Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Swiss Life's Q3 2023 Trading Update Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. Webcast viewers may submit their questions in writing via the relevant field. Kindly note that webcast questions will be answered after the call. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Matthias Aellig, Group CFO of Swiss Life. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for dialing in and for your interest in Swiss Life. Today, we are reporting in selected top-line figures for the first nine months of 2023, and we will focus, as in Q1, on fee income, premiums, and direct investment income. Those are essentially unaffected by IFRS 17 and 9. Please note that all group figures quoted are in Swiss francs, and that figures for each business division are in local currency. Also note that all figures are unaudited and growth rates are mentioned in local currency. Let me start with today's key messages. Fee and commission income was up by 5% to CHF 1.79 billion, driven by owned and third-party products and services, that outweighed a lower fee income from asset managers. Owned IFAs were essentially stable.
Gross written premiums, fees, and deposits received increased by 5% to CHF 15.5 billion. Direct investment income grew from CHF 2.9 billion to CHF 3.0 billion. Swiss Life Asset Managers recorded net new assets of CHF 8.4 billion in third-party asset management, compared to CHF 6 billion in the prior year period. The SST ratio at the end of September was around 205%. I will now move on to our segments, starting with Switzerland. Premiums increased by 2% to CHF 8.8 billion. The life insurance market increased by 1%. Premiums in individual life were up by 25% to CHF 1.3 billion, while the market increased by 9%. Periodic premiums grew by 3%, while single premiums more than doubled, driven by a new modern traditional product.
Premiums in group life declined by 2% to CHF 6.7 billion, while the market decreased by 3%. Periodic premiums fell by 1%. Single premiums decreased by 2% due to less employees entering existing full insurance schemes. This was partly compensated by higher new business. Assets under management in our semi-autonomous foundations were at CHF 6.9 billion, compared to CHF 6.2 billion at the year-end 2022. Fee and commission income was down by 1% to CHF 239 million, primarily due to Swiss Life Select. Turning to our French, German, and international business divisions that all report in euro. I will start with France. Premiums decreased by 1% to EUR 5.1 billion. Now, life business premiums were down by 3%, following strong growth in prior years. Market was up by 4%.
The unit-linked share in our life premiums was 63%, compared to the market average of 40%. We generated net inflows of CHF 1.3 billion. Total market net inflows were of the same amount. Health and protection premiums grew by 8%. Both the individual and group business contributed positively. The market was up by 7%. We continue to experience headwinds from the negative claims development and expect the technical result from the health business to increase next year. P&C premiums were stable. Fee and commission income rose by 15% to CHF 359 million. We had a strong contribution from the banking business, driven by continued high revenues from structured products. Unit-linked fee income also increased based on higher average unit-linked reserves compared to the prior year period. I continue with Germany.
Premiums were up by 3% to CHF 1.0 billion due to modern traditional and disability products. Margin decreased by 6%, driven by lower single premiums. Fee and commission income rose by 15% to CHF 458 million, due to our owned IFAs. Also, the insurance business contributed to this increase. Number of financial advisors increased year-on-year by 3% to 6,042. Turning to international, which includes effects from elipsLife, consolidated at the beginning of July 2022. Premiums increased to CHF 1.6 billion due to higher premiums with corporate clients, mainly from elipsLife. Fee and commission income was up by 9% to CHF 293 million. The increase was due to the corporate business. Income from private clients declined due to lower average assets under management.
Owned IFAs also reported a decline in fee income, partly related to negative FX translation effects. Moving to Asset Managers, which reports in Swiss francs. As usual, the update in Q1 and Q3 focuses on commission income and does not include other net income from real estate project development. Asset Managers commission income declined by 9% to CHF 664 million. About 20% of the decline is due to negative FX translation effects, and about 60% is due to the sale of Livit facility management services in Q4 2022, which affects both PAM and TPAM. In our PAM business, commission income decreased by 13% to CHF 237 million. More than half of the decline is due to the aforementioned sale. The remainder is due to lower average assets under management and lower real estate transaction fee income.
In our TPAM business, commission income was down by 7% to CHF 427 million, driven by the aforementioned sale, as well as lower real estate transaction income and negative FX translation effects. This was partly compensated for a higher income on higher average assets under management. To make figures comparable to full and half year disclosures, the share of total non-recurring income for TPAM, meaning commission income as well as other net income from real estate project development, was 14% of total TPAM income, compared to 16% in the prior year period. For the full financial year, 2023, we expect the share of non-recurring income to be at around 20%. This update is below the prior indication of almost 25%, given at the half year disclosures.
