Rome, 23 Mar 2022 07:30
- 2021 RESULTS ABOVE “24SI” TARGETS, WITH RECORD HIGH NET PROFIT UP 31.0% Y/Y TO €1.6BN
- 2021 DPS INCREASED TO €0.59 , +21% Y/Y
- NEW DIVIDEND POLICY BASED ON HIGHER YEARLY DIVIDEND GROWTH, SET AT 7% THANKS TO SOLID UNDERLYING PERFORMANCE
- 2021 REVENUES UP 6.6% Y/Y TO €11.2BN
- 2021 STRONG OPERATING PROFIT, UP 21.1% Y/Y TO €1.8BN, REACHING HIGH UPPER RANGE OF UPGRADED GUIDANCE
- 249M PARCELS DELIVERED IN 2021, UP 18.3% Y/Y
- MAIL REVENUES SUPPORTED BY NEXIVE INTEGRATION AND VOLUME RECOVERY
- 2021 RECORD NET INFLOWS OF €15.1BN LEADING TO €586BN TFAs
- LIFE REVENUES UP 16.0% IN 2021 DRIVEN BY SUCCESSFUL COMMERCIAL FOCUS ON MULTICLASS PRODUCTS IN A FAVOURABLE MARKET ENVIRONMENT
- 2021 PAYMENTS AND MOBILE REVENUES UP 19.6% Y/Y - CARD TRANSACTIONS UP 28.9% TO 2.0BN
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24SI” PLAN AHEAD OF SCHEDULE, BUILDING ON NEW VALUE-CREATING INITATIVES AND UNRIVALLED OMNICHANNEL DISTRIBUTION PLATFORM
FOCUS ON STRATEGIC BOLT-ON M&A TO ACCELERATE “24SI” IMPLEMENTATION
2022 EBIT UPGRADED TO €2.0BN, UP 9% VS ORIGINAL “24SI” GUIDANCE
2021 GROUP FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
• FY-21 REVENUES AT €11.2BN, +6.6%Y/Y (-6.4% Y/Y TO €2.8BN IN Q4-21) AHEAD OF “24SI” ORIGINAL TARGET:
o FY-21 MAIL, PARCEL & DISTRIBUTION REVENUES AT €3.7BN, +15.1% Y/Y (+6.3% Y/Y TO €1.0BN IN Q4-21) WITH MAIL VOLUMES RECOVERING AND RECORD HIGH PARCELS.
o FY-21 FINANCIAL SERVICES GROSS REVENUES TO €5.5BN, -1.2% Y/Y (-16.1% Y/Y TO €1.3BN IN Q4-21) WITH NII SUPPORTED BY INVESTMENT IN TAX CREDITS; ACTIVE PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT SECURED ENTIRELY FOR 2022 AND ABOUT HALF FOR 2023.
o FY-21 INSURANCE REVENUES TO €1.9BN, +13.9% Y/Y (-7.9% Y/Y TO €415M IN Q4-21). NET INFLOWS AT €8.1BN, MULTICLASS GWP AT 58% OF GWP. LIFE GWP AT €17.6BN (+5.5% Y/Y), P&C GWP AT €309M (+30.1% Y/Y).
o FY-21 PAYMENTS & MOBILE REVENUES TO €882M, +19.6% Y/Y (+22.0% Y/Y TO €263M IN Q4-21) WITH ACCELERATED CARD AND DIGITAL PAYMENTS AND INCREASING TELCO REVENUES
• FY-21 TOTAL COSTS TO €9.4BN, +4.1% Y/Y (-5.2% Y/Y TO €2.5BN IN Q4-21):
o FY-21 ORDINARY HR COSTS TO €5.2BN, UP 0.6% Y/Y (-1.4% Y/Y TO €1.3BN IN Q4-21), EMBEDDING STRUCTURAL SAVINGS, THANKS TO LOWER FTEs.
o FY-21 NON-HR COSTS TO €3.7BN, UP 13.7% Y/Y (+3.9% Y/Y TO €969M IN Q4-21), SUPPORTING BUSINESS GROWTH IN LINE WITH “24SI”.
• FY-21 EBIT AT €1.8BN, +21.1% Y/Y (-17.6%Y/Y TO €230M IN Q4-21).
