Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen SA (PZU) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Marcin Kubicza, I'm the Chair of the Supervisory Board of PZU SA and let me welcome the shareholders of the company. Let me welcome Mr. Artur Olech, Chair of the Management Board, Mr. Tomasz Kulik and Director the group. Let me welcome our experts who are here today. And now I would like to open the general shareholders' meeting according to our agenda. The meeting has been called on the 18th of January -- of June at 11. Let's learn now how the voting system works. You have received tablets. There is a tab on the tablet about your personal data to check, who you represent. And the voting is quite simple because the title of what you are going to vote on will appear on the screen. You can vote for, against or abstain and then confirm. If you make a mistake, you can click on the return button and vote again. But once you have confirmed, you can't change your mind so please bear that in mind to avoid any mistakes. If you have any questions, we are happy to take them. And we will be here in case you need us. Ladies and gentlemen, now point to the agenda about the appointment of the Chairman of the Ordinary Shareholders' Meeting. I would like the candidates to come forward. [indiscernible] I would like to suggest [indiscernible] to be the Chairman of this meeting. The question to [indiscernible] do you agree to be a candidate? Are there any more candidates? Thank you. The draft resolution on the appointment of the Chairman is in the brief and also has been published on the website. And now I will read the resolution. Resolution on electing the Chairman of the PZU SA's ordinary shareholder meeting under Article 409 Section 1 of the Commercial Company Code and Article 17 Section 2 of the Articles of Association, the ordinary Shareholders' Meeting hereby results as follows. The meeting besides to appoint Mara as Chairman, and the resolution comes into force upon adoption. This is a vote on personal matters so it's going to be secret. Please vote now. [Voting]

Has everyone voted? Yes. So the vote is closed now and let's learn what the results are. The secret vote 584,467,811 votes. And you can see how many votes have been cast for the resolution. Now vote against and over 11,000 abstentions. So over 67% of the share capital has taken part in the vote, in the ballot. And now I will give the floor to the Chair, [indiscernible].

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for appointing me as the Chairman. I would like to remind you that it is the role of the Chairman to make sure that this general meeting runs according to the agenda. Also, my role is to prevent the abuse of power by the participants of the general meeting and to make sure that the interest of shareholders is respected. Before we move on with the agenda, I would like to make a few formal statements. Today, almost 68% of shareholders is represented at this meeting and in -- more specifically, 584,467,811 shares is represented, which corresponds to the number of votes which accounts for 67.68% of the total number of shares. I have just signed the attendance list. The shareholders' meeting will be streamed live. So please bear this in mind. The general meeting has been convened formally by the Management Board of the company in line with Item 15 of the Articles of Association. This meeting is valid and may adopt all the resolutions listed in the agenda. This company has published its report on the website as well as it has shared the materials necessary to participate in this meeting with you. Also, if you would like to go through them, the digital copies are available on the website. All the draft resolutions were announced beforehand, and you can still access them so I will not read them out in their full form. Still, if you have any questions or doubts, I am at your disposal. From now on, all the voting procedures will be secret. Are there any technical issues or any questions that you would like to ask? If there are no questions, let us move on to Item 4 of the agenda. And this means that now I'm opening the vote on the adoption of the agenda. The procedure is, of course, secret ballot. [Voting]

The voting is closed and everyone voted in favor of adopting the agenda. There were no abstentions and nobody voted against. Ladies and gentlemen, as far as I know, we have majority shareholders in the room. From that one, I would like to suggest the following voting procedure. I will read out the number of the resolution, please have your tablets ready and exercise your voting right. I am sure that in this way, the meeting will run smoothly. I assume that everyone entitled, exercised their right to vote. No one reports any doubts. Is that correct? If that's correct, let us move on to the next item on the agenda. I have decided to consider together items from 5 to 8 of the agenda because all these items are related one to another. Before I open the debate or I open the floor to questions regarding Item 5. And before we examine the financial statements of PZU for the year ended on the 31st of December 2023, I would like to ask Mr. Olech. Mr. President, would you like to take the floor?

