Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Old Mutual Limited Investor Call in relation to the Q1 voluntary operating update. All participants are in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions later during the conference. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal for an operator by pressing star then zero. Please note that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Bonga Mriga. Please go ahead, sir.
Welcome to everyone joining us on this call, and thank you for taking the time. I am Bonga Mriga, the Investor Relations Manager at Old Mutual. Today, we are joined by our Chief Executive, Iain Williamson, and CFO, Casper Troskie. They will both provide more color and context on the voluntary trading update we released earlier today, which is also available on our website. After that, we will open for any questions that you may have. Now we begin with our Chief Executive. Over to you, Iain.
Thank you, Bonga, and greetings to everybody. I'm happy to say that since the beginning of the year, we've experienced continued momentum in our key focus areas of rectifying, simplifying, and amplifying our business. As we keep re-energizing the customer experience, as we build an entirely new financial services business, we remain focused on our key conviction of becoming our customers' first choice. In our full-year results announced March, we updated you on the progress we've made on achieving our cost targets. We are re-energizing our advisor experience and in Personal Finance are making progress in attracting more experienced advisors to our restricted financial advice models. We continue to embed digitalization in our operations, and we progress the migration of our South African technology estate to Amazon Web Services. That process is 73% complete as at the end of March.
Turning to taking a look at our KPIs. Life APE sales grew 19% year-on-year as the momentum witnessed in financial 2021 continued in the first quarter. We saw improved productivity across all our retail businesses, with volumes per week reaching 5.9 lives per week for the quarter in MFC. Issued sales are above 2019 levels, with greater opportunity for field advisors to return to their worksites. We've also seen a shift in the sales mix, with risk sales accounting for a higher proportion, now 64%, up from 61% in the prior year. As we stated in engagements with you, this is positive for MFC margins and thus growth of the overall group.
Also, as indicated at the year-end, we are pursuing opportunities to expand into the full value chain of funeral services through strategic partnerships, and we will update you at our interim results on the progress we are making in this regard. In Personal Finance and Wealth Management, sales are above 2021, 2020, and 2019 levels, up 4% in the segment for the quarter. This momentum continued in the first quarter, driven by an improvement in savings and funeral product sales with double-digit growth there, but annuities and other risk sales did, however, decline. In corporate, sales were up 9% with an improving pipeline, with focus on converting that pipeline into deals.
We continue to see increasing quote activity across the sector, and the corporate businesses growth of funds under management gives us confidence the business is able to compete effectively in this space, and it will be further assisted by the Futuregrowth acquisition transaction through the Old Mutual Investment Group. Sales in Rest of Africa were up 62%, driven by corporate volumes as our pivot to corporate approach gained momentum. Despite lockdowns in China that were put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19, sales there grew 77% as savings were strongly promoted in the broker channel. Across the group, I'm encouraged by the activity we've witnessed in the first few weeks of the second quarter as well. The sales momentum and productivity holding up very well, even with the effects of the floods in KZN and the number of public holidays in April.
Our value of new business as a consequence of the sales momentum grew 52% compared to Q1 2021 to ZAR 464 million. As issued sales in the Mass & Foundation Cluster grew, and we secured new corporate business across the Rest of Africa. We achieved a VNB margin of 2.8% for the quarter, an improvement of 70 basis points on the prior year results. The 9% decline in gross flows was driven by lower inflows into the Investments business. Informing this was really a non-repeat of large new mandates from the prior-year first quarter. The outlook for flows and net client cash flow remains good, with a strong securities flow pipeline in the Investment Group in particular.
The negative NCCF of ZAR 5 billion was impacted by the decline in gross flows, but somewhat offset by lower terminations and reduced mortality claims across the life business, particularly in Personal Finance. There was a 3% pullback in funds under management as markets and the rand signaled what was to come in the second quarter, with major central banks, and particularly the Fed in the U.S., embarking on a hiking cycle and reducing balance sheets. In some of the regions in which we operate, central banks have also embarked on hiking cycles of their own. This, we expect, will contribute to a level of volatility, particularly in equity markets. However, compared to prior year, funds under management have grown in our investments and corporate businesses, and this has supported growth in asset-based fee income.
