Corebridge Financial Inc (CRBG) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Hello, everyone and welcome to the Corebridge Financial Inc, third-quarter 2024 earnings call. My name is Charlie and I'll be coordinating the call today.

(Operator Instructions)

I will now hand over to our host, Isil Muderrisoglu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations to begin. Isil, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone and welcome to Corebridge Financials earnings update for the third quarter of 2024. Joining me on the call are Kevin Hogan, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Elias Habayueb, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin with prepared remarks by Kevin and Elias and then we will take your questions. Today's comments may contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties.

These statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and are based upon management's current expectations and assumptions. Corebridge filings with the SEC provide details on important factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Except as required by the applicable securities laws, Corebridge is under no obligation to update any forward-looking statements if circumstances or management estimates or opinions should change and you are cautioned to not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements.

Additionally, today's remarks may refer to non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation of such measures to the most comparable GAAP figures is included in our earnings release, financial supplement and earnings presentation all of which are available on our website at investors. Corebridgefinancial.com.

With that, I would like to now turn the call over to Kevin, Elias for their prepared remarks. Kevin?

Thank you, Isil, and good morning everyone. Today, I will review our results for the third quarter and detail how Corebridge Financial once again delivered on our value proposition. Through our diversified business model, strong balance sheet and focused execution, we continue to create shareholder value demonstrated by growth in earnings and cash generation and return of significant capital to shareholders.

Moving to slide 3. Corebridge had a very strong quarter as we grew operating earnings per share to $1.38 a 31% increase year-over-year. Additionally, our run rate EPS increased 13% over the same period. With solid fundamentals across our diversified businesses, our core sources of income grew 4% year-over-year and 5% sequentially.

Each of our sources of income, fee spread and underwriting increased year-over-year. We achieved these attractive business results while also maintaining a strong balance sheet, one supported by high quality assets and liabilities, prudent risk management and diversification. We are heavily focused on asset liability management which is embedded across all facets of Corebridge.

Our asset strategy is driven by our liability profile and our broad product portfolio reflects a long tradition of thoughtful product design and dynamic product management. Reflecting our risk management focus, Corebridge had no significant reserve adjustments as part of our 2024 annual actuarial assumption update. Built on our strong foundation, Corebridge continues to create shareholder value through disciplined execution. Total capital return to shareholders for the third quarter was $848 million including part of the proceeds from the sale of our UK life insurance business.

Moving to slide 4, our market leading businesses continue to serve customers’ needs and support our distribution partner strategies. Our addressable markets are significant and each benefit from strong tailwinds given a large and growing retirement age US population and a life insurance protection gap.

The macroeconomic environment also continues to be supportive of our business. Interest rates at mid durations are expected to remain at attractive levels and new money rates were in excess of 6%. As Elias will expand upon, there may be some short term impacts from lower rates at the short end of the yield curve, but these will be more than offset by growth in the overall portfolio over time. A steeper curve is generally better for our business.

Now, turning to the businesses in individual retirement premiums and deposits increased 40% year-over-year to $5.5 billion. General account net flows supported by strong sales volume and improving surrenders were nearly $1.7 billion for the quarter and $5.3 billion for the year-to-date a level that already exceeds what we reached for full year 2023. These strong flows in the general account continue to serve as a platform to drive current and future earnings.

Last month, individual retirement expanded on what is already one of the broadest annuity platforms in the industry, with the launch of our first registered index linked annuity or RILA. As part of the product development process, we leverage the long standing relationships we have with distribution partners and our deep understanding of their strategies.

Our RILA brings together the most sought after features already in the market together with a log strategy that is exclusive to Corebridge. The product is already resonating with our partners and we are pleased with the reception to date. Financial professionals at nearly 200 of our top distribution partners were positioned to sell our RILA from day one, making it our largest new product launch ever. Corebridge now stands as the only top three annuity provider with an offering in every major product category.

Group retirement produced another solid quarter excluding plan acquisitions, premiums and deposits grew 10% year-over-year. Advisory and brokerage assets under administration increased 22% and out of plan proprietary annuity premiums and deposits increased 17%.

The long term growth opportunity for advisory, brokerage and out of plan annuities is significant as 1.6 million of our customers are in plan only. Both in plan and out of plan, our experienced team of financial professionals are an essential part of our success and we have been investing to further improve their efficiency resulting in an increase in average productivity per adviser of 15% year-over-year.

