Thank you, and welcome to all the people who've joined us today. It's a bit of an odd call in the middle of the summer. We appreciate your flexibility. We're delighted to present our first half 2023 results. You see from the headline, continued good performance from the company, €128.8 million net profit in the first half, solvency at 192%. When you go through the different items of the P&L, I think you see continued performance with a turnover up 11.1%, all things equal, including 11.2% for TCI, which continues to be driven by client activity, pretty much the same trends you've seen in the prior quarters.
Our client retention is still at a record, historic rec- record for the business. Pricing is down as in the Q1 , but obviously recovering from, from last year. We continue to see good momentum in our business information line of business, which is up almost 15% for the first half. Factoring up 5%, so you, you, you will notice there a slowdown. It was double digit in the Q1 and, and clearly slowed down significantly in the Q2 . I think it reflects a clear slowdown in the economy in Germany and in Poland. Factoring is typically the, the line of business for us, which is impacted soonest. So, it's an indication of, I would say, a slowdown in, in the European economy.
The loss ratio for the first half stands at 40.3%. It's up almost 4 points from last year, which included some government payouts, the last pieces of the government payouts. That brings our net combined ratio to 65.5. I think it's a really a very strong level, up 2 points from first half of 2022. The loss ratio is slightly below 40%. It's up seven from last year in a risk environment, which is continuing to normalize.
The cost ratio at 25.2% stands at a very, very low level, which reflects both, I would say, our cost controls, high reinsurance commissions, and also, it's interesting to note that we have continued, and we're continuing to invest in our business transformation and our growth. A good performance there as well. That brings the annual life ROE to 14.3%. As I said, the solvency at 192 is above our target range, long-term target range of 155-175. The company is strong. I should have said that obviously we're reporting all those numbers now under the new accounting rules of IFRS 17, IFRS 9. Going to the next page.
We've added a page here on, on the environment, because I think it's, it's interesting, for everybody to follow where we stand in the cycle. You see the on the top left, client activity, for the last five years, with a, clearly a dip during COVID in 2020, and a strong recovery, buoyed by inflation, actually, also in 2021 and 2022. Clearly, in this first half of 2023, we're seeing slower client activity, and we think there's a very significant slowdown here going on, with 2.8%. You can see on the bottom left corner, the change in corporate insolvency. The dark blue line represents the change versus last year. You see that in most countries, we're actually up in insolvencies.
U.K. up 7%, France up 43%, Germany up 20%, U.S. up 33% . One exception, we're still, is Italy, sorry, at -5%. Then the green line shows where we stand vis-a-vis the 2019 pre-COVID, I would say more normal, stats. You can see it's already well above the U.K., kind of back to 19 in France. Still below in Germany, U.S., and Italy. Clearly, I think the normalization we've been talking about for the last two years is happening. It's continuing to happen. In that context, we've, we're managing risk carefully. Our exposure growth is 3% in the first half of, of this year to €690 billion . That compares to a growth of about 13% last year.
We've increased our prevention actions in close coordination with our clients. You can see that versus 2019, which we consider to be kind of like a reference normal year, we're at 27% year to date and 66% in June. Our client activity is back to 2019 levels. We see obviously commodities, metals, energy, offsetting continued price increases in the agro- agri-food sector. Then I've already spoken about the, the insolvency. The, the bottom right chart just reflects what I've been talking about in terms of the number of our actions. Clearly, there is a slowdown in the economy. The, the insolvencies are rising, and we're managing the situation very, very carefully. That's, I think, the job that we, we, we...
The mission that we set for ourselves. I've got a page on page six on CSR, another important topic for Coface. You know, we've been now investing for a number of years in the, in this sector. I'll just go through the key changes here, which are highlighted in dark green. On the responsible insurer side, we're continuing to expand our commer- commercial exclusion policy. So far, we weren't covering sale, transport, or dealings of thermal coal and oil. We've just added new exclusions, which are, pertain to drilling, extraction equipments in relation with fossil energy, the sale of jet or bunkering fuel, and financing of these activities. You know, we're continuing to expand our exclusion to areas which are, we think, most-... carbon intensive and more damaging to the environment.
