Silver Point

Thomas J. Monaco

Independent Insight Provider

Silver Point is a boutique research firm that focuses on the broader financial services sector, with a particular focus on troubled institutions globally. 

Asia Ex Japan

Equity Bottom-Up

China Life Insurance Co H / Equity Bottom-Up

*Reserve Top Ups Weigh On Numbers This Time: China Life Insurance (2628.HK) [China Life] reported 2020 bottom-line of CNY 50.3 bn – declining CNY 8.0 bn (13.7%) YOY. Excluding the impact of the 2019 tax refund of CNY 5.2 bn, China Life’s bottom-line performance would have declined only CNY 2.8 bn or 5.3% YOY – but still down; and*Value Challenges Ahead: With value challenges ahead in China Life’s illiquid securities portfolio (Challenged Tier 2/3 bank negotiable CDs and alternatives) and the CBIRC’s enabling of insurers to increase their concentration in equities, we not only question solvency margins but the viability of China Life’s full-year dividend per share – not to mention the impact of lower net yields.

*Reserve Top Ups Weigh On Numbers This Time: China Life Insurance (2628.HK) [China Life] reported 2020 bottom-line of CNY 50.3 bn – declining CNY 8.0 bn (13.7%) YOY. Excluding the impact of the 2019 tax refund of CNY 5.2 bn, China Life’s bottom-line performance would have declined only CNY 2.8 bn or 5.3% YOY – but still down; and*Value Challenges Ahead: With value challenges ahead in China Life’s illiquid securities portfolio (Challenged Tier 2/3 bank negotiable CDs and alternatives) and the CBIRC’s enabling of insurers to increase their concentration in equities, we not only question solvency margins but the viability of China Life’s full-year dividend per share – not to mention the impact of lower net yields.

*BEA Life Deal: In an effort to reinforce its Greater China franchise, AIA Group (1299.HK) [AIA] has entered into an agreement to purchase Bank of East Asia’s (23.HK) [BEA] wholly-owned life insurance unit, BEA Life, and entered into an exclusive 15-year bancassurance relationship with BEA for HKD 5.07 bn (USD 653 mn) covering Hong Kong and mainland China; and *Lost Focus: Acquiring a fledgling Hong Kong insurance franchise at a premium when you’re the dominant player and unemployment remains excessive, suggests that AIA is more concerned with growth metrics rather than addressing the risks that AIA is facing in mainland China, Hong Kong, and in its investment portfolio.

*BEA Life Deal: In an effort to reinforce its Greater China franchise, AIA Group (1299.HK) [AIA] has entered into an agreement to purchase Bank of East Asia’s (23.HK) [BEA] wholly-owned life insurance unit, BEA Life, and entered into an exclusive 15-year bancassurance relationship with BEA for HKD 5.07 bn (USD 653 mn) covering Hong Kong and mainland China; and *Lost Focus: Acquiring a fledgling Hong Kong insurance franchise at a premium when you’re the dominant player and unemployment remains excessive, suggests that AIA is more concerned with growth metrics rather than addressing the risks that AIA is facing in mainland China, Hong Kong, and in its investment portfolio. 

AIA Group – Confirming No Organic Growth On Horizon

*Continued Weak Great Eastern Core Returns: Great Eastern Holdings (GE.SP) [Great Eastern] reported 2H20 bottom-line results of SGD 688.5 mn, improving SGD 348.6 mn (102.5%) HOH. However, when we exclude 2H20’s net gains on sale of SGD 3.8 bn, core operating results were far from impressive at a loss of SGD 3.1 bn versus operating income SGD 217.3 mn in 1H20; and*Poor Readacross to Regional Insurers: Higher overall costs at Great Eastern during the half driven by claims and a change in contract liability increases would imply a negative readacross to AIA (1299.HK), Prudential (PRU.LN), ManuLife (MFC.CN), and of course the mainland Chinese insurers.

