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AIFU Inc. (AIFU)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 5, 2013

$1.37

+7.87%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the CNinsure's 2012 Q4 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday March the 5th 2013 and the webcast replay will also be available within three hours after the conference is finished. Please visit the CNinsure IR website. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today's, Ms. Oasis Qui, Thank you. Please go ahead.

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

Welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2012 earnings conference call. The earnings results were released earlier today and are available on our IR website at ir@cninsure.net, as well as on Newswire. Before we continue, please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The accuracy of these statements may be impacted by a number of business risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to those outlined in our filings with the SEC, including our registration statement on Form 20-F. We do not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information except as required under applicable law. Joining us today is our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Chunlin Wang, and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Peng Ge. They walk you through our financial and operating performance in the fourth quarter and full year 2012 and discuss our strategies in 2013. They will take your questions after the prepared remarks. Now, I would turn the call over to Mr. Wang. Chunlin Wang – CEO: [Foreign language – Chinese] [Interpreted] Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's conference call. During 2012, China's insurance industry continued to show weak growth momentum to what the growth of P&C insurance has come to an hold and the life insurance remain in the low single-digit growth territory, again this we are encouraged that we met our previous expectation and maintained our market position with the 4.0% and 4.6% top line growth in the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2012 respectively. Looking at our three major business lines, our P&C insurance business, we achieved a 6.0% and 5.6% revenue growth…

Peng Ge

Analyst

[Foreign language – Chinese] [Interpreted] Thanks, Mr. Wang. I am pleased to report our financial results for the first quarter and the fiscal year of 2012. The numbers I will refer to will be in RMB unless otherwise indicated. Total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2102 were RMB435.8 million, up 4.1% from the year ago quarter. And then for the fiscal year 2012 were RMB1.6 billion, up 4.6% from 2011. The operating costs and expenses for the fourth quarter 2012 were RMB429.4 million, down 70% from the year ago quarter and then for the fiscal year 2012 were RMB1.5 billion, down 32.9% from 2011. Commissions and fees expenses for the fourth quarter 2012 were RMB311.8 million, up 27.1% from the year ago quarter and then for fiscal year 2012 were RMB1.1 billion, up 36.3% from 2011. Selling expenses for the fourth quarter of 2012 were RMB19.3 million, down 2.8% from the year ago quarter and then for fiscal year 2012 were RMB78.4 million, up 0.08% from 2011. General and administrative expenses for the fourth quarter 2012 were RMB98.3 million, down 24.3% from the year ago quarter and then for fiscal year 2012 were RMB356 million, up 6.8% from 2011. The decrease for fourth quarter of 2012 were primarily due to a decrease in share-based compensation expenses. The share-based compensation expenses in 2011 were primarily associated with the cancellation of stock options in November 2011. The increase in general and administrative expenses for the fiscal year 2012 were primarily due to the increase in share-based compensation expenses, which is mainly associated with the grant of the options in March 2012 and the increase in expenses in 2012. Impairment loss on intangible assets and goodwill for the fourth quarter 2012 were nil and as compared to RMB1 billion for the year…

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen we will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Christy He from Morgan Stanley please ask your question. Christy He – Morgan Stanley: [Foreign language – Chinese]

Oasis Qui

Analyst

[Interpreted] This is Christy from Morgan Stanley. She has three questions. The first question is regarding our commission rate for the P&C business in the fourth quarter and what was it in the third quarter and the year ago quarter? And the second question is regarding our share buyback program. We announced the RMB30 million in our share buyback program to purchase ADS on the open market and we bought about 190,000 ADS, she wants what was the average price and going forward would we will continue to buyback shares on the open market and the third question is regarding the capital expenditures. We have RMB2.5 billion on cash and cash equivalents as of the end of 2012. She wonder how much we are going to invest in e-commerce and in our initiatives in the next two years.

Peng Ge

Analyst

[Foreign Language – Chinese]

Oasis Qui

Analyst

[Interpreted] Mr. Ge, our CFO would like to take the first two questions and Mr. Wang will answer the last question. Regarding the commission for our P&C business, for the fourth quarter of 2012, it was around 23.7% as compared to 19% last year and the annual average was about 22.48% and for the life insurance business the commissions for the new policies, for the first year commission was about 113% for 2012 as compared to 119% last year. And the second question regarding the share buyback, we guided buying back shares during the window period in November and December after the quarter ended and we bought a total of $1.5 million in value of the shares. And as a result, we also saw that our stock price pick up because of the share buyback. And then after the quarter, at the end of the fiscal quarter because we did not made plan and we cannot buy any shares during the – billing trading period, but the program is still valid and we will continue to buy shares when the windows open after this financial release. And some investors may think that we are doing the share buyback program aggressively enough, given the number of the shares that we bought. However, that’s because some objectives within on – the SEC has very strict regulations to avoid the companies to manipulate the stock price through share buybacks. So they have some restrictions on the trading volume and also the trading methods for the company to buy shares on open market. So that’s why the numbers of shares that we purchased was actually below our expectation. And in addition to that, you may have noticed that our Chairman Mr. Hu has filed a 13-G amendment and he personally has bought 1% of the CNinsure shares on the open market during the window period.

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Foreign Language – Chinese]

Oasis Qui

Analyst

[Interpreted] And last question regarding the capital expenditure, Mr. Wang says that, while now the insurance industry in a transitional period, and a lot of new trends have emerged and actually present a lot of opportunity for CNinsure such as the divisional labor in industry and also the professionalized of the affiliated insurance intermediaries as well as the e-commerce development. While we are somewhat lucky that in faced with the opportunities and we still have so much cash in hand that we can make use of, and so going forward, first of all we are going to continue to invest in e-commerce business. The CNpad has come to life in October last year and we have successfully started the trial operations in Guangdong as we said that 200 units of CNpad has been put into operations contributing RMB20 million premiums during the trial period trial operation period and we are committed to continue and promote the applications CNpad among sales agents and we start to launch it nationwide at the end of this year. And our target is to sell 150,000 units of CNpad within five years and 200,000 units in ten years. And total investment will be around RMB500 million. And the second area that we would need to invest in the minority interest share buyback and as we say, we just established a group company and we like to convert our subsidiary into branches and that will require a certain amount of capital investment and we think that it will be RMB1 billion in total. And we have the first batch of the subsidiary that we like to convert into branches which is fourteen of them and the proposal regarding the conversion has been approved by the CRIC. We believe that this initiative will be very helpful to further improve our corporate governance and the third area for investment. As we say that, we are going to continue to expand our market presence in the urban areas for the life insurance business and also we are going to promote channel development for the P&C business and one should view a that as the platform for the claims adjusting business that will also require RMB300 million investment. And the fourth but not the last, the share buyback, we will continue to buyback shares and we will make plans to continue safeguard our stock stability and also to protect the shareholders’ interest. And also the CNinsure Puyi Investment, in which we own about 20% equity interest and this new company has been doing quite well and we do want to further increase our shareholding in these two companies when they perform better. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of (inaudible).

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Your forecast of 5% revenue growth in the first quarter doesn’t exactly seem like a breakthrough, do you expect that to accelerate in later quarters to higher growth and also can your gross margin return to the 35% or 40% level that it was about a year ago? Thank you.

Oasis Qui

Analyst

[Foreign Language – Chinese]

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Foreign Language – Chinese]

Oasis Qui

Analyst

[Interpreted] We do expect that revenue will pick up gradually in 2013 over 2012 and we already see signs of that in the fourth quarter of this year and we expect the top line will grow within 10% for 2013. As for the gross margin, what we can say is that, we think third quarter 2012 was the bottom in terms of gross margin and to grow into – slowly over compared to the third 2012, but as for whether or not to cover back to the 35% to 40% we may have to look at like the second part of 2014.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andy Nahas from Prospect Fund. Andy Nahas – Prospect Fund: Yes, thank you, just a strategic and long-term question if it’s alright. First of all, one of the things I like about your business is the recurring revenue nature of the property casualty business and is there anyway to make renewals automatic, in other words I think it requires a little bit of a labor intensity to people to renew with you after one year and I am wondering if there is a way you can make those renewals more automatic. Secondly, longer term well, I know the government is allowing the insurance companies to sell mutual funds in the future. Do you think for yourselves that selling mutual will become a big deal for you in the long run? And then finally, this is a very long-term, question, how many times bigger in you personal opinion, do you think your annual revenue will become in the very long run compared to the current size?

Oasis Qui

Analyst

[Foreign Language – Chinese]

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Foreign Language – Chinese]

Oasis Qui

Analyst

[Interpreted] Thank you for the questions and those are pretty good questions. First of all, to that P&C business the policy is not to go – renew right now. But we think that with the applications the things we have developed functionalities to have agents to better the commissions – the policy takers and also send policy renewal reminders to help improve the renewal rate. On the P&C business side and we believe that this is indeed a very high value-add going forward to work on in the future. Now we have the solution, now and secondly, for the mutual fund sales, actually we started trying selling funds as well as trusted products in 2012. And a total value of the trust products that were sold RMB800 million and that really helped our agents to cater to develop more customers and also to improve the loyalty of the customers. And for 2013, we actually started this year as a – the theme for this year is comprehensive financial services and products as well as technology advance. So in terms of the comprehensive financial services and development that means we are going to introduce – we are going to sell more mutual funds and trust products. And then the technology front, we mean that we are going to do more technology innovation and also to work hard to promote the application of CNpad. And we have a target, we have a long-term is to have RMB100 billion annual premium within 10 years time and with this application. For CNpad, we believe that we can achieve that target, because as we say we are going to sell 200,000 units of CNpad in 10 years, and we estimate each of the unit of CNpad can contribute 300,000 to 500,000 premiums, RMB premium. So that will achieve our target help us achieve the RMB100 billion premium target in ten years time. And so we expect that, top line growth will record a double-digit growth starting from the second half of 2014 and in 2015, we will see very strong growth.

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Foreign Language – Chinese]

Oasis Qui

Analyst

[Interpreted] And we would provide update on the progress of the CNpad on the quarterly and also on an annual basis. Andy Nahas – Prospect Fund: Oasis, did you say the double-digit revenue growth will start in 2014 or later in 2013.

Oasis Qui

Analyst

In the second half of 2014. Andy Nahas – Prospect Fund: Because you are already talking about 10% growth this year, I think it’s earlier.

Oasis Qui

Analyst

[Foreign language – Chinese]

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Foreign Language – Chinese]

Oasis Qui

Analyst

[Interpreted] Higher end double-digit growth for 2014. Andy Nahas – Prospect Fund: Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

Oasis Qui

Analyst

Thank you for participating in the CNinsure’s conference call. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me. Thank you.