Samsung Life Insurance Earnings: Still No Visibility on Full-Year Dividend Number

We retain our fair value estimate of KRW 77,000 for Samsung Life Insurance, or 0.3 times book value and 8 times our earnings forecast for 2023. We continue to view Samsung Life as a lackluster investment due to its chronically low return on equity (average of only 5% since its IPO in 2010), but see it as undervalued even relative to the company’s poor returns. We think better visibility into future dividend increases could be a catalyst for revaluation, but third-quarter earnings—the third time Samsung Life has reported under new IFRS 17 accounting—did not provide any news here. Our forecast remains for dividend of KRW 3,300 per share for 2023 (2022: KRW 3,000), increasing by KRW 200 annually thereafter.