Earnings call transcript: Swiss Life sees Q1 2025 growth in premiums, investments

Swiss Life Holding AG, with a market capitalization of $27.8 billion, reported a strong start to the fiscal year with notable increases in key financial metrics during the first quarter of 2025. The company experienced growth in fee and commission income, premiums, and direct investment income. The Swiss insurance leader also maintained its competitive edge in the market while confirming its strategic goals for 2027. According to InvestingPro analysis, Swiss Life is currently trading near its Fair Value, with the stock delivering an impressive 21.72% return year-to-date.

Key Takeaways

• Fee and commission income rose by 3% to CHF 659 million.
• Gross written premiums, fees, and deposits increased by 6% to €7.9 billion.
• Direct investment income grew by 6% to €1.1 billion.
• Swiss Life confirmed its strategic targets for 2027, focusing on asset management and financial advisory expansion.

Company Performance

Swiss Life demonstrated robust performance in Q1 2025, driven by significant gains in its core business segments. The company saw a 6% increase in gross written premiums, fees, and deposits, reaching €7.9 billion. This growth reflects Swiss Life’s strong market position, particularly in France, where life premiums surged by 14%. The company’s strategic focus on unit-linked products and asset management expansion contributed to these positive results. With a healthy dividend yield of 4.29% and revenue growth of 7.51% over the last twelve months, Swiss Life continues to reward shareholders while maintaining growth momentum. InvestingPro subscribers can access 12 additional key metrics and exclusive ProTips about Swiss Life’s financial performance.

Financial Highlights

• Fee and commission income: CHF 659 million, up 3% year-over-year.
• Gross written premiums, fees, and deposits: €7.9 billion, up 6%.
• Direct investment income: €1.1 billion, up 6%.
• Non-annualized direct investment yield: 0.8%.
• SST ratio: Estimated at 200%.

Outlook & Guidance

Swiss Life remains optimistic about its future performance, reaffirming its strategic goals outlined during the 2024 Investor Day. The company expects net new assets to be in the upper teens (billions) for 2025 and aims to expand its network of financial advisers to over 7,200 by 2027. Additionally, Swiss Life anticipates positive real estate fair value changes, particularly within its Swiss portfolio.

Executive Commentary

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson, stated, "We had a good start to the year," reflecting confidence in Swiss Life’s growth trajectory. Marco Girosi, Group CFO, added, "We are positive on the growth and confirming our targets for Swiss Life 2027," underscoring the company’s commitment to its long-term strategic objectives.

Risks and Challenges

• Market Volatility: Fluctuations in the financial markets could impact investment income and asset management performance.
• Regulatory Changes: New regulations in the insurance and financial sectors could affect operational efficiency and profitability.
• Competition: Increased competition, particularly from mergers like Helvetia-Valoraz, could challenge Swiss Life’s market share.
• Economic Conditions: Global economic uncertainties could affect consumer spending and demand for insurance products.
• Currency Fluctuations: As a multinational company, Swiss Life’s financial results are subject to foreign exchange rate changes.

Swiss Life’s Q1 2025 performance highlights its strong market position and strategic focus, setting a positive tone for the remainder of the year. The company’s commitment to innovation and growth in asset management and financial advisory services positions it well for future success. With the next earnings report due on May 20, 2025, InvestingPro subscribers can access comprehensive analysis including the company’s Financial Health Score of FAIR and an Altman Z-Score of 5.67, indicating strong financial stability. Get access to the full Swiss Life Pro Research Report, part of InvestingPro’s coverage of 1,400+ top stocks, for detailed insights and actionable intelligence.

Full transcript - Swiss Life Holding AG (SLHN) Q1 2025:

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for dialing in and for your interest in Swiss Life. Today, we are reporting on selected top line figures for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. We will focus, as usual, on fee income, premiums and direct investment income. I will provide a quick overview of today’s key messages, and our group CFO, Marco Girosi, will walk you through the segments.

