Interim Results

Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows from continuing operations

Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows from continuing operations

Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements

1          General information

The principal activities of Personal Group Holdings Plc ('the Company') and subsidiaries (together 'the Group') include transacting short-term accident and health insurance and providing employee services in the UK.

The Company is a limited liability company incorporated and domiciled in England. The address of its registered office is John Ormond House, 899 Silbury Boulevard, Milton Keynes, MK9 3XL.

The Company is listed on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange.

The condensed consolidated financial statements do not include all the information required for full annual financial statements and should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements of the Group for the year ended 31 December 2023.

The financial information for the year ended 31 December 2023 set out in this interim report does not constitute statutory accounts as defined in Section 434 of the Companies Act 2006. The statutory financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2023 have been filed with the Registrar of Companies.  The auditor's report on those financial statements was unqualified and did not contain a statement under Section 498 (2) or (3) of the Companies Act 2006.

These interim financial statements are unaudited and have not been reviewed by the auditors under International Standard on Review Engagements (UK and Ireland) 2410.

These consolidated interim financial statements have been approved for issue by the board of directors on 24 September 2024.

2          Accounting policies

These interim consolidated financial statements of Personal Group Holdings Plc are for the six months ended 30 June 2024. These interim financial statements have been prepared in accordance with IAS 34 Interim Financial Reporting as endorsed for use in the UK.

They do not include all the information required for a complete set of IFRS financial statements. However, selected explanatory notes are included to explain events and transactions that are significant to an understanding of the changes in the Group's financial position and performance since the last annual consolidated financial statements as at and for the year ended 31 December 2023.

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with IFRS standards and IFRIC interpretations as adopted by the UK, issued and effective as at 30 June 2024.

Insurance contracts

IFRS 17 sets out the classification, measurement and presentation and disclosure requirements for insurance contracts. It requires insurance contracts to be measured using current estimates and assumptions that reflect the timing of cash flows and recognition of profits as insurance services are delivered. The standard provides two main measurement models which are the General Measurement Model ("GMM") and the Premium Allocation Approach ("PAA").

The PAA simplifies the measurement of insurance contracts for remaining coverage in comparison to the GMM. The PAA is very similar to Personal Group's previous accounting policies under IFRS 4 for calculating revenue, however there are some presentation changes.

The GMM is used for the measurement of the liability for incurred claims.

PAA eligibility

Under IFRS 17, Personal Group's insurance contracts issued and are all eligible to be measured by applying the PAA, due to meeting the following criteria:

·           Insurance contracts with coverage period of one year or less are automatically eligible. This covers all hospital, convalescence, and death benefit insurance contracts.

·           Modelling of contracts with a coverage period greater than one year (employee default policies) produces a measurement for the group of reinsurance contracts that does not differ materially from that which would be produced applying the GMM.

Level of aggregation

Personal Group manages all insurance contracts as one portfolio within the insurance operating segment as they are subject to similar risks.

Onerous contracts

Under the PAA, it is assumed there are no contracts in the portfolio that are onerous at initial recognition, unless there are facts and circumstances that may indicate otherwise. Given the short-tailed nature of policies issued be Personal Group, management do not consider there to be any material circumstance under which policies in issue would be onerous.

Modification and derecognition

Personal Group derecognises insurance contracts when the rights and obligations relating to the contract are extinguished (meaning discharged, cancelled, or expired) or the contract is modified such that the modification results in a change in the measurement model or the applicable standard for measuring the contract.

Contract boundaries

The measurement of insurance contracts includes all future cash flows expected to arise within the boundary of each contract. Cash flows are within the boundary of an insurance contract if they arise from substantive rights and obligations that exist during the reporting period in which Personal Group can compel the policyholder to pay premiums or in which it has a substantive obligation to provide the policyholder with services.

Personal Group assesses the contract boundary at initial recognition and at each subsequent reporting date to include the effects of changes in circumstances on the Group's substantive rights and obligations. The assessment of the contract boundary, which defines the future cash flows that are included in the measurement of the contract, requires judgement and consideration.

