Vienna Insurance Group AG ($VIG)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Preliminary Results for the Financial Year 2025 Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Mathilde, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Hartwig Loger, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Warm welcome and best regards from Rinktor from Vienna. We're happy and glad to present today the 2025 preliminary results of Vienna Insurance Group. And I will do this together with our CFO, Liane Hirner. And also for the Q&A on our side is our Deputy CEO, Peter Hofinger. So from my side, I would start with maybe also the key proposition we have and our positioning, which is quite strong, as you know. And I think on the Slide #2, just a flavor about the main topics we have on our side. So market leader in Central Eastern Europe, still with growth prospects. As you know, we have a high diversification in sales and all over the regions of Central Eastern Europe, we are quite strong also for the next years in targeting the growth. We have clear decentralized business model. So our understanding is being a group, the picture to that we need is the fleet with strong ships with also responsible captains on the boats, and they are the backbone and the basis for our strong development in the current situation, but also as we will see in the strategic planning for the next years also for the future. Financial strength, it will be touched deeply by Liane Hirner. So we have a stable and strong basis, not only in solvency ratios, but also on the current basis all over. And we are also focusing in a responsible way to the future, which means that we are also very active in the programming about sustainability. Let's go on with the highlights we can present for the year 2025, which really was an exceptional year in the results we will present today. So very strong top line and also earnings growth overall, which is, I would say, high above peers. And this also remarks that we are on a strong way in the focus of our business, especially in our core markets in Central Eastern Europe. The profit before taxes, first time reached the EUR 1 billion mark. And out of that, it's also, I would say, an important year, which we could fulfill in our targets '25. As you know, we already presented in the Q3 session that we were successful in the public purchase offer for NURNBERGER. So out of that, we already secured 99.2% of NURNBERGER share capital. And out of that, we are now in the phase that we expect the closing, which will take on maybe some months, but to the beginning of the second half of '26, we think it will be solved out of that. The new group strategy, evolve28, of course, to mention today, but I also remark that we did a broad presentation during the Q3 session, but we will come back today about the targets, which are following this program in the midterm also perspective and outlook till '28. Standard & Poor's also gave a highlight in '25. So our rating with A+ was raised in the outlook from stable to positive. So also a strong signal from Standard & Poor's, confirming our financial strength and also our potential of growth for the future. And I think the most important, also the share price performance was top performing the [indiscernible]. We have an increase of 121.4% with a closing price of EUR 67.20 at year-end '25, and this is all-time high in this way till now. So out of that, we will go on in the fulfillment of our outlooks. On the next Slide #5, you see the key figures of the full year. The main KPIs I will touch, and Liane Hirner will go deeper then. So gross written premium, we reached EUR 16.3 billion, that's an increase by 7.1% up on the year '24. The insurance service revenue from IFRS basis increased by 8.7%, up to EUR 13.2 billion, hence, which is for us, yes, the highlight is the increase more than 30% of the profit before taxes, up to EUR 1.16 billion. As I said, it's, yes, I would say, a new mark also on the way of our success. The KPIs on the quality of business P&C net combined ratio, we have an improvement by 3.3 percentage points, down to 90.1% Also, this will be deepened by Liane over the regions. The solvency ratio on a higher level now up to 296%. This is also our strong basis for investments, not only in the payment for NURNBERGER, what is expected, as I said, but also for the acquisition possibilities in Central Eastern Europe for new growth also in strengthening our position. Operating return on equity, 18.7%, also a very strong remark with an uplift from 2.5 percentage points to last year. The strength of our group already mentioned diversification. You see on Slide #6 that it is not only a good balanced situation in between the markets, the gross written premiums, as you can see, Austria still on a high level with 30%, but already extended CEE with 31% now in the lead. We see that also besides Czech and Poland, also special markets with 10%. We will see later on that NURNBERGER will go up in this way if it works as it is expected. Insurance service revenue nearly on the same base. And as you see on the right side, the results before tax is also well balanced. Here, Austria is still in lead, followed by Czech, but we see a strong improvement also in Extended CEE and Poland and also Liane will give you details about that. Out of these very positive results and KPIs, we also, as the Management Board will give the proposal for the dividend payments and the proposal to the general meeting will be EUR 1.73 per share. which is important because, as you know, our dividend policy is formed in the way that this dividend yearly gives automatically the base also for the next year. So we increase up from EUR 1.55 to EUR 1.73 by about 12%, which gives a new earnings per share of EUR 6.46. And out of that, we are a reliant and continuous dividend payer as we started in 1994 on the stock exchange Vienna. So this is our policy where we, with also our shareholders agree on a stable long-term development. Now I will hand over to Liane, and please go forward Liane to deep in detail about the KPIs.

