Earnings call transcript: Coface Q3 2025 sees steady growth amid challenges

Coface reported its Q3 2025 financial results, revealing a net income of €52 million and a 1.8% increase in total revenue for the first nine months. Despite a 15% decline in year-to-date net income compared to the previous year, the company maintains a strong position in the industry with a net combined ratio of 71.9%, considered one of the best. The stock closed at €15.28, down 0.33%, reflecting a cautious market sentiment.

Key Takeaways

• Q3 net income reached €52 million.
• Total revenue for the first nine months increased by 1.8%.
• Insurance premiums grew by 1.1%.
• Client retention remained high at 93.5%.
• Business Information revenue saw significant growth.

Company Performance

Coface’s performance in Q3 2025 reflects both resilience and adaptation to challenging market conditions. The company’s disciplined risk management and strategic investments in data and technology have bolstered its competitive edge. Despite a 15% decrease in year-to-date net income, Coface’s insurance premiums and Business Information segments showed promising growth, underscoring its ability to innovate and expand.

Financial Highlights

• Net income: €52 million (Q3 2025)
• Year-to-date net income: €176.3 million (down 15% YoY)
• Revenue growth for the first nine months: 1.8%
• Insurance premiums growth: 1.1%
• Return on Average Tangible Equity: 12%
• Net combined ratio: 71.9%

Outlook & Guidance

Coface remains committed to its 2027 targets for the Business Information segment, anticipating potential growth in Q4. The company plans to continue expanding its distribution and service offerings, with full-year results expected in February 2026.

Executive Commentary

Xavier Durand, CEO of Coface, highlighted the strategic importance of the Business Information segment, stating, "We are seeing new business growth come from market development work." Durand emphasized the company’s disciplined approach to risk management, noting, "We are not going to look for growth for growth’s sake."

Risks and Challenges

• Slowing economies in Europe and the US could impact demand.
• Competitive pressures from new market entrants.
• Declining trade as a percentage of GDP.
• Low commodity prices affecting market dynamics.
• Potential for plateauing revenue in certain segments.

The earnings call underscored Coface’s commitment to innovation and risk management, positioning the company well for future growth despite current economic uncertainties.

Full transcript - Coface (COFA) Q3 2025:

Conference Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the COFACE SA 9 month 2025 results presentation. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker’s presentation, there’ll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Xavier Durand, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Xavier Durand, CEO, COFACE SA: Thank you very much, and good evening to all. Thank you for logging in this call. We’d like to start on time. As you all have seen by the announcement, we’re recording another very solid quarter in the third quarter of COFACE. The number is EUR 52 million for Q3 2025 of net income, which brings the total year-to-date to EUR 176.3 million. A lot of the discussions and points that I’m going to make are actually very much in line with the trends we discussed in the prior quarter, so really no big surprise. You see total revenue for the first nine months up 1.8%, that same FX and then parameter, with the premiums for insurance growing 1.1%.

You see revenues from other activities that are up almost 11% in the third quarter, which continues to validate the strategy we’ve put in place to develop an ecosystem around the credit management space. We see client retention, which is back up close to our 2023 record at 93.5%. Pricing continues to be down 1.8%, so clearly the market is competitive and there’s pressure on prices, a little bit below the or in line with the historic trend. The business information continues to show nice growth at 14.5% through the first nine months, and debt collection is up 38.5%, while we are seeing also a pretty good quarter in Q3 for factoring, which after a couple of negative quarters is now up 0.4%. On the client activity front, we’ll discuss that later, but it’s slightly positive, but clearly we’re in the soft part of the market here.

The loss ratio is up four percentage points to 39.6%, bringing the net combined ratio at 71.9% for the first nine months. I think that’s actually best performance in this industry. The gross loss is up four percentage points. We are not changing our stance in terms of reserving or reserve releases. We still see nice throwbacks from the prior vintages. The cost ratio, pretty much like we’ve discussed in the prior quarters, is up 3.4 percentage points, and that’s really driven by our investments, which again are around distribution and TCI, around data, and around business information, around connectivity and technology. The return on average tangible equity stands at 12%, and we continue to change our leadership team and to prepare for the next phases with the appointment of Christina as the CEO for North America.