We've, for the second year, performed a climate stress scenario in our, in our stress case for the, for the regulators. We're continuing our work to decrease the emissions of our investment portfolio, and we formally joined the NZAOA, with, which is a Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance, together with about another 80 asset owners. This is different from the NZIA, of, the Net Zero Insurance Alliance, which, which had multiple defections. We've set a goal of 30% reduction for the emissions of our portfolio in 2025 versus 2020. I have to say, it, it, we need to say that the, the way this is calculated, we outsource this to a third party, not to name them on Monday.
There's continues to be methodology changes in the way this is accounting for it, but there's nothing that leads us to believe that we're not gonna reach that goal. I think we're well on track to do that, and committed to those goals. In terms of employees, we continue to survey very closely the morale of our employees, and for the first time, we're now above the benchmark of the industry in our Employee Net Promoter Score, which for Coface, it's been a long time that we have been actually lagging the industry. For us, it's it shows that we continue to make progress and get more, more engagement from our employee base.
We continue to drive our initiative to promote ESG projects in this- in the area of single risk, and that's going actually very well. We're well above our target i- in that, in that area. In terms of being a responsible employer, sorry, in terms of fighting carbon, you can see on the responsible enterprise part that we are putting in place a series of measurements to capture our consumption of carbon. We've done a full assessment of our carbon consumption last year, and now we're in the mode of trying to reduce that footprint. It's basically for us, you know, mainly buildings that we use, the transportations that we use, and the technology and IT consumption that we have as a business.
We're putting in place the, the KPIs that are allowing us to really keep track of where we are, and, and I think we're making significant progress. In terms of communications and infrastructure, this is, this is all based on a, a now well-ingrained infrastructure. We have trained people. We have champions in every part of the world to follow these initiatives and aligning the entire company. As you know, the regulations around the space are getting more and more complex pretty quickly, and we're gearing up to be able to report to the different sets of regulations that are being put in place. That's where we are on CSR, absolutely committed to continuing to drive that part of the business.
On page 8, I'm just gonna go through the usual pages that you're now very familiar with. You see the, the growth components, 11.1% total, 11.2% for trade credit insurance. Other revenues up 10.4%. I already mentioned the 15% for business information. Third-party debt collection, we're, we're doing more in that space now that we have launched a single system globally to collect, and we're seeing 35% growth on the back of a, a renewed initiative on, on this one. Also, I would say a market which, which is more favorable. Then factoring up 5%, I've already talked about this.
The good news here is on the insurance fees, which are recovering with 11.3% growth in the first half at constant FX, and that's really helping in terms of the cost ratio. When you go to page 9, you can look at the geography and the growth by geography. It's, it's kind of the continuation of the story we had in the Q1 . Western Europe is up, but there's an element of one-off here, so we're, we're around 9-10% growth without that one-off in Western Europe. Northern Europe, which is Germany, is up 7. Central Europe is up 0, but if you take out the run-off that we're doing in Russia, we would be closer to about 6%. Middle and Africa continues to see good growth at 15%. North America at 7.
Asia Pacific, recovering from a lull we had at the Q1, mainly tied to lower sales in the ICT technology sector. Latin America continuing to be strong, driven by, I would say, soft committed commodities and and and good retention of our clients. If you go to the other way to look at our growth, which is the different components, I've already spoken about the volume effect on the bottom, which is much lower than last year and getting back to, I would say, the kind of numbers we were used to seeing in the past, with I already mentioned a significant slowdown, I think, in some parts of the world. The price effect is better than last year, but still negative.
I think we're seeing better momentum on that front. The retention rate is at a record. 94.4 is our historic record, so continuing to perform for our clients here, great NPS scores and very focused on that. In the end, the new production is rebounding from last year. It's very consistent with the strategy we've laid out to, you know, make sure we control the risks when things are too good to be true, and make sure that we remain ready to write business when the markets are a little bit more favorable.
If you go to the next page on the loss ratio, you see that it was another good quarter at 38.1% loss ratio before reinsurance and including claims handling expenses. As I've said now for the last two years, so you've heard me say that, I'll, I'll say it again. The normalization is slow, but it is happening. A number of claims has been increasing since the middle of 2021, so we're now two years into this. It's, it's very near pre-COVID level. The large losses are increasing, but they're still below, I would say, the average of the cycle. The reserve releases, you can see on the bottom right-hand side, remain at a high level because we're coming out of a couple of years of very good, very good performance.