Thank you, Hartwig. Now I'm very pleased to present our strong preliminary full year results '25 in more detail to you. Let's start on Page 9, where you can see the breakdown of gross written premiums per segment. Overall, premiums increased by more than EUR 1 billion with all market segments contributing to the growth. Markets in the Extended CEE added an additional EUR 409 million in premiums with more than 50% of this growth coming from our countries, Romania, Slovakia and the Baltics. Austria and the Czech Republic are the second and third largest contributing segments with additional premiums of EUR 209 million and EUR 194 million, respectively. In terms of premiums, we recorded growth also in each line of business with double-digit percentage increases in the Life business without profit participation, the unit and index-linked life as well as the health business. With this, I move to our IFRS 17/9 reporting tables on Slide 10, we show the group income statement. I will go into the details of the relevant positions in the following pages. Here, I would just like to explicitly mention the adjustments totaling EUR 96.3 million preliminary arising from the entire goodwill impairment of EUR 72.6 million in Hungary. This compares to EUR 116 million goodwill impairment taken for Hungary already in 2024. In '25, there were also smaller impairments of customer portfolios in Poland and of software in special markets. Regarding the tax ratio of 26.1% in 2025, one quick comment here. We expect this to decrease further and consider a tax ratio of around 25% to be a fair estimate for 2026, of course, currently without the planned acquisition of NURNBERGER. With this, let's move to the next slide, Page 11, and the insurance service revenue. Here, overall insurance service revenue increased by 8.7% to EUR 13.2 billion. Given the different growth patterns, it's visible that diversification over markets, lines of business and sales channels began pays off. Extended CEE was the biggest contributor of this growth, generating an additional EUR 308.5 million, almost 2/3 of which came from our countries, Romania, Slovakia and the Baltics. The strong performance of the Special Markets segment, up by 26.6% was driven by Turkiye and increased volumes there in the motor business and the life insurance business. These lines of business are also the basis for the solid growth in both Austria and the Czech Republic, each adding more than EUR 200 million in insurance service revenue. Worth mentioning are also the double-digit percentage growth rates in health, not only in Austria and the Czech Republic, but also in Extended CEE. Now let's move on to Slide 12. Here, you can see the insurance service revenue development by lines of business. Health is up by 15.5% and for the first time, exceeds the EUR 1 billion, followed by a combined growth of 12.5% across all 3 life lines of business. In absolute terms, the other property business recorded the strongest growth with an additional EUR 291 million of insurance service revenue, followed by the motor third-party liability insurance with an additional EUR 242 million. Moving to the profit development on Slide 13. The bottom line growth was even stronger than the top line increases. So we have profitable growth. Result before taxes is up by 31.7% or roughly EUR 380 million. Yes, this substantial improvement is supported by a more favorable claims experience with significantly lower weather-related claims compared to the previous year. However, it also demonstrates the positive impact of economies of scale and sound insurance technical results, particularly in many Extended CEE, following Austria, which contributed EUR 98 million to the profit increase based on an improved combined ratio, the Extended CEE segment added EUR 77 million. I would like also to highlight Poland. Thanks to our group companies concentrated market presence, they have lived up to the ambition of accelerated growth in both Life and Non-life business. Despite the impairment of customer portfolios mentioned before, profit before taxes increased by 62.4% to EUR 106 million, a plus of EUR 40.6 million. Also, we are not currently among the top players, top 3 players in Poland as a group, this demonstrates our strength and profitable setup in this country. Details of the net combined ratio improvements for the group and the market segments are shown on Slide 14. We achieved net combined ratio of 90.1% is based on a clearly improvement claims ratio of below 59.7% and also a slightly better cost ratio of 30.4%. The discounting impact of the claims ratio was 4.2% in 2025 after 3.4% in 2024. Czech Republic and the special markets recorded the most substantial combined ratio improvement. Apart from the positive weather-related claims effect, the drivers in Czech Republic were a favorable motor development and an increased profitability in the household insurance, whereas the better net combined ratio in the special markets is based on positive motor development in Turkiye. Now let's have a look at the profitability KPIs on the Life side. On Slide 15, the CSM roll-forward of the Life & Health business is presented, and I'm pleased about the ongoing strong CSM new business margin of 9.8%, only slightly below the 10%, which we recorded last year. The increase of 12.9% in the CSM roll-forward was mainly driven by the changes in VFA, reflecting the positive impact of the rise in long-term interest rate curves. New business of EUR 528 million in relation to a CSM release of EUR 568 million led to a sustainability ratio of 92.9%, which is, again, only slightly below the exceptional ratio of 93.6% in 2024 and supported by the new business volume from Turkiye. Table from the total capital investment result is shown on Slide 16. Here, higher interest income and volume from the bond portfolio has driven the increase of 12.3% to EUR 489.3 million. The increased volume of the bond portfolio is also reflected in the investment split, which is shown on the next Slide 17. Compared to EUR 36.5 billion in 2024, capital investments held at own risk increased by EUR 4.3 billion to EUR 38 billion. The proportion of the bond portfolio increased from 73.8% to 74.6%, reflecting additional bond investments totaling around EUR 1.5 billion. Regarding the rating split, upgrades from BBB+ to A- increased the proportion of A investments, while downgrades of France and the European Financial Stability facility affected the proportion of AA investments. Further information on the bond portfolio and the rating breakdown of various bond issuers are shown on the next Slide 18. VIG's well-known conservative approach is also reflected in the rating distribution of the bond portfolio shown on the left-hand side. Compared to last year, the ratings of government, covered and financial bonds improved. The country split on the right reflects VIG's focus on diversification. Poland and the Czech Republic are represented with a share of 13.9% and 13.4%, respectively, followed by Austria with 10.6% and a share of 8.6% of supranationals, very similar to what we have presented to you already last year. Now let's have a look at the solvency ratio for 2025 on Slide 19. Our solvency ratio, including transitional measures after 261% in 2024 was 296% at year-end 2025. This reflects substantially increased own funds of around EUR 12 billion, mainly based on the profitable business performance and positive capital market developments in relation to an only slightly higher SCR of around EUR 4.1 billion. The solvency ratio, excluding transitional shows an equal robust trend rising from 238% in 2024 to 276% by the end of 2025. Please here, bear in mind that the purchase price becomes due upon the completion of the planned acquisition of NURNBERGER Group. However, VIG will remain a solidly capitalized group, ready to take advantage of any opportunities offered by our region and well prepared to handle the ongoing geopolitical challenges. Being active in the CEE region, which we know extremely well and where we can rely on the expertise of our local management teams is a huge advantage in this respect. With this, I will now hand over to Hartwig for his closing remarks and the outlook.

