Primerica Inc (PRI) 2016 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning and welcome to the Primerica Q4 2016 financial results conference call and webcast.

(Operator Instructions)

Please note: this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Kathryn Kieser, Executive Vice President of investor Relations. Please, go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Primerica's fourth-quarter earnings call.

A copy of our earnings release, financial supplement, presentation and webcast of today's call are available at our website at investors.primerica.com. Glenn Williams, our Chief Executive Officer, and Alison Rand, our Chief Financial Officer, will deliver prepared remarks. Then, we'll open it up questions.

We reference certain non-GAAP financial measures in our press release and on this call. These non-GAAP measures have limitations and reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are attached to our press release.

We will also make forward-looking statements in accordance with the Safe Harbor provision of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The Company will not revise or update these statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or changes in strategy. Risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events to differ materially from those expressed or implied are discussed in the Company's 2015 Annual Report on Form 10-K as updated by our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.

Now, I will turn the call over to Glenn.

Thanks, Kathryn. Good morning, everyone. I'll start with our 2016 achievements, then move to fourth-quarter results and wrap up with the opportunities ahead of us.

For the full-year 2016, we continue to execute our strategy to drive growth and improve performance by expanding distribution, deploying mobile technology and repurchasing shares. On page 3 you can see our net operating income grew 13%. We achieved a 22% increase in operating EPS and a 210 basis point increase in operating a ROE, compared with 2015. The solid foundation we built over the last couple of years has focused on growing our sales force and its leadership to meet the expanding needs of middle income clients. At the same time, we have been working on incremental enhancements across our business to produce positive financial results.

Technology has played a significant role in the improved performance of our core model. Our commitment to developing mobile technology capabilities throughout our business has led to delivering an enhanced client experience, greater processing efficiencies, more comprehensive representative training, and higher sales force productivity. New mobile sales tools appeal to a broader spectrum of age groups and provide a platform for more effective interaction with perspective clients, recruits and our sales force.

By utilizing robust communications, we were able to deliver messaging that informed and motivated our sales force. We also encourage real-time feedback from our senior leaders, which enabled us to achieve greater success with our sales incentives and real-time recognition programs. These initiatives have created strong alignment between the sales force and the Company.

We also continue to work on every facet of life insurance licensing, including state and provincial processes, representative education and test preparation. Our objective is to increase licensing success for the broadest spectrum of recruits. As an example, we worked diligently to prepare for the implementation of the new Canadian licensing process in 2016. Our efforts resulted in continued growth of the Canadian life insurance sales force, now at it's record size.

These strategic initiatives have led to a very attractive value proposition for our representatives and helped increase the size of our life licensed sales force to 116,827, up 9% from the end of 2015. The productivity of our life insurance sales force also remained at the top end of the historical range for seven quarters, which led to the 15% growth in life insurance policies issued in 2016. This growth has far exceeded the 1% increase in application activity for individually underwritten life insurance policies reported by the MIB Life Index in 2016.

The Term Life segment achieved strong results in 2016 with revenues increasing 13% and operating income before income taxes up 23% year over year. The Term Life operating margin expanded 150 basis points from 2015 reflecting business growth, improved claims experience in 2016, and the benefit of renegotiated reinsurance rates in previous years.

Turning to our Investment and Savings Products business, ISP operating revenues and operating income before income taxes remained relatively consistent year over year despite headwinds experienced in 2016. Product sales were impacted by uncertainty in the market early in the year, and throughout 2016, variable annuity sales were weaker industrywide, in part due to the impending DOL fiduciary rule.

Market conditions improved in the second half of 2016 and ISP sales ended the year 5% lower than 2015. Client asset values grew to a record $52 billion at year end, including $975 million of positive net flows during 2016.

Over the past few years, we've focused on increasing the profile of our Investment and Savings business within our sales force and expanding our ISP product offerings. Throughout 2016, we worked to develop Primerica's new lifetime investment platform, which we expect to launch in the second quarter of 2017. It will have multiple approaches, strategists and product types. This new platform has generated a lot of excitement from our Series 65 licensed representatives, as well as interest from mutual fund licensed reps in obtaining a Series 65 license. Our number of representatives with a Series 65 license increased 10% from the end of 2015.

