First half-year 2014: net profit at €212 million, insured transactions portfolio rises to 35 billion

The SACE Board of Directors, chaired by Giovanni Castellaneta, today approved the half-year results as at 30 June 2014.

The main elements of the half-year financial report are given below:

• gross premiums at €132.2 million, a 13.4% increase compared with the first half-year of 2013;
• claims at €201.9 million, a strong increase compared with the figure of €95.1 million for the first half of the previous year, due primarily to the payouts to Italian companies for insured exports to Iran, where international sanctions have made it increasingly difficult for loans to be repaid;
• the technical account result stood at €388.5 million, more than double the figure of €169.9 million recorded as at 30 June 2013, to a great extent due to the positive performance of credit recovery activities;
• net income at €212.4 million, a 32% fall, mainly as a result of financial management, affected by the reduction in interest rates and the performance of portfolio securities, similarly due to the reduction in shareholders’ equity (from €5.9 to €4.8 billion) as a result of the extraordinary dividend of €1 billion to shareholders last December.

The insured transactions portfolio stood at €35.1 billion, a 3.7% increase compared with the first half of 2013. The increased weighting of advanced markets and the main emerging markets is confirmed, where Italian-made goods are in a strong position. Growing attention in markets explored more recently should be noted. These include various African countries such as Angola, Mozambique and Kenya. Looking at SACE’s commitments by sector, the greatest exposure involves large industrial sectors such as oil & gas, infrastructures and construction and the cruise industry, in which a wide range of small and medium-sized enterprises can find significant opportunities.

“The growth in the portfolio of transactions insured by SACE is important proof of our commitment to support companies that compete abroad, especially SMEs,” stated Alessandro Castellano, CEO of SACE, “a commitment which we renew every day, buoyed by the positive profitability in line with the average over the last ten years, recorded in spite of the uncertainty of the global situation and large payouts to Italian businesses in geographical areas hit by international sanctions.”

New initiative for 2014

SACE’s range for SMEs is growing: through the creation of the new Advisory service, which allows companies to fully evaluate the consistency of the approach to individual emerging markets and the types of risks, as well as through interventions guaranteeing bonds and debt securities and through the launch of Frontier Markets, the SACE programme which accompanies Italian businesses, with tailor-made initiatives, in markets with a high potential which feature complex operational contexts and still remain little explored: the first edition of the programme focuses on five African markets (Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and Senegal).

The group has innovated its range under the scope of the direct discounting of receivables, by introducing Trade Finance, a product that allows exporters to convert foreign insured credits into liquidity, protecting them against the risk of non-payment and immediately collecting what they are owed.

SACE’s distribution network has also been strengthened both nationally, through the opening of the new Naples office and SACE Points in Bergamo, Perugia and Ascoli Piceno and internationally, with the new office in Mexico City becoming fully operational.