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

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Michelle, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Sagicor Financial Company's Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. George Sipsis, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Capital Markets. Please go ahead, sir.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Sagicor's third quarter 2022 results. I would like to note that our quarterly results, including the financial statements and the MD&A, along with the link to our live webcast, is available on our website under the Investor Relations tab on our website at sagicor.com. We also invite you to visit the acquisition of ivari tab on our Investor Relations page to learn more about this transformational acquisition that we announced in August. I would like to begin by referring you to the cautionary language and disclaimers in our materials and public filings regarding the use of forward-looking statements and the use of non-IFRS financial measures and ratios, which may be mentioned as part of our remarks today. I would like to remind the audience that actual results could differ materially. Unless otherwise noted, all dollar amounts referenced will be in U.S. dollars, consistent with our reporting practice. Joining me today is our Group President and CEO, Dodridge Miller; Andre Mousseau, our Group Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer; and Anthony Chandler, our Chief Controller. We'll begin with prepared remarks by Dodridge and Andre, followed by a Q&A session. With that, I will pass the call to our Group President and CEO, Dodridge Miller.

Thank you, George, and thank you to everyone for joining us today. As per our usual format, I will give some brief remarks focusing on our overall performance for the quarter and comment on our outlook going forward. Our Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Andre Mousseau, will then provide you with more details on our financial and operating performance. Sagicor again delivered solid results this quarter. This was particularly pleasing in the face of a volatile market and rising rate environment. Total group revenue was $656 million for the quarter, which, along with net premium revenue, decreased by 16% over the same period last year, primarily driven by lower sales at Sagicor USA as we moderated the sales of our annuities in line with our strategy for deliberate growth and scale. At the same time, we saw positive growth in net premium revenue for our Life and Health business lines, which were up by 9% year-over-year. Total group net income to shareholders was a robust $25 million during the quarter. This is a result of strong sales in the U.S., robust net premium growth across all major business lines in Sagicor Jamaica and solid top line growth for Sagicor Life, which was partially offset by certain nonrecurring items, which Andre will expand further on in his remarks. As you will recall, we announced on August 25, the acquisition of ivari, a leading middle market individual life insurer in Canada with over 80 years of history in the region. Ivari provides individual life and critical illness insurance solutions for the Canadian middle market. The acquisition provides us with yet another outlet for growth and will bring Sagicor's 180-plus years of experience in individual life business to the Canadian market. We expect the transaction to close mid-2023. Turning to our outlook. We continue to see asset price volatility and are mindful that an economic slowdown may occur globally as Central Banks constrain their economies to fight inflation. This may offset an improving outlook for tourism, particularly in the Caribbean, which is very dependent on the tourism outcome. Lastly, I'd like to update you on a recent Board change. Earlier this week, we announced the resignation of Jonathan Finkelstein as Director of Sagicor's Board of Directors. We're thankful for Jonathan's advice and active participation over the last few years. We are pleased to announce that Mr. Alan Ryder has been appointed to our Board subject to regulatory approval. Alan is a highly experienced insurance and reinsurance executives with over 4 decades of experience, most recently as CEO of North America, Life for PartnerRe. We welcome Alan and look forward to his insight and guidance. With that, I now turn the presentation over to Andre. Thank you.

Thank you, Dodridge, and hello, everybody. The group performed well in Q3 and net income to shareholders was solid at $25 million. The group's profitability this quarter was driven by robust sales of annuities and favorable asset spreads in our Sagicor Life USA segment as well as the strong performance of our life insurance business at Sagicor Jamaica, which benefited from rising interest rates. Year-to-date, total revenue was $2 billion, up 16% year-over-year. Year-to-date net income to shareholders of $102 million was up 12% versus last year. Now let me comment on the performance of our major operating segments, starting with Sagicor Life. Sagicor Life had a difficult quarter. Total revenue was $123 million, a 1% increase year-over-year. Within that, we had $7 million of single premium annuity sales and $6 million of annual recurring new business sold in the quarter. Net loss to shareholders was $5 million this quarter, which came down to a number of small negative variances, including higher-than-budgeted claims and benefits as we see continued challenges coming out of the pandemic, a modest strengthening of reserves, some foreign exchange translation losses due to the unexpected appreciation of the Trinidad and Tobago dollar and a $4 million charge related to a onetime Pandemic Levy by the Government of Barbados. So a list of several negative factors all at once, which we would not expect to persist. At Sagicor Jamaica, total revenue of $168 million, decreased 3% year-over-year. The core business performed well as net premium revenue increased 14% year-over-year. Interest income also increased by 10%, mainly due to rising interest rates. Our share of Sagicor Jamaica's net income was $13 million, which is around our target and was a mix of a strong showing from our life insurer there, offset by a slowdown in capital markets business in our investment banking segment. Sagicor Life USA had another solid quarter. This segment's growth and profitability is consistent with our strategy to grow our U.S. business to scale by adding fixed annuity liabilities that we're able to invest at attractive spreads. We drove $333 million of new annuity sales in the quarter, down a bit from $420 million in Q2. Overall, our U.S. business posted revenue of $357 million. The segment generated $42 million of net income in the quarter, nearly double last year's results. Through the first 3 quarters of the year, we positioned ourselves to generate significant new premiums as we saw an exceptionally positive environment to generate spreads. So far in Q4, we have chosen to slow production by not following competitors' crediting write-ups. We expect Q4 to be lighter than Q3 for production, and this is consistent with our -- managing our production to optimal times to generate spread. Turning to our Head Office segment. There was some noise, both positive and negative. Net income at Head Office was impacted by onetime charges and expenses related to the ivari transaction as well as some restructuring charges, all totaling about $5 million. We took a $7 million mark-to-market loss on our holdings of Playa Hotels and Resorts. These were partially offset by a $6 million noncash gain related to the revaluation of the call option in our favor that is deemed to be embedded in our top company notes as our bonds traded at narrower spreads at the end of Q3 than they did at the end of Q2. Our total comprehensive loss to shareholders this quarter was $30 million as the positive net income during the quarter was more than offset by the impact of rising interest rates leading to decreased asset values for our assets back in capital. With that, our book value was USD 7.25 or CAD 9.96. We repurchased 55,000 shares at a discount to book value through our normal course issuer bid in Q3. Our MCCSR was 204% as our capital and our life insurance subsidiaries declined slightly with asset prices. We're also pleased to declare a dividend of $0.05625 per share to be paid in the fourth quarter. We've consistently declared dividends each quarter since we've been listed on the TSX. We remain well funded with significant excess capital at our holding company to fund both the ivari acquisition and our growth initiatives. On a final note, we continue to make good progress on our implementation of IFRS 17. Our plan for systems implementation is well on track. We are planning to produce guidance during calendar Q1 2023 on what to expect in terms of the transition of our balance sheet and changes to our income statement going forward. We're just about ready now, and we'll be ready to share these details early in the new year. With that, operator, happy to open the line for questions.

