Earnings Labs

Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. (SHG)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 11, 2014

$66.74

-0.24%

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Transcript

Sung Hun Yu

Management

Good afternoon, everyone. I am Yu Sung Hun and I’m in charge of IR. I would like to thank all of you for participating in the Q4 earnings conference call. We will now begin the Q4 earnings report. Today we have here with us Vice President, Kim Hyung-Jin, who is in-charge of Strategy; CFO, Min Jung-Kee; Managing Director, Chang Dong-ki [ph] who is in-charge of Finance. We will first open up the conference call with the presentation from our CFO, and he will be going over the 2013 earnings results of Shinhan Financial Group. And after the presentation, we will be taking questions. I will hand the microphone over to CFO, Min. He will be going over the earnings results.

Min Jung-Kee

CFO

Good afternoon. I am Min Jung-Kee, the CFO of Shinhan Financial Group. First of all, I would like to extend my gratitude to the investors, analysts and journalists, in and out of Korea, for listening in to the 2013 Shinhan Financial Group earnings release. I will now cover the main highlights of Shinhan Financial Group’s 2013 earnings. Let me first elaborate on the Group’s income on Page 6. Shinhan Financial Group’s 2013 yearly net income recorded KBW1,902.8 billion and Q4 quarterly net income recorded KBW343.3 billion. 2013 was an year of continued uncertainty in the financial environment, and Shinhan strived to minimize the Group’s earnings contraction through measures including credit risk management, strengthening and cost cutting. Shinhan despite the overall factors pushing down the earnings including card fee cut, insurance industry accounting change and market interest rate drop, was able to suppress the interest income downward trend through low-cost deposit growth and net interest margin stabilization through appropriate loan growth that did not curtailed the margin, and was able to manage the overall costs at an appropriate level by the fall in the annual credit cost and improvement of SG&A efficiency, and ultimately was able to make efforts so that the recurring earnings level could be strongly maintained. On the growth side, bank loans grew 2%. And taking into the account the Korea Housing Finance Corporation mortgage loan securitization amount, there is a strong growth trend of 3.8%. Shinhan Group will focus on margin stabilization, credit cost improvement, cost efficiency management and asset quality base qualitative growth and continuously maintain the trend of stably improving the earnings generating fundamentals this year. Regarding the P&L, the Group’s interest income was impacted by the policy and market interest rate fall, and quarterly group NIM went down 19 bp Y-o-Y falling 5.4% Y-o-Y,…

Sung Hun Yu

Management

Thank you very much, and now we will be receiving questions. (Operator Instructions) For your reference today’s earnings release materials can be accessed via mobile phone IR applications including, for the tablet PC. Android app users can download IR app after searching for Shinhan Finance IR or SFG IR keywords. Apple iOS users can go to m.shinhangroup.co.kr and download the IR app. Please use them at your convenience. Let’s take the first question.

Operator

Operator

First question comes from Franklin Templeton. And he is Managing Director, Jung Moo Il. Please Mr. Jung. Moo Il Jung – Franklin Templeton: Can you hear me?

Sung Hun Yu

Management

Yes. Moo Il Jung – Franklin Templeton: Thank you. First of all, congratulations on your great earnings. And I am asking two questions related to the strategy of Shinhan. The first question is about Shinhan Financial Group’s focus for this year. And this year, I know that the financial environment is deteriorating, but in 2014 as you are well aware, recovery and cooperation. Recovery is expected be on the rise and there are some negative views for financial groups. So many investors are curious about the future strategy of Shinhan. Are there any special strategies that Shinhan Financial Group is focusing on? My second question refers to overseas global banks. And in those banks, they have net capital growth, and I believe that this is ample time for Korean banks to also grow. So are there any strategies or plans for you to go to overseas markets and be international? Thank you.

