Good day and welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to today's UNIQA Group results for the first quarter 2025 conference call, hosted by Mr. Kurt Svoboda, CFO. My name is Sergey. I'll be your coordinator for today's event, and for the duration of the call, your line will be on a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. You may register for questions at any time by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. Now, it is my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Kurt Svoboda. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to UNIQA's first quarter 2025 results conference call. I'm referring to the document which is published on the website of UNIQA and starting on page number four, with the glance to a good start into the fiscal year of 2025, with a very good growth of 13% cross-region premium, leading with a 16.1% return on equity, driven by a very favorable net combined ratio of 88.2%. This leads to an EPS growth of 11%, accompanied by a very solid performance ratio of 274 percentage points. If you turn, arrive to the right, the space between the international and the Austrian growth perspective, we have a quite favorable mix between around 40% coming from the international business and around 60% from the Austrian business.
This, together with this very good technical performance in the first quarter 2025, leads us to the earnings report text and to the consolidated profit stated here on page number four, EUR 151 million and EUR 119 million, EUR 119 million on consolidated profit for the first quarter 2025. This is an overview. Now, going a little bit deeper into the results on page number five, with the P&L, what jumps into the eye is, besides the great growth, on 13.2%, which I will elaborate a little bit later, is the development of the financial result, with minus 70% or on the net investment income of minus 54%. I will explain this part in more detail than on the section financial results later on.
When we go on this table, on the bottom line, we see the net investment yield on the contrary, 4.4% and an average investment yield of 2.9%. This means that for us, performance is okay. Effects on the financial result, I will explain a little bit later onwards. What was the driver of this good performance? Was a very, very stable development on the P&C side, with no NATCAT claims and very, very little large plans, in 2025 first quarter in both segments, Austria and international. With this leading to an 88.2% combined ratio. Of course, we know that the CAT season is ahead of us, especially June, July, August. We expect the big CAT events also in this year.
Therefore, we have to also set this into context that we do not believe that the first quarter on the technical performance P&C will also be comparable in Q2, Q3, and in Q4. When we move on, these financial indicators are a result of the good performance. The contractual service margin on page number seven is driven by a good new business value margin in health, which is above 9%, 9.4 percentage points, and in life with 8.7 percentage points, leading to a sustainability ratio of around 75 percentage points in Q1 2025. The top line, we have a top line which is composed of several segments. First of all, let me at this stage explain that the good growth is driven by two elements. First of all, indexation, and on the other hand, the operative growth in both segments.
Turning to the indexations, when we look on Austria, the growth in Austria is 4%, and this 4% are decomposed in terms of, and out of the indexation, 1.5, and around 2.6 is then coming from the operating results from new clients and from new business. This is the P&C part of Austria. When we look on the health side, the health side is a growth of 6.5%, here coming 4.9% from the index and 1.6% coming from the non-index business or from the operative growth. You see the health business is, especially in Q1, very index-driven, coming from the system that works in Austria. Life business, a little bit different, 2.3% growth in general. The growth, including indexation, is 2.1, and excluding indexation, sorry, is 2.1. The index is 0.2, so very little impact on index in the life business in Austria.
All numbers refer to Austria. International-wise, we grew by around 12%. Here we say indexation is not the key topic because, just to remind you, short-term contracts that are expiring, on a yearly basis, and we have especially in the international business, a high prolongation in the first quarter. Here, indexation does not play a role. Of course, we increase prices, but this is then coming through new contracts or through renewals. So far, information to the top line. The cost side at UNIQA is going in the right direction. If you look on the admin cost ratio, which is the target under UNIQA 3.0, we are going down from 15.6% to 15.4%, and this gives us also a great guidance on the efficiencies in our country. Page number 10, talking about the P&C result and on the combined ratio.
As I said at the beginning, no NATCAT and very little large claims, and a favorable development on the base claim or attritional claims is leading to a very, very good technical performance on the P&C side in both segments, including then on the reinsurance side at UNIQA Re following our internal reinsurance program. The decomposition of the combination you see in the middle of the chart, just also have in mind that the run-off result of UNIQA is in a very stable position, around 2% also here, and this leads to the loss ratio of net 58% in the first three months of the year 2025. On page 11, talking about the CSM, I talked to you about favorable 8.7 percentage points on the new business margin.