We expect that the conclusion of the recently announced sale of a stake in Futuregrowth to African Women Chartered Accountants Investment Holdings at an OMIC level will contribute positively to win rates of new business and to defending existing mandates. This momentum should receive a further boost from the group-wide proposed Bula Tsela BEE transaction, as the overall Black ownership of OMIC business will improve to over 51% once this is approved by shareholders. On loans and advances. Loans and advances declined by 2% in the quarter compared to the end of 2020. That outcome was driven by lower disbursements in the Rest of Africa. Such disbursements remain under pressure with a tougher overall economic environment and increased competition in some markets.
The growth of ZAR 53 million in the Mass and Foundation plus the loan book continues to be cautious, with lending volumes following a tightening lending criteria that were in place for much of FY 2021. We expect the modest growth in this book to continue over the remainder of this year and into next year. Results from operations for the quarter was marginally ahead of the prior year, mainly due to improved mortality profits in Personal Finance. As you know, in the first quarter of last year, we recorded significant excess deaths in Personal Finance. These were later largely offset by our provision releases.
The improved mortality profits resulting from materially lower excess deaths in Personal Finance in the current year were partially offset by lower underwriting results in Old Mutual Insure and in corporate, as well as an increase in central expenses due to our investment in digitalization and our innovation initiatives. We estimate that the April floods in KwaZulu-Natal will have a net impact on Old Mutual Insure of between ZAR 100 million and ZAR 150 million, net of reinsurance recoveries, but also including the cost of reinstatement commissions. To date, we've received over 2,200 claims related to this catastrophe, and we're currently reviewing our claims pattern for the recent second wave of floods in KwaZulu-Natal in May, and we'll provide further updates in due course.
During this difficult time for customers and communities in the region, we've deployed additional resources from across the country as part of our claims catastrophe plan to assist with handling these claims expeditiously. We've provided intermediaries with an immediate mandate of up to ZAR 15,000 for emergency repair settlements. We've mobilized service providers to prioritize affected KwaZulu-Natal customers and processed the majority of claims as cash payouts to assist customers in need. We've also separately partnered with Gift of the Givers by committing ZAR 300,000 towards providing the affected communities with immediate relief. The Old Mutual Foundation has mobilized ZAR 2 million in relief to provide food and dignity packs and to assist in the rebuilding of houses with both the Colleen Mashawana Foundation and the Nelson Mandela Foundation. We remain committed to serving customers in good and bad times.
With that, I'll hand over to Casper to unpack the finances in more detail. Casper, over to you.
Thank you, Iain, and good evening. I will take you through some additional detail by segment to fill out what Iain has spoken to. Overall, we are pleased with the financial performance in the first quarter, and we have seen improvements on prior year across a number of our KPIs and underlying metrics. I will begin with Mass and Foundation Cluster. In our banking and lending business, the credit loss ratio normalized to 4.9%, up from 0.9% for the 2021 financial year. We expect the trajectory to continue towards our stated target range of 7%-9% over the next three years. When it comes to personal finance and wealth management, the return to profitability following excess high mortality claims last year was pleasing. Results from operations for personal finance were up more than 100% from the prior year.
Our expenses also remained well managed and below those of the prior year. I'm pleased to report that improving investment performance has continued in our Old Mutual Investments business, in line with our commitment to investors. 75% of funds are above median over 3 years, and 69% are above their respective benchmarks over the same period. High market, average market levels that contribute our mutual investments revenue growth of 24% year-on-year. With performance fees from OMIC and fair value gains in alternatives, the underlying drivers. In Old Mutual Insure, we have maintained our net underwriting margin target of 46%. We do note, however, that achieving this target is likely to come under pressure given the net impact of the KZN floods of between ZAR 100 million and ZAR 150 million. On central costs, those were higher given the costs incurred in our new growth initiatives.
Lastly, our capital position remains strong with the maximum solvency ratio at 200% and towards the upper end of the 175%-210% target. The redemption of subordinate debt has contributed to the reduction from 203% we reported at the year-end. The group remains well capitalized within our target range of 170%-200%. With that, back to you, Iain.
Thanks, Casper. We're making great progress on final details of the proposed Bula Tsela BEE transaction. Please be on the lookout for both circular and the retail scheme prospectus, which will be released in due course. In closing, the positive sales momentum and higher productivity across our retail segments are confirmation of a focus on enhancing customer and intermediary experience. Supplies in some businesses are lumpy in nature and not necessarily comparable from one year to the next, but we expect that the work we're doing to transform the business in terms of increased black ownership will have a positive impact on our ability to attract this business and retain existing clients. The parts of the business which experienced pain last year from increased mortality claims, particularly Personal Finance and our Rest of Africa business, have taken positive strides in the first quarter.