That's the 36.3% you see on the, in the more intense blue line, which compares to, to the prior years, which were, I think, exceptional, but are still higher than what we would get in a normal year. Then you see that we've opened the new year at a 73.4% on your IFRS 17 rules. That would compare, just for reference, to about 77.5% in the IFRS 4 world that we used to know, and within the range of what we would have done under IFRS 4. We're still reserving at a pretty significant level. On the next page, we see the annual losses and the first half of 2023.
I'd rather comment the next page, which is the quarterly results, because I think it's, it's more telling at this point in the, in the year. On the bottom, you have the four largest and more stable markets. You can see that there's really not that much to report here. The Western Europe losses continue to be very good at around 35%, Northern Europe at 29, Central Europe at 33, and Middle Africa at 46. Really not, not much movement here and, and continued strong performance. Three more volatile, smaller, but more volatile markets, historically, North America, Latin America, Asia. You can see that not much to report again on North America or Asia Pacific.
A drop in Latin America following the big loss that we had, big flood we had in the end of last year in Brazil. Things are normalizing, but this is an area of the world where we've seen more losses and where we are actively working. I would say that's the story on risk. I've got a page on page 14 on cost. There again, we're continuing on our strategy to make steady productivity gains and at the same time, continue to invest in our business. You see the costs are up 10.2%. That compares to the 11.2% of growth that we've had in the business. Still we're getting operating leverage.
At the same time, internal costs are growing 10.4, within that, you have 2.4% that are costs that go into our building of the business information line. Really, more like an 8% without this, comparing to the 11.2% of growth in the premiums. It's noteworthy to say that the cost ratio has been improved by about a 0.5 point through the increased fee revenues that we've been enjoying through the beginning of the year. Brings us to a, at a, I would say, record level for Coface, for this industry of a 25% cost ratio net for the first half of 2023.
With that, I'm gonna pass it over to Phalla to take us through the next few pages.
Thanks, Xavier. We are, we are on page 15 on the reinsurance results. I will start with the premium cessions rate staying at 27.1, comparable to half year last year. This is, you know, we're going back to the pre-COVID standard of sessions rate in terms on premium cessions rate. If we look at the claim cessions rate, it has moved from 17.2 to 25.4, knowing that last year, in the first half, we have drawn the line on the reserve release related to the public schemes. This explains the 17.2.
While this year, I think again, we're coming back to, I would say, a pre-COVID situation, even though in half one, let me correct that we have, it is slightly impacted by the excess of loss on the very large claims that we had in Latin America. We're still benefiting from the higher in- reinsurance commission. This leads to reinsurance results moving from -EUR 83 million last year to -EUR 47.4 million this year. If we move to the next page, the net combined ratio stands at 65.5%. Again, I'd like to compare Aprils to April. If we look at the half year 2022 without public scheme, we have stood at 57.2%, with a net cost ratio moving from 26.5% to 25.2%.
As Xavier mentioned, this is really a very good cost discipline, high reinsurance commission within an inflationary environment. Very low net cost ratio. Net loss ratio, on the other hand, is moving from 30.7 to 40.3 on a comparable, comparable basis, and this is really reflecting the loss normalization environment that we're going through. We move to the financial portfolio, the investment portfolio. I will start with the chart on the top left-hand side. The mark to market of our investment portfolio stands at 2.888, or almost €2.9 billion .
The asset allocation has not changed much since couple of months now, with I think, majority of investments in bonds at 77%, very low portion on equity at 3%, investment on real estate front at 7%, and the remaining part of the assets allocations is on liquid assets. Key highlights, the first one is on the fact that the recurring income from our investment portfolio is now, I think, accounted for almost EUR 32 million at half-year, with new money invested at 3.4%. Clearly, we are really benefiting from the high interest or higher interest rate environment. The fair value to P&L, this line accounts for both realized gain and loss and unrealized gain and loss.
