Earnings Call: Q4 2026

May 15, 2026

Well, thank you very much for coming to this conference call. For today, we disclose our FY 2025 earnings results. I'd like to give you a summary of the earnings results. Please go to page three. First, I'd like to begin with the highlights. The first on the group consolidated results. Adjusted profit is JPY 551 billion, way over the estimate announced in February, which was JPY 500 billion. Due to favorite economic conditions such as interest rate hikes and stock performance, particularly in Dai-ichi Life, we saw huge improvement in alternative and yen bonds, resulting in better than estimate number. For international business, Protective's earnings was stable. For core business, we renewed record profit for three consecutive years. Adjusted ROE is 12.7%, and we achieved that goal of FY 2026, which is 12% earlier than planned. The second highlight is outlook for fiscal year 2026. For full year estimate of Group, the adjusted profit, that is JPY 560 billion, the record high for four consecutive year. Domestic business is expected to be flat, including Dai-ichi Life. Higher positive spread offsets lower insurance profit and loss. For international business, profit recovery in TAL and Vietnam will contribute to substantial profit improvement. Last year's upside weaned off, non-personnel expenditure will rise due to inflation. We are confident enough to exceed the profit of this fiscal year, which is record high. On return to shareholders. In response to increasing Group adjusted profit, dividend per share for fiscal year 2025 is JPY 54.5, which is increased by JPY 2.5 from estimate in February. Regarding DPS for fiscal year 2026, as we planned, payout ratio will be raised to 50%. From FY 2026 dividend, the dividend will be JPY 72, which is a 32% increase. This is about the situation since the estimate revision in February. As you can see, all segment exceeded full year estimate. For domestic business, Dai-ichi Life's JPY bond and the risk asset contributed to increase in positive spread, and insurance profit and loss was higher than expectation, resulting in better than revised estimate in February. For international business, for TAL in Australia, as of February, we priced in deterioration in claims. However, after reflecting fourth quarter actual number, claim situation improved from the third quarter, resulting in higher profits than estimate in February. For non-insurance business, real estate asset management business contributed, and for Canyon Partners, earnings recovered in Q4. Achievement ratio in non-insurance business, including Benefit One, was higher than expected. Please go to the next page. This is about group adjusted profit compared to the previous year. Profit growth 25%, mainly driven by Dai-ichi Life and Protective's higher profits and a higher contribution from asset management business. At Dai-ichi Life, positive spreads increased, and we saw increase in gain from domestic share sale as well. For Protective, cost reduction and investment yield improvement led to organic growth of profit, more than JPY 20 billion increase. For asset management business, Capula and real estate asset management started to contribute to the profit. Non-insurance businesses as a whole generated more than JPY 20 billion profit. Domestic, international, non-insurance, all of those business, we saw increase in profit. With stable domestic business as a foundation, international and non-insurance businesses will drive growth at the group's results as a growth driver. This is a little bit technical, but I'd like to explain about net income decline. On the left-hand side, you can actually see the difference between net income and adjusted profit. For adjusted profit, MVA and temporary valuation profit and loss was excluded. Particularly, Protective's net income is incurred based on new accounting standard. Adjusted profit is calculated under old standard. Impact of new standard application, which is about JPY 30 billion, was removed from adjusted profit. Due to accounting standard change, fiscal year 2024 net income was revised. As a result, fiscal year 2024 net income increased JPY 28.8 billion. Consequently, net income declined by JPY 21.8 billion. The JPY 7 billion increase actually from pre-revision number. Fiscal year 2024 net income increased, and the fiscal year 2025 net income declined. Excluding impact from accounting standard change, Protective's sustained growth trend is intact. Please move to the next page. This is the impact of higher interest rate. In Japan, interest rate is still increasing. Higher rate is positive for our business, particularly on mid to long term. When rates are rising, we can flexibly rebalance yen-bond portfolio to expand spread. In FY 2025, impact from positive spread improvement was JPY 30 billion. Out of that, JPY 21 billion will contribute to the profit of FY 2026. Matching ratio by flexible operation on asset side remained below 100%. For LAPS, the details are described in other pages, please refer to that at your leisure. It remains at low level, including lump sum saving products. Please move to the next page. This is our plan for sale of domestic shares. FY 2025, substantial rally of Japanese equities. We sold JPY 800 billion, which is double the expectation. We're steadily reducing equity risk amount. Japanese equity continue to rally. Our goal of equity balance in the end of March 2027 is JPY 2.8 trillion, and we plan to sell JPY 800 billion in this fiscal year. These are the initiatives to improve positive spread. Based on gain from Japanese equity sale, for FY 2025, we rebalanced JPY 1.3 trillion in yen bond portfolio. Together with lower liability cost, we saw JPY 44 billion improvement in positive spread. For this term, our rebalancing will be similar level of last year. We continue to rebalance bond portfolio. Positive spread of FY 2030 will be more than JPY 100 billion higher than FY 2025. Please move to the next page. This is our outlook for full year FY 2026. The Group adjusted profit outlook for 2026 is up JPY 10 billion from last year. The international business is a main driver, particularly for TAL. We expect V-shaped recovery from impact of claim worsening last year. Repricing and good progress in repricing negotiation in Group business contributes to the recovery. We expect improvement of JPY 25 billion. For adjusted profit, for Adjusted ROE, our estimate is a similar level of this fiscal year. This is about our return to shareholder initiative. DPS for FY 2025 increased by JPY 2.5 from February estimate, resulting in JPY 54.5. For FY 2026 DPS, we formally decided to raise payout ratio. Starting from interim dividend for FY 2026, we apply 50% payout ratio. That means that the dividend will be 72%, which is 33% increase. Traditionally, we announced annual share buyback plan disclose together with the earning results, but we haven't decided share buyback. ROE is steadily exceeding cost of capital, so we are now more flexible about share buyback plans. For the future, we will grow DPS further through EPS growth. Now on page 14, this is about Group ESR. This is a rough estimate. Higher interest rate increased math LAPS risks. That was offset by increase in capital due to Japanese equity rally, so ESR increased by 10%, 220%. Now, with the introduction of J-ICS, we are going to disclose regulatory ESR in the future. We continue to disclose this internal model-based ESR as well. Move to the next page. This is Group EV and Value of New Business. These are rough estimates. For Group EV, because of Japanese equity rally and also rate curve steepening, and also we actually updated the model as well. As a result, the Group EV is JPY 9.7 trillion, which is JPY 1.5 trillion increase. For value of new business driven by Dai-ichi Life's improvement due to sales increase rose from previous year. Dai-ichi Life's value of new business is below full year estimate. This has been influenced by the assumption and also model changes. Incident rate update and annuity calculation model change led to decline of about JPY 40 billion. For value of sales revenue, the recovery trend still continues. For value of new business, in the fourth quarter, we reflected the higher interest rate, we changed the model to a more conservative one. Page 17. This is Protective's acquisition. Protective announced the acquisition of Obsidian, which is a hybrid fronting company which is operating in admitted and E&S market in the U.S. They actually based on the fee business, based on the fronting fee received by providing license and reinsurance, and they underwrite about 5% of the total risk by themselves. This business gives diversification effect to life-centered Protective business and contributes to Protective's capital-light strategy. We expect Obsidian to generate $30 million-$40 million profit in midterm plan period. That's all I have today.