Daiichi Life Group, Inc. (TYO:8750)
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Apr 28, 2026, 3:30 PM JST
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Earnings Call: Q2 2025

Nov 14, 2024

Speaker 1

Well, thank you very much for your time today to participate in this telephone call or conference call. So we released the second quarter results, so I'd like to give you some explanations based on the materials. So please look at page three. These are the highlights for results. There are three major highlights. First, on consolidated business performance. Group Adjusted Profit for the second quarter is JPY 245.2 billion. So compared to the original full-year forecast, which is JPY 340 billion, achievement ratio is 70%, which is the above plan. At Dai-ichi Life mainly, the dividend income from risk assets increased. Thus, our positive spread expanded, and also we accelerated sale of Japanese stocks. And these are the factors for good result. And for international business, the Protective and TAL, which are large parts of our profit, incurred stable income. Now, on top line.

For first half, at Dai-ichi Life, the sales have recovered quite drastically because of new product launch. And Protective's product, which leverages U.S. interest rate change, sold well, and TAL won large group insurance mandate. So ANP is JPY 304.3 billion compared to the same period last year. That's actually an increase of 24% in income. And VNB, because of the recovery in sale at Dai-ichi Life, the high rate in Japanese market contributed to the numbers. And overseas entities performing very well. As a result, Group's VNB is JPY 89.9 billion. Compared to the original full-year forecast, achievement ratio is quite high at 86%. Now, on EV. Well, this is a preliminary number. For final number of EV, that will be disclosed in the financial analyst meeting on 29th of November. For this preliminary EV, the number is JPY 8.8 trillion or so.

It is almost flat from the end of March. New business acquisition plus lower yen contributed, with some offset by return to shareholder and change in non-economic assumptions. Now, I'd like to give you some two specific topics. First one is interim dividend. We decided to introduce an interim dividend scheme, and the first interim dividend payment becomes effective on December 5th, and that will be JPY 61 , as we expected, and also, Protective completed its process to acquire ShelterPoint. This company is a group insurance-oriented company with a focus on income protection policy in the United States, and we received the approval from the authority, so starting from fourth quarter, revenue will be recognized. However, its contribution to our profit over mid to long term is expected to be JPY 4 billion-5 billion .

But for initial few years, because of the cost of integration, the recognition will be after that. So please go to the next page. On group adjusted profit, I just want to give you the achievement ratio for each entity. The group adjusted profit up to second quarter is JPY 245.2 billion, 72% of the achievement ratio. For domestic business, 70%, which is quite high level. As I said in the beginning, at Dai-ichi Life, sale of Japanese equity was accelerated, and dividend income from the risk asset improved, and also fixed income asset increases. Those actually contributed to the number. For Dai-ichi Frontier Life, progress rate in second quarter is negative because of the replacement of the foreign currency bond in order to adjust duration. So the progress rate actually slowed down.

However, in the progress rate for up to second quarter, that is actually about 64%, which is still very high. For international business, the progress ratio, achievement ratio, is about 60% in total. For Protective, their loss ratio in the asset protection business deteriorated because of the inflation. However, there was an improvement of investment return in retirement business, and control of non-personnel expense has been seen. For TAL, there was a claim payment which has been increasing. However, high investment performance contributed to the profit. As you can see on the right-hand side of this slide, at Dai-ichi Life, it has been actually accelerating the replacement of reserve requirement bonds since BOJ's rate hike in July. Subject of replacement is mainly 20-40-year bonds we bought since 2016 when negative interest rate policy was introduced, and we replaced about JPY 500 billion bond in book value.

As a result of this replacement, there was a loss from sale of JGB, which is about JPY 140 billion. However, that was offset by other capital gains, by risk reduction, such as risk asset replacement and mutual fund redemptions. Thus, no impact on full-year forecast of JPY 340 billion. And as of now, there won't be any another large-scale bond replacement in the second quarter, second half. Please go to the next page. This is about the group adjusted profit compared to the same period of last year. For domestic business, the Dai-ichi Life saw positive spread expansion, and the profit increased by JPY 55.5 billion. For international business, PLC or Protective has no impact from bank failures like last year, and the TAL's profit declined due to change of definition of adjusted profit. However, if you apply new definition to last year's number, there was a slight increase.

Please go to the next page. This is about result of new business. Group value of new business. Because three domestic entities moved to ICS-compliant standard, it's kind of difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison. However, it already exceeded fiscal year 2022 number, which is JPY 77.7 billion, and also it exceeded the number of the fiscal year 2023. Although there was a positive support from TAL's win of large contract, we are quite confident about the situation, particularly for Dai-ichi Life. Since the launch of new product in January, we saw activities by sales rep increasing. So regarding the favorable factors for Dai-ichi Life results, we are going to give you a more detailed explanation later. Well, Protective made a huge improvement from last year. Protective, well, they actually curtailed the sale of stable value balance, which was actually dragging the performance in 2023.

Catching up with the high U.S. interest rate, they timely updated annuity products, leading to good performance. Also, our full-year forecast for Group VNB is JPY 105 billion. At the end of the fiscal year, we are going to apply new criteria or new standard to overseas entities, so there won't be any upward revision. If we continue to use current method, the estimate as of now for full year, the estimate as of now will actually above our forecast. As I explained before, the new business performance of Dai-ichi Life has been performing very well. The positive impact of new product will decline gradually as marketing runs its course. However, even with that, Dai-ichi Life's new business fares very well.

From now on, by marketing our own and main products to new customers, we would like to reinforce the recovery trend that we see now. In this environment, at Dai-ichi Life, the number of sales reps actually turned positive for the first time in three years. There was a fraud incident in 2020, and we took some measures subsequently. Because of that, the retirement increased, and we have been actually selectively hiring, but we could achieve about 1,000 hiring per quarter. We actually saw the declining trend stopped. We continue to be selective in hiring and to provide good trainings to employees so that we can organize an efficient sales force. Sales policy and future initiatives by the Dai-ichi Life will be explained in the financial analyst meeting on 29th of November by Sumino-san of Dai-ichi Life. Now, please see the next page.

This is about Group EV. Well, this is a preliminary number, and the final number will be explained on November 29th. Group EV is JPY 8.8 trillion. That is actually flat. At group level, well, VNB increased, and the overseas entities benefited from lower yen. On the other hand, cash out due to return to shareholders and the change in economic assumptions offset numbers somewhat. So compared to the end of March, it's almost flat. Please go to the next page. This is actually the fiscal year 2024 group earnings forecast. Well, today we released our decision together with financial result today, and that is actually our decision to implement Second Career Special Support Frame. It depends on the number of participants, but we expect extraordinary loss of JPY 15 billion or so.

So when we know for sure the number of participants in this program, we are going to give you an update. And even considering this extraordinary loss, there won't be any impact on the probability to achieve full-year forecast, which is JPY 340 billion. So there is no revision of performance forecast. That's everything that I have.

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