As you know, already discussed in the Q1 , we have booked a negative mark to market on real estate investments, this in with investment funds. We booked -EUR 12 million in Q1, and we booked additional -EUR 4 in Q2. FX lines is reflecting also the fact that we have to account for, or to apply IAS 29, related to the hyperinflation in Argentina and Turkey, and this is accounted for -EUR 6.4 million. Another thing I want to highlight is the new line, which is the Insurance Finance Expense line, introduced by IFRS 17. We discussed that a little bit earlier on the quote-plus ratio, where you have the discount effect. Now, the discount effect that used to be under IFRS 4, the reserve was undiscounted and booked as a technical result.
We have to isolate the discount effect in the financial line, which is financial income and expenses in this IFRS specific line. This leads us to a strong half year net income of almost EUR 129 million, out of which almost EUR 68 million is coming from the quarter two. Compared to the pro forma of last year, I think the net results will be down 4.4%, knowing that last year we have not booked anything related to hyperinflation. If we move to page 19, which is the Return on Average Tangible Equity, I start with the IFRS equity with the opening year at EUR 2.08 billion. We have paid our dividend in May from €227 million .
We accounted for, of course, the net income of the period, and then 16.6. This is the unrealized gain that we have on our investment portfolio, mainly bonds and equities. This leads us to an IFRS equity end of period of €1.9 billion and return on average tangible equity moving from 12.7 to 14.3. Let's move now to the capital management. Now I'm on page 21. That shows the balance sheet, a very strong balance sheet. Total assets, total liability standing at €7.7 billion . We discussed about the insurance investments at EUR 2.9 billion. Factoring assets at EUR 3.1 billion, totally backed by factoring refinancing.
We have not changed the hybrid debt, of course, the shareholder net equity, that we discussed about at EUR 1.9 billion. In terms of rating, the financial strength, want to highlight that in May, AM Best has affirmed our excellent A rating with a stable outlook. Book value per share at 12.9 and tangible book value per share at 11.3. I think with the trading, the stock trading that is, that is showing today at 13.4, I think we are above the net book value per share. The market is giving us some credits. We move to the solvency page on page 22.
We're moving from a 201% end of last year to 192, and the 192 half year '23 to be compared as well to the 192 of H1 '22. You can see that the decrease is really coming from the SDR, so the capital consumptions coming from our insurance business and our factoring business. We are basically financing our organic growth, and 192 is still comfortable, way above the upper range of our comfort zone. On the right-hand side, again, we still, you know, we have these two stress tests that you used to see. The first one on top, on the top block, is the stress test, okay, related to the financial market shocks, in terms of interest rate, spread, and, and, and equity markets.
You can see that applying all the shocks, we'll be still way above the upper zone of a upper range of our comfort zone, and this is mainly to the fact that we have de-risked our portfolio, I think over the past 18 months now. On the bottom, right side, we have also the shocks against the crisis scenario, the 1 in 20 event and the 1 in 50 event. Again, 1 in 50 is the 2008 crisis, with a combined ratio above 100%. here we will be either above the upper range of our comfort zone or in the middle range of our comfort zone. If we move to the next page, it just show you the breakdown of the capital requirements between insurance and factoring.
Capital requirements standing at €1.278 billion , to be compared to an eligible unfund of €2.451 billion . This leads to our solvency ratio of 192%. With this, I'll, Xavier, give back, I give the floor back to you.
Okay. Just, just to conclude, another strong quarter, I would say very good results in line with the prior years, in an environment, and I, I express that, which is changing. We're seeing double-digit growth in, in both the business information and the trade credit insurance lines. The combined ratio under IFRS 17 is at 65.5. By all standards, that's outstanding. Annual return on equity, we've mentioned 14.5%. The credit cycle is turning, I mean, after a very unusual inflationary outbreak, we're seeing lower economic growth and lower inflation, which are driving lower client activity. You know, the, the, the central banks around the world are dead set on taming inflation. It takes about a year for a monetary policy to start affecting the real world.
I think we're starting to see that, but there's more to come. Corporates are facing less availability of financing, and they're facing higher financing costs. We know the, the regulators are very obviously watchful, but not going too far, but, you know, it, it'll take, I think, a little bit more pain before they start easing off. In this context, we're continuing to deploy our strategy, really with a lot of constants. We are actively managing our risk in the areas, or sectors, or countries, or whatever, where, where, it, it is less favorable. We're continuing to invest in building our services, investing to, to grow, some of the new platforms that we've spoken about. We're really focusing on the clients.
