Q2 2026 Liva Group SAOG Earnings Call
Speaker #1: The 10th of September, 2026, and it's 2:00 PM my local time. Welcome, all. I'd like to begin today's presentation by reading the disclaimer on the screen.
Speaker #1: The material in this presentation has been prepared by Liva Group SAOG, also known as Liva. It is general background information about Liva's activities, current as of the date of this presentation. This information is given in summary form and does not purport to be complete.
Speaker #1: Information in this presentation, including forecasts and financial information, if any, should not be considered as advice or a recommendation to investors or potential investors in relation to holding, purchasing, or selling securities or other financial products or instruments, and does not take into account your particular investment objectives.
Speaker #1: Financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information, you should consider the appropriateness of the information having regard to these matters, any relevant offer documents, and, in particular, you should seek independent financial advice.
Speaker #1: This presentation may contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our intent, belief, or current expectations with respect to Liva's businesses and operations, market conditions, results of operations, financial condition, capital adequacy, specific provisions, and risk management practices.
Speaker #1: Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Liva does not undertake any obligation to publicly release the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
Speaker #1: While due care has been taken with forecast information, actual results may vary in a materially positive or negative manner. Forecasts and hypothetical examples are subject to uncertainty and contingencies outside Liva's control.
Speaker #1: Past performance is not a reliable indication of future performance. For today's presentation, I'd like to now run through the agenda for today. We will commence with our Group CEO's opening statement, which will be followed by our Group Financial Performance, Strategic Highlights, and then our Group CEO will give some closing statements.
Speaker #1: After that, we will allow time for a Q&A. Please note that for all investors, your microphones are muted for this session to allow for the presentation to proceed.
Speaker #1: Following our presentation, we will then open the floor for Q&A. Should you have any questions, I request that you please use the chat function on the MFS Teams app and type out your questions.
Speaker #1: Following the presentation, we will then read out these questions in order, and the relevant Liva management team will respond to your questions. I hope this is clear.
Speaker #1: I'd now like to hand over to our Group CEO to begin the presentation. Thank you very much.
Speaker #2: Thank you very much, Sarah, and good afternoon and welcome to everybody. I am David Healey. I am the Chief Executive Officer of the Liva Group, and today we'd like to share with you information on our first-half performance, on our strategic priorities, and also take a look ahead to the remainder of this year.
Speaker #2: As Sarah mentioned, there will be time at the end for some questions. So, Sarah, if I may, I'd like to start with an update to our Board of Directors.
Speaker #2: So, as you can see, this is the makeup of our board, and we are delighted and honored to have such esteemed and capable leadership on our Board of Directors.
Speaker #2: In particular, I would like to welcome our new Chairman, Sheikh Khalid Al-Khalili, who has taken over the chairmanship of the Board. We welcome him to this role at this time.
Speaker #2: I would also like to express my thanks and, of course, our deep appreciation to Khalid Al-Zubair, our previous Chairman, for his outstanding leadership and vision throughout his tenure with Liva.
Speaker #2: These changes to the board and the ongoing efforts are a reflection of our focus on strengthening our governance and shaping the future direction of the Liva Group.
Speaker #2: Looking at our management team, I'm delighted to be joined today by Dr. Dafer Al-Shanfari, who is our Group Chief Operating Officer, and also by Michael Thompson, who is our Group Chief Finance and Investment Officer.
Speaker #2: I'm pleased to say Michael has joined us recently in the position of CFO, and this will be his first opportunity to share the results. Michael brings with him some outstanding international experience, having worked for many years in some of the world's largest insurance companies.
Speaker #2: I'm also very pleased to be joined on the line by our three regional CEOs: Hannah, Adal, and Mohamed. In particular, I'd like to welcome Adal and Mohamed, who in this period have been formally notified and appointed as CEOs of the regional businesses in the UAE and in KSA.
Speaker #2: Looking forward, as we enter the second half of this year, we are very well placed to build on the solid momentum from the first half.
Speaker #2: We are firmly committed to delivering sustainable growth, and we believe in long-term value creation, with a focus on earnings quality. In this regard, our underwriting discipline across our portfolios remains key, with a view to delivering sustained profitability and reduced earnings volatility.
