Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Sampo Group first quarter 2023 conference call. My name is Sami Taipalus, and I am head of investor relations at Sampo. I'm joined on the call by Group CEO, Torbjörn Magnusson, and Group CFO, Knut Arne Alsaker, and CEO of If, Morten Thorsrud. The call will feature a short presentation from Torbjörn, followed by Q&A. A recording of the call will later be available on sampo.com. With that, I hand over to Torbjörn. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Sami, and welcome everyone. We have enjoyed a very good start to 2023 in all important ways, with solid value creating results across all our operations. Profit before taxes increased by 30% to EUR 359 million after adjusting for IFRS 9 in the comparison period. The very short summary of the quarter would be the one on this page, I guess, with the underwriting engine of our group in the Nordic region creating a very positive backbone to our result. With our digital skills interacting with the underwriting to give satisfactory growth in premiums and underwriting profits, both in the Nordics and the UK. With good investment returns without excessive risk-taking and low exposures to, for instance, commercial real estate.
Just to give you one number upfront, the running yield for If P&C was now 3.5% in the first quarter. The consequence, of course, of these business results being a very strong development of the balance sheet KPIs, of course. You will also be aware of our structural AGM proposal to separate Mandatum from the rest of the group. Looking more in detail at the core of this, the P&C operations, we have another quarter with rate increases of 5%-6% ahead of claims inflation in the Nordic Nordics, where we have 3%-6% claims inflation in all lines and on average between 4% and 5%. The market behavior in the Nordics continued to be competitive, but rational.
If P&C's combined ratio improved by 1.5 percentage points to 82.4% and premiums grew by satisfactory 6% on a currency adjusted basis, leading to underwriting profit growth of 10% per year on year. The outlook for If P&C's combined ratio has been improved to 82%-84%, as we have renewed roughly half of the commercial and industrial books and built more comfort about claims inflation for the rest of the year. There are now quite a few trade union wage agreements, just above 4% in the Nordics, several of them with the same number for a second year. Retention rates have also stayed very high in all segments. Moving to the U.K., the market is reacting to the poor profitability they reported in 2022.
Market-wide price increases accelerated over the first quarter, allowing Hastings to de-deliver 39% premium growth, mainly as a result of higher average premiums. Rising prices are also translating into greater cross-customer churns, naturally, that create more opportunities to win new business for us. Meanwhile, the strong momentum continued in the home book as well, with 36% growth year on year to almost 450,000 customers. Having said that, however, loss cost trends in the U.K. remain challenging. The first quarter saw adverse weather driving spikes in claims frequency and continued high claims inflation that weighed on Hastings' margins. I brought one slide on one of our growth segments, personal insurances, just to give some more flavor to our business developments. This covers health, accident, and sickness in various forms.
As products with an important service element, digital integration is key. We have been able to grow this book by some 10% in one year, selling both to private customers and corporate ones. The growth is most pronounced in Sweden and Norway and covers a whole range of products, which are often an addition to an existing relationship for property or motor before. This now is a summary slide of our performance versus targets. Suffice it to say that If P&C is doing really well, with a brief comment that quarterly cost, quarterly cost ratios always vary a bit, and that we will reach the full year target for that.
Hastings has started the year above the full year combined ratio target with more than normal winter losses, of course, some underpricing from Q2 and early Q3 last year, even for us, earning its way into our results. We expect to reach the 88% target for the full year, but possibly not by a huge margin. Turning to strategy, Sampo's board proposed on the 29th of March to separate Mandatum from the group. This would make Sampo a pure play insurance group in line with our strategy and enabling higher and more resilient returns on capital. I believe that the demerger will also benefit Mandatum by enabling it to pursue growth more vigorously.
The proposal will be considered by the AGM next Wednesday. In the meantime, Mandatum saw almost EUR 300 million of net inflows in the first quarter, up 16% year-on-year despite the uncertain environment. This follows a strong 2022 when it delivered positive net flows in each and every quarter. Mandatum's unit-linked and third-party assets have now grown by 5%, another 5% to EUR 10.8 billion. With that, I return the word to you, Sami.
