保德信金融集團 (PRU) 2009 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Prudential first-quarter 2009 earnings call. At this time, all participant lines are in a listen-only mode. Later, there will be an opportunity for your questions. Instructions will be given at that time. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. And for opening remarks, I would now like to turn the conference over to the head of Investor Relations, Eric Durant. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Leah. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. In a few minutes, we will begin with John Strangfeld's comments on the quarter and then Rich Carbone and Mark Grier will weigh in. After that, we will have at your questions.

In order to help you to understand Prudential Financial, we will make some forward-looking statements in the following presentation. It is possible that actual results may differ materially from the predictions we make today. Additional information regarding factors that could cause such a difference appears in the section titled Forward-Looking Statements and Non-GAAP Measures of our earnings press release for the first quarter of 2009, which can be found on our website at www.investor.prudential.com.

In addition, in managing our businesses, we use a non-GAAP measure we call adjusted operating income to measure the performance of our financial services businesses. Adjusted operating income excludes net investment gains and losses as adjusted and related charges and adjustments, as well as results from divested businesses. Adjusted operating income also excludes recorded changes in asset values that will ultimately accrue to contract holders and recorded changes in contract holder liabilities resulting from changes and related asset values.

The comparable GAAP presentation and the reconciliation between the two for the first quarter are set out in our earnings press release on our website. Additional historical information relating to the Company's financial performance is also located on our website. With that, here is John Strangfeld.

Thank you, Eric and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate your interest in Prudential. I would like to begin with some macro comments on business mix, performance and momentum. First-quarter results were decent, all things considered and our business fundamentals were strong, which bodes well for our future.

Our results reflect our diverse portfolio of businesses and their varying sensitivity to equity market conditions. Retirement, group life and international insurance each reported record first-quarter earnings. Asset management and annuities were heavily affected by unfavorable market conditions; yet both of these businesses rebounded from significant losses in the fourth quarter.

So while far less dramatic than in the fourth quarter, unfavorable market effects on our equity-sensitive businesses have somewhat overshadowed the fact that most of our non-equity-sensitive businesses have produced pretty darn good results. In fact, businesses representing nearly half of our normalized earnings actually produced record results.

It is not just the arithmetic mix of businesses that is important; it is also the quality of the businesses that make up the mix that give us confidence. Our businesses are good businesses. They help people manage risks and uncertainty and that is more relevant today than ever. They serve attractive markets and we are highly competitive in each of those markets.

A reflection of that is the fact that our business fundamentals, meaning underlying drivers, remain strong despite the environment. We achieved record sales results in retirement, strong sales in group, individual life and annuities and continued strong results in international insurance. We are by no means immuned to the challenges in the markets and of the economy, but we are holding up well and we believe, as evidenced by our drivers, gaining ground.

Considering first-quarter results, as well as financial market conditions, we are reducing our guidance for the year. We now believe that Prudential Financial will achieve common stock earnings per share for '09 in the range of $4.80 to $5.20 based on after-tax adjusted operating income of the financial services businesses. This expectation assumes average appreciation of 2% per quarter in the S&P index commencing with its close as of December 31, 2008. This is the same assumption for market appreciation as the one we made in February when we last updated our guidance.

On a bigger picture basis, our response to this challenging environment remains as we have previously described -- not to simply hunker down and ride this out, but to actively manage through it and use a lot of judgment. We do not perceive everything that is going on as a trend that will go on forever and as such, we want to manage the short term in a manner that does not undermine the long term.

And on the other hand, where we have thought appropriate, we have reduced the risk profile of certain products and activities in what we believe are very material ways that will reduce volatility in the future. The most notable example of this is our [Neweeze] product redesign, which we have discussed previously.

In these times, we recognize investors' interest and concerns with asset quality, capital and liquidity. As for asset quality, credit losses are significant, but within expectations and unrealized losses are essentially unchanged from year-end. We have positioned our portfolio defensively with risk limits in place to avoid undue concentrations and we remain comfortable with the overall risk profile.