We remain on track to meet our medium-term targets communicated to you previously. Thanks for taking the time again, and we will now take any questions that you may have.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one on your touch tone phone or on the keypad on your screen. If you decide to withdraw the question, please press star then two to remove yourself from the list. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one. The first question comes from Michael Christelis from UBS. Please proceed with your question, Michael.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for the time. four questions if I can. Firstly, just on the value of your business and margins you've reported here, are these on constant economic assumptions from year-end, given the higher bond yields? I'm just wondering whether that's had an impact in that margin or not. Secondly, just on PF, I'm trying to understand why the risk sales are down. I mean, you showed really good momentum last year in the risk sales. You know, if I remember back to June last year, your strategy specifically spoke about double-digit growth in risk sales from 2019 levels. Maybe, you know, can you talk a little bit about what's going on there? Or how do these numbers compare to 2019, first of all?
Do you still continue to get double-digit growth for to 2023, given the slowdown we're seeing now? The third question is just a clarification around the mortality impact in quarter one versus year-over-year. In other words, when you say your RFO is slightly higher than last year, what net mortality variance was in last year's first quarter versus this year? Just so I get an understanding of how big a delta was on that. Then lastly, just around the capital position. You know, you talk about the strong capital position, and I think you've got some good issuances planned to come further this year. I mean, is it premature for us to expect some form of capital repatriation be it by buybacks and/or a special dividend this year?
What would your preference be between those two options at this point? Thank you.
Thanks, Michael. Casper, I suggest that you start with most of those or you and your team.
Okay. So just to confirm, that the VNB margin, you know, would be on the same set of assumptions that we had at the year-end. We will only re-look at our assumptions at the half-year. That's important to understand. I'll maybe add that's in as Carlo alluded. On the Personal Finance side, we're really seeing lower results in the complex, more complex retail arena. We're also seeing, you know, simple retail going well. You know, it's really the complex retail we are seeing lower results. You know, hopefully Iain can provide more color on that. On the Personal Finance provision.
If you recall last year, at the end of 2020, we set up quite material IBNR provisions. In the first quarter, we would have released a lot of those provisions against the very high excess deaths that you saw in the prior year. The impact in the first quarter on the net impact is quite small. In the current year, we've seen much lower excess deaths. Because we released the lower of our preset release pattern and actual excess death experience, you know, the net impact on the current year for Personal Finance is also quite low. You recall that we set up another set of provisions at the half year. Given where we are to date, it's unlikely that we'll have to do that again.
Michael, year-on-year, the net impact of the looks like a bit of an anomaly, but it's because we had much higher provision releases last year than we've had in the current year. Quite a large portion of the provision that we set up at the end of the year is still available. On the capital position, we remain well capitalized. Look, as we said before, it's still quite a lot of risk in the system. We generally don't sort of pre-judge what we're gonna do sort of in interim periods.
We'll give you a clear update in August when we come to market on where we stand on our capital position and, you know, what our thinking is. To answer your question, if we were thinking about additional returns to shareholders, I think, you know, where the share price is trading, it probably makes sense to look at buybacks as opposed to dividends. I don't know if I've missed anything. Iain, I don't know if you wanna add.
Well, maybe I'll just embellish one or two things. Michael, our practice when it comes to provisions versus experience, this is going back to your question on the mortality, is to release from the provision the lower of the expected provision release or the actual experience. Year to date, actual experience has been a bit better than provisions, but essentially we haven't released that piece to surplus. We've released the actual. You could think about, in my head, you think about the mortality variance for this year is basically zero year to date. With, in a sense, provisions continuing to build. Whereas last year, we would have been releasing the provisions, and they were, you know, they were. As you know, from a timing perspective, we ended up having to bump the provisions up in quarter two.
you know, I think because it's a quarter-to-quarter comparison, it doesn't really tell the full story at this stage as to what's likely to emerge on a forward-looking basis.
No, I mean, just to confirm. There aren't any once-off releases for mortality profits in our numbers in the first quarter. You know, I just wanted to make that point.