Life insurance, an important part of our diversified portfolio had a very strong quarter. Sales growth was 14% year-over-year which continues to outpace the industry as it has for eight consecutive quarters. Our modern approach to new business is a key reason for this success. With our data driven practices 80% of newly issued policies are auto decisioned.

Building off this capability, we have developed a digital policy application process called Simply Now, that provides a contemporary purchasing experience with the underwriting decision typically delivered in a matter of minutes. This feature is attractive to many financial professionals facilitating further expansion of our life insurance distribution platform.

Institutional markets also had a strong quarter. Reserves increased 20% year-over-year, supporting ongoing earnings growth and we issued $1 billion of (inaudible) this quarter, furthering our strategy to become a more regular issuer. With pension risk transfer, we see a robust pipeline of large potential transactions for the remainder of this year and going into 2025. As a reminder, we specialize in complex transactions that take time to develop and are not consistent quarter-to-quarter.

Turning to slide 5, you will see the four strategic levers that Corebridge is focused on to grow earnings per share and cash flows. The first is organic growth. I just spent a few minutes talking about our strong business fundamentals and the opportunities ahead. We believe Corebridge will continue to grow our balance sheet organically, which will in turn contribute to increased earnings per share over time.

The second strategic lever is balance sheet optimization. We will continue to pursue opportunities to actively manage both sides -- both our assets and liabilities to drive higher return on capital. To this end, we are expanding our Bermuda strategy and continue to explore additional opportunities to enhance our financial flexibility.

The third is expense efficiency. We successfully delivered on Corebridge forward the first phase of our modernization and expense efficiency program. As of September 30 approximately $320 million in savings have earned in from this program and we expect the final $80 million to earn in through 2025.

Corebridge is moving to the next phase of modernization. We are further digitizing end to end processes that support our insurance operations to improve the customer journey and the distribution partner experience. We are also building on the significant investments we made as part of our separation process to further modernize our finance and actuarial capabilities.

We are committed to delivering improved performance and enhanced operational efficiency over time. The fourth lever is capital management, Corebridge remains focused on effectively managing capital to drive increased shareholder returns, executing on opportunities with the goal to provide an attractive and growing cash return to shareholders.

Next, I want to spend a moment to update you on the progress we are making against some of our key financial goals. First, adjusted return on average equity. Year-to-date, we have delivered a run rate, ROE of 13.3% a 130 basis points improvement year-over-year and well within our 12% to 14% target range. Third quarter, ROE represents a 315 basis points increase since the IPO.

Second operating earnings per share. Year-to-date, we have delivered run rate EPS of $3.70 a 13% improvement year-over-year. Discrete third quarter EPS represents a 36% improvement since the IPO.

And third capital return. Corebridge has returned $1.8 billion to shareholders over the first nine months of the year and we are on target to achieve a payout ratio of 60% to 65% for the year excluding proceeds from the sale of our UK life insurance business. Since the IPO, Corebridge has returned $4.3 billion of capital to shareholders including over $1 billion from our international life divestitures.

Corebridge has consistently demonstrated the discipline to allocate capital to growth opportunities where risk adjusted returns are the most attractive and where customer needs are the greatest, while also delivering significant returns to shareholders and maintaining a strong financial position. Looking forward, we are focused on growing earnings per share and cash flows and continuing to increase long term shareholder value.

I will now turn the call over to Elias.

Thank you, Kevin. I will begin my remarks today on slide 6 where I'll provide an overview of our key financial results for the quarter. Corporate reported adjusted pretax operating income of $1 billion or operating earnings per share of $1.38 a 31% improvement year-over-year on a per share basis.

Our operating EPS included four notable items this quarter resulting in a favorable impact of $0.11, details can be found in our earnings presentation. Annualized alternative investment returns were approximately 7% in the quarter which were $0.02 short of our long term expectation of 8% to 9%.

Positive returns in traditional private equity benefited from a corporate event and foreign exchange movements. This was partially offset by a mark to market loss from one investment in our hedge fund portfolio. As expected real estate equity returns improved from the first half of the year.

Adjusting for notable items and alternative investment returns, we delivered run rate operating EPS of $1.29, a 13% increase year-over-year and a 36% increase since the IPO. This improvement was driven by continued organic growth, balance sheet optimization, expense efficiencies, and active capital management.

Turning to slide 7, our earnings are driven by diverse sources of income that positions Corebridge to deliver attractive returns under different market conditions and this quarter was no exception. Core sources of income excluding notable items grew 4% year-over-year by an increase in each of our sources.

