QBE Insurance Group Limited (QBEIF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2025-02-20 21:19:25 ET

QBE Insurance Group Limited (QBEIF)

Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call

February 20, 2025 05:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Andrew Horton - Group Chief Executive Officer

Inder Singh - Group Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Andrei Stadnik - Morgan Stanley

Kieren Chidgey - UBS

Simon Fitzgerald - Jefferies

Nigel Pittaway - Citi

Siddharth Parameswaran - JPMorgan

Andrew Buncombe - Macquarie

Anthony Hoo - CLSA

Julian Braganza - Goldman Sachs

Presentation

Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to QBE FY '24 Results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Horton. Please go ahead.

Andrew Horton

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I'll start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the many lands on which we meet today. For me, this is the Gadigal lands of the Eora nation and recognize their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. I pay my respects to the elders, past and present, and I extend this respect to any First Nations people joining us today.

Now three years on from the launch of our new purpose, vision and strategic priorities, I think these are excellent results and showcased the benefit from our focus on improved and more consistent performance.

So let's move to slide 4. We entered 2024 with a simple ambition to beat our plan for the year and continue to grow our business. On both fronts, I think we've done a great job. Headline growth of 3%, includes a drag from exited lines and crop. Excluding this, we delivered underlying growth of around 9%.

Markets remain attractive for us, and we see another great opportunity for growth in 2025. Our combined operating ratio of 93.1%, improved by around two points. And importantly, we beat our plan for the year of around 93.5%.

The result holds plenty of proof points in our strive to greater consistency, which I'll touch on shortly. We had a record investment result with a total income of around $1.5 billion, representing a return of almost 5%. And collectively, our return on equity of 18.2% was excellent and QBE's highest in well over a decade.

Once again, we started a new year with financial markets calibrated to a higher for longer interest rate outlook, and this should support another year of excellent returns. Our balance sheet is in great shape and we've announced a final dividend of $0.63. This brings the full year dividend to $0.87, which is 40% higher than the prior year and represents a full year payout ratio of 50%.

Let's turn to Slide 5. I wanted to start today with a recap of the journey we've been on. Three years ago, at the beginning of 2022, we launched our new purpose, vision and strategic priorities. Our strategy was underpinned by a desire to become a more consistent organization, more consistent in how we interact with our people, partners and customers and in turn, more consistent in our financial performance....

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