Tiedote 29.8.2014

SALES AT A GOOD LEVEL

In the first half of the year, Ilmarinen once again fared well in the competition for customers between pension insurance companies. The sales figures for January-June increase the premiums written by EUR 117 (EUR 114 million on 30 June 2013) million.

Ilmarinen’s Interim Report 1 January to 30 June 2014

“We have done extremely well in sales. We are also pleased that our customer retention has remained at a good level,” says President and CEO Harri Sailas.

At the end of June, Ilmarinen handled some 38,300 (37,600) earnings-related pension insurance policies and around 61,800 (59,900) pension policies for the self-employed. The number of TyEL insurance policies rose by approximately 1.6 per cent and YEL insurance policies by 3.2 per cent.

The number of insured private customers declined slightly from the previous year. This resulted from a weakening in employment due to the recession. At the end of June, a total of 560,000 (570,000) persons were insured with Ilmarinen.

The number of pension recipients continued to rise steadily. Ilmarinen paid out pensions to 316,000 (310,000) pensioners in June.

“The increase in life expectancy and the ageing of the population will also have an obvious effect on the number of pensioners insured with Ilmarinen in the near future. Growth seems to be continuing at an annual rate of some two per cent,” says Sailas.

The operational efficiency of Ilmarinen’s activities is expected to be around 79 (75) per cent in 2014.

Pension assets grew to EUR 33.5 billion

Ilmarinen reported its investment return for the first half of the year on 12 August. The return on the investment portfolio for this period was 3.4 (3.0) per cent, i.e. approximately EUR 1.1 billion (EUR 892 million). At the end of June, the market value of the investment assets grew to EUR 33.5 (30.6) billion.

Equity investments produced a return of 5.5 (6.3) per cent, fixed income investments produced 2.2 (1.6) per cent, and direct real estate investments produced 2.4 (2.4) per cent.

Ilmarinen’s long-term investment return remained on a good level. The real return on investments since 1997 was 4.0 per cent. The Finnish Centre for Pensions uses a 3.5 per cent expected real return rate to estimate the future development of earnings-related pension insurance contributions.

The company’s solvency strengthened: at the end of June, Ilmarinen’s solvency capital stood at EUR 7.5 (6.0) billion, which is 29.0 (24.3) per cent of the technical provisions and 1.9 (1.8) times the solvency limit.

The figures in this release are unaudited.

Attacments

For more information, please contact:

Harri Sailas, President and CEO, tel. +358 10 284 3000
Timo Ritakallio, Deputy CEO, Chief Investment Officer, tel. +358 10 284 3838, +358 500 536 346
Jaakko Kiander, Senior Vice President, Finance and Pension Policy, tel. +358 10 284 2599, +358 50 583 8599
Satu Malkamäki, Communications Manager, Corporate Communications, tel. +358 10 284 2530, +358 50 448 1182