We had a good start to the year. In the first three months of twenty twenty five, Swiss Life increased its fee and commission income by 3% to CHF659 million. Drivers were own and third party products and services as well as asset managers. Gross written premiums, fees and deposits received increased by 6% to €7,900,000,000 All business divisions contributed to the growth. Direct investment income grew by 6% to €1,100,000,000 which corresponds to a non annualized direct investment yield of 0.8%.

Swiss Lab asset managers had a very strong net new asset inflow of €9,300,000,000 in third party asset management compared to €700,000,000 in the prior year period. The SST ratio was estimated to be around 200% at the March 2025. With that, I hand over to Marco.

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: Thank you, Matthias, and also good morning from my side, dear ladies and gentlemen. I am pleased with our good start into the financial year 2025 and with that also the good beginning of our Swiss Life 2027 program. As usual, group figures are reported in Swiss francs and for each business division in local currency. Figures are unaudited and growth rates are mentioned in local currency. Let me start with our segment, Switzerland.

Premiums increased by 3% to CHF4.5 billion while the life insurance market remained unchanged. Premiums in group life increased by 3% to EUR 4,100,000,000.0, while the market decreased by 1%. Periodic premiums declined by 4%, single premiums increased by 12% mainly due to higher new business. Assets under management in our semi autonomous foundations were at €7,800,000,000 a similar level compared to year end 2024. Premiums in individual life grew by 3% essentially in line with the overall market, which was up by 4%.

Periodic premiums increased by 2%, single premiums grew by 6% driven by a new unit linked product. Fee and commission income was up by 11% to CHF91 million mainly due to higher income from unit linked and mortgage businesses. Turning to our French, German and international segment that all report in euro. Let me begin with France. Premiums increased by 11% to €2,100,000,000 In our Life business, premiums were up strongly by 14%.

The overall market grew by 4%. Unit linked share in our Life premiums remained unchanged at the high level of 65% compared to the market average of 41%. We generated Life net inflows of 700,000,000.0 Total market net inflows were $14,400,000,000 Allison Protection premiums grew by 5%, driven by price increases. The market was up by 6%. P and C premiums decreased by 2%.

Fee and commission income rose by 7% to €154,000,000 mainly due to higher unit linked fee income based on higher average unit linked reserves supported by the higher net inflows mentioned just before. We achieved strong growth despite the lower revenues from structured products. As mentioned on earlier occasions, this reflects a more normalized income contribution from structured products compared to very strong prior years. I continue with Germany. Premiums grew by 3% to $412,000,000 due to modern and modern traditional products.

Market increased by 16% driven by higher single premiums. Fee and commission income rose by 5% to $227,000,000 due to the higher contribution from the Endurance business. Income from owned IFAs was stable compared to a very strong prior year period. As a reminder, Q1 twenty twenty four included benefits from a specific market opportunity in the context of governmental inflation compensation. This one off contributed around €25,000,000 to the fee income in the prior year period.

A number of financial advisers remained stable year on year. Turning now to international. Premiums increased by 7% to $1,100,000,000 driven by both private and corporate clients. Fee and commission income declined by 5% to 92,000,000. Higher income from owned IFAs was more than offset by corporate clients, in particular from Ellipse Life.

Moving to asset managers, with reports in Swiss francs. As usual, in Q1 and Q3, we report on commission income, which does not include other net income from real estate project development. Asset managers commission income increased by 5% to $232,000,000 In our PAM business, commission income increased by 3% to $86,000,000 mainly due to higher recurring income. In our TPAM business, commission income was up by 6% to $146,000,000 driven by higher recurring income due to a higher average asset base. To make figures comparable to half and full year disclosures, the share of total non recurring income for TPAM, meaning commission income and other net income from real estate project development of 6% of total TPAM income.

This compares to a high share of 31% in the prior year period, which was largely due to revaluation gains on an ongoing development project in Germany. We confirm our guidance from the twenty twenty four Investor Day to achieve a share of non recurring TPAM income of on average around 25% over the period from 2025 to 2027. Also for the full year 2025, we expect this share to be around 25% given our pipeline. Net new assets in our GPAM business amounted to $9,300,000,000 compared to $700,000,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. These very strong inflows are driven by our new index business as well as active mandates.

