Mandatum Q4'25 preview: We expect sales to continue at a good momentum

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 02/06/2026 at 08:37 am EET

Source: Inderes, Vara Research (consensus)

Mandatum will publish its Q4 results on Thursday, February 12. We expect the company to deliver higher earnings than in the comparison period. We estimate that positive momentum in investment product sales continued, and that earnings growth in asset management, which is key to the company's value, remained strong. In the report, our attention is especially on the outlook for new sales, as the steps for the coming years regarding the balance sheet and profit distribution are very clear after the updated strategy and sales of PE investments.

New sales are Mandatum's main value driver

Ahead of the earnings day, we have slightly raised our Q4 net finance result estimates. We also revised our new sales estimates for wealth management slightly upwards following strong reports from peers. As a result, our forecast for Mandatum's current year's profit before tax rose by some 5%.

Mandatum's investment story is based on asset management growth and strong profit distribution. Profit distribution largely results from the gradual sale of the company's investment assets, which simultaneously damages the group's earnings development. However, with strong sales continuing in asset management, Mandatum has the potential to turn its earnings around already in the coming years, so the growth rate of assets under management is by far the most important single indicator for investors. At the quarterly level, fluctuations are to be expected due to market sentiment, among other factors, so we will especially look for signs of progress in the competitiveness of the company's asset management product and service offerings in the earnings report. We consider the overall growth outlook for the asset management market to be favorable, even in a longer-term view, so high-quality operators have the potential to achieve even strong growth figures.

We expect earnings growth in asset management to have remained strong

We expect Mandatum's Q4 fee income to have grown clearly year-on-year to 22.0 MEUR (Q3’24: 18.6 MEUR). Fee income development is supported in our estimates by increased assets under management and improved cost efficiency. We expect strong growth in new sales for asset management, and our Q4 net subscription estimate is 250 MEUR. Our estimate for AUM at the end of Q4 is 15.3 BEUR, which means growth of around 3% from the previous quarter. 

Good investment returns expected this quarter

The result of term life insurance mainly consists of the contractual service margin (CSM). The CSM amount to be earned is affected by actual claims experience, which fluctuates somewhat from quarter to quarter. We expect the result related to risk policies to be 3.4 MEUR in Q4, which is broadly in line with our estimate of a normal level. 

Our net finance result forecast is 31.1 MEUR. The interest rate movements and strong equity market performance observed during the quarter should moderately support the result of the with-profit portfolio. The company's announced sale of its property portfolio, in turn, has a negative earnings impact of around 4.5 MEUR. 

For Q4, we expect the Group's profit before taxes to be 47.5 MEUR and earnings per share to be EUR 0.07.

Profit distribution offers the biggest thrill of the earnings day

Mandatum's solvency (Solvency 2 ratio) was above the targeted level at 191% at the end of Q3. Thus, the company still has excess capital on its balance sheet relative to its targeted level (160-180%), and Mandatum has indicated that it will unwind this overcapitalization during the 2025-2028 target periods. Overcapitalization will increase significantly after the sale of Saxo Bank shares, as the transaction is estimated by the company to have a positive impact of 34 percentage points on the Solvency 2 ratio. The company has not yet announced the completion of the Saxo Bank sale, but according to the latest estimates, this should occur in the first half of 2026. We expect the company to distribute the proceeds from the sale during the 2026 financial year. Our dividend estimate is EUR 1.0 per share, but due to uncertainty regarding the timing of Saxo's sale, we would not be surprised if the proposed dividend was lower. In this scenario, however, we believe Mandatum will propose an authorization for an additional dividend to be paid in 2026 after the transaction is completed, which would raise the total payout to our estimated level. We note that this is an exceptionally high one-off dividend, based on the sale of individual PE investments. Thus, in the future, profit distribution should be significantly more moderate, consisting of earnings and capital released from invoicing-based business. In our estimates, the dividend exceeds EPS for a long time, but the difference will gradually narrow after the PE investments are exited.

In addition to the reported figures, as usual, we focus on management's comments on the sales outlook for investment products. The commentary is likely to remain largely optimistic, as demand, particularly for fixed-income funds investing in Europe, appears to have even strengthened. In addition, peer comments on the general outlook for new sales have been positive. We do not believe Mandatum will provide actual earnings guidance. Instead, we expect the company to forecast, as in previous years, increasing fee income and a contracting technical provisions portfolio.