Okay. Thank you, Liane. And before I go on with the outlook '26 and also the midterm outlook in the targets of program evolve28, I just want to focus on Slide 21 about the favorable situation we have with our core markets, Central Eastern Europe. As you can see on this slide, the midterm also growth forecast in the region, where we see clearly nearly doubled or even more in the area of the European Union CEE markets and also on the Western Balkans, which we also worked out here. You see that starting with '26, it's on the European Union level, 1.4% and GDP growth, we have in the countries on the European Union level CEE 2.6% and even 3.1%, which is still going up on the way to 3.5% and 3.7%. And even also the EU markets from Central Eastern Europe up from 2.6% to 2.7%. So this is really the right positioning we have in our group. And out of that, we also can expect that this will also support our growth perspectives and the targets we still are in mind are important for development for our group. On the next slide, the outlook '26 in detail. So the guidance, I think shortly just mentioned, as Liane already did on the capital basis, we are strongly capitalized in the way of solvency as we have seen even with the upcoming investment to NURNBERGER, we are ready to invest also in the growth parts of Central Eastern Europe. The strong broad diversification already mentioned by myself and by Liane, which also gives the resilience besides, of course, influence of geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions. But we, over the last years, we were ready also to fulfill our targets besides that. And so the impact out of what is going on also now in the area of the Arabic countries, we expect not directly but indirect consequences, but we are on a strong base. And out of that, as you can read and see on this slide, the Management Board is also clear in the targeting for this year. So we achieved the profit before taxes in the targeting with a range of EUR 1.25 billion to EUR 1.3 billion for the financial year '26, excluding NURNBERGER, what I mentioned already in the starting part that the closing is expected till mid of the year. And out of that, we will come back to you in the time when it is possible after closing also to include the targeting for NURNBERGER. But besides that, with the exceptional result of '25, which was already mentioned with all-time high of EUR 1.16 billion, we are still ambition in the outlook and targeting for '26. And on the next slide, as I said, we touched the strategic program for the next 3 years, the midterm program. And out of that, we have clear detailed financial targets for '28. We already mentioned them and presented during the Q3 session. But just to repeat and to remind you on that. So gross written premiums up to more than EUR 20 billion, profit before taxes in business development up to EUR 1.5 billion in '28. Combined ratio. even this year, we have exceptional results on that, also regarding to the [ lucky ] situation in combination to the weather-related claims, but we are targeting ambitiously to 91% in '28 and operating ROE more than 17% and altogether, keeping the range of EUR 150 million to in mind. And as we mentioned, we have the power out of our capitalization not only to directly finance the plans taking over of NURNBERGER, but we are ready also to invest further on, but still being and keeping a stable position for VIG. That's the part of presentation. And now we are happy to get your questions and we'll answer immediately. Thank you very much.

