Good morning, everyone, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the video conference to announce IRB(Re) fourth quarter 2023 results. Those of you who need simultaneous translation, we have this feature available on the platform. To access it, click on the globe icon at the bottom of your Zoom screen, and then you will be prompted to choose your preferred language, Portuguese or English. For those listening to the conference in English, there is an option to mute the original audio in Portuguese by clicking on Mute Original Audio. As a reminder, this video conference is being recorded and will be made available on the company's RI website at ri.irbre.com, where the respective slide deck can also be found. You can also download the presentation, also clicking on the chat icon, including the version in English. During the company's remarks, all participants will have their microphones muted.
We will then start a Q&A session after that. To ask questions, click on the Q&A icon at the bottom part of your Zoom screen and type in your question to join the queue. When you are announced, a prompt to unmute your mic will appear on the screen, and you should then activate your mic to ask the questions. We recommend that you ask all your questions you may have at once. Note that the information contained in this presentation and any forward-looking statements made during the conference regarding the company's business prospects, projections, and operating and financial targets, are based on beliefs and assumptions on the part of the company's management, as well as on information currently available. Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as they refer to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not materialize.
Investors should have in mind that general economic conditions, market conditions, and other operating factors may affect IRB(Re) future performance and thus lead to results that will differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Today, we are joined by company's executives, Mr. Marcos Falcão, CEO and IRO, Mr. Daniel Castillo, VP of Reinsurance, Mr. Rodrigo Botti, VP of Finance, Actuarial, and IT, Ms. Thaís Peters, Director of Internal Controls, Risks, and Compliance, and Mr. Paulo Valle, General Director of IRB Asset. I now give the floor over to Mr. Falcão, CEO, who will start the presentation. Over to you, sir.
Good morning, everyone. I would like to start by saying that 2023 started with a solvency ratio of 101%, and we are happy to say we have accomplished everything we had planned for when we took on the company at the end of 2023.
A new culture, a new head offices, a new brand. According to the DOJ, the U.S. Department of Justice, we closed the issues we had open outstanding in 2020. We paid the creditors in October. We revamped our data to the cloud. We closed Buenos Aires and London offices. This week we have concluded the implementation of accounting as per IFRS 17, which will be used to report our numbers to the market as recommended by the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission. We now have few ways to report our figures via IFRS 4, which is model adopted by SUSEP, IFRS 17, which is the model adopted by CVM, the Securities Commission, and IFRS 4 in the business view is the model we use to manage the company, which will also be reported to the market. That is the way we have been doing it for some time now.
On April third, IRB(Re) Brasil turns 85, and we are feeling as an 85-year-old startup, young at heart. On the next slide, I will be talking about the different methodologies as per the different IFRS models, 4 and 17. For example, the reinsurance revenue, IFRS 4, is reported pro rata time as IFRS 17. It is reported based on actuarial models, based on the contract terms, a lot more sophisticated in terms of accounting. The reinsurance expenses will now be reported based on grouped contracts as is in IFRS 4. But now they will also be reported taking into account the current value of each contract. The IFRS 17 also emphasizes the reinsurance financial results, which has nothing to do with the investment results of the portfolio. The financial results from reinsurance is the amount of money in time of operating flows.
You will realize that from here on end, IFRS 17, will show a change in the discount rates, which will oscillate as per interest rates in the market, and the risk rates will affect the company's results because we are talking about operating flows brought to current value. In terms of administrative expenses as for IFRS 4, they are separate from the reinsurance business. As per IFRS 17, just as taxes, the administrative expenses will be recognized within the contract scope. In a way, we will now have a closer look at contracts. Actually, IFRS 17 is a lens that allows us to look at the future. We do not know yet what we are going to do, how we are going to read it. It is going to be very interesting to work with both or the three models, IFRS 4, IFRS 4 under the business view model, and IFRS 17.
