Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Storebrand's fourth quarter result presentation. As usual, our CEO, Odd Arild Grefstad, will present the key highlights of the quarter, followed by CFO Lars Løddesøl, who will dive deeper into the numbers. At the end of the presentation, participants in the Teams webinar will have a chance to ask questions. Details on how to join the webinar are found on the Investor Relations website. But without further ado, I give the word to our CEO, Odd Arild Grefstad.
Thank you, Johannes, and good morning, everyone. 2024 was a record-strong year for Storebrand, and I'm very pleased to see that we gained trust among new and existing customers. During the year, we delivered around NOK 84 billion in return to our customers and supported about 200,000 customers in insurance-related cases. We also completed value-accretive transactions during the year, including the sale of Storebrand Health Insurance, as well as the acquisition of the Danish infrastructure business, AIP, and our own headquarters.
We aim to be a leading player within sustainability, and once again, Storebrand is the only Norwegian company present on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index in 2024. Now, let me give an overview of the highlights of the year and the fourth quarter. We delivered a record-high result of NOK 5.9 billion for the full year, with an operating profit of NOK 3.2 billion. Adjusted for the sale of Storebrand Health Insurance, we actually delivered in line with our guidance of NOK 5 billion, one year ahead of plan. The record-strong operating result was driven by double-digit growth across the business and strong cost control.
On the financial result, the gain from the divestment of Health Insurance and supportive financial markets contributed positively. Storebrand's cash-based earnings for the fourth quarter amounted to NOK 1.1 billion, up by 46% year- on- year. This is a strong result despite reversal of performance fees and effects from run-off losses and some large losses in Insurance. We are pleased to announce a step-up in dividends to NOK 4.7 per share, an increase of 15% from last year. I'm also very pleased to announce that we have received approval from the FSA to conduct NOK 1.5 billion of share buybacks for the full year of 2025.
The share buyback program will be initiated today and executed across two tranches of NOK 750 million each. This means that Storebrand pays out close to 100% of the result generation from the business from 2024, and at the same time have funded strong double-digit growth in all business areas. If results continue to grow as planned, you should expect high growth in dividends going into next year. Storebrand's long-term ambition is to perform annual share buybacks totaling NOK 12 billion by the end of 2030, of which NOK 3.5 billion has been executed at the end of 2024. The share buybacks come in addition to increasing ordinary annual dividends.
We continue to consistently execute on Storebrand's strategy to take three commercial positions in the market we operate in: A, to be the leading provider of occupational pensions in both Norway and Sweden; B, to be a Nordic powerhouse in Asset Management; and C, to be a fast-growing challenger in the Norwegian retail market for financial services. These positions are strengthened by our strategic enablers: people, sustainability, and digital frontrunner, together unlocking additional growth. I'm very happy once again to deliver double-digit growth across the entire business.
This stems from both structural growth, increased market share, and supportive markets. Now, let me dive into our growth areas and share some highlights from the quarter and the year. Within Unit Linked, reserves grew by 21% in 2024, supported by strong growth in both our core markets, Norway and Sweden. Storebrand aims to be a digital frontrunner. We are proud to once again receive the highest customer satisfaction score and elected the best digital solution in the Norwegian corporate pension market. During the year, Storebrand won tenders with a total assets under management of NOK 4.5 billion in the market for public occupational pensions in Norway.
The volumes will be transferred during the first half of 2025. This market is a growth area for Storebrand, and our aim remains to grow assets under management within public pensions by NOK 7 billion annually from 2023 through 2025. Within Asset Management, assets under management reached a record NOK 1,469 billion during the year, up by 21% compared to the end of 2024. The strong growth was helped by supporting markets, positive net flow, and the acquisition of the Danish infrastructure business, AIP Management. In the quarter, we delivered a positive flow of NOK 16 billion.