The first question comes from the line of August Marcan from UBS.

I have 3, if that's okay. First one is on the combined ratio. Could you please help us with a bit more details on the underlying drivers of the combined ratio, particularly how much was the NatCat impact in 2025? I think at 9 months, you gave a number, which was, I think, EUR 170 million, correct me if I'm wrong. What was that number for full year? And what is kind of the normalized level of NatCat that you take into account when you're planning? Second one on the dividend. I appreciate you grew the dividend 12%. However, your earnings grew 30% and your payout now is one of the lowest in the sector below 30%. Did you maybe consider stepping up dividend as a one-off step-up to use as a new base? And if not, I'm just curious as to your thoughts in that segment. And then finally, on Slide 35, the solvency box that you give is very helpful. Could you just give a bit more detail on the EUR 580 million other changes? What were they? And how should we think about them going forward? Should they trend around 0 in the long term? Or should they be positive in the long term?

Peter Hofinger. Thank you for your questions. I will answer the first one, the combined ratio topic. If you look on the drivers of the combined ratio, there are various drivers. One of it is inflation. We have been quite successful over the last years to increase rates according to inflation. What we have seen in last year is that there was a slowing down of the dynamic of the inflation, which was supporting us in claims costs. Nevertheless, we had before that, and we are still able to increase certain rates, which was positive to our margin. On the motor book, we have been specifically successful. We have new pricing tools in many of our markets, and we were able with a more precise segmentation to increase the profitability in our motor book. And yes, we have been also supported by the NatCat activity. The difference of the NatCat topic to our combined ratio from the year '24 and the year '25 is 1.1 percentage points. There is one topic which is slightly seen then in the overall result, which is on the cost ratio. In more and more markets, we are reaching economies of scale, which is then allowing us and also for the years to come to see a continuous decrease of our cost ratio. I hope this is answering your question.