Thank you, Torbjörn. Operator, we're now ready for the Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question at this time, please signal by pressing star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. The first question comes from Alexander Evans from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, when I just look at the risk ratios by segment, it looks like industrial is driving a lot of the improvement here and private seeing some deterioration. Is it possible to give a bit of color on sort of what degree of that is large claims or lower large claims and what degree of that is underlying patterns that you're seeing by segment? Just on your slides, you sort of highlighted the Nordic wage agreements that you're agreeing. Is it possible to give a little bit of disclosure of what sort of level you're at there and how that translates to expectations?
Finally, just a little bit intrigued, if I look at your headcount, for example, 24% of employees are coming from Hastings. When you look to sort of 2025 consensus PBT, the contribution of the group is only 9%. Obviously this is a little bit of a simplistic way to look at it, but what's sort of the reasoning between this big mismatch here, given that you're investing and sort of the returns that the market is expecting? I mean, do you think consensus is not really in the right ballpark there? Thanks.
I'll just take the last question. It's not possible to have a relationship between a number of employees and country. I mean, take, for instance, Norway versus Finland. Norway is much bigger for us than Finland in terms of premium volume, but Finland has more employees. It just depends on so many things, average premiums, what you write, how much is outsourced and not. What is important is to follow the cost ratios for each and every market and line and business area.
Good. It's Morten here. I'll try to address the two first questions. When it comes to the underlying improvements, it is actually very much coming from the private segment as well. What is driving profitability in the large corporate segment is the fact that we have less large claims this quarter than what we assume being normal and also compared to last year's outcome. We are reporting, as you see, in 30 basis points risk ratio improvement. I would say it's sort of quite even improvement in private and commercial of that 30 basis points. On top of that, of course, come our targets of some 20 basis points cost ratio reduction.
Further, you could also say that in addition to this comes normalization after COVID that we have not included in the estimate. That's kind of it also come on top. When it comes to wage increases in the Nordics, there's been a number of big union negotiations where the increases are between 4.3 and 5.2, sort of between Sweden, Finland, Norway. It gives us now more visibility on wage increases in 2023, and also some of these have been two-year agreements, giving us also more visibility on wage increases in 2024. That of course, makes it easier for us to predict future inflation, sort of in particular related to the wage element in the claims cost.
Just to avoid misunderstandings, these are agreements in general in the Nordic societies rather than just for our employees.
Okay, perfect. Thanks.
We will now take our next question from Youdish Chicooree from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. I've got just three questions, very quick questions, please. The first one is just on the underlying risk ratio. I think we've been used to seeing improvements of 50 basis points or higher in recent years. I was wondering whether, you know, going forward, should we be expecting a more flattish trajectory as you, for example, seek to grow or maintain your market share? That's my first question. Secondly, just on claims frequency in motor. I understand, you know, there was some normalization in Q1. I was wondering whether you could tell us, you know, where motor claims frequency sit in your various markets compared to pre-pandemic levels and whether, you know, it's fully normal or whether there could be a drag going forward.
Finally, just on personal illness and accidental, considering you've, you know, you have a slide on it, what is the growth potential there? What have, you know, what have you changed there so far that has driven the 10% growth so far? Thank you.
Let me comment on the first one. I'll leave it the two others to you, Morten. There's no specific target for us for the underlying risk ratio, and it's for each and every situation, segment, market is a balance between growth, of course, and improving profitability.
It's also relatively difficult to try to have a yearly, a quarterly pattern of this, so we're not predicting anything. Finally, I need to caution you a little bit comparing this number between companies, depending on whether they include the current year or not, and other differences in definitions. This is what we do always, try to balance to increase the most value we can.