Highlights include NOK 7 billion from institutional clients and NOK 7 billion from the pension business. Let me zoom out and look at the flow over time. The development of net flow in Asset Management has been consistent and strong over the last years. This stems from group synergies with the structurally growing pension business, providing a steady positive flow, and this is an important competitive advantage. Secondly, our Asset Management business has a strong offering across asset classes and is able to win mandates among a broad range of external customers. Storebrand aims to be a growing challenger in the Norwegian retail market.
In 2024, Insurance portfolio premiums grew by 19%, while market share within P&C increased to 6.9%, up from 6.4% last year. The work to strengthen our position in retail savings continues. Kron had the highest customer satisfaction in the market for the second year in a row, and it's pleasing to see that high customer satisfaction has led to a 97% increase in asset under management for the full year. In retail banking, loan volumes were up by 13% in 2024, and we continued to strengthen our position as a full-service retail provider in the Norwegian market. Strong growth, coupled with disciplined cost control across our business areas, has yielded a robust earnings momentum.
The group result for 2024, excluding the gain from the sale of Storebrand Health Insurance, stood at NOK 4.9 billion. This represents an annual growth of more than 30% the last two years. We maintain our result ambition of more than NOK 5 billion for 2025 and will continue to implement measures to achieve the targeted profitability level within Insurance. In parallel with our focus on growing earnings, we have a long-term share buyback commitment to shareholders.
The share buyback program we have completed since 2022 has had a positive impact on earnings per share, lifting annual EPS growth to 38% during this period. In summary, 2024 was a year of record-strong performance and strategic progress across the group, and I would like to thank the whole organization for their effort during the year. Moving forward, we remain focused on delivering value to our customers and shareholders. We are on track to deliver on our financial targets for 2025, as communicated on our Capital Markets Day in 2023, and with that, I give the word back to you, Johannes.
Thank you, Odd Arild. Now, let's take a closer look at the numbers. Lars, please go ahead.
Thank you, Johannes. The quarterly result of NOK 1,065 million is up 46% from last year, but somewhat weaker than planned. The shortfall is due to seasonally weak insurance results, relatively weak performance in some funds, and a rise in long-term interest rates causing lower assets under management and negative mark-to-market returns in fixed-income investments. The momentum into 2025, however, is strong, with continued growth, price increases flowing through in Insurance, and record AUM levels across the business. The solvency margin is up 10 percentage points in the quarter, with higher own funds and lower solvency capital requirements.
The higher interest rate level has had a negative impact on the fourth quarter results, but a positive impact on solvency and the running yield in our fixed-income investments, indicating stronger returns in coming years. To pay dividends and fund share buybacks, we need solvency and liquidity at the HoldCo level . This year, we have around NOK 4.2 billion in net remittances from subsidiaries. Excess capital released from the Guaranteed products are emitted through high dividends from the life company. In 2024, capital from Insurance and banking operations has been consumed by weak results in Insurance and growth in the bank.
These subsidiaries shall also provide capital and dividends in the coming years. As you can see from this picture, we had around NOK 3.2 billion in liquidity as of the beginning of 2025. With strong remittances from subsidiaries, we will be able to pay growing ordinary dividends and execute our share buyback program. The expected cash generation through the year secures long-term predictability in our capital distribution, in addition to strategic flexibility for accretive bolt-ons if the opportunities arise.
At our Capital Markets Day in December 2023, we predicted an ability to generate 18 percentage points in net capital from operations and that we would spend 12 percentage points on dividends and share buybacks. In 2024, good results and mergers and acquisitions contributed more than that, strengthening the solvency margin to 200% at year-end. When we deduct the entire share buyback plan for NOK 1.5 billion for 2025, the solvency margin is 195%.
The solvency margin improvement in the fourth quarter has been positively impacted by increasing interest rates, favorable developments in regulatory assumptions, volatility adjustment, and symmetric equity adjustments, and strong cash earnings. With the current level of solvency, buffers, and interest rates, the solvency margin is robust to fluctuations in the financial markets. The top-line growth for the full year was 12%. The Insurance result is up 46%, but is still well below the plan for 2025. Operational cost is up by 5%, leading to an improvement in the operating result of 49%.