I'm happy to take your next 2 questions. The first was regarding the dividend policy. We have decided to have a dividend at least in the basis for the last year. So there will be an increase or at least a stable dividend, but we expect an increase as the business volume and the results are increasing also in the next years. There are no plans to change the dividend policy currently. And the increase of 12% in our view is also a positive sign. On the other hand, the group is growing very strongly and also new acquisitions regarding NURNBERGER is financed by our own funds. So this year, the payout ratio was some percentages below 30%, but I expect that this will increase again in the upcoming years. To the EUR 508 million other changes in the own funds development table, these other changes are the valuation differences or the change of the valuation differences between, especially Solvency II best estimate and IFRS 17 reserves and also a main portion of these differences is deferred taxes. These changes are supported by the positive interest rate development of the last year. So the valuation differences further increased for the next upcoming quarters, I would rather expect a stable development here as I do not really expect big changes in the interest rate curve. I hope this answers your question.

The next question comes from the line of Youdish Chicooree from Autonomous Research.

So I'll ask 3 questions as well, if possible. The first one is on your guidance. As you said, 2025 was an exceptional year, and your guidance basically implies you're looking for growth of around 8% to 12%. So maybe if you could just comment on how you see the various moving parts that will drive this growth in terms of top line, life, non-life and whether you expect the combined ratio to improve further. So if you could just talk around that, that would be helpful. Secondly, on the combined ratio improvement year-on-year. I think for a few countries, especially Czech Republic, Turkey, you talked about favorable motor trends in motor. Could you expand on that, whether you're seeing better frequency, better severity, a combination of both and whether you think it's sustainable near term? And then finally, on the CSM, I mean, obviously, there was a big help from according to your slide, higher interest rates that gave a boost of 15%. But looking at interest rate changes, I think they moved around 50 to 65 basis points. So I was wondering, is that the kind of sensitivity we should expect in your CSM I think roughly 50% -- 50 basis points can produce an uplift of roughly 10%.

I will start with your second question, which is about the combined ratio. There are 2 different effects in Czech Republic and in Turkey. In Czech Republic, it is on one hand side, a lower frequency, but at the same time, very disciplined claims management, which enabled us to keep the average claim flat, even a bit reduced last year, which is supporting the results in Czech Republic. In Turkiye, we are more and more stronger in the segmentation and are able to get the right segments, which we are desiring, and this is shown also by the results. Nevertheless, one has to say in Turkiye, we do have here the challenges of inflation and the devaluation of the currency, having in mind that some of the spare parts still are in euro equivalent, but the segmentation, obviously, we have been successful here in Turkey.

I'm happy to take your answer for your question related to the CSM development. You are right. There was quite a positive impact in the VFA business, which relates to the changes in the variable fee and the increase of something. This was mainly driven by the interest rates. But please bear in mind that also the interest rate structure or the structure of the interest rate curve here plays an important role because in 2024, we had an inverse interest rate curve. And in 2025, this disappeared and especially the interest rates in the midterm or longer-term period increased, not so much in the first years, but from the fourth year onwards, the interest rate curve increased substantially.

So I will go on with your first question, Youdish. Thanks for that. You mentioned the guidance I gave for '26 and midterm also out of evolve28 till '28. So from the growth perspective, what we see is that we expect also following what I mentioned, the dynamic growth situation in the Central Eastern European countries where we are strong located, there is still the potential also on organic growth. We have the diversification we showed on the slide of regions and business lines also in sales. And there, we see that also on the one side with our strong partner, Erste Group, there is potential in the existing countries. Erste is also expanding on Central Eastern Europe part, and we see here also the potential for higher growth out of that. Besides that, there are many countries where is not located where we are active and we already have, but with a strategic group program on that will also come in, especially in life business, where we see also the possibility being a strong part of the growth in this all over targeting. I hope this answers your questions.

