This summary is based on the first quarter fiscal 2007 earnings call conducted by Allianz SE (AZ) on May 8, 2007.
Chief Financial Officer: Helmut Perlet
Head of Investor Relations: Oliver Schmidt
Key Investors Issues
- Net income exceeded €3.2 billion, representing 82.1% year-on-year increase.
- Quarter sales of €29.3 billion was flat compared to last year.
- The operating profit increased by 7.2% from €2.7 billion to around €2.9 billion.
First Quarter Fiscal 2007 Financial Highlights
Total revenues amounted to 29.3 billion euros, thereby reaching the previous year’s level after adjustment for currency effects.
This result is in line with expectations. The first and foremost the major impact came from the situation in the life insurance business in the United States. In 2006, the production went down from about $3.3 billion in first quarter of 2006 all the way to $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter. We have now in the first quarter 2007 based on all the activities and measures, the management has been able to stabilize the premium short-fall. In the long short, the company is missing 1.1 billion of premiums and that offsets that to the negative gross of 3.9% in the Life Health business. On top of that, revenue development was also impacted by a weak US dollar, which apart from the impact on insurance businesses, is immediately visible if you look to the asset management figures, fell to gross 3.9. Without the weakening of the US dollar, the gross would have been 9.9%, in line with the company’s target.
The operating profit increased by 7.2% from 2.7 billion euros to around 2.9 billion euros.
Quarterly net income exceeded 3.2 billion euros, representing 82.1% year-on-year increase. This performance was driven by realized gains from investments amounting to 2 billion euros as well as solid growth of operating profit. As a result of the claims costs from storm Kyrill totaling 340 million euros, the operating profit in the Property and Casualty business declined by 119 million euros compared to the previous year’s quarter. Operating profit of all other segments improved. Allianz benefited from the excellent performance of the capital markets and realized gains of 2 billion euros from investments. The proceeds will mainly be dedicated to financing the AGF transaction.
The income before taxes and minorities is up roughly 50% to now 4.5 billion.
Income taxes remain more or less flat. The effective tax rate is 21.2%. That has to be understood because of the fact there is higher tax-exempt capital gains, and also the minority interests remain more or less flat thanks to the pay 100% ownership of Russ. Altogether that gets to €3.2 billion of net income. All things being equal, the firm has no further appetite for realizing a large number of capital gains. That obviously depends also a little bit on specific situations, and facts and circumstances on the market. But as of today with €2 billion of net capital gains, the firm is already ahead of a normalized level of debt taking and again the company is not planning for further major initiatives here.
Shareholders equity has increased to €52.3 billion.
That is up 3.6% but roughly €1.8 billion.
The management had talked during its annual conference in February about the impact of the minority buyouts and it had given some update on the result of the AGF tender offer.
The firm is now owning 95.4% in AGF that would give it the opportunity to initiate a squeeze-out. As soon as the formal procedure is initiated, the firm will all the details and information to the public.
The company’s pro forma results are based on the assumption that it had already owned 95.4% shares in AGF since January 1, 2007.
Based on that, the firm’s Solvency ratio is going down to 176. EPS are going up from €7.51 to €7.54 cents so the transaction is accretive from day one. When the firm announced the deal in January, it said that it expects 2% accretion in EPS. That number of 7.45 is somewhat understated at that point in time because of the fact that the firm had very high capital gains in the group and none of these capital gains was taken at the level of AGF and that has a negative impact on this accretion.
Performance Analysis of Segments
Property and Casualty business