We will have three combined views or three combined methodologies. The FIP form will be based on IFRS 4. The business view is in our RI website. And IFRS 17 will now be used to report our ITRs or quarterly results. As we use them, all those combinations will have a challenging scenario, but very rich at the same time. You can imagine the amount of work involved, working or doing the accounts, using the new methodology. The whole team of IRB(Re) is to be congratulated upon several weekends and long hours, long days to work with that, and several consultants that provided support as we moved to this new methodology. Very soon, we will have a special session to talk exclusively about those different methodologies. Throughout the year, we want everyone to be on the same page as we are now on that front.
On the next slide, we are going to be talking about some of the numbers comparing IFRS 4 with IFRS 17. I am not going to drill down too much, otherwise we are going to spend the whole video conference talking about the differences in methodology and not the company's results, which is the main objective today, of course. But in any event, if you look at both methodologies, the effect throughout time has improved the numbers for 2022 and worsened the numbers for 2023. But at the end of the day, both numbers were quite similar. For example, we have an effect for IFRS 17, which is the closure of the London offices. Even though it was positive for us, and in IFRS 4, we have a positive number at the bottom line. As for the IFRS 17, we have an accounting effect, which is quite negative, as you can see. Why?
Because it is a very large flow which is brought to present value. When that result will be reverted throughout 2024, as we conclude the transference of the portfolio to the British regulatory agencies. We cannot do both at the same time. We have to wait for the conclusion to account for. The accounting effect is but one example of the differences we will need to understand and tackle as we go through this transition. Now, what reassures us is that as we look at the numbers for 2022 and 2023, they are quite similar. In other words, the bottom line is similar. They are just being reported in different times. If you look at the right-hand side in equity has changed little when you compare both methods. It is the same company, so the numbers need to be the same. So equity shouldn't change, and it doesn't.
As I said, we will be learning throughout time how to use both methodologies at the same time as best as we can. Now, moving on to the next slide, if we may, and we will go back to our older ways of speaking. Now we see that net income for fourth quarter remained consistent in terms of numbers, and we closed the year at BRL 114 million, give or take the figure we were waiting for. We were expecting BRL 120, and we closed at BRL 114 for the last 12 months. It is important to reemphasize that this is a very volatile business. If you look at a single month or a single quarter, it is very deceiving. So if a month or a quarter is slightly below, it is a one-off situation. Our trend is usually positive.
At the end of the presentation today, I will report January of this year, and you will see that January is already running at a different level. But for the underwriting numbers for last year, we saw a positive number at the end of the year, BRL 155 million for the last 12 months. That shows that we still see positive numbers in the long run. Now I will turn the floor over to Castillo, who will be talking about our reinsurance strategy.
Thank you, Falcão. Good morning, everyone. In 2022, we decided to refocus on Brazil and Latin America. In our 85-year history, we have come to know Brazil well, its risks, the needs of the market, coverages, exposures, claims, loss ratios. It bears repeating that we have five major advantages.
We speak the client's language, we know the country's culture, we know the Brazilian legal system, and we have the authority to make decisions locally. And finally, we have the largest underwriting capacity in the local reinsurance market. In addition to Brazil, for 2024, we will prioritize Latin America, a market where we have a dedicated team, fluent in Spanish, and with knowledge of the region, its risks, and its catastrophic exposures. We have refined our strategy, adopting different practices for countries with different needs and opportunities, such as Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia, Bolivia, and Mexico. I believe Latin America could represent up to 20% of our premiums. Finally, the global market continues to be analyzed, and we maintain our strategy of developing non-proportional business without taking on large catastrophic exposures, thus managing our business portfolio.
I believe we had good opportunities in Europe, from where I have just returned, and we were quite well-received in Europe. Within our strategy of concentrating business in Brazil again, we can see on the next slide in the fourth quarter of the years 2021, 2022, and 2023, a drop in international business from 27% down to 16%, and then 10% in the fourth quarter of 2023. At the same time, we can see in the same period an increase in business in Brazil from 61% to 83%. We have therefore changed our strategy to concentrate 70% of our business in Brazil, 20% in Latin America, and 10% in other international exposures. We can see a reduction in the total premium from Q4 2022 to Q4 2023. This drop in premium is due to the portfolio cleanup, if you will, that was sped up in the business renewed in 2023.