What leads to the little, to the decrease of the new business CSM in total is that, even with high margins, we are missing a little bit on volumes. This is a market tendency that we see in Austria. When I talked before on the big, on the good growth on the life business, this is driven by unit and index-linked business, which is not part of the CSM, and therefore you do not see it in the reflection on the new business CSM. We have, in relation to the last year, lower volumes in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Romania, which is also a little bit of a market topic, because last year, booming business in that respect. Differentially, on the health side, top margins and high volumes are leading to a situation that still our CSM is increasing.
Of course, we do not see the profits like in IFRS 4 immediately in the P&L. Therefore, the sustainability ratio and the composition of new business and release is key for us looking at, and this KPI is for us at the moment in a very, very good position, and we do not see here any changes in the future. On page 13, a summary of the contractual service new business values in a split between savings and protection, health, and unit linked. In total, the EUR 60 million RK, it also in line with the development of last year. We do not see at the moment also here no fixed topics in terms of the end-year development. Now we come to the investment portfolio and to that what was stated in the beginning, and now on page 15 and 16.
Yes, we had an impact on the financial result in the first three months coming from the development on the stock market, and impacted from the tariff discussion in the US. Why that? UNIQA is a benchmark investing in the MSCI World All Countries Index, and this index has a benchmark in the first three months of minus 5.4 percentage points. UNIQA is ending up, in that case with UNIQA World Selection, our self-managed fund with, equities minus 4.7, so better than the benchmark, but in case, worse than expected because we expected for us internally on a planned basis plus 2 percentage points. This is the reason why we got a hit of, so-called unrealized losses of EUR 37 million, directly impacting the net financial result because this is P&C and not absorbed by underlying items in the life or in the health side.
Yes, it's correct that, for example, the euro stocks or other indexes are outperforming that, but as we are investing globally and the reduction on US stocks in our portfolio was a little bit absorbing that, but we could not manage to get rid of all these US trades. We got this hit of these mentioned EUR 37 million on unrealized losses in the financial result. Besides, what we also took is that on purpose, we sold some bonds in our portfolio because of getting higher yields in the future. That means with the action, we bought a little bit of duration, and we bought also a little bit of reduction on the sensitivity, especially on the health side. We got in that case also a hit of minus EUR 20 million in our P&L.
This is also reflected in the net financial result of the first three months. We did this because from an economic perspective, we say, we can with this have more ordinary income in the future. With this, we have less sensitivity on the health side and also have here with this a very good economic benefit in Q2 following this year. We do not believe, and we see also that we have healthcare catch-up and we have enough potential so that this minus development on the financial side is not to be expected by the end of the year. This is the reason why in Q1 we have this minus development on the financial result.
If you look just on the net investment income, what jumps here into the eye is a so-called aperiodic booking of Strabag because last year we had the so-called Strabag adaptions coming from the real results that Strabag is mentioning. We had booked this in the first quarter. This year, as the announcement of Strabag was later than last year, we booked this in the second quarter. What is to be expected here is that there is an additional benefit on the net investment income of Strabag of EUR 55 million. The result on the net financial basis, excluding life and health from underlying items, is roughly between EUR 8-10 million. This has to come or this comes then in Q2. So far, my explanations to the financial results and to the development, especially in comparison to the year 2024.
If you now look to page number 18, before I hand over to questions and discussions, talking about on the one hand that, we will propose to the AGM on 2nd of June a dividend of 6%. For the outlook of 2025, we stay very optimistic. That means at least a 6% on EPS, at least as a growth and as our target. In the absence of NATCAT events or deteriorations on the financial markets, we are confident also to outperform 2025, to the existing target. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for listening so far, and now I'm happy to take your questions and your discussions.
Thank you, sir. As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. If you wish to withdraw your questions from the queue, please press star two.
