stay low, and a key trend for us is the growing long-term saving opportunity. This has created large domestic capital pools, including those managed by the Phoenix, adding to market liquidity and resilience. In the first half, Phoenix generated 12.8% return on equity and ILS 667 million of income, representing income per share of ILS 2.65. This was despite the war ongoing uncertainty, interest rates and market volatility. In line with our dividend distribution policy, today, we announced a dividend of ILS 270 million, representing ILS 107 per share. In addition, we've executed ILS 116 million of buybacks out of ILS 200 million we plan for the year. Overall, the payout ratio of dividends plus buybacks was around 58%. In July, leading international funds bought shares from Centerbridge and Gallatin. This was an important vote of confidence for the Phoenix and it means that we are transitioning from control to dispersed ownership. Together with the management team, I remain fully committed to the business, our strategy and our value creation. Our strong execution led us to meet our midterm targets earlier than expected. We intend to publish updated targets on September 9. You will see the growth in comprehensive income broken down by Insurance in blue and Asset Management and Credit in orange. The gray are nonoperating effects, including investment performance above and below 3% real yields, interest rate effects and special items. Out of total income of ILS 667 million in the first half, ILS 600 million were core income from Insurance, ILS 275 million from Asset Management Agencies and Credit and negative nonoperating effects of ILS 200 million. Overall, core income in the first half was ILS 869 million compared to ILS 650 million last year, representing 16.7% core return on equity. An important driver of group performance is the corporate account or Nostro. In the first half, returns were 4.2% on a nominal basis despite the challenging environment. We continue to build our dividend track record, which includes ILS 2.3 billion dividend and buyback since 2020. We announced today a dividend of ILS 270 million, representing ILS 107 per share. In addition, we have executed ILS 116 million of buyback in the first half, out of ILS 200 million we planned. Phoenix has a strong capital position, high solvency and liquidity. These allowed us to distribute attractive dividends and at the same time, to capture the opportunities we are seeing in the market. We will discuss strategic execution. The group continues to execute our strategy across all activities. This strategy has proven itself over the past 4 years, and we see even greater value creation opportunities now then the platforms are fully built. Our strategy is based on 4 levers: first, accelerated growth and changed mix of higher return on equity activities. Second, innovation and efficiency to increase competitive advantages; third, active management of our businesses and our people; and fourth, strong capital management. This strategy creates value by focusing the group on generating strong cash flow, delivering attractive return on equity and expanding higher multiple businesses. As you can see, we're meeting our core income targets. Our Insurance engine continues to grow year-over-year and already passed the 2025 targets. In our growth engines of asset management agencies and credit were on track to meet the 2025 targets. With high-growth, established platforms with strong management teams and income is growing strongly in each segment. The group is meeting 2025 targets in AUMs, return on equities and shareholders' equity. Our ability to accelerate growth while increasing profitability is the key to creating long-term value. In Insurance, the first half results demonstrate continued strategic focus. This include growth in P&C and continued inflows to investment policies. These are both high margin and capital-efficient businesses. In the Health segment, premiums declined due to the termination of a collective LTC HMO agreement with Maccabi. This is consistent with our focus on high-value activities with attractive risk-adjusted returns. Implementation of technology creates significant potential across Insurance segments for growth, efficiency and improvement of service levels. We invest significant resources to turn technology into a competitive advantage for the group. Our machine learning underwriting model is driving profitable growth in P&C. The increase in the health expense ratio is due to the lower premiums due to the ending of the LTC HMO agreement and a product transition, we believe it will decline in the future. Our asset management agencies and credit activities are fast-growing profitable activities, which generate strong growth in EBITDA. These are capital-efficient businesses based on fee income with low volatility. Cash flows from these businesses create strong liquidity. In the first half, the EBITDA reached ILS 567 million. We're growing at over 20% year-on-over year. We continue to grow our AUMs, by the end of the first half we managed ILS 480 billion compared to ILS 433 billion at the end of December. About half of the growth was organic and half from merging mutual funds acquired from Psagot. In the Investment House and Wealth Management, were growing mutual funds and the brokerage businesses. This growth is very profitable with limited incremental costs. Our Wealth businesses is focused -- our Wealth business is focused on alternative investments for qualified investors, which is growing as well. In the Retirement business, we aim to improve efficiency and increase margins. Phoenix agencies is the leading platform in Israel for insurance distribution, benefit and payroll administration and retirement planning. This business is managed with the goal of creating value on a stand-alone basis, not just distributing Phoenix products. The agencies generate strong cash flows are capital efficient and have attractive business models. The market is very fragmented, and we're the leading agencies business with below 10% market share, so there is still a lot of room to grow. We're on track to meet 2025 targets and see significant opportunities to create and to unlock value in the business. We continue to grow our credit activity while focusing on profitability and risk management. We built a strong platform based on Phoenix Gama, with a strong management team, a stable client base with extensive date and high ratings. Gama has managed to optimize the capital resources and issued attractive commercial paper this year. In the beginning of 2024, we moved our Construction Finance business from the insurance company to Phoenix Gama. In addition, we have recently launched quietly our consumer credit activity with an in-house innovative platform. We strongly believe in its potential to become a growth engine for the group. Now Eli will take from here and review the financial results and segments in more detail. Please, Eli.

