Qatar General Insurance & Reinsurance Company Q.P.S.C. (QGRI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Qatar General Insurance Conference Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to hand over to Shahan, our moderator for today. You may now begin.

Thank you. Hello, everyone. I want to welcome you to QGRI's Third Quarter and 9-Months 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. So on this call from management, we have the company's Group CFO, Khalid Al Aswad; and Zaid Anani, Treasury and Banks Relationship Manager. So as usual, we will conduct this call with first management reviewing the company's results followed by a Q&A session. I will turn the call over now to Khalid. Please go ahead.

This is Zaid. I will do the introduction and then I'll hand it to Khalid later on, okay? Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the earnings conference call of Qatar General Insurance & Reinsurance Company, which will be referred to by QGIRCO or the company going further, for the third quarter of the financial year 2024. I am Zaid Anani, QGIRCO's Investor Relations Officer. It is worth starting our investors call with the disclaimer. Thereafter, we will provide you with a summary of our operational and financial results. I will now read out the disclaimer to this conference call. This call may contain, constitute or imply information or forward-looking statements regarding the operational or financial performance and future of QGIRCO or any of its subsidiaries. Such statements are based on the current expectations and assumptions of QGIRCO's management to their best knowledge and diligent assessment. As such, QGIRCO, its directors and its officers shall not be liable for any costs or losses resulting from using forward-looking statements throughout this call. I am delighted to give the floor to my colleague, Mr. Greggy Bueno, who will discuss the company's financial results and the operational updates.

Thank you, Zaid. For the 9 months ended this period, the group achieved a net profit of QAR 46.9 million, a significant increase from QAR 9.2 million during the same period last year. This growth reflects the management's continued commitment to optimizing operations across our insurance and investment activities. The insurance service result reached QAR 65.2 million, up from QAR 60.5 million for the same period last year. As for our investment operations, our investment income increased this year to QAR 109.1 million compared to QAR 53 million for the same period last year, largely due to low returns from local and international investments. QGIRCO remains in a strong financial position with total assets exceeding QAR 5.8 billion and total shareholders' equity above QAR 3.4 billion. My colleague, Mr. Omar Alsabbah, will discuss the financial results in further details before handing over to Mr. Zaid Anani to take you through the investment outlook.

To begin, I will provide an overview of our financial performance for the 9 months ended 30 September 2024. Qatar General Insurance & Reinsurance total insurance revenue reached QAR 667.3 million compared to QAR 609.2 million during the same period last year. The continuous proactive measures to enhance insurance profitability of client selection and reinsurance mix optimization contributed to an improved insurance service result of QAR 65.2 million compared to QAR 60.5 million for the same period last year. Our investment results jumped to QAR 109.1 million this period compared to QAR 53 million during the same period of 2023. This sizable growth is primarily driven by both annual and interim dividend income from local and international investments alongside favorable adjustments in our portfolio's fair value. The other operating and administrative expenses declined to 60 -- to QAR 70.9 million, down from QAR 80.6 million during the same period last year. The above resulted in the shareholders' net profit of QAR 46 million, a notable increase from QAR 12 million during the same period last year, with earnings per share of QAR 0.053 for the same period -- for the period ending -- ended 30 September 2024. Now I will hand over to Mr. Zaid to take you through the outlook.

Thank you, Omar. I'll discuss the outlook for the economy and the company. Starting for the economy in Qatar, the Qatari government is actively pursuing economic diversification throughout -- through its National Vision 2030 initiative. Investments in non-energy sectors, including finance, tourism and technology, aim to reduce dependency on hydrocarbons. Now let's discuss QGIRCO's insurance business. QGIRCO is likely to expand its product offering and tailored services to meet the needs of diversifying economy, including innovative insurance solutions in emerging sectors such as cyber-insurance and renewable energy. With regards to investment and real estate business, we expect a substantial increase in income from our real estate business by the end of 2024 as many of our projects will be -- will have been occupied. Regarding the investment outlook, as of 2024, the Qatar Stock Exchange market has shown positive performance, reflecting the overall resilience of Qatari economy. Qatar Stock Exchange Index has experienced steady gains supported by strong corporate earnings, particularly in sectors like finance, real estate and energy. Analysts remain optimistic about Qatar Stock Exchange future performance, expecting continued growth as the economy diversifies and infrastructure projects and the expected interest rate cuts. With regards to QGIRCO income statement and balance sheet, on the income statement level, financing costs are expected to decrease substantially due to the rate cut in last September and the anticipated rate cut in coming November and December Fed meetings. The company continues to pursue its deleveraging plans through selling its non-income-generating assets. This should improve the overall liquidity and debt ratios for the company. With this being said, it's worth to note that the outlook has been fully presented, and I would like to note that this call and the factsheet will be available on the Investor Relations section of our website, www.qgirco.com, by the end of tomorrow. Kindly feel free to reach out to us through our contact in the Investor Relations section. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the whole QGIRCO team, thank you very much. We wish you a great day ahead. If you have any questions, please go ahead, please.

[Operator Instructions] As of right now, we don't have any pending questions. I'd now like to hand back to the moderator, Shahan, for further remarks.

Okay. Great. Thank you. So if there are no questions, we can wrap up the call. I'd like to thank management for giving us an update on the third quarter, and we'll pick this up again in the fourth quarter. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye.

Thank you for attending today's call. Have a wonderful day. You may now disconnect.