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

Hello, and welcome to Qatar General Insurance Conference Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Now I would like to hand the call over to Shahan. You may begin.

Thank you. And hello, everyone. I want to welcome you to QGRI's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. So on this call, from management, we have the Group CFO, Khalid Alaswad; and Zaid Anani, Treasury and Banks RM. 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 Zaid. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. 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 financial year that ended on 31st December 2024. I am Zaid Anani, QGIRCO's investors relations officer. It is worth starting our investors call with a 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'm delighted to give the floor to my colleague, Mr. Omar Alsabbah, who will discuss the company financial results and the operational updates.

Thank you, Zaid. I'm pleased to report that 2024 has been a transformative year for Qatar General Insurance & Reinsurance marked by a strong financial recovery and improved performance. For the year ended 31st December 2024, the group achieved a net profit of QAR 30.4 million, a remarkable turnaround from the net loss of QAR 1.6 billion in 2023. This significant recovery reflects our ongoing strategic efforts to optimize operations across both the insurance and investment sectors. Our proactive measures to enhance operational efficiency and financial performance, with a clear focus on sustainability and long-term profitability, have yielded positive results. The insurance service result improved to QAR 35.2 million, up from QAR 14.8 million in 2023. And the total insurance revenue reached QAR 885.3 million compared to QAR 768.2 million in last year. The investment performance also improved to QAR 152.1 million this year compared to a loss of QAR 1.3 billion in 2023. The substantial recovery was driven by higher annual and interim dividend income from local and international investments in contrast to last year's unfavorable fair value adjustments and the impact of investment reclassifications. Additionally, the other operating and admin expenses declined to QAR 81.2 million, down from QAR 123.4 million in 2023. The above resulted in shareholders' net profit of QAR 29 million, with earnings per share of QAR 0.033, for the year ended 31st December 2024. Qatar General Insurance & Reinsurance remains in a strong financial position, with total assets exceeding QAR 5.7 billion and total shareholders' equity above QAR 3.4 billion. With that, I will now hand over to [ Mr. Al Zaid ] to take you through the outlook.

Thank you, Omar. I'm going to talk about the outlook now. As for Qatar, the International Monetary Fund forecasts Qatar economy to grow at an annual rate of 4.1% from 2025 to 2029. This growth is anticipated to be driven by the expansion of gas production and new manufacturing projects. I will talk now about QGIRCO's insurance business. QGIRCO's management anticipates continued growth in the insurance sector driven by Qatar's economy diversification efforts, including infrastructure development, digital transformation and the expansion of the oil and gas industry. Secondly, I will talk now about QGIRCO's investment and real estate business. We expect a substantial increase in income from our real estate business for the year 2025, as we achieved almost 100% occupancy on our properties through the signing of the rental agreement of General Tower with a government entity. Regarding the investment outlook. As of 2024, Qatar Stock Exchange has maintained its level, reflecting the overall resilience of Qatar economy. Qatar Stock Exchange index performance has been 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 progress and the expected interest rate cuts. Finally, I will speak about QGIRCO's income statement and balance sheet. On an income statement level, financing costs are expected to decrease substantially due to the rate cuts that occurred in 2024 and the deleveraging of Al Rayan bank loan. The company continues to pursue its deleveraging plans through selling its nonincome-generating assets. This should improve the overall liquidity and debt ratios of 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 fact sheet will be available on the investors relations section of our website, www.qgirco.com, by the end of tomorrow. Kindly feel free to reach out to us through our contacts in the Investor Relations section. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the whole of QGIRCO team, thank you very much. We wish you a great day. If you have any questions, please go ahead now.

[Operator Instructions] There are no questions. I would now like to hand the call back over to Shahan for any remarks.

Okay, if there are no questions, we can wrap this up. Thank you, gentlemen, for the update. And we will pick this up again next quarter.

Okay, thank you so much, Shahan.

That concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.