Chunlin Wang
Thank you for joining us on today’s conference call. Here with me, we have our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Peng Ge and our Board Secretary, Mrs. [Lily Lee]. We will begin today’s call with a review of our third quarter 2018 financial results and the major progress that we made during the quarter, followed by a brief discussion of our business outlook for the fourth quarter 2018. Then we will have a Q&A session after the report. To begin with, I would like to give a brief analysis of the industry dynamics. Since early this year, government's efforts to rectify the order in the financial markets are said to continue. Deleveraging, removal of implied guarantee returns, cracking down on illegal fund raising are the main things. Meanwhile insurance regulator continues its emphasis on long-term protection of products capping the guarantee returns on savings type of insurance product and restricting the fast return features for those products, which formed stark contract with the aggressive wealth management products offered by the bank in the first half of 2018. As a result, consumers were held back from making decision to purchase savings products which directly led to a decline in sales agents’ income and damper their moral thus resulting in obvious job in sales agent’s prosperity and active ratio across the industry. And as a result, negative growth in first year premiums of regular personal life insurance business, which is the most valuable insurance business, has seemed to become an inevitable reality across the industry for the full-year 2018. Against this backdrop, we continue to report strong profits for the third quarter 2018. Operating income was up 48.7% year-over-year to RMB124.6 million, again, beating our previous guidance, and net income increased by 73.9% year-over-year to RMB195.2 million. Now, let’s look at the performance of our three business segments. Firstly, the life insurance segment, our total life insurance premiums hit RMB1.5 billion in the third quarter 2018, up 10.6% year-over-year of which new business in terms of annualized premiums equivalent was down 28.9% from a year ago to RMB394.5 million as we had previously expected. Mainly caused by the high base in the same period last year and a change in our product structure. As a result of the Notice NO. 134, the sales of fast return type annuity products exploded in September 2017. In the meantime, guaranteed returns from annuity products declined after new rule took effect. As a result, annualized premiums equivalent from high-ticket annuity insurance products dropped significantly in the third quarter 2018 accounting for 11% of our total renew business as compared to 49% same year last year. Health insurance business however, despite the fact that the per policy amount of health insurance products is typically less than half of annuity products, remain strong growth during the quarter, up 101.4% year-over-year in terms of annualized premiums equivalent taking up 82% of our total life insurance new business as compared to 28% a year ago. We are particularly encouraged by the performance of our renewal business due to the strong growth in new business of our life insurance segment in the same period last year and benefitting from our outstanding renewal business management, renewal premiums grew 109.5% year-over-year, which is one of the key drivers behind the continued rapid growth in our operating profits during the quarter. Gross margin of our life insurance business improved significantly during the third quarter 2018, largely attributable to the increase in the contribution from renewal business which represented 20.6% of our total new revenues in the third quarter of 2018, as compared to 9.3% in the third quarter 2017. While the performance of our life insurance new business was largely in-line with our prior expectations, we anticipate annualized premiums equivalent of our life insurance business to achieve solid growth year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2018. As such, we maintain our estimate of positive growth in new life insurance business in terms of annualized premiums equivalent for the full-year 2018. Second, the P&C insurance business segment. Revenues from the P&C agency segment in the third quarter 2018, mainly represented RMB8.9 million platform service fee and RMB14 million commission income from Baoxian.com. The decline in net revenues in this segment was mainly due to the transition of our auto insurance business towards a platform fee-based business model and the Baoxian.com's termination of business cooperation with one of its major business partners, a third-party online lending service provider since June 2018. Despite the decline in revenues as the gross margin from platform service fee is 100%, the overall gross margin from our P&C insurance business improved from 13.7% to 34.4% in the third quarter of 2018. Thirdly, the claims adjusting segment. The claims adjusting segment reported solid performance was 9.9% year-over-year increase in net revenues was gross margin improving from 41% a year ago to 44.8% in the third quarter of 2018. Second part, I would like to discuss the progress we made on expanding our sales network. Firstly, as of September 30, 2018 total number