Drivers include an expected write down of a PropTech investment in Germany and a further strengthening of the Swiss franc compared to the euro, as non-recurring income relates primarily to the German market. Net new assets in our TPAM business amounted to CHF 8.4 billion, compared to CHF 6.0 billion for the first nine months of 2022. We achieved inflows in real estate of CHF 1.5 billion and CHF 1.2 billion in infrastructure. Inflows in bonds and funds mandates were CHF 5.3 billion and CHF 0.5 billion in money market funds. Excluding money market funds, net new assets amounted to CHF 8.0 billion, compared to CHF 6.1 billion in the prior year period. Overall, assets under management in our TPAM business were at CHF 112 billion, compared to CHF 105 billion at year-end 2022.
Turning to our direct investment income. Direct investment income increased to CHF 2.99 billion, compared to CHF 2.88 billion in the prior year period. Bonds, alternatives, and real estate contributed more. This was partly offset by the swing in repo contribution, lower distributions from investment funds, as well as by negative FX translation effects. This corresponds to a non-annualized direct investment yield of 2.1%, compared to 1.8% in the prior year period. Regarding real estate, real estate continues to be an attractive and important asset class for backing our long-dated liabilities. Vacancy rates decreased to 3.1% from 4.0% at year-end 2022. For year-end 2023, we expect vacancy rates to remain at this level.
Fair value changes were negative at around CHF 750 million, compared to CHF 426 million at half year. For the full year 2023, we expect negative fair value changes of around CHF 1 billion. In the VFA business, this will be absorbed by the buffer, by policyholder sharing, and also by the CSM, and therefore affect the P&L over time as part of the CSM release. Outside the VFA business, there is no policyholder sharing, and the negative fair value changes directly impact the P&L. Regarding 2024, we expect real estate markets to normalize. However, some weakness of this year will leak into 2024. We expect negative real estate fair value changes to be between -0.5 and -1 percentage point for the entire year 2024. Moving to solvency and cash.
At the end of September 2023, our SST ratio was around 205%, and therefore above our ambition range of 140%-190%. This compares to a level of around 215% at half-year... Two percentage points of the reduction are due to the share buyback announced on September 6. The remainder relates to real estate and equity market movements, and to the widening of the interest rate differential, as we have a large foreign-denominated fixed income portfolio, against Swiss franc-denominated liabilities. Liquidity at holding at the end of September amounted to around CHF 0.85 billion. Please also note, on October 2, 2023, we started a CHF 300 million share buyback program that will run until end of March 2024. Let me sum up.
In the first nine months of 2023, Swiss Life delivered continued growth in the insurance business and in the fee business. In 2024, we expect a normalization of real estate markets and a clear improvement in the asset managers fee result contribution compared to 2023. Based on this, we expect to achieve the Swiss Life 2024 fee results target of CHF 850 million-CHF 900 million, albeit at the lower end of the range. I'm very pleased to confirm that we are well on track with all Swiss Life's 2024 group financial targets, and expect to either achieve or exceed them, as we are ahead in terms of return on equity and cash remittance. For once, and on an exceptional basis, we provide more color on the return on equity for the current year.
This is a special year with significant accounting changes and business effects. Let me first start with 2022. Under IFRS 17 and nine, the full year 2022 return on equity amounts to 12.1%. For 2023, we expect it to be about one percentage point above this level, despite the mentioned headwinds. For 2024, we expect a clear improvement compared to 2023, based on the normalization of real estate markets and improved technical profitability in the French health and protection business. Back to the cash remittance. We expect to structurally exceed the group's cumulative cash remittance target. High level of interest rates is clearly beneficial for Swiss Life. We continue to see reserve releases on the local statutory accounting, which is the basis for cash remittance to the holding company. Thank you for listening. I am now ready to take your questions.
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questions on the phone are requested use only handsets and eventually turn off the volume of the webcast. Webcast viewers may submit their questions in writing by the relevant field. Kindly note that webcast questions will be answered after the call. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Andrew Sinclair from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Three from me as usual, please. First was, just could you go into a bit of detail on those, SST, moving parts? Just if you could break down those market sensitivities between the different components and just confirm what was the operating capital generation in the quarter as well? That's my first question. Second was on asset management flows. Just are you seeing any change in demand for real estate solutions in the higher yields backdrop? Just some color in terms of what you're seeing on flows, both in terms of Q3 and the pipeline, just what you're seeing there. And then third was just on expectations for the annual review of mandatory rates for 2024.