In addition to our strategic initiatives to drive organic growth, we remain committed to increasing stockholder value by actively deploying capital. Our strong and diversified cash flows have allowed us to return a significant amount of our operating earnings to stockholders on an annual basis. In 2016, we continued optimizing capital by repurchasing $150 million of shares, which enabled the retirement of approximately 6% of common stock outstanding as of December 31, 2015. These returns reflect our confidence in our business and future prospects, and we are pleased to have returned approximately 85% of operating earnings to stockholders in 2016, including stockholder dividends. We plan to repurchase another $125 million to $150 million of shares in 2017.

Now let's turn to fourth-quarter results on page 4. Operating revenues increased 10% and net operating income grew 11% compared with the fourth quarter of 2015. Earnings growth and share repurchases throughout 2016 drove an 18% increase in diluted operating EPS to $1.19, and operating ROAE expanded to 19.2% in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Term Life business results reflected continued momentum in adjusted direct premiums and typically lower fourth quarter persistency experience that was also weaker than historical levels in the period. Investment and Savings Product performance improved in the fourth quarter due to higher average client asset values and stable product sales year over year. ISP segment results also include the full-year impact of a change to the annual account based fee structure implemented in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Turning to page 5. In the fourth quarter, we saw a 6% increase in new life insurance licenses from the very strong licensing results in the fourth quarter a year ago. The ratio of new recruits obtaining a life insurance license dipped slightly below historical levels due to the 24% increase in recruiting of new representatives versus the prior-year period. Fourth-quarter recruiting growth was spurred by approximately 4,000 new recruits whose entry fee was waived as a result of a November initiative to honor the men and women of the military.

On a sequential quarter basis, recruiting and licensing both declined during the typically slower holiday season. We expect the ratio of new life insurance licenses to recruits for the full year of 2017 to continue to be around the 2016 full-year level of 17%. We also expect the ratio of licensed non renewals and terminations to sales force size to remain in the 8% per quarter range for the full-year 2017. We're optimistic about continued increase in the size of the sales force with the goal of high single-digit growth on an annualized basis.

On page 6, you can see Term Life insurance policies issued increased 14% from the fourth quarter a year ago, driven by the larger life insurance licensed sales force and productivity of 0.23 policies per life insurance licensed representative per month, which topped the high end of the historical productivity range. Fourth-quarter Investment and Savings Products sales were flat year over year, reflecting higher retail mutual fund sales and fixed index annuities sales offset by a decline in variable annuity sales consistent with industry trends. Net flows were positive $304 million in the fourth quarter, and client asset values increased 11% to a record $52.3 billion at the end of the year. On a sequential quarter basis, ISP sales increased 5% due to market performance. This sales momentum continued in January.

As we begin 2017, I'm optimistic about the growth opportunities ahead. The business environment appears to be more positive on a number of fronts. Personal financial confidence on Main Street remains high, and the pendulum of regulation is reversing direction, which should be beneficial to our business.

Over the past year, we devoted significant resources preparing for the implementation of the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule. We believe the DOL rule will most likely be delayed for future review, and Primerica plans to continue actively participating in the rule making process. Our priority continues to be acting in the best interest of our clients. We take an educational approach delivered at the kitchen table, offering middle income families the products and help they need to make prudent financial decisions.

We believe in client choice, whether that means a mutual fund with an upfront sales charge or an advisory account with an asset-based fee. We have an unwavering commitment to serve middle income families, and we are guided by their need to save for retirement.

We've been developing robust Investment and Savings Products systems and processes to comply with the DOL rule. We will continue to build our infrastructure and develop changes to our client-facing sales tools to enhance ISP business and position us for future regulatory change. The streamlined sales process will make trade execution easier, provide greater operational efficiencies and create a more attractive business for representatives considering obtaining a mutual fund license.