Thank you, Eyal. In the first half, we saw a growth in both core insurance and core asset management income compared to last year. Insurance core income was ILS 892 million before tax and Asset Management Agencies and Credit income was ILS 446 million. After nonoperating effect, the total comprehensive profit for the quarter was ILS 667 million before tax. On the right, you see a full breakdown by segment. In the second quarter, Insurance core income was ILS 601 million before tax, significant increase year-over-year and asset management and credit income was ILS 228 million. After negative nonoperational effect of capital market, interest rate and update mortality tables, the total comprehensive profit for the quarter was ILS 383 million before tax. On the right, you see a full breakdown by segment. Looking at the breakdown of the first half income by segment, we see a strong contribution from P&C activity. This is aligned with the group strategy. This line of activity contributed ILS 507 million before tax, around 80% of total underwriting Insurance income. In addition, our Asset Management Agencies and Credit lines of activity generate steady performance and contributions to total group income. We see similar trends in the quarter. In addition to P&C, we see a significant growth in Health compared to the second quarter of 2023. This is due to improvement of underwriting profit and to positive effect of interest on the lot reserve. The strong balance sheet and debt structure provides financial strength to the group. They provide resilience in the short term and support the group's strategy, executing the ability to compare business opportunities going forward. Today, we report that the solvency for the end of March was steady of 191% after the distribution of ILS 250 million dividend with the group. In addition, our Board increased the minimum solvency threshold for distributions to [ 111% ] without transition measure. This strong solvency position above longer-term target allow us flexibility in a strategic choice, investment location and dividend. We will now review each segment in more details. The P&C segment continues to show improvement with ILS 507 million in profit during the first half. In Motor, we see continued trends of return of profitability growth in premiums and improvement loss ratio. The performance was driven by the full implementation of machine learning models for underwriting and pricing in the motor segment. Overall, we continue to see improvement in the market but we are still closely watching risk, including car thefts and prices of parts. In the Health segment, we see improvement in underwriting profit and positive impact of interest mainly in the second quarter. In the Life segment, we see ILS 107 million in underwriting profit. Results was negatively impacted by the mortality tables and the market performance, which was offset by interest effect. We report the increase of the K factor to [ 0.97 ] due to the growing interest rate and the reduced gap in the variable management fees. Other equity returns were impacted positively by interest rate offset by capital market in the first half. Moving to the Asset Management Agencies and Credit segments. The Retirement business contributed was ILS 47 million pretax with an increase in core income year-on-year. This segment includes activity of Phoenix Investment House formerly excellence. It also includes the Wealth and the alternative investment activity to qualify the investor. These activities contributed ILS 151 million in the first half. This contribution is driven by a growth in mutual funds, part of M&A synergies. Full synergy with acquired Psagot found is expected during 2024. Our Brokerage business continued to grow both in a number of clients and in income per client, as Israeli switch from bank to investment house for better service and lower fees. The Distribution segment delivered ILS 155 million of operating income before tax. Core income grew from ILS 142 million last year to ILS 156 million in the first half this year. The Credit segment, which include Gama results, generate income growth while maintaining a stable credit portfolio in challenging environment. In January, we merged the Phoenix Construction Finance business from the insurance company into Gama. We see here the shift with the portfolio on well increasing our profitability and expected to capture the synergies during 2024 and ahead. Our consumer credit activity launch earlier in this year, we report under this segment. We see intent to merge it with the Phoenix Gama.

