Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Coface SA 9-month 2023 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Xavier Durand, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good evening, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. You will have seen now on the headlines that we're reporting close to EUR 190 million net profit in the first nine months of the year, which represents EUR 60.9 million in the third quarter, 2023. Another strong quarter for Coface in a changing environment. If I go through the numbers very quickly, you see, turnover for the first nine months is up 7.1%, all other things equal, with premiums growing 6.6%. Now, what's new here is, I think, in the third quarter, we've seen negative client activity. That's driven by, on one hand, lower inflation.
I think the headline news today, highlights this pretty well, and a significant slowdown in the economy, which is, weighing on the premium growth, particularly in the sectors in which we traditionally operate. There's a number of good metrics, out there. The client retention is, still at a, at a record, close to 94%. Pricing is still down, but better than last year. We'll go through this a little bit further. And, and more importantly, I think the, the growth continues in our business information, which is, at close to fifteen, 14.7, exactly, at constant FX. Factoring had slowed down earlier in the year. I think we had the opportunity to, to, comment this already and is up 3.8% for the year.
But clearly, we're seeing better growth now in the fees services business than we are in the trade credit insurance. On the loss side, you see a 40.2% net loss ratio for the first nine months. That's up 1.4 points from last year. Last year, we still had the tail end of the government programs payout, so clearly, losses are a bit higher than last year. That brings the net combined ratio to 66%, which is just slightly over what we had last year with the same comments. The gross loss ratio at 38.8 is up 3.3 points with an environment which is getting closer to the historic average.
The cost ratio is at the lowest it's been for us, at 25.7%. That's helped by high reinsurance commissions in this quarter and the business mix with better fees, while we continue to invest in our Build to Lead. I would say, the final stretch of our Build to Lead strategic plan. That brings the net combined ratio to 66.8, which is 3 points better on the loss ratio. And then, just a word on Israel. We have EUR 4.6 billion of exposures, not a very big country for us. It is actually significant in the business information activity, where we have a historic presence as one of the credit bureaus of the country. It's historic.
It's not the high-growth part of our business, but it represents about a quarter of our total business information revenues. Net-net, so you see 189.7 annualized return on average tangible equity of 14.1%, so well above the midpoint in our cycle targets. You've seen the news on Moody's, having upgraded our rating from A2 to A1 with a stable outlook. And we take this as a recognition of, I would say, the work that's been done on risk management, the diversification of the business model that is ongoing. Obviously, it's still early days, and basically, the general impression on how the business is run.
We have added a page on page five, and I'm going to turn it over to Phalla Gervais, our CFO, to talk about it, and this is about insurance finance expense. This is a new line with IFRS 17, which has been drawing a lot of discussion. So she's going to try to put some clarity as to how this thing actually works. Phalla?
Good evening, everybody. I think on this page, we had on IFRS page, we had a couple of questions last quarter, so I hope that these ones will clarify a bit. We know that IFRS 17 has introduced an item which is the discounting of the reserve, and then, of course, the unwind of the discounting, which is also called moving forward, with the, I think, specificity that, of course, the discount on the reserve goes to the last line, but the unwind of discount goes to the financial expense line. What we want to illustrate here is what really it really means for Coface. So the first chart is the amount of the moving forward impact in the interest expense line, quarter after quarter, so this is a quarterly amount. Of course, the unwind impact is depending on two items.
The first one is the level of reserve, so once you increase the reserve, the unwind will increase. And the level of interest rate, as I think since two years, the interest has been increasing. This also drives the level of the unwind effect. If you can see, I think, doing this in 2023, now that the interest rate, especially the last two quarters, the interest rate increase has paused a little bit. You can see that the level is pretty much stabilized. The second chart is basically showing the convergence or the kind of convergence between the two items. Of course, you discount it at inception, and you unwind the discount over time.
This is really our numbers, and if you look at it from a cumulative point of view, over the past, what, 7 quarters, you can see in green bar, the discount effect of the reserves, and in blue bar, the cumulative unwind of the discount effect, which goes, of course, in the interest expense line. After 7 quarters, given the duration, the very short duration of our business, which is 2 or 3 years max, you can see that it's a kind of convergence. Of course, it all depends on the interest rate movement. If interest rate movement is going a different way, there will be a lag, but after a couple of quarters, you can see that it will converge more or less. I hope that it clarifies some of the questions that you had in the second quarter.