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

Andre, you referenced a restructuring charge in your remarks just now. So I'm wondering if I heard that right, if you could give a little bit more detail in terms of what that's related to and maybe size that for us?

Sure. So I think I lumped it together with the expense charges with ivari, which were for the ivari transaction, those 2 things together were $5 million. About half of that would be related to a specific instance on severance from a change in the executive ranks.

Okay. And then you talked about the onetime tax in Barbados. I'm wondering if there is any indication you have that we might see similar taxes in any of the other jurisdictions in which you do business? If you could just comment on how you see that unfolding, that would be helpful.

Dodridge, do you want to take that one?

We haven't seen any indication from anyone else, any other governments in the Caribbean to that extent. This was a single Barbados initiative. And the view, which seems to be held is that the bank for financial institutions during the pandemic did quite well. And therefore, there was an obligation to assist the government in funding some of the pandemic costs. So we haven't seen any indications from any other territory to that extent.

Got it. I also wanted to ask about the reserve strengthening. It was referenced in your Sagicor Life segment. So wondering if you could give more details in terms of what that was related to? And if there's any reserving impacts to any of the other business lines? I didn't see the reference to that, but I was just wondering if it was just Sagicor Life.

So we typically look at the majority of our assumptions in Q3 across all of our segments. And certain of our segments, we look at them every quarter. And if there are material changes, we look at them every quarter, but we take a closer look at certain of them in Q3. The changes were very minimal and not really to the -- not to the point of materiality. So we're talking within Sagicor Life. It was $2 million to $3 million in terms of strengthening. And so if you look at the reserve profile, it's pretty minimal tankering and that was around lapse and premium persistency, but we wouldn't call that a large number. Within the U.S., they took a look the -- I think there was a similar strengthening and in the range of less than $5 million and that's reflected in those Q3 numbers. Jamaica net-net had releases that would have offset the other 2. So on a consolidated basis, we were largely flat and the releases in Jamaica, where the largest component of that was the rising interest rates where the Jamaican Life book is that invested a little bit short. So they have a positive exposure to rising rates when they relook at the reinvestment assumptions.

Got it. And then just a final one for me. Just in terms of guidance -- forward guidance, you suspended it in the lead up to the pandemic. And just wondering there's an ongoing reference to resuming specific guidance when the recovery becomes more certain? I'm just wondering if -- is there any sort of sense for me when that would be able to resume specific guidance in '23? How are you thinking about that? Like what's the -- I understand during the pandemic, a lot of uncertainty. It seems like the pandemic more or less is behind us. So just trying to understand sort of the hesitation there on guidance and when you think that would actually come back?

Well, we're -- we intend to resume guidance next year and do it coincidence with the implementation of IFRS 17, which is going to change the source of earnings on our income statement. So I agree with your point, the pandemic is abating for the most part. That volatility has been replaced by inflation and interest rate volatility. We -- I mentioned it briefly in the prepared remarks. We are in the final stages of putting together what our 2023 and going forward will look like. And so what we'd like to do is get in front of you and the investment community and talk about how do you model the company under IFRS 17. We're very close to being ready for that. And with that, we'll be putting forward broad ranges for guidance. And that's something that we'd like to do in Q1.

[Operator Instructions] Gentlemen, there are no further questions. I'll turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, Michelle, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. A replay of this call will be available for 1 month on our website and a transcript will be posted as soon as available. If you have any additional questions, as usual, please do not hesitate to reach out to any one of us. With that, thanks again for your participation and interest today. Have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude your conference call for this afternoon. We would like to thank you all for participating and ask you to kindly disconnect your lines.