• FY-21 NET PROFIT AT €1.6BN, +31.0% Y/Y (+31.7% Y/Y TO €405M IN Q4-21).
• TFAs UP €17BN FOR THE YEAR TO €586BN.
• SOLID CAPITAL POSITION: BANCOPOSTA TOTAL CAPITAL RATIO AT 21.9% , LEVERAGE RATIO AT 3.0% AND POSTE VITA SOLVENCY II RATIO AT 261%.
Q4 & 2021 Operational Segment Highlights
• Mail, Parcel & Distribution: Nexive’s integration ahead of Plan; continuing to invest to operate as fully-fledged logistics operator.
• Financial Services: renewed agreement with CDP on postal savings distribution until 2024 with share of recurring management fees increasing over time, ensuring sustainability across the Plan. Investment in tax credits supporting NII.
• Insurance Services: life product ahead of “24SI” targets, with multi-class representing 58% of GWP; P&C production growth to become a fully-fledged insurance company.
• Payments & Mobile: card payments reached 2 billion (+29% y/y) and e-commerce card transactions grew at an impressive 31.0% to 520m, with higher activities on Poste’s digital channels. In 2021 e-wallets at 9.1m (+23.4% y/y) thanks to increased usage of the Postepay app; resilient telco services thanks to a loyal customer base.
POSTE ITALIANE 2024 SUSTAIN & INNOVATE PLUS
2022 TARGETS UPGRADED THANKS TO STRONG FOUNDATIONS
All stakeholders have benefited from strong performance and impressive results over the 2017-2021 period:
• Shareholders have benefitted from growth in all business lines, with revenues increasing by €0.7bn and net profit by €0.9bn; dividend per share up 40%.
• Poste Italiane has strengthened its role as strategic pillar for the country, contributing to economic growth with a positive cumulated impact on Italian GDP for more than €49bn from 2018 to 2021. Poste Italiane has been supporting communities over the pandemic through its state-of-the-art IT platform for Covid vaccines distribution and booking system.
• Poste Italiane continues to invest in its people, with over 15,000 new hirings and training and upskilling programs at the core of our people transformation plan with more than 24 million training hours.
2022 GROUP FINANCIAL TARGETS
- Group Revenues: €11.7bn (+1.1% vs. “24SI” previous guidance of €11.6bn).
- Operating Profit: €2.0bn (+9.0% vs. “24SI” previous guidance of €1.9bn).
- Net Profit: €1.4bn (+8.9% vs. “24SI” previous guidance of €1.3bn).
NEW SUSTAINABLE AND COMPETITIVE DIVIDEND POLICY
- 2021 dividend upgraded to €0.59, up 21% compared to 2020, a year ahead of the previous policy embedded in “24SI”.
- Yearly growth now at 7%, from original 6%, reflecting solid underlying performance.
WE REMAIN COMMITTED TO OUR SUSTAINABLE AND INCLUSIVE GROWTH PATH THROUGH CONTINUOUS INNOVATION AND DIGITALISATION.
ON TRACK TO CARBON NEUTRALITY BY 2030. NEW GREEN CHALLENGE UNDERPINNED BY AN HOLISTIC APPROACH WITH OUR PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND PROCESSES.
2021 results have also been achieved by creating shared value for communities, shareholders and our people through:
- Continuous support of local communities and the country through promoting innovation and digitalisation:
- Covid vaccine multi-channel booking systems and logistics: we delivered around 30 million vaccine doses and processed 40 million bookings through our multi-channel booking system across 8 regions reaching one-third of Italians.
- Digital and financial education programme: more than 3 thousand schools reached by our program on financial education.
- Product offering renewal to meet evolving customers’ needs: Postepay Digital launched, the first 100% digital card awarded “Product of the Year 2021” in the smart payment services category.
- Focused skills development and wellbeing for employees and customers:
- Gender equality: Poste Italiane enters the Top 100 for the first time in the gender equality ranking compiled by Equileap, a leading organization providing gender equality insights within the corporate sector. This achievement goes alongside Poste Italiane’s third consecutive inclusion in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI).
- ESG linked remuneration policy actively supporting the creation of long-term sustainable value for all stakeholders, ESG targets have been included both for short and long-term incentive schemes. Starting from the 2022-2024 LTIP, 20% weight on performance linked to a gender diversity KPIs.