Fee income, which comprises approximately 30% of our core sources of income improved 11% driven by higher account values along with our growing advisory and brokerage business. On a comparable basis, underwriting margin improved 4% by more favorable mortality experience. Base spread income improved 1% over the prior year but declined 3% sequentially. The drivers behind the growth and base spread income were consistent with prior quarters.

The sequential decline was driven by the impact of hedging floating rate exposures in individual retirement as well as elevated prepayments on higher yielding assets in group retirement. Even with that based that investment spread in individual retirement has remained relatively stable over the last three quarters.

Looking forward, given the fed entered into its easing cycle, we wanted to provide you with sensitivities to potential rate actions. Before any additional management actions a 25 basis points decrease in sulfur would impact base yield by less than two basis points in the 1st 12 months. We expect this impact will moderate as a result of the runoff of the portfolio additional hedging activities and active management of crediting rates on enforced business.

Floating rate assets have been a source of attractive yields and play an important role in duration management, complementing other tools we use to actively maintain alignment of the balance sheet. Currently, our floating rate exposures, net of hedging and floating rate liabilities is approximately 8% of the general account investment portfolio. A significant portion of these assets back annuities that are outside their surrender charge period.

Separately, we have entered into certain macro hedges as part of our balance sheet management strategy. Under the same scenario, I just mentioned, any potential impact could equate to less than 1 basis points on base yield. As with the case of any macro hedge, we adjust our positions relative to the prevailing market conditions.

While we expect to see base spread income in individual retirement to continue to grow over time, we could see some pressure in the short term. Furthermore, we expect to see continued growth in institutional market spread earnings, aligned with the growth in the business.

Moving to slide 8, Corebridge has a long track record of delivering attractive financial results under different market conditions. We're not beholden to any one business or product and our four businesses complement each other. For instance, underwriting margin which has been a steady and reliable source of income serves as a natural counterbalance to other sources of income that are more sensitive to macroeconomic conditions such as spread and fee income.

Further, when interest rates have declined, asset values have risen, driving an increase in fee income and alternative investment returns that have offset impacts to spread income. As a result, core sources of income have shown steady resilience over the longer term, enabling us to generate consistent and growing cash flows from our insurance companies and ultimately delivering strong returns to our shareholders. The combination of our diversified market leading businesses working together is a key component of our shareholder value proposition.

Now turning to individual business highlights, which exclude the impact of notable items, variable investment income, and the sale of our international life business. In individual retirement, adjusted pretax operating income grew by 5% year-over-year, primarily driven by the growth in both spread and fee income. Fixed annuity surrenders continued to improve from their peak earlier in the year and were 13% for the quarter.

Group retirement delivered another steady quarter through its combination of spread and fee income. Fee income increased 12% year-over-year. We continue to see this business transition to a more capital light fee based revenue stream, reflecting the changing dynamics in the business. As our implant customers transition from employment to retirement. We're seeing advisory and brokerage services grow while net outflows continue in the general account. Both spread and fee income will continue to reflect the impact of net flows and asset values.

Looking to the fourth quarter, their seasonality and net flows with raised levels of outflows at the end of the year resulting from required minimum distribution by plan participants. Additionally, we've been informed of two upcoming large group plan exits, but they're predominantly invested in our group mutual fund product, thus having a limited impact to earnings.

In life insurance adjusted pretax operating income increased by 8% year-over-year, this expansion was primarily driven by more favorable mortality experience. In institutional markets adjusted pretax operating income grew by 50% year-over-year, primarily driven by higher spread income arising from portfolio growth. Our reserves have grown $7 billion or 20% year-over-year with the expansion of our pension risk transfer business and higher volume of gig issuances.

Our financial results for the quarter demonstrate the benefits from multiple sources of income as well as the ability to improve efficiency, while also growing the balance sheet. On that point, general operating expenses for our insurance businesses and parent company were favorable by 3% year-over-year after excluding the sale of our international life business, bringing our cumulative improvement from the end of 2022 to 14%. This was driven primarily by expense efficiencies from Corebridge forward.

Looking forward to the fourth quarter, we expect some seasonality and expenses. Now turning to the annual actuarial assumption update. This year's update resulted in almost no impact to adjusted pretax operating income and is the third consecutive year with limited impact on operating earnings.

Moving to slide 9, Corebridge continues to maintain a strong balance sheet and our ability to generate consistent cash flows from our insurance subsidiaries provides us with the flexibility to act on attractive opportunities and deliver on commitments to our shareholders. Holding company liquidity remains strong at $2 billion and the life lead RBC is above target.