As for renewals, although we accepted new businesses, we declined some unprofitable ones. We reduced our stake in others, always with the objective of having a more balanced portfolio with better quality and better profitability. Even so, we renewed 83% of all the deals we wanted to keep in our portfolio. Of the new contracts we prospected, we closed one out of every four contracts, or 25%, which is also an important sign as we open many doors. On the next slide, we can see the distribution or the breakdown for 2022 and 2023, with an emphasis on equity businesses, which now account for 37% of our portfolio. Our portfolio continues to be diversified across nine business lines in three geographies, Brazil, Latin America, and international. We can say that we have, in 2023, a smaller portfolio after that cleanup I just mentioned, but also more or much more profitable.
Now in 2023, I'm dedicated to Brazil. I have mapped out opportunities in Latin America. We intend in 2024 to develop those opportunities which have already been mapped out. We are finalizing the renewal for April and May and June also show promising opportunities for new businesses, always preserving our underwriting discipline. On the next slide, we analyze the history of our loss ratio track record for the last quarters 2022. We were impacted by the agro catastrophe in Brazil, which I've already mentioned in previous presentations.
In addition to that, in 2022, we still had impacts on contracts closed before 2020, which had an effect of almost BRL 1.3 billion on retained claims. In 2023, these contracts closed before 2020 represented BRL 713 million, which is still relevant, but accounts for about a fourth of the total claims. That's why in years before 2022, that number has been going down.
Undoubtedly, in our business, loss ratio rate is a major factor in achieving expected results. In the slide, we can see the reduction in claims from 104% in 2022 to 70% in 2023, which is the lowest rate in the series being analyzed. It's worth remembering that an insurer's loss ratio is driven by contracts signed in previous periods. It depends fundamentally on the risk assessment processes at the time they are presented, as well as on appropriate pricing. At the top right-hand side of the slide, we can see a quarter-on-quarter comparison. The claims ratio is gradually reducing, has reached in Q4 2023 a level of 55%, which is also the lowest ratio in the series. In the table below, we show the breakdown of claims by geography, where we can see that both claims in Brazil and abroad fell in 2023.
We believe that the actions we have taken to adjust prices, reduce exposures by canceling or reducing stakes in various contracts, in addition to aligning commercial conditions and technical changes in the renewed business, have driven a gradual improvement in the financial year.
On this slide, I would like to talk about our renewals. A large part of our contracts renews in January, and January 2024 was very good for our renewals. We managed to increase prices and increase our shares, which should create a greater volume of premiums in the future. Our agro deals renew in January and April, and this was very good as well, including an increase in our share in very good conditions. Latin America renews its deals in June and July. The retrocession deals renew in October. The optional business develop gradually. This calendar allows us to better use our resources. I'll now turn the floor to Rodrigo Botti.
Thank you, Castillo. Good morning to all. It's a pleasure to be here today and share information relating to Q4 2023.
On this slide, we present the provisions for claims, IBNR and OCR, and their ratios with the earned premiums. You will see that the ratio of reserves in view of our revenue is becoming more stable after what we did in the last few years to strengthen the provisions and to recover this ratio. This attests to our commitment to maintain provisions at adequate levels in view of the risks undertaken. On the next slide, we demonstrate the evolution of the cost of acquisition, which in Q4 2023 was BRL 374 million, as compared with BRL 249 million in Q4 2022. This increase has to do with technical accounts, which are specific to the life segment in Brazil, which were underwritten in previous years and are connected with the advancement on commissions. And you can see the values in gray here.
