Results | Sampo fell short of market expectations – the company hints that it will continue its generous dividend policy

of the Sampo Group the result weakened from last year. The company’s profit before taxes in July–September was 407 million euros, while in the same period last year the profit was 632 million euros.

The insurance group Sampo said shortly before May Day that it had sold all of its shares in the financial group Nordea.

If you remove Nordea’s influence from the result, Sampo’s result already looks significantly better. Excluding items related to Nordea, the result before taxes for the comparison period 2021 was EUR 374 million.

The company’s result also fell short of market expectations, as the market expected the company’s result to reach 417 million.

The company’s earnings per share remained at EUR 0.58 in the third quarter. A year ago, the result was 0.93 euros.

Non-life insurance company If reports better numbers than a year ago. If’s profit before taxes was 270 million euros, a year ago If was 252 million euros. IF’s gross fee income, on the other hand, increased to EUR 1,084 million from last year’s EUR 1,027 million.

According to If, its insurance technical margin in July–September was 235 million euros, a year ago the corresponding figure was 240 million.

The insurance technical margin describes the accounting result of the insurance company. In its calculation, the main items are insurance premium income, compensation costs and operating expenses.

The company’s combined expense ratio was 81.6 percent, i.e. lower than the target. The combined expense ratio describes the profit development of the non-life insurance company’s actual insurance operations before the change in the equalization amount. The equalization amount, on the other hand, means a buffer bound for years with heavy losses.

Simply put, the lower the combined expense ratio, the more profitable the insurance company’s business is.

Sammon the result in January–September was 1,472 million euros. A year ago, the result at the same time was 1,974 million.

Without Nordea, the result for January–September fell to 1,212 million from last year’s 1,356 million euros.

Group CEO Torbjörn Magnusson estimates that Sampo will be able to continue its strong dividend payment in the future as well. This year, Sampo paid a dividend of 4.10 euros per share.

“As we continue to optimize the allocation of capital, we value the additional capital that exceeds the needs of our insurance operations to be 3-4 euros per share. A little more than half of this is available and comes from the sale of Nordea shares earlier this year,” says Magnusson in the company’s earnings release.

“We are still strongly committed to our goals regarding balance sheet management, and I believe that, taking into account the prevailing financial uncertainty, it is justified that we continue to gradually return the capital,” he continues.

Sampo will announce its board’s proposal for capital returns in February 2023.