Yields clearly have climbed a bit. What are you expecting from that review? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Andy. Let me start with the SST development. As said, we are about 10 percentage points below the half-year figure of 215 percentage points that we communicated on September the sixth. Now we are at around 205. But now, what are the drivers of it? The first part is the deduction of the buyback that we announced between the thirtieth of June and the end of September. T hat's the entire CHF 300 million buyback that we deducted from the RBC, so that corresponds to the 2 percentage points.
Then we have had kind of the movement in the real assets, if you wish, real estate and equity market movements, and clearly there the biggest part was relating to equity, so about let's say three percentage points as I would say was driven by real assets, and as I said, mostly equity movements. Then the last part is the interest rate differential, and here we're talking not about the interest rate differential at the short end of the curve, but at the long end of the curve. W hat does it mean? You know we have in Switzerland clearly Swiss francs denominated liabilities, part of which are backed by foreign denominated fixed income instruments.
There, the base, the higher increase of the foreign rates actually meant that we lost a bit of SST as well. C learly, we had also operating things that went against that. There, I would say there's nothing particular to mention compared to, let's say, prior year operating earnings. I would say maybe we can expect a bit more than last year, but that's kind of what was going on in terms of the SST. Now, coming to the review of the BVG rate, that has been now set at 1.25 percentage point. That's up from 1%.
As you know, from our booklets, from the technical reserves, in the BVG, it's only a relatively small portion that is subject to the minimum rate set by the Federal Council. It's about maybe CHF 20 billion-25 billion. Then we have another CHF 20-25 billion, where we set the rate at the extra mandatory part, and then we have an additional huge part of, let's say, annuities, where kind of the decision of the Federal Council does not matter. A ll in all, economically, it doesn't affect us. We believe it would have made sense not to increase the rate, because we could take more risks towards to the benefit of, let's say, the policyholders. And by the way, why does it not affect us economically?
As long as, in the context of the Gross Legal Quote, we can earn the 10%, that we are eligible for, then, per se, the level of guarantees do not matter in terms of profit accruing to the shareholder. I think that's a bit the point on the BVG rate. Now, to the second question, in terms of the NNA in the third party space, you know, we clearly have seen additional real estate inflows in the third quarter standalone. Now, for Q4, we expect kind of a flatish development for real estate and infrastructure.
That's a bit the short-term view on the pipeline. C learly, we see that for the full year 2024, as kind of the rate environment is expected to stabilize. We see now kind of the end of the increase of the interest rates. We assume clearly this normalization to occur, that demand will pick up, that potential investors will have more clarity, more visibility on the rate environment, that demand will pick up again for 2024. And in addition to that, and I think we talked about that in prior calls, you know, there are pretty attractive yields in the real estate space.
They are inflation-adjusted, especially in Europe, this is relevant, where the inflation is even higher than in Switzerland. So we clearly see here to this demand to continue. There is clearly also a differentiation by, let's say, segment. I think logistics is a very attractive segment, where you know, despite the economic environment, demand is quite substantial. So I think that's to give you a bit of flavor and context on the real estate pipeline in Asset Managers.
Very helpful, Matthias. Just apologies if I missed this. I don't think you gave your breakdown of the flows that you often give on the quarterly calls within asset management between the asset classes. Could you possibly give that breakdown?
May I come back to you on that question later on?
Sure. No worries at all. That's great. Thanks, Matthias.
The next question comes from Peter Eliot from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Can I just, first of all, just quickly follow up on the solvency and the interest rate differential? I guess—I mean, if I look—whether I look at sort of the ten-year or the thirty-year, I'm not seeing a big difference or a big, you know, sort of increase in Euro versus Swiss in Q3 versus earlier in the year. I 'm just... Could you just clarify what we should be looking at there, and yeah, and maybe the effect that has in—has had in Q3? That'd be the first one. Thank you. Second one, on the outlook...
I mean, I guess at H1, it sounded like the target or the fee target was dependent on a recovery in real estate markets. Now it sounds like you're very confident in achieving it because you think the real estate market will recover. I'm just wondering if, you know, something has changed to make you more confident despite the numbers we're seeing. Great. T hen the third one, are you able to give us the net investment income? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Peter. Let's say in terms of the SSC question, you know, what is probably even more relevant is to look at the rate differential between US dollar and Swiss franc. I mean, that's where we have in the Swiss book, I would say a bit more exposure than to the euro. I mean, there is a kind of a more, let's say, deep corporate market there. I think it's not just to look at Swiss franc and euro, but also US dollar and Swiss francs. In terms of the net investment income, you know, we do not give a disclosure on Q3 and Q1. There will be a disclosure on the full year again.