Okay, thank-
Now let's go back to the usual results.
All right, so I'm gonna move to page 7 on the, on the growth. So pretty much the numbers I mentioned, 7.1% turnover growth in the first 9 months cumulative. As I said, trade credit and insurance premiums is growing 6.6%. The other revenues are growing actually faster at 9.8% versus the first 9 months of the year. And as I said, business information is up 14.7%. Third-party debt collection, which we are now starting to market more aggressively because there's more demand, obviously, and we think there's gonna be more, is up 41.3%. Small number, but significant growth rate.
Factoring is up 3.8, and then the insurance fees we get from the insured clients are also growing 10.2% at constant FX. So, back in percentage, higher as a percentage of premiums than it was before. If I go to page 8, and we look at the growth per region, you see lower numbers on those pages than the ones we've seen in the prior quarters. The bulk of the slowdown is more marked, I would say, in Europe than it is in the rest of the world. But you see Western Europe at 7% now. Northern Europe, which is Germany, probably the most impacted country right now with a large industrial base, at 4%. Central Europe is negative.
Now, you have to correct that number for the exclusion of Russia that we're progressively doing, so that you have a 1.7% growth if you exclude the Russian numbers. Middle East and Africa, still double digits. We see that these countries tend to be impacted later when there's a slowdown in Europe, at least in this case, it started with the industrial base in Northern Europe. North America, 6.9, Asia Pacific, 6.5. And Latin America, which had been hovering at the double digits, strong double-digit numbers, actually, over the course of the last year or two, is now down back to 6% with a significant slowdown in the prices of in particularly metals and commodities.
If you go to page 9, the way we look at the business in terms of components, you see a bit better new production for the first 9 months. There's more demand out there, and clearly we see a little bit better numbers than last year, which at this point it seems like it was the lowest year we've had. Retention rates still at a record at 93.9%. There is pressure in the market. The market is extremely competitive. So you know, clients are still seeing, I would say, in the last 3 years, that they've had very benign claims, and that's clearly weighing on price as well.
You're seeing that as a -2 for the first nine months, compares favorably to the -3 we had last year, but still it's a negative number. And then the volume effect, which is really the turnover of our own clients, is sharply declining from where it was last year in the first nine months, with the particular impact of, saying, Q3, that it was actually negative. So there is a- there's something shifting in the world here, as both inflation is down, and I think the volumes that are traded are also down, particularly, I would say, on the B2B industrial space. In terms of the losses on page 10, the gross loss ratio stands at 38.8.
I've been talking about normalization for 2.5 years, almost like right now, so it continues. We've seen the number of claims increase since the mid-2021. They are now about 8% lower than in 2019, but the claims amount is now similar, so slightly bigger claims. The trend has been that smaller companies started facing more difficulties. It's now moving into the middle market, I would say, kind of, space. We continue to reserve at a pretty high level. You see that on the bottom right-hand side chart. Without the discount, we would have been close to 77%, a little bit lower with the discount effect under IFRS 17.
The bonuses we get from prior vintages, as you can see in the intense blue line at 36.8, minus 36.8, is less than we got in the last 3 years, and reverting slowly to, I would say, where we were before the COVID crisis, although it's still pretty good. If I look at the annual loss ratios on page 11, there's really not that much to say. We know that from the prior quarters, Latin America has been the hotspot with a large event at the beginning of the year in Brazil. But the rest is pretty much benign, and I'd like to go to page 12, where you see the quarterly sequence.
At this stage, you can see that the four largest, more stable markets at the bottom have pretty much a benign story quarter by quarter, so not much to report here. I think it's attributable to the work the company's been doing on underwriting. On the top are the three smaller and traditionally more volatile markets. And again, there's not that much to report. I mean, I spoke about Latin America, where I think we've been discussing what's happened there through the last couple quarters. A bit higher this quarter, as we see the lower commodity prices in metals and in soft commodities starting to have an impact on the economy. So that's for the losses. On the cost side, you see that quarter on quarter, our costs in total are up 4%.