Good. I'll follow on the motor claims frequencies. First of all, of course, we've seen a normalization now after COVID. Last year first quarter, we had still some COVID effects, although we did not estimate them explicitly last year. You will remember that we still had a bit of COVID effects in Q1 2022. Of course, there we see a normalization now sort of into 2023. On top of that, it's been a winter with quite a lot of snow and challenging driving conditions in Norway and Sweden. Frequencies are clearly up in Norway and Sweden compared to sort of last year and also compared to what we would assume being a normal winter.
When that is said, one should also bear in mind that there has been less windstorms in the Nordics. It's also kind of some positive, but not more than affecting property than motor. Again, I would say motor frequency is normalizing now fully after COVID, but a bit of winter effects in Norway and Sweden. When it comes to personal insurances, this is a natural part of our business. These products are a little bit different compared to motor insurance, for instance. These are products that to a certain degree has to be sold. A car insurance you buy because you have a car, and it comes quite automatically. Whilst a lot of the personal insurance products needs to be actively sold.
There, of course, we benefit from having the largest customer base in the Nordics and very efficient distribution setup. We've seen sort of in the material that growth quarter-over-quarter is 12%. We've been extremely successful in cross-selling to our existing customer base. This is also a product area sort of where penetration is still not extremely high. You could say it's a fairly immature market where the general penetration of these products will increase over the next five to 10 years. It's a market where we expect it to basically outgrow the other P&C insurance products.
Are you able to give us a rough idea where profitability is like on this line?
We have similar profitability targets here as we have on motor and property.
All right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for your answers.
We will now take our next question from Faizan Lakhani from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. The first is on liquidity. When I look at your current liquidity, it's at EUR 2.5 billion, of which EUR 1.7 billion is earmarked for the dividend and the buyback. Based on your disclosure on slide 13, it sounds like there's another sort of EUR 250 million coming from Mandatum. That leaves your liquidity around the EUR 1.1 billion-EUR 1.2 billion mark. Does that leave you with further room to redeem debt simply based on liquidity that you have? That's my first question. The second question is again on a Mandatum demerger. If I look at the leverage position Mandatum in your demerger plans, it's fairly modest at 15%. Can any further actions taken to optimize that and delever?
My final question is on solvency. You still have Nexi and Nordax within the Sampo Group. How much of that could provide further solvency benefit? You know, from your example, how many euros are left that can be re-distributed for capital returns? Thank you.
All right. Thank you for your question. It's Knut Arne Alsaker here. In terms of the liquidity position of Sampo plc, the liquidity position do leave room for further deleveraging if we decided to do so, in terms of, for example, an upcoming maturity we have later this year and our decisions related around that. The answer is yes, it does. In terms of the leverage of Mandatum, not sure if I fully under-heard your question, if it was related to further optimization on the Mandatum balance sheet. The lower leverage position on Mandatum standalone is also coming from the fact that Mandatum, in connection with the demerger, is repaying Sampo an RT1, grandfathered RT1, which is currently a part of Mandatum standalone solvency position.
Doesn't change the solvency or leverage position of the remaining Sampo, it increases the liquidity in the remaining Sampo when that loan is repaid. First of excess capital is not right now an immediate consideration for us in terms of additional distribution. We have an ongoing buyback which we want to finish, then of course, all the exact details of capital will return to when the demerger is actually happening. Obviously, the numbers we have given you today are performance based on Q1 numbers.
What we've said before in terms of excess capital and the contribution of the P portfolio, that still holds, which now in terms of the proposal of the transaction will both add to potential changes in Mandatum's excess capital in the future, if for example, Saxo is sold and also holds for the remaining Sampo, where the two investments that remains in Sampo plc will add of course to the liquidity but also the excess capital, when those investments are exited.
Okay. Just to clarify, on the demerger plan on page 26, is it correct to say that there's EUR 83 million worth of long-term debt after you transferred the debt back to Sampo, the RT1? Is that the correct way to sort of understand that?
Yes.
On the.
Okay.
Page 26.