Her background in credit is an asset to keep growing this part of the world. We added, as we often do, one page on page five, which talks about actually our services businesses. You can see on the right-hand side of the chart, when we add up BI and debt collection in dark blue and factoring in light blue, you can see how the percentage of these businesses, as a percentage of the total, increases steadily, regularly. We’re almost at 11% for 2025. I think that shows that the strategy is starting to be more material for Coface as we go ahead. We continue to see nice growth, as I said, in business information. Actually, the new business that we’ve signed this year in annual contract value is up more than 50% versus the first nine months of 2024.

I think we’re starting to see performance here in a lot of geographies. We’re seeing the integration of Cedar Rose, which we closed not long ago, going well. This will be consolidated in the fourth quarter of 2025. We’re actually starting to see good performance on the larger accounts and being able to sign more substantial deals. Debt collection itself is continuing to show that it’s countercyclical, and the volumes that have been entrusted to us are up 35%. I think these strategies are paying off. At the same time that we’re experiencing what I call the tougher part of the credit cycle, clearly. The market is not growing in our business. There’s, as you know, lower inflation. Slowing economies. Commodity prices are pretty low. The good news is our risk management is active as ever and has been very effective.

So far, we’ve kept away from the recent flow of large bankruptcy news that you’ve been able to hear about. We are seeing about a 16% increase in the number of risk actions, that risk prevention activity that we carry out on the different sectors as the news develop and the market continues to evolve in a pretty actually unpredictable, but pretty active way. Going into the next pages that you’re very familiar with now. On page seven, I’ve already described a lot of these numbers. Just one thing I want to highlight is that the insurance-related fees, a percentage to the total premiums that we collect, is held up really nicely from last year. That’s a substantial source of income for us and the profitability for our business. They’ve been growing the fees at the same level as the insurance revenue at plus 1.6%.

On page eight, we describe the growth by region. I think what you see here is, given the nature of our business, a reflection of the state of the global economy. I usually talk first about Northern Europe, which is essentially the Germany area, and Central Europe, which economy is very connected to Germany. You can see here that this part of the world has actually slowed down. Same for Western Europe, which is France and the U.K. At the same time, you see Med and Africa doing a little bit better, but this is a region in the world where we used to see more like 5-6% annual growth, which has slowed down to 2.5% at this point. North America, with an economy that outside of the AI bubble seems to be slowing, is seeing 0.6% growth.

Really, where we are seeing more dynamic growth is now in the emerging markets. This is the case for Asia-Pacific and Latin America, which have been less affected, I would say, by the slowdown that we’ve seen in Europe or what’s going on in the U.S. If we go to the next page, you continue to see, again, here the story is very similar to prior quarters. Record new production at EUR 102 million. That’s really driven by the investments that we’re making and by the strategy we’ve pursued in terms of partnerships and distribution. As I said, the retention is at near record level. We are very active. We take good care of our clients. We’re very aware of their options. We’re still being disciplined in the way we manage risk, but I think that’s our trademark.

In terms of prices, it’s down 1.8%, so continues to be a very competitive market. We continue to see capacity being added into the market. Finally, in terms of activity, we are back in positive territory, albeit just above the zero mark at 2.1%, which historically, if you were to go back in the last six, seven years, would be a low level. If I go to the cost side—sorry, the loss side—you can see that we had another good quarter at 35.1% loss ratio before reinsurance and including the claims handling expenses. As I’ve discussed already several times, the number of claims is more or less at the 2019 level, while the claims amount is higher by almost 13%. What’s changing is that we continue to see an increase in the average amount of the claims. We see more material cases showing up in terms of bankruptcies or insolvencies.

We’ve seen a number of recent high-profile U.S. cases. As I said before, we were absolutely not touched by these. As you see on the bottom, we continue to open the new vintage at pretty much the same level, 78%. You see a nice throwback from prior vintages at 41.9% from the prior years. Clearly, the business continues to perform in terms of risk management. I’ll skip page 11. That represents the total year loss ratios. All I can say is that it’s slowly but steadily moving upwards. Page 12 shows the quarterly story, and really, there’s nothing to report on this page of any worth. It continues to be in the four largest markets and more stable markets that we have on the bottom of the page. It continues to be pretty benign in absolute terms.

