This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
Shares in Helia surged by more than 17% yesterday as the mortgage insurance provider announced a special dividend of 53c per share following a strong full-year result.
It also announced it would double its share buyback from $100 million to $200 million.
Helia posted a post-tax net profit of $231.5 million, down 16% on the prior year, with diluted earnings per share down 6% to 79.7c per security.
Ordinary dividend per share was up 7% to 31.0c, and special dividend by 77%.
“We have intensified our strategic focus on growing the market for LMI and successfully grown and defended our LMI market share by delivering a differentiated service proposition,” said Helia CEO and managing director, Pauline Blight-Johnston.
“We remain focused on our core purpose of accelerating financial wellbeing through home ownership, now and for the future.”
The company continued its 100% success rate with 2024 contract renewals and helped more than 31,000 Australians to achieve home ownership in FY24, it said.
The proportion of first home buyers likely to use LMI increased to 77% in Helia’s Home Buyers Sentiment Report, and there was a modest increase in Helia’s new LMI Broker Sentiment Index.
Helia completed $113.4 million of on-market share buy-backs in FY24, reducing the share count by 9.4%. It said $121 million of the extended buyback remains outstanding.
Total incurred claims were negative $37.2 million, a substantial benefit from changes to liabilities for prior incurred claims of $90 million.
“This benefit was caused by a reduction in the liability for incurred claims (LIC), arising from good delinquency cure rates, dwelling value appreciation, high levels of cancellations and property sales with no claim,” it said.
Changes to the reserving basis also contributed a benefit of $32.9 million. New delinquencies rose 17% on the prior year due to the impact of higher mortgage rates and cost of living pressures. Closing delinquencies rose 12% due to higher new delinquencies which were partly offset by stable cure rates.
FY25 insurance revenue is expected to be within a range of $310 million to $390 million.
Its share price closed at $5.67.