Yeah. That is a result of how a demerger is structured, where basically the debt to equity ratio needs to be the same in both the two on both balance sheets. There will be a synthetic debt in Mandatum, which basically is related to the debt position that Sampo currently has, which with similar. The reason it's synthetic it's to make it similar in terms of currencies and maturities, and will over time in line with the related debts in Sampo be repaid to Sampo.
Okay. Thank you. Super detail. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Tryfonas Spyrou from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. I have two questions. The first one is on the rate increases of 5%-6% you said are running slightly ahead of claims inflation. Now, I was wondering if you could help us understand if there are any pockets of business or geographies which you think are better priced in areas which are not adequately priced on a relative basis in the Nordics. The second is on Hastings. Loss ratio is up 11 points year-on-year. I guess, can you help us unpack this a little bit in terms of what is the impact of the weather and what is underlying movement due to claims inflation? If you perhaps comment as to when do you think Hastings will get back to achieving rate adequately in U.K. Thank you.
Okay. I'll try to answer the first one if I heard your question correctly. The 5%-6% increases that we have, that's sort of a Nordic average. Commercial lines, so commercial and large corporate being slightly above this, and then private sort of being in the lower end of this. We are seeing sort of fairly large price increases sort of throughout the board and in all Nordic markets, so it's not sort of significant differences. In the Baltics, the price increases are well above this. So that's sort of a little bit a separate market. They have also seen inflation numbers, sort of consumer price inflation of above 20% historically.
Again, commercial and industrial a bit above the five to six, and private in the lower end.
It's a bit difficult to hear your question about Hastings. I think it related to the high premium increase compared to last year.
Loss, loss ratio.
The loss ratio?
Yeah. Well, and in a way that they go hand in hand, as of course, the reason for the high premium increase is the high increase in renewal rates, much higher new premiums, the higher sales this quarter. Yeah, and those facts will of course drive down the loss ratios going forward, provided the claims inflation doesn't pick up again.
If I should just add, Torbjörn, on the 11%, you alluded to the 4% impact of weather in Q1. Obviously, that impact in the loss ratio, in terms of percentages is higher because it's all claims. While in the operating ratio for Hastings, we include the retail revenue, so that ratio impact become different.
Good. Thank you. Is it fair to assume then that the 4% is the weather and the remaining difference is due to sort of claims inflation, in terms of the increase in the loss ratio year-on-year?
Since we talk about the 4% increase in, or impact on the operating ratio is related to weather, that means that in 11% on the insurance company's balance sheet, a lot of that is weather. Of course, there are some of the pricing actions that we have taken, which also shows in the top line that still has not earned through in terms of also the loss ratio when you compare to last year.
Finally, just a reminder that of course, even in the U.K., loss ratios are higher in Q1 and Q4, but that's not visible because people don't publish Q1 and Q and Q3 full reports. Apart from us, of course.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Stewart Blair from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Good afternoon, everyone. Two or three quick ones. On the prior year development, it's been quite bumpy quarter-on-quarter under the new disclosures, and we've seen about 2.3 points of PYD in Q1. I just wonder, you know, given the constituents that are in that number, if you can provide any rough guidance as to whether that's a reasonable base for going forwards, whether it's gonna be a couple of points or higher or lower than that. Second, I know you hate doing that, Torbjörn, so please, bear with me there.
Give him more then.
Just an idea. Then on Hastings, your confidence of getting near that 88% operating ratio, is that really just as the price rises that you've put through earn through, or is there more work to be done to get to that 88%? Finally, just maybe for Knut Arne, the remaining PE assets within Sampo, are those around EUR 1 billion, I think? Just trying to deduct what you previously said they were worth, but I reckon about EUR 1 billion. I guess could throw in a final one. Would you expect any further transactions between the Mandatum and the group before demerger, such as you know, another dividend or such like? I suspect not, but just thought I'd check.
Thank you.
Morten, Blair is hoping that you will.