If you look at the smaller and more volatile markets on the top of the page, again, not much to report here. There’s inherent volatility given that these are smaller places and more volatile economies, but at the same time, we’re performing well. Not much going on on that page. If you look at page 13, where we talk about costs, we have already discussed, again, those metrics. Costs are up 8% from the same period last year. As we did in prior quarters, we disclose on the right-hand side how the cost ratio evolves from 2024 to 2025. Like we said in the prior quarters, inflation accounts for 1.1 percentage points of increase of the cost ratio.

At the same time, we are making investments, which are costing us 2.4 percentage points of cost ratio, and these are compensated partially by the contribution of services, which are growing fast, which are lowering our cost ratio by about one point. Out of the 2.4 points of increase in investments, we have about 40% that are tied to the insurance business and 60% which are tied to the business information and debt collection businesses. That is pretty much the story in terms of cost. We are able to make those investments because I think our cost base is actually good.

I think the current environment completely validates our strategy of investment in business information and data and technology and connectivity and in distribution for the trade credit insurance business, which I think carries the performance of the business. I will turn it over to Thomas for the next few pages, as we usually do. Good evening, everybody. Let us look at the reinsurance page. Now we are on page 14. In terms of premium cessions, you can see that has not changed from last year. It is pretty stable. Claims cession rate has increased a little bit. Of course, this follows the fact that our claims ratio has been deteriorating a bit. This leads us to reinsurance result at minus EUR 83 million. I think we are coming back for this quarter at a normal level of reinsurance result. We move to the next page.

This leads us to a net combined ratio of 71.9, still below the super cycle level. The net cost ratio increased by 3.4. This is coming from the fact that, of course, our gross cost ratio is increasing. Net loss ratio up 4.1. Again, I think this is following the gross loss ratio increase. In terms of quarterly net combined ratio at 73.1, I just want to remind you, I think that we are probably close to the mid-cycle now. Compared to previous quarter, I just want to remind everybody that last quarter we had this impact on the net loss ratio related to the US dollar’s drop that we have not seen in this quarter. If we move to page 16, financial portfolio, the mark-to-market value stands at EUR 3.3 billion.

You can see that we are still holding a high level of cash and liquid assets at 16%, which is now with the new money invested at 3.7%. We have not changed the rest of the asset allocation for a while now because we have de-risked our investment portfolio. In terms of net investment income, I think there are two lines to be highlighted. The first one, of course, is the recurring income. You can see that even without gain, realized and unrealized gain and loss, the accounting yield is increasing compared to last year. If we look at the FX impact, the minus EUR 29 million. Just again, I think this is also coming from just the result of the US dollar’s dropped this year by more than 10%.

Out of which of the 29, we have EUR 20 million coming from the FX impact, negative impact, related to the US dollars, and the minus EUR 9 million related to hyperinflation, especially in Turkey. The offset of the FX impact is booked, actually, in insurance finance expenses. On the minus EUR 0.9 million, out of which EUR 23 million is coming from the FX gain. So only not much impact from the US dollar’s movement, but it’s just the geography of booking that shows different lines. If we move to page 17, I think as a result, net income at EUR 176.3 million, down 15% compared to last year. Just again, to remind everybody, last year we had a really, really high, almost a record year in terms of net income. We’re coming from a very good result.

I think this year, EUR 176 million is a strong performance of our business, as I highlighted. We’re trading above the book value per share and above the tangible book value per share. Return on average tangible equity. I start with the change in IFRS equity, moving from EUR 2,193 million to EUR 2,153 million. No change at all in the work. You organize the distribution of dividends. We booked the net income for the period, and that’s pretty much this. This leads to the return on average tangible equity moving from 13.9% to 12%. Last page. As I said, I think we deliver another good quarter in an environment which obviously is a bit tougher. The revenues are slightly up despite, I would say, low energy prices and economy, which is slowing in a lot of large markets, particularly Europe and the US.