Rich will walk you through the details on capital and liquidity in a few minutes. The headline is that we believe we have resources to maintain solid RBC and solvency margins for insurance companies even under stressed equity market and credit scenarios. We also believe we have ample liquidity to meet our commitments.

While I am discussing capital, I should have knowledge that there has been speculation once again about the possible availability of capital for insurance companies and market conditions in general have been improving. In this environment, we continually evaluate capital market and other financing alternatives and just as we have taken an opportunistic approach to acquisitions, we will opportunistically consider our access to capital as well and that is really all we have to say on the subject.

Bottom line, we are weathering the storm and we are doing it by tacking our way through it, not simply battening down the hatches. And behind the fog of market gyrations, we have strong businesses that are producing strong results. This bodes well for the inevitable time when that fog lifts and the environment improves. So with that, I would like now to turn it to Rich and Mark who will walk you through the details and then we welcome your questions. So Rich?

Thank you, John. As usual, I will begin with an overview of our first-quarter adjusted operating and net income and then I will discuss our capital and liquidity picture and Mark will deal with the investment portfolio. The references and descriptions I am about to make are for the financial services business or the FSB.

As you have seen from yesterday's release, we reported common stock earnings per share of $1.05 for the first quarter compared to $1.57 for the year-ago quarter based on adjusted operating income. The operating results of our business once again are affected by discrete items closely tied to the unfavorable financial market conditions, which I will go through now.

In our annuity business, we increased our reserves for guaranteed minimum death and income benefits resulting in a charge of about $0.39 per share and we increased amortization of deferred policy acquisition and other costs producing a charge of about $0.20 per share. The market decline in account values for the quarter, lower expected fees, higher expected benefit costs and unfavorable experience in the quarter were all responsible for these charges.

As you know, we no longer apply a corridor for market performance in the annuity business. So our updated reserves and amortization take into account the entire market decline and account values for the quarter as we project future fees and benefit costs. In addition, while we use a reversion to the mean approach in this projection that assumes some recovery in account values over a four-year look-back -- look-forward period, excuse me, the benefit to our calculations is limited because we apply a cap to the overall gross returns on our account values.

Our individual life insurance business also recorded increased net amortization of DAC and related costs of $0.06 per share as a result of market declines. The mechanics are similar to the annuity business. Going back to annuities, the valuation under GAAP of our embedded derivative liability, mainly for living benefits, requires us to recognize our own market-based nonperformance risk. This resulted in a partial offset to these charges. This benefit is reflected in the net hedge results.

Now this gets complicated, so let me explain this further. In the annuity business, we have consistently reflected the impact of hedging breakage within adjusted operating income. The hedging breakage represents the difference between changes in fair value of the embedded derivative liabilities to our living benefits and changes in value of the derivatives we use to hedge these liabilities or guarantees.

In setting the fair value for our embedded derivatives, we are required to consider our own nonperformance risk based on our current market measure in determining the interest rates to be used and discounting the projected cash flows associated with the estimated claims under the guarantee.

Prior to the first quarter of this year, we discounted these liabilities using forward LIBOR interest rates with a view that these rates captured market-based nonperformance risk consistent with our AA claims-paying rating at the time. During the quarter, we increased our discount rates by about 300 basis points across the various durations, producing current discount rates generally in the range of 5.5% to 6%. The impact of the higher discount rates on the expected claims was the main driver of the benefit from hedging breakage in our quarter's results. This amounted to about $0.47 per share in total.

Our retirement business had a similar benefit from using our current measure of nonperformance risk, which amounted to about $0.02 per share. In total, all the items I just mentioned had a net unfavorable impact of about $0.16 on our earnings for the first quarter.

In addition to the discrete items, the unfavorable market conditions also have had an impact on corporate and other results where we are maintaining a negative spread, to support a strong liquidity position and bolstering the capital of some of our regulated businesses by converting intercompany debt to equity in those subsidiaries.

