Phoenix Financial Ltd (PHOE) Earnings Call Transcript

Hello. This is David Alexander, Deputy CEO of Phoenix Financial. Thank you for joining us to discuss the group's results for the first half of 2025. The call today will be led by Phoenix CEO, Eyal Simon; and Deputy CEO and CFO, Eli Schwartz. The presentation for the call can be found on our website or the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange website. This presentation provides key points on the financial statements released this morning and should be read together with the full financials. At the end of the call, we'll answer questions that were discussed today on the Herbew call. You can send any additional questions to us individually or to the e-mail address ir@fnx.co.il. We'll make ourselves available to meet with investors to discuss performance, strategy or any questions you may have, either via Zoom or we plan to be in New York and in London in the fall. Please note that this call will include forward-looking statements and that actual future results may be different. First, Eyal will highlight the key results and our strategic growth road map, Eli will then review the financial results and segment breakdown in more detail.

Hello, and thank you for joining the call today. Phoenix is the leading Israeli financial group with over $160 billion in assets under management and a distinct competitive advantages. We have 2 lines of businesses, lines of businesses. First, a broad multiline Insurance business, including a leading P&C operation as well as significant life and health businesses. The second business is Asset Management with platforms generating strong growth and high margins. This includes the market-leading investment house, a growing wealth business, the leading distribution network of brokers and advisers and a growing financing platform. Both activities are growing, generating quality earnings and strong cash flows. Phoenix has a strong capital position, liquidity and good solvency ratio. We use our regular cash flows to accelerate growth, distribute dividends and execute buybacks. The Israel economy remains resilient despite the word. Local capital markets outperformed leading global markets so far in 2025. KPIs shows resilience and a rebound, including GDP growth and inflation. Israel's potential is supported by very positive long-term structural trends. For us, most important are population growth, wealth accumulation and high savings rate. Going forward, Phoenix is well positioned to capture the opportunities in the local market. The first half were strong for Phoenix with solid performance in both line of activities. In the first half, we generated ILS 1.5 billion in comprehensive income, an EPS of ILS 6 and return on equity of 27%. We continued to grow our AUM to ILS 560 billion, which is over $160 billion. In Q2, comprehensive income was ILS 928 million and return on equity was 35%. Here, we highlight the main takeaways for the reporting period. We continue to see strong business performance in the first half we generated core income of over ILS 1.3 billion with 24% core return on equity. We also continue to focus on strategic growth. Our 2025 H1 run rate is within targets for 2027. We plan to update our targets in -- during Q4. In July, we signed a deal to increase our holdings in Phoenix agencies from 78% to 95%. We're accelerating growth and value creation across this business. MSCI decided to include Phoenix in its Israel index, starting August. This opens up opportunities for Phoenix to join other global indices in the future. Our regular cash flows are creating a high-quality business profile. IFRS 17 reduces the accounting sensitivity of our insurance liabilities to interest rates. This helps generate low volatility, quality earnings, cash flows and dividends. Today, we announced a dividend of ILS 400 million, representing ILS 1.6 per share. And we're doubling the size of our annual buyback program to ILS 200 million. Phoenix continued to grow core income in both businesses and in all of our platforms. Core income for the first half was ILS 1.3 billion with 24% return on equity. For the second quarter, it was ILS 700 million, with 26% return on equity. The current level of core income and core ROE are sustainable. And as we said, we will update the targets during the fourth quarter. Our Asset Management activities generated strong growth with over 40% increase year-over-year and contribute ILS 426 million in the first half. In addition to the core income, we had positive nonoperating effects of ILS 178 million in H1 and ILS 236 million in Q2. In the first half, we generated over 9% annualized yields in our corporate account. This is 5% above nominal risk-free rates in the period and the 5-year average yield is 4% above nominal risk-free rates as our targets are normalized at 2.25% above risk-free rates there is additional potential upside to the targets. Looking forward, our focus is to maximize investment performance of our capital pools and provide competitive risk-adjusted yields for our clients and balance sheet. Phoenix is committed to distribute dividends every quarter, Today, we announced a dividend of ILS 400 million in addition to ILS 230 million announced in May. In addition, we're doubling our buyback program for 2025 given the higher trading volumes in the share. These dividends are supported by strong internal cash flows with quarterly dividends from subsidiaries to the traded company. Each platform is remitting cash as dividends to group level, each according to a distribution policy. These cash flows gives us flexibility to distribute dividends every quarter execute buybacks, perform strategic acquisitions and fuel organic growth. While our clients in Israel, we constantly look internationally for partnerships, trends, best practices and opportunities. Here, we see several examples to our global outreach. First-tier international investors now hold between 30% to 40% of our shares. 