Out of the CHF9.3 billion, 2 thirds were generated by our index offering, mainly in equities and bonds. Inflows in real assets amounted to CHF0.3 billion. Dollars The remainder came from active mandates in bonds, money markets and multi assets. Assets under management in our GPAM business were at $135,000,000,000 compared to $125,000,000,000 at year end of twenty twenty four, driven by net inflows and positive FX translation effects. Turning to our investment results.

Direct investment income increased by $61,000,000 to 1,100,000,000.0 driven by higher income from infrastructure, real estate and equities. The non annualized direct investment yield was at 0.8% compared to 0.7% in the prior year period. Real estate continues to be an attractive and important asset class for backing our long dated liabilities. Vacancy rates were unchanged at 3.1% compared to year end 2024. Real estate fair value changes were positive at around 0.2.

This is a non annualized figure. For the full year 2025, we expect further positive real estate fair value changes driven by our Swiss real estate portfolio. Moving to solvency, cash and payout. At the end of the first quarter of twenty twenty five, the SST ratio was estimated to be around 200%. As of today, we estimate our SST ratio to be at around 200% as well.

Please note, the scheduled repayment of a $750,000,000 hybrid in June 2025 will lower the SST ratio by around minus four percentage points. Also, when taking this into consideration, the SST ratio is above the ambition range of 140% to 190%. At the end of the first quarter of twenty twenty five, liquidity at holding amounted to around $1,400,000,000 This is a temporary high figure related to the recent issuance of Swiss franc denominated senior bonds. It must be seen in the context of upcoming redemptions such as the €250,000,000 senior bond in June 2025. Our €750,000,000 share buyback is on track.

We repurchased shares worth $230,000,000 as of 05/16/2025. The program will run until May 2026. With that, I hand back to Matthias for his remarks before going into the Q and A session.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Thank you, Marco. Let me sum up. We are pleased with the performance of Swiss Life in the first three months of 2025, which also marked the start of our Swiss Life twenty twenty seven program. We expanded both the insurance and fee businesses. Net new assets in our third party asset management business were very strong.

Thank you for listening. We are now ready to take your questions.

Conference Moderator: We will now begin the question and answer session. Call. Kindly note that webcast question will be answered after the call. Our first question comes from David Barna from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

David Barna, Analyst, Bank of America: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly, on the flows into TPAM, you gave a few numbers there on the breakdown by asset class in Q1. Can you just come back on the breakdown within the real assets, please? I’m not sure I got this number correctly.

And also, would you be able to give us some color on the flows you’re seeing so far in the second quarter? That’s my first question. And then secondly on solvency also, just a bit more detail on the market movements in Q1. I would have expected that to be positive. And when we spoke at the full year result, it sounded like it was positive.

So can you just come back on what changed between early March and the March? Is this mostly the interest rate gap between CHF and USE? And then lastly, so we’ve had higher rates and then lower rates again in Switzerland, and we’re now back to a similar level as year end 2024. But we’ve also had a growing interest rate differential with The U. S, especially the second quarter.

Do you expect these items to be net negative for experience variances in the CSM in H1? Thank you.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Thanks, David. Mark will take the first and the third question, and I will elaborate a

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: bit on the SST then. So good morning, David. On the CPAM net asset inflows or the breakdown, so the breakdown for real assets overall is CHF 300,000,000.0. So that is in line with the prior year first quarter. Real estate, the number is more than doubled compared to that.

Infrastructure, negative and this relates to a portfolio exit. We’ve had the success portfolio exit, which was in line with our business case. As you said, in the fourth quarter in 2024 and now also taking it over in the first quarter, we had strong inflows in net new assets, around two thirds coming from the index business and the remainder from active mandates. I’m going not into detail in the second quarter, but what I think is important, we continue to be positive on that. Please do not quadruple the number by year end because we have a strong, strong momentum.