Now, moving to our GAAP results. We reported a net loss attributable to Prudential Financial of $5 million for the first quarter compared to net income attributable to Prudential Financial of $68 million a quarter ago. Net income per common share was $0.01 for the current quarter versus $0.18 last year. Our current quarter GAAP pretax results include net realized investment losses of $666 million. The net realized loss of $666 million for the quarter include credit losses of $465 million on fixed maturities and impairments of $253 million for equities.

We adopted the new FASB accounting for other than temporary impairments as of January 1, 2009. Under this guidance, when there is an other than temporary decline in value for a fixed income security that we don't intend to sell and believe that we don't have to sell before recovery of book value, we separate the decline in value into two parts -- the credit loss and the remainder of the market decline. Only the credit loss remains in net income. The remaining decline in market value winds up as an unrealized loss and accumulated other comprehensive income.

The new guidance also requires us to restore our retained earnings for previously recognized after-tax losses that don't represent expected credit losses. This had the effect of adding $1.1 billion to our pretax gross unrealized losses at January 1, 2009 and about $700 million to retained earnings. The difference being the tax effect.

Now this is important. Had we applied the accounting rules, the old accounting rules, that is no change to opening retained earnings, we estimate that we would have had additional pretax investment losses for fixed income impairments of approximately $500 million.

The $465 million of credit losses to fixed maturities include about $40 million for sales of credit-impaired securities. $240 million of those fixed income credit losses were on subprime paper with the remainder primarily on corporate holdings in manufacturing and in the services sector. The $253 million of equity impairments came mainly from declines in value reaching 12 months in duration and relate primarily to Japanese equities and domestic mutual fund holdings invested in high-yield bonds where we apply our equity rules.

For equities, we record other than temporary impairments when there is a decline in value of 50% or more or for any decline in value that persists for 12 months. We also impair equities for declines in value if we don't expect to hold them to maturity.

Now, onto the capital and liquidity section. First, risk-based capital for Prudential Insurance. We began the year with a solid 452 at Prudential Insurance, so where do we stand now? That is at the end of the first quarter. If we were reporting RBC for Prudential Insurance at March 31, we believe it would be above 400. Keep in mind that this is hypothetical. We really don't do a bottoms-up calculation during the year.

So, since RBC is actually an annual calculation, one way to think about this is to project where we would stand at year-end 2009 given no change to the S&P 500 from its March 31 close of 798 and assuming our base case for credit losses and impairments, which amounts to 1.4% of the fixed income portfolio at Prudential Insurance and its insurance subsidiaries, or about $2 billion of credit losses for the full year, plus anticipated credit migrations for the remainder of the year.

Going the other way, or adding to surplus, we settled loans to domestic insurance companies during the first quarter, bolstering their capital position by about $300 million. I will assume and projecting forward under this scenario, we would continue to make use of available actions to maintain adequate capital at Prudential Insurance throughout the year.

Under this base scenario, that is a flat 800 S&P more or less, and $2 billion of credit losses in total, we believe that we would end the year with RBC at Prudential Insurance above 350. This includes no benefit we expect to realize in our investment in the Wachovia joint venture, which we believe would add over 100 points, including tax benefits to RBC when it is realized.

Our international insurance companies are also expected to report solvency margins above AA standards as of their fiscal year-end, which is March 31, 2009. As expected, we bolstered the capital of these companies with a capital contribution of roughly $400 million during the first quarter and that was split roughly $200 million each -- POJ and Gibraltar.

In evaluating our capital position, we have also taken a look at stress scenarios, several stress scenarios with the close of the S&P 500 at 700 and 600 at the end of the year under a scenario where the S&P 500 closes at 700 and where invested portfolio credit losses add impairments, increased from 1.4% in the base case to 2% of the fixed income bonds and mortgages of Prudential Insurance and subsidiaries over the full year or $2.8 billion when we believed that we would end the year with an RBC ratio at Prudential Insurance in excess of 350 points -- 350 after the use of actions that we believe would be available to us other than -- again, other than the expected gain on the Wachovia put.

So under a scenario where the S&P closes at 600, using the same assumptions regarding investment portfolio losses, that was that $2.8 billion, plus the additional impairments, we believe that we would end 2009 with an RBC ratio at Prudential Insurance above 300, again after the use of additional actions other than the expected gains on the Wachovia put.