Speaker #2: We also remain extremely diligent in maintaining a prudent capital management approach. We are proud of our leading geographic position across the Gulf and the range and product diversity we deliver to the markets and to our customers.
Speaker #2: Strategically, we are focusing on ongoing operational and cost efficiency, including the adoption of AI. We are expanding and deepening our regional presence, and, in particular, expanding our distribution partnerships with the international broker community.
Speaker #2: And finally, and importantly, we continue to believe in customer centricity in everything we do, and the ongoing placement of our customer at the center of our strategy, along with ongoing innovation and development of our risk solutions.
Speaker #2: So, with that, I'd like to hand over to Michael, who will talk us through the first-half financial results. Michael.
Speaker #3: Thank you, David. Turning to our financial performance, the first half of 2026 reflects continued growth across the group, while maintaining a focus on underwriting discipline and sustained profitability.
Speaker #3: Insurance revenue increased by 17% to $227 million, or money real, compared with $194 million money real in the first half of last year. We saw growth across our markets and lines of business, primarily driven by strong momentum in the KSA supported by continued expansion and motor, alongside growth in Oman and the UAE.
Speaker #3: Our insurance services result is $8.3 million for the first half of the year, compared with $10.3 million in the prior year. Disciplined underwriting continued to support a healthy underwriting result, while the year-on-year movement also reflects adverse weather events in the first quarter and a particularly strong prior year comparative.
Speaker #3: Underlying margins remain healthy, supported by disciplined pricing and risk selection across our core markets. Investment income increased to $8.5 million, from $7.5 million last year.
Speaker #3: This represents a 14% increase year on year, supported by a 22% increase in our invested asset base, reflecting business growth and improved cash flows from receivables and operations.
Speaker #3: The portfolio remains conservatively positioned, and the return achieved reflects global market rates, standing at 5% for the first half of 2026. The group delivered a profit after tax of $4.5 million in the first half.
Speaker #3: The year-on-year movement reflects the drivers of the insurance service result, which I just mentioned, together with continued investments in the Group's transformation and strategic initiatives.
Speaker #3: As we continue to build capabilities to support the Group’s longer-term growth, in summary, the underlying picture remains one of strong top-line growth, disciplined underwriting, and resilient investment income.
Speaker #3: If we could move to the next page, please. Looking at the composition of growth, we continue to see a gradual evolution toward a more balanced portfolio across our lines of business.
Speaker #3: The chart compares our business mix in the first half of 2025 with that of 2026. Health remains the largest line of business, but its share of the overall portfolio has reduced from 53% to 49%, reflecting less reliance on this line of business.
Speaker #3: At the same time, motor has increased from 28% to 34%, largely reflecting the strong growth we have seen in the KSA. Non-motor lines represent 12% of the portfolio, compared with 14% in the prior period, while Life remains broadly stable at around 5%.
Speaker #3: As these numbers show, we are continuing to develop Liva as a diversified composite insurer, reducing concentration, and creating a more balanced distribution across markets and products.
Speaker #3: We remain disciplined in how we pursue that growth. Our focus is to allocate capital toward areas where we see attractive returns and sustainable profitability.
Speaker #3: With that, I'll hand over to Dr. Dafeh, our Group Chief Operating Officer, to take us through our strategic priorities and some of the key operational developments across the Group.
Speaker #3: Dr. Dafeh, please.
Speaker #4: Thank you, Michael. Happy to be back to this session, and I'll briefly cover our five strategic pillars and market highlights. So, we at the Group focus on five key areas.
Speaker #4: And under each of them, there are obviously many initiatives that are either run at the group level or at the country level. We have been investing in capabilities and resources to ensure we have the right transformation resources to see through many of these initiatives.
Speaker #4: And we will continue to do so. So, the first one is financial strength and discipline, which basically looks at strengthening our capital management, cost control, and thereby driving sustainable performance and shareholder value.
Speaker #4: The second one would be the sustainable, profitable growth that we want to continue, and that can be inorganically through various partnerships and platforms that we have established, but also by continuing to focus on M&A opportunities that are assertive.