Please make sure the music function on your phone is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. The first question is for Michael Hutter from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Fantastic. Thank you for the lovely results and the clear explanations. I had four questions. I'm sorry, I'm a bit so, so on Strabag, I saw the share price has kind of doubled year to date. My question here is, does that benefit at all UNIQA, or is the accounting really all the, the only thing you book, the actual equity accounting, in other words, the profits and losses of Strabag as they report them? The second is on reinsurance. I think last year in Q1, reinsurance cost a lot of money, in terms of the difference between gross and net combined ratio. This year it cost a lot less. I think it cost two points, and that's something in your slide 10. Last year, my calculator, maybe I'm wrong, it cost five.
I just wondered what was the normal kind of expectation in your thinking. Also, on reinsurance, I noticed that you have strong growth in the inward reinsurance of the stuff you write, the reinsurances you accept. I just wondered, is there anything here that could cause some earnings volatility? My last question, sorry about this, is on the health. I can kind of model the group as a whole because you give a clear guidance, at least 6% EPS, and everything kind of hangs together. When I try to model the individual segments, I have a real difficulty with health because it used to be incredibly profitable. In 2024, the profits came down, and now they are down again.
I don't know what kind of run rate level would be as a kind of run rate. Thank you.
Yes, Michael, thanks for the question. Happy to date them. The first of one is, do we expand the suite by the share price? Not directly because we have, on our IFRS basis, the accounting principle of at equity, and at equity means that we do not have an influence from the share price. We just have the influence from the earnings and from the profit carried forward. On the local GAAP side, which is basically for dividends and all this stuff, we calculated on so-called, what's the key from the on.
Acquisition cost.
Acquisition cost, thank you. With this then on the valuation of the company. In that case, we have no direct impact from Strabag in the results of Q1 or Q2. What we have is a higher dividend because of the very good result of Strabag, this case directly to the UNIQA Austrian local GAAP. Second question is, the reinsurance and the 2%. Yes, you are right. What you can calculate, Michael, is 2% is a normal basis of reinsurance costs that you can expect. The inward reinsurance, good point. Thank you for that. We had a huge growth in that respect. We had EUR 60 million in Q1 2024. This year we have EUR 190 million, 190.
The profit that we are doing now with Q1 is EUR 5 million, and both the revenues and the earnings are part of the reinsurance result that you see in the segment. The last point is, yes, you're right. This has to be an explanation here, but happy to give further information to all those on a bilateral basis. The UNIQA health segment is not only consisting of the health business so far, Michael, because we have on the one hand the result of the health insurance business in Austria and in international. What we then have is, with the new concept and our new business model of MAVI, including also the private hospitals, the so-called firma premica med hospitals, now the new brand is MAVI Med.
We also have that since 2024, the impact of MAVI in the health segment because MAVI is dealing with the health ecosystem, and we are allocating this also to the health segment in the balance sheet. As MAVI is starting as a startup, we have here the earnings from the MAVI Med hospitals. They are profitable. They are profits like all. The new MAVI ecosystem is at the moment, so far, a cost case and has also some topics of options and guarantees and is impacting here negatively the EPT of the health business. We can provide you via our internal IR department to split between what is coming from the health insurance and what is coming from MAVI.
Super. Super helpful.
Thank you.
Thanks, Kurt.
Thank you. Our next question is from August Martin from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions, and congratulations on a really good set of results. My first question is on top line growth. You now said that for 2025 you expect net income growth in line with your CMD around 6%. I was wondering, and this might be greedy, why did you, why not, or did you consider upgrading your top line growth as well? If I'm not mistaken, it's 5%, and you grew 13% in Q1. Following up on that growth, in the P&C segment, can you give a bit of commentary how is pricing versus inflation going on in your major geographies currently on written business? Are you still pricing above inflation, or is it in line, or anything you can give us there would be helpful?
I know this is your favorite question, Kurt, but on the excess capital, you're still tracking materially above the target range. Let me ask this question in a bit of a different way. If there was an opportunity that would cost, say, 50 basis points of solvency, is there any limiting factor we should think about that could prevent you from pursuing that opportunity, or are you free to go for any chances like that? Thank you.