Every day, we strive to improve the business for our representatives, clients, and stockholders. Our theme for this year is unfinished business. The work we've accomplished over the past several years has paid off, but there's still a lot left to do. Working side-by-side with our sales force, I feel good about our ability to meet the growing demands of Main Street clients and provide appropriate solutions for their financial challenges, in order to drive future growth and long-term value for all of our stakeholders.

With that, let me turn it over to Alison.

Thank you, Glenn, and good morning, everyone. Today I will share with you the key drivers behind our fourth-quarter segment financial results and then conclude with a companywide review of insurance and operating expenses.

Starting on slide 7, in the fourth quarter our Term Life segment's operating revenue increased 13% and adjusted direct premiums increased 14% year over year, reflecting continued strength in term life production, as well as growth in the inforce business not subject to IPO related coinsurance. Operating income before income taxes grew 11%, while operating margins contracted modestly to 17.3% and 17.7% year over year.

As we've typically seen in the fourth quarter, persistency was seasonally lower than in other quarters. And in addition, was weaker than in the prior year period. In the aggregate, claims were largely in line with historical trends with higher life insurance claims being offset by lower disabled life claims. As we've historically done in the fourth quarter, we finalized our new business assumptions for 2016 sales, increasing in the persistency assumption for later policy durations based on recent experience. The net impact of weaker persistency, claims experience and finalizing business assumptions, was approximately $3 million unfavorable for the quarter.

The benefits and claims ratio improved slightly to 58% from 58.3% in the fourth quarter of 2015, as lower reserve from weaker persistency were offset by higher reserves from the finalized new business assumptions. The DAC amortization ratio increased to 17.9% from 17% in the prior year, mainly due to the weaker persistency. The net insurance expense ratio was consistent with fourth quarter a year ago.

On a sequential quarter basis, both income before income taxes and the term life operating margin declined from the third quarter of 2016. These trends are driven by the seasonally lower persistency in the fourth quarter combined with third-quarter claims experience that was $3 million favorable to historical levels. The net insurance expense ratio was in line with the third quarter.

Looking ahead to 2017, we expect attractive adjusted direct premium growth in the mid teens as a result of recent and continuing strength in policy issuance combined with the coinsurance transactions we entered into at the time of the IPO. On an annualized basis, we expect the benefits and claims ratio to remain in the 58% to 59% range and the DAC amortization ratio to be around 15%. The insurance expense ratio should show slight improvement from the 2016 level. And Term Life operating margins are expected to be in the 19% to 20% range for 2017.

Moving now to our Investment and Savings Products segment. On slide 8 you will see both our ISP operating revenues and operating income before income taxes increased 6% from the fourth quarter a year ago. While revenue generating product sales were consistent with the year ago period, sales based revenues declined 2%, reflecting a shift in product mix from variable annuities to US retail mutual funds. The sales based net revenue was consistent year over year -- net revenue ratio was consistent year over year.

Asset-based revenues increased 8% year over year in line with average client asset values. And the asset-based net revenue ratio was consistent year over year. Canadian segregated fund DAC amortization was lower than normal, reflecting an updated assumption for lower future redemptions based on an emerging experience. A similar adjustment was made in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Account-based revenues grew year over year, largely reflecting an increase in our account based fee structure on US qualified accounts. The $4.1 million full-year impact of this change was recognized in the fourth quarter, although going forward, it will be accrued quarterly as it is earned. This was also the largest driver of the 14% sequential quarter growth in ISP income before income taxes.

On slide 9 you can see the corporate and other distributed product segment operating revenues were $28.3 million and operating losses before income taxes were $6.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2016. Net investment income continues to be impacted by low investment portfolio and market yields. Additionally, in the fourth quarter, there was a $0.2 million negative total return on the deposit asset backing an IPO-related reinsurance agreement as a result of a negative $1.3 million mark-to-market adjustment on the asset.

Net annualized gains on our invested asset portfolio decrease from $110.4 million at September 30, 2016 to $65.8 million at quarter end, due to increasing interest rates during the quarter. The average book yield of our fixed income portfolio at quarter end was 4.21% down slightly from September 30, as we generally reinvested on a short-term basis.

