Shin Kong Financial Holding Co Ltd

TWSE:2888

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Welcome, everyone, to Shin Kong Financial Holding Company's 2024 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] For your information, this conference call is now being broadcasted live over the Internet. Webcast replay will be available within an hour after the conference is finished. Please visit www.skfh.com.tw under the Investor Relations section.

And now I would like to introduce Ms. Monica Chang, IR from Shin Kong Financial Holding Company. Ms. Chang, please begin.

[Tingyu Chang, executive]

Thank you, Jason. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome for joining Shin Kong Financial Holding 2024 First Quarter Results Conference Call. First, allow me to introduce the management who are with us today. From Shin Kong Financial Holding, here are President, Stephen Chen; CFO, Judi Ling; Senior Assistant VP, Vicky Lu; Assistant VP, Emily Lu. From Shin Kong Life, here are Chief Actuary, Hanwei Lin; Vice President, [ Stefan Huang ]; and Senior Assistant VP, [ Stacey Chen ].

The presentation we are about to go through was sent out 2 hours ago. You may download it from our website or participate in the webcast.

Before we start, I'd like to mention that we're in the midst of right issuing process. According to related regulations, the quiet period prohibit us from revealing any forecasted financial or business information. Therefore, we are not releasing the 2023 embedded value result for Shin Kong Life this quarter. We will release the result once the quiet period is over.

Now let's please start from Page 4. Shin Kong Financial Holding recorded a consolidated after-tax profit of TWD 3.1 billion for the first quarter of 2024. Consolidated shareholders' equity increased 6.2% year-to-date to TWD 261 billion, and book value per share was TWD 16.53. Our subsidiaries maintained stable business momentum during the year. More details will be covered later on in the presentation.

We now start from our largest subsidiary, Shin Kong Life. Page 9, please. Shin Kong Life was out of the red, recorded a consolidated after-tax earnings of TWD 373 million (sic) [ TWD 470 million ] for the first quarter of this year, thanks to higher capital gains from equity and lower hedging costs. Consolidated shareholders' equity for the first quarter increased 12.9% year-to-date to TWD 179 billion.

Page 10. Under product mix adjustment, first year premium for the first quarter edged down 0.7% year-on-year to TWD 9.8 billion. However, with a value-driven product strategy, first year premium equivalent grew 1.2% year-on-year to TWD 4.1 billion. And FYPE over FYP was 41.7%, higher than the figure of same quarter last year. Meanwhile, favored by policyholders, first year premium for traditional products increased more than 49% year-on-year to TWD 7.6 billion, which helps to improve our VNB.

Page 13 gives an overall picture of Shin Kong Life's investment portfolio. Total investment was around TWD 3.5 trillion at the end of the first quarter this year. Annualized investment return after hedging for the first quarter was 3.91%. If we break down to different asset classes, the investment returns were real estate, 2.6%; mortgage and corporate loans, 2.5%; policy loans, 5.3%; overseas investment, 3.1%; domestic securities, 7.5%; and cash, 1.7%.

Page 14. This page shows the portfolio of our overseas fixed income. At the end of the first quarter, the overseas fixed income position was around TWD 2.3 trillion. The funds were mainly deployed in our investment-grade corporate bonds, and the portfolio remains similar to that of the previous quarter. Over 90% of the overseas fixed income position was deployed in U.S. dollar-denominated bonds. As for the investment region, North America and Europe remain Shin Kong Life's focus, with a combined share of more than 65%.

Page 16. The pie chart on the left shows the mix of hedging vehicles. At the end of the first quarter, the hedging ratio was around 75%, including CS, NDF and naturally hedged foreign currency policies. Our first quarter hedging cost was 119 basis points. The figure was lower than the same period last year on the back of Taiwan dollar depreciation and, of course, affected hedging strategy in the first quarter.

Page 20. Let's move on to Shin Kong Bank. Boosted by net fee income and net interest income, total net revenue for the first quarter rose more than 10% year-on-year to TWD 5.2 billion. Preprovision operating income raised 12.4% year-on-year to TWD 2.4 billion, and consolidated net income gained more than 12% year-on-year, which amounted to TWD 1.7 billion.