The financial results, including the gain from the sale of Storebrand Health Insurance, are strong, leading to a record group result of NOK 5.9 billion. Excluding the one-off sales profit of just over NOK 1 billion, the group result would have been NOK 4.9 billion, close to the NOK 5 billion goal for 2025. The quarterly results were up by 46% over the last quarter in 2023. For 2025, we expect operational cost to increase by the inclusion of AIP and investments in further growth. The target cost level for 2025 is NOK 6.8 billion, adjusted for currency effect, performance fees, and special items. We aim to grow the bottom line and fuel the growth with improving cost-income levels.
The tax charge for the quarter was 36% and above normal level due to currency movements and asymmetry in how taxes calculated on assets and currency hedges. For the full year, the tax charge was 15%. The low tax rate was caused by the sale of Storebrand Health Insurance, which did not incur tax, and lower taxes in our Swedish operation. Our tax guidance is maintained at 19%-22%. This table shows the same numbers as on the previous page, but split into the Business Lines, Savings, Insurance, and Guaranteed. Storebrand's front book continues to grow strongly, while the guaranteed back book shows stable results.
The improvement in the full-year result for Other is caused by the sale of Storebrand Health Insurance. There is satisfactory development in all business lines within Savings. In Unit Linked, there is strong growth and margins are stabilizing. For 2025, we will see the full effect from the AIP acquisition, which is expected to add more than NOK 300 million of fee income and have a marginal positive earnings contribution for the year. Within Insurance, the combined ratio for the last 12 months has fallen to 97%, down from 102% last year.
We have booked run-off losses and large losses in the order of NOK 100 million in the fourth quarter, making the underlying frequency loss ratio better than the published numbers. Still, the full-year improvement is in line with previous communication. With implemented measures, we maintain our guiding for a combined ratio of at or below 92% for the full year of 2025. Despite strong profitability measures to get back to the targeted levels, it is pleasing to see that the churn is within normal variation and that the growth in premiums and market shares continues.
The growth story of Storebrand Insurance moves on. In the last two years, the growth has come from both price increases and market share gains, and we will maintain a balance between growth and profitability to return to below 92% in combined ratio. Most renewals occur in the first half of the year, meaning that we expect the benefits from the significant price increases to be fully reflected in the coming quarters. In guaranteed, the results are satisfactory. The guaranteed reserves as a percentage of the total continue to fall. Within municipality pensions, we won all but one tender last year.
NOK 4.5 billion in reserves will be transferred to Storebrand in the first half of 2025. We still wait for the final ruling from the EFTA Surveillance Authority, the ESA, but we do have indications that it's not too far away. We deliver improvements in profit sharing in Norway and Sweden, in Norway and Sweden, sorry, in line with levels communicated on the Capital Markets Day in 2023. Storebrand has ambitious sustainability targets across the group.
It will take too much time to go through this now, but you can look forward to a comprehensive report in reporting in our annual report, which will be published in the middle of March. With the results we present today, we have good momentum in the group and are well on our way to deliver on our 2025 ambitions. And with that, I will hand it back to you, Johannes.
Thank you, Lars. We are now happy to take questions from our audience. Please use the raise hand function in the Teams webinar to be placed in line to ask a question. To give everyone an opportunity to ask questions, we kindly ask you to limit yourself to two questions at a time. And the first question comes from Michele Ballatore in KBW. Please go ahead, Michele.
Yes, thank you for taking my question. So the first question is about the Savings segment, in particular the asset under management movement. So in terms of net flows, what are the kind of funds that are or products that are attracting more, you know, that are more appealing? And if there is any preference in that regard from you in terms of, you know, where the money are flowing, if you prefer them to, you know, to go somewhere else in terms of, you know, the customer demand in general.