While rising rates should continue to provide us with better yielding investment opportunities, the impact of reinvestment will be gradual. Over the next 12 months, approximately 10%, or $173 million, of our portfolio will mature with an average yield of around 3.7%.

The effective income tax rate for the fourth quarter of 2016 was 34.7% up from 33.8% in the prior-year period. The increase was largely due to higher nondeductible expense items and a smaller annual release of exposure reserve relative to the prior-year period.

Beginning in the first quarter of 2017, we will adopt a new accounting standard, which will increase the volatility of our effective tax rate. Prior to 2017, we recorded a tax benefit or expense for the difference between the stock price of equity award at the time of grant investing in the balance sheet. The new accounting standards require this difference to be recorded as an income tax benefit or expense in the income statement. So our income tax expense will be affected by future market prices of our common stock.

As an illustration, based on employee equity awards that are projected to vest in 2017 and yesterday's closing price of $77.50, the impact would be a reduction to income tax expense of about $2.1 million. We will see this impact in the first quarter as that is when the bulk of the annual awards that are granted to employees vest. Additionally, on a quarterly basis, sales restriction lap on equity awards granted to our independent sales force, which will also result in an adjustment to income tax expense. For the first quarter of 2017, we expect this to further reduce income tax expense by about $700,000.

Now I'll move to a discussion of the Company's insurance and other operating expenses. On slide 10, you can see our fourth-quarter expenses of $77.9 million were $6.3 million higher than the fourth quarter of last year. The year-over-year change primarily reflect a $2.7 million increase in employee related expenses, $1.6 million spend on DOL fiduciary rule preparation, and $2.6 million additional investment in technology infrastructure and mobile initiatives, the latter largely being offset by the year-over-year increase in other net revenues. Premium and growth related expenses were $0.6 million higher, which was lower than the usual increase due to a favorable premium tax rate adjustment in the quarter.

Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2017, we expect the typical sequential increases in our insurance and other operating expenses that we normally see. As a reminder, our first-quarter expenses are usually higher due to the impact of the annual grant of management equity awards to retirement eligible employees that are fully expensed when granted as well as other annual employee related and operational increases unique to the first quarter. We expect a $10 million increase in employee related expenses, an additional $1.5 million for seasonal expenses related to annual mailings of privacy letters and mutual fund holders tax documents in the first quarter.

On previous calls, we indicated that implementation cost for the DOL rule would be about $10 million for 2017. As Glenn discussed, we will remain actively engaged in the fiduciary rule making process and will continue to invest in the development of sales tools and processes to enhance our ISP business. While it is too early to have a full view of 2017 expenses for these efforts, given the likely rule delay, we will anticipate that 2017 costs will run a few million dollars less than the original $10 million estimate.

As a wrap up, let me say that we remain committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet and continue to demonstrate a strong capital position with Primerica Life Insurance Company statutory risked-based capital ratio estimated to be around 450% and holding company liquidity of $68 million at the end of 2016. As the business builds and we continue to take out ordinary dividends, we expect our RBC ratio will remain in excess of 400% in 2017.

With that, let me open the call up for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.

(Operator Instructions)

Ryan Krueger, KBW. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. First one for Allison. Term life margins have continued to trend up over the last few years. Do you think 19% to 20% is the right longer term range for that business? Or could you give a little bit more color there?

Sure. And one of the things I didn't talk about in this call that I did talk about last quarter, was some business that's coming up with end of term. And the change in a contract that we have in the IPO coinsurance. So there's a little bit of pressure in 2017 that will begin to emerge. And what I quoted last quarter was that the overarching improvement that we've seen in general early persistency, as well as mortality are more than offsetting that. Plus the growth in the book of business is making our expense ratio improve each and every quarter.

So I do think the 19% to 20% is a good annualized range. I will remind you, as you've seen in this quarter, that we do have seasonality. Especially in persistency. With the fourth quarter always of being a much weaker quarter than say the first or second. Actually the second is always our best quarter. So there's definitely seasonality in that ratio. But on an annualized basis, that number should be pretty good for the near term, yes.

Thanks. And then taking into consideration some of the tax items you mentioned for the first quarter. I know will be impacted by your stock price, but do you have a base case tax rate expectation for 2017 at this point?