For 2023 as a whole, the cost of acquisition was BRL 1 billion and BRL 47 million, a 5% reduction relative to the same period in the previous year, in line with the strategy to improve the underwriting and control costs. On the lower part of the slide, you see our general and administrative expenses in Q4. Those expenses amounted to BRL 104 million. In 2023, we saw an increase by 7.4% in administrative expenses, and this was mainly because of the agreement signed with the DOJ in the first quarter of the year for BRL 25 million, and expenses with voluntary termination plans in Q2 and Q4, which amounted to BRL 13 million. If we exclude these one-off effects, administrative expenses totaled BRL 317 million, vis-a-vis BRL 330 million in the previous year, a reduce by 3.9%.
On the next slide, you see the quarterly evolution of the combined index, excluding the effects of the operations of LPT and the one-off effects. You can see the evolution of the non-life segment. The loss ratio, the most significant component of the combined index, has been improving despite the nature of our business, which always has a certain volatility. Loss ratio went from 94% in Q4 2022 to 55% in Q4 2023, a 39 percentage point drop, which attests to the effects of the portfolio overhaul. When we analyze the relationship between the cost of acquisition and the earn periods, we see that the commissioning index went from 18% in Q4 2022 to 35% in Q4 2023. As I said, this increase had to do with advancement on commissions of the life segment.
When we look at the acquisition in the non-life segment, the commissioning ratio is 23%. The general expenses, which includes administrative and taxes, has remained relatively stable vis-a-vis previous quarters. The combined index was 104% in Q4 2023, vis-a-vis 118% relative to Q4 2022. When we look only at the non-life business lines, the combined ratio is below 100% and was 96% in Q4 2023. This is a major milestone as it shows improvement in our operations. On the next slide, we present the combined index for the year as a whole. In 2023, the combined index was 109%, vis-a-vis 137% in the previous year, a 28 percentage point improvement. If we exclude the operations of LPT, the combined index is 106% in 2023, vis-a-vis 133% in the previous year.
This result is below our expectations, but attests to a significant improvement relative to the same period in the previous year. On the next slide, we show the evolution of the operating cash flow, which has improved in line with our expectations. The numbers in the last few quarters show an improvement relative to the same quarters in the previous year. In Q4, specifically, we see a seasonality in the operation, which makes the flow positive. Additionally, we have developed many actions to improve our collection, such as a change in culture, an improvement in processes, and a greater use of technology. We have improved many indicators very significantly. Relative to the previous quarter, operational credits overdue decreased by 11%. The net ones decreased by 47%, and deposits by third parties decreased by 33%. I now turn the floor over to Mr. Paulo Valle.
Good morning to all.
We are talking about the financial assets, and at the end of 2023, we had BRL 8.3 billion in investments. The allocation of these funds have to be done so that we can cover the technical provisions, and we hold approximately 60% in Brazil and 40% abroad. The financial and equity result at the end of Q4 2023 was BRL 125 million, a total of BRL 549 million in 2023. In comparison with the same quarter in 2022, and if we consider the non-recurring effects having to do with favorable court decisions, the financial result of 2023 is above 2022, despite the assets under management being a bit lower. BRL 9 billion, as you can see in orange. On the next slide, we see the breakdown of onshore and offshore assets. In December, the onshore assets accounted for 59% of the total, for BRL 4.9 billion.
The main assets are post-fixed bonds, 59%, then IPCA-linked bonds, 27%, and private credit indexed to the CDI plus spread with 12%. As for the onshore assets, they account for 41% of the total and are basically Brazilian sovereign bonds, 43%, American and Canadian T-bonds, 32% in dollars, and private credit, time deposits, and deposit certificates in different currencies, 22%. In this graph, we can see the gradual migration of offshore assets to onshore in view of our underwriting strategy to concentrate on the local market.
Onshore assets went from 58% to 59%, and offshore from 42% to 41% between December 2022 and December 2023. We will continue to see this happen in the next few years. We can also see an increase in the position of IPCA-linked bonds, and also a gradual increase in private credits in offshore and onshore. I will now turn the floor over to Thaís Peters.
Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here today with us, and we are going to talk about the regulatory ratios and capital management. First of all, we are going to talk about the sufficiency of adjusted net equity in relation to the minimum capital required. On the left-hand side, you see that gradually the indicator recovered throughout the year of 2023, and we went from BRL 18 million in December 2022 to BRL 534 million in December 2023. This result represents a margin of 46% above the minimum capital required. This reflects our capital management in the year of 2023. As you can see on the lower right-hand side, in December 2022, the capital required was BRL 1.56 billion, and it dropped to reach BRL 1.16 million in December 2023. BRL 1 billion, 167 million in 2023. That is our capital requirement drop in a year.
IRB has focused on risks that brought greater profitability and less cash burn. We also have to highlight the effect of the reduction in loss ratio and the effect it has for the risk of underwriting. On the next slide, you see the second regulatory indicator, which reflects the amount of assets that qualify by SUSEP to meet our actuarial commitments. The indicator for coverage of technical provisions had a sufficiency at the end of 2023 of BRL 438 million. The company has built a buffer to face the main financial commitment of the year, the payment of the debenture for BRL 487 million, which happened on the 16th of October. Of course, the margin was reduced, but the indicator still had sufficiency above what we saw in 2022. The company has been implementing measures to improve the sufficiency margin, given the volatility of our business.
I now turn the floor over to Falcão for his final remarks.
Thank you, Thaís. Let us talk about 2024. In this year, we expect to grow without reducing prices. If this has to happen, we are not going to grow as much. We believe that the market is going to be hard. The interest rate is still high, which allows us to have good returns for our reserves without having to run more risks. We are going to improve our risk management and our capital usage, just as we did in 2023. We intend to allocate capital per business line, and we have to get return on capital in each deal we make. We want to end 2024 with a growth in premiums aligned with the market, plus an increase in profit, which should be substantial.
We are moving to a new level, and I would also like to report something on January 2024. In January 2024, in terms of IFRS 4, we improved in terms of business outlook. In January 2024, we reported a net income of BRL 36.8 million, and you can see that this is a new level for us. In terms of underwriting, BRL 45 million, with a growth in premiums as well. The combined index was 97%. In non-life, 95.3%, and in life it was even greater. Before we move to the questions, I would like to say that we are changing our management structure, and I asked Rodrigo Botti to take on the challenge to head innovation in the company. Botti is no longer going to be the CFO as of tomorrow.
I am going to take on this position for at least six months, and Botti is going to focus not only on innovation but also on system integration. We prefer to focus on the future and on the efficiency in system integration. With this, we are finished this presentation, and we open for questions. Thank you very much. We will now start the Q&A session.
To ask a question, please press on the Q&A icon and send your question in writing. You can also ask your question by activating your microphone when requested to do so. Questions should be asked all at once. Our first question comes from Mr. Guilherme Grespan from sell-side J.P. Morgan. Your microphone has been enabled, sir.
Good morning. Good morning for the presentation and for taking my question. I have a question looking more at 2024 and going forward.
From the release, I got the feeling that you are going to focus on growth, and I would like to see what you talk about in the opportunities abroad. You had been giving a guidance that you would have a 10% exposure to international markets, but you have been clearer now, and this market would probably be Europe. That is what you said. Could you give us a little bit more color about the opportunities ahead of you and if it is because of the risk swap with the retrocessionaires, or if it is something you are doing more actively in the market? What type of segment are you thinking about in Europe? Is it going to be life, non-life? Do you have appetite for catastrophic risk? Tell us a little bit more about the international expansion you expect in 2024.
This is Daniel Castillo. Thank you for your question, Guilherme.