It just sounds like there's a zero net variance, I guess, for this quarter and probably very similar zero net variance after provision releases for quarter one last year. Mortality hasn't really been a delta on the ROA. Is that a fair comment?
That's fair. Well, it's fair to. There was, I think, in the prior year, there was a slight negative variance. I think, you know, in the current year, you know, it's the variance is quite small. You know.
I don't think it's a particularly material number one way or another.
Yeah.
Perfect. Thanks very much, guys. Appreciate it.
Thank you. The next question comes from Andrew Sinclair from Bank of America. Please proceed, Andrew.
Thank you. Evening, everyone. Two from me as usual. Firstly, just on the new business margin. You're doing well, getting towards the end of the target range. Towards the top end, sorry, of the target range. Just really wondering, now that you are towards the top end of the target range, are you still looking to push margins higher? Or would you now be saying, actually, you can push a bit more for volume and just the increased competitiveness given the margins are towards the top end of your target range? Secondly, was just on the provisions. I actually thought it was quite interesting that you were suggesting in the release that you'd have a look at that at H1 and be analyzing then what's the appropriate level of provisions.
Suggested to me that you could be thinking about releasing then, which seemed a bit quicker than I'd have maybe been expecting. Are you gonna be considering releasing provisions at H1, or would you want to wait till you've gone through the colder months and get towards the end of the calendar year? And third question from me was just something in Scotland instead of South Africa. I just really wondered if you could give a little bit of context on the May floods in KZN. Just any context you can give there. How the May floods compared to the April floods. In particular, are there any changes on the reinsurance protections that you'd have for that second bout of floods? Thank you very much.
Thanks, Andy.
Should I go on the?
You start it, Iain, but I'll chip in on the insurance in particular, yeah.
Andy, we only gonna be looking at you know, our half year positions in the next few weeks. Actually, right as you sit here, you know, I could quite honestly tell you that we haven't turned up on the position. Just to confirm that, you know, at each half year we would look at reserve sufficiency. If we thought our reserves weren't sufficient, we would adjust them. We have to then distinguish between discretionary margins and the actual reserves that we set up. You may recall we did set up some additional discretionary margins at the end of last year. The corporate discretionary margins that we set up were for six months.
We're gonna have to look at that specifically at the half year. Then we'll also look at, you know, what the discretionary margins look like at the half year for the rest of our book. You know, we haven't made any calls on that yet. We'll have to. We'll only be doing that in the next two to three weeks. Iain, I forgot the other part of the question, Iain.
I think the rest was all about the May floods in KZN. Sure, I can pick that up, Casper. Andy, I think, you know, when we refer to the May floods, it's literally last weekend. I think it's a bit early to assess the pattern of claims that are likely to come in from that. They do appear to have been, you know, significantly less severe than April, but nevertheless, you know, storm material for certain particular areas. Then just to confirm, you know, with the reinstatement premiums, et cetera, paid immediately after the April events, you know, the full reinsurance cover we enjoyed previously was reinstated on the same terms and conditions. That does still, that protection is still there.
Guys, just the other question just about new business margins and whether you can maybe push more for volume and competitiveness or whether you think margins can go higher.
Yeah, I think as has been alluded to, I think, you know, the main driver of the margin expansion has essentially been volume in the Rest of Africa, given the extent of the sale increase and then the volume and mix in the mass business. On the PF side, the mix is not where we would want it to be. Our main drive is to push the mix within the risk business. To the question that Michael asked earlier, you know, essentially what we're seeing is we're selling a decent volume of overall risk business, including, you know, funeral and non-underwritten cover. But we're not selling almost too much of the non-underwritten and not enough of the other kinds from our perspective.
The focus right now is very, very much on trying to drive the mix in the right direction in the PF business primarily. We don't feel any desperate need to have to reprice, particularly in MFC, to drive volumes further. I think, you know, productivity level of 5.9 a week, we've pretty much got a smoothly running engine from that point of view.
Just one additional comment. If you think about business unit mix, if we sell more in MFC at higher margins and slightly less in Personal Finance at lower margin, you know, that pushes up the average ratio. You need to think about that. We had a very good quarter for MFC. As PF improves at a lower margin, the overall group margin, you know, will reduce. I think that the guidance we've given 2%-3% is right for the time being, because we have to think of that business unit mix as part of that equation.
Makes sense. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Larissa Van Deventer from Barclays. Please proceed, Larissa.