I have a, thanks for the question, especially for the third one. I'm starting with the first one, upgrading the top line. Yes, you're right, because if you look on our growth in both markets, we are far away from that, what is 5% CAGR. On the other hand, we are at the moment cautious. I think I will come up with a more detailed outlook in the half-year result because we see at the moment in Austria inflation is going up. We see in other countries inflation is going up. We see globally volatility of the markets, many new governments coming in and making some cost programs, in terms of the debt. We have to wait and see what impact this maybe has on the insurance sector or generally on the financial industry.
If we can also, because in that case, why I also explained in detail the growth and split between index and non-index, what this means for us on a midterm basis, because I do not want to say now, yes, we believe that we can make more than 5%, and then in the half-year I say, okay, but this is not only for 2025 and not for 2026. That is the answer in that way. If it stays like that, August, I am quite confident that we have to also upgrade the top line. Second thing is P&C pricing and inflation. So far, we are able to price above inflation. That is correct in all markets, in all segments, even in the reinsurance side.
The point is here also a very good question because economic wise, it's, okay, where is the end of this line? Because how far can we as industry go and does the customers follow us when all other things are also getting more expensive in that respect? So far, we can say, yes, the pricing, the renewal took place on above inflation on average. The third question is a clear yes. This is exactly that what I always say.
If we have targets in different areas, in the normal M&A activities, the traditional one, in what we also disclosed on the capital market space, the vertical integration, the topic of going into M&A activities in the sales side or on the health ecosystem, if we have here goodwills that bring us the solvent durations down by 50-40%, we are not limited, and we are fine with this.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Our next question is from Antoine Bouchetout from Alpha Value. Alpha Value, please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on solvency, a sort of follow-up from a previous question. I was wondering if you could give us more details, actually the actual numbers for our own firms and the FCR, and maybe provide some details on the main moving parts which led to the significant improvements in the solvency ratio in the first quarter. That would be my first question. Then maybe another follow-up on your top line growth and P&C.
I understand what you were saying, but I was wondering if you probably have some visibility on the pricing effect for full year 2025, and I was wondering if you could give us some indication on what we could expect in terms of top line growth in P&C in full year 2025. Maybe finally a very small question on life. I noticed that the CSM release ratio has increased in the quarter. I was wondering if you could explain what the drivers were behind this increase in the life CSM release ratio and whether we should expect a similar increase going forward. Thank you.
Okay. Solvency II, the improvement of the roughly 10 basis points or exactly 10 basis points, Antoine, are three elements. A, Strabag, then the interest rates that have gone, have come up, and the third one is the operative profit that was quite good and quite intense in that case. These are the three elements that contribute to the increase on Solvency II. The growth in total on the year in the P&C side is around roughly 6.9% or roughly 7% group-wise. What we expect as a growth in P&C, I can split this if you want. In Austria, 4.6%; international-wise, 10.5%. Reinsurance, I leave out because it is a different topic in that respect. The last question was about your CSM release. The CSM release is driven by two elements.
The first one is that we had a better situation on the capital markets. That's one thing. The other thing is that we have this state also on page number 11, an offsetting of an increase of service expenses, which comes from the international business, and this was the third driver in that respect. These two things lead to the higher release of CSM life.
Thank you very much.
If you want, the more detail in terms of offsetting is Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. These are the three countries that contribute to this.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that.
Thank you. We will now move to our next question from Rok Sebricht from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for the presentation and possibility to ask questions. I would just have one, it's relating to the ALMA course. I'm sure that you're working hard on this transaction to get it closed, but I was just wondering if there's any update. Can we now expect with Q2 this topic to be closed, or are there any headwinds that you're currently facing? Thank you.
Yes, I rock. Thanks. We're waiting for the approval of one authority, and we expect this to come at least now by end of May and June, so that we expect also the so-called fee consolidation by half-year this year.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thomas Unger from Erste Group, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to come back to the strong appreciation of the Strabag share price, and if you could give us any indication of what impact that might have on your IFRS results towards the end of the year. I would assume that the carrying value at the end of the year would be adjusted. If you could talk about that, does that, is that in any form included in your optimistic outlook for this year, or is it not factored in at all? On solvency capital, you touched upon that was one of the factors that led the 10 percentage point increase quarter on quarter.
