Sagicor Financial Company Ltd. (SFC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

April 6, 2021

Toronto Stock Exchange CA Financials Insurance earnings 47 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

operator
#1

Good afternoon. My name is Colin, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Sagicor Financial Company Limited's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you, Ms. Samantha Cheung, EVP of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Samantha Cheung

executive
#2

Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining our call today. A link to our live webcast and published information for this call is posted on our website at www.sagicor.com under the Investor Relations tab. Please refer to the cautionary language and disclaimers in our materials regarding the use of forward-looking statements and the use of non-IFRS financial measures, which may be mentioned as part of our remarks today. Unless otherwise noted, all dollar amounts referenced will be in U.S. dollars, which is consistent with our reporting practice. Joining me today are Dodridge Miller, our President and CEO; Andre Mousseau, our CFO; and Anthony Chandler, our Chief Controller. We'll begin with prepared remarks by Dodridge and Andre, followed by a question-and-answer session. With that, I'll turn the call to our Group President and CEO, Dodridge Miller. Dodridge?

Dodridge Miller

executive
#3

Thank you, Samantha, and thanks to everyone for taking the time to join us. Today, I will give some brief remarks focusing on our operating environment. and our overall performance for the quarter and for the full year 2020. Then I will turn it over to our CFO, Andre Mousseau, who will provide more granular details on our performance. It has been an unprecedented time over the last 12 months, which also coincided with our first year listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. After several quarters of volatility during this time, we are pleased to report financial results for the fourth quarter, which demonstrate the earnings power of our resilient franchise. As global conditions continue to improve, we look forward to more positive earnings calls like this one in the future. For the fourth quarter of 2020, revenue grew 43% year-over-year to $675 million. This was supported by higher individual life and annuity sales in the U.S. and the Southern Caribbean and higher net investment income across all segments. Net income to shareholders for the quarter was $29 million and total comprehensive income to shareholders for the quarter was $53 million. We are pleased to be back on track in terms of profitability this quarter. And it was an overall solid performance. While the pandemic overshadowed the operating the environment from early in the year, our team at Sagicor swiftly responded to the emergence of the virus by placing our staff and our customers at the center of our operating response. This has had a positive impact of accelerating digital initiatives and enhancing our stakeholder engagement. We were quick to implement digital methods of payment and claim settlement, and we've also set up virtual meeting rooms to safely serve our customers. Through it all, while we transform our business to operate and grow in a COVID and post-pandemic environment, we continue to execute on our growth strategy. This was evidenced by the level of business written in the fourth quarter. Turning to the outlook, even as there remains some uncertainty given the operating and economic environment, we are optimistic about our future. Our company is financially strong and our operating results continue to improve quarter-over-quarter. While our countries are generally managing the conditions reasonably well, the economies in the Caribbean are directly impacted by lockdowns, at home and abroad. Since it is not clear when the pandemic will fully recede, there are still economic and operating challenges. We believe, however, there is light at the end of the tunnel with the aggressive vaccine rollouts and the eventual return of tourism, which is critical to many of the geographies in which we operate. Our Board and management remain focused on long-term growth by ensuring our customers are top of mind and our operations are capital efficient and profitable. We also continue to aggressively pursue inorganic growth opportunities. We believe we are well-positioned to execute on our growth strategy as we transition to a post-pandemic world. I want to thank our staff and leadership for the level of engagement displayed during a very challenging year. Before handing over to our CFO, let me take a moment to comment on the leadership change at Sagicor Life, our Southern Caribbean business segment. At the end of the year, we bid farewell to Mr. Ravi Rambarran. Ravi was instrumental to the growth of Sagicor in various leadership roles during his over two decades of service to our company. We wish him well in his retirement. With this change, Mr. Robert Trestrail assumed the role of President and CEO of Sagicor Life. Robert has been with Sagicor for many years and was most recently the Head of our Trinidad and Tobago operations. I have every confidence that Robert has the knowledge and the experience to lead Sagicor Life on its next journey of growth. I'll now turn the presentation over to our Group CFO, Andre Mousseau. Thank you.