You know, it's hard to say. Because we can't to determine what that one particular item will be until the awards vest. And we know what the stock price is that day. But putting aside that particular item, we would expect our tax rate to be very much in line with where we've been in 2016. So there's nothing other than that really happening unusually in our tax rate.

Okay. Great. Thanks a lot.

Dan Bergman, Citi. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning.

Good morning Dan.

Thanks. Even backing out the recruits added through the military member initiative you mentioned, recruiting levels are really strong in the fourth quarter. I just want to see if there was any additional color you can provide on what drove the momentum, and whether you expect it to continue ahead. And big picture, how should we think about the strength in terms of the mix between Company initiatives and things are doing to drive that versus a lift from the overall macro environment?

Yes. Thank you Dan it's a good question. And as always, at Primerica it seems there are a number of factors all working at the same time. We have had ongoing strength in our recruiting. And I think that's reflective of the ongoing improvements that we try to make in our business at every front. From the way we communicate our business opportunity to new recruits, to the technology and the messaging that we're able to deliver on that technology. And so I think we made improvements there, which have helped our recruiting gain strength.

I also think that our sales force, as I mentioned in my comments, and the Company are very much in the alignment. We're very much growth-focused. And doing the things that whether it's the messaging or our ongoing incentives that support a growth theme and a growth dynamic. And so I think it's a number of small things that are compounding over time.

Other than that military recruiting outreach. And we have always had a strong relationship with members of the military both active duty and veterans. We just chose to use the month of Veterans Day and Remembrance Day in Canada to do a special initiative. But that's really the only thing we have done that has that one-time unusual impact. The rest of it is incremental improvements that we're doing. And also, as you point out, I do think the environment is very positive, as I mentioned. I think the personal financial confidence on Main Street continues to be strong. And people believe, it appears to us, believe that will continue for some time. And so that's clearly an environmental positive that we're gaining benefit from at the same time as what we're doing here.

Got a very helpful. Maybe switching gears a little bit. Agent productivity in terms of life sales, I believe, was the high-end of historical levels. And generally it's been pretty strong recently. I just wanted to give a sense of what's been driving that and what you expect productivity to trend going forward? And is there any lift you're seeing in that metric from the strong recent recruiting levels?

Well I think all these things travel together. When the environment is positive, and our sales force is feeling very optimistic about the future, all of our numbers get better. The relationship between recruiting and sales, there is a relationship obviously. Because when we recruit, it expands the size of a distribution system. And also that gives us new warm markets to work in.

So there's that indirect relationship there. But at the same time I think it's the same types of things I described about recruiting. We look at the efficiency, both for us in our sales force of delivering products. We look at our sales messaging. Clearly, the middle market is more abandoned than ever.

There's a greater need in the middle market. So it's not only a positive environment, there are fewer and fewer competitors out there trying to meet those needs in our opinion. And so it gives us a huge opportunity. So again it's things that we're doing in here to deliberately take advantage of what is emerging. It's the environment outside that's positive right now. And those have worked together, along with the growing size of our sales force. Those things have worked together to increase productivity. And we're getting the double positive of an extremely large sales force, also operating at the top end of the productivity quorum.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Mark Hughes, SunTrust. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Mark.

Thank you good morning. You've got your convention coming up as I understand in June in Indianapolis. How much does that contribute to your upbeat view on recruiting? And is there any particular focus this time around? I know it's historically been a strong catalyst for new recruits. Are you shifting the emphasis this time? Or how should we think about it?

No, I think we would be very pleased if we could reproduce the impact of our convention in 2015. Of course, we're in our new location. Because of the termination of the old Dome in Atlanta and the incomplete new stadium in Atlanta. We've moved out of Atlanta to Indianapolis for this convention in 2017. We will be back in Atlanta in 2019.

But actually, the different location has provided a positive. There's excitement about being in a different place. It's more central to the geography of our business. So that gives us an opportunity to try to appeal to more people for larger attendance. But the event itself is one that we view as an opportunity, it's the one opportunity we have every two years to get the maximum number of people in one place at one time to communicate with everybody at the same time with the same message.