A year ago, when we started the portfolio cleanup, we talked about concentrating our business in Brazil, 80% in Brazil, 15% in Latin America, and 5% international, that is outside Latin America. What happened last year is that we focused on Brazil in the portfolio overhaul, and we took the opportunity during 2023 to map out our opportunities in Latin America, and this is what we did. We studied, we traveled abroad, and we saw that the opportunities in Latin America that are open to us are even bigger than we saw initially. On the other hand, in a recent trip to Europe, I met people I used to know from other positions I held from other markets. We saw that there is plenty of opportunity in Europe.
We believe, therefore, that it's not only Latin America that is going to present us with opportunities that, by the way, we have mapped out, but in Europe, we are going to have opportunities as well. In Europe, we are going to be followers, whereas in Brazil and Latin America, we are going to follow our strategy and we are going to be the leaders in the market. We have seen these opportunities. Instead of 80% Brazil, 20% internationally, we are thinking about 70% Brazil, 20% Latin America, and 10% international. And we expect to grow in those areas, in those segments where we feel comfortable, where we can assess our exposure and establish the right price, always ensuring profitability. We don't want to do anything far-fetched or crazy.
That is very clear, Castillo. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Gabriel Vianna from sell-side of Citibank. And his question is: In Q1 2024, we have heard many worrisome news about losses in the rural business because of El Niño. Now the quarter is over, can you give us an idea about these concerns? Have they materialized? Have there been pressures on the results of the quarter?
This is Daniel Castillo again. As regards agro, and this goes for all the business lines that have catastrophic exposure, we have first to understand the exposure. We have to be able to price it, and when we price an exposure, we should be able to include profitability as well. So in this case, in agro, in rural, we studied it very much in the last few years. We were able to understand the exposure, we were able to price it accordingly, given our models, and we include profitability.
What we see in rural today, converge with our pricing. The exposure to El Niño is moderate so far. We think we have priced an exposure, and we are not concerned about that.
Thank you. Let's move on to the next question from Eduardo Nishio, from sell-side analyst from Genial Investimentos. Eduardo, you can unmute your mic. You may carry on.
Good morning. Can you hear me? I have two questions. Good morning. The first, about the commission or commissions. I'd like to know the reason behind this advancement in commissions, because that sort of affects your float level. And also, if we could look ahead and see that number going down at a more significant way. And given you have already mentioned that, perhaps stay below the historical level of 20% that you had in terms of commissions. And my second question about the schedule of the tax credits you have reduced. You have reduced the timeline for that significantly. I'd like to know why you're doing that. That has an impact on your implicit profit, correct?
So what were the underlying reasons for you to do that, changing the schedule?
Eduardo, this is Falcão speaking. Good morning. Well, as for the commissions question, when we have that distorted number, it comes from the live portfolio. We have been revisiting our live portfolio, and we have a contract line, which, as you said, implied an advancement. That is an older contract format, and it sort of distorts the final number. So throughout time, as those contracts lose significance, the commission levels should resume normal levels. But for the non-live portfolio, it is all within track, no oscillations. As for the tax credit schedule, I will ask Natasha from our RI team to send you the explanatory note about that. I think you used a word which was a significant change. That is not how we see it.
As we see it, from one year to another, there were minor changes. If you look again for the whole period, it is about the same level. A bit of a change in terms of use from the beginning to the end, but it is slight variations. Those tax credits, once again, they affect cash generation and not the result itself. Okay. But I will ask Natasha, in any event, to send you the respective explanatory note. Thank you for your questions.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Kaio Prato, sell-side analyst from UBS. You may carry on, sir.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have a question about the underwriting figure linking back to the agribusiness question. What can we expect for 2024 for the full year? You may have priced the agribusiness exposure well. We may expect some negative exposure.
At the same time, underwriting has improved. So I would like to understand a bit better what kind of scenario, what kind of outlook you see going forward for 2024 in terms of growing that line. As you have already gotten to a combined ratio of 95%, how close can we get to that this year?