of registered sales agents exceeded 716,000 representing a growth of 73.1% year-over-year, while total number of agents who have sold life insurance policies during the third quarter reached 44,686. And secondly, we are happy to welcome over 10 industry veterans to join us during the third quarter who will serve as the general managers or deputies of our provincial branches. With their prior working experience in Top 5 life insurance companies, we believe that their expertise will enable to the company to further improve our business operations to become more professionalized. Certainly, in the next part, I will like to give you an update of the solid progress that our online platforms have made during the quarter. Firstly, CNpad. As of the end of the third quarter 2018 total registered and activated users were over 496,000 representing an increase of 49% year-over-year, and RMB419 million or total insurance premiums were transacted through CNpad during the quarter, representing 84.5% of our total auto insurance business. Secondly, Lan Zhanggui. As of the end of the third quarter 2018, registered users of Lan Zhanggui has exceeded 716,000 worth RMB480 million premiums transacted through the platform during the third quarter of which RMB373 million were – 37.3 million were P&C insurance premiums and 415 million were first year premiums of life insurance products, accounting for 93.6% of our total first year premium. Thirdly, Baoxian.com. The number of its registered users exceeded 2 million, up 66.7% year-over-year. And its quarterly active users reached 140,000, up by 98.3% year-over-year. Insurance premiums transacted through the platform were over RMB72.4 million and the declines year-over-year was mainly due to the termination of cooperation with a Fintech Company in June, but its regular business on the other hand still maintained rapid growth. Fourthly, eHuzhu. eHuzhu has reported a net increase of nearly 300,000 registered members each month. As of September 30, 2018, its registered members have hit over 3.8 million with effective paying members exceeding 2 million. In four years, since its launch it has helped more than 1,495 families with RMB250 million fund raised through the platform. Yigizhu, an online fund-raising platform for those contracted with serious disease under eHuzhu has helped 844 families to raise a total of RMB3.9 million funds. Next, I would like to share with you some recent major developments. Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate CNFinance on its successful listing on New York Stock Exchange on November 7, 2018 under the ticker symbol of CNF. After its IPO, our share holding in CNFinance is diluted from 20.58% to 18.6%, but as we still have a seat on its board, the investment will still be accounted for under equity method. And then secondly, as we previously announced as part of Tianfu New Area’s investment introduction project, Fanhua Lianxin Insurance Sales Company, our wholly-owned subsidiary which is the holding company of our life insurance operation, completed the relocation and registration of its office from Beijing to the Tianfu New Area of Sichuan Province on August 27, 2018. As a result of the relocation on November 2, 2018, the company received a one-time reward of RMB8 million from the local government. Fanhua Lianxin will also be eligible to enjoy certain favorable tax achievements and fiscal incentives in proportion to its contribution to the local economy. After the relocation we have resumed collection of headquarters to headquarters commission receivable from our life insurance company partners, which had previously been suspended. We expect our operating cash flow will return to normal levels afterwards. In addition, persuaded to its policy of attracting investment to develop the local economy, in 2016 the Renshou County government in which the Tianfu New Area is situated, expressed its support for Fanhua to publicly bid for a parcel of land in the Tianfu New Area to establish a back-office center. As Fanhua had neither a license nor interest in real asset development, on July 16, 2016 Fanhua established a joint venture with an independent third party real-estate developer Sichuan Tianyi Real Estate Development Company for the sole purpose of developing the parcel of land. Under this arrangement, Sichuan Tianyi will be responsible for developing the land and providing all funding for the development, while Fanhua will not provide any loan guarantee or any other funding for the development. Upon completion of the real estate development, Sichuan Tianyi would keep all the profits from the sales of the development properties and Fanhua will have a right to purchase certain properties at a discount. As of today, the project is still under development. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of 2018, we expect annualized premiums equivalent of our life insurance business to grow by no less than 35% to RMB416 million from RMB340 million in the same period last year. For full-year 2018, annualized premiums equivalent of our life insurance business is expected to achieve positive growth and operating income to grow by no less than 50% year-over-year. We are optimistic about achieving these targets. Now, the management will open the floor for your questions.