The combined ratio is at slightly below 72%, and it’s better than our targets through the cycle, despite the fact that we’re in this not-so-pleasant part of the market. At the same time, we’re seeing some nice growth in services, and we continue to invest deliberately in areas of innovation around data, technology, and connectivity, as well as in distribution for TCI. The fact that we are disciplined, I think, is paying off. I mean, clearly, this combined ratio, I think, is at an excellent level in this industry, if not the best. The fact that we’ve been disciplined is keeping us away from the recent flow of bankruptcy news. We are seeing new business up in TCI, actually, by 6%. In this environment, I think it’s pretty good. On the business side, on the business information side, we are up more than 50%.

We see a nice flow of larger deals, actually, now. Debt collection is up 38%. We are integrating Cedar Rose. We now have almost 850 people dedicated to BI and to debt collection. It continues to grow. Clearly, I think the strategy we have put in place of investing in those areas, of differentiating through service, of investing in distribution, is paying off. The recent, I would say, environment that we operate in and the performance of the business confirms, I think, this choice. These services are now 11% of our total revenues. They are growing double digits, and I think we are really happy we have them. With that, I will leave it up to questions. Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.

To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now go to your first question. Your first question today comes from the line of Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Fantastic. Thank you. Well done on lovely results given the environment. It really is outstanding. I had lots of questions. Three. Gross loss ratio seems to decline quarter on quarter, so 38.7, 36.9, 35.1. Just wondered. Things look as if they are improving. I know you are saying they are getting tougher, but they look as if they are improving. I just wonder if you can say anything on that. The second is the tax in Q3 looks extraordinary. I could not work it out precisely, but I think it is around 19%.

I remember you saying at the half-year tax, in French tax, would not affect you much, but it looks as if it is almost benefiting you. I just wondered if there is anything. On the growth in, you have got both growth in new business in TCI and also in business information, very strong growth, 80 million and 50%. When will we see that come through in terms of profit? There we are. That is it. Thank you. Okay. I will just handle the last question, and I think I will let Thibault take the first three, actually, right? There were three. There was, oh, two, two, two, tax. The loss ratio and tax. In terms of TCI and BI, TCI is a long-term endeavor.

As you know, when you hire a sales guy and it takes a few years for that person to pay back its cost, but I think it is a very worthy investment to make for the long term. Accessing spaces in the market that are not currently covered by the current brokerage infrastructure. In terms of BI, the return is a bit shorter, but I would say this business is still pretty small. I mean, this is a very big market in which we are growing faster than the market. We are taking share. There is still a lot to do to make this business. I would say, of scale and matter to the company in a financial way. I think we haven’t changed our guidance in terms of what we want to get in 2027.

Pretty much we’re focused right now on trying to grow the business, to build an infrastructure that makes sense, to acquire skills and distribution and clients. I think it’ll be a little bit of time before this turns material in terms of the results for the company. Okay. I’ll take the first question on the gross loss ratio between Q1, Q2, and Q3. On a quarterly basis, sometimes we have some large losses and large special reserves that happen in Q1 and Q2. Remember that we had in Latin America and in the U.S. in the first semester, and we don’t see it in Q3. I think that you should look at the year-to-date. I think what is really meaningful is when you compare the year-to-date Q3 2025 compared to Q3 2024, which is up four points. Between the quarters, you have some large coming in and coming through.

I think that’s the answer. Overall, we see the loss ratio increasing, surely and steadily. In terms of tax, and you know that the tax in Q3 is mainly driven by the fact that we have, again, from one quarter to another, we calculate your deferred tax. Depending on the geography where the tax rate is lower and you have more benefit, of course, it’s lower down the tax rate. Nothing more than this. Will we be impacted by all the changes that are currently discussed, not tax yet? On the French tax, no, because I think the scope is really the French businesses only, and so far, we are below the threshold. Yeah. We’re too small in France itself to be at the heart of the legislation that so far is being discussed. As you know, until the ink is dry, you never know.