Our E NPS score, and our NPS score with clients are both at a record level. We are making progress on our agenda for CSR, which is becoming more and more important to the business. All on track. We're also happy to announce that we will present a new plan, because we're coming to the end of Build to Lead. That's gonna be March fifth in 2024. We're still a while away, but obviously working on it. We're excited about, you know, presenting it, the continuation of the Coface story for the next four years. With that, I think that's all we have for you today. We are ready to take any questions.
Thank you, sir. As a reminder, 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. Once again, please press star one and one if you have any question. We are now going to proceed with our first question. The question's come from the line of Hadley Cohen from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi, thanks very much. Hope you can hear me okay. Another great quarter. A couple of questions, please, on the solvency, and a couple of questions on the investment income, please. Firstly, on solvency, the 192%, am I right in thinking that we should think of that more like a 182, given the expected debt maturity later in the year, or am I missing something there? Just on the sensitivities, I mean, even though your overall insured exposures have been going up over the last few years, your sensitivity to market shocks, and credit market shocks have been coming down. It looks like they, the sensitivities have increased relative to the previous ones. I'm just...
Particularly the, the 1 in 50 years. I'm just wondering if you can give some detail around that, please. Then on, on the investment side, the, I think the regular income in the Q2 was around about €17 million . Just wondering, i-is there, are there any sort of funnies in that, or is it reasonable to assume that we can sort of annualize that sort of number, in terms of thinking about the investment income outlook? Obviously, we might have to make some adjustments for hyperinflation and the like, but, all else equal, can we annualize the €17 million number?
Any guidance you can give around the HIPI and how we think about the outlook for that, maybe what the underlying level was in the Q2 and any sensitivities to market movements or, or how we can think about that? Thanks very much.
I will leave the second question to Phalla, but I, I'll, under her control, by the way, I will try to provide some, some clarity on, on the solvency piece. We are at 192. You're right to say that that includes excess debt that we had taken on, when we got the opportunity, and we're, we're actually happy we did it. We do intend to refinance the debt that's coming due beginning of next year, if the market lets, lets us do it. You, you never know. We were also happy we took that debt so far, because whatever happens, we'll be, we'll be in a good position. On the sensitivities, I, I think on, on solvency, there's 2 things that are happening here.
One is pro-cyclicality of the calculations, and the second one is some, what do you call it? Some seasonality. The pro-cyclicality means that when you're stressing something that is very low, the stress is proportionate, and so you get less sensitivity than when you're starting from a higher point. The seasonality is that when you do it at the end of the year, you pretty much know what the renewals look like. When you do it at the middle of the year, you have to take a series of assumptions for what's gonna happen next year, and we tend to be a little bit conservative on those assumptions. We never know, so we, you know, it's just modeling here. I hope that explains the solvency piece.
I'm gonna let Phalla take the investment income questions here.
Yeah. Taking on the investment question, you're right. I think quarter two, we had a recurring income EUR 17 million. I think this is probably, you know, the, the slow phase of our, our recurring income increase to take into account that of course, the interest rate environment is increasing. There's nothing, I would say, unusual or one-off in the EUR 17 million. I think that is paying off in terms of our investment strategy.
Sorry, just on the... that's all very helpful, thank you. Just on the IFI guidance, how we should think about that going forward?
Well, I think that's, I would say it really depends. Put it this way, we will help you to, to, to model it. I believe that that's will be your question. If we assume that the interest, the, the, the free of the free yield curve is at 3%, put it this way, and the ... What, what we have in terms of premium, net premium per quarter is, what? EUR 300 million. All being equal, I think you just do the math. Of course, all depends on the movement of the interest rate. If we assume that, you know, we, we have a flattish yield curve or risk-free yield curve, at 3% with EUR 300 million net earn premium per quarter, you, we do the math together.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm, I, I, might follow up, offline. Thank you.
We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question comes from the line of Benoit Valleaux from ODDO BHF. Please ask your question.
