Genworth MI Q2-2014 report

Genworth MI (TSX: MIC) reported 2nd quarter earnings yesterday. The results were smashingly positive for the company and show that the state of credit stability in the Canadian mortgage market is very high.

My calculated tangible book value for share, diluted, is $34.11 compared to the current market price today of approximately $39.70 per share (a 16% premium over book value). Booked income was $1.02 per share, noting the mild accounting change regarding how deferred policy acquisition costs are processed. This also would have been even higher if one backs out the extingushment of debt expense that occurred during their bond refinancing (offset by backing away the one-time capital gains from their portfolio).

In general, the trend for the company has been very positive with declining loss ratios and delinquencies in their mortgage insurance portfolio. This quarter has proven to be an exception in that the ratio has gone even further lower than the prevailing trend:

Loss Ratio
Q1-2013: 31%
Q2-2013: 25%
Q3-2013: 22%
Q4-2013: 22%
Q1-2014: 20%
Q2-2014: 12%

Suffice to say, this is incredibly low – indeed, a record low since the company went public. The existing stability in the Canadian mortgage insurance market is leading to the top dogs (mainly CMHC and Genworth MI) to book a lot of revenues as people continue to amortize their mortgages (and thus reduce the risk even further of mortgage defaults occurring).

On the top line, premiums written was also better than last year’s Q2 (160 million vs. 137 million), but not quite as good as 2012 (which had 176 million). This amount bodes fairly well for revenue stabilization (which is lagged behind the actual premiums written as most of this gets amortized in the subsequent 5+ years of the life of the mortgage).

In terms of their portfolio, it continues to be relatively unexciting, consisting of the usual staples of bonds and a small smattering of equity – yield is 3.6%, duration 3.7 years.

The other significant piece of news is the establishment of a new amount of internal minimum capital required to operate the business:

The Insurance Subsidiary is regulated by OSFI. Under the MCT, an insurer calculates a ratio of capital available to capital required in a prescribed manner. Mortgage insurers are required to maintain a minimum ratio of core capital (capital available as defined for MCT purposes, but excluding subordinated debt) to required capital of 100%.

Under PRMHIA and the Insurance Companies Act (Canada) (“ICA”), the minimum MCT ratio for the Insurance Subsidiary is 175%. In
conjunction with this requirement, the Insurance Subsidiary has set its internal MCT target capital ratio to 185%. The Company manages its capital base to maintain a balance between capital strength, efficiency and flexibility. As at June 30, 2014, the Insurance Subsidiary’s MCT ratio was approximately 230%, or 45 percentage points higher than the Company’s internal target of 185%. The Company regularly reviews its capital levels, and after reviewing stress testing results and after consulting with OSFI, the Company established an operating MCT holding target of 220% pending the development by OSFI of a new regulatory test for mortgage insurers which is targeted for implementation in 2017. While our internal capital target of 185% MCT is calibrated to cover the various risks that the business would face in a severe recession, the holding target of 220% MCT is designed to provide a capital buffer to allow management time to take the necessary actions should capital levels be pressured by deteriorating macroeconomic conditions. Under this framework, capital in excess of the operating holding target may be redeployed.

Currently the company’s MCT is at 230%, while the new minimum will be 220%.

The implication of this is fairly obvious – there will be a reduced amount of capital available to give out a special dividend and/or share buybacks. There is an excess of about $150 million over the 220% minimum required. The company declared a 35 cent dividend this quarter (which translates into roughly a $33 million distribution) and will likely increase the dividend to 38 cents in the next quarter with the potential of a special dividend of a dollar to bleed the excess capital away. Since the company is booking income of about $1 a quarter, this should not be a problem for them.

Since the Canadian mortgage insurance unit is so profitable at the moment, it will not be surprising if there was attempted encroachment in the market by competition, and I wonder if we are going to see price competition that deviates away from the CMHC payment schedule. If this happens, shares in Genworth would start to decrease.

Right now the market is pricing in perfection in the Canadian mortgage insurance scheme. This continues to worry me that the fundamental picture for Genworth MI cannot get much better than it is at present, especially with their 12% loss ratio.

I continue to remain long in Genworth MI as I generally see it being a reasonably good store of capital at the moment. I did sell some when it was trading in the upper 30’s and lower 40’s earlier this year, but this was to reduce concentration in what is otherwise a company that is firing on all cylinders.