*Continued Weak Great Eastern Core Returns: Great Eastern Holdings (GE.SP) [Great Eastern] reported 2H20 bottom-line results of SGD 688.5 mn, improving SGD 348.6 mn (102.5%) HOH. However, when we exclude 2H20’s net gains on sale of SGD 3.8 bn, core operating results were far from impressive at a loss of SGD 3.1 bn versus operating income SGD 217.3 mn in 1H20; and*Poor Readacross to Regional Insurers: Higher overall costs at Great Eastern during the half driven by claims and a change in contract liability increases would imply a negative readacross to AIA (1299.HK), Prudential (PRU.LN), ManuLife (MFC.CN), and of course the mainland Chinese insurers. 

Oversea Chinese Banking Corp. – Great Eastern HOH Operating Results Flop

Independent Asian Credit Research, Bondcritic

Warut Promboon

Independent Asian Credit Research

Asian Fixed Income/Frontier Market Research

Bondcritic

Bondcritic, established in 2009, is designed to be an independent credit research voice that helps investors gain insights and unbiased analyses on Asian fixed income market. Our mission is to discover deep-value Asian high-yield and distressed bonds with a bottom-up approach, together with the help of our proprietary ESG (Environmental, Social Development, and Governance) model. At the same time, we focus on bringing investment cases of unrated and unloved issuers to the general public.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

This is the first in a series of reports on Infrastructure Asset-Backed Securities (IABS) in Asia Pacific. The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the IABS asset class, which remains relatively new to Asia. An IABS transaction involves a sponsor and/or manager sourcing project and infrastructure loans from originators (i.e. banks), underwriting them and issuing securitized notes backed by these assets to investors. This helps originators recycle their balance sheets, while offering investors exposure to these projects and infrastructure loans in a credit-enhanced format, enabling them to originate more project and infrastructure loans.  For the Asia Pacific region, IABS can help bridge a funding gap for infrastructure financing, which according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2017, amounts to USD 467bn per annum.
IABS is typically backed by a diversified portfolio of project and infrastructure loans. Long-term investors such as life insurers and pension funds can benefit from matching their long-dated liabilities with longer-dated IABS. An investment-grade credit rating for IABS would also fit into the investment mandates of life insurers, pension funds and asset managers. In addition, investors benefit from instant diversification across projects, sectors and geographies/regions, compared to investing directly in individual loans or projects. Furthermore, the elevated credit profile of a senior tranche minimizes the capital cushion that an institutional investor may need to put up against its investments. Last but not least, IABS offers institutional investors access to an asset class with significant barriers to entry, managed by an experienced collateral manager.
As with any credit product, IABS is not risk-free and, depending on how each IABS is structured, IABS could be exposed to loans without public ratings, concentration risk (in certain sectors, countries, guarantors, offtakers and projects), political risk, operational risk of a collateral manager, counterparty risk from loan participation exposures, and prolonged recovery periods in case of loan defaults. It should be noted that such risks are generally taken into consideration in the ratings process of IABS, either through the credit estimate (i.e. private ratings) assigned to the underlying loans or the stress testing of the loan portfolio and IABS structure.

This is the first in a series of reports on Infrastructure Asset-Backed Securities (IABS) in Asia Pacific. The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the IABS asset class, which remains relatively new to Asia. An IABS transaction involves a sponsor and/or manager sourcing project and infrastructure loans from originators (i.e. banks), underwriting them and issuing securitized notes backed by these assets to investors. This helps originators recycle their balance sheets, while offering investors exposure to these projects and infrastructure loans in a credit-enhanced format, enabling them to originate more project and infrastructure loans.  For the Asia Pacific region, IABS can help bridge a funding gap for infrastructure financing, which according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2017, amounts to USD 467bn per annum.
IABS is typically backed by a diversified portfolio of project and infrastructure loans. Long-term investors such as life insurers and pension funds can benefit from matching their long-dated liabilities with longer-dated IABS. An investment-grade credit rating for IABS would also fit into the investment mandates of life insurers, pension funds and asset managers. In addition, investors benefit from instant diversification across projects, sectors and geographies/regions, compared to investing directly in individual loans or projects. Furthermore, the elevated credit profile of a senior tranche minimizes the capital cushion that an institutional investor may need to put up against its investments. Last but not least, IABS offers institutional investors access to an asset class with significant barriers to entry, managed by an experienced collateral manager.
As with any credit product, IABS is not risk-free and, depending on how each IABS is structured, IABS could be exposed to loans without public ratings, concentration risk (in certain sectors, countries, guarantors, offtakers and projects), political risk, operational risk of a collateral manager, counterparty risk from loan participation exposures, and prolonged recovery periods in case of loan defaults. It should be noted that such risks are generally taken into consideration in the ratings process of IABS, either through the credit estimate (i.e. private ratings) assigned to the underlying loans or the stress testing of the loan portfolio and IABS structure.