We issued $750 million of junior subordinated notes in September paying off the remaining $250 million balance on the delayed draw term loan and earmarking $500 million for pre funding a portion of our debt maturing in 2025. Adjusting for the pre funding, our financial leverage ratio would have been 29.6%.

Distributions from the domestic insurance companies were $550 million in the third quarter, bringing the year-to-date distribution to $1.7 billion a 10% increase over the prior year. We're on track to distribute over $2 billion in 2024.

In conclusion, our diversified business model, strong balance sheet and disciplined execution continue to create shareholder value as demonstrated by the growth in our earnings and cash generation.

With that, I'll now turn the call back to Isil.

Thank you, Elias. As a reminder, please limit yourselves to one question and one follow up. Operator, we are now ready to begin the Q&A portion of the call.

(Operator Instructions)

Alex Scott, Barclays.

Hey, good morning. First one I had is on some of the comments around financial flexibility. I think it was specifically noted that you're looking at additional opportunities increase by flexibility.

Alex, I'm sorry, we can barely hear you. Can you speak up?

My apologies. Is that better?

That's better. Thank you.

So I just wanted to ask about the additional opportunities for financial flexibility. I know you all have already done a lot on this front, but I was hoping you could add some context on what you're looking at specifically.

So Alex, it's Elias. So as you know, we're very proactive with managing our balance sheet, and we look for opportunities kind of to improve our financial flexibility as we did with our Bermuda strategy as well as look for opportunities creating shareholder value as we did with their international life operations.

The Bermuda strategy is progressing, as we've talked about before, whereby we're leveraging the excess capital we have in Bermuda to support new business generation and individual retirement that reduces some of the strain we have on new business, and that's part of the strategy to grow earnings and cash flows over time. And as we've said before, we see broader opportunities for Bermuda that we are -- that will be explored, and we'll be back to you guys when we have something to talk about.

Understood. Thanks. One of the other things I noticed in the presentation was just referenced that you're generating expense efficiencies beyond just Corebridge Forward, and I was interested if you could give us some more color on some of the things you're doing there and what you're doing to improve efficiency.

Yes. Thanks, Alex. Look, corporate forward gave us a great start. And through it, we updated our operating model. We modernized a lot of our IT infrastructure. We moved a lot of that infrastructure to the cloud. All of our IT is now sitting in one version of the cloud or another. We exited our data centers, and we upgraded most of our enterprise platforms, including some of the finance and actuarial platforms in part in preparation for LDTI, but also in part in preparation for the separation.

And so the next phase is actually being able to put a lot of that capability and tools to work. And the areas that our immediate focus are after transitioning much of our middle and back office insurance operations work, we now have the opportunity to automate and digitize that and eliminate a lot of the work associated with it while improving the underlying customer and distribution partner experience.

And then we've also have an opportunity to further enhance our finance and actuarial practices. Those are the immediate areas of focus because of the tools that we put in place, along with the investments that we made preparing for separation. We don't have a particular target or announcement of a program in place at this time. We're working through the plan. But this modernization journey is just beyond for us.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Wes Carmichael, Autonomous Research.

Hey, thank you. Good morning. First question is on RILA. You talked about being up and running with a number of distribution partners on day 1. I guess how are you thinking about the contribution from RILA, maybe in 2025? How long do you expect the sales of that product to ramp up?

Yes. Look, I mean, RILA has been one of the fastest-growing parts of the market over the last couple of years. And the reality is our largest distribution partners have been asking us to provide a RILA entry. And we feel we brought our historical creativity to our version of the product. And frankly, the initial reception has been very strong in the first couple of weeks, but it is just the first couple of weeks.

The pipeline is building quickly. The number of producers that have been trained on the product is increasing on a daily basis and we're seeing that pipeline continue to build. And we're excited about the RILA product because has attractive margins. It supports our overall diversification. And it fits within our overall strategy, which is to support our distribution products partners with a range of products that support different customers' needs and risk appetites at different times.

And the RILA product supports a different customer risk appetite than indexed annuities or the variable annuity products. And so we're seeing an expansion of our overall capabilities there. In terms of what it may contribute in 2025, each of our individual retirement products are in a strong position and contribute attractive margins. And so we see it as a strong complement but aren't prepared to talk about any targets at this point in time.

Okay, thanks, Kevin. My follow-up is on capital. And thinking about Bermuda. And you talked about it a little bit, Elias, but going forward, should we expect cash flows to the parent company from your Bermuda company, or should we really expect you to kind of effectively utilize their capital that is there to support new business from individual retirement.