Can I ask a follow-up question on the second topic actually? Because I think you mentioned a couple of times that you're using new pricing tools for more precise segmentation, and that's improving margins in some countries. To what extent are these newer tools, more sophisticated tools being rolled out across all your markets, i.e., what is the potential for further improvements coming from these new techniques?

I cannot now really quantify the further improvements of this topic because it always has to do on one hand side with the size of our portfolio, which we have in the respective market and also with our market share, which depending on the market share, it's a different room of maneuver, which we have with our pricing tools. But I think it shows that it is successful, and we are looking forward to see further improvements on it.

[Operator Instructions] We now have a question from the line of Rok Stibric from ODDO BHF.

I have actually 2 questions. The first one is related to combined ratio. And you mentioned before the delta arising from NatCat on '25, '24. I was just wondering if there is like a number or a budget that you have in mind going forward? What percentage do you allocate to NatCat events, for example, in your strategic plan? And the second question is related to the U.S., Israel, Iran conflict, and you elaborated before that you have like limited direct exposure. I fully understand that, but I was thinking more in the direction of other adverse effects, for example, if some missiles or drones are being shut down over the area of Turkiye, which is one of your very promising markets. My question here is, is there like a cap to claims that you would expect coming from these kind of events?

Thank you for your questions. I start with the second one. I hope that I understood it fully. Principally, for claims which are done out of the war activity, there is no coverage. Therefore, we are not expecting out of war activity to have here any claims. We are not really in the international marine business. So this area, which potentially could be affected is not something which should affect our book here. So it will be more secondary effects on one hand side, which is stock markets and increasing of inflation, which will challenge us in managing our claims costs. On the other hand side, what we also have seen in the past, rising petrol prices also to have a certain effect on our frequency, a more positive one. So there will be different effects in it, but there is not really a direct effect out of it. To your first question, which is combined ratio. Yes, we do have a budget. You have to differentiate. So first of all, due to our structure, which we have in our planning logic, which we have, there is a budget for each and every company. And there we differentiate between NatCat events and weather-related claims. NatCat events as we have proved and seen 2 years ago when we had the big flood events, even if there is a very big event, we are buying in quite a resilient coverage with a low retention. So also big events in the end do not have a major impact overall. It is more the frequency. And the same is true for weather-related claims, but this is very much budgeted on a local level, and I cannot tell you here now the exact.

We have a follow-up question from the line of August Marcan from UBS.

Just 2 quick ones. One is on the Solvency II review in EU. Do you have any estimate on potential impact for VIG? And then the second one is just on the adjustments we had from mostly Hungary. It was about EUR 100 million last year, about EUR 100 million this year as well. Do you think it's all done now? Or do you expect this number to still be a bit of a drag? And if so, where do you think that would come from?

So I'm happy to take 2 questions. Regarding the goodwill in Hungary, the write-down of the goodwill this year was the entire write-down. So there's nothing left for the upcoming years. So we have no goodwill anymore in our books regarding Hungary. Regarding the Solvency II review, this has different impacts depending on the portfolios of the companies. So it very much depends on if you have a life portfolio or a non-life portfolio, long term or short term. Overall, for the group, I would not expect a big difference. So rather stable development, positive or no big negative effect. That's due to our diversification. I hope this answers your question.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Nina Higatzberger-Schwarz, Head of Investor Relations, for any closing remarks.

Thank you for your participation and for listening in. The 2025 Group annual report will be published on the 28th of April. If you require specific information for your models or analysis, please get in touch with Investor Relations. We're happy to help. And up to now, thanks, and goodbye.

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