Yes. Hi, good evening. Two questions on my side. First one, maybe regarding your risk appetite. There is a slightly better momentum in terms of new production in Q2 versus Q1. I just want to just reflect some slight change or not into your risk appetite. The second question is related to reserve releases. Under IFRS 17, you are at roughly 36 percentage points in H1, similar to Q1. How do you see it? I mean, do you believe that this is a fair assumption to assume broadly similar level for full year, this year or not? Maybe third question, just come back again on investment income. When you look at your new reinvestment rate, which was at 2%, 2.0% in Q1 and 3.4% in H1, suggesting maybe broadly 4.8% in Q2.
I'd just like to understand, I mean, what explains the increase of this reinvestment rate from Q1 to Q2 this year? Thank you.
Okay. The 2 second questions will go to Phalla, and I'll take the first one.
Yeah.
On, on, on the risk appetite, we, we, we, we haven't fundamentally changed our risk appetite. I mean, we're, we're trying to be smart. As you know, what, what, what we do is we try to get good clients when we can, and these good clients are people that are gonna be partnering with us over a long period of time, and we will together go through the good and the bad times of, of the credit cycle. So, so that's really the main thing we look at. Then at the time that we write a policy, we will look at the request for limits, and that is a very detailed, line-by-line assessment that is being made. So we have pretty, pretty well-defined and strict guidelines around the way we do it.
obviously, you know, I think in a market where the risk is, is going up, you see more interest from clients. You see also probably a bit of rationalization in the market, although it's still probably early to say that. That probably explains why we're doing a little better.
I think the, the reserve release, you know, that's under IFRS 17, it is reserve release related to it prior year, so it's really prior year development. I cannot predict that, you know, it would remain the same in, in, in the coming months or coming quarters. It really depends on how the development will go. I would say that, you know, we have been maintaining the same philosophy in terms of reserving. That's, you know, that's for sure. Moving from one norm to another doesn't change that. What, what is clear that, you know, the, the, the COVID period reserve has been released partially, the 2020 reserve has been already released partially last year. I think what is remaining is, is, you know, we have a two-year business, will be a 2021 and partially on 2022.
It really depends on how it will evolve. I cannot comment much more on this one. In terms of investment, yes, we will, we invested now at 3.4%. You know, that in Q1 it was above 2%. And we're really taking advantage of the yield curve, I think, which is reversing more. You have the short-term rate higher than the long-term rate, and this is really fitting our business.
You can maybe just follow up regarding the releases. Is it fair to assume that there are still no reserve releases related to Russia, Q2 H1 this year?
Well, the thing is we have. Again, the Russian case, we have a reserve in cover Russia and business that we're doing in Russia. We really related to, you know, what would come out in terms of notification. Far, what we can say is that Russia loss is behaving probably the same way that what we are seeing in other regions. There's no specific, I would say, case or behavior of the loss situation in Russia. It will evolve, and it will.
Okay.
What we can say is that in Russia, you know, that the exposure has been drastically reduced. Now we have probably ended up with less than EUR 500 million or even EUR 400 million of exposure. We have the, you know, reserving against this exposure according to the our reserving policy.
Okay, thank you.
As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, it's star one and one if you have any questions. We are now going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead with your question.
Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thanks, Xavier, and thanks, Phalla. Again, fantastic results. It's, if I were, an investor, I'd always be kind of always puzzled, you know, your tone is, is so measured, and the results are so good. I just wondered what your tone will be when the results might not be so good. So I don't know. Anyway, that, that was just, just an aside. I've got loads of little questions, and I hope you don't mind. First one, the retention is huge, 94.4. I can't remember. I think you said in a previous quarter it was a record, but this sounds like a record.
I just wondered, and I know you did say kind of rationalization and all sorts, but I just wondered if you, if you can give a little bit more color on that and on the pricing outlook, it looks as if the market is much firmer than I'd expected. The second one is on business information. Now, you, you, you won't, you probably won't answer my question, but I was looking at the Catalana accounts, and I noticed they have a big business, which appears to be the same as yours. I, I just wondered, who are your competitors or who do you see as your competitors in what you're trying to do? Are you unique, or are there other people? Just to get a feel for that, that particular market. The third question is on the reinsurance results.