Yeah, thanks, Wes. So, look, I mean, as we talked about before, we think of Bermuda as the next tool in our capital management tool kit. It provides a lot of opportunities for us. Right now, we're focusing on our fixed and indexed annuity, new business, but there's other products that may benefit from us seeding new business into Bermuda, we could potentially engage in portfolio transactions, on the in-force business.

And then ultimately Bermuda is an environment that has been attractive for attracting third party capital, which is an option we'll consider at an appropriate point in time. But all of these, we look as part of our capital management toolkit, which is designed to facilitate our ability to invest in new business at attractive margins and then be able to maintain a strong balance sheet and provide an attractive and growing cash returns to shareholders over time.

Thanks.

Suneet Kamath, Jefferies.

Thanks. I wanted to start with annuities. You know, Kevin, the industry sales have been strong, your sales have been strong, held up pretty well even with the pullback in rates in the third quarter. So I guess the question is how sustainable do you think that your level of sales, industry level of sales is as we kind of move from this year kind of into next year?

Yeah, thanks, Suneet. What I would say is that the underlying drivers for the annuity industry don't change with the, the short end of the curve. And, and, and really the need for people in this country to plan and prepare for their own retirement is huge and getting and getting larger and structurally. I think that's one of the things that, you know, has driven the opportunity that now certainly the environment the last couple of years has been very favorable, but it's really the 5 to 10 year part of the curve that's most relevant in pricing. You know, the annuities, products, the spread businesses and that part of the curve based on the current outlook is going to continue to allow for these products to be a very attractive part of a long term savings plan.

The second thing I would say is that the adviser community, you know, there's been a whole new range of advisers in the last couple of years that have learned about the value of annuities as part of that long term savings program. And so we believe that the conditions for you know, the annuity business are going to continue to be very supportive. And so whether the volumes will, you know, continue at the pace of the last couple of quarters is really going to depend on what the conditions are each quarter where interest rates are and where people believe interest rates are going to go.

Got it. And then I guess Elias on the base spread income commentary that you had in your prepared remarks, I guess I was hoping you could unpack that just a little bit because it, what I wasn't clear on is how much of this impact and pressure that you talked about is actually going to happen and sort of how much of it could happen if the fed decides to move a certain way. So can you just maybe revisit that with a little bit of granularity? Thanks.

Yeah. So, it's a lot, you know, the sensitivity we gave to, you know, to the extent there's a 25 basis points rate cut and we've already had 50 basis points is the impact on us from a base net yield perspective is less than 2 basis points. And to put that in context, you know, we've increased our base yield by over 100 basis points in the last two years since the beginning of '22 there, so there will be some sensitivity that we would expect to play out that over, you know, will be mitigated to some extent with additional hedging activities. You know, the floaters do have a shorter duration, so they'll run up quicker than some of the other bonds in our portfolio.

As well as most of the floating rate positions. We have back annuities that are outside the surrender charge period. And we're pretty active from a crediting perspective, but that will take some time since you can only adjust it at the annual anniversary date of the annuity that being said, you know, we continue you to believe that spread income and individual retirement will grow over time, but there could be some short term pressure and but we continue to believe we will continue to grow our earnings per share and deliver on our financial targets, irrespective of the rate environment and what the fed might do.

Ryan Krueger, KBW.

Hey, good morning. One more follow up on the short term rates just wanted to make sure I understood was the message that 25 basis points decline in so far has less than a 2 basis points impact on your yield. But then the additional macro hedges reduces that to more like 1 basis points. Was that did I understand that correctly?

Hey, Ryan, it's Elias. Now, the way it works is this is a point in time sensitivity. So with respect to the investment portfolio, the sensitivity is less than 2 basis points, the macro hedges is if they don't change is additive. But with respect to the ma macro hedges, those are part of our Enterprise Balance Management strategy, which we're proactive in managing, we've actually reduced these positions over the course of the year and based on what the outlook is now, there's a chance that I think we would expect to reduce them even further.

So I would look at the macro head just kind of a little different. The only reason we're giving that sensitivity is for a completeness as a point in time. But if you look at the investment portfolio, that's where the true sensitivity is. And every 25 basis points there is less than 2 basis points on base yield, which since the beginning of '22 we've increased it by over 100 basis points.

Okay. Got it, that makes sense. And then just at a, at a higher level, I mean, I think you, you were certainly mentioning other l levers you have outside of spread income. I guess when you think about maybe 2025, do you expect that you'll be able to grow consolidated earnings in, in on a run rate basis in, in dollars? Just, you know, despite the spread pressure you're facing.

