HDFC Life Insurance Company: Profitability Focus Ingrained in DNA
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Institutional Equities This page has been intentionally left blank Institutional Equities Life Insurance Sector 3 April 2019 A Very Attractive Way To Play Indian Financials View: POSITIVE We think that the Indian listed life insurance sector is a very attractive way to play Indian Financials since certain aspects of the sector look structurally superior to the Indian credit sector and Indian Shivaji Thapliyal asset management sector. A key conclusion is that a very significant portion of the overall value that Research Analyst the life insurance sector will generate will accrue to the top 4 (listed) private sector life insurers. We [email protected] base this broad, over-arching conclusion on the following: (1) From a player count perspective, competitive intensity for the top 4 private sector life insurers is comparably lower than in the credit +91-22-6273 8068 industry and in the asset management industry (2) Along with LIC, the top 4 private sector life insurers form a de-facto oligopoly since they enjoy non-replicable access to large and efficient bancassurance networks. We assign a Buy Rating on all 4 listed life insurers, SBI Life, ICICI Prudential Life, Max Raghav Garg Financial Services and HDFC Life. Our top pick in the life insurance sector is SBI Life. Research Analyst From a player count perspective, competitive intensity for the top 4 private sector life insurers is [email protected] comparably lower than in the credit industry and in the asset management industry: The number of life +91-22-6273 8192 insurers operating in India has remained largely static over the last decade or so, with player count increasing by only a solitary new entrant since 2010 (in 2012), to a count of 24. The deep reluctance of new entrants is structural and will remain so since (a) Indian life insurance is an ultra-long gestation business in terms of profitability with players breaking even, on average, in 8.3 years. (b) A large bancassurance network has been seen to be a must-have for Indian life insurers to scale up and, given the scarcity of bancassurance networks available for tie-ups, stitching up a large bancassurance network from scratch seems an onerous task for any new entrant. Our exhaustive analysis of industry-wide bancassurance networks reveals that as much as 66% of Indian bancassurance branch count is unavailable for new tie-ups. Tie-ups with the 34% available network Sector Report Sector component are not straightforward to execute for reasons detailed subsequently. The player count in the Indian credit industry, on the other hand, has been on a relative rise with 2 domestic universal banks, 13 MNC universal banks, 10 small finance banks, 11 payment banks and nearly 2000 NBFCs having entered the industry since 2010. Similarly, in the Indian asset management industry, the number of mutual funds has increased by 6 since 2010 to a count of 44. The alternative asset management industry is also on the rise in India with PMS fund count at 294 and regulatory clarity regarding AIFs. Along with LIC, the top 4 private sector life insurers form a de-facto oligopoly since they enjoy non- replicable access to large and efficient bancassurance networks: The market share of LIC has declined from 75% in FY14 to 70% in FY18 on new business premium basis, whereas the market share of the top 4 private sector life insurers has risen from 13% to 18% in the same period. The market share of the remaining 19 private sector life insurers has inched lower from 12% to 11% across this period. The key differentiating factor that separates the top 4 private sector life insurers from the remaining 19 is access to a large and efficient bancassurance network. To gain further insight, we conducted an exhaustive analysis of the life insurance tie-ups of as many as 198 entities extending from Indian private sector universal banks, PSU universal banks, MNC universal banks, small finance banks, listed NBFCs, urban co-operative banks and regional rural banks. We developed an index of bancassurance strength factoring in size and efficiency of branch networks and, based on our analysis, we note that, among private sector life insurers, SBI Life, HDFC Life and ICICI Prudential Life possess the strongest bancassurance networks. We assign Buy rating on all 4 listed life insurers and within the life insurance space, we prefer SBI Life the most: (1) SBI Life is our top pick since (a) It possesses by far the largest bancassurance network among private sector life insurers, bancassurance network size being most critical for scalability (b) Its individual agency force is the most productive among 8 key private sector life insurer peers (c) It has the structurally lowest expense ratio among 9 key life insurer peers (d) It has the second best persistency outcomes across time cohorts among 9 key life insurer peers (e) It has an