What I think I can say is we give guidance on the real estate fair value changes. You know, that's what I meant before, when I said for the full year, we expect about CHF 1 billion negative fair value changes. This compares to the 420 odd million that we had in half year. You may recall we said that it will double for the full year or even more so. Now we confirm to expect that we see about CHF 1 billion negative fair value changes. P robably the other element of the net investment income is clearly the hedging costs. We talked about that on many occasions there. I would say for 2023, we also expect about hedging costs of CHF 1 billion.
Maybe that's on the net investment income, and maybe a word on as to why we do not provide that breakdown. You know, as we talked about, half year, the prior year is not on a comparable basis. You know, the prior year was based on IFRS 17 and IAS 39. So the investment income in 2022 was based on different reporting standards than what we will disclose this year. Now, the outlook on the real estate market, I mean, we said there is this dependence on the normalization of the market. And I would say, yes, we clearly have some visibility, but it remains an assumption.
We are, as I said, confident to reach the fee result of CHF 850 million-CHF 900 million, albeit, as I said, at the lower end of the range. A s I said in the previous end, you know, yields are attractive on real estate. I mean, those are inflation-adjusted yields that you can achieve with real estate. C ompared to, let's say, in Germany, Bund yields that are on an inflation-adjusted basis, somewhere between, let's say, 0-1 percentage points, real estate offers inflation-adjusted yields. And I think that's something that is known in the market and once, and I think that's important, you know, there is visibility on the further interest rate development. And we believe that the increase by the central banks has come to an end.
Once investors have this kind of "certainty" and visibility on the further interest rate development, demand will pick up. So I think that gives hopefully a bit of color for those assumptions.
Yeah, it does. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Thomas Bateman, from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everybody. Could you outline your expectations in a little bit more detail for both the German and Swiss real estate market? And maybe just highlight what you think matters in both of those markets. So I'm thinking about residential and commercial pricing, rental income, and also the number of transactions. And the second question is just on the international segment. I guess premiums were a little bit year on year in the quarter, and I think that we'd already consolidated elipsLife last year. So I was just wondering what was driving that. C ould you give a little bit of color on potentially the slowdown you're seeing in the IFAs you have in your international segment? That'd be really helpful. Thank you.
Sorry. Let me start with the question about international, as you say, we have seen kind of a reduction within international and premiums in the private wealth sector. You know, there we typically have some big tickets, as we had in 2022. We didn't have them in the third quarter of 2023. T hat's kind of explaining a bit the premium development in the international segment. You know, I think what is important to stress when it comes to premiums in international is that overall we had a significant increase as reported, and not all of that, but the largest part relates to the elipsLife acquisition.
Also, if we forget about, if we adjust for elipsLife, the acquisition, we also had a growth in the premium, specifically in the employee benefits area. There was growth outside the private wealth business. Now, in terms of fee development, let me give some color in the different lines. I said, in the employee benefits, we had this growth. In the private wealth business, we had lower assets under management, which also translates then into a lower fee income. And in the IFAs, you know, we have a franchise in the U.K. There we specifically were hit by the lower FX. You know, they earn in pound sterling, they report in euro.
That was a negative, and some of the income drivers in the U.K. are clearly AUM driven, where we were affected clearly by the AUM development. And in the CE businesses we had, for a long time, a strong mortgage business, which is now, let's say, suffering from the higher rates. T he activity there has come down clearly for the points mentioned. Now, in terms of the question on kind of the real estate outlook, Switzerland and in Germany, starting with Switzerland. You know, I think what is key to say is we have a very solid residential sector. We clearly have increase in rental incomes. You know, that's the reference rate that we talked about before.
You know, the first one, the first increase of that reference rate took place this year. There will be a second one expected for December, and every time we can apply a rental increase to a certain portion of our residential book. The first increase goes a bit to about half, a bit more than half of our residential buildings. The next increase will already lead to a rental increase of three quarters, essentially, of our book, and that's really helping us on the income side and demand. You know, that's the thing. Despite those rental increases, demand is still strong and still strong ways that we have a huge net immigration into Switzerland. We have a rather low supply of new, let's say, residential buildings.
