At its Investor's Day in Zurich, Swiss Life today announced its new strategic priorities and financial targets. Swiss Life also confirmed that the current crisis in the area of structured credit will not impact on the company’s results.
Focus on retirement needs, growth opportunities and functional excellence
Swiss Life has made great progress in implementing its pensions leadership strategy and has achieved its targets sooner than expected in many areas. Swiss Life intends to continue following this path consistently, to position itself as a leading provider of life insurance and pension solutions in Europe, and to accelerate its pace of growth. Swiss Life is focusing on the pension requirements of people not only before but also after retirement, on growth opportunities in its existing markets, on international business and on attractive growth markets, as well as on an increasingly function-oriented management structure to further boost efficiency and Group-wide cooperation.
Ambitious financial targets
The new financial targets underline Swiss Life’s commitment to profitable growth and the efficient use of capital. Swiss Life wants to increase its earnings per share by at least 12% a year. This target is for adjusted earnings, i.e. it does not include the impact of the announced sales. The return on equity should be more than 12%. Active capital management is also an important part of the strategy implementation. In this context, Swiss Life plans to go ahead with the recently announced share buyback programme of up to CHF 2.5 billion. The share buyback will take place over a second trading line on the SWX Swiss Exchange and should be concluded in 2009.
No decisions have been made yet with regard to dividends, but Swiss Life assumes that it will be allocating around CHF 600 million to its shareholders, which corresponds to about 17 francs per share. For 2008 Swiss Life anticipates a distribution in the region of at least CHF 600 million. From 2009 onwards, Swiss Life will distribute between 40 and 60% of its published earnings.
Outlook for 2007
For the current business year Swiss Life anticipates around CHF 24 billion in premium volume and a profit of more than CHF 1.2 billion. This profit includes a positive contribution amounting to around CHF 200 million in connection with the sale of the Dutch and Belgian businesses. Swiss Life confirms that the crisis in the area of structured credit will not impact on the results. The investments in collateralised debt obligations (CDO) amount to less than 0.5% of total investments. The direct and indirect investments in US subprime mortgages make up less than 0.1% of total investments.
All the presentations and further information on Investors’ Day can be found at www.swisslife.com/investorsday.
Contact
Media Relations
Telefon +41 43 284 77 77
media.relations@swisslife.ch
Investor Relations
Telefon +41 43 284 52 76
investor.relations@swisslife.ch
www.swisslife.com
The Swiss Life Group is one of Europe’s leading providers of pension and life insurance products. The Swiss Life Group offers individuals and companies comprehensive advice across a broad range of products via agents, brokers and banks in its domestic market, Switzerland, where it is market leader, and selected European markets. Multinational companies are serviced with tailor-made solutions by a network of partners in over 60 countries and regions.
Swiss Life Holding, registered in Zurich, dates back to the Schweizerische Rentenanstalt founded in 1857. Shares of Swiss Life Holding are listed on the SWX Swiss Exchange (SLHN). The Swiss Life Group employs a staff of around 9000.
This publication contains specific forward-looking statements, e.g. statements including terms like “believe”, “assume”, “expect” or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may result in a substantial divergence between the actual results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and those explicitly or implicitly presumed in these statements. Against the background of these uncertainties, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The company assumes no responsibility to update forward-looking statements or to adapt them to future events or developments.