Our internal costs are 8.8, so we're in a situation where, I would say, the industrial prices, B2B prices, are now under pressure. You've seen a sharp decrease in, I would say, prices and in volume, so there's a slowdown. At the same time, you see prices of services are still seeing inflation. So we have inflation, wage inflation, which accounts for about 2.5 points of the total growth in the cost. We also have services inflation, and then we continue to invest. I mean, we haven't lost the plot. The company continues to build up its technology, its business information, and we don't think we should change our plans just because of the environment.
At this point, so the gross cost ratio for the first nine months is pretty close to where it was last year, just slightly below. The business continues to enjoy, I think, a pretty good position from that standpoint. I'm gonna turn it over to Phalla for the next few slides.
If we look at the reinsurance results, I think we comment on the premium cession rate at 27%, claims cession rate at almost 25% here, what we can say is that we go back to the adjusted application of our third party reinsurance treaties. That leads us to a reinsurance result at -EUR 70 million year to date. Net combined ratio, the next page, at 66%, you can see that we have a slight increase of the net loss ratio that is partially offset by, by the decrease of the net cost ratio. I think the decrease, that you comment, commented, net cost ratio at 25.7%. Cost discipline, we're still investing, and we still have a higher reinsurance commission.
If we move to page 15, financial portfolio, the mark to market of our investment portfolio stands at EUR 2.9 billion. If you look at the asset allocations has not changed, with bonds at 76%, liquid asset at 15%, so we still have, so we're still very long in liquid, also in cash, and we're redeploying it. Equity at 3%, and we are decreasing, continuously decreasing investment in real estate funds. What is noticeable is, of course, the increase, the continuous increase of the accounting yield, quarter after quarter, which is now standing at 1.7%, or is the recurring income at almost EUR 50 million. Noting that the new money is now invested at almost 4%. Insurance finance expense at EUR 30 million, I'm not commenting it. We just discussed about that.
Realized gain, so realized gain and loss at -EUR 10 million, out of which, I think we have recorded -EUR 25.8 million related to the mark to market of the real estate investment funds. This represents an impairment of approximately 50% of our investment there. On equity base, as we still have to account for the hyperinflation, so application of IAS 29, this hyperinflation in Turkey and in Argentina service entity, and it accounts for -EUR 10 million. Lead us to a strong net income year to date, September, at almost EUR 190 million. You can see that operating income standing at 273. Tax rate has not changed at 24%. Return on average tangible equity, so the average equity is moving from EUR 2.08 billion to EUR 1.984 billion.
Of course, we paid our annual dividend, and we accounted for the year to date, net income. Based on this, the return on average tangible equity moved up from 12.7% to 14.1%.
So just to wrap this up on page 20. Again, I think, you know, a good quarter, a good first nine months of the year in an environment which is getting more volatile and more challenging. The TCI revenues are resisting, but there's a sharp slowdown in the economy. We have good retention. We have good diversification in terms of geography and sectors. The combined ratio is holding up really nicely at 66%. We're seeing double-digit growth in the fees revenues, fee business revenues. The annualized return on tangible equity is really good at 14.1. We are seeing a turn in the credit cycle.
I think we described this, the last quarter in the outlook, and so it's not really a surprise, but it is there. We're seeing tighter financing conditions, which are starting to bite in the economy, reducing inflation, activity levels that are less than last year, both price and volume. We think the full impact on the economy is yet to come. We see more geopolitical instability. I don't need to comment on the events in the Middle East. They haven't had an impact so far, but I mean, it's anybody's guess as to where the conflict goes in terms of the future. We've been upgraded by Moody's. We're happy with this. It's a recognition of the relevance of our strategy.
We're seeing now that the economy is slowing, we're starting to see a difference in growth rates between the fees business and the insurance business, which historically has had, you know, a growth which looked more like GDP. So, I think, you know, validates again our view that this is something we should continue to invest in. And with that, I'm gonna stop here and open it for questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now go to your first question. One moment, please. Your question comes from the line of Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you for another excellent quarter. I had two really small questions and one slightly. And the reinsurance, can you talk about the reinsurance renewals, you know, whether we should start penciling in lower, much lower commissions, you know, which reduce your expense ratio, and, you know, what will happen there? The second is, did I understand correctly, the EUR 25 million year-to-date impairment on real estate funds is 50%, five zero, of your investment there? And I, I-
15.5.