I think that's really what is driving the residential market. In terms of commercial, and I'm talking about your office, we clearly see solid development of the rents. You know, we have one huge building now being in 2024 for the entire year in the portfolio, you know, that's this, we call that Brannhof. That's a huge building in Bahnhofstrasse. We have, as I said, good development of vacancies. Overall, we have come down from 4% at the year-end 2022 to about 3% as we expect for the full year 2023 or for year-end 2023. And continued high demand, you know, for offices and that's what we see. People want to work in the office, that they sense that they are more productive.
That's to give some color on the Swiss real estate. Now, in terms of the German situation, you know, we clearly see a good development there, and therefore it's more commercial on the rent side. You know, as I said, there is this pickup versus the inflation-adjusted bond yield. And what we also see is that construction activity has come down, so this will really be an additional benefit going forward to the office market.
That's very clear. Thank you very much for your detailed answer.
The next question comes from Ahmed Nasib from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, morning. Thanks for taking my question. F irst two on real estate. On the TPAM non-recurring income, you've provided a 20% guidance for the full year. We've only got two months left until 2023. So I guess question is, given that you probably see the pipeline for projects, how certain are you in the 20%? Of course, it's come down from 25, but that was set a little bit earlier in the year. And then, second question on the real estate revaluation of CHF 1 billion for this year. How much of that is in the non-VFA BBA business, according to your expectations for full year? And then final question is non-real estate related. It's a little bit technical. On the BVG question, at the minimum rate, the 1.25.
I think you take the 10% for shareholders from the growth number, so that is, I think, the reason why you're saying it's not, it doesn't impact economically. But on the reserves, do you need to increase the reserves because the mandatory rate has gone up? And does that mean that you've got less reserve releases to come through in the future, or is that not the case? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. Let me start with the last one on the BVG. The ten percent, that's the maximum share we can take on the Gross Legal Quote on a turnover number. That's what it is. On your question on the reserves, the one point two five percent, they relate to what we call the mandatory old age savings part. And the savings part is more like a bank account, where you have an account value and you either credit one percent or one point two five percent, that's a minimum. So there's no prospective thing. There's no reserve calculation. No, it doesn't affect the reserve releases at all.
Let me nevertheless remind you that what drives the additional cash remittance, the structural enhanced cash remittance, are the reserve releases in the Swiss individual business. In the BVG business, the reserve releases take place within the policyholder sphere, so it doesn't affect the reserves, but it wouldn't have affected the policy the shareholder anyway. Now, to the second question, the real estate fair value changes. You know, we said it's about a negative CHF 1 billion for the full year, as we expect. That's roughly speaking on a real estate portfolio of round about CHF 40 billion. And out of these CHF 40 billion, about CHF 5 billion are outside the VFA business.
Now, what is relevant in the context is you know, in these CHF 5 billion, there's maybe half of that, a bit more than half, is Swiss real estate, and the remaining part is non-Swiss real estate. T hat's a bit more geared on the non-VFA business towards non-Swiss real estate, to give you a color as well. Now, the first question you asked, the 20% non-recurring income. As you said, we have two months to go. You know, we're quite confident that we are here. You know, it's the nature of non-recurring business that it's locked in once everything is signed, sealed, and delivered, but we're quite confident. Let me remind you what is the driver of the update on this guidance.
It's an expected write-down on a prop tech investment that Swiss Life Asset Managers has undertaken, and also due to the lower effects that we expect.
Perfect. Thank you. Can I just ask one more follow-up on the CHF 1 billion? How much of that do you expect to be non-Swiss? I guess majority of the CHF 1 billion negative is non-Swiss revaluations.
Look, we can go back to what we said in half year. If we look at the market, so Swiss real estate certainly is least affected there. Then it comes Germany, and on a relative basis, France is certainly most affected from those relative fair value changes.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Kailesh Mistry from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I have three. The first one would be on the fee income coming from France. We have seen some strong momentum again in the fee income generated in France, driven by the structured product. So could you just comment, how should we think about this momentum going ahead into the fourth quarter and into 2024? The second one would be again on the real estate. The share of non-recurring income has obviously been revised down to 20%. But if you could just comment, how should we again think about that going into next year? Obviously, the guidance was 25-75 split. Are you comfortable with the guidance going into 2024?
The last one would be on your real estate exposure or real estate portfolio, given what we have seen in the market. A re you confident with your real estate exposure, or are you trying to revisit your asset mix in the real estate part? Thank you. That would be my question.
Thank you for your questions. I also start with the last questions, you know, on the real estate portfolio. We are absolutely comfortable with our real estate portfolio. We have a high quality of both location, building, and also tenants, so I think we have a very good portfolio here. I think what is also important to recall is that we hold the real estate portfolio because of the rental income, of the stable rental income it provides. We don't hold it for fair value changes.