Andre Mousseau

executive
#4

Thank you, Dodridge, and good afternoon, everyone. As Dodridge alluded to, it is nice to be here reporting strong results that represent the profitability that we believe we can generate really for the first time since we announced our fourth quarter 2019 results by which time we were in the first wave of the pandemic. After the asset price volatility late in Q1, then recovery of assets but slower new business generation in Q2 and Q3, Q4 is a better representation of what our business is capable of. Total revenues in the quarter increased 43% year-over-year to $675 million. Revenues were driven by significantly higher individual annuity sales in the U.S., single premium annuities in the Southern Caribbean and higher net investment income across all of our segments. Net income to shareholders was $29 million in Q4. Contributing to this were strong new business sales in the U.S.A. and SLI, profits associated with better asset liability matching in SLI and offset in part by strengthening of reserves in our U.S. operations and some onetime restructuring charges. This compares with $11 million in Q4 2019, which was an unusual quarter. Q4 2019 was exceptionally strong operationally as we benefited from some positive changes in reserve assumptions but took $44 million of cash and noncash charges related to our SPAC transaction, which was completed in December of that year. Turning to our full year consolidated performance. Total revenue of nearly $1.9 billion for 2020 was about flat, increasing 1% against last year. Our assets grew by over $500 million to $9.3 billion, and our overall group net income to shareholders in 2020 was a loss of $4 million. Now I'll speak about the fourth quarter performance of our major operating segments. At Sagicor Life, our operating segments in the Southern Caribbean, total revenue increased 18% year-over-year to $191 million. We benefited from a large single premium annuity sale of $64 million and $7 million of annualized new life premium sold in the quarter, bringing total annualized new life premium for the segment to $21 million for the year. Net income to shareholders in the quarter was $35 million, increasing by 20% over a strong Q4 2019. In this quarter, we benefited from improved asset liability matching related to the acquisition of some long-dated assets to match our long-dated life insurance liabilities in the segment. This matching contributed approximately $25 million to our net income in the quarter. At Sagicor Jamaica, total revenue in quoting premiums was $177 million which declined 9% year-over-year in U.S. dollars, driven principally by a devaluation of 8% year-over-year in the Jamaican dollar. So nearly flat in local currency. Our share of Sagicor Jamaica's net income was $11 million compared to a profit of $18 million in the same quarter last year. The primary reason for the decrease is that last year, Sagicor Jamaica made its major reserving changes in Q4, while this year, did it in Q3 to match the rest of the SFC Group. Sagicor Life USA, in Q4, nearly tripled its revenue year-over-year to $295 million including $254 million of new business production as we had a very strong production quarter particularly in multiyear guaranteed annuities. This brought our total new production for the year to $582 million. Net income to shareholders in Q4 was $9 million relative to a profit of $16 million in the same quarter in the prior period. We would have expected higher profits from the segment given the amount of production in the quarter. But this year, the gains from the strong growth were offset by an $18 million strengthening of actuarial liabilities associated with forward-looking assumptions. In addition to these segment results, we took approximately $8 million of nonrecurring restructuring expenses in the fourth quarter at head office. This brought our total comprehensive income to $53 million in the quarter, which increased our book value about 5% to USD 7.58, that is book value per share. Although that stayed relatively flat at CAD 9.63 per share as the Canadian dollar is appreciated significantly against the U.S. in the last few months. We remain well-capitalized with significant liquidity available at the holding company, a debt-to-capital ratio of 22% and an MCCSR of 252%. And my last prepared point is that in March, we announced our latest quarterly dividend and continue to pay at an annualized USD 0.225 per share. With that, I will turn it back to Dodridge and Samantha.

Samantha Cheung

executive
#5

Thank you, Andre. We are now ready to take your questions. Operator, please open the lines to the analyst for their questions.