Oh, fifteen. Okay, sorry. Sorry, you see my... I'd better get a hearing aid. Thank you. And then the last two more then. The gross loss ratio and the growth. So the gross loss ratio of 38%, which at this stage in the cycle, and I know you've been saying it's getting more normal, but I kind of assume we can't be that far from a kind of fully more normal level. 38% is an extraordinary number. I just wonder whether you could reflect on this and kind of compare it with your experience and say, well, yes, it is a really much better company than back in 2019 or whenever, when the ratios were clearly a lot higher.
And then the other question you might say, I can't comment because it's looking forward, but you might give us some indication. The turnover, should we start penciling in declines in turnover going forward? Q3 was -3%. That's it. Thanks.
Yeah, so thanks for those questions. I mean, I think Phalla answered the real estate question. It's, by the way, the percentage real estate in our book is gone from 8-9% down to 6%. So we're- we've been managing this for the last 9 months. Actually more than that, and I think I highlighted this at one of our quarterly calls, right? In terms of reinsurance, I mean, it's early days because the reinsurance renewals, as you know, happen right around the end of the year, right? So I don't have any comment to make, but I think we have had, you know, very consistent performance, as you highlight, by the way, in your last question, in terms of underwriting. So I think we have arguments to put forward.
Obviously, others will bring in, but it's too early for me to give you an indication. I think we have a good story, though. In terms of the Gross Loss Ratio at 38%, it is, as we said, the last three years have seen a slow normalization, you know? But I think the... as we said, we're seeing a shift in the market at this point, and you are seeing the policies of higher rates and tighter financing by the central banks start to bite. There's still a lot of cash where they-- there was a lot of cash when this started out in company's balance sheet.
I don't think the central banks are inclined to let go those policies before they are absolutely sure that the inflation is gonna come down, because they don't wanna do this exercise twice, and then they've got credibility at stake. So I think, you know, the impact of this is probably going to continue in the future, and we expect that, we expect the cycle to continue. In terms of turnover, I mean, clearly, so we're impacted directly, I would say, by what happens in the economy. So inflation translates, by the way, directly into nominal turnover for our clients and impacts our premiums just one for one.
Same for volumes, and same for actually prices, the real price that they are able to pass on to their clients and how much margin they regain for themselves. So, the way our clients report their numbers to us varies by region, but I would say there's always going to be a lag between the time that they see their turnover and the time that they report it to us, and we actually bill them on that revised base. So I would expect this to go on for some time. In the context of a slowing economy and the reporting time, I think we're going to see lower turnover for some time. I think that's your questions.
That is. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We have a follow-up question. One moment, please. The question comes from Michael Huttner from Berenberg.
I'm very sorry. I'd like to-
Hello.
Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm hogging the line. I'd keep it brief. Three points, Solvency, Americanas, to get a feel for how much I should or maybe should not adjust. And just a very simple number, the tangible net asset value on which you're earning the 14%. Solvency, I know you don't report. It was 192 at the half year. Just to get a feeling for the trend, it's—I always see it as a kind of... It's more a comfort check. Americanas, you highlighted the, that was in the 140-whatever Q1 combined loss ratio, but it was gross loss ratio, and I can't remember the number. I just wondered if you could...
It, it'll give me some comfort when I think in terms of combined ratio for next year. And those are my three questions, and I'm sorry to hog the line.
You want to take those questions, Phalla?
I will start with the tangible NAV. Is that what your question, Michael?
Yes, please.
Yeah, I think we probably in 12.9. Is that your question for the seventh quarter?
EUR 12.9 a share?
Yeah.
Wow! So just to understand, you're earning 14% and change on 12.9, I mean, I know it should be average, but 12.9 at tangible and a net asset value.
We'll take it offline with-
Sure.
Thomas, yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Thanks.
The question on Americanas, on how much-
I don't think we disclosed the amount of the file, no? I mean, we—I think we... I don't think we did, no?
No, I don't think we did. We see that it was the first time that we reached the year, the first layer of the year.
It's the first time we reached, yeah, the, the layer of retention.
That's right
... that we have in the reinsurance treaty.
Okay. Well, that's fine. That's, that's enough.
We will help out.
Yeah, that's a help. And on Solvency, just to get a feel for the trend, because that's sensitive to outlooks, isn't it?
The trend-
The trend of what? Because, you know, we booked everything on Lojas.