inherently low risk business that is slated to grow sustainably with lower revenue volatility compared with key peers. (f) Strong under-writing is a key feature that leads to lower claims and higher profitability. (2) We are bullish on ICICI Prudential Life since (a) It possesses a large bancassurance network, within which, importantly, parent ICICI Bank network sources exclusively for IPLI (b) It has the second best expense ratio among 9 key life insurer peers (c) It has the third best persistency outcomes across time cohorts among 9 key insurer peers (3) We are bullish on Max Financial Services, the holding company for Max Life Insurance (MLI) since (a) MLI displays margin leadership on the back of high share of participating product and reasonably good share of protection business in topline (b) MLI’s high agent productivity is symptomatic of organization-wide efficiency that also feeds into desirable product mix outcomes, among other benefits (c) Strong under-writing is a key feature of MLI that leads to lower claims and higher profitability (d) MLI conducts business that is stickier and more linear than key life insurer peers. (4) We are bullish on HDFC Life since (a) In line with the profitability-focused DNA of the wider HDFC Group, it has the highest share of pure protection products in revenue among listed life insurers, which leads to high overall margin (b) It possesses an energetically stitched up bancassurance network, which is the second largest among private sector life insurers. Institutional Equities Valuation and Metrics tables SBI Life ICICI Pru Life HDFC Life Max Financial (Max Life) Life insurance companies FY19E FY20E FY21E FY19E FY20E FY21E FY19E FY20E FY21E FY19E FY20E FY21E Key financials (Rs bn) CMP (Rs) 601 366 384 436 Target price (Rs) 787 453 450 535 Upside (%) 31% 24% 17% 23% Current rating BUY BUY BUY BUY M-cap (US$mn) 8,757 7,646 11,299 1,709 Key financials (Rs bn) NBP 149.0 178.6 213.8 98.8 115.9 139.4 143.0 183.4 233.7 50.6 58.8 67.6 APE 96.8 112.0 128.4 73.1 80.0 89.0 63.2 74.6 89.5 39.4 46.3 53.7 GWP 338.0 413.7 500.4 311.4 356.9 412.4 286.5 352.2 433.6 144.4 168.5 196.8 Post-tax surplus 11.5 13.3 15.8 10.9 13.3 15.2 12.6 14.5 16.2 6.8 7.8 9.2 PAT 13.4 15.9 19.3 12.4 15.3 17.9 12.9 15.4 18.1 5.5 6.3 7.3 Net worth 76.5 89.6 105.5 83.5 94.7 109.9 56.6 67.4 80.1 28.6 31.1 35.3 Total assets 1,421.2 1,722.2 2,096.2 1,545.5 1,783.4 2,070.3 1,240.1 1,469.8 1,754.9 624.4 732.8 861.6 Total AUM 1,386.9 1,698.6 2,072.5 1,542.8 1,779.7 2,061.6 1,249.6 1,481.7 1,765.8 612.0 719.5 847.4 VNB 16.5 20.2 23.8 12.4 14.0 16.0 15.5 19.0 23.3 7.9 9.5 11.0 EVOP 33.9 40.1 47.4 30.3 34.6 39.0 31.5 37.3 44.4 15.1 17.8 20.6 EV 220.8 258.5 302.7 209.7 238.3 270.8 178.8 212.4 252.3 86.5 100.7 118.4 Growth rates (%) NBP 35.8 19.9 19.7 7.3 17.3 20.2 26.0 28.2 27.4 16.3 16.3 15.1 APE 14.9 15.7 14.7 -3.0 9.3 11.3 17.1 18.0 20.0 19.1 17.6 15.9 GWP 33.3 22.4 21.0 15.0 14.6 15.5 21.6 22.9 23.1 15.5 16.7 16.8 Post-tax surplus 12.9 15.2 18.4 -20.3 22.2 14.8 15.3 15.3 11.4 -4.4 14.9 18.0 PAT 16.7 18.3 21.4 -23.5 23.5 16.8 16.1 19.5 17.6 4.7 14.5 15.3 Net worth 17.1 17.2 17.8 8.0 12.3 13.5 19.2 19.1 18.9 5.9 8.8 13.6 Total assets 20.3 21.2 21.7 11.7 15.4 16.1 17.2 18.5 19.4 17.4 17.4 17.6 Total AUM 21.2 22.5 22.0 11.4 15.4 15.8 17.2 18.6 19.2 17.2 17.6 17.8 VNB 20.6 22.5 17.9 -0.1 12.5 14.5 23.7 22.8 22.3 20.1 20.5 15.9 EVOP 14.6 18.2 18.2 -17.8 14.2 12.9 17.3 18.4 19.1 11.4 17.5 15.6 EV 15.7 17.0 17.1 11.6 13.6 13.6 17.5 18.8 18.8 15.2 16.4 17.6 CAGR (FY18-21E) NBP 24.9 14.8 27.2 15.9 APE 15.1 5.7 18.4 17.5 GWP 25.4 15.1 22.5 16.3 PAT 18.8 3.4 17.7 11.4 AUM 21.9 14.2 18.3 17.5 Profitability (%) VNB margin 17.0 18.0 18.5 17.0 17.5 18.0 24.5 25.5 26.0 20.0 20.5 20.5 ROA 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.8 0.9 0.9 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.0 0.9 0.9 ROE 19.5 19.7 20.5 17.3 19.4 20.1 24.9 25.0 24.7 19.9 21.2 21.9 ROEV 17.8 18.2 18.3 16.1 16.5 16.4 20.7 20.8 20.9 20.2 20.6 20.4 Key ratios (%) Commission ratio 4.1 4.1 4.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 3.9 3.8 3.8 6.5 6.4 6.3 Opex ratio 6.6 6.5 6.4 8.3 8.1 8.2 13.3 13.3 13.3 13.5 13.1 12.9 Claims ratio 41.0 40.9 41.7 49.5 48.8 48.1 49.5 46.8 45.9 41.3 42.8 43.2 Per share data (Rs) EPS 13.4 15.9 19.3 8.6 10.7 12.5 6.4 7.6 9.0 14.7 16.8 19.4 BVPS 74.3 86.7 101.8 51.8 58.1 66.0 27.9 33.2 39.5 75.8 82.5 93.7 EVPS 220.8 258.5 302.7 146.0 165.9 188.6 88.6 105.3 125.1 230.0 267.6 314.7 Valuation (x) P/E 44.8 37.9 31.2 42.4 34.3 29.3 60.2 50.4 42.9 29.7 25.9 22.5 P/BV 8.1 6.9 5.9 7.1 6.3 5.5 13.8 11.6 9.7 5.8 5.3 4.7 P/EV 2.7 2.3 2.0 2.5 2.2 1.9 4.3 3.7 3.1 1.9 1.6 1.4 Source: Companies, Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities Research 4 Life Insurance Sector Institutional Equities Table of Contents Sector Theme Body .............................................................................................................................................................................