And the second question is on slide, yeah, slide 23, so about the profitability in Insurance. I mean, so now you are at 97%, so 4Q was 100% combined ratio. What gives you, you know, confidence in just one year to reach this 90%-92% guidance? Thank you.
Thank you very much. If I start with Asset Management, we see strong flow both from the internal asset under management, especially from our life Insurance companies in Norway and Sweden, but also strong external flow, and we have seen the level of external money versus internal money has increased over time. It's more than 50% external asset under management. I think what has been very successful with Storebrand over the last years is that we have built up this alternative offering around private equity from Cubera, from now the acquisition of AIP for infrastructure, or a strong setup for real estate both in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
The combination within alternatives has really been strong for the growth and also for keeping up the profitability in the total offering. Of course, we have all the bread and butter solutions that we deliver across the Nordics. And also, of course, our position as a sustainable pioneer that has had some tailwind over the last couple of years, but in a way, it's still a position that we gain money on. So I think that is more or less what we see on the Asset Management side. Lars, should you talk about Insurance?
Yes, I can. So thank you for the question. On the Insurance side, we in Norway or in the Nordics, there is typically fluctuations from during the winter. We have more disability, we have more cars crashing, we have more houses burning. So the fact that the combined ratio for the fourth quarter was 100, you have to look through that for the full year kind of results. And for the full year, we were at 97, which is actually a straight line from the 102 we had last year to the 92 that we aim for in 2025. Furthermore, we are implementing very strong cost, both cost and efficiency measures, but also pricing measures, which increases the prices.
And most of the renewals are happening in the first quarter. All of those price increases have not flown through in the numbers that we present today, but will flow through into the numbers we present in the first quarter and second quarter. Through both efficiency measures and cost measures, as well as pricing increases, we are quite confident that we will be back into the 92 level for the full year. As I mentioned again, there will be negative seasonal effects in the fourth quarter and the first quarter in Norway, but then we expect better results in the second and third quarter. We're aiming for the average for the full year to be at or below 92%.
Thank you. Thank you, Michele. We have a next question from Johan Ström in Carnegie. Please go ahead, Johan.
Thank you, Johannes. So I very much appreciate the slide that you gave on remuneration, but I'm still wondering if you could give us some more comments around the discussions that you had and why we're not seeing a bigger dividend payment this year. Do you have any limitations on the HoldCo level for gearing or liquidity at the moment, or is it just a sort of desire to be on the conservative side with 200% solvency ratio?
And then secondly, the NOK 5 billion of public occupational pension contracts that you want during 2024, is it possible to say something more of the potential earnings contributions from this or perhaps on a profitability level when these come into full effect? Thank you.
Yeah, let me start on dividends. As we said, you both have to look at, of course, the solvency. That is a very strong number. And you have to look at the liquidity when you are deciding on dividends. And we are very pleased to deliver now 100%, close to 100% of the result this year in dividend, growing dividends now steadily more than 15% over years. And also, you know, that yes, there has been a gain on the sale of the Health Insurance company which gave NOK 1.3 billion, but we have also used NOK 1.9 billion in buying our headquarters and also buying AIP.
So altogether, we feel that the combination of paying 100% of the annual result in combination with coupling the strong growth of the business that is around 20% growth. It's a strong message about the dividend for this year and also showing that we will be able to have predictability in paying steady growing dividends going forward. So that is very much what we have been viewing and discussing when we have given this dividend in top of the share buyback programs.
And if I may draw like a little bit of the long picture, you know, back in 2016 when Solvency II was implemented, we had a low solvency, we had low liquidity, and now we are building up a stable, you know, like year after year, we are stabilizing the business, we are reducing the risk in the business, we are increasing the dividends, we have the longest share buyback program probably of any company in Europe. So we have created a credibility and a predictability over time. So we may want to maintain that predictability and not have, you know, high dividend one year and then have any limitations on dividend the following year. We want to maintain that long, strong growth story.
