Vienna Insurance Group AG ($VIG)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the VIG Key Figures and Update First Quarter 2026 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 Peter Hofinger, Deputy CEO. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and welcome to our first quarter call. We had a quite a solid start in the year '26 with insurance service revenues growing more than 9% and our profit before tax with around 19% growth. We also had changes in our Management Board. On one hand side, we are enlarging our Management Board due to the expansion of our group. Mrs. Judit Havasi and Ms. Sonja Raus are joining us. These are managers which are already for some time in our group and well experienced. Mr. Riener will succeed Mrs. Havasi as CEO in Donau Insurance. Mr. Gerhard Lahner, our Group COO, has been appointed second Deputy CEO, and this new Management Board has been appointed until the 30th of June 2031. Furthermore, we finalized in Ukraine a cooperation with DFC with a facility where we are now able to insure against war risks. This will support the economic resilience of Ukraine, and we got all the final approvals in May in Moldova of the acquisition of Moldasig, which makes us the clear #1 in Moldova. Furthermore, on the next slide, ahead of the time plan, we got all the approvals of Nurnberger, and we were closing Nurnberger in May. I think this is a very positive sign, having received these approvals ahead of time and shows also that we are able to deal with all the different authorities in Germany, but also on European level and gives us a quicker grip in managing and integrating Nurnberger to our group. On this slide, you can see the pro forma combined illustration, how the Nurnberger deal will further diversify our portfolio on one hand side, geographically with then Germany accounting to 20% of our portfolio, but also in the product lines where we will then increase our life share of our total portfolio to 31%. On the next slide, we are also further strengthening our position in Central and Eastern Europe in fostering our partnership with IFC from the World Bank. We had announced in May that the World Bank is going to acquire a stake of 10% in our pension fund in Romania, Carpathia Pensii. This will support us for specifically the voluntary pension fund business in Romania, where we see a lot of potential in the market and increasing our positioning here in Romania in the pension fund business. Furthermore, IFC also holds a 10% stake in Bulgaria. In Bulgaria our other pension fund, which is the #1 in Bulgaria, also here, IFC is supporting us in the third-pillar products, but also in the digitization of our business model. Furthermore, we closed -- we signed an agreement in December 2025, where IFC is participating into a capital increase and therefore, we will have a 20% stake of our Ukrainian insurance companies, Kniazha and USG, which will make our company more resilient, but also in the view of hopefully a certain kind of end of the war and therefore, a post-war reconstruction will give us a very strong positioning in supporting these developments in Ukraine. On the next slide, despite geopolitical tensions and recent energy price shocks, we are showing here the most recent forecast report for economic development from April 2026. Even though this is a little bit slowed down, I think still attractive GDP growth figures, specifically also in relation to the euro area, as well as the EU members in Central and Eastern Europe, but also Western Balkan far above what is the growth rate in the euro area, which again shows the resilience of the region where we are and the dynamic which we are having in the region where we are benefiting with our businesses. With this as an introduction, I'm happy to hand over to Liane to go in more details in our figures. Liane?

Thank you, Peter. Let me start with an overview of our key figures for the first quarter of 2026. Overall, we are very pleased with the development in the first 3 months of this year and also with the continued strong operational performance, which we can see across the whole group. The insurance service revenue increased by 9.1% to EUR 3.4 billion, reflecting continued healthy business growth across all our segments and all our lines of business. Profit before tax rose to EUR 310.3 million. This represents an increase of 18.8% year-on-year, supported by solid underwriting performance and continued growth momentum across all our markets. Combined ratio stood at 91.8%, improved by 0.5 percentage points compared to the quarter 1 of last year and demonstrated the resilience and the quality of our underwriting portfolio. Now the solvency ratio as of end of March 2026 stood at 290%. This also underlines our strong capitalization and continuous financial flexibility. Excluding the transitional, the solvency ratio amounted to a favorable 274%. Please note that based on the published SSCR report, we have added 2 slides, #14 and #15, for the year-end '25 solvency details and also the sensitivity analysis. Given the headline figures for the first quarter and a good start into the year, we see VIG well positioned and on track to achieve the full year targets. Let's now take a closer look at the development of the insurance service revenue across our segments. Overall insurance service revenue increased by 9.1% to EUR 3.4 billion, with growth contributing -- contributions coming from all our regions. Czech Republic and Special Markets recorded double-digit growth rate of 10% and 11%. The insurance service revenue increase of close to 9% of Extended CEE was driven by the favorable business development in nearly all markets, but especially in Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and the Baltics. Growth in Poland was 7.7% and in Austria, it was 4.5%. Both were supported by positive developments in non-life, life and health lines of business. Turning to insurance service revenue by lines of business on Slide 10. We can see that there was a solid growth across all lines of business during the first quarter. Life insurance overall grew by 14.3%. This was clearly pushed by the strong double-digit increase in the life insurance without profit participation. This was followed by health, which grew by 9% and motor and also other property being up by 6.9%. Overall, the development across lines of business confirms the balanced structure of our portfolio. On Page 11, the gross written premiums by segment are shown. In total, premiums increased by 4.4% to EUR 4.9 billion. The major difference compared to the 9.1% growth in insurance service revenue is the development in special markets, a topic of premium deferral in motor. Premiums in this segment declined by 3% in Q1 '26. Given a recorded higher claims frequency in the Turkish motor business, the local company adopted the tariffs leading to substantially less new business and a decline in premiums in motor in Turkey. This development is not yet reflected in the insurance service revenue due to the deferral of last year's strong business growth in Motor. Other than this, the trends in Austria, Czech Republic, Poland and Extended CEE are those shown and explained on the previous slides. Let me now conclude with a short summary and outlook. We are very pleased with the strong start, which we saw in 2026 financial year with continued insurance service revenue and profit growth and an ongoing strong capital position. At last Friday's Annual General Meeting, our shareholders approved a dividend of EUR 1.73 per share for the 2025 financial year. Payout date is today, March 28. Based on the positive development in the first quarter, we confirm our outlook for the 2026 financial year. As already communicated, we continue to target a profit before tax within a range of EUR 1.25 billion to EUR 1.3 billion for the 2026 whole financial year. This without taking into account the Nurnberger acquisition. The decentralized business model of VIG, our diversification across markets and also lines of business, our strong customer focus and our solid capitalization continue to provide a strong foundation for sustainable growth and resilience in a volatile environment. Thank you very much. We are now happy to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Rok Stibric from ODDO BHF.