Operator

operator
#6

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Meny Grauman from Scotiabank.

Meny Grauman

analyst
#7

First question is just about the U.S. segment The reserve charge in the quarter. I was just wondering if you could provide more detail what's driving that? I know the prior quarter, you talked about reserving tied to rates, so I'm wondering if it's the same issue or something else.

Andre Mousseau

executive
#8

Sorry, Meny, as the pandemic keeps going, we're all still in separate rooms. We have to figure out who answers each one. It's not the exact same issue with respect to rates, but I think it's from the continuing reevaluation of our U.S. book and this was something obviously we did the main relook at assumptions in the third quarter, but we took a look at a couple specific models that we use to model the reserves for a couple of our products. And this came out of our year-end audit process and decided to take a slightly more conservative posture with a couple of the individual calculations. So in the overall context of the U.S.'s reserves, the actuaries like, you say that this is virtually immaterial. Obviously, it has a meaningful impact on the quarterly P&L because that's the way it has to run. But I think it's just part of the continual exercise to reassess our reserves.

Meny Grauman

analyst
#9

In terms of reserving, we're seeing rates in the U.S. move up. And I think a lot of people are wondering could we see reserves releases related to that. If you could just provide us some context how to think about rising rates and the potential for that to benefit your business in 2021.

Andre Mousseau

executive
#10

All things being equal, rising rates will be positive for our income statement. So a meaningful proportion of the reserve strengthening, particularly in the U.S. this year was due to rates falling. And so while I wouldn't necessarily think that it was one-to-one. There would be -- if we continue to see rates increase throughout the year. All things being equal, it could have some positive tailwinds in terms of reversing some of the reserve changes that we saw in 2020.

Meny Grauman

analyst
#11

Okay. And then just more broadly in the U.S., you talk about achieving scale in the U.S. I'm just wondering if you could provide some more context, especially as we're looking at '21 now. Can scale be achieved in 2021? Or is it still further out? And how do you define scale? And if you could just kind of give us a little bit of an outlook for '21 for the U.S. in terms of being able to achieve that scale, right?

Andre Mousseau

executive
#12

Well, I do think that as we've communicated before, we'd like to see more assets under management for the U.S. business. As I said in the prepared remarks, we put about $0.25 billion worth of new business production in -- onto the U.S. balance sheet just in the fourth quarter. So I wouldn't necessarily extrapolate that for a full year run rate. But I think it does give an indication of the speed at which we can add assets to that business when we decide to accelerate our production. So I think in 2021, by the end of the year, we will be closer to scale, but I think that it is a -- we're at scale in terms of generating IFRS positive net income in [ good ] quarters. But I think that it will really be a year-end 2021, 2022 when we really start getting to the metrics that we'd like to see.

Operator

operator
#13

Your next question comes from Aditya Gupta from Desjardins.

Aditya Gupta

analyst
#14

Just a couple of quick ones here on the U.S. We've seen recent transaction activity fixed in on these blocks of business. And I just want to get a sense, like as more insurers look to divest these blocks, how do you think that this impacts the competitive environment in this market? And how do you see -- do you see this as an opportunity for Sagicor to grow this business by being an acquirer?

Andre Mousseau

executive
#15

Dodridge, do you want to take that or should I?

Dodridge Miller

executive
#16

Go ahead, Andre.

Andre Mousseau

executive
#17

Well, thank you for the question. There has certainly been an active market in the U.S., both in terms of blocks and in terms of entire businesses transacting small, medium and very large. There's obviously a lot of competition in the space. And so you have to be mindful of that when you're going out to acquire to get scale. But that said, while we're looking to -- as I said in response to Meny's question, we're obviously growing the U.S. by adding to it organically, and we're constantly evaluating what is the most capital-efficient way to do that, whether it is just organically through our traditional sales channel or through larger blocks. So it is not something that we've participated in recently, but we're certainly active in taking a look.