Start to talk a little bit about the priors, and let's see where it takes us. First of all, of course, IFRS 17 doesn't change at all our reserving practice as such. What changes though is that certain part of the prudence that we have is now explicitly modeled through the risk adjustment reserve. You see that sort of we build up on a current carry basis 1.6% this quarter. Of course, that risk adjustment reserve will also be run off sort of over time. That will sort of give us.
Yeah
A certain run of gain, sort of. It's basically sort of the same sort of effects that we've had previously, that we've been prudent in the way that we've been reserving, and that's kind of given us some reserve releases. Again, now some of this is more explicitly modeled through the Risk Adjustment reserve. Of course, over the last few years, we've had some more special effects. Of course, prior to implementing IFRS 17, interest rate movement has given us back in time losses, and then in more recent history, sort of gains on the run of gain. Of course, that's not gonna be the situation under IFRS 17.
We also had a history of releases, in particular in the Swedish motor, the third party claim sort of... That's also sort of more part of the history. Again, you should expect us to be continually to be prudent in our reserving, and then over time, that should give us a certain run of gain.
On Hastings.
Excellent. Thank you.
On Hastings, no, I guess, rocket science. The winter, I hope, will not repeat itself during the year. Pricing versus claims will be the major decisive factor for the combined ratio going forward during the year. Of course, also choosing the right balance between new business, writing new business and profits. Business as usual, in other words, Blair.
Yeah. Okay.
Blair, the remaining PE assets has a balance sheet value of roughly EUR 600 million as of the end of Q1. In terms of additional transactions between Sampo and Mandatum, given that we published a prospectus today with the details of the decision made, there's no other planned transaction of any materiality as we speak between Mandatum and the rest of the group. There could of course be smaller transactions, if you like, or adjustments as a part of the separation planning, but not material for neither of the companies.
Thanks very much. The EUR 600 million, Knut Arne, is that just book value that hasn't been written up?
That hasn't... What did you say? That hasn't been written up? No, we didn't write up those assets in Q1. Obviously, it is mark to market.
Nordax of course, it's according to our own valuation model. It's mark to market by using mark to model.
Got you. Okay.
We had two adjustments in the P portfolio in Q1, as you will have seen from the holding segment in our formal report. One related to Nexi, which remains in Sampo. That was a negative adjustment. One related to NN Do in which is proposed to go over to Mandatum. That was also a negative adjustment in Q1. We did not write up anything in Q1.
Cool. Thank you very much, guys. Appreciate it.
We'll now take our next question from Vinit Malhotra from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much. Talking again to Carrie. Really two questions. One is linked to growth and one is linked to Mandatum strategy. On growth, if I can ask, you know, the industrial lines, number, though still single high digit, is quite much lower than recent quarters and what the market is telling us about how pricing is very strong. I just wanted to just check with you whether you actually slowed down some of the exposures/volume growth in industrial, maybe in Denmark, the slide 7 has a comment about Denmark. Just wanted to check if anything remarkable is to point out there. On private lines, thanks for the slide on the new car sales.
I'm just wondering how much of, I know it's important in Sweden and also in all Nordics of, but how much is it clear? If you think of versus the 1Q 20... That's 1Q 17, for example, it's 30% or lower even now. I was just surprised that it's still so poor because at least in recent quarterly calls, we've seen that the pressure was easing a bit. I'm just curious if there is actually an impact, and how do you see yourself changing anything or anything there? On Mandatum, please. I mean, one of the things that caught people's eye in the demerger day was the inorganic plan, kind of a hint. Today you said Mandatum should be free to have vigorous growth.
Could you just comment a bit about there is an inorganic approach by Mandatum you think you could comment on? Just wanted to understand that. Thank you.