Yeah, I agree, Lars. And of course, having this liquidity we now have also gives us an opportunity to, if we have a well market crashes or we have some issues, there will still be liquidity to carry on with our story around dividends and share buybacks if we have a small tailwind in the market or effects that come in the market. So that's why we feel that having around NOK 3-4 billion in liquidity, NOK 1 billion of them is debt financed, is quite a good place to be able to fulfill our obligation both to, of course, the growth in the company, but also to our shareholders. So not building a war chest, but building predictability in our capital distribution programs.
I think on the public sector, I can start on that. What we have said is that you should expect somewhere in the same margin as you see on unit linked. That's on the top line side. Going into this year, we have already, you know, we have already taken much of the cost here, so it's not going to be incrementally so much more cost. You should expect those 5 billion to come in with the unit linked margin roughly into the top line and then some additional cost.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Johan. We have a next question from Jan Erik Gjerland in ABG. Please go ahead, Jan Erik.
Thank you for taking my questions as well. The first one is on the following up on Johan's question on dividend. You show a very strong growth in earnings of 33%, and you just lift the dividend payment to 15, which is sort of long-term in trajectory with what you should expect. This is so that you could have sort of upped your limits now to get closer to the 100%. And do you think you will come above 100% of cash earnings at any future time here when it comes to paying ordinary dividend on top of the NOK 1.5 billion, which you have sort of been guiding through?
So that is my first question. The second one is on cost. Did I hear that you guided on NOK 6.8 billion of cost guidance for the year? And is that included in the full effect of the AIP transaction, as well as the income you alluded to around NOK 200 million? So thank you for that.
Yeah, following up on the dividends. Well, once again, very pleased to see close to 100% payout on the ordinary result. And of course, what we have been able to do now is year by year to take more than the annual result from our Life Insurance company. This year, we have a dividend of NOK 1 billion on top of the result in the Life Insurance company. And we expect to continue taking out more than the annual results as we see the Guaranteed book of business are trailing off the years to come. And based on that, you can easily see that we will have payout ratios above 100%. Of course, everything needs to be cleared with the FSA, but that is what we see from our numbers and from our predictions.
Just a follow-up on that, because your growth on dividends is, as I said, just 15% versus your earnings are growing more than that. So is that the earnings growth what we should look for for increasing dividend, or is this 15% steady growth what you want to do going forward?
I think we are pleased to now see that we have been able to deliver an annual growth rate of 15%. But if we over time, of course, see higher growth rate in the result than 15%, you should also expect us to see dividends increasing from this percentage because we are at a stable level now from ongoing cash. And of course, we are not building this war chest, as Lars said. So based on the growing results, you should expect parallel growing dividends.
Okay.
Jan Erik, on cost, we included a picture in the appendix of the quarterly presentation on page 31, which tries to illustrate this in more detail. But you are right in we are including about NOK 300 million from AIP in the NOK 6.8 billion. And I should also emphasize that we anticipate AIP to contribute positive on the bottom line. So about NOK 300 million in extra cost, but somewhat more in income. And then we've added on inflation, and then we are also investing in further growth.
As Odd Arild has mentioned, we have double-digit growth in many of the areas that we work in, and we are adding some cost to fuel that growth. But as I mentioned also, the cost income in the business overall should continue to improve going forward, i.e., that the cost that we invest should be met with increasing income in the different business areas. We follow this very closely in the group in order to make sure that it comes through.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jan Erik. We have a next question from Hans Rettedal Christiansen in Danske Bank. Please go ahead, Hans.
Thank you for taking my question. So just going back to the cost guidance of NOK 6.8 billion, specifically in the Asset Management segment, just looking at the scalability there. So you have a cost income for 2024 of 66%, which is down from 70%, I think, in 2023. Baked into that number of NOK 6.8 billion, what do you think we should be expecting in the Asset Management segment on cost income?