40% to 50% of our assets are invested in international public and private markets. we developed strategic partnerships with leading global asset managers, including deployment and co-branding opportunities. Phoenix is covered by international analysts and rated by Moody's and S&P. We see these interactions are opportunities to learn to differentiate and to further develop our business. We will now discuss strategic execution towards our targets. Our strategy is based on significant market opportunity we see in Israel. Over the past decade, assets in Israel have doubled, and the total market cap of financial services has tripled. These long-term structural trends are continuing. That are being driven by demographics, wealth accumulation and growing client demand and sophistication. However, we see on the right that most of the value was in the past, captured by the banks. Asset Management and Insurance represent only 20% of this market cap in Israel compared to 50% in the U.S. This is changing. Several products and services are growing outside banks. These include private brokerage, wealth investments and consumer credit. Israel insurance and asset managers generate better return on equity and higher growth rates compared to banks. Phoenix is positioned to capture this opportunity and we have what is needed to do it. We offer a broad set of financial solutions with significant potential for growth from both existing and new clients. As you can see, we are well on track to reach target range of ILS 2.4 billion to ILS 2.6 billion in 2027, our 2025 run rate based in ILS 1.3 billion in the first half is already above this range. In both lines of activities, we're also progressing very well. Insurance is above the target range for 2027 and Asset Management within the range. We intend to publish updated targets during Q4. Our value creation strategy focuses on 4 drivers: accelerated growth in high-margin, high-multiple businesses, innovation for competitive advantage and efficiency active management of people, culture and structure and strategic deployment of capital and investments. As I mentioned, we believe that there is significant room for growth and value creation in the market, and we're working to make sure Phoenix is well positioned to capture it. We're now focused on driving growth and creating value in the platforms we have built in recent years. In parallel, we invest in deeper capabilities and competitive advantages for longer-term growth. This includes advanced data skills, AI engines and improving how we work with clients. We continue to grow our AUMs to over $160 billion. As a target, AUMs are less important to us than income. We're focused on the mix and growing in highly profitable activities such as investments, wealth and investment policies. Our growth engines in Asset Management are very profitable, generating growing EBITDA and solid cash flows. These businesses generate significant low-risk fee-related income and commissions. EBITDA continues to show strong growth. In Asset Management, we continue to grow the wealth investment and retirement activities. Phoenix is market leader, and we intend to continue and use our competitive advantages to capture market share. First half and Q2 shows strong results with continued organic growth. The Brokers and Advisors activity in Phoenix agencies continued to grow at double digits, both organically and via acquisitions. This platform focused on benefit administration, retirement planning, investment and insurance distribution. The business generates strong cash flows, and we continue to see many opportunities in a highly fragmented market. This is why we decided to increase our holdings from 78% to 95%. In July, we signed a deal to acquire the holding entity owned by Agencies' Chairman, Izzy Cohen, who was the main minority shareholder. We appointed the CEO to work next to Izzy Cohen as Chairman to accelerate growth of the business. We updated targets, and we move forward with a revised plan to create more value. Phoenix continues to grow our financing activity, while focusing on profitability and risk management. The business is based on Phoenix gamma, a strong platform that provides credit card clearing and SME credit solutions. We see growth across activities of SMEs construction and consumer financing all according to plans. Gama's credit portfolio reached ILS 4 billion in June. In the Insurance business, we're growing P&C in line with our strategy to focus on higher return on equity activities. We're working to expand competitive advantages, mainly by investing in data and technology and sales, pricing and claims. Across all businesses, we're optimizing, shifting to digital self-service and improving productivity. As we discussed last September, when talking about our strategic road map, we're working to reduce accounting and business volatility across our businesses. First, we're changing our mix by growing in capital-light activities such as P&C and investment policies. Second, the new accounting standard lead to more stable income from capital-intensive life and health. On the right, we added investment policies to the CSM analysis because our strategy is to grow such capital-efficient activities, which are driving higher and more attractive new businesses beyond the CSM accounting framework. The new standards also reduced interest rate volatility from liabilities, which means less asset liability constraints, and we can optimize our investment portfolio for risk-adjusted returns. Since the beginning of the year, we have started to reduce interest rate exposure by optimizing our fixed income portfolio, including durations. Third, or improving capital management, for example, with credit trading both for Phoenix Financial but also subsidiaries, reducing our cost of capital. And fourth, we're constantly optimizing our investment portfolio and improving capabilities for improved risk-adjusted returns and profitability. I would like to thank you and hand it to Eli, the CFO of the group, please, Eli.