But we see in terms of an outlook number by the year end 2025 in the upper teens of CHF1 billion overall for the net new assets.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Now the second question in terms of the and before I go into the drivers during the first quarter, just let’s remind that the SST that we disclosed for the year end, the 201%, and also, obviously, what we now have disclosed for March as the full buyback deducted. I think that’s the first point to keep in mind. And yes, we have some market movements. And you rightly recall that when we were disclosing the full year and that was around mid March, we said that S.

Dollar rate interest rate differential has narrowed significantly and that this was an uplift until mid March. And it was still and it’s still an uplift If we look at it year to Q1, it’s having said that, a significantly lower uplift than what we mentioned in mid March at the full year disclosure. So that was one positive thing that happened within Q1. And clearly, we had also two negatives. One was the spread widening of the credit spreads, and there was also from the equity markets a marginal negative.

So that’s the reason why we come as at the March around 200 with

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: the SST. Talking about the CSM, you know, it’s an IFRS number and we don’t disclose that in our Q1 reporting. But overall, I mean, you referred to the economic variances where we had on a qualitative basis an update during the full year disclosure. Now as of today, that’s mainly driven by the level of interest rates in Switzerland and also the interest rate differential to the U. S.

Dollar, also Matthias referred to, we see it flattish as of today, a bit slightly positive just because since mid March, the differentials also widened again. But I think it’s important year to date. Narrowed down compared to what we have seen last year. I think that’s what we can say to the CSM on the economic variances.

Rasmus Ustin, Analyst, Danske Bank: Thank you.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: You’re welcome.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Farooq Hanif from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Farooq Hanif, Analyst, JPMorgan: Hi, there. Thanks very much. Firstly, just on the SST ratio, I mean, you mentioned a smaller positive, but it feels like a bigger negative from the market movements on spread and equities. I mean, was the sensitivity that you guided at full year 2024 a good guide? Or was there some convexity or other factors that made that a little bit more negative?

The only reason I’m asking is because it seems like it’s still quite a big miss versus what people were expecting. So just wanted to understand that. And then second question is on the net new assets. You’ve obviously guided to teens high teens, I think you said, net new assets for the year. At what point do you think there might be a normalization in net new assets?

Because clearly, acquiring the index business from Credit Suisse has been an uplift and you’re gaining there. Do you think this level of net new assets is kind of occurring? Or do you think there’s been a kind of a boost due to the kind of inorganic nature of that shift that you made? So that’s my kind of second question. And then just looking at the growth that you’ve seen in France, I mean, very good growth, I think, in health and protection, but also in life.

I mean, do you see this as sustainable? And can you comment on kind of what’s driving that? Thank you very much.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Thank you, Farooq. I think now Marco can take the SST question. I go for the NNA, and he goes then back

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: to Frans. So on the SST, I mean, the guidance we gave and the sensitivities we disclosed or disclosed, I think, is pretty much in line what we have seen also in the numbers. I think what we don’t see in the sensitivities is the differential. I think overall in the plus and minuses, I think the positive of the lower interest rate differential. I think and I also said that in context of the DSM, it has increased compared to the full year 2024 disclosures and equities and credit spreads overall were then the negatives, so the minuses in these numbers.

So I think overall, it’s in line with what we would have expected.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: And maybe to follow-up on that, I mean, the volatility that we have seen in the interest rates and specifically also in the interest rate differentials, let’s say, in March and now April has been quite significant. As said, if you look at what the rate differential, the ten year Swiss Re versus the treasury was mid March and fourteen days after, I mean, is very, very volatile as you can see. And I think that may explain, let’s say, also the numbers around the SST. But let me be clear, we still despite that volatility at around 200% and above our ambition range. Now in terms of the NNAs and what you called normalization, I mean, what can clearly be said, and we talked about that in 2024 and also in the full year.

I mean, this was an opportunity for us with the index business to enter that new business. That was clearly driven by the fact that one large bank was taken over another one. There was extraordinary large number of RFPs out in the market. And I can tell you, not only in the index business, but also in the other mandates, in the active mandates and in the real asset mandates, our asset managers, they are really going after the business. They are pushing hard to keep that NNA coming in.