Yes, I would like to. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Management Board of PZU, Joint Stock Company and PZU Group, I would like to thank you for coming here. The general shareholders meeting is one of the most important events annually. During this meeting, we can meet our shareholders, but not only, we can also communicate about our achievements and give an idea in this way, on the direction where the company is headed. I also would like to apologize for my voice. I have a mild infection. Luckily, I got a very good treatment from PZU Healthcare Services. So marketing aside, I would like to give a brief introduction to this meeting. I'd like our relationship to be based on a professional and kind attitude to our business. We undertake to transparently communicate what we are planning to do what we do. And also we want to actually not only talk the talk, but also walk the walk. I hope that this attitude is going to be appreciated by our current and future investors. Now just a few words about our results, 2023 was a very good year in terms of financial results. The parent company reported almost PLN 4 billion of profit, which is an increase compared to a -- substantial increase compared to the previous year. What contributed to this result was a very good level of sales in nonlife insurance. Revenue from premiums went up by almost 9%, up to PLN 26.9 billion. As a result, the entire company reported almost PLN 6 billion of profit. I think this was the best result in years or actually even in the entire history of PZU Group. Thanks to our strong capital position, we can rest assured about our business, about its future. We have a very solid standing and the great potential for future investments in those business areas that you would like to develop. And I will get back to it towards the end of my introduction. In 2023, banks contributed greatly to our result. We consolidate that revenue, it amounted to PLN 2 billion. Naturally, several business measures and optimization contribute to this. Also the level of interest rates contributed to the financial results of banks and of our group. We would like to -- we suggested a dividend in the amount of PLN 4.33 per share, which is almost PLN 3.75 billion of cash to be paid out as dividend. This is a very high level of dividend in our business sector. And we'll do our best to continue this dividend policy. I also would like to mention that we have at least 3 challenges ahead. PZU works mostly on the insurance market. This means we need to go back to basics and focus on those areas that have major growth potential. Our market share is quite substantial, about 30%. But the Polish insurance market accounts only for 2.3% of GDP. So we would like to see PZU to be back in the game. What do I mean by this? I want PZU to become the standard on the market. We would like to encourage Poles to buyout insurance policies. And this is, from our perspective, a very promising area for growth. We also would like to develop a new way of operating in our capital group. We would like to make better use with our relationship with customers, we would like to offer them financial products. In this way, the banking sector and PZU will develop. This area, namely Bancassurance have been developing at a good pace, but we also see a lot of potential for future development. Ladies and gentlemen, the new management board took office in April. So the expectations are quite high. But the members of the management board have a long track record in insurance and a lot of expertise. They are highly skilled in this area. As you know that the insurance market is very technical so you need to have a lot of knowledge about the sector. We have managed to make a good team, I think, which where people trust each other. And we also know that we are trusted by the public opinion that we will try to live up to it on our everyday -- in our everyday work. We would like to increase the level of professionalism among the executive staff in PZU. So that PZU becomes a role model on the market. We would really like to attract new talents as well. I think that people can be proud of working for PZU. We would like to change our operational model to delegate more responsibility to people, but also in such a way that they feel they have more agency and this way, PZU will be able to come back to its previous role. So this is what we understand as good leadership on the market, but also in a way that empowers employees so that we can attract new talents, thanks to all these steps, PZU will be able to grow according to our expectations in a satisfactory way to all the stakeholders, shareholders, our business partners, customers, employees so the most important changes are already behind us. And now we are implementing some organizational changes. We have focused on a few challenges connected to -- connected with profitability and also finding the right model of collaboration of the companies in the group. At the end of this year, we will develop a new strategy because the current strategy is coming to end. This will also be a crowning point of all the initiatives we have already undertaken so we will communicate everything we do openly. Once again, thank you for coming. I'm happy to be the President of a company that is 30 years old. I really respect that. And I take all the challenges ahead of us seriously. My team and I will do whatever we can to meet your expectations, the expectations of all the stakeholders and shareholders. So once again, I'm happy to be here in this capacity and to hold this very open and sincere communication with you. Now I will give the floor to Tomasz Kulik. And also, we are happy to take any questions in our capacity of Directors of the group. Thank you.