Thank you, Eyal. Total comprehensive income for the first half was ILS 1.5 billion. When looking at our other income by source, we see a strong performance of Asset Management generating ILS 674 million before tax, an another solid performance of Insurance generating ILS 1.35 billion. Nonoperating effect was positive and generate ILS 373 million, driven by strong performance in capital market, partially offset by interest rate sensitivity to interest was reduced as a part of IFRS 17 implementation. In Q2, the competitive income reached to ILS 928 million. We see a similar picture with the strong growth in both lines of activities and higher positive nonoperating impact of ILS 479 million. Looking at the breakdown of H1 income by segment, we see impressive income growth across our all operations segment. We see P&C leading the Insurance and Broker & Advisors, the Asset Management activities, both our strategic engine of the group. Q2 shows similar trends with improved profitability for segment. Here, you see the strong investment performance in other equity returns segment. The strong balance sheet and debt structure provide financial strength to the group, we maintain low LTV in the Phoenix Financial as well as in subsidiaries. They provide resilience in the short term and support the group's strategy and ability to capture business opportunities going forward. Our solvency estimation for March 2025 remains at 181% with transition measures. This strong solvency positions above long-term target of 150% to 170% allow us flexibility in strategic choices, investment allocation and dividend. We will now review each segment in more details. P&C continues to show strong results with ILS 527 million before tax in H1. Our investment in technology and machine learning enabled us to improve our underwriting and claim management and to improve profitability. In the Health segment, we see improvement in underwriting profit to ILS 487 million. This was partially offset by nonoperating effect mainly of capital market performance. The Life segment generated ILS 227 million before tax, improvement in the underwriting profit was partially offset by nonoperating effect, mainly interest rate. Other equity returns will impact positively by capital market. The Wealth & Investment segment contributed ILS 187 million pretax in H1. This segment includes activities of Phoenix investment of Phoenix Capital Partners and investment policies. We see a strong growth in the mutual funds and ETFs, including synergy from the Psagot acquisition. Our brokerage business continued to grow. We also see growth in the income from alternative and wealth as we have reached the scale and growing the business. This also includes the investment policies. The Retirement business contributions was ILS 79 million pretax with an increase in core income year-on-year. We are focusing on efficiency and improving profitability, and you can see the impact in the results. The Brokers & Advisory segment include the Phoenix agencies and delivered ILS 209 million of income before tax with a strong growth year-over-year. The business shows strong organic growth as well as synergy from M&A. Aligned with this strategy, we signed transaction to increase our holding from 78% to 95%. We continue to grow, improve our business and performance and capture market opportunities. The Financing segment generated strong income growth to ILS 80 million before tax. This, while maintain responsible credit portfolio with a strong risk management. We see ongoing contribution of merging Phoenix Construction Finance business from the insurance company last year into Phoenix Gama. Our consumer credit activity is now scaling. We also merged our minority stake in the El Al Frequent Flyer Club into Gama to strengthen our credit card activity.

Thank you, Eli. We'll now review the questions that were discussed in the conference call earlier in Herbew. First question, Phoenix demonstrated accelerated growth in core activities, especially in Asset Management. Is this sustainable for the long run?

First, yes, definitely, it's sustainable for the long run, and you've seen our targets, and we said that we're going to update our targets during Q4. And we plan to grow more. We have built very strong platforms as we demonstrated the last year and also build a substantial advantage in the Insurance businesses. And we have a very strong management to carry and to move it forward. And we see lots of opportunities in the market as we have presented in this presentation. we see the breakdown of the market between banks and financial institutions. We see the potential. We said many times that Phoenix market share in Insurance is 15%, 16%, and the potential in the market is huge once you build a competitive advantage. In Asset Management, Phoenix just started to touch the potential of Asset Management in Israel and Wealth, of course. And more than that, as we said, we have more than 3 million of client base in Phoenix that we just started to touch the potential of that client base, and we see that on the consumer credit. And definitely, we'll see more of that in the coming future.

Second question. Your market cap has increased during the past year. Where do you plan to go from here?

Well, as a manager, I prefer to discuss the performance in the business and not the price of the share, I leave that to the analysts. But I can say that if you look at Phoenix in the last few years, you'll see that we -- more than 4x the value of the profits of 4 years ago, and it keeps going. So I can say that we work very hard to improve the business, to create the value, as I explained and earlier, we are very strong and substantial platforms that we built like brokers and advisers like Asset Management that work very strong and grow and we have managed to accelerate their growth and is still growing very fast, and the pace is very high. So I believe that the potential is very strong in the market, in the group. And we're positioned, I believe, in the best way or comparing to the other -- to the market, we're positioned in the best place to capture this value.

Next question. In your presentation, you pointed to the opportunity for asset managers and insurers in Israel. Do you expect the shift in value creation to happen in Israel in the coming years? And what are you doing in order to capture the shifting value?

Before we will discuss Israel, I can say that Israel is following what happened in other markets, mainly the U.S. market. But even if we check the U.K. market, we see the same trend that financial institutions, investment house, insurance companies and those who are managing assets are taking more and more or capturing more and more value in the financial market from traditional banks. We believe that this trend will happen in Israel, it started already. We see that. We see the growth of profit, the better returns, equities on companies like Phoenix. And as I said, Phoenix is positioned in the best place to capture this value. And we don't see why not, and Israel will follow what happened in the world. As I said, we already see that. So I believe this trend would be even faster than it was a year or 2 years ago. So we believe that there is a great potential in that market.

Next question. This is the third consecutive quarter you're showing a return on equity of over 20%. And Will the ROE targets be updated? Is this the new level we should expect?