How long this will last to be seen, I think what we clearly say that for the full year 2025, we expect NNAs to be in the upper teens and therefore significantly above what we have seen in the 2024 flows. And in terms of France, I hand over to Mark other

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: In terms of France, I mean, we have seen also in the first quarter very strong numbers, plus 14% in Life, plus 5% in Health and Protection. In Health and Protection, it’s important to note and I’ve said that this is mainly or it is driven by price increases to the restored based on the restored profitability. We also reported during 2024. So profitability is very important to us in that area. In the Life business, this is driven by the linked business and the high share of unit linked business we see there.

I’ve said it in the presentation and also at Investor Day, we flagged that we had very strong inflows in structured products in the prior years. So that’s expected and was expected to coming down a bit at a very good level, but a lower growth rate. And shifting it a bit more into the other areas. But overall, I think we are at the level we continue to see a positive development and also confirming and seeing it again in view of our targets we have set for Swiss Life twenty seven.

Farooq Hanif, Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay. That’s really kind. Thank you very much.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Amelie Zakdovic from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Amelie Zakdovic, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Yes. Hello, good morning. This is Amelie from Deutsche Bank. Thank you so much for taking my questions. I just have one.

And it’s sort of whether or not you’re expecting a change in competitive landscape that could result from the Helvetia and Valoraz merger. And here, I’m in particular talking about sort of from the Life side of things. So yes, I’m just curious to hear your thoughts around that. Thank you very much.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Thank you for the question. Obviously, we noticed what’s going on in the market. And what I can tell you, I mean, we’re not commenting what happens at other companies. We’re focusing on the clients, on the markets and on the opportunities that we see in that market. And just as a reminder, in Life, you mentioned that market we are the leader.

We have a market share of 40%. And what happens behind us changes it a bit. As said, we focus on the market and its opportunities.

Amelie Zakdovic, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Thank you.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Simon Fussmeier from Vontobel. Please go ahead.

Simon Fussmeier, Analyst, Vontobel: Good morning. It’s Simon from Vontobel. Just one question from my side. One of your friendly neighbors reported numbers last week, and there was some confusion about the decline in insurance revenues. So you report premiums, and I was wondering if you could confirm that the growth rates in premiums are similar to the growth rates in insurance revenue.

Thank

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Thank you, Simon. I mean, again, we do not comment on what others report. I mean, we report growth rates and premiums, fees and deposits received. That’s very same quantity that predates the introduction of IFRS seventeen nine. We think this is a very good measure for, let’s say, business activity.

We have achieved here a strong growth of 6%. All business divisions contributed to that. And on the comparison to the insurance revenues, we may refer to what we said when we introduced IFRS 17. You may observe in our past disclosures what the links are. Because insurance revenues do not include the savings premium, if you wish, it’s a different thing.

So we suggest, and that’s the reason why we have sticked to disclosing gross written premiums. It is, for us, probably the more relevant measure of, let’s say, business activity.

Simon Fussmeier, Analyst, Vontobel: Thank you.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: You’re welcome.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Thomas Bateman from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Thomas Bateman, Analyst, Mediobanca: Hi, good morning Matthias. Hi, Marco. Thanks for taking my question. Could you just remind us please how important the net investment yield is? I feel like since we transitioned to IFRS 17, it’s taken a bit of a backseat, but my feeling is it’s still important for cash remittances and local GAAP.

So yes, just a quick reminder on the net investment yield. I was also very impressed by the real estate gains you reported. I think you said 2% non annualized. Could you just give us a little bit of color what’s going on there and maybe a little bit more color on the outlook for real estate gains? And then my third question is just on the pace of growth of the advisory business.

I think you said that Germany, the advisers were flat, but that for me feels like a core part of your growth. Could you just give us an update on hiring there and maybe the kind of shape of growth you expect over the strategic plan? Thank you.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Let me first say one word on the fair value change, then Marco will talk through the net investment income and the Fervent Advisory business. So the fair value change we have observed in the first quarter was 0.2%.