I think at this stage, we’re not in the scope. What tax should we use then in our estimates? Because it seems to vary. We had 26 in the first half year, and now we’re at 23. Yeah. I think it depends on the geography. The taxes are driven by the geography which is applied. When you’re making more money in geography where the tax rate is lower, of course, the average tax rate is lower. It varies a little bit, but I mean, we’ve kind of been pretty much in the same range, right? Yeah. We’re always in the same range between 20-25, and it really depends on the quarter, quarter from quarter to quarter. Lovely. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question today comes from the line of Benoit Valo from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi. Good evening.

A few questions on my side, if I may. First one, maybe. Xavier, you mentioned an increase on new business and at the same time some pricing pressure. Can you please elaborate a little bit regarding the competitive environment? I mean, as you see this competition at this point of time of the cycle. I have a second question related to BI. You still continue to invest in that business. Do you believe that you could be break-even on this business next year? And do you confirm your ROT contribution target of 50 basis points in 2027? Or maybe you have changed a little bit your mind, taken into consideration the growth potential of that business, just to know. I have maybe a short question regarding factoring. You just mentioned good performance in factoring business. I know we had this discussion a few years ago.

What are the benefits of COFACE to still be active in factoring business in Germany and Poland? I mean, could you consider to exit one of those markets, or do you still plan to continue to benefit from your existing franchise on this business? Maybe, if I may, a last question regarding reinsurance. I know it is maybe a bit too early. Do you plan to change anything regarding your reinsurance coverage? I know that you plan to remain very consistent on this. With maybe some pricing changes, could you change, for example, your attachment point regarding excess of loss or anything, or not really at this stage? Thank you. All right. A great set of questions here. I am afraid on many of those questions, I am going to be very boring because I am going to repeat things that you already know.

I guess that is the game, right? In terms of, first of all, increase in new business, yeah, we are making investments in distribution. I think we are not seeing any new business growth come from traditional channels, what we call brokerage, basically. It is more of a churn of existing accounts between existing players. Our investment in distribution means we are really trying to get out there and do the market development work. I think it is paying off in the sense that we are seeing new business growth. Obviously, we choose and pick the areas to make sure that this is areas where we are going to be profitable. It is not about lowering our price or anything like this. A significant portion of that business that we are getting is what we call new news, so people who were not insured before. Competition remains strong.

I mean, I think the way the industry works. We have had four or five years in total. Maybe people have not enjoyed the same combined ratio that we have, but they still enjoy pretty good combined ratios. As such, it has been seen by a lot of insurers as a profitable space. A lot of people are looking at it, saying, and wondering how they can add capacity. We’re seeing that at play, particularly in markets that are more dynamic, like North America, where capital tends to move around faster. We’re seeing it in other places as well. Of course, other entrants don’t have the infrastructure that we have, so they tend to add capacity to existing things or to go into slightly different kinds of products, but still putting pressure on the business.

In terms of BI, I mean, I’ve told you I don’t know how many times that we run it more or less at zero. It depends on the quarter. There’ll be some quarters where it’ll be a little bit negative or it’ll be zero. We haven’t changed our stance. I mean, I think it’s a nice venture. We’re learning a ton. We are building something quite unique. In many ways, it’s working. We’re seeing it take hold in many different geographies. We’re seeing that it’s beating the growth we get in any other segment, actually. It’s still very small. Whether it makes a buck or loses a buck doesn’t make a difference, really, for COFACE. I think what really matters is what we are building for the future. I think we have no reason to change our guidance at the stage that we gave for 2027.

No change on this front. Again, I mean, I think for me, the key is, can we build a differentiated machine for the future that will really expand the breadth of what we do and provide a different source of revenues for COFACE? That’s really what we’re focused on. In terms of factoring, that question’s been asked, I think, since I joined COFACE from the first day. I asked that question myself. I mean, obviously, when I got into the business, I looked at it coming from the banking world. I thought, "Does it make sense to keep it?" I think we’ve concluded and still do that it does. The reason is we are operating in two markets where we have scale, where we have a great team, and where we have the funding and all the capabilities.