I'll start, Morten here. I'll start commenting a little bit on the growth. The large corporate segment had about 8% growth in the first quarter. Yes, it's a little bit lower than last year, but I will say that last year was quite exceptional with both growth in rates, significant growth in insured values and also some growth in number of clients. Now this growth that we have in large corporate segment is more or less purely driven by rate increases. I think we're very happy about sort of the situation and the growth that we see in the large corporate segment. If I understood your other part of the growth question correctly, it was related to motor and private lines.
We are still seeing a negative effect of the low new car sales in Sweden, where we have the car damage warranty construction that is a three year contract in essence. If you adjust for that, the growth in private would be 7.5%. It has a fairly significant impact on the private growth. Excluding the Swedish mobility business, then the Nordic growth in private is 7.5%, and it would push the growth of If in total up to 6.7%. I think all in all, very strong start of the year with really strong growth in all business segments.
On Mandatum, I think it was a bit difficult to hear you, I'm afraid. If it was about the growth and the word vigorously that I used, for growth, Mandatum is of course a lot of growth business. The unit-linked business is growing, even with us. The asset management certainly so also expanding a little bit into other Nordic countries. Were there to be an opportunity for non-organic growth, that would make a lot more sense, of course, for them to pursue that outside of our non-life strategy as a, well, constraint.
Okay. Thanks, Torbjörn. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. Our next question comes from Michele Ballatore from KBW. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for taking my question. Sorry for stressing again on the investments, but can you maybe give us some details about at what stage are the investment in Nexi and Nordax, let's say, in terms of? Also, I know that this question, I mean, is more, you know, for Mandatum management. Even the Saxo Bank and the Mandatum have been transferred to Mandatum. Does this change the investment horizon for these two investments? The other question is about the, let's say the cooperation that you mentioned in the past, in terms of the application of the Hastings know-how to the rest of the group. Thank you.
Well, Nexi and Nordax, there's no change to their horizon there. Of course, in the case of Nexi, we're a co-investor, and we are not able to decide or even be party to the discussions necessarily about the exit point. Nordax is a little bit closer to us, but again, we are a co-investor and we don't decide about when there's a chance to exit those. If you would think about a consumer credit business in 2023, whether that's a likely exit year, well, your guess is as good as mine, but maybe not extremely positive. The horizon for exit doesn't change as such when assets move to Mandatum.
They are still in the same constructions as they are with us.
Thank you.
We'll now take our next question from Jan Erik Gjerland from ABG. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. It's regarding Mandatum and the sort of the profit before taxes, which is EUR 32 on a standalone basis and EUR 37 million on a group level in Sampo. How should we think about this, relates to cash earnings and the capital that they can actually distribute at the end of the day? Of course, the change in the, in ending the guaranteed business is still the same, even being a separate company. Just understanding more about the EUR 32 versus sort of the dividend capacity this new company is being granted. I'm sorry, I haven't been reading the new prospectus today.
All right, Jan-Erik. As in terms of the Q1 result, as such and the 32, there's really no change in how I would think about the sort of dividend capacity for Mandatum over the next few years. You know, part of the dividend capacity for Mandatum, which will not change after demerger, is coming from an annual earnings and part of the dividend capacity is coming from capital release from the with-profits, which absolutely still holds. We've had the dividend from Mandatum of EUR 150 million in the last few years. In the prospectus, you will find some comments about indicative targets for Mandatum's dividend for the next three years, which will not change to the downside the number I just mentioned to you.
Meaning that following this quarter's result, and the demerger, the total dividend capacity for the group has absolutely not changed. It just also, of course, will be split into shares.
Perfect. second question is about the sort of the underlying normalization in the Nordics from a low trust Morten mentioned. How has this looked in Finland and also the weather in Finland versus sort of the Q1, which is a winter quarter? It seems like both Finland and Denmark probably had a less severe outcome than we probably thought. How was actually those two markets looking, if you can shed some light to that, Morten?
Yeah, it's very correct exactly what you say, Jan-Erik. The Finland has had what we would consider a very normal winter. The only thing we've seen there is sort of the expected normalization after COVID. Apart from that, a normal winter. Denmark has had rather on the positive side, sort of quite benign weather this winter. Perhaps even a bit better than a normal winter in Denmark. It's a bit, little bit mixed picture sort of throughout the Nordics.