We're pretty good at communications. We leverage technology, and we communicate with a huge community about as well as anybody. But there's nothing like communicating with everyone live once all at the same time. So that's where we deliver our messages. As I mentioned, my theme for this year, our theme as a Company for this year is unfinished business. And the thinking behind that is let's not look back the last two years at the success we've had and be satisfied with that. There's still a tremendous amount of work left to do.

The need in the marketplace for our clients is bigger than it was two years ago. And so that has grown. The need for a great opportunity for people that have an entrepreneurial spark, that they want to fan into a flame is bigger than it's ever been. So we don't want to become complacent and satisfied. We want to continue the growth, and that's the messaging.

Of course there's no place to deliver a message like that like that event. So we're using the run-up to that event. We're about four months away. Excitement level is very high as it always is. And so we're using the anticipation of that event to build excitement going into Indianapolis. And then we'll use that event to raise excitement and optimism about the future to a new level. So I think it's going to be very much the same formula. And we hope with the same results we saw in 2015.

I think you had alluded to continuing strength in the ISP sales in Q1. Is there any benefit you're getting from maybe some turmoil around the DOL rule? I think that was one idea was that traditional brokers might abandon this kind of Main Street segment of the market. Is that helping? Or is it internal initiatives and a strong market that are doing it?

Yes I think it's too early to tell whether were picking up any of the abandoned marketplace. Whether it be clients or salespeople from other companies as they make changes that make sense for their business plans. I do think right now it's driven by our internal initiatives as well as the stronger markets in the fourth quarter.

As you know, we've experienced a little delay, often before our sales react to strong returns. But the returns have been positive. And every day I think we're gaining a little more certainty about the DOL rule. And then something else happens to make it a little less certain. But I do think we've traded negative certainty for positive uncertainty. So while I don't like the uncertainty, it's a positive direction and I think that helping us some. And I think by the way that is helping the whole industry as well.

Then finally, Allison, what did you say about the share buyback? What is the plan for investment for share buyback for this year?

What we've stated is $125 million to $150 million for 2017.

Yes. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thanks Mark.

(Operator Instructions)

Sean Dargan, Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Morning, Sean.

Good morning. Thanks.

I have a question about potential tax reform. I am wondering if you've done any internal analysis as to what the potential upside could be if the US corporate tax rate is cut to 15% or 20% or 25%?

Yes, Sean. We've done some preliminary work and as you well know, everything is extremely preliminary because there's nothing even on the table as of yet. But, a couple of points to highlight about some things that are out there. One, is we are largely domestic business. And so if the rate was to go to let's say 20%, we would very much feel the benefit of that. Although interestingly enough, then our business in Canada would actually be a higher tax regime for us than right now; it's currently obviously the lower tax regime.

So we would still have something above 20% as an effective tax rate because we have little bit of business outside the US. But, for the most part our business is domestic. So we would be positioned to take advantage of that, any kind of tax rate change pretty thoroughly.

Another thing to think about, is that we are actually in a deferred tax liability position. So, if in fact the rate was to change, we would be able to adjust down that liability or restate that liability to the new tax rate. So that is also something that would be advantageous to us.

There's a lot of talk up there about things like the dividends-received deduction. That's not a big deal for us. We don't have a lot of investments that take advantage of that. So that's one that we're pretty much indifferent on.

But again, it's too early to quantify anything. Because we don't know with the tax rate cuts on corporate side, what other changes they'd be looking to make, so that is the unknown. But my general take is, I think we would be well-positioned because we're so largely domestic business and again we have that deferred tax liability.

Okay. Thanks. And then I have one further question. Around the FTC guidance on multilevel marketing organizations. Just wondering if that's forced any changes? Or will require any changes to your business model?

Thanks Sean. Yes we're well aware of the FTC guidance as well as the Herbalife decision. But we want to make sure it's clear that we are compliant with the existing FTC rules and that settlement with Herbalife didn't change any of those rules. At the same time, the guidance and that decision smart businesses are looking and saying what do we get from that. What do we need to take away from that as far as directional change?