In both stress scenarios, some of the potential actions have execution risk or have economic costs associated with them and this is possible that we would choose not to pursue in light of the expected gains on Wachovia.

To sum up, under these adverse scenarios for equity market levels and credit losses, we believe we can manage the capital position of our insurance companies to a high standard without giving effect to our expected gain on the Wachovia put.

I have one more stress case to talk about. In the more extreme environment in which the S&P goes to 600 at the end of 2009 and stays there through the end of 2010, credit losses are even higher and we have realized a gain on the Wachovia put -- remember now, this is 12/31/2010 -- we expect to be able to manage an RBC level that is at or above 300, which we consider to be acceptable in this somewhat extreme stress outcome. Of course, there is more uncertainty as we look further out.

Now despite recent actions of the rating agencies, we are currently continuing to manage our insurance companies to a capital level that we believe is consistent with the AA balance sheet strength. We continue to believe that it is ill-advised to quantify an enterprise measure of excess available capital. With the financial market conditions still not stabilized, credit markets still not functional and impairments and credit migration going forward somewhat of a wildcard, it would take a prophet, that is P-R-O-P-H-E-T, to tell us how much excess capital a company would need in these times or has in these times.

Our liquidity position remains ample. I would say sound. At the end of the first quarter, we have $4.7 billion of cash and short-term investments at the parent company balance sheet. When we look at the parent company cash position however, we net out any outstanding commercial paper and also take another very conservative measure and net out short-term intercompany borrowings. On that basis, we essentially have net cash on hand of $2.8 billion. Of the $3 billion convertible issued in 2007, $1.9 billion remains outstanding at the end of the first quarter. After repaying this in June, we will have $900 million in cash at the parent company, again excluding commercial paper and intercompany borrowings.

As of June of this year, we have no significant debt maturities or I should say, pardon me, after June of this year, we have no significant debt maturities at the parent company until 2011. Given the continued market instability, we have taken steps to reduce our exposure to short-term financial markets, including the planned runoff of commercial paper and a reduction in our securities lending program. And I will talk about those later on right now.

At the end of the first quarter, parent company commercial paper was about $700 million, down from $1.2 billion at year-end. Based on current short-term debt ratings, the parent company no longer qualifies for new borrowings under the Federal Government's commercial paper funding facility or CPFF. About half of the borrowings outstanding at year-end were under CPFF and were repaid in April.

Prudential Funding, the financial arm of Prudential Insurance, continues to qualify for new borrowings under CPFF of up to $9.8 billion based on current ratings. At the end of the first quarter, Prudential Funding commercial paper borrowings were reduced $1.8 billion from year-end to $2.6 billion. This includes $750 million under CPFF, which roughly corresponds to the amount of proceeds invested in cash equivalents as of year-end. Which if you think about it means we could wipe out the $750 million within a week or a day.

At March 31, the financial services business had $6 billion of outstandings under its securities lending programs, down from $7.5 billion at year-end. We have generally limited the program to liquid securities that are requested by counterparties rather than pushing out securities to the market. We estimate that, at the end of the first quarter, our domestic insurance companies had an additional $57 billion of assets eligible to the securities lending program with about $19 billion considered readily lendable, including $14 billion within the FSB.

Now, we have planned our cash flow for 2009 on the assumption that the dividend capacity from Prudential Insurance to the parent company would be constrained. That would be better said as nil. Excluding capital market's availability, the parent company has sources of cash from continued repayment of intercompany borrowings, supporting subsidiary activities that we can wind down, as well as returns of capital associated with these activities.

Now let me turn to the Federal Home Loan Bank. The membership of Prudential Insurance in the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, which commenced in June last year, provides additional liquidity. Under this program, Prudential Insurance can hedge up to 5% of its admitted assets, excluding separate accounts to collateralized borrowings.