These two markets, which are Germany and Poland, these things are very much intertwined with our TCI business. It’s basically a product we sell along with TCI or in one or two different contracts. It’s an extension. It’s basically managing the same risk, except in one case, you provide liquidity, and in the other case, you don’t. I think we have one of the best teams in the industry, if not the best. I think these guys have a great track record. It makes us different in the German market. I think that’s a great asset to have. It also gives us scale, quite frankly, in terms of we use the same data, we use the scores, we use the underwriting, we share a lot of clients in common. It makes a ton of sense for me. I’ll leave Phalla to answer the question on reinsurance.

Are we going to change the—short answer is no, but Phalla. Maybe I’m going to interject, thank you for the answer. As you mentioned, it’s very well connected, I would say, to TCI business. Would you say that it’s a business which is accretive or, let’s say, which has a positive impact on your ROTE? I mean, does it have the same level of profitability? It’s neutral in terms of the percentage itself. It just adds scale and volume. We pretty much get the same returns as we do on the insurance business. Okay. Thank you very much. It’s been the case for—that’s how we run it, by the way, right? I think we’re stronger with the two businesses together than we are with just one. From an ROE standpoint, it’s completely indifferent in percentage.

If we were to take a big piece out of our business, I think we would be more fragile, and we would lose scale. It probably would have a negative impact, I would say. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Amali Stravakovic from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Yes. Hello. Good evening. It’s Amali from Deutsche Bank. Thank you so much for taking my questions. I have two. First, it’s a very strong underwriting result, also given the environment and what you’ve spoken about before. How are you thinking about your risk appetite going forward, and has it changed at all? That’s question number one. Number two, also an underwriting—more on the cost ratio going forward. How should we think about a normal level, also sort of given the continued investment strategy that you’re on? Thank you very much. Yeah.

On the risk appetite, clearly, we haven’t changed our stance. I think we laid the foundation for how we operate. When I joined nine years ago, ten years ago, we said we’re going to be very disciplined. We’re not going to look for growth for growth’s sake. We’re not going to commit to growth or risk targets that would cause us to make short-term decisions to the detriment of medium or long-term value creation. In terms of the individual actions, they vary based on whatever the environment has to offer. As you know, we have this ability in this business to expand or reduce our risk on any segment based on a permanent basis. That’s what we do. We have a machine. We make 13,000 credit decisions every day.

These decisions are all based on analysis by our economists and our risk experts who look at each and every one of 540 different sectors or segments, if you will. Their position on each one of those may vary based on, I do not know, tariffs, geopolitics, this, this, or that. The overall stance of the business has not changed. I think that is a trademark. Clients know we do this. They trust us. They trust that we are not going to knee-jerk in one way or another, actually. I think that is the worst thing to destroy value in this business. We are very consistent. In terms of cost, there are two things. One is we are investing in data and technology in distribution and connectivity because it makes sense for the business for the long term. We are growing a BI business, so I will leave that aside.

For the rest, on the insurance side, we are very thrifty. We make sure we save every penny that we can so that we are able to invest in the things that matter for tomorrow. We are seeing the impact of this. I mean, I have spoken a few times about AI and how that is helping us build better scores and better retention for clients and things like this. It is just the beginning, I think, of that story. I think, to some extent, there is a connection between cost and risk. I mean, if I spend money building a great data stack, hiring great AI engineers, and I build a score that is better than the one we had before, I increase the cost, but I reduce the risk, right?

I think that is why we give a guidance that is focused on the combined ratio and not on the individual component. I think that would just be a mistake. Technology evolves. Markets evolve. We will be impacted by the environment, of course. I mean, that is what we do for a living. We can invest in more tools that help us better manipulate the stack of risks that we have on the books. I think that is really what the business is focused on. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Fantastic. Thanks for the second chance. Slide five, you had this lovely progression, which looks like now 1% a year. So 8.2, 8.9, 10, looks like 11. At what stage does it become meaningful?

