Earnings Labs

Noah Holdings Limited (NOAH)

Q3 2022 Earnings Call· Mon, Nov 21, 2022

$10.64

-0.75%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello, dear investors and analysts, and welcome to the Noah Holdings' Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Please note, your line has been automatically muted and this event is being recorded. The company management team will first give a quarterly update presentation. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Jingbo Wang, Chair, President, and CEO of Noah Holdings. Please go ahead.

Jingbo Wang

Analyst

[Foreign Language] The agenda of today's teleconference. I will first share my views on the macro market. I then introduce Noah's overall performance in the third quarter of 2022, the development of several business sectors, and our overall strategy. Next, let's invite Pan Qin to introduce quarterly financial information, then conclude with the interactive Q&A. First of all, I would like to report to you that we have received the acknowledgment from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange regarding our voluntary applications for conversion to do primary listing in Hong Kong. We sent the recognition from the stock exchange. Before the new year of 2023, Noah would become a dual primary-listed company both in the United States and Hong Kong. Although the compliance requirements for the two jurisdictions are stricter, Noah has also completely removed the ADR delisting risk. The third quarter of 2022 is a difficult quarter we had experienced with Federal Reserve raising interest rates significantly and the global secondary market continuing to fluctuate. The prevention and control policy of COVID in China has continued to cause lockdowns in different cities across the country, bringing huge challenges to business operations and our client investment sentiment continued to be low. With the increasingly fierce competition between China and the United States, as well as the Russia-Ukraine war, investors' willingness to invest down to the phrasing point in the third quarter. The most urgent demand of clients is to protect the security and liquidity of the investable assets of their own families. The increase of global uncertainty superimposed many external risks making us feel that the period of strategic activities for peaceful development has turned into a wartime stage. In times of crisis, how to increase the frequency of contact with clients, increase the client wallet share on the management and…

Qin Pan

Analyst

Thanks, Tonya, and thank you Chairlady. Good morning to investors and analysts online. As Chairlady has mentioned, following our successful secondary listing in Hong Kong in July. On October, we received acknowledgment from Hong Kong Stock Exchange in respect to have application of voluntary conversion to Dual-Primary Listing in Hong Kong. The effective date on which of the primary conversion is expected to be before December 31, 2022. With the successful conversion will be done primarily received on both the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as well as the New York Stock Exchange, which removes our ADR delisting risk, because Hong Kong shares and ADR are fully fungible. We also hope to be able to join the Stock Connect link in the future, which will allow investors from the Chinese stock market to be our shareholders. We're mindful that the following the impact from continued geopolitical conflicts in the second quarter, the macro environment in the third quarter continued to be highly challenging. The United States Federal Reserve raised rates twice in the third quarter, each time by 75 bps following its rate hikes in March, May and June, followed by another 75 bps on November 3. That means accumulated 375 bps in 2022, the highest level in 14 years. And in China, lockdown measures that came with COVID-zero policy was not alleviated as many have originally anticipated and hoped, further affected investor sentiment, especially towards making investment decisions in large sums and in equity market products. This is evidenced by the drop of mutual fund net asset value in the third quarter and also the declining of revenue from fund distributions across the industry. Now please let me walk you through more detailed results for the third quarter. As a result of the challenging market environment dampened investment sentiment, total…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Now, the first question comes from [indiscernible].

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

[Foreign Language] So, maybe I'll briefly translate. So, the first question is on the strong growth in the diamond and the black card clients in third quarter. I was just wondering what's the key drivers behind it? The second question is on the wallet share of the clients' AUM both in and -- onshore and offshore? And what's our current wallet share? And how do we see the potential there? And especially to reach the wallet share for clients overseas assets and what kind of drivers you would be looking at? Thanks.

Qin Pan

Analyst

Great. I'll take the first question and -- will comment on your second question. First question, we actually installed the diamond, black card in strategic program with actually strategic budget set aside. That program has been running for over two years. And this is the third year actually, the group that's running this project has obviously gained more experiences. And also the programs we have increased more client-centric, especially incentives for our RM to actually bringing potential -- high-potential clients with more accurate KYC programs as well as more importantly, that supported by the budget, they were able to post those mini diamond, and black card clients conferences, if you will, locally and be able to increase the interaction frequency with the potential clients. And another measurements that has been very effective is the MGM program that we have installed in place, that basically encourages our black card and diamond cards to bring in their circular friends to participate. Actually, most of them are Noah marketing events that to help them getting more familiar with Noah, as well as the trust towards the brand name, which also is one of the strategic program investments this year for the branding. So I just say, it's a comprehensive set of factors, but I think more importantly, is that the culture of the organization have improved greatly over the last three years, while we are implementing client-centric policy, so from our top to the front line, everybody is more a client service oriented. I think that's probably one of the very important reasons. [Foreign Language]