Thank you, Eli. We'll now review the questions that were discussed in the conference call in Hebrew. First question. We saw that you informed the market that your controlling shareholders have signed multiple deals to sell up to 21% of shares. And as a result, the company moved to a dispersed control company. What will be the impact of this on the company, the management and the Board?

Actually, there won't be any impact on the company on the management and the Board, might you know, a few changes, but nothing dramatic. So the company is committed. The management is committed. We're fully aligned through equity compensation. So as I said, a line for the next few years, myself and all the management -- and we see the future, although the lots of challenges in 2024. And also, we see for 2025, but still Phoenix has managed to grow significantly. And as we said, we are planning on September 9, to bring new update targets. So it's part of our long-term strategy. And of course, we're all aligned with that strategy. We believe that the updated targets can bring this company to a much, much better place and of course, to create much more cash flows out through dividends and buybacks. So we're all optimistic about the future of that company.

Second question. We see continued geopolitical uncertainty in the region with an effect on the economy, rating downgrades for the sovereign credit and market volatility. How do you manage your business in a situation in this environment?

Israel has a strong fundamentals, including low debt to GDP ratio and foreign currency reserve. The group has a liquidity and solvency interest, low interest exposure and asset allocation method. So we are very, very aligned with the situations. Also, it's important to mention that we publish our Israeli rating that was actually increased this week to AAA. We see continued interest of international investor in the Phoenix.

Next question. The regulator published recently updated mortality tables. What was the effect on your results? And how do you plan to limit such an effect in the future?

We publish in these reports that we have a negative effect of ILS 168 million before tax, as a nonoperating effect in Life segment. We limit the nonoperating effect by changing the mix of the Insurance product, implementation of IFRS 17 and using the reinsurance for -- a reinsurance transaction for limiting the back book effects.

Next question. Your 2025 target for Asset Management and Credit is ILS 670 million. Do you expect to meet this target?

Definitely. We grew above annual plan. So we plan to meet those targets. Synergies to be fully realized in Investment House and Credit segment distribution continue to grow. And as I said before, on September 9, we plan to bring our new update targets. So part of the new target is also on the Asset Management distribution and Credit.

Next question. How is the implementation of IFRS 17 expected to affect your results? When will you publish initial data in IFRS 17?

So, from this side, the regulator didn't publish yet a final decision about the implementation. So we are waiting for him. But if we are looking on the European companies, we can see that they increased their profit, they decrease the volatility. So we we intend to believe that this will be the same effects in Israel. We aim to fully implement in 2025, our reports to the IFRS 17. The first report of the regulation is going to be in August. And we intend to publish the final -- the 2023 results in the third quarter of this year.

Next question. You report significant and ongoing growth in your private brokerage activity. In an environment of high interest rates, how much of this growth comes organically from growth in clients and increasing trading activities?

Well, we see strong growth in number of clients and income per client on both segments, we see growth. Financial margin as another source of income, we see a decrease in the total income of that activity. And at the last -- the past -- in a few months, we launched new trading app. So it's also improved the engagement of clients of new customers and also existing customers this activity. And we see this activity growing, as I said, very quickly and very strongly and the base of customers and clients is increasing and improving and has seen also the margins are becoming higher and higher.

Last question. You intend to publish an updated set of targets on September 9. Do you also plan to publish a new strategy?

The answer is no. Our strategy is long term. There is still a lot to be done. A lot of values to be created across the group. We will share an updated road map of strategic growth targets, and we will also discuss focus areas for the next several years.

Thank you. These were the questions. Investors are welcome to contact us directly at any time or via e-mail. We'd be happy to answer any questions or answer or arrange conversations to discuss in more detail. Our e-mail address is [email protected]. Finally, we should mention that you'll find the presentation that we discussed today on the call and other materials on our website and a recording of this call we published -- uploaded to our website tomorrow. Thank you again for joining the call.