If I were a reinsurer, I'd still be quite happy with EUR 47 million, but obviously not as happy as with EUR 87 million. I just wondered if there's any exceptional here, which I sort of adjust for in the EUR 87 million, kind of thinking, well, actually, the EUR 87 million included the government schemes or something. My, my fear, my concern is that the, when it comes to renewals, and I know we're not quite there yet, but the reinsurers will, will say, "Actually, no, we, we want a lot more than we're getting at the moment." That, that's, that's my kind of thing. On real estate, is it done? I, I really don't remember your comments in Q1, but I was hoping it was done, and there's a little bit more dribbling through. I'm just wondering.
Also linked to that, I noticed that investment assets are down Q2 versus Q1. That's not a big move, EUR 3.02 to EUR 2.88, but just, just, just wondered why should that should be, given that you're growing your business? I, I, I, I don't quite understand that. Then the, the, the last question, I'm really sorry, it's a whole catalog. It's just I'm not quite with it today, and I've got lots of other results. The IFRS, we've got the discount unwind, I call the issue as, as, as Xavier said. The, the, the, the, the, the number I can't see, but I, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm completely not informed on this, but it's just a question: Where's the discounting benefit, and how much is that?
I can set off, kind of think about how those two are related. Sorry about all this.
Hey, Michael, let me answer a few. I'll leave Phalla to deal with the investment assets, which I think is linked to the dividend, but maybe she'll have a better idea.
Exactly.
IFRS, is that what it is? Okay, we can knock that one out. That's just we paid a dividend, right?
Yes.
... the IFRS discount, she'll, she'll deal with this one. The real estate, I mean, anybody, if anybody can say that real estate is done at this stage in the cycle, good luck. You know, in terms of retention, you're right to point, this is a, this is a record for us. It's a very good number, I think, for the industry. We've just been working it. I mean, we have just put in place a whole process around this, because we understand the value of a client relationship, and that's really what makes Coface, what it is. We have a process. I mean, the market is what it is. We need to compete. We need to remain competitive. I think our cost ratio makes us quite competitive.
We need to be within the market in terms of risk appetite, and we make sure we are. We're, we're working all these aspects, and I think that's why the retention is what it is. In terms of business information, I didn't get the name of the business you were mentioning. I'm not sure I-
Number 2. You're number 3. Number 2 is Atradius. Catalana Occidente?
In, in what? In business information?
Business information. I'm not sure they, they are your competitor, but I do see in their accounts there's a, a big C line, which they call business information, and that's Catalana Occidente or Atradius, however you call them.
I'm not aware. They have a... I'm sorry, you're -- Okay. They have a historic -- corresponds to, I think, what we call our historic business, which we have in Central Europe and in Israel. In these places, historically, credit insurers, Coface had a basic information setup where we produce information. We're kind of competing with the likes of, you know, all the major information providers out there. I don't want to mention names, but all the offers you can get in the marketplace. I think that's what they're doing. They had a company called Graydon. I think they sold that actually in the last 12 months. I don't know what else they have in there, but that's, I think, what we're referring to.
But, yeah, I think you should ask them. In terms of us, we are unique in the sense that we're a one-stop shop, so we have, you know, about 100 different sources of information that we are utilizing for our own good, for credit insurance. We monitor, millions of companies for our own purposes, and we have mapped all the different scores and all the different systems to be able to provide a one-stop shop experience to anybody that's looking for data, across the globe. That's the first thing that makes us, I think, unique. The second thing is, we're not just...
Actually, we're, we're mainly not providing basic information, which is not our line of business, but we are providing insights and, and scores and, and ratings or expectancies of default on companies, which is more value-added, and a different message point, which is we've got EUR 700 billion of credit risk hanging on this, and we've done it for a century. I think we have experience proving that we, that, that we can do it in all the different phases of the cycle. I think that's our unique selling point, and that's why in that dimension, I think we're, we're quite unique. In terms of the, of the reinsurance, I would say, I mean, we, we are getting good conditions in the marketplace, but clearly, I think, it's, it remains a good program for the reinsurers.