Min Jung-Kee

CFO

I am Kim Hyung-Jin, VP in-charge of strategy. Thank you very much for your questions. As you have mentioned for this year, we see many risks, but also opportunities. Last year, there were many uncertainties in the financial market, but we were able to guard our income and through new strategies, we were able to focus on differentiated managements. We were able to have appropriate growth and guard our margin, and we were able to also safeguard the NIM. And we were able to stabilize the credit cost of the Group. In 2014, we are seeing the new normal environment which seems to be persistent. And seeing the future economic recovery, we are trying to have risk management at the appropriate timing. And this year our slogan is new thoughts new thought. So that is our new slogan. And our focus areas are as follows. We will have differentiated growth. With the economy recovery and with the pickup in the domestic demand, we are going to focus on the credit card sales increase as well as other areas. Along with this, we will have appropriate growth of the Group, and we will have better funding, so that we could guard the margin and focus on the NIM. And we are going to have preemptive asset quality protection, so that we are going to have credit cost at 50 bp level. So we will have preemptive management of the credit costs. Regarding the low interest rate and low growth and the aging society that we are witnessing, we need to come up with creative products and services. And through new ways of lending, we are going to have measures to improve the customer value. And Shinhan’s corporate value will be improved, and the shareholders and the social values will be improved. So there will be a virtuous cycle, so that compassionate finance with us for the new future.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

And I will be elaborating on the global strategy from now on. Shinhan along with the bank securities and investment, as a management, we have 71 global network branches, organizations. And we believe that we need to be more international, because we are in the low interest rate era, and we need to aim for the new markets with higher growth potential. And we need to differentiate our income sources. And in 2014, we’re going to focus more on localization in other markets, international markets. So they will be our focus in our overseas plans. And we are going to have more strong local presence of Shinhan in the overseas area that in particular, we are going to have pioneering of new markets, Middle East, Brazil and Africa. There will be some areas that we haven’t entered into, that we will be focusing on. So we’re going to prioritize them and we are correlating [ph] different ways to do this. Also, the banking industry is regulated in the emerging markets, so it is true that some business opportunities are limited. Accordingly, we are going to also consider going into non-banking side. And we are going to have more encouragement of the non-banking side in the emerging countries. And in Indonesia and Vietnam, we have already entered into these markets, but we are going to have a stronger presence locally. So we are going to expand the global profit bases. And in the mid to long-term, we’re going to do our best so that net income contribution can go from 4.6% in 2013 to about 10% going forward. Risk management needs to be done. Also we need to think about the business sense, but we are going to do our best to make opportunities abroad come into reality. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We would now take the next question. Mr. Kim Jinsang of SC Securities would be asking the question. Jinsang Kim – Standard Chartered Securities: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for your presentation. I have two questions. First question is this. In Q4 of last year, there was seasonality, and one-off factors. So besides those – if you exclude those, so what would be the recurring income level? And for next year, what are your forecasts? What are your targets for 2014? That’s my first question. And my second question is this. Collective loans. You are selling or writing back collecting loans, I think there were some cases of those. So for the collective loans, I think there is a possibility of more hazards, but do you think that they will continue to be in normalization, related to on the collective loans. And I think the real estate market is being more stable. And so what are your expected risks related to the collective credit and the household risks?

Min Jung-Kee

CFO

In Q4, as for the one-off factors, let me explain about that first. At a recurring level, the quarterly net income, it was about between KBW490 billion to KBW500 billion, which is very similar to the level in Q3. And what’s important is this. This recurring income – and what kind of trend does that show. I think that’s what’s really important at this point in Q4, despite the seasonality our recurring level, we were able to have the income level between KBW490 billion and KBW500 billion. And in Q4, there were some special effects or special re-factors. Related to non-interest income, we had intended loss because of the sales of equity, so with the shares. And this impairment loss, the total amount was about KBW90.9 billion related to Ssangyong Construction, it was about KBW34 billion and related to credit recovery fund, it was about KBW29.8 billion, and related to our shipping company, Beihai [ph] Shipbuilding, there was about KBW27.1 billion impairment loss. And as you have mentioned about the write-backs or the reversals. Well, related to [indiscernible], there was a PF loan that was out. And there was a write-back of the provisioning that was about KBW81.2 billion. So in 2014, there would not be that many write-backs or reversals in 2014. And the reasons are this. The first, related to real estate PF – in our collective loans related to real estate PF, the losses or the provisioning that have occurred related to that. And if we exclude the [indiscernible], they were not that large. So that is the first reason. And the second reason is this. Well, provisioning – well, we feel other provisions related to this, but there are not that many provisions. And in 2014, related to collective loan related – the write-backs, we do not expect that to be too large.