Sorry. So, it's a very clumsy question, and I'm really sorry about this, but, the, the, the way I read Solvency is, often it includes you're looking forward kind of view of combined ratio. So it's a, it's a polite way of asking for your outlook, really. At, at half year, it was 192%, and I'm just wondering whether, and I know you don't report it quarterly, whether it's up or down.
Yeah, so you know that we don't disclose it in Q3. However, we have not changed at all the profile of our investment portfolio, so we didn't taken any additional risk. The profile of business is probably even getting a little bit better, so I don't see much changes since Q2 in terms of Solvency ratio. Is that we provided some answers.
That's fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you, Phalla, thank you to Xavier.
Thank you.
Do we have a question from Michael now?
Sorry.
Thank you. We will now go to your next question. Your next question comes from Benoit Valleaux from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening, everyone. Just two additional questions on my side, maybe first one on Solvency again. Sorry, but just try to understand, because you mentioned the fact that turnover is increasing, but due to lower inflation. So, does it mean nevertheless, that Solvency should go up a little bit? I mean, what is the sensitivity of your Solvency to inflation? Maybe that'll be my first question. Second question, just to come back also, sorry, on the next insurance renewals. Just to understand if you plan to change anything in your insurance program structure in terms of maximum exposure per event or these kind of things.
You mentioned the fact that for the first time, you reach your coverage with Americanas, but do you plan to change anything on that or not? And maybe just to come back on... Yeah. Sorry.
No, go ahead.
Loss ratio in Latin America. You mentioned, though, we see that there is some increase in Q3. Maybe you mentioned the fact that it's partly leading to a change in price on commodities, just to understand if you believe that you should still have a quite high level of loss ratio for the next few quarters or in Latin America or not? Thank you.
You're talking about Latin America?
Exactly. Sorry, keep going again.
Okay, okay, okay, I got it. Okay. Well, let me start with solvency. So, I mean, the way our solvency is mainly, or the capital requirements in our business is mainly driven by the exposures, the risk exposures that we have, right? So, to the extent that, I would say it's ultimately the exposures will reflect the underlying transactions of our clients, but that's not that's not an immediate adjustment. That's something that takes a while, and takes dialogues with our clients. Do they over, I would say, medium term, need less commitments from us? That would drive lower exposures, that would drive lower solvency requirements, but that's not a short-term, that's not a short-term thing.
In terms of reinsurance renewals, I mean, I think we've thought long and hard about our program, so the, you know, we're looking for long-term stability. Are we gonna change one thing or here and there? Yes, every year we do. But I again, this is too early to comment on. And then in terms of losses in Latin America, I mean, it's typically one of the most volatile segments in our portfolio. It's cyclical because also it's a part of the world that is highly exposed to commodities. I think we highlight this on literally every call. So when commodity prices move as they do now, up or down, it always creates some friction.
So, I mean, I see nothing I would say unusual or that we're not, we're not, aware of. It's been actually quite benign for the last few years, but I think losses in general have been quite benign in the last few years. When that happens, we work with our clients as we usually do, and we basically stay very close with them and adjust our risk exposure to what we believe is reasonable in a market like this. And then we go through the game of renewals at the end of the year and decide, you know, whether we can make those programs right. But, I think these are not cycles that play out over a quarter.
These are things that play along economic cycles with the adjustments that we can make on our underwriting. So, that's as much as I'm able to say.
Okay, thank you. May I ask maybe a quick follow-up question on, on, on turnover, if I may? Two question or two, two small questions. The first one, is it fair to assume that, we should have maybe still some price decrease next year for everybody? Because when you see the trend in terms of, in terms of number of claims and, and your good combined ratio, and in your main, say, geographies, I mean, is it from your point of view, a fair assumption? And maybe the second question regarding a new production, I will assume that in current environment, there should be an increasing demand of coverage. We seem to start to first some rebound in new production this year.
I mean, do you expect to increase further your new production next year or to remain maybe more conservative, more cautious by, I would say-
I mean, look, I think it's-
Production?
Yeah, I mean, I think the two questions are kind of linked in a way, because on price, as I pointed out in the presentation, when you look at it from a client standpoint, you look at the last three years and you say, "Well, the loss has been pretty benign, right? So I'm entitled to ask for better prices." And that's not just us, I mean, it's an industry situation, right? And then over long term, our prices tend to come down regularly over the last 20 years. On average, they tend to come down every year. So, I don't see anything changing that picture. In terms of new production, there is more demand. Again, there's a lot of competition.