Personal Group primarily issues insurance contracts which provide coverage to policyholders in the event of hospitalisation, convalescence, or death. While the contracts are typically weekly or monthly in their term length, the contract boundary is assessed with consideration of the delayed timing around claims of this nature and the timing of expected future claims payments with reference to the covered loss event.

Measurement - Liability for remaining coverage

On initial recognition of insurance contract, the carrying amount of the liability for remaining coverage is measured as the premiums received on initial recognition, if any, minus any reinsurance acquisition expense cash flows allocated to the contracts and any amounts arising from the derecognition of the prepaid reinsurance acquisition expense cash flows asset. Personal Group has chosen not to expense insurance acquisition expense cash flows as incurred on its contracts as they have coverage of less than one year.

Subsequently, at the end of each reporting period, the liability for remaining coverage is increased by any additional premiums received in the period and decreased for the amounts of expected premium cash flows recognised as reinsurance revenue for the services provided in the period.

Personal Group has elected not to adjust the liability for remaining coverage for the time value of money as its insurance contracts do not contain a significant financing component.

3          Segment analysis

The segments used by management to review the operations of the business are disclosed below.

1)         Insurance

Personal Assurance Plc (PA), a subsidiary within the Group, is a PRA regulated general insurance Company and is authorised to transact accident and sickness insurance. It was established in 1984 and has been underwriting business since 1985. In 1997 Personal Group Holdings Plc (PGH) was created and became the ultimate parent undertaking of the Group.

Personal Assurance (Guernsey) Limited (PAGL), a subsidiary within the Group, is regulated by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission and has been underwriting death benefit policies since March 2015.

This operating segment derives the majority of its revenue from the underwriting by PA and PAGL of insurance policies that have been bought by employees of host companies via bespoke benefit programmes. During 2020 PAGL began underwriting employee default insurance for a proportion of LC customers.

2)         Benefits Platform

Revenue in this segment relates to the annual subscription income and other related income arising from the licensing of Hapi, the Group's employee benefit platform. This includes sales to both the large corporate and SME sectors.

3)         Pay and Reward

Pay and Reward refers to the trade of the Group's pay and reward consultancy companies, Innecto, purchased in 2019, and QCG, purchased in 2022. Revenue in this segment relates to consultancy, surveys, and licence income derived from selling digital platform subscriptions.

4)         Other

The other operating segment includes revenue generated from the resale of vouchers. This segment also consists of revenue generated by Berkeley Morgan Group (BMG) and its subsidiary undertakings along with any investment and rental income obtained by the Group.

Discontinued Operations - Other Owned Benefits

This segment constitutes any goods or services in the benefits platform supply chain which are owned by the Group. At present this is made up of a technology salary sacrifice business trading as PG Let's Connect, purchased by the Group in 2014. The Group sold Let's Connect in July 2024 (see Note 11 for further details). As such, this segment is treated as discontinued operations within these accounts.

The revenue and net result generated by each of the Group's continuing operating segments are summarised as follows,

The revenue and net result generated by the Group's discontinued operating segment is summarised as follows,

All income was derived from customers that are based in the UK.

4          Insurance service expenses

5          Taxation

The tax expense recognised is based on the weighted average annual tax rate expected for the full financial year multiplied by management's best estimate of the taxable profit of the interim reporting period.

The Group's consolidated effective tax rate in respect of continuing operations for the six-month period ended 30 June 2024 was 16.7% (six-month period ended 30 June 2023: 15.5%). The tax charge recognised in the prior period benefited from the application of the super-deduction capital allowances tax relief, which ended on 31 March 2023.

6          Earnings per share and dividends

The weighted average numbers of outstanding shares used for basic and diluted earnings per share are as follows:

During the first six months of 2024 Personal Group Holdings Plc paid dividends of £1,827,000 to its equity shareholders (2023: £1,656,000). This represents a payment of 5.85p per share (2023: 5.30p).  