So Ryan, if there are a number of variables that play in it, you know, we're focused on growing earnings as well as you know, growing EPS by both the growing earnings as well as growing capital. You know, there's obviously some sensitivity to our earnings that we view as short term, but the longer term trajectories, we expect to be growing earnings as well as growing EPS through earnings and capital returns.

Yeah, and Ryan, hey, this is Kevin. I just jump in. I said each of our businesses is actually in a very strong position in individual retirement. I think, you know, we've explained that the difference between the overall dynamic of new sales being at very attractive margins and expected to continue to be based on where the middle of the curve 5 to 10 years is anticipated. You know, to be, there's some short term impacts as Elias just described.

But we, you know, we see an attractive you know, ongoing condition for this for this business in in group retirement, you know, fee income now exceeds spread income. This is a dynamic we've been talking about in this portfolio some time and the sources of our, you know, spread our fee income by the ins plan fee asset base is up 10% year over year.

The advisory and brokerage asset base is up 22% out of plan assets are up 11%. So group retirement, you know, continues to, I think, you know, grow its potential sources of earnings. Our life business is in excellent shape. We've outgrown the market eight quarters in a row after really focusing our portfolio on, you know, less interest, sensitive parts of the business and then institutional markets is in a strong position.

So, you know, this short term impact on spreads, I wouldn't overstate our multiple sources of income. That's, that's a strategy that, you know, we benefit from in different market conditions and each of the businesses is well positioned relative to its market.

Thank you.

Thomas Gallagher, Evercore ISI.

Good morning, First question on capital management. Second one on asset liability management. But the capital management question is just obviously a very strong level of share repurchase in Q3. Can you remind us A how much you've used up from the UK life proceeds and how we should think about a run rate heading into Q4.

If I just look at normalized buyback from capital generation, it's probably half of that amount that you did in Q3. But curious if you still have access that you might lean into if there's opportunities in the fourth quarter.

Hey, Tom, it's Elias. So our target capital overall capital return, both share repurchase dividends of 60% to 65%. We expect to cover that organically, the UK proceeds were extra and we've deployed a meaningful portion of the UK proceeds in the third-quarter. I would be thinking in terms of 60% to 65% in the fourth quarter for this year.

Got you. And my ALM question is Elias, I heard what you said about the floating rate, 8% of the general account mainly backing annuities outside of surrender charge. I, I presume that's in ALM set up to prevent against a rising rate shock type scenario. Just thinking about what, why you would position it that way.

So we'll call it more hedge oriented, defensive oriented, given that we're seeing a change in the macro fed beginning to cut rates. Would you consider repositioning that or at least hedging it in a way where it, you know, we'll call it maybe optimizes the change in macro here or are you comfortable just sticking with this big floating rate portfolio backing that block.

Hey, Tom, it's Kevin. You know, I think I'll just jump in here. Let's unpack it a little bit. So, you know, we always manage ALM and our ALM equation carefully as part of our balance sheet management and as interest rates change, the dynamic changes, you know, that will change, you know, either the liabilities will lengthen or shorten. And you know, as we saw a couple of years ago when, when interest rates started to rise sharply. And so floating rate assets play an important role for us, you know, in ALM and helping manage duration.

And as the overall, you know, shape of the yield curve changes that will determine the length of the liabilities and we dynamically manage our floating rate portfolio accordingly. But another role that the floating rate assets play is liquidity, you know, relative to particularly those annuities that are outside the surrender charge period.

And just as a reminder, we never have reinsured our back book. And we've benefited from that in the recent environment. We continue to benefit actually from that Infor business, but the floating rate portfolio has been a part of that benefit to that Infor business.

So, you know, floaters are not purely from a perspective of ALM but they've been very attractive risk adjusted returns. And we respond to that we do have some shorter dated liabilities that they support particularly in the annuities business. The last couple of years, some of the three year four year surrender of business has become more popular. And then we also have the annuities outside of surrender. So, so we'll continue to dynamically you know, manage the floating rate portfolio. It isn't just a defensive hedge the way that you described it.

Thanks for that.

Thank you very much.

Elyse Greenspan, Wells Fargo Securities.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. My first question is just you know, on PRT deal flow, I think it's been, you know, a little slower since the first quarter just was hoping to get an update there just in terms of the environment and the pipeline for transactions you see over the balance of this year and into 2025.

Yeah, thanks, Elyse. So, you know, just a reminder, we do focus on full plan terminations. We focused on full plan terms really since 2016, we find the market. You know, we find the economic you know, more attractive in the full plan term segment because they're a little bit more complex transactions. And you know, there's fewer, there's fewer companies that have prepared the administration to be able to support them.