Thomas Bateman, Analyst, Mediobanca: Sorry. Thank you.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Still, I may cover the other elements of the question. And that was driven by Swiss real estate. You may recall that we talked about that at the full year 2024 disclosure, and we said back then we expect positive fair value changes for Swiss real estate and stable valuations for the European real estate. That’s what we have seen now in Q1. And that’s also what we see to continue like that into the full year 2025.

So further fair value changes. The Swiss real estate stable valuations for European real estate.

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: The net investment yield, I mean, as the direct investment yield, we’ve just increased non annualized to 0.8%. The net investment yield remains to be very important to us in particular in the local statutory accounts, which is relevant for the cash view. I mean, in IFRS world, with the introduction of IFRS 17, you are aware of that. That part of that or a large part of that in our case is covered by the BFA and then the CSM. So it a bit of different treatment, but in terms of local standard accounts and cash, this is a very remains to be a very important number.

Talking about Germany, the growth of the Financial Advisor business and the Financial Advisors as an important underlying of that. We have reported a stable number. The number is close to 6,000. We still have ongoing activities and positive progress in terms of recruiting. Think that’s something we have and we confirm that we will achieve more than 7,200 by 2027.

So that’s our target in the new strategic program. What’s important to note and also to understand to some extent overall sales representatives, we have a number around 12,500. These are includes guys being on track to be qualified and certified to become financial advisors and the overall number of sales representatives has again grown by three percentage points. So the pipeline is still strong. Are working on that.

Maybe as I can comment on the growth, I’ve mentioned that in the presentation. In Germany, we had back in the first quarter twenty twenty four, ’1 off gain of around CHF 25,000,000 because of a campaign we had in the area of the government inflation compensation. If we adjust for that number, so also the growth in Germany, the fee income growth would be overall than overall group level, the growth would around seven percentage points, so in line with the prior year. So we are positive also in that area. Still a bit of work to do with the advisers, but positive also there.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: And if I may add on that, I mean, what Mark just said, this specific market opportunity in Q1 twenty twenty four, if you adjust for that and then you see that we have increased productivity per adviser. I mean, that’s one thing that is important to keep in mind. And as he said, we clearly work hard on growing the number of certified advisers as well.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Rasmus Ustin from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Rasmus Ustin, Analyst, Danske Bank: Yes. Hi, there. Thank you for taking my question. My question goes about the capital structure and the role of the subordinated bond that has not been called. Could you elaborate your thinking about that?

Or should we just assume it will be taken out in September? Thank you.

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: Okay. It is called. We have called that. I think the agent is informed. I think he has not communicated it yet, but we called it and we’re going to repay that in June.

As that so it’s scheduled, it’s scheduled. That mentioned that’s

Rasmus Ustin, Analyst, Danske Bank: clear. Thank you. It’s not picked up on Bloomberg or on your website, but that’s why it’s a bit of confusing here. But thank you. That’s very clear.

It’s been called. Good. Thank you.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Michele Ballatorre from KBW. Please go ahead.

Michele Ballatorre, Analyst, KBW: Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. So my question is going back to the net new assets. I mean, let’s say that this positive development of this opportunity last for the rest of the year, maybe not at the same pace that we saw in the first quarter. But let’s say, we still see a positive performance there.

I mean, in light of your group fee result target, was this kind of strong performance included there? Or is probably above your expectation, as I said, if the 2025 confirm is confirm as a year where the performance is continued to be strong? Thank you.

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: So yes, indeed, that’s been a strong performance of the business. We’ve just started back last year. I think overall in our targets, it has been foreseen that we have that kind of business for sure. On the growth rate and the outlook on ’25 with the expected numbers in the teens of billions for overall NNA as we’ve just discussed earlier. In the call, I think what’s worth to note is that besides the business we have, so the ordinary business we already have, this is something we have seen as an opportunity to do in addition just to serve our clients and it also gives us I think it’s also positive access to new clients.

But in terms of our targets and goals, that’s something we had in mind we communicated them back in December for our new strategic program.