For the same reasons that I explained on price, there's a lot of competition in the market. So we remain thoughtful about how we underwrite. I mean, you know, we want to create long-term, profitable relationships with clients that we're gonna be able to partner with for a long time. And at the same time, we're not here to just, you know, drive short-term volumes or anything like this. And by the way, as you see, only 7% or 6% or 7% of our book shifts, you know, from one year to the other. So the impact of what we could do on new production is always gonna be the second order of magnitude on the turnover of the business, right?
Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you. We will now go to the next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from the line of Hadley Cohen from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes. Hi, Hadley.
Ah, perfect. A few quick questions, please. So firstly, Xavier, I think you mentioned effectively that the loss experience is normalizing, but it's, you know, almost back to normal. I think the only sort of real difference now is the still low level of large loss activity. And I'm just wondering if you could quantify the extent to which large loss activity is below average levels? i.e., what is average levels and what are you seeing right now? Second question, more for Phalla, possibly. The IFE impact in the third quarter was EUR 15 million or just over EUR 15 million, from what I can tell. But when I look at the top chart on slide 5, it suggests that the 3Q impact is only about EUR 11 or 12 million.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting something, but can you just help me understand the difference there? And how to—what's the, what's the right number to use to sort of extrapolate going forward? Third question, the ordinary investment income was EUR 18 million. Investment income was about EUR 18 million, I think, in the third quarter. And if I'm right, given your current reinvestment rates, that should be pushing closer to mid- to high EUR 20 million per quarter going forward, assuming bond yields stay where they are. Is that the right math that I'm thinking? Are there any sort of funnies within that that I should be aware of? And then just a final question, please, are there any funnies that I should be aware of for the final quarter of the year?
Seasonality on expenses or any expectation of further negative revals on the real estate portfolio or anything like that? Thank you.
I'll take the first one, and I'll leave Phalla to take the next three. But in terms of loss experience, I think I don't have a number to share with you in terms of what the midpoint of the cycle would be for medium or large losses. I mean, we don't typically go into that. The other thing I would point out is, there's no such thing as being in the middle of the cycle. I mean, the middle cycle is where you are after you've gone through the whole cycle. So it's ups and downs, so there's no... What can I say? There's no absolute truth in being at the middle. I think what I'm commenting on is the trends, right?
I mean, is what we're seeing in the marketplace, and we are. So on one hand, we observe the trends, and we try to predict and forecast them, and on the other hand, we have a team that's trying to work with those and try to make sure that our clients can trade safely. And then what we get at the end in our loss line is the combination of these two things. We can't ignore the environment. The environment is absolutely critical, and when the tide rises, we rise with the tide. But we can minimize or, you know, the way or optimize the way we navigate those trends. So I'm not answering your question, I know, but but at least I just wanted to point those things to you.
I'm gonna turn it to Phalla here.
I would take the first one, which is the IFE. You know, in the IFE, you have to ... The moving forward that we have described on page 5 is the probably key item, and probably the most predictable one. But it's not the only item in the IFE. You also have the adjustments on the interest rate that has been locked in, that goes and smooth the IFE effect as well. So this is why in the IFE, if you have a couple of items going there, more important one being the moving forward, and then the other ones I can take it offline to get there.
So just to be clear on that one, sorry, thanks for that. But just to be clear on that point, is, does that mean... Which number should we be using to extrapolate? Should we be using the one in the chart on slide 5, or the EUR 15 million impact in the third quarter?
I think you can take the page five one.
Okay, perfect.
Okay?
Thank you.
Then in terms of investment income, I think, you know, I don't give you any forward-looking, but it is true, and you've seen that quarter after quarter, our accounting yield is increasing, and we're continuing to invest at a higher rate. So yes, we do expect some increase in recurring income. This is clear, and this is true. In terms of Q4, for couple of things, I think usually you have some seasonality costs, because in Q4, especially if you're doing a good year, you're due for more bonuses and this type of compensation. So you usually, in terms of seasonality, if you look at the past couple of years, Q4 shows a higher cost ratio than the other quarters.