As of March 31, our estimated borrowing capacity under this program considering statutory limits and holding the qualified securities of Prudential Insurance was $6.5 billion and outstanding borrowings of $4.5 billion, including $1.5 billion of short-term advances that we have repaid in April. So our current balance is $3.5 billion with the FHLB.

As a result of ratings actions during the quarter, new borrowings on the facility would be for an initial term of 90 days or less, but are subject to rollover at maturity. However, we believe that long-term borrowing may again be available to us in the very near future.

Lastly, before Mark comes on, we have about $4.3 billion of committed credit lines that may be accessed by the parent company, Prudential Insurance or Prudential Funding subject to satisfaction of customary terms. These agreements expire in 2011 through 2012. And now Mark will comment -- not Mac -- Mark. Mark will comment on the investment portfolio and review our business results for the quarter.

Thank you, Rich. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. I am going to start with some comments on the investment portfolio and then I will talk about the businesses.

As we've stated in the past, we manage our investment portfolio primarily with a focus on its cash flow prospects since our general account investments are mainly supporting long-term insurance liabilities. We continue to live with a substantial disconnect between the market values for many classes of investments and their underlying cash flow prospects. This has produced gross unrealized losses that we believe have little relevance to the ultimate economics we will realize as a long-term investor.

I would note here that our early adoption of new accounting guidance on mark-to-market of fixed income securities that we expect to hold to recovery did not have a significant impact on the values we are using and there has been no significant change in the portion of our holdings that we price based on models rather than market inputs as a result of this guidance.

With that said, let me start with the fixed maturity portfolio. Gross unrealized losses on fixed maturities in our general account stood at $11.2 billion at the end of the first quarter. We expect to hold these securities to recovery and the market-driven declines in value do not have a negative impact on our statutory capital position.

Gross unrealized losses are essentially unchanged from year-end. As Rich mentioned, our early adoption of new accounting guidance for impairments required us to restore previously taken impairments that don't represent credit losses back to book value. And this had the effect of increasing our gross unrealized losses by about $1 billion. This accounting change essentially offset credit spread tightening during the quarter.

Said another way, our gross unrealized losses would have come down by about $1 billion in the first quarter had we not implemented the new accounting guidance.

Roughly $2.6 billion of total gross unrealized losses at the end of the first quarter relate to subprime holdings, an increase of $850 million from year-end. The vast majority of this increase, roughly $670 million, comes from the restoration of previous noncredit impairments to book value. This restoration of book value more than offset roughly $300 million of paydowns during the quarter and the $240 million of impairments and credit-related losses on sales that Rich mentioned, leaving us with $5.5 billion of subprime holdings at the end of the first quarter based on amortized costs compared to $5.4 billion at year-end. Substantially all of our subprime holdings were priced as of the end of the quarter using third-party pricing services.

At March 31, the general account fixed maturity portfolio included $8.1 billion of commercial mortgage-backed securities and amortized costs. Over 94% of these holdings have AAA ratings. For commercial mortgage-backed securities, there are three distinct classes within the AAA category and super senior AAA securities with 30% subordination representing over 80% of our holdings stand at the top of the capital structure.

Our exposure to CDOs is limited. General account holdings at March 31 are about $500 million, the largest of which is our own CDO, with virtually no underlying subprime exposure in the CDO mix. We also have very limited exposure to hybrid securities, which amount to less than one half of 1% of the general account portfolio.

Based on amortized costs, non-investment-grade securities comprised about 8% of the $126 billion fixed maturity portfolio at the end of the quarter. This percentage is up slightly from year-end, mainly as a result of rating agency downgrades on a portion of our subprime holdings.

One last comment on the investment portfolio. We had $22 billion of general account commercial mortgage and other loan holdings as of the end of the quarter. We continue to feel that we are defensively positioned for the downcycle in commercial real estate with a seasoned and diversified portfolio of commercial mortgages that we originated with an emphasis on high underwriting standards.

At March 31, the average loan-to-value ratio for our commercial mortgage holdings is 60% and the average debt service coverage ratio is 1.9. Delinquencies continued to be insignificant at less than half a percent of the holdings