Because many times in the presentation, you say it is still small, still small, still small. At what stage would you stand up and say, "Actually, now it is okay"? I should actually return the question to you. I am not the CEO of that year. I am asking the question. I am not going to answer any questions. I am not the CEO. I am not Taylor. The point is, I think the question is the investor view on this more than the CEO’s view on this. For the CEO, it is strategic. It creates capability. It creates differentiation. It creates a, I would say, source of revenue that is independent from risk levels. It is a non-capital-consuming line of business. It makes us stronger, I think, from a client and market standpoint.

We have many more clients than we did before. We are much more relevant to many more people for different reasons than we were before. We are building knowledge. We are building capabilities. We are building technology that is differentiating because it is hard to pay for all this stuff. For the CEO, it makes a ton of sense, even if it is not that big, right? For investors, it is a question of, "All right, when do you start counting the revenue?" Obviously, it is not the case today. It will be at some point in time. I think it depends on the investor, quite frankly. I think it needs to continue to grow for this to matter more to the investing world. Very clear. On the two other questions, the first one is on slide 12. I noticed Western Europe is 19.7%.

I just wondered, that seems a lovely number. What happened there? What was the benefit? It is fantastic. The last one is, you said the benefit of increased investment in business information and technology gives you a better handle on the risk side. Can you talk a little bit about maybe some, well, specifics? You do not need, obviously, to mention names, but how much further ahead—I do not know how to put the question—can you now see risk or perceive risk than maybe previously? How can we get a feel for that benefit? I am sorry. The first question is on page 12, the Western Europe policies. Western Europe? Yeah. You see ups and downs here, I mean, based on individual files and stuff like this. I do not think we can derive on a quarter any—look at the other ones.

We have always had a quarter at 19 or at 13. There are some mechanics here at play that do not mean much. I think on this page, I would probably, especially when we look at Q2 plus Q3, which gives you an average of 30%, this is probably more meaningful. Maybe I should, starting Q3, actually start commenting page 11 more because there is inherent volatility. The more you reduce the time or the geography, you get to smaller stacks, and then it does not mean the same thing, right? I am sorry. I forgot your second question. It is the benefits of the—how can we get a feel for the benefits of the investment in costs in terms of risk selection or underwriting or just have a feel?

First of all, you see the results now, quarter after quarter, year after year, event after event. It has been Russia. It has been COVID. It has been—you name it. I do not know. What was the latest? The cockroaches. Whatever. I think you see much less volatility. Probably you have been following this for years, and then you did 10 years ago, right? That is pretty clear. The second thing is when you look deep into the machine, you see—take an obvious one—you see scores that are better at predicting the future. I mean, at sea. And that’s because they integrate better data, fresher data, sometimes unique data that we exchange with clients. And they are more sophisticated machines that are able to get us a better correlation. So that’s another very tangible way to look at risk, right? We also make investments in process.

We make investments in the flow of things between different agents, which means reduction of errors, better productivity, etc., etc. I don’t know if that’s your question. Yes, yes. That’s helpful. No, thank you very much. That’s super. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Pierre Chedeville from CIC. Please go ahead. Yes. Good evening. I have the first question regarding BI. Because when you look at quarterly, the turnover of this activity, we have the feeling that since the beginning of the year, revenues are stable quarter after quarter, like if there were a kind of plateau, which I do not really understand because there is not a lot of cyclicality, in my view, in this business, which is quite a recurring business. And considering the fact that you still invest, my first question was, is kind of plateau here?

And also, I would be interested regarding an activity in development to know, for instance. Comparison is not reason, but when we look at, for instance, a business like BorsaBank, each quarter, they communicate on the number of new clients, net new clients, which is quite interesting as an information to measure the commercial development of a growing fast activity. Do you have this kind of information to give us? My second question is about geographies. And more generally, about your description of the global economy. Because when you look at your slide, page 8, when you look at carefully the evolution with or without the FX effect, what you observe is that in the biggest or the wealthiest region, we are more in a resilient environment in terms of your turnover than in a decreasing or decreasing environment.

We also see that economies are doing not so bad on a worldwide view. Of course, it’s more difficult, but what is your view regarding the resilience of the economy and your turnover? And once again, I have the feeling that you’re still very—I would not say pessimistic—but over-cautious. Because your comment is lagging a little bit with your figures, if I can say. Thank you very much. Okay. All right. If you don’t mind, I’ll probably handle these questions, but on the quarterly BI figures, I mean, this is a business where you sign annual contracts, and the revenue recognition follows certain rules, right?