Finally, on the snow in the mountains of Norway, would you be worried about any flooding coming through this year? Or is the sort of civilian authorities more prepared this time around than what we have seen historically?
Let's see. I'm, I think refraining from speculating, but it is a lot of snow still left, so still good skiing conditions for us Norwegians.
Indeed.
I'm not too worried, but I mean, it's, I mean, it's impossible to predict, of course.
Thank you very much. For taking my questions.
We'll now take our next question from Jaakko Tyrväinen from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. It's Jacob from SEB. Would like to ask about the Nordic P&C and the improved visibility for 23 wage inflation. Do you see need to further continue the pushing the rate hikes? Perhaps a follow-up on that one, have you seen any market participants yet to become more active or aggressive in their pricing or campaigning?
Yes. I think the effect of what we see is that first of all, we have now, as I said, more visibility. At the same time, it means that we are expecting a situation with somewhat elevated inflation throughout 2023 and into 2024. It's probably sort of a situation that is a little bit prolonged, where we continue to expect, yeah, inflation around the figures that we see now. Which is sort of quite okay and something that we're fully able to price for. I think of course, this type of inflation is something that all players need to price for.
I think we see that basically most players have been doing that or will need to do it sort of because, you know, with 5% to 6% sort of claims inflation, you simply need to price for it. We do see that the market continued to be rational and that kind of competitors are pushing through the needed price increases.
Okay, good. Thanks. My second one on Mandatum and the investment return. Was this negatively impacted by the financial sector turbulence we saw during the quarter? Or would you call that Mandatum performed according to your own expectations versus the market perhaps?
I would say they performed according to our expectations. Absolutely. Then of course, in the net finance result, there are a positive from the performance on the asset side. Then there is a negative from the fact that rates went somewhat down across Mandatum's rate curve, which to a large degree, not fully, but to a large degree, offset the positive investment income from the asset side.
Okay, thanks. Final one, regarding the group solvency after Mandatum demerger, you indicate that the group could be perhaps scared with the lower solvency buffers. Could you talk a bit on your thinking there? Are you going to stick your current range of solvency buffers or how should we think that going forward?
We haven't published a new capital management framework today. We will do that later this year. The demerger in itself does make it possible to reduce that range and meet the midpoint of a range downwards. Of course, on the side, I think I mentioned this before, on the side of ratios, the demerger in itself is reducing the group SCR. Just the capital commitment as such without any ratio goes down. It of course also can go further down if we get an approved internal model on the P&C business. An internal model would never have covered a life business in the group.
Okay. Good. Thanks. That's all from my side.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Jakob Brink from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Two questions please, on. Maybe I missed it in all the disclosure, but I was looking for the leverage ratio of the Sampo Group post demerger. Could you help with that? Just what debt level should we deduct in equity as well? My second question on the dividend capacity of Mandatum that we talked about before, or you talked about before. I noticed that the with-profits or legacy liabilities are down 18% year-on-year, which I think must be a record. Is there anything so specially going on this Q1? In that sense, if sort of this elevated reduction level could continue, what kind of implications could that maybe have for dividend capacity? Thank you.
Hey, Jacob. We haven't published a pro forma leverage for the Sampo, for remaining Sampo post the demerger. Mandatum has a lower leverage. The impact on the leverage ratio would as of Q1 have been somewhat negative, pushing the leverage ratio upwards, but still not above our target. On which is below 30%. It's not a leverage concern, but it would have been a slight increase in the leverage ratio. We will of course return to that when we have all the financial details exactly of the demerger because this might of course change and be different numbers, which since things will develop in terms of financial markets and profits and what have you up until the demerger date.