Dodridge Miller

executive
#18

Andre, I would just add that the activity in the market is kind of reinforcing that if you have a viable platform, there's an opportunity to get more business then to scale. And we remain very, very confident that the path we're on for the U.S. is the right one, although we continue to reexamine all our options.

Aditya Gupta

analyst
#19

And just if I could sneak another one in there. Just if you can, like how would you think about or how would you rank capital allocation priorities when we're thinking about growing the U.S. or maybe consolidating the Caribbean versus other methods such as buying back stock? If you could just give us a little bit of color on that, that would be helpful.

Andre Mousseau

executive
#20

Dodridge, I can go first on this. I'd say in terms of growing the U.S. versus growing the Caribbean, I think we're in the fortunate situation of being well-capitalized from the transaction just over a year ago that it's not either/or, and we're continuing to examine opportunities and grow our U.S. business, and we are certainly active in looking at ways that we can consolidate the Caribbean. So we don't have necessarily defined buckets for one versus the other, but we intend to continue to pursue both. In terms of returning capital to shareholders through buying back shares. I mean, I think that while we obviously see great accretion from shares that you can buy back at these levels. One of the things we're seeing is that there's not a tremendous amount of stock for sale at these levels. It's an accretive use of capital and a good use of capital for us to buy shares back at these levels. But in terms of sizing that, we're limited to 8 million shares, which would tell you that at today's levels, the amount of cash that we intend to buy back -- spend on buying back new shares would be a fraction of what we would be prepared to spend to grow our operating businesses.

Operator

operator
#21

Your next question comes from Darko Mihelic from RBC.

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#22

My first one is actually just a simple straightforward one. It's administrative. It's April 6, and you've already finished your first quarter, but we're talking about Q4 here. So are you intending to go back to a normal cadence of reporting. And I guess the question, and we can answer it real quick. When do you intend to report and have a conference call for Q1 results. Will it be May?

Andre Mousseau

executive
#23

Yes. Darko, yes, it will be May. It will be -- I'd expect it would be in the second week of May. We had -- we took a couple of extra weeks than we intended on our year-end close. You see in the numbers, there wasn't anything that was particularly controversial. But when you think about the manner in which our operating structure is stacked where some of our operating subsidiaries have operating subsidiaries themselves and you kind of have a 3-layer audit, it can take time. So we wouldn't want to be sitting here next year on April 6 during our annual conference call, but -- that's where we got to with this year-end. But yes, not a lot of time I think between this call and our Q1 quarter -- or Q1 call.

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#24

Okay. Fair enough. That's good. And so a couple of questions with respect to some of the numbers here. The first, I just wanted to sort of revisit Sagicor Life. You mentioned that there was a $25 million help from the matching and so on. So that would leave you with about 11 million excluding that. Now was there any of this kind of activity in last year's numbers? And if not, if I exclude that activity, what would account for the major sort of year-over-year weakness in the underlying actual results of Sagicor Life?

Andre Mousseau

executive
#25

No, there was there were some similar gains in the fourth quarter of 2019. So even though they're -- in both cases, they're very big earnings numbers. Year-over-year, they're actually relatively comparable. And Sagicor, in SLI, where the markets for the securities in which we trade in aren't as deep and aren't as liquid, we -- the matching of the liabilities to the assets isn't quite as frequent as it's done in the U.S., where in the U.S., you're almost rolling it on a weekly basis as we're adding assets. So what has tended to happen over the last couple of years is we do the actuarial studies at the end of Q3. And then by the time that's done, you're in the middle of Q4, and it points you to a couple of different places where you can say, okay, we can improve our asset liability matching by undertaking a couple of different transactions and getting a better match. And so that has happened kind of 2 years in a row coming out of the actuarial work in Q3.

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#26

Okay. Okay. So what should we be thinking about for your company going forward? And are there more opportunities for this kind of stuff to continue? Should we think of like a number, maybe not necessarily telling every quarter, X amount can happen, but maybe on an annual basis, we could better match assets and liabilities and produce a gain of X? Is such a thing possible for you to think about or...