And so, as we frequently do, we go through our business looking at everything that we do to make sure we are well within regulation. And if we find any sharp edges we try to take those off. So we've been through a process to look at all of our communications and so forth and all of our systems. And make sure we feel like we're playing the between the hash marks rather than near the sideline. So that's the kind of approach we've taken.

You know, there's some uncertainty here as well with the new administration. As what's going to be the priorities of the FTC. You know it's a different type of agency from some of the other agencies that we've talked about in other calls. But clearly, we're keeping our finger on the pulse of that. We're being smart and looking at how we should interpret things in the marketplace, and yet there is probably some change ahead with the new administration. Even for the FTC's area of focus.

All right. Thank you.

Adam Klauber, William Blair. Please go ahead.

Thank you good morning. The registered reps growth has been pretty stable, around 4%, with the environment getting a little bit better. Is the pipeline building for that to get a little bit better?

Our IPS reps Adam? Is that what you're asking about?

Yes are the RSP reps. Yes.

Well again we actually have two subsets. Our ISP sales force is a subset of our life sales force. But even it's broken in two. Those that are Series 6 and 60 [3] licensed to sell mutual funds variable annuities and so forth; those are the Series 65 licensed to offer managed accounts. As I said in my prepared remarks, with the pending launch of the lifetime investment platform we're generating a lot of excitement, a lot of people gaining. We said 10% growth in that group that is getting Series 65 licensed.

And the feeder system of course for that is the group that's already Series 6 and 63, the mutual fund and variable annuity reps. Within the uncertainty in the marketplace in 2016, we tried to be very smart that we just didn't try to overwhelm all of that uncertainty just with a loud message. We did detect someone concern.

The uncertainty with the future of the regulations had people saying let me step back and wait and see what's going to happen. The tremendous success we're having in our life insurance business certainly provided them something to do while they were waiting and seeing. And so that was a benefit on that side. So we did have a pause.

We wanted to wait for a little clarification. And this year ramp up our messaging and also our systems to help people get licensed. So it's been fairly slow growth in the Series 6 and 63 side of our business. But now, as we start to see some of the clouds lift from a regulatory perspective as we gain some certainty, we expect to regain some momentum in that. And that salesforce should grow pretty much at the same rate as our life insurance sales force over the long term.

Great. Great. That's helpful. And then on sales of your variable. Fourth quarter was one of the better quarters of the year. And there was clouds over that business clearly. Are you seeing that momentum continue into 2017?

We had some rebound, as you noticed, in the fourth quarter on VA sales. But I think the future is very uncertain. I'm not sure I want to declare a trend just out of that rebound in the fourth quarter. I mean overall we were stronger.

We had a strong January as I mentioned. I was very pleased that the momentum continued into January. But it's still unclear where the product mix regarding VA goes from here. I think it's unclear for us. And I think it's unclear for the industry personally. So I wouldn't declare a trend there. It's a little too early to tell.

Okay. Thank you. And then I'm not sure Allison if you said this. You talked about the life margin. What about the ISP margin directionally, where should that going 2017?

Yes, that's a good question. I did not address that. And a lot of that will have to do with the expenditures we have associated with the Department of Labor rule. And so clearly, in 2016, our margins were a little suppressed by that. But I would say other than those expenses, there's nothing that we see that would dramatically change the margins, other than the things that we have already talked about. So our change in the fee structures et cetera. So it should be relatively stable.

That one is a little more sensitive to the expenses. Especially specific large spends on things like DOL. As well as it will be impacted to some degree, by product mix. Because we have certain products that are more sales-base focused. Versus others that earn more of their earnings over an asset base. So, for example the seg fund business in Canada has no upfront sales component of earnings. It's all asset-based. So, from period to period you see a little more volatility in ISP. But I think if you step back and look economically at what the margin or profitability of the business are, they are very stable.

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Mark Hughes, SunTrust. Please go ahead.

I'm sorry. My question has been answered. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen that concludes today's question-and-answer session. And thus concludes today's call. We thank you very much for attending the presentation. You may now disconnect your lines. Take care.