Thank you. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Just two for me, because the other two were covered by Mark and Andy. On sales growth, congratulations on a very strong number. My question is about sustainability and runway for the rest of the year. Iain, you mentioned that you're happy with the productivity. Is the current rate sustainable while there is a once-off in the prior year that we need to take into account? Or do you believe that a high tier number is sustainable through to December? Then the second question is related to the BEE deal. Are you able to give any indication when the circular to shareholders may be made available, please?
Okay. On the sales one, Larissa, I think my personal view is that there's really good momentum in the system, you know, on a weekly basis, and it continues to be like that. I'm fairly confident that we have got a sustainable momentum going, at least in the retail businesses. You know, corporate's obviously a lot more lumpy, more difficult to call the timing of closing our pipeline, et cetera. You know, ROA, I think is also on a good momentum recovery from certain of the COVID issues, et cetera. I think there's no reason as I sit here now to think that we shouldn't be able to sustain it.
I haven't gone back and looked at the patterns during last year to sort of understand, you know, whether there's a particular surge in the prior year that might mean that the percentage comparator shifts. At a kind of an absolute level of productivity from that perspective, I think it's sustainable. The real challenge is the mix in, particularly in PF. I think the other businesses we're actually quite comfortable with how that's going.
The circular?
Casper, the circular, do you have anything you can add around the timing?
I don't have the exact dates in my head, Larissa, but it'll be in the next month or so. What I'll try and do is try and get ahold of the team and, you know, if we have time, we can give you anticipated dates. Otherwise, Bonga can just send some. Yeah. Sorry. The guys were telling me next few weeks, you know. Within the next month we should be releasing it. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you, Casper. Actually, if you don't mind, a quick follow-up question, Iain. In the slides of FY 21, you had a really interesting chart about COVID and how you expected the waves to become less severe, which certainly has played out post Omicron. South Africa had a surge in cases in the last few weeks, but deaths have remained really low and the curve has been coming down. Was that the first wave, or do you anticipate that it's still on its way?
No, we think.
Is this now over?
Yeah, sorry. The way that our model works, the wave that we've been experiencing in South Africa has pretty much peaked in the last week, from an infections perspective in all the provinces except the Western Cape. I think the Western Cape may have peaked this week. I haven't checked the data in the last two days. From our perspective, certainly in my head, that is the fifth wave, you know. Yes, in short.
Thank you. Very helpful. Appreciate your time.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just one final reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. We'll pause to see if there are any further questions before we conclude. We have a follow-up question from Michael Christelis from UBS. Please proceed, Michael.
Hi, guys. Thought I'd ask another one seeing as there isn't any others there. Just there's no comment in the release at all and in your commentary earlier about persistency. Can you give us a sense of whether, you know, the really good persistency we've seen over the last two years has continued or, you know, we're seeing areas of deterioration or any areas which you're concerned about? Thank you.
Michael, I think we haven't seen a material change from what we saw at the end of last year. I think you shouldn't expect at this stage any surprise from persistency.
Perfect. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question comes from Jared Houston from All Weather Capital. Please proceed, Jared.
Hi. Afternoon. Thanks very much for the call. Just want to clarify the impact, the estimated impact of the Cape Town floods, and the timing of when that's included in these numbers. Is that in the Q1 numbers or, given that happened post March, is that something we'll see in Q2? I'm just trying to understand the timing of when it's actually included.
Yeah. You'll see it come through in Q2. The published numbers are struck, as you say, at the end of March. At that stage, we weren't anticipating the floods and certainly had no idea of the extent. The only reason for providing essentially specific post-March commentary is that obviously it's a potentially material event. Just trying to give shareholders a sense of how material it is. You know, on a net basis, possibly a lot less material than people might have expected.
Just to clarify, the underwriting margin in insurance in Q1 is also lower, and ex the floods. Is that what you're saying?
That's ex the floods. Yeah.
Okay. Perfect. Got you. Thanks very much.
Thank you. At this time, we have no further questions. Bonga, may I hand over to you to conclude? Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us on the call today. We'd like to remind you to keep an eye out for future announcements and to use our investor relations website for any detailed information that you may need. A transcript of the call will be made available on our investor relations website by close of business tomorrow. Thank you and good evening.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference call. Thank you very much for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.
Thanks, everybody. Thanks, operator.
Thank you.