Aia Group Ltd S/Adr (AAGIY) Q1 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning from AIA Central in Hong Kong. Welcome to our first quarter 2024 update Q&A session. I'm Lance Burbage, Chief Investor Relations Officer for AIA Group. Together with me today are Li Yuanxiong, our Group CEO and President, and Garth Jones, our Group CFO. We also have other members of the Group Executive Committee either with us in the room or joining us remotely. Before we start the Q&A, Jens-Elmer Garth will take you through a short presentation on our first quarter new business performance and our new capital management policy. Jens-Elmer. Good morning, everyone. Today, I am very pleased to announce both policies, clearly demonstrating the strength of AIA's business model and our financial discipline. Value of new business for the group grew by 31% in the first quarter of 2024. We delivered AIA's highest-ever quarterly new business result, building on our very strong VOMV performance in 2023. Our new capital management policy provides greater clarity as to how we will deliver higher annual capital returns to shareholders. Following this new policy, the Board has approved a further $2 billion buyback, which increases our existing share buyback programme to a total of $12 billion. I am confident that AIA is exceptionally well positioned to capture the highly attractive opportunities available to us across the region. We continue to focus on driving high-quality, profitable new business growth that delivers increased future earnings, free surplus generation, and greater shareholder value. Let me now take you through the first quarter new business highlights. VOMD was $1.3 billion, a record high for a quarter, and up by 31%. We delivered double-digit growth from all our reportable segments, with VOMB margin increasing by 2.1 percentage points to 54.2%. AIA ...