You know, I can't tell you what the next, what the next, round of discussions is going to be like. I think it's way too early in the cycle, so, but we have to go through that, and we'll see how things pan out. Every year is a, is a new, is a new story, but, but I think it remains a good program. Driven by our performance, by the way, you know. The fact that we perform is what makes it, what makes it good.
I.
Phalla, you wanted to add something on this one?
Yeah, I think on the reinsurance, reinsurance side, I think a couple of things to, to, to be added. In 2020, of course, the external reinsurers has a lower base because the -€83 million that we're showing in 2020, part of that, almost EUR 35 million, went to the government that put in place the public scheme. In 2023, we don't have the public schemes anymore, so everything goes to the external reinsurers. I think that answers your question. Then in terms of renewal, to be, to be, you know, just adding to what Xavier said, I think the reinsurers are enjoying with us the good results that we have so far in the past at least two years.
Then the discounting?
Phalla?
Yeah, on, on discounting.
Yeah.
Sorry.
No, go ahead. You had three questions. On real estate, I think I told you what I think, but Phalla, do you have anything else to add on this one? We had a whole page on Q1. We told you how we're, we're managing the exposure, but clearly we're still invested, and it's not over, and we're, we're subject to whatever the markets will drive. Yeah. In terms of the discounting, Phalla, you want to take that question?
Yeah, I think it's, it's, you know, under IFRS 17, we just isolate this discounting effect into the financial line. If we want, and this is why we're trying to compare apples to apples, on IFRS 4, it would have stayed in the technical result. I hope this answer your question.
... if I phrase it differently, I, I, I'm sure you did answer it. It's just that my mind today has really gone blank a little bit. I'm really sorry. What I'm trying to understand, if I give you the some of the numbers for, say, Allianz or Zurich or AXA or whatever. They have a big discounting number within the combined ratio. Typically, it's around EUR 400 million for these companies. Then they have an unwind of a discount, as you, as you have it in the financial income. That is typically, at the moment, EUR 300. At a half year basis, they have a net positive, if you will, of somewhere between EUR 300 million-EUR 400 million.
That's, that's kind of the number I'm trying to, to kind of isolate. I'm not sure I'm asking it properly.
I understand. I would guess... For us, it's the same thing, right? You get a discount, which we've highlighted here on the reserve, right? That lowers your, your loss ratio, and you take an amortization of that discount on the right-hand side in the, in the financial, in the finance revenues. Just to be noted, there's a big difference between AXA and us, is we're a lot more short-term, right?
Yeah.
Our, our, our discounting happens over the course of, let's say, three years max, now, or two and a half years max.
Mm-hmm.
There should be less of a difference, but, this is just by intuition here. I haven't done the math, to be honest.
Good. That's, that's really helpful. May I ask just a follow on? I did ask Thomas earlier, and he gave me an answer, but I, I, I, maybe he was, he, he obviously had to deal with lots of questions very quickly. Can you talk about the quality of the EUR 700 billion relative to Q1 or 2019, or whatever?
I don't think it is much of a change here. I mean, quite frankly, over a quarter, it's I mean, as you know, the fact that we have 94% retention means that we have the same clients, right, essentially, that we had a quarter ago, plus or minus 1% or something like this. We pretty much invested in the same lines and the same businesses with the same people, doing the same kind of trades. So I know it's not the exact answer to your question, but it gives you a feel. We're a pretty stable business. Then in terms of the quality, it varies mainly because in some instances, the economy is tougher, so companies get downgraded.
Then, and, and against that, we are working the book by doing all the actions I described on the second page of my presentation. You know, I, I don't have a number for you here, but essentially, I think the book is continuing to be pretty good.
That's good. Thank you so much.
Once again, as a reminder, if you have any question or comment, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, it's star one and one for any question or comment. Thank you.
Okay, well-
We have no further questions at this time. I hand back to Mr. Durand for closing remarks. Thank you.
Well, look, I, I just want to thank everybody for making the effort to join us on an 11th of August, which is typically middle of summer, and everybody's got, you know, things to do, hopefully. Also on a day where there's a lot of publications happening. Thank you all. Thank you for your questions. Thanks for, you know, following the story, and we look forward to speaking with you in November when we present our Q3 . Have a great summer, everybody.
Thank you.