Andre Mousseau

executive
#27

Well, I think that first of all, yes, there is more to do in the sense that if you looked into our reserves, you would see that particularly for SLI, we continue to be mismatched a little bit short there. And that is due to a relative lack of longer-term assets. And so the glass half full version of that is that there's a fair amount of conservatism in our reserves in SLI that, if we can match better, that we can unwind. And so I think we've observed it 3 years in a row that in the fourth quarter, we've been able to tighten that gap. And then just because of the way that all runs through the income statement at once, the fourth quarter for SLI in particular, tends to be a big one for net income. So I don't know that we're prepared to put specific guidance on it. But I think that the conditions could exist for it to happen again.

Dodridge Miller

executive
#28

Darko, this is Dodridge. We would have mentioned before that generally in the Southern Caribbean market our issue has been that we've had long-dated liabilities and short-dated assets. So there was an opportunity for better matching if we can finance it, and the assets tend not to be in the corporate space, tend to be in the government space. In the last 2 years, at least, we've seen, particularly in Trinidad, the government has taken a different stance on its own approach to the market and has issued some longer-dated instruments which better match our liabilities. There is still some space in other liabilities that need to be fixed. But it is very much a function of if and when the government chooses to issue instruments within those buckets. So we can't predict or give any guidance on that, but there is still some room, but that is a question of very much of when the government would want to do that and if they better match our positions. I hope that helps.

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#29

And there's no intention to -- it does help, actually. But it elicits another question, which is what about moving away from governments to corporates or swaps or something like that? Or I mean, is such an opportunity of even remotely plausible? I would imagine corporates are even shorter data. But is there -- there's no other opportunity, I suppose, unless you were to use a sort of derivative to extend the asset duration? Or does that simply just not exist in those jurisdictions?

Dodridge Miller

executive
#30

Right. Corporates tend to be short. And governments are now moving out particularly in Trinidad, and we saw as well a little bit of an uptick in interest rate. This also helped. As to the opportunities for derivatives, we don't see them at the minute, but we keep our eyes open for any opportunity that will allow us to do that. And not only within that jurisdiction but across the Southern Caribbean.

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#31

Okay. That's helpful. And then I just have a question with respect to Sagicor USA. One of the things it looks like really benefited your business was the sale of multiyear guaranteed annuities. And I guess you're saying the result of a direct strategy there. But is it my understanding that you stopped selling those in the U.S.? And if so, what is the impact of that going forward?

Andre Mousseau

executive
#32

No, no. We have scaled back the index products. But we're still selling the MYGAs, and that's the main products by premium that we are selling.

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#33

And is the profitability on the MYGA still as robust as before? Or has the environment now become more competitive with rising rates? Or are you actually booking better profitability for each MYGA sold now?

Andre Mousseau

executive
#34

The MYGA returns seem to fluctuate even monthly as different participants throughout in the market. And there's been a lot of movement in some of the investments. So in terms of the yields that you can get for new assets that you can put on. So -- we saw good profitability out of what we sold in the fourth quarter. In the first quarter, I think we saw -- we started to see some spreads compressing a little bit. And so we backed off a little bit in production relative to where we were in Q4. But all in all, while it does -- it fluctuates, and you have to keep your eye on it. We continue to think it's quite a profitable product, if you can write it at scale.

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#35

Okay. And then just last question. I mean it's clear the environment is still uncertain. I was hoping for some form of guidance from you guys or some sort of objectives, whether it be longer term. Any thoughts on where you guys land with respect to targeted ROE or earnings? Or is it just simply too uncertain of an environment, and you guys don't want to go there yet. And maybe this is something that we discuss in year-end or something like that?