We continue to see a very strong pipeline of full plan terminations because of the complexity of these, they don't land necessarily every quarter. And I described that, you know, the pipeline for the remainder of this year is attractive.

In fact, we've already landed a decent sized transaction for the fourth quarter that we've been working on for a number of quarters and we see the pipeline going into next year also very attractive.

So, you know, long -- you know, in the medium term, we continue to see very attractive economic opportunities. The pipelines are full, the transactions are moving forward plans are largely funded. And activity levels remain high both in the US and in the UK.

Thanks. And then my second question is on capital as well, right? So $2 billion apparent when we, you know, take into account the prefunded debt, you know, still, you know, pretty healthy level, right at like $1.5 billion. So, you know, obviously that's been helped, right by some of the transactions that you've done as we just think about going forward, when do you think you might, you know, bring that line down right more, I think you've spoken in the past, to kind of keeping that in line with, you know, annual needs.

Hey, Elyse, it's Elias. So as we've said in the past we manage our parent liquidity to cover the next 12 month needs. And I think you've seen like we've worked through a lot of the onetime expenses we've had the parent expenses are down from over $200 million run rate down to about a $150 million run rate.

So that's all contributing to a lower need that the parent, the $1.5 billion that you're referencing right now at the end of the quarter, which excludes the $500 million with earmarked for the early '25 maturity is in excess of that 12 month need and consistent with what we said in the past, we'd expect that to continue to trend down.

Wilma Burdis, Raymond James.

Hey, good morning. You touched on this a bit earlier. But could you talk more specifically about the proportion of fixed annuities that have been written over the last couple of years in terms of three year duration, four years, five years, seven years, maybe just talk a little bit about that.

Distributors have mentioned to me that three year fixed annuities have been the most popular during the recent period of higher rates. So I just wanted to see if that's what you're also seeing. Thanks.

Yeah, so we know this. So thanks for the question. In terms of the dynamics, the -- generally depending upon an investor's position, you know, clearly the shorter duration products would, you know, be attractive for customers that see less certainty in the longer term, rate environment than the longer term. There were definitely periods when the rate curve started to change that, there was a lot of uncertainty around there.

So quite a bit of the shorter duration product was attractive to customers at that at that time. But more recently, with some, you know, broader perspective on where medium term rates may be. In particular, the 5 to 10 year part of the curve, we've seen a return to the more traditional five and seven years surrender products. And it really is something that depends on the strategy of each of our distribution partners and the position of a given customer and what fits with their long term portfolio expectations over time.

So we don't necessarily have a strategy of directing towards one duration or another. Our strategy as with all of our products is to have multiple solutions available. Those include both products with in income benefits or products that are accumulation focused or products that are short or medium or long duration. And of course, we've just rounded out our portfolio with our new RILA product which we're looking forward to further developing.

And, you know, I think you've touched on this a little bit earlier as well, but the environment actually looks somewhat favorable for me to continue to sell annuities, especially fixed. And as you mentioned, it sounds like you're seeing longer dated products as well. So is that, is that what you're seeing? Thanks.

I think the environment continues to be excellent for annuities among our other products. And you know, as I mentioned earlier that the demand is definitely there, the adviser community understands the value of these products, especially, you know, at the kind of rate environment that we anticipate being able to continue to see.

And so yes, I mean, we're seeing a lot of demand for fixed annuity. The demand for fixed annuity is a little bit more reflective of the immediacy of where, you know, rate changes are. But the demand for index annuity has been consistently growing over time, there's a particular part of the investor appetite that still very much appeals to a traditional variable annuity.

And then the RILA you know, speaks to you know, a risk appetite that's a little bit more aggressive than would be interested in an indexed annuity. But maybe not all the way to the appetite of a traditional variable annuity. So, you know, I think across the board, the environment for the annuity industry remains very attractive.

Thank you.

Joshua Shanker, Bank of America.

Thank you very much. Just want to talk about giving the strong repurchase activity in the quarter. How much excess capital do you have? Not just the buffer you have, but the amount that, you would want to be returned to shareholders remaining from M&A transactions and just you your capital optimization overall. And are there any thoughts at all about long term free cash flow conversion on your earnings, whether it can be pushed higher than you have said in recent conference calls and whatnot.

So Josh, it's Elias. You know what I would say is this our balance sheet and there's a very strong position, we've been proactive in managing it to make sure it's in a very strong position. Our capital ratios are above our targets. Our parent liquidity is above kind of where our parent needs are.