This is Falcão. Good morning. Thank you for your question. When we look ahead, as we have been saying, we have been pricing the combined ratio at 95%. So there is going to be a growth in premium this year. We are estimating that growth at around 10%, at least, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation. So I would say we are going to be getting close to a higher number in BRL. But again, we are pricing 95 because there is a sort of a tail effect. So we expect to reach slightly higher numbers than that.
We can go into more detail if you want, but in the overall numbers, that is what I can tell you now.
Okay, that sounds good. Thank you, Falcão.
Next question from Fábio Oliveira, buy-side analyst from BNP Paribas Asset.
What is the forecast for the sale of the London office, and when should we expect it to be concluded?
Fábio , good morning. Thank you for your question. I think it is worth mentioning, both , London and Buenos Aires, we have not sold the branches. What we did in London and Buenos Aires, what we did with London, we closed an operation we had that for four years had been managing the runoff of a portfolio, basically only that. So we found a buyer for that risk to manage that runoff, and we had a positive result, which was accounted for in December.
The reserves we had for that runoff provision here in-house were higher than what the buyer of that risk requested to take on that risk. That balancing reserves led to a positive result. We also transferred the employees based in London to the buyer of the portfolio. The way that purchase, that transaction happened, is slightly slower than we would have wanted. We started transferring risk via an LPT contract, and it will only be concluded throughout the year of 2024 as we transfer the portfolio along with the British authorities. There are several phases that have to happen. We hope to conclude the sale of the portfolio, effectively speaking, throughout 2024, actually. But the effect of that risk has already been excluded from our portfolio in December 2023. As for Buenos Aires, that is a slightly different situation. We have a subsidiary down there.
That subsidiary obviously had local employees. We have maintained two offices working from home to manage the runoff of that local portfolio, and we have Argentina operating reinsurance through IRB Brasil. There was no sale per se. We only had a portfolio being operated by a local reinsurance, now under runoff, being managed by those two employees working from home and from our team based in Rio.
Thank you for your question. I would like to turn the floor over to Mr. Falcão to answer the questions that arrived on the chat. There are some questions we received via chat, and I will try to go through them. There are some questions about loss ratio. We prefer to look at the combined in ratio rather than specifically loss ratio. Willy Jordan. I was asked about Willy Jordan.
He is fighting against a very nasty disease. He has been very brave. We do not know what the end of his treatment is looking like. Willy is very dear to us. We are in constant touch with him. There is a question about the retrocession in January. When you look at the result of a month, it can be misleading. The retrocession in January was one contract, one property contract, for which we had a greater retro.
It is a one-off thing. It is not a trend. It is important for us when we look at the profit monthly, at the risk, we cannot mistake a one-off thing with a trend. We are now going to report on the months. For example, going from one month to the next. We are going to look at three months, six months, one year. It is a better way to look at the company rather than on a monthly basis. We are not going to provide guidance. All we can say is that we believe we are going to grow by 10% and the combined ratio is going to be in the region of 95. This is what we can say at this point. In terms of commissioning in January, we got a question about that, and I have just answered it. It is a one-off distortion on the life portfolio.
The precatory are going to be received shortly. The government has now a schedule. There are procedures in court for us to receive these precatory bonds. We believe this is going to take place in April. As regards the payment of dividends, we draw your attention to the fact that we have accumulated losses, and we hope this will come to an end so that we can start paying dividends again. At the end of 2024, we should have finished to accumulate losses, and we might begin to pay dividends.
Just one more minute. Let me check the other questions. I think I have answered the questions that came through the chat. I would like to thank you all for attending this call, for participating, and I would like to leave you with two messages. We are very excited with 2024.
We are confident that we are going to take the company to a new level so that in 2025, we can stop looking backwards. Very shortly, we are going to run a session, maybe May, maybe in July, maybe in June, and we can discuss these new ways of doing our accounts, the financial standards, and we can talk about the future of IRB-Re. Good morning to all, and have a great week. The video conference to discuss the results of Q4 2023 of IRB-Re is now ended. The company's investor relations department remains available to take any questions you might have. Thank you very much. Have a-