Speaker #4: With efficient use of capital and capabilities, we believe we are on the right track. The third is the customer and brand leadership pillar, or area of focus, which has been one of the areas we've always looked at, but has been strengthened more and more over the past year, particularly regarding the customer experience journey and our plans to initiate a number of initiatives to deliver many positive changes under this function.
Speaker #4: Innovation across our insurance products and services, and the positioning of the Liva brand. The fourth area is people and performance excellence—obviously, our people are at the heart of building a high-performing organization.
Speaker #4: We continue to invest in both locally available new talent and the development of our existing workforce. Strengthening leadership capabilities at every level will enable us to drive consistent execution of our strategic priorities.
Speaker #4: And the last is obviously governance, risk, and control. These are key areas to protect the group and support confident decision-making. So, these reflect a continued disciplined approach to how we're executing across the group.
Speaker #4: If I move to the next slide, with the country leaders here, obviously they are leading and seeing through many important initiatives. These are just a few tangible examples to share publicly today.
Speaker #4: So, in Oman, we have enhanced our health claims operating model through automation, improving both the turnaround times and accuracy. This began as an opportunity to strengthen our operating model and evolved into a comprehensive business transformation program that boosted our automation capabilities and improved our turnaround times in health claims.
Speaker #4: In the UAE, our new medical app went live, giving members self-service access to their policy, provider network, and claims. The focus is to bring about a single digital platform that improves accessibility.
Speaker #4: Engagement and service delivery with our customers. We are continuing to add further capabilities into this mobile app, which will deliver a streamlined and unified customer experience across all the markets we operate in.
Speaker #4: In KSA, Liva KSA was recognized by TIME and Statista as one of the world's Growth Leaders 2026, and is one of only 24 Saudi companies included among 1,000 global growth leaders.
Speaker #4: This recognition reinforces and serves as a testament to Liva KSA's growth and disciplined execution, as well as its delivery of sustainable value to customers and shareholders. If I move to the next slide, this is a typical slide we've used over the past few sessions.
Speaker #4: And obviously, as you look at this, our continued commitment to our core markets and continuous growth is mentioned, as presented by Michael in the financial section.
Speaker #4: If you look at Oman, the business is driven by disciplined financial performance, supported by tangible transformation outcomes across medical claims, finance, and digital distribution.
Speaker #4: In the UAE, has shown resilient performance despite a challenging environment with continued focus on strengthening talent, improving efficiency, and driving innovation. In KSA, as mentioned, constant consistent profitability driven by disciplined growth and underwriting results and investment from while continuing to strengthen strategic partnership.
Speaker #4: And we continue to explore inorganic growth opportunities in that market. For the smaller markets, we continue to be prudent in underwriting, with a strong cost discipline, and have a healthy, stabilized portfolio performance. Continued focus on building sustainable technical profitability, supported by initiatives to strengthen our market presence, will continue.
Speaker #4: That's all from me today, or for now at least. Back to you, David. Thank you.
Speaker #2: Thank you, Dr. Dafeh. Thank you, Michael. So, thank you for your summaries of what I think was a very robust and strong first half of the year for the conference.
Speaker #2: As we said, we are excited about the momentum we are carrying forward into the second half of the year. You can see that we have a clear focus on financial discipline, on growing our business, on investing in our people, on putting our customers very much at the center of everything we do, and always maintaining a strong view on our risk and control culture.
Speaker #2: So, again, thank you for your attention today. And with that, Sarah will hand over to any questions that may come forward.
Speaker #1: Thank you very much, David, and thank you to the Liva management team. I'd just like to ask if any of the investors on the call have any questions.
Speaker #1: I do not see any questions typed out in the chat function. If you do have a question, could I please ask you to raise your hand now on the Teams app? I will then call out your name and you can ask your question.
Speaker #1: We'll give it a few minutes.
Speaker #2: Thank you, Sarah. It seems like we don't have any questions coming forward at this stage. So perhaps, with our thanks, you'd like to close out the call.
Speaker #1: Thank you very much, everyone, for joining today's call. Thank you all.
Speaker #5: Thank you.