I have two questions actually. First one is related to net investment results. If you could share any kind of color on trends there, if there was some impact from market volatility in the investment portfolio, that would be really helpful. And the second question is related to Nurnberger. I mean you've been pretty vocal about the next steps, but I was still trying to understand whether we could expect some pro forma numbers already at H1 results date.

Thank you for your questions. I'm happy to take them. The first one relating to the net investment result. What I can say is in the first quarter, the financial result in absolute figures remained stable. So there's not really an impact or a direct impact of the market volatilities out of the Iran war. So investment result did not increase in the same amount as revenue increased. I would also like to point out that the interest rate curve changed in the first quarter. So we see an increase in interest rates in the especially first 20 years. So in the non-realized gains and losses, net, in this area, we see a decrease. But overall, the financial result is stable, and I also expect this for the next quarters or months. Second question regarding the Nurnberger acquisition and when we will be able to present financial statements or numbers. The acquisition, as Peter Hofinger said, has been recently completed. And now after the closing, we can really start to work together. I would like to remind you again that Nurnberger so far only provided German GAAP numbers. So they have no IFRS numbers, and they started quite a major finance transformation project. I would also like to remind you, there are several public interest entities, several insurance companies, non-life companies, life company, health company, pension fund and also one bank. So it's not only one company, it's a group. And we have to shift the accounting now from the German GAAP to IFRS, especially tricky IFRS 9 and 17. So we have to introduce models there. We have introduced -- to introduce IT systems like SAP FSL, for example. And also, I would like to point out that in VIG, this project took 5 years. So we have to do that in the next months. We expect the first time consolidation with the financial year 2026, including the Nurnberger for 6 months. So the first-time consolidation will take place or will start beginning of 1st July 2026. What I can say is also that we plan to participate them in our planning cycle starting in the next weeks. And we expect pro forma financial statements to be available by the end of the year. This whole procedure is also confirmed with our group auditor. So this is the plan and what I can say from today and a lot of work ahead of us. I hope this answers your question.

[Operator Instructions] And gentlemen, there are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Nina, Head of -- sorry to interrupt, we have a last minute registration coming from the line of Youdish Chicooree from Autonomous Research.

I've got two questions, please. The first one is on the growth you are reporting in Poland at around 5%, which is quite solid. I mean one of your major competitors are seeing prices in motor falling and growth flatlining. So I was just wondering if you could give us some color on how you're managing to grow by that amount? So that's the first question on Poland. Then secondly, on Nurnberger, I was wondering whether when you provide pro forma financials, whether you'll be in a position to tell us a bit about the synergies, the cost synergies and the revenue synergies you are able to -- or you are targeting on this acquisition?

Thank you for your questions. I'll take the question for Poland. You know that we had -- last year, we were merging our non-life as well as our life company. So we were quite busy over the last year in reducing the complexity in Poland. It's also always -- less maybe focused on the market and more focused on the internal topics. As we have finished this merger last year, this year, we are again fully back on the market and looking on the market. Therefore, we are able now to have this growth also in relation to the other competitors on the market. What I do agree, the pricing competition in motor stays very fierce. Although we are pretty flat in the motor business in Poland, where we grow is property insurance, quite successful in here on the medium-sized corporate business and in health business. So these are the elements which is generating our growth here in Poland.

I'm happy to take the second question regarding Nurnberger. As I already explained before, right after the acquisition or the closing, we started the finance transformation project as part of the post-merger integration, which will take the next months to get to IFRS 9, 17 numbers. So we will be able to present pro forma financial statements by the end of this year. And at this time, we will also be able to give detailed information on efficiency measures and synergies.

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, there are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Nina, Head of Investor Relations, for any closing remarks.

So thank you very much for your interest and your questions. In case of further topics to be discussed, please reach out to the Investor Relations team. We have the next planned results release on the 26th of August with the half-year results 2026, still excluding Nurnberger. Thank you, and have a nice afternoon.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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