The, the dividend capacity of Mandatum, related to the with-profits, there's really nothing special that has changed over the last few quarter in terms of the pace of the release of the, of with-profits liabilities, meaning the run off of the with-profits liabilities. The, the sort of run rate of that have been completely according to plan of some EUR 150 million-EUR 200 million per year. Nothing special neither in Q1.
Okay. Just coming back to the first question or your answer on the first question. Sort of a rough ballpark, would that be? As Mandatum Holding has had an equity at the end of last year of around EUR 1.3 billion, is that the one we should deduct or is there any other sort of major changes we should do to that? Secondly, on the debt level, there's of course the EUR 250 million remaining debt, and then I guess the EUR 80 million or EUR 80-85 that you leave with Mandatum. I guess I should take that out of a Sampo remaining group as well. Would that be the main changes to do when calculating leverage?
The debt in Sampo as such, the external debt in Sampo will be unchanged, remaining Sampo unchanged from the demerger. That 84 is a synthetic debt which of course can be used to repay our external debt. You could net that out as you allude to. It's not we will still report a gross debt which is unchanged everything equal. Of course, on the side of the demerger, as you will see in our disclosures in terms of when certain debt stacks mature, we have an upcoming maturity also later this year, which is not included in any of the considerations I gave you or in the actual or pro forma numbers we reported today. A sort of payback of that is not included.
That's included at its full balance sheet value as of Q1. In terms of what equity you should adjust, you could use that number. That of course will be impacted by how profit in Mandatum is developing throughout the year. Any addition to a profit in Mandatum throughout the year will be added to the Sampo Group equity up until the time of demerger. We have not today announced an extra dividend from Mandatum prior to the demerger. The more profit Mandatum makes throughout the year will actually make the leverage impact in percentage terms higher.
Yeah. Of course, relative to whatever it might be before the demerger and.
To what it would be in the demerger. So.
Yeah.
That's true.
Okay. That's clear. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Stewart Blair from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. two quick ones. I noticed the NOK has been very weak against the euro. I just wonder if there's implications for inflation flowing through your Norwegian business. I'm guessing not a lot of spare parts and materials are manufactured in the country. Your comment on that, please. I know you have agreements that will protect you short term, but if that doesn't change, will there be an additional inflationary impact from the weak NOK? could I turn now just on the internal model since you brought that up, any idea on a time frame for that? Thank you.
Yeah. I'll just start with the Norwegian kroner situation. Yes. The Norwegian kroner is on a almost historically sort of weak level. Of course, that can sort of have a spillover effect increased spare part prices in motor in particular. However, this is sort of not really a new situation. We've seen the really weak Norwegian kroner sort of for quite some time now. Again, that has been one of the drivers behind the inflation that we've seen in Norway. I think we're not sort of particularly concerned about this, but of course something that we monitor and of course, this will be included when we sort of estimate the claims inflation related to spare parts in Norway. Let's see sort of how this develops. Yeah.
The internal model, Blair, I'm afraid I need to stick to what I said before. I can't give you an exact timeframe. In terms of the work done, I'm very comfortable. There's lots of regulators involved in terms of evaluating an internal model for Hastings Group. That process will take some more time. I'll come back to a more exact timetable when we have visibility, which makes sense to give you.
Okay. I take it from that this is something that you've been working with regulators across the region for some time with.
Yes.
Okay. Thank you. Superb.
Thank you. Since we have another follow-up question from Vinit Malhotra from Mediobanca, please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. We'll keep it very quick. Just on slide 11, please, the one where you talk about the U.K., the Hastings claims from weather. I'm just curious, is this somewhat linked to the push in the housing market, the home insurance market? Is it still mainly a motor issue, this weather impact? I think you mentioned four points in operating ratio. Just a quick clarification. Thank you.
It's mainly a motor issue, not home insurance.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. It appears there are no further questions in the queue at this time. With this, I'd like to hand the call back over to our host for any additional or closing remarks.
All right. Thank you everyone for your attention today, and we look forward to see you on the road soon. Thank you and goodbye.