- Training: 24 million training hours delivered to our employees since 2017 (over 6 million in 2021), of which 80% on-line, also providing appropriate certifications to our financial advisors (100% ISO 22222 certified at the end of 2021) with the aim of best serving our clients.
- Top Employers Italia 2022: for the third consecutive year, Poste Italiane was awarded this prestigious award by the Top Employers Institute for the excellence of Poste Italiane training and welfare policies.
- “Insieme 24SI” initiative: employees are actively encouraged to structurally propose new products, services or processes thus building an environment where people from all backgrounds feel included and valued, and supported by fair processes and equal opportunities.
- Green challenge, leading the country’s transition towards carbon-neutrality:
- Low-emission fleet: 10 thousand low-emissions postini vehicles at the end of 2021.
- Real estate: installation of photovoltaic panels on real estate assets (c. 2.2t of CO2 saved since project launch).
- Innovative green products: launch of PostePay Green (awarded “Product of the Year 2022”), a new 100% biodegradable prepaid card (1.1m total biodegradable prepaid cards as of December 2021).
Rome, 23 March 2022, yesterday, the Board of Directors of Poste Italiane S.p.A. (“Poste Italiane” or the “Group”), chaired by Maria Bianca Farina, approved the consolidated 2021 Results, prepared in compliance with IAS/IFRS, and the “24SI” update. Matteo Del Fante, Poste Italiane Chief Executive Officer and General Manager commented: “We are rolling out an anti-fragile strategy to successfully adapt to challenging times, overperforming our 2021 targets in terms of revenues, EBIT and net profit. Poste Italiane reported solid results increasing both versus 2020 and 2019. Furthermore, looking at the last 5 years, we have constantly overachieved strategic plan targets, with 2021 net profit almost doubled versus 2017.
The industrial transformation started with the “Deliver 2022” plan and continued with “24SI” has now shifted the company to the next level, building on the Group’s integrated omnichannel distribution platform.
Building on our parcel results, we are now diversifying our business to become a fully-fledged logistics operator, also through inorganic options such as the acquisition of Plurima, focused on the new fast growing hospital logistics niche market.
Our digitally enabled new channels and B2B2C networks support solid new revenues’ growth. We have reached a significant 20 million average daily interactions, mainly coming from our new channels, including the PuntoPoste network, highlighting the great value generation potential embedded in our customer-base going forward.
We recently launched new strategic initiatives, enabling us to revise upwards our 2022 targets. We have signed an agreement to acquire 100% of LIS to consolidate our growth in the proximity payment business and strengthen the acquiring and SME product offering, in line with the integrated omnichannel strategy at the heart of our Plan.
We have successfully proven to face and overcome stress scenarios and we are in a better shape than many to navigate the current situation.
With these remarkable results, we are proposing an increase of the dividend from €0.486 per share in the previous year to €0.59 per share this year, anticipating the dividend per share originally envisaged for 2022 and upgrading our generous dividend policy.
In May of this year, Poste Italiane will celebrate its 160th anniversary. Our unique heritage has always allowed us to address today's challenges and guide the future of our communities. We are a platform company, with a resilient and sustainable business for all stakeholders and we were, are and will be always present for communities across Italy.”
POSTE ITALIANE Q4 & FY-21 GROUP RESULTS & “24SI” UPDATE
Poste Italiane S.p.A. Investor Relations
Tel. +39 06 5958 4716
Mail: investor.relations@posteitaliane.it
Poste Italiane S.p.A. Media Relations
Tel. +39 06 5958 2097
Mail: ufficiostampa@posteitaliane.it
Wednesday 23 March 2022 - 12:00 CET
To attend click here: Q4 & FY-21 GROUP RESULTS & “24SI” UPDATE
A listen only audio conference is also available: +39 02 8020927
To see the press release in full version download pdf
For further information:
Poste Italiane S.p.A. Investor Relations
Tel. +39 06 5958 4716
Mail: investor.relations@posteitaliane.it
Poste Italiane S.p.A. Media Relations
Tel. +39 06 5958 2097
Mail: ufficiostampa@posteitaliane.it