7         Goodwill

8        Intangible assets

9          Property, plant and equipment

10   Financial Investments

IFRS 13 Fair Value Measurement establishes a fair value hierarchy that categorises into three levels the inputs to valuation techniques used to measure fair value. The fair value hierarchy gives the highest priority to quoted prices (unadjusted) in active markets for identical assets or liabilities (Level 1 inputs) and the lowest priority to unobservable inputs (Level 3 inputs)

·              Level 1: quoted prices (unadjusted) in active markets for identical assets or liabilities

·              Level 2: inputs other than quoted prices included within Level 1 that are observable for the asset or          liability, either directly (i.e., as prices) or indirectly (i.e., derived from prices)

·              Level 3: inputs for the asset or liability that are not based on observable market data (unobservable

             input).

Bank deposits, held at amortised cost, are due within 6 months and the amortised cost is a reasonable approximation of the fair value. These would be included within Level 2 of the fair value hierarchy.

Equity Investments are held at fair value and are considered Level 1 financial assets.

11   Disposal group classified as held for sale and discontinued operations

At the start of 2024 (following an ongoing strategy review), management decided it would look to sell the Group's technology salary sacrifice division ("Let's Connect"). Consequently, assets and liabilities allocable to Let's Connect were classified as a disposal group. Revenue and expenses, gains and losses relating to the discontinuation of this subgroup have been eliminated from the profit or loss from the Group's continuing operations and are shown as a single line in the consolidated income statement.

On 10 July 2024, Let's Connect was sold for a total consideration of £2.0m on a cash-free, debt-free basis.

The carrying amounts of assets and liabilities in this disposal group are summarised as follows:

The table below shows the results of cashflows attributable to discontinued operations for the six months ended 30 June 2024 and 30 June 2023.

12         Long Term Incentive Plan (LTIP)

During the period, the Remuneration Committee granted a fourth tranche of share awards under the existing LTIP Scheme approved on 6 April 2021. Further details of the award can be found in the RNS announcement from 05 April 2024.

Under the scheme share options of Personal Group Holdings Plc are granted to senior executives with an Exercise Price of 5p (nominal value of the shares). The share options have various market and non-market performance conditions which are required to be achieved for the options to vest. The options also contain service conditions that

require option holders to remain in employment of the Group. The market and non-market performance conditions are set out below.

Total Shareholder Return (Market condition)

50% of the awards vest under this condition. Subject to Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of the Total Shareholder Return (TSR) over the Performance Period.

EBITDA Target (Non-market condition)

50% of the awards vest under this condition. Subject to cumulative EBITDA over the Performance Period.

The fair value of the of the share options is estimated at the grant date using a Monte-Carlo binomial option pricing model for the market conditions, and a Black-Scholes pricing model for non-market conditions.

However, the above performance condition is only considered in determining the number of instruments that will ultimately vest.

There are no cash settlements alternatives. The Group does not have a past practice of cash settlement for these share options. The Group accounts for the LTIP as an equity-settled plan.

In total, £69,000 of employee share-based compensation has been included in the consolidated income statement to 30 June 2024 (2023: £99,000). The corresponding credit is taken to equity. No liabilities were recognised from share-based transactions. The remaining £11,000 (2023: £11,000) of share-based compensation expense relates to the Company Share Option Plan (CSOP).

13         Post balance sheet events

On the 10 July 2024, the Group disposed of the entire issued share capital of its technology salary sacrifice division, Lets Connect IT Solutions Limited ("Let's Connect"), to SME HCI Limited (trading as The "Perkbox Vivup Group") for a total up front cash consideration of £2.0m on a cash-free, debt-free basis. In the six months to 30 June 2024, Let's Connect delivered a loss before tax of £0.2m (six months to 30 June 2023: loss before tax of £0.3m).

14         Financial calendar for the year ending 31 December 2024

The Company announces the following dates in its financial calendar for the year ending 31 December 2024:

·      Preliminary results for the year ending 31 December 2024                 -           March 2025

·      Publication of Report and Accounts for 2024                                       -           March 2025

·      AGM                                                                                                     -         April/May 2025