Infrastructure Asset-Backed Securities: New Asset Class for Asia

*Challenges Ignored: Last week a competitor held a virtual conference with Ping An Insurance (2318.HK) [Ping An Insurance]. In typical fashion, the management of Ping An barely scratched the surface in their discussion of its weakened franchise;   *Only A Discussion On Life and P&amp;C: Management guided that Ping An Life (PAL) will have positive Value of New Business (VONB) growth for 2021, as a beneficiary of health reforms. It sees a number of new digital tools empowering agents in sales and customer development, in addition to improving agency recruitment. For Ping An P&amp;C, management guided that the full-year combined ratio would be “slightly higher” than the 99.1% posted through 3Q20. This means that Ping An P&amp;C likely will be loss making on an operational basis if the combined ratio exceeds 100%; and* Move Along, Nothing To See Here: There was no discussion of the following: 1) Continued weakness in Ping An Life’s results; 2) It being  a finalist to acqure Tahoe Insurance in Hong Kong; 3) technology platform; credit insurance risk; and the capital contrained Ping An Bank.

*Challenges Ignored: Last week a competitor held a virtual conference with Ping An Insurance (2318.HK) [Ping An Insurance]. In typical fashion, the management of Ping An barely scratched the surface in their discussion of its weakened franchise;   *Only A Discussion On Life and P&amp;C: Management guided that Ping An Life (PAL) will have positive Value of New Business (VONB) growth for 2021, as a beneficiary of health reforms. It sees a number of new digital tools empowering agents in sales and customer development, in addition to improving agency recruitment. For Ping An P&amp;C, management guided that the full-year combined ratio would be “slightly higher” than the 99.1% posted through 3Q20. This means that Ping An P&amp;C likely will be loss making on an operational basis if the combined ratio exceeds 100%; and* Move Along, Nothing To See Here: There was no discussion of the following: 1) Continued weakness in Ping An Life’s results; 2) It being  a finalist to acqure Tahoe Insurance in Hong Kong; 3) technology platform; credit insurance risk; and the capital contrained Ping An Bank. 

Ping An Insurance – Avoiding The Hard Questions

United Kingdom

Prudential plc is an international company which provides a wide assortment of insurance and investment products and services. Insurance products include life, accident and health, property and casualty insurance, as well as fixed and variable annuities.  Financial and investment services include personal and group pensions, equity plans, mortgages and deposit accounts.

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Prudential PLC (PRU LN)

China Life Insurance – Not So Good

CHINA LIFE: China Life reported a 13.7% YOY decline in 2020 bottom-line. With value challenges ahead in China Life’s illiquid securities portfolio,...

Thomas J. Monaco

AIA Group – Confirming No Organic Growth On Horizon

AIA GROUP: AIA entered into an agreement to acquire BEA Life, and entered into a bancassurance relationship with BEA. Acquiring a fledgling Hong...

Thomas J. Monaco

Oversea Chinese Banking Corp. – Great Eastern HOH Operating Results Flop

OVERSEA CHINESE BANKING CORP: Great Eastern reported hefty 2H20 core operating losses. Higher overall costs HOH imply a negative readacross to...

Thomas J. Monaco

Infrastructure Asset-Backed Securities: New Asset Class for Asia

This is our first report on Infrastructure Asset-Backed Securities (IABS) in Asia Pacific which provides an overview of the asset class, new to Asia.

Bondcritic

Ping An Insurance – Avoiding The Hard Questions

PING AN INSURANCE: Everyone Understands That Ping An Insurance Is Struggling In Every Business Line. Management Refuses To Discuss How They Are...

Thomas J. Monaco

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