So if you allow me, I would like to add a point about the financial performance of PZU. Last year was quite exceptional so we are happy and proud to share these -- the news with you. This also gives us ground to pay out high dividends both for last year because of last year's performance, but also because of our equity and P&L. So this allows us to consider the new strategy of PZU, PLN 5.8 billion. This is the profitability, the performance of PZU and on capital profitability the solvency ratio 229%, which is also a good result. So what contributed to this result? First of all, the core activity of the group, its contribution is PLN 4 billion. This means insurance activity, the revenue on insurance grew up to almost PLN 27 billion, which is an increase of 8.6% year-to-year. PLN 2.7 billion, this is the revenue generated by companies outside Poland where the growth reached over 16%. We have high profitability in all the segments and all the lines of business. We have a very sound investment performance. The portfolio now is worth over PLN 2.5 billion. And the contribution here has grown 12% year-to-year. And the bank segment has also increased. I mean, its contribution, reaching almost PLN 2 billion. Now revenue on insurance. So Non-Life was the major driver last year and PLN 16 billion. This is the amount of sales and this means that it has grown over 11% year-to-year. Now non motor and CASCO insurance high growth here and the combined ratio over 85% now life insurance at the same time has reached PLN 8.1 billion sales with the operational margin amounting to over 21%. Now the core activity life insurance group and individual continued insurance so this is what the results represents. We keep developing our strategic partnerships. We keep implementing new projects in the banking channel, both stand-alone projects and projects linked to banking products. Mutual insurance is also becoming increasingly important. Then the number of members of the mutual insurance society has gone up -- has doubled actually and now amounts to over 600 companies that are members. At the end of last year, the company also bought 2 companies, [indiscernible]. Health now. Good news here because sales are growing at a very dynamic rate and so is the number of contracts. PLN 3.4 million, this, is the number of contracts and the sales last year amounted to over PLN 1.6 billion, which means that it has grown by 46% year-to-year or 26%. Health insurance performance over 28% increase year-to-year subscriptions. Now to FE PZU [indiscernible] their growth last year was almost 33%, reaching PLN 52.2 billion and the assets managed by The FE PZU went up by almost 38%, reaching PLN 26 billion -- slightly over PLN 26 billion. The FE PZU was one of the leaders when it comes to selling net funds, and this means that last year, the result was about PLN 3 billion. Employees capital -- equity plans were also sound. And last year, this amounted to PLN 4.6 billion almost 89% of increase year-to-year, which translates into over 21% share of this market. Solvency. Now, the company remains sound as the President has mentioned, 229%. S&P rating last year was A- for PZU with a stable outlook. And this year on the 28th of May, S&P improved this outlook to positive. Moving on to our strategy. So as the President has said, we want to walk our talk. That's why we are happy to tell you that most of our financial targets, as said in the strategy 2021 to 2024 have already been accomplished or are to be accomplished soon. The net profit solvency ratio -- what is the right level of contribution of the banking sector. The company has developed the systems for drivers, the health segment and other profits and benefits according to the strategy. It has developed and expanded its network of own branches and also developed passive investment. The organic growth was supported by acquisitions. I have already mentioned the companies that we have bought, which is [indiscernible] mutual insurance society TFI. Now speaking about sustainable development. We are at a very advanced stage in our strategy here. We would like to fully integrate ESG to the whole organization. This means [indiscernible] and a good working environment, social commitment and also encouraging all our stakeholders to take part in the transition by offering green products. This also means financial commitment through the development of renewables. PZU SA and PZU Zycie reduced their own emissions by 23% last year reaching almost 80% of renewable electricity. We have implemented ESG requirements and 53 essential procurement processes. And we have also assessed many of our customers in these aspects. We have also invested in energy transformation, the amount of PLN 2.6 billion. We have contributed to an improvement in life quality of our customers and also of our employees. The group is involved in numerous initiatives in terms of occupational health and safety. We have reached out to 14,700,000 people. And over 55% of our employees have been included in well-being scheme. So this is a brief summary of our main events and results from 2023. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them.