Operator

Operator

Next question from Dongbu Securities, Lee Byung-gun, Team Leader. Mr. Lee. Lee Byung-gun – Dongbu Securities: Yes, great to be hear. I am Lee Byung-gun from Dongbu Securities. I have two questions. First, regarding the Credit Card. Well, they did really well, and despite the incidents in the market, you were not involved. And I think that indirectly it will contribute to your brand name value. However, thinking from the opposite side, you have done so well in sales and operations. And in the case of Shinhan Life Insurance, your PF proportion is quite large. And on the whole, it seems that your TM sales operation stoppage will have some impact. And after the sales restriction has been lifted, I know that it may have some impact. So can you tell us about what kind of impact it will have, the sales restrictions as a whole? And secondly, yesterday, I think from last weekend what people have been talking about is that the government has a new economic growth plan, and too bad household debt. There are two types of loans and they are going to have it going from 30% to 40%, the fixed rate and non-fixed rate. And they said that they will actually have this earlier than planned. So in this case, I know that you will be impacted as well. I know that in the past with the conformity loans when they were being sold, the situation is a bit different, but how much do you think will sell? And through the issuing of covered bond, the long-term funding, fixed interest rates, type of these loans on a longer maturity basis, how much do you think you can sell?

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

First of all, in the case of Shinhan Life Insurance and Shinhan Card, regarding TM operations or sales. Well, the restrictions on our sales have been – will soon be enacted, and I know that there will be some impact. And in the case of Shinhan Credit Card, their sales strategy is to have – to not have the teams issuing the cards directly. So I think that these types of sales and the restrictions will not impact our sales or the income. In the case of Shinhan Life Insurance, we believe that we will have some impact, but as you are well aware in the case of Shinhan Life Insurance TM and DMs and other e-channels are leading to stable growth. So it is true that we may be impacted, but to a slight degree. However from last year, from a strategic side, currently Shinhan Life Insurance’s vulnerability or the weak side can be the type of long-term insurance products. The protection type of products have been actually revised our plan. So it seems that this year we will not be impacted severely, and we are currently reviewing this, but it seems that we will not – our P&L will not be impacted that much, the Credit Card version of life insurance because of these restrictions. That is our current review. Regarding the second question, about household loan maturity or prolongation and the fixed rate loans repayment. Well, the proportion going up to 40%. The government’s policy – well, that has existed in the past as well. Basically – well, it seems that it is to protect the customers and not to have more risks by the bank. So I know that the focus is more on the customers. Of course the customers need to be protected, but the banks also need to think about risk management for asset growth. In 2013, you have heard from us that in our earnings in the case of Shinhan Bank, household loans – the mortgage loans have gone down, so the portfolio have gone down. So the credit loans, you can see that has gone up, but for our mortgage loans. So for the longer term maturity loans, well there is securitization. And recently the FSS is encouraging covenant bond issuance so that the maturity mismatch can be resolved. And I think that can work. So Shinhan Bank also will be interested in those two areas. And in the case of covered bond, the FSS, I know is actively going to support in creating a market for covered bonds. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We’ll take the next question. The next question comes from Mr. Watanabe Yoshinari of Prudential Investment. Watanabe Yoshinari – Prudential Investment: Thank you very much. My question is related to the BIS ratio. BIS ratio is based on Basel III. So it’s quite difficult to make the comparison. So for our reference, if you have – if you’ve done the calculation based on the previous standards, what would be the BIS ratio for the Group? So if you could share that number with us?

Min Jung-Kee

CFO

Well, it’s not going to be easy for us to give you very accurate numbers. Well, Basel II and Basel III. Well, I think that there would be an increase in terms of assets. As for the high-risk assets and the market risk, well there would be some increase. And also there will be some changes in terms of capital. And the biggest change is related to is the capital adjusted or the Tier-2 would be including Tier-1. So that would bring about some changes. In the past, it was Tier-2, something that was acknowledged at 45%, but all of that is going to be now acknowledged as Tier-1. So that will contribute to the increase of BIS ratio. But I think it should be less than 1%, but we may have to do further calculation to provide you with more accurate numbers. Whilst we do the calculation based on the previous standards, BIS ratio as well as the Tier-2 ratio, we’ll do the calculation and provide those numbers to you at a later date.

Sung Hun Yu

Management

It seems that no other questions are coming in, and we will wait until the next question is coming in. There are no other calls on the line. And thank you very much for taking part in the 2013 earnings release of Shinhan Financial Group. We will conclude the earnings report. Thank you very much.