Just because you sign a contract today does not mean you start recording revenues immediately, and you have to spread it over the consumption of the data by the client, basically, which usually starts small and then tends to increase and also has some seasonality in it. I think that is the gist of it. Actually, we have seen that over the course of the last couple of years that we tend to plateau for a few quarters when you add all these things together. At least the last few years, we had a better Q4. There seems to be the way this business kind of works from an accounting standpoint. It does not mean that the business is not growing from a total value of the contracts that we have in the books, right?

From a number of new clients standpoint, I think the case with BorsaBank is a little bit different in that there are a lot of individuals and a very homogeneous set of clients. Their numbers—for us, what is amazing about this business is that we have very small clients, and we have very large clients. Frankly, the turnover we get from one can be between 1 and 1,000 times more. It is actually that bad. Giving you a number of clients does not really mean that much because, yes, in some countries, we get a lot of small clients, and the number will be impressive, but it does not mean much in terms of turnover. In other countries, we sign one deal, and suddenly, we are twice the size that we were before. That is a little bit of the difficulty.

As long as it is a small business, we do not have a great trend to be able to monitor that is very stable in time. That is a little bit why also, so far, you have seen fewer numbers, I think, than maybe probably you wish to have in a normal and mature business, because a lot of things are still being put in place and are still moving. I mean, it is a good point. The clients are growing. I think the average amount per contract is growing. You want to add something? Yeah. I think that the ACV is much more meaningful for us. Yeah. The annual contract value that we put on the books, the real measure.

When we say, for example, we have more than 50% new business, more than we did last year, it means that the flow of—we are trying to answer that question, but in aggregate euros instead of talking about the number of clients because that is also evolving. As you know, in that business, we serve different use cases. We can look at your client’s book. We can look at your supply chain. We can help you identify companies. We can help you do marketing. These are very different things. So put it all together, and I’m not sure the number would mean a whole lot. In terms of the geographies. The economies are not doing so bad. I would share this, but they are slowing. I mean, there’s arguments to say, for example, that the U.S. economy is flat if it were not for the AI bubble, right?

Which means in our part, we’re not in the AI space. We’re more geared towards the old traditional industrial spaces. We’re in tech, but more on tech equipment that’s changing hands. We do not necessarily see—the headline number does not necessarily completely forecast what we are. I think I’m saying a few things. The trade, as we know it, as a percentage of GDP, is slowing, right? That’s one fact. It’s not just GDP. Trade as a percentage of GDP is not growing the way it used to grow 10 years ago. We are impacted by that, clearly. We are also impacted by prices, which are going down. You see it in the numbers. Competition is still fierce, and people are lowering prices to get new business at the expense of the incumbent.

The activity we get from clients, which is typically their growth, as you see at 2%, is better than the 0% we had last year, but not much to speak of when you compare that to the prior years. We used to have activities in the 6-11-12% range. That’s not happening anymore. That’s just the underlying growth of our clients. That’s where we are. I would say it’s a glass half empty or half full. Or half full. Yeah. Yeah. It depends on how you look at it. I think that’s maybe the dissonance that you’re feeling is just this. We are not quite just the GDP number. It does not quite work that way. Okay. Very interesting. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We will now take the next question.

The next question comes from the line of Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead. I’m sorry. It was probably asked before, and I missed it. On reinsurance, what’s happening in pricing, please? On reinsurance, what’s happening? We do not know yet. You know we do these negotiations at the end of the year. I really do not know what to say at this stage. I always hope it goes down, but until you get to it in front of people, you do not know. Okay. Lovely. Thank you. Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back to you. Thank you. It was actually a lot more questions than I was expecting because we really did not have that much news to report. Thank you for this contribution. We’re going to close it here. We will report our full year numbers.

That’s going to be in February. February the 19th. February 19th. Stay tuned. In the meantime, we’re going to focus on Q4. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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