Page 21. The bank's loan balance was TWD 814 billion at the end of first quarter this year, which was 0.9% higher compared to the end of 2023. Consumer loan book grew 0.8% year-to-date, representing more than 60% of our loan portfolio, as unsecured consumer loans and other consumer loans increased 1.6% and 1.9% year-to-date, respectively. Going forward, in 2024, Shin Kong Bank will expand consumer loans and SME loans to sustain our loan growth momentum, at the same time, increased interest spread as well as loan-related fee income.

Page 22. As market competition led to higher deposit interest rate, net interest spread for the first quarter of 2024 lowered 5 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 1.54%. And our net interest margin also slipped quarter-on-quarter to 1.14%. If we reclassify the swap income, the adjusted NIM in the first quarter will be 1.25%.

Page 24. Wealth management income increased a significant 35.1% year-on-year to TWD 918 million. Our mutual funds and bancassurance are the main drivers, with fee income increasing more than 100% and around 90% year-on-year, respectively. Shin Kong Bank will continue to recruit experienced financial consultants and deepen its partnership with Shin Kong Life, designing better products for banking channels in the future.

Page 25. Asset quality remained benign. Both the NPL ratio and coverage ratio surpassed the industry average. The figures were 0.12% and over 1,000%, respectively. New NPL generated in the first quarter of this year was nearly TWD 371 million. The amount is negligible to our total loans.

Lastly, Page 27, MasterLink Securities. In the first quarter of 2024, operating revenue surged more than 30% year-on-year to TWD 2.9 billion, and consolidated after-tax profit gained 30%, amounted to TWD 1 billion. The decent growth was mainly attributed to prominent performance in brokerage business, which contributed TWD 1.6 billion to the income. Meanwhile, our prop trading also grew 13.3% year-on-year to TWD 1.1 billion.

Here comes to the end of the presentation. Thank you for your patience and your time. We'll now proceed with the Q&A session.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question coming from Jemmy Huang of JPMorgan.

[Jemmy Huang, analyst]

Two questions from me. First one is on bank. Other comprehensive income was negative in the first quarter. Is that due to mark-to-market losses on fixed income investments or any other reason?

The second question is for VNB. I think in the Chinese session, you mentioned preliminary VNB margin was around 37% in the first quarter. I recall, I think, for the full year of 2023, your preliminary VNB margin was over 40%. But if I look at your FYP mix in the first quarter versus full year last year, supposedly, the FYP mix is -- should be better in the first quarter this year. So how do we reconcile the difference?

[Stephen Chen, executive]

Yes. For the first question, I think the comprehensive income deteriorate, I think, mainly due to, I think, the valuation reduction of our fixed income portfolio.

And on the equity portfolio, I think we still -- our value is still increased in the first quarter. I think it's due to the higher interest rate in the first quarter, yes.

For the second question, VNB maybe, Hanwei, you want to...

[Hanwei Lin, executive]

Yes, Jemmy, for first quarter this year, we have more traditional products than first quarter last year and also more NT-dollar product. But some of them are short-pay products like [ 2-pay ] products that we don't have that much for last year. So you can look at the FYP ratio that first quarter 41.7%. I think that's a little bit lower than the full year last year.

So you look at the margin because the short-term pay products a little bit more in the first quarter than the full year last year. So we see a margin any lower. But you compare from quarter 1 to quarter 1 our VNB margin, the FYP and also VNB are all better than the first quarter last year. And I think that for the second quarter, usually, our production for our agent channel, and they are -- they will sell more full-term pay products, and that will increase FYP as well as the VNB margin numbers.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

[Stephen Chen, executive]

Okay. I think if there's no more questions on table, I would like to conclude this section by -- thank you, everyone, for participating in this quarter 1 result sections. And I think everyone were aware that we, Shin Kong Holding, and also our subsidiaries are reporting very promising results in the first quarter. And hopefully, we can keep up this momentum and -- until the end of this year. And I think thank you for every partners to support us. Okay?

[Operator]

Thank you, Mr. Chen. And ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your participation in Shin Kong Financial Holding Company's conference call. There will be a webcast replay within an hour. Please visit www.skfh.com.tw under the Investor Relations section. Should you have further questions, please don't hesitate to contact the IR team of SKFH by phone or by e-mail.

You may now disconnect. Enjoy the weekend. Thank you, and goodbye.