Allianz's  9MFY12  earnings  exceeded  consensus  and  our  full-year  earnings estimates by 17.3% and 21.4% respectively, while core earnings grew 36.6% y-o-y. The group has continued to benefit from increased agents' contribution, while its life insurance business was boosted by investment income with a record yield of 5.5%.  On  the  group  level,  3Q  tax  expenses were  lower  than  expected,  with  aneffective  tax  rate  of  only  26%.  Our  forecasts  are  unchanged  pending  the company's briefing today. However, in view of its share price appreciation, we downgrade our call to NEUTRAL. We typically expect 4Q results to be stronger.

Beat  expectations  again.  Allianz's 9MFY12  earnings  of  RM163.6m  once  again  beat consensus and our full-year earnings estimates  by 17.3% and 21.4% respectively. If we were  to  exclude  the  transfer  of  life  business  non-participating  funds  to  reflect retrospective  adoption  of  MFRS139,  Allianz's YTD core earnings  of  RM133.6m  would have  reflected  a  remarkable  36.6%  y-o-y  growth.  Gross  premiums  growth  continues  to outpace industry levels, with general insurance and life insurance growing at 15.1% and 12.7% y-o-y respectively.

Agency  sales  boost  performance.  Allianz's general insurance business continued to be supported by agents' contribution, which made up about 54% of its general insurance channel  mix.  The  life  insurance  business  was  boosted  by  stronger  recurring  premiums from agency sales, up 13.6% from 9MFY11 numbers. While the life insurance's new premium was in line with last year's, we note a rise in agents' contribution to 93% YTD from 1Q's 90%. We believe Allianz is on track to achieve its previously reported agency force  target  of  15k  by  2015  as  each  insurance  segment  is  expected  to  the  number  of agents grow to 6k by end-2012.

Sharply  reduced  effective  core  tax  rate.  Allianz  recorded  a  favourable  tax  expense from  its  core  profit  before  tax.  Effective  tax  rate  for  3QFY12  amounted  to  merely  26%, significantly  lower  than  the  34%  of  last quarter  and  36%  of 3QFY11.  This  translates  to YTD tax  rate  of  31%, below  our  tax  expense  forecast. We think  the  tax  rate  may likely rebound  to  its  historical  levels  of  >30%.  We  will  be  seeking  clarification  from management on this.

NEUTRAL.  We maintain our forecasts pending the group's briefing today. Our FV is retained at RM7.53.

General insurance's margins improve. Allianz's general insurance division recorded a 18.4% increase in underwriting profit and a 16.5% increase in net investment income. Overall combined ratio improved 1.1pts to  86.3%  y-o-y,  mainly  due  to  a  sharp  compression  in  commission  ratio  by  2.4pts  to  7.5%  from  9.9%  in 9MFY11.  This  was,  however,  offset  partially  by  the  increase  in  management  expenses  ratio  of  1.7pts  to 19.7%.  Investment  performance  for  general  insurance  enjoyed  a  stable  16.5%  y-o-y  growth,  with  an investment yield of 3.9%. To date, 56.5% of the investment portfolio is allocated in government bonds and 34.1% in corporate bonds. 

Marginal  decrease  in  life  insurance  profit.  Allianz's  life  insurance  division's profit before tax (PBT) dropped 2.2% due to more claims reserving and higher commission expenses ratio. We also noted that the lapse ratio for life insurance business ticked up 30bps to 7.4%, while its persistency reached 85.6%.

Investment  income  helps  sustain  life  insurance  performance.  Investment  income  grew  strongly  by 20%  y-o-y  due  to  higher  investment  yield  of  5.5%  versus  5%  in  1HFY12,  as  well  as  a  lumpy  increase  of 153.5% in fair value gains of investment, mainly a RM25.6m gain in 2Q. In 3Q alone, there were some fair value losses in derivative assets held-for-trading, which resulted in an overall fair value loss of RM4.4m in 3Q.

IL products drive growth in life insurance. Agency sales have continued to drive the growth of Allianz's life  insurance  products,  especially  within  the  higher-margin  investment-linked  (IL)  products  which  grew more than 35% y-o-y. Consequently, within its agency product mix, we observed an increase in the ratio of unit-linked segment to 77.3% from 44.9% in 1HFY11 by policy  count as compared to traditional products. This is in line with the company's target to leverage on the more profitable unit-linked business segment.

Source: OSK