Andre Mousseau

executive
#36

Well, I don't know whether it's year-end, but it does it feel -- it does feel early to be discussing specific guidance for the year because we wouldn't want to put something out there and then have to dial it back. I think that over the long term, some of the guidance that we would have given out, going back to pre-crisis where we would aspire in a -- with fully allocated capital and a normalized operating environment, to get returns on equities from the low into the mid-teens. And that would still be our medium-term target but we're -- I think there is still the potential for this year to be impacted enough that it's not really a normalized operating environment yet. And to get up to those returns on equity, we would have to fully deploy the capital that we raised and we haven't fully deployed that capital yet.

Operator

operator
#37

[Operator Instructions] We have a follow-up question from many Meny Grauman from Scotiabank.

Meny Grauman

analyst
#38

Just following up on the line of question that Darko was asking. If you think about tourism in the Caribbean, like what's your base assumption for when tourism kind of gets back to normal levels? I appreciate there's a lot of lockdowns in the region. But the U.S. definitely seems to be moving very fast with vaccinations. And correct me if I'm wrong, that's -- the majority of tourists come from the United States into the region. So what's the best outlook for when the tourism kind of goes back to where it should be?

Dodridge Miller

executive
#39

This is Dodridge. I would say that we were looking forward to fairly strong 2020 winter season. But then we saw the surge, and Barbados, in particular, also went into some lockdowns earlier in January through to end of February. And with the aggressive rollout of vaccine in Barbados and around the world, we remain optimistic about the 2021 tourism season. The traffic that I'm seeing around the U.S. suggests that there is pent-up demand and people are ready to travel. So I expect that during the summer as more vaccines roll out and the guidance was clear from the CDC, we may actually see some traveling into the Caribbean in the summer. But the winter season is normally the best time for Caribbean tourism, and we look forward to our 2021 winter season, that to be stronger.

Meny Grauman

analyst
#40

Okay. And then I just wanted to ask about excess capital. If you could just give us an update in terms of your excess capital number. Remind us in terms of how you derive that number, that would be helpful.

Andre Mousseau

executive
#41

Well, it's not a number, as you remember from the -- that is there in the financial statements because we have the consolidated financials and some the cash is actually held in cash-like equity securities. We did, as you would have seen in -- right at the start of January, we deployed about $42 million to buy some shares from Playa, which had been held by a subsidiary of the subsidiary through Sagicor Jamaica, and we decided to bring some of those on to our balance sheet. So we deployed some of our excess capital into that. But of the $450 million that was raised even with having spent even with having spent capital on the share buybacks and support for the U.S. and the acquisition of those shares, we've got a bit more than half of that $450 million that is still that is still free and liquid up at the top company.

Meny Grauman

analyst
#42

Okay. And then actually a final one for me, just on the restructuring charge in the Corporate segment. Thought I saw a note that it was related to the executive retirement that you highlighted. Is there anything else there in terms of restructuring -- what's driving that restructuring charge? Or is it just that retirement that is the reason for that charge?

Andre Mousseau

executive
#43

It was just that retirement and the acceleration of some payments that were due through some of the employment contracts that -- some of which were due to just long tenure and some of which had been put in place at the time of the transaction back in 2019.

Meny Grauman

analyst
#44

So there's nothing more broad in terms of cost-cutting or restructuring that you're working on. Is that correct?

Andre Mousseau

executive
#45

Nothing that's in the numbers.

Operator

operator
#46

Now we have another follow-up question from Darko from RBC.

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#47

I just wanted to talk a little bit about credit and the impairment losses you took this year. I mean you're the only lifeco that I know of, or at least that I cover, that has IFRS 9 sort of built in. And when I look at the tables, it looks like there's a bit of a Stage 2 allowance for credit loss that could be reversed back into earnings at some point if the outlook improves. Can you walk me through, how much of the impairment losses this year were real? How many are Stage 2? And just curious, why is the forward-looking kind of indicators not improving and allowing you to release? I mean it looked like you released some this quarter. But I'm really -- what I'm really interested in understanding is how much is there to be released? And I'll leave it there. I mean, I'm not asking you to predict how much you will release this year, but I want to understand if it's the same number that I'm looking at here because your table is a little bit different from what I'm used to seeing from the banks.