I can start a little bit on it. So what you will see is that there's kind of a division here that what comes in on the alternative side have much higher income and also not as low cost income as the index- near Asset Management. So it means that things that come in from Cubera and AIP will have a higher cost income, all else equal than what comes in an index. So it depends a little bit on what is growing there next year.
Yeah, it depends a bit on the mix, of course, but overall we expect to see lower cost income going forward compared to what we have seen. So still decline in the cost income is what we also plan for in our Asset Management business.
Okay, thank you. And then my second question was on the Guaranteed business. The fee margin there in Q4 is dropping down to 51 basis points, I think, whereas you've guided sort of 50-60 basis points. So is the trajectory that it's been following now up until Q4, is that what we should be looking at going forwards as well, or is there anything extraordinary kind of happening on the fee income side in the Guaranteed business in Q4?
As we mentioned on the third quarter, we had last year and in the first half of this year, we had income from some pension funds that we had acquired and built into the portfolio that gave some extraordinary support to the earnings in guaranteed. So that has now, we don't have that kind of income in the third quarter and the fourth quarter. Furthermore, there has been quite weak risk results from disability in some of the product lines there as well. And also from the Swedish business, the results on the risk side was lower in the fourth quarter.
So overall, I think the fourth quarter was a weak one. We should see some improvement in the next year. When we continue to bid for pension funds that we take over and build into the portfolio for scale measures, that will also give support from time to time.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Hans. We have a next question from Farooq Hanif in JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi everybody, thanks very much. My first question is on the unit linked business. So you've had, in terms of premium growth in Norway, it's still very strong, but it's more like single digit now. Sweden continues to be double digit. And you also made a comment about the margin reduction stabilizing. So just for the unit linked business, in terms of sort of modeling the future, do we think those kind of trends will continue? So slowing in Norway, but still very strong in Sweden. And can we assume that the fee margin pressure is now kind of dying down a little bit in that business?
And the second question is going back to Insurance, to deliver that 92%, I just want to understand the moving parts a little bit better. So you've had very strong, obviously volume growth, but also pricing growth in the top line. So can we assume that that will also continue, or is there a risk that volume gets hurt by your pricing measures? And then I guess, you know, related to that, in terms of one-offs and large losses, can you give us a number in the 97% that you've had in the combined ratio so we can take that out, I guess, from the numbers as to find a base level? Thank you, thanks very much.
Okay, should I start a bit with unit linked and Lars here to do the Insurance bit? I think we see very strong underlying growth both in Norway and Sweden when it comes to unit linked. And I would say especially in Norway because you have a younger population in the product in Norway compared to has been around for a longer time in Sweden. So that means that we have more paying in and less paying out for pensions actually in our unit linked product in Norway. So that means that we still believe double-digit growth in the unit linked product.
Then we are also ramping up our offering in the own choices within the unit linked that should give us also better growth in not only the corporate pension part of it, but also the own choice market within pensions. We expect also to take a further share out of that can give us also better premium growth in unit-linked going forward.
On the Insurance side, Farooq, I want to maybe start with the fact that we have been growing quite quickly and quite fast for a number of years, and we maintain a strategy to continue to grow. When you grow, the first-year premium, you have to pay commission to brokers, and you have usually some kind of a deduction on the fee for the first year, and also the first-year customer tend to have slightly higher claims ratio than other customer groups. So there.
There is no Deferred Acquisition Cost.
We have no deferred acquisition cost, so everything is charged. Growth has a cost, and that's why we have a higher cost ratio than some of our competitors due to this growth. The moving parts in improving the results from 97 to 92. As we mentioned, we had some run-off losses related to the floods and torrential rains in 2023 that came into the fourth quarter. We had some large losses that were outside of the normal number of large losses in the fourth quarter that reduced the result by approximately NOK 100 million in the fourth quarter standalone. This means that the underlying combined ratio for the year was somewhat lower than 97%.