So are there any comments or questions on the floor? If not, let us move to the next item on our agenda. There is 2. Item 9. Item 9 concerns the Management Board's report on representation expenditures and expenditures for legal marketing, PR and public communication services as well as expenses on management consulting for the year 2023. Let us begin the vote on resolution #3 on the Management Board's report on representation and other expenditures. And the voting is secret. [Voting]

Unfortunately, the remark is -- the comment is off the mic. The secret ballot is -- yes, is in course, please cast your votes. Has everyone cast their votes? The ballot is still ongoing. I hereby close the vote as everyone authorized have cast their votes .549,370,128 votes were cast in favor, against 156,218 and 33,933,365 votes abstained. The resolution has been adopted. Now we're moving to item 10 of the agenda, voting on resolution #4 on the approval of the financial statement of PZU Joint Stock Company for the year ended on the 31st of December 2023. I will open the secret ballot. [Voting]

Has everyone exercised their right to vote? If that is the case, I'm closing the ballot. The results are as follows. In favor, 518,950,011 against 225,333 votes and 3,292,467 abstentions, the resolution has been adopted. Let us move on to Item 11 on the agenda. Item 12, excuse me, approval of the Management Board's report on the activity of PZU Group and PZU Joint Stock Company for the financial year ended on the 31st of December 2023, and the report on nonfinancial information of the PZU Capital Group and PZU Joint company for 2023. Apologies, my mistake. Now we shall hold the vote on Item 11, not on Item 12. Which is resolution #5. So we're voting on resolution #5. I open the secret ballot. [Voting]

The ballot is ongoing. Has everyone exercise their right to vote? I close the ballot. 518,950,011 were cast in favor, 225,333 abstentions. 3,292,467 abstentions. The resolution has been adopted. Now let us move on to Item 12 on the agenda, Resolution #6 on the approval of the Management Board's report on the activity of PZU Group and PZU Joint Stock Company for the financial year ended on the 31st of December '23 and then the report on nonfinancial information of the PZU Group and PZU Joint Stock Company for 2023. I open the secret ballot. [Voting]

The ballot is ongoing. Can I close the ballot. All right. So I close the ballot. And the result is displayed on the screen. In favor, 581,090,126 against 156,218, abstentions 3,292,467. The resolution has been adopted. Item 13 of the agenda namely approval of the PZU Supervisory Board's report for the year 2023. The report has been published on the company's website under the tab relationship with Investor Relations. So I open the vote on resolution #7 on the approval of the PZU Supervisory Board's report for the year 2023. I open a secret ballot. [Voting]

The ballot is ongoing. Has everyone cast their ballots? I hereby close the ballot. In favor 581,019,126 votes -- valid votes against 156,318 votes, abstentions 3,292,467, the resolution has been adopted. Let us move on to Item 14 on the agenda, I'll open the vote on Resolution #8 on the distribution of PZU Joint Stock Company's net profit for the year ended on the 31st of December 2023 plus the reserve capital moved from the net profit reported in 2022. Also, this resolution is available on your tablets. I open a secret ballot. [Voting]

I hereby close the ballot. And the result is as follows: in favor 584,218,880 votes against 2,115 abstentions 100. The resolution has been adopted. Next item. Would you like to take the floor? Please introduce yourself.

[indiscernible] I represent the state treasury. We would like to file a motion to suspend this meeting and to reconvene on the 18th of July and the resolution, the text of the -- I would like to hand you the draft resolution. Ladies and gentlemen, I will read out the draft resolution under Article 408 Item 2 of the commercial company code, the General Shareholders Meeting decides as follows: item on the ordinary general shareholders' meeting is suspended until the 18th of July 2024 11:00 a.m. The general meeting will continue in the seat of PZU. The resolution comes into force upon adoption. The draft resolution meets the formal requirements. I do not see any requests to take the floor up, excuse me. And unfortunately, the question was inaudible.

Yes, I would like to suggest 2 minutes technical break. [Break]

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll reopen the General Shareholders' Meeting. In a moment, we will proceed with vote on the resolution. I just would like to remind you that in line with Article 408, Section 2 of the Commercial Companies Code, the General Shareholders Meeting may adopt a resolution on suspending the meeting by 2/3 majority, and the break cannot be longer than 30 days. In the resolution, there is a motion to suspend the meeting until the 18th of July. Can we have one more minute of technical break? Yes, of course. We're having -- we're extending the technical break by 1 minute. [Break]

Ladies and gentlemen, let's resume. Let's review the General Shareholders' Meeting of PZU SA. We'll now vote on the draft resolution. The ballot will be secret. [Voting]

Okay. So the vote is closed now. Ladies and gentlemen, 385,865,588 votes in favor, 10 votes against and 192,045,796 abstentions, 66.76% voted for, which means that the requirements of 2/3 majority has been met. So we will now suspend the meeting until the 18th of July 11 a.m.