Dodridge Miller

executive
#48

Anthony, do you want to take that question?

Anthony Chandler

executive
#49

Well, I think when you about IFRS 9, there are -- some will be built in, companies like the insurance companies and then there will be some from the banks. And it's a combination of forward-looking assumptions and also performance on the individual portfolios. So there is some opportunity to roll back, especially in the banks in the short term, but we would have to see the performance of the individual portfolios improve in order to do those rollbacks. You will recall that the majority of these increases were down essentially in our first quarter as we entered the pandemic. And we know that at this time, there has not been -- no real significant change in terms of the position on those things. What has happened essentially is that we have not increased those provisions in the latter months of the year, but we still believe, at this time, that they're still relevant, but there will be some opportunity as the portfolios improve to pare them back.

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#50

Okay. And I guess what I'm looking at is your Stage 2 -- the disclosures on Page 78 of your MD&A. And I'm just looking at the Stage 2 loss allowances that are there. Is that the way I should be thinking about in terms of potential for reversal, if I just add all those up? Because you have it for OCI and then you have for mortgage loans, finance and so on. If I just added all that up, that's the potential for -- and what would be -- I don't know if it's the question if we can reverse-engineer this, but I don't have it handy, but what would have been the number total for 2019?

Anthony Chandler

executive
#51

You say on Page 78?

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#52

Yes.

Anthony Chandler

executive
#53

Okay. the 2019 number. So you are looking -- could you remind me again where you're looking, Page 78?

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#54

Yes, on Page 78 of the MD&A, you guys have Stage 2 and then you have the loss allowance for each category here. I totaled them all up, and I'm just curious what that number -- I don't have the 2019 comparative. And that's where I'm using as a more normalized number. So I'm just trying to figure out what...

Anthony Chandler

executive
#55

In 2019 comparative is on the on the right side of page. But so essentially, the Stage 2 assets would be where you have -- essentially we have determined that there was an increase in credit risk, right? And so the way the provisioning works, you start with a basic provision and you migrate up if there is a change in the credit risk. And in order for those to come back, what you will have to see is basically a change in the overall portfolio -- credit risk of the portfolio to the extent where you could release. I don't think you can necessarily look at the specific number because remember that these are being rolled on individual contracts, so to speak. So I would say that there's some possibility that you can recover, but you would have to see in the underlying portfolios a significant improvement in the credit risk before you can actually roll back some of those provisions.

Darko Mihelic

analyst
#56

Okay. So it's not material. So your expectation, at this stage, is it's not really material. It's not something I should get too excited about?

Anthony Chandler

executive
#57

I would say to you that you can see the change in credit, if you look at the P&L, you will see overall, there has been some increase in credit risk. But that number is -- and you could see where that number came on in terms of outlook and in terms of our assessment as COVID began, but I don't think you can look at the numbers and say that these numbers will completely reverse in the short term. They will -- as these portfolios improve there will -- obviously, we will reduce some of these as long as there's a change, a measurable change in credit risk, but I don't think you can look at the overall amounts and say that this is going to disappear. In any event, IFRS 9 requires that you have a credit charge on every asset in any event. So there's a baseline beyond which those will not move.

Operator

operator
#58

There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed.

Samantha Cheung

executive
#59

Okay. Thanks, everyone, for joining our call today. I guess we'll end it there since there are no further questions. Following the call, a telephone replay will be available for one month. As well, a transcript will soon be available on our website. If you do have additional questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to any of us. In addition to our upcoming first quarter report, we also note that our Annual General Meeting for shareholders will be held in June in virtual format. The details and relevant information will be available on our website at www.sagicor.com in advance of the meeting. With that, thanks again for your participation and interest today. Have a great day. Thank you.

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