Earnings Labs

AIFU Inc. (AIFU)

Q3 2017 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 21, 2017

$1.37

+7.87%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for Fanhua’s Third Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] For your information, this conference call is now being broadcasted live over the Internet. Webcast replay will be available within 3 hours after the conference is finished. Please Fanhua’s IR website at ir.fanhuaholdings.com under the Events & Webcasts section. Today’s conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today’s conference, Ms. Oasis Qiu, Fanhua’s Investor Relations Officer.

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

Good morning. Welcome to our third quarter 2017 earnings conference call. The earnings results were released earlier today and are available on our IR website 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 U.S. 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 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 are our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Chunlin Wang; our Board Chairman, Mr. Hu Yinan; Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Peng Ge. Mr. Wang will walk you through our financial results in the third quarter 2017. He and Mr. Ge will then take your questions after the prepared remarks. Now, I will turn the call over to Mr. Wang.

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

Thank you for joining us on today’s conference call. Here with me, we have our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Peng Ge. We will begin today’s call with a review of our third quarter 2017 financial and operational performance, followed by a brief discussion of our business outlook. Then we will have a Q&A session after the report. In the third quarter of 2017, we recorded RMB1.1 billion in net revenues, among which life insurance revenues reached RMB730.5 million, representing a year-on-year growth of 177.5%. Operating income beat our expectations was RMB83.2 million increasing by 10 times from a year ago. Our total operating income for the first three quarters of 2017 reached RMB217.6 million, which means that we have completed and exceeded our annual target of RMB180 million in operating income, far ahead of our schedule. In the third quarter, our net income attributable to the company’s shareholders was RMB112.3 million, up 249.8% year-on-year. Now, let’s look at the performance of each of our major business segments. Firstly, life insurance business, in May 2017, CIRC issued number 134th notice prohibiting the sales of the universal life insurance or unit-linked insurance products as rider policies and the payment of survival benefits or endowment and annuity insurance products in the first 5 years, while the annual payable amount is capped at no more than 20% of the contributed premiums. This regulation which came into effect on October 1, 2017 was one of the major catalyst behind the explosive growth in the sales of our annuity life insurance products in September, during which the first year premiums on life insurance business reached RMB570 million, up 380% from a year ago, which is the highest single month in policy sales ever recorded by the company. In the third quarter, first year premiums of life…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from the line of [indiscernible] from CICC. Please ask your question.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

First of all congratulations from [indiscernible] with CICC and he has two questions. The first question is regarding our P&C business. How we are progressing with regard our transition towards the P&C platform model and what achievements we have made so far in this regard? And the second question is regard to our sales force right now, we have about 410,000 sales agents, what’s our plan to improve the productivity and the retention ratio for agents going forward and whether or not we will continue to load a number of sales agents in the next 3 years?

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

So far we have been making smooth progress with regard to the transition towards the platform model in the third quarter. We haven’t experienced any internal conflicts with regard to this transition. And then secondly, we have also spin-off our P&C subsidiaries by selling the shares to [indiscernible] network, which is a company that operates in auto insurance platform. And secondly with regard to our sales force, we believe that a division of labor in the industry will be a trend going forward. And the independent insurance intermediaries will see a migration of sales agents from insurance company to the independent insurance intermediary structure. We are still confident to achieve our annual targets to grow the number of our sales agents to 500,000 by the end of this year and to further grow the numbers to 1 million by the end of 2019. And also we believe that there is – it takes time to accumulate as sales force and to certify the sales force, we will definitely enhance training and also improve our cultural developments to our sales agents in order to optimize their productivity.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question today comes from the line of MW Kim from JPMorgan. Please ask your question.