Michele Ballatorre, Analyst, KBW: Thank you.

Conference Moderator: We have a follow-up question from Farooq Hanif from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Farooq Hanif, Analyst, JPMorgan: Hi, thank you very much. Could you remind us of Ellipse Life, the situation now in terms of what you’re reinsuring and what your kind of model is going forward? If you just remind us so that we can take this into account in our numbers. Thank you very much.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Just that we understood it correct, you’re talking about Elix Life and the reinsurance situation in terms of back book at the time of and the new business underwritten since then?

Farooq Hanif, Analyst, JPMorgan: Exactly. You’re going through a bit of a transition period with them and now obviously you’re taking more of that business on. Just wanted to understand. Yes. Okay.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: And maybe that’s relatively quick answer. When we took over, I think that was July 2022. The book that was in force at that time was fully reinsured. And this is depending on the book. It has probably a three year average tenure, maybe a bit different.

And the new business that was underwritten since then, and new business also means renewal of business. There is a a quota share. And you may recall that we said on a couple of occasions that there is a shift from fee to premium because of this, let’s say, change of the overall reinsured part. And that’s why

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: if I may add, the number we’ve just mentioned in the call in the fee going down, but we will see that then in the insurance operating result as a positive contributor continuing to see that in those numbers.

Farooq Hanif, Analyst, JPMorgan: All right. So thank you very much for the clarification.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Farquhar Moure from Autonomous. Please go ahead.

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life0: Good morning, all. Just mainly one set of questions from me actually. Just going back to the NII number, which is obviously very, very strong indeed. I just wondered if you could help us understand the way that comes through in terms of margins, in particular on the index business that you’ve got there coming through. What kind of revenue margins are you achieving?

And more generally on that unit, does it still need to reach scale in order to be profitable? Thanks.

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: I mean, we don’t disclose margins also not for our single asset classes. Overall, I think it’s fair to say it’s a volume business. It’s a profitable business. We have a competitive pricing in there. And as I said earlier, it comes in addition to what we are already doing.

And it is profitable, as I said, and it also gives us access to new clients, which is also a chance for the already existing and very successful offering we have in place.

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life0: What’s the question about profitability? Because I think you’ve mentioned reaching a certain scale. Do I take it you’ve reached adequate scale already then? Thanks.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: I think we were on a very good track there, I can say that. Have just to sum up what we said, we have until now, and that’s looking at the NNAs in 2024 and Q1 twenty twenty five, we have in the third party area now around €14,000,000,000 worth of index business.

Farooq Hanif, Analyst, JPMorgan: Thanks.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: You’re welcome.

Conference Moderator: The last question is a follow-up from Thomas Bateman from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Thomas Bateman, Analyst, Mediobanca: Hi. Just a quick one, just a follow-up on the Germany Advisers. I just want to be clear, you’re not losing many advisers here. We’re just not quite seeing the growth because the hiring is going well, but these most of the advisers are still in training. And maybe what’s the lead time for an adviser to become go from a trainee into becoming a field advisor?

Marco Girosi, Group CFO, Swiss Life: I mean, overall, as always in such numbers, there’s some plus and minuses. Overall recruiting is strong. From time to time, there is also some people leaving company that’s also a bit of the price of our success because we have very, very good people and others are looking for them. So overall, let’s say the transition time from starting and being then qualified and certified, it’s difficult to say. But overall, let’s say, it’s something between fifteen and maybe twenty two months.

Rasmus Ustin, Analyst, Danske Bank: Excellent. Thank you.

Conference Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Matthias Erick for any closing remarks.

Matthias Erick, Company Spokesperson/Executive, Swiss Life: Thank you very much for your questions. Before we close the call, let me recap today’s key messages. We had a good start to the year by delivering top line growth in both insurance and fee businesses, very strong net new assets and a robust direct investment yield. This demonstrates once again the resilience and strength of our business model in different market environments. We’re highly committed to execute the Swiss Life 2027 program with discipline and to deliver on our promises.

So thank you again, and I wish you a nice day. Goodbye.

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