Then, for the reason that, you know, it's hard to explain, Q4 tends to be a little bit lower in terms of net income than the other quarter. But again, this one, you know, no one knows. Last year, for instance, in Q4, we have booked partially Americanas coming in, so it really depends. I cannot-
Uh, yeah.
I cannot comment on this one, but the only thing we can say is, yes, on cost side, usually you have some seasonality.
Very helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now go to the next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from the line of Phil Ross from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Hopefully you can hear me. It's just one question on net loss ratio, please. It seems to be holding up very well year on year, despite the normalization that you talk about. In one of the previous questions you answered to talk about the time lag for client revenue reporting, as it flows through from clients and, and flows into your top line. I wondered if this lag effect is the same for claims and losses? I might have thought that clients are maybe quicker to report claims than they might be to report revenues, but maybe I'm being too cynical there. So just, yeah, any thoughts on the, the time for, for claims to flow through would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, in terms of claims, I think we commented this a lot, particularly in the first years when I was around, and we were seeing a lot more volatility in the small emerging markets. Typically it varies by region, but clients, you know, the payment terms on receivables go from, say, I don't know, one to two months in some markets like the US to up to six or maybe more in some emerging markets, like in Asia. So for there to be a claim, the payments delay has to be expired, there has to be a missed payment, and then there has to be some kind of a communication between the seller and the buyer as to why there is delayed payment.
There's a time for the seller to log in a claim with us, the time it takes for us to take a look at it and whether it's serious, and et cetera, et cetera. And then sometimes they have grace periods or, you know, they're allowed to declare the claims later, depending on their own internal stuff. So it can take a bit of time as well to get the claims that are relevant to events happening at, you know, at a certain point in time.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now go to the next question. The next question comes from Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
This is my last chance, but thank you so much. And they're really simple. The first one is, yeah, competitors, you know, the competitive environment. I'm obviously under the mistaken impression that there are only three, Atradius, yourself, and Atradius, but maybe you could say, who else are the competitors? The second is on the debt, and this is really my memory. I had in mind that there was a kind of double level of debt that you hadn't redeemed or you were going to redeem or something. Just wondered if you could maybe comment, or otherwise, I'll ask offline. And then the last one is on the business information volumes. So it's included, I guess, in the EUR 100 million other revenue figure.
I just wondered what portion it makes up, and I'm guessing it's around 50. Thank you.
I'll take the first one. I mean, only three players. It's. There's only three Western global players, I would say, right? So companies that have a global presence in tens of different markets and a large share of that market, and that are focused on what we call whole turnover policies, which is really what we do. So this granular looking at every line and monitoring risk one by one and, you know, working with your clients closely. There are smaller ones, I would say regional or actually country players. There's ECAs, for example, that do this job, and some of them actually, we work with.
And then there are people that play a different game, which is the excess loss policies, where you actually underwrite an overall. You underwrite the client's own ability to take risks, and you basically agree to pay if they miss by a certain amount. So then you find there you find, I would say, the large insurance companies that you know from the Anglo-Saxon world or others that have traditionally been playing that game. And then there's some connection between the two for large institutions or large clients, et cetera. But we I think we're in a little bit different space. So I hope that answers that question.
Thank you.
In terms of, you want to talk about-
Yeah, in terms of debt, yeah, indeed, we have a first tranche of our tier two debt that will mature in March 2024. You know, the one that has been issued in March 2014. So your memory is good.
Thank you. And on the business information? Volumes.
Can you, could you repeat? Sorry, I think we missed that.
It was just to know how big the volume, the number is. I keep forgetting, and I think it's around EUR 50 million, but I'm not good here.
Business information. Did we-- What number did we last give, Thomas?
You mean the... Do you mean the turnover?
Yeah.
Yeah. I think it's in the order of about EUR 16 million a year.
A year.
Something like this.
That's all I need. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions. I will hand the call back to you.
Well, thank you very much. We had lots of questions. Look, thank you for participating. We're— Our next. We're gonna have a series of meetings next year, actually, the full year report, which is, when is that?
February twenty-seventh.
The?
Twenty seventh.
The twenty-seventh of February. And then we are obviously the big milestone for us is the new plan, which we'll do on March fifth. So looking forward to that. And thank you again for joining in on this call today.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.