From the characteristics, we really think it's an attractive asset class, so we are absolutely comfortable to hold that real estate portfolio because it's part of the matching, the ALM matching that we undertake. And just to give you an example, I mean, we have sometimes situations where we dispose of real estate objects for various reasons because it doesn't fit the strategy anymore. And it happens this year or in this quarter, that we sell something above the carry value. So, I think you see there is demand here, and we also optimize the portfolio asset.
We feel very comfortable with the portfolio we have, and besides kind of optimizations, we do not intend to change the asset allocation. When we had relative changes, this was driven because, let's say, the rates have gone up and the relative share of fixed income has changed. T here clearly we will see, depending on the rate development, changes of the relative asset allocation there going forward. Now, the second question, guidance of non-recurring income for 2024. You know, at the last investor day, we set kind of the guidance of around 25%. You know, we gave back in December or November 2021, this guidance, assuming normal real estate markets.
As we, as I said, expect a normalization for the real estate market in 2024, is around 25%, I think, are a good indication for next year. Now, in terms of the first question, on the structured products in the French business unit, I think we are on a very good track. You know, there is clearly a situation where we have these structured products as part of our unit-linked proposition. I think we are well positioned there, within our client base. Not all of our clients have this kind of structured products, maybe one-third.
We clearly expect for this year continuation of the trend, but on 2024, it may be that these extraordinary high levels of activity that they may come down.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star followed by one. The next question comes from Rene Locher from KBW. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, all. J ust a clarification. I want to make sure that I understand correctly. You also give guidance for real estate revaluation losses in 2024 is 0.5% to 1%. Is that right?
Yes, that's right.
Oh.
We said that some of this weakness that we experienced this year will leak into 2024, and we said the negative 0.5 percentage point to maybe negative 4 percentage points, that's for the full year, 2024.
Okay. Okay, fine. Little bit surprised to me, because when I'm listening to listed real estate companies, I mean, when rates are peaking, so the discount rate should not increase in the valuation model, you know. I mean, you have like project, like Branhoff, you know, where I do believe rates will go up substantially. When you move the project to the real estate portfolio, you will achieve revaluation gains. F rom that, little bit surprised to see this spillover effect. Nevertheless, thank you very much. T he second question is on the return on equity. Here, again, just that I get it right: You mentioned that 2023 will be one percentage point above the 12.1% achieved in 2022?
Thank you, Rene. Maybe on the first point, you know, first of all, the valuations are undertaken by an external valuation agent, and they do not look at the interest rates. They look at what happens in the transaction market, and there may be in the transaction market, a lag effect. I mean, and that's the reason why this may happen next year, that this spillover may happen into next year, because for that very reason. Now, in terms of the ROE, yes, we said the 12.1% for full year 2022. They are based on IFRS 17 and 9.
On a comparable basis, that was full year 2022, we expect 1 percentage point uplift for full year 2023, and for 2024, we expect a clear improvement versus 2023.
Okay. Okay. A gain, if I got it right, in H1 2023, the ROE was at 15.8%, right?
Yeah. Let me briefly check in the booklet, but if you read off that, the booklet, yeah-
Yeah.
That's, it is.
Okay. Okay. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
We have a follow-up question from Thomas Bateman from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi there. I was just asking or wanted to ask a little bit more on the details of the write-down. I couldn't work out if you were kind of implying a bit of a one-off. It feels like there are broader pressures on the real estate market that's driving the negative revaluations. But how big is, was that specific write-down you were talking about? W as that in Q3, i.e., is it included in the SST ratio, or would you expect that to be a headwind in Q4?
First of all, yes, that's a one-off. It's a one-off of about CHF 20 million that we expect for the fourth quarter. So, it's not included in the SST, but, you know, CHF 20 million compared to the risk-bearing capital of CHF 30-plus billion is obviously a small point. Now, what is important to say, this 20 million, they are both internally occurring in AM and TPAM. And it is ... I think that's the important thing, it's a complete write-down of that investment.
Okay, understood. O ne full write-down, but relatively small in the context of the kind of total CHF 1 billion. Okay. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Aellig for closing remarks.
This brings us to the end of the call with a save the date for 2024. Swiss Life will host an Investor Day next year to disclose a new strategic and financial program. Investor Day is planned to be held on third of December 2024. Thank you for listening and for your interest in Swiss Life and your questions. Have a nice day and goodbye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.