We've been pursuing opportunities to improve our financial flexibility and there are other opportunities out there we're exploring. And when it comes from a capital distribution perspective, we've been pretty disciplined on kind of balancing, giving an attractive cash return back to shareholders with investing in the business, which is kind of continuing to grow earnings and cash flows over time.

So I think we've done a pretty good job there and I think if you look at our balance sheet to date it continues to be in a very strong position which you know, it's part of the four levers, we have to grow our earnings per share and create shareholder value. So we're in a good position to deliver on that.

And so, I mean, if you think about modeling out, do you intend to operate above your long term desired capital ratios for the long term or do you expect to get those down to in line or in target with range with your goals for capital leverage?

So the way we look at the balance sheet is not just looking at one metric, the way we look at the health of the balance sheet is, you know, we look at our capital ratios, our leverage profile, our liquidity profile as well as the risk profile of the balance sheet. And that kind of informs us where we want to have the balance sheet and what are we comfortable with to do or not?

Do you know the leverage rate -- sorry, the RBC ratio of 400 is a management threshold that we've set for us from that perspective, but it's just one of the metrics we look at, it's not a bright line that it has to be at 400 or 410 or 380 or whatever. So we look at it collectively and make our decisions after looking at the collective profile of the balance sheet.

Thank you for the answering my questions.

Daniel Bergman, TD Cowen.

Thanks. Good morning. Maybe just on alternative investment returns. They are still a little bit below long term expectations in the quarter but continue to show nice sequential improvement. Based on the prepared remarks, it sounded like there were some noise and one off items in the quarter.

But first, I just wanted to see if you had any initial view into what you'd expect for alternatives in the fourth quarter and then maybe just more broadly heading into 2025 you know, would you expect alternative returns to be back at long term levels or could the higher interest rate environment cause some ongoing pressure?

So listen, we had a really good quarter in the third quarter. If you look at what's the trend line, then, you know, to your point, the returns have been improving. We expect the fourth quarter to be another good quarter. I don't think it's going to be as good as the third quarter given we had a corporate event and some FX benefits on the foreign funds that we have invested in.

So our best insight based on what we know today, it will be between where the second quarter is and where the third quarter was. Looking into '25. Listen, we continue to believe in our long term expectation of returns being in the 8% to 9% range. And obviously, as you know, there's macro sensitive macro factors and other things that could influence it. I think it's early to predict anything right now beyond what's our long term expectation around variable investment income?

Got it. That's really helpful. Thanks. And then maybe just a quick one on life insurance, it sounded like the strong earnings, they were driven by favorable mortality. So I just wanted to see if you could give a little bit more color on the experience in the quarter and kind of trends you're seeing in that business. And should we expect any go forward impact to run rate earnings or change in, you know, volatility levels from the recaptured business?

So let me start with the recaptured business. So that was a decision on our part. It made a lot of economic sense to recapture it. And as we look forward, we don't think that adds any meaningful incremental potential volatility. And we think the impact on run rate earnings is limited from recapturing on an annual basis on recapturing that treaty.

With respect to mortality, listen, mortality can be volatile from quarter to quarter and their seasonality around it when you know, second quarter and third quarter tend to be lower, first quarter and fourth quarter tend to be higher.

What we've been if you look back the last couple of years. You know, we've been experiencing, mortality experience in line with our pricing expectations or better, from there, but quarter to quarter, there could be volatility more to mortality.

Yeah. What I would say, I would just add, look, I mean, we've worked hard in the life business. We're very comfortable with the product range that we're focusing on right now, which is less interest sensitive. We've made investments in our digital and automated underwriting capability that are really paying off. We've been focused on mortality not just recently, but for a very long time.

You know, we've had a leading term suite for many, many years. And you know, the third quarter mortality was not just within pricing expectations, but, you know, well within pricing expectations. So, you know, we feel really good about the position to serve the need for the protection GAAP in the US.

Our consistent growth has shown that in terms of what the mortality will be, you know, even in a large portfolio, mortality can be volatile from time to time, but we're very comfortable with our position in the life business.

Okay. That's it. So, thank you very much. So, thanks everybody. As I conclude today, I want to share a few words of gratitude with my colleagues at Corbridge. This has been a remarkable two years since our initial public offering and thanks to all of you.

We're living our purpose every day where we help people to take action to plan, save for and achieve secure financial futures. I'm grateful for all of your outstanding work and your ability to deliver quarter-after-quarter. Thanks everybody for joining the call and have a good day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may disconnect your lines.