We are implementing very significant price increases. The whole market reprices in excess of 20% due to the claims development and claims inflation we've seen over the last few years. We are in a similar amount of price increases, which means that we will, and when we get the full effect of that into the first half of this year, that should also contribute significantly to the results. We're also doing things on claims handling, on efficiency, on digitization. All of these will have maybe on a minor, but still also an effect on the overall cost ratio and combined ratio for the Insurance business.
T hank you for that. Can I just quickly return on unit linked on the actual fee margin pressure point? It's been negative, but it sounded like you were saying that stabilized.
Yeah, we think that this volumes, of course, will grow with double digit going forward and that the fee margins that we see now is what we expect also going forward.
Thank you, Farooq. I think we will progress on with the next question then from Håkon Astrup in DNB Markets. Please go ahead, Håkon.
Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions too from me as well. The first one on Insurance, a follow-up there. You mentioned that the market is pricing in excess of 20%, and as understood correctly, you are following the market. Can you give us some more color on different kind of subsegments here? Where do you see the highest price increases? And the last question on the internal model, can you give us an update on how that work is progressing?
Sure. On the first question, we don't want to go into that kind of details, partly because of competitive reasons and partly because we're not allowed to discuss too much on these pricing issues. But we have a broad range of products, and they are repriced to meet profitability targets in the group and according to maintain or strengthen our market position. So I don't think I can give you more numbers on the details than that. On the partial internal model, we have applied for that.
The application is with the FSA now, and we are now reporting internally with the internal model numbers in parallel with the standard model, which enables us to learn, to see differences, and hopefully we will be able to also report that externally towards the end of the year. But we're very happy to see that we have a model that is working, that is giving results that are predictable and with high quality. And we look forward to share that with the market when we are closer to an approval from the authorities.
Thank you. So potentially Capital Markets Day end of this year?
Potentially.
Thank you.
Thank you, Håkon. We have a next question from Thomas Svendsen in SEB. Please go ahead, Thomas.
Yes, hi and good morning. So back to the non-life operations again. It seems to be in this group life part of this business, there seem to be this pattern of negative results every year, every Q4. So is this what we see this year also a seasonal thing, or has it happened, something happened with the assumptions there on the group life part?
The group life is certainly a weakness and has been for some time, and we are trying to fix it, and you shouldn't see there will be some seasonality in the first and fourth quarter, but we are not happy with the results in group life in the fourth quarter in 2024.
Okay, and over to the bank. There seems to be a jump, sequentially a jump in costs there, taking the results down Q- over- Q. Could you shed some light on that and also what do you expect in sort of a normalized bank result per quarter in the coming year?
I think first of all, we are very pleased to see the growth of the bank and the result growth of the bank that we have seen through 2024. Of course, with the growth rate we have seen in the bank, we also need to staff up in service functions and so on in the bank to be able to meet the increased client volumes. It's more like ensuring that we are still following the cost income ratio that is now going down to quite a decent level and make sure that this cost income ratio, the relative ratio will be kept and even reduced going forward. I think that is the focus in the bank going forward.
Okay, so this is the new sort of new cost level, or was there any strange one-offs in connection with Q4?
No, I think you have to look at the full year cost level, and then you should expect with a bank growing with NOK 10 billion in loans as we have done the last year, and still the growth we expect to see in 2025, you will also see growth in the cost level in the bank. That is a part of the cost guidance that Lars gave recently.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Thomas. We have a next question from Ulrik Zürcher in Nordea. Please go ahead, Ulrik.
Thank you, Johannes. Quick question. I was just wondering, given where we are on combined ratio, indexation, and all of that in Sweden, what is the outlook for profit sharing for the Swedish guarantees now in 2025?
The guidance that we gave on the Capital Markets Day in December 2023 of approximately NOK 300 million in Sweden and NOK 300 million in Norway, we maintain that guidance.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you, Ulrik. It seems like that was the final question, so that concludes today's presentation. Our next set of results are due on May 7th, and we look forward to seeing you again then. Thank you for attending and goodbye.