Jingbo Wang

Analyst

Absolutely. Yes, first translation. I think Kelly just mentioned that as the majority of our client basis or entrepreneurs especially, in the manufacturing and exporting businesses. So they do have quite a bit of demand in terms of allocation of their overseas assets we probably serve around roughly 100,000 plus cumulative that had overseas asset allocation. And we have about US$2 billion about overseas insurance cumulatively and also serving 400-plus families in our trust services. And we're significantly strengthening the direct service teams in Hong Kong and Singapore since the last two quarters and hoping to be able to more closely serve these clients or maybe even including some local clients in this type of situation. And also, obviously, with the rate hikes, the simple deposit products overseas are more attracted to our clients. We don't have the exact ratio between our clients well this year in terms of domestic and overseas assets. But probably by estimate of how our own AUM is allocated probably about 30% to 70% in terms of overseas versus domestically that we think that the ratio and also the asset that's already overseas for our clients, probably a little bit higher than what we have seen. So we believe that's actually ample room for growth, especially in the need of allocating their overseas efforts. So Yes, I hopefully, that covered your question.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you very much. That's very helpful. A – Jingbo Wang: Okay. Thank you. We’ll take another question.

Operator

Operator

The second question comes from Kan Hue [ph] from CICC.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I will briefly translate my question. And my first question is regarding to relationship managers. -- a number of relationship managers has achieved slightly growth quarter-on-quarter. I just wondering the future recruitment from relationship managers? And my second question is regarding to overseas business. In the third quarter of 2022, overseas revenue contribution increased to 28%. And our management fees introduce to us overseas business expansion strategy.

Qin Pan

Analyst

[Foreign Language] Thank you, Kan [ph] for your question. I think in terms of the strategy towards the IM [ph], I think, domestically, we are actually growing the team on a more controlled pace Basically, we are actually out in the lower performances and also are looking -- continue to look for better performance IMdomestically. But I think in general, domestically it is taking forward pace. We do have quite a bit of talent supply for the increasing due to difficult times from banks and security brokers. So we actually have the luxury to be more selective on the domestic side. In terms of overseas side, we are putting significant investment and budget to grow the teams, both basically Hong Kong and Singapore. And we believe that actually going to be a strategic differentiating factor in the next step strategy, especially increasing competition from similar institutions. So that's the side of IM. And in terms of overseas business, obviously, we are continuing to invest significantly to beef up the product supplies both from the [indiscernible] side direct investment in Silicon Valley as well as the real estate products in New York. We also have been beeping up the selected product suppliers on the pipeline to provide that to our clients. And also on the iNoah side, we're continuing to developing that and now have the capability of actually helping our clients to transact both Hong Kong and the US stocks on our online platform. And also on the Smile Treasury platform that we have seen very strong growth in this year, actually a very successful strategy this year that we have grown, basically from less than 100 institutional clients to now over 2,500 accounts online. And we have been noticing that even the small to medium enterprises, especially when they are export oriented, they do have kind of US dollars waiting to be managed. And we actually noticed that some of the Treasury teams, they don't usually have a large team that will be able to help them to talk to overseas banks and institutions, they just basically lack the capability or visibility of what's available to them and what they could actually subscribe to. So we -- with the Small Treasury function that there will be to easily have more access to the US dollar-based products. And also, the fourth line is obviously continuing to build on the insurance, overseas insurance, trust services and heritage services, especially when the clients are now more seriously looking at how to make sure that they have meaningful presence in their overseas operations. So there are kind of bundles of opportunities on the overseas side. Hopefully, did that cover your question?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you very clear.

Jingbo Wang

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Dear investors and analysts, you can now use the raise hand function when selected, you can turn on the microphone to ask a question. And please mute yourself after the question. Thank you. If there are no further questions, then the conference has now concluded. Thank you all for participating. Have a nice day or a nice evening. Thank you.

Jingbo Wang

Analyst

Thank you very much everybody.

Qin Pan

Analyst

Thank you. Thank you everyone. Bye-bye.

Jingbo Wang

Analyst

Bye-bye.