19 Comments

Good post. Interesting!

Stock performance might have to do with starting point (low valuation with IPO during crisis).

Fundamentals look strong, but my question arising from high profitability and not many employers and neither being one of the big players: are past earnings real (expected earnings) or too high, in the sense nothing happened to insured ships? ==> What are earnings (tomorrow) if sth happens? Do they make (good) use of re-insurance?

Greek, very high insider ownership. Why is such a small business listed?

Expand full comment
author

It's lsited because it was the only place to get extra capital in 2012 to take advanatage of the problem in the market.

They have good reinsurance coverage, the combined ratio is really the result of just better cost control compared to the legacy Greek co's.

Any year of losses is not a problem as they are so wel capitalized and have high returns on capital, so they can get back to the old level's very quickly.

Expand full comment

Thessalie region has been devasted by historical flooding in early september. Interlife should be in the forefront as this seems to be close to their headquarter in Thessaloniki.

Share price has dropped. Worth to keep on watch list for potential second drop when they'll issue 2023 H2 financial results !

Expand full comment
author

Yeah, seems to have been rough. Let's see if they comment on it in the results at the end of the week, in the subsequent events part.

Expand full comment

Hi, Are there interviews from the CEO or somewhere where he mentions capital allocation, the investment portfolio and M&A ?

I know that I could search but since you know the company more then me.

Expand full comment
author

No best is to just read the annual reports and other docs like their magazine on the website.

Expand full comment

Hi Iggy, i loves this write up. It reminds me a bit of GEICO in the early days. With earnings and book value compounding at an fast rate.

But I think you have a typo in the paragraph with the Davis double play. At the point where you go with the P/E ratio

Expand full comment

Thanks for the write-up. Funny it is called "Interlife" while providing P&C insurance as opposed to life.

Last year was pretty tough for car insurance globally (look at the UK insurers like Admiral or the likes of Geico), so achieving 94% Combined Ratio in that environment seems quite an achievement.

Have you seen any statements on how mgmt thinks about capital allocation? Like do they have a target solvency ration / dividend policy?

On your approximate calculations for PE / ROE, it seems like this is pre-tax, correct?

Expand full comment

Have you looked at the loss triangles to see if reserves are adequately estimated in the past?

Expand full comment

what happened in 2022? ugly results

Expand full comment
author

Bond market puked and inflation hit underwriting margins.

Expand full comment

Great- hard to understand competitive advantages without speaking Greek, but the numbers are the numbers. In Spain Catalana Occidente is similar.

Expand full comment

What platform can you consider to buy this stock, new to online trading and doing my research.

Expand full comment

Do you have an idea what their investment portfolio looks like? Did they have many long-term bonds where they would be underearning going forward?

Expand full comment
author

Avarage duration is pretty short, it is also part in shares and RE (Hotels). They had lot of cash coming out of the pandemic so they bought a good chunk of bonds after the increas ein intrest rates.

Expand full comment

Hello,

thank you for the interesting write-up

How do you think about the key man risk, i.e. the founder and owner-operator must be getting close to retirement?

Kind regards and have a nice weekend

Expand full comment
author

Yes big question for a smaller company circa 150 employees. I guess some of the cost advantage would take very long to deteriorate. But it's prob the hardest part to evaluate what happens once current management retires. Maybe they just sell the co at a small premium. But you are right management is of extreme importance in insurance.

Expand full comment

Hi Iggy, Great write-up it definitely has my interest. When I want to confirm the numbers, I cannot find english numbers/reporting on their website is that correct? How do you work around this, just using google translate? You're okay with the risk of misinterpreting items?

Expand full comment
author

Basically yes, I am fine with the google translate fillings. Tikr. does have the very long term fincial data. Which helps alot.

Expand full comment