In terms of solvency ratio, it's all in already, at least for the movement in Q1, or is there more to come also for the solvency ratio? Also connecting to this topic, Strabag, would you, evidently the share price is much higher than at the end of last year. Would you consider selling parts of the stake at any point in time? Is there any threshold where you would say, okay, now it's attractive enough, we'll diversify away from this one concentration? On your combined ratio, sorry, do you have any reserving in Q1 for the upcoming NATCAT season in June, July, August? Is there any provisioning for these anticipated events? Thank you.
Thomas, thank you. First of all, starting with the first question, Strabag, Michael, also Michael Hartnell stated this question. The accounting scheme at Strabag is for us independent of the share price. The carrying value is good, and the carrying value will increase, Thomas, but this is just for us a safeguarding that our value on acquisition costs and the local result is okay, and the audit company is happy. On the other hand, at equity means that no matter where the share price is, we are, in that case, only dependent on the profitability of Strabag. That is how it works on IFRS. At the moment, it's a pity that we cannot take this directly to our result, but on the other hand, if it goes in the other direction, it's also not going into the result.
At equity means no impact and no influence from the share price of the value, and in that case, also then not on the P&L. Therefore, no considerations for the outlook. Yes, second question, solvency II all included, nothing to be expected. Of course, when Strabag performs additionally in Q2, like in Q1, there is an upside potential, but this is something that is a market value. The next question was on the reserving of NATCAT events in the first quarter. No, we do not do such reservings because this would mean that commensuration is, even in that case, getting worse, but we have considered in our plan for 2025 and in the consensus and in our outlook, significant amounts of NATCAT events and of large loss events.
So far as these are sufficient, and this is what we see and expect because we also have increasing planning assumptions, we have faith and no deviations from the outlook. Strabag stake is something that is dependent on the market, Thomas, dependent on the situation, and we would inform if this is a topic for us. We have also to communicate if we have to consider it in the one or other direction.
Thank you very much. Just on your planning for the combined ratio, what figure for NATCAT events do you have planned in for 2025?
We calculate, on a net basis on the group, always between EUR 50 million and EUR 70 million.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Michael Hutter from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much. Just to say, firstly on the sale of these three smaller countries, is there, would there be any impact to come either in solvency or earnings or anything?
All done, Michael, in the year end 2024, so we had more or less a de-consolidation done so far. Out of the situation, as these countries are not that significant, we did not move them into the other P&L position. It no matter what the result is, no matter what happens, all done, no impact.
Fantastic. And then just a kind of finishing question, because I spoke to your lovely IR this morning, and they said, "Oh, yeah, the life was not so bad despite the fact that we haven't launched new policies." And I was thinking, "Ooh, they're about to launch new policies." So it's really a question of, am I assuming right and whatever.
Say again? I didn't get it.
Are you going to launch some new life policies which would be?
Life policies, yeah, we haven't placed some product features and some new products that we want to launch to market. Please understand that officially I cannot explain you no more because of competition rules.
Absolutely. Okay. Lovely. Thank you.
Okay. One question. Thomas?
Oh, sorry. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Thanks. Just a quick follow-up on an earlier question. When you were saying about the life release, CSM release in life that was a bit higher in the quarter, if you can just clarify, is that a level that you think is going to be sustainably higher, or is it just that was a one-off effect in the quarter? Another thing is, on the external reinsurance, I'm sorry to bring this up, I know you mentioned it during the CMD. Do you have any figures on where, how much premiums externally, like third party, have you written so far, or what's the target? Any number you can give me on the third party reinsurance that you want to do would be helpful.
Yeah.
Thank you.
First of all, you can count the CSM release as sustainable with 15 macro requirements. It is okay. There is no one-off. The question on the reinsurance side, we expect for this year around a premium of EUR 200 million-EUR 250 million and calculate on an 8% earnings, on average. This business is something that we expect, strategic-wise at UNIQA, to be between EUR 300 million and EUR 500 million in the future.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. It seems this was the last question today, but I'd like to hand it all back over to Kurt for closing remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. And also thank you for your participation, for your views, ladies and gentlemen. I wish you a nice weekend. Stay healthy and see and hear you soon. All the best. Goodbye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.