MW Kim

Analyst

Yes. Thank you for taking my question. My name is MW from the JPMorgan. So first of all, thank you for your strong quarterly earnings reporting, which is part of the company’s RMB50 million of the operating income guidance last quarter. So I have two questions. My first question is about your earnings outlook. So, as management mentioned, although there was precise demand in the industry, the Q3 results just show the company’s revenue and earnings structure have potentially changed to the life insurance brokerage model from the non-life brokerage business. So, we think that China for the life insurance consumption looks structured the growth trend and it is very early stage of the journey. In the next couple of years if China provides the insurance industry is growing in a healthy way with 5% of the insurance penetration growth by 2020. So how does it impact on the life insurance brokerage industry and company’s revenue and earning structure? My second question is about the commission structure, I believe that China is in early stage of insurance market development compared to the other North Asian countries, it should mean that so far the regulator has not been highly focusing on the customer protection or the adequate life loading margin structure. Starting from this year, we see several documents by CIRC for controlling the product margin and insurance risk management practice. So, current companies have very strong earnings growth momentum perhaps achievable under the assumption that current industry commission structurally made pretty stable. So, my question is should we concern potential, the industry commission structure change in the next couple of quarters following the life protection or the health insurance market development? Thank you.

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

The first question with regard to the revenue and profit structures we believe that life insurance business is a more valuable business for insurance intermediaries, which enabled us to generate more stable revenues and recurring revenues and profits. So, we will continue to focus on expanding our life insurance business. And also secondly, we also believe that online plus offline is a better model for the development of independent insurance intermediaries as well. And looking forward, we believe that starting from the fourth quarter, 90% of our revenues will come from life insurance business and more than 90% of profit will come from life insurance business. And the second question we believe that all the mature insurance markets have developed, well developed insurance intermediaries only with the development of insurance intermediaries, the industry can maintain a healthy and rapid development. So, we believe that the CIRC will encourage the development of insurance intermediaries going forward as well as the commissions that’s paid by insurance companies as we have that small and medium size companies has actually paid more than 150% to 200% to acquire new business if they distribute through their own channels, which is much higher than the distribution cost that they pay to independent insurance intermediaries. While the larger insurance company, their acquisition cost for new business is roughly 100%, which is slightly lower than that in two of the insurance intermediaries, but we believe that with the further development of independent intermediaries and also with the intensified market conditions that duration may change over time. So therefore, we don’t believe that the conditions paid by insurance companies to independent insurance intermediaries will go lower. However, with the competition gets more intensified, we do believe that the margin might be squeezed slightly over time.

MW Kim

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question today comes from the line of Howie Xia from BeaconLight Capital. Please ask your question.

Howie Xia

Analyst

Thank you. There are two questions. First of all is with regard to the number of sales agents in the past four to five quarters, our agents grow by 40,000 to 50,000 each quarter or quarter-over-quarter. However, in the third quarter, our agents increased by 85,000 compared to the last quarter, which is a bit increased compared to the previous quarters. So, what have changed in the overall market that has drive this rapid growth? And the second question with regard to – so right now, we have 410,000 sales agents, how many of them produce policies or produce life insurance business each month?

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

Well, it is true that since we started implementing our 1 million sales agent plans, 1 to 2 years ago and the number of sales agents has been growing quite rapidly. And our subsidiaries all of them have to bear a target, which is part of their KPIs to achieve certain number of agents and the reason that the increase in the number of sales agents faster than the previous quarter it has something to do with the normal practice across the industry. Usually in July and August, most of the insurance companies or insurance distributors will focus on recruiting sales agents rather than just simply focusing on growing new business. So, that’s the major reason. We are targeted at attributing a active ratio of 50% in terms of agents, the number of – the ratio of agents to produce auto insurance business or life insurance business or as dental or health insurance business and even recommending new members into the eHuzhu and then among the total members, 10% of the agents will be those that who will sell life insurance policies each quarter. Right now, we have 60% of agents across both auto and life insurance products.

Howie Xia

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions on the line today. I would now like to turn the conference back to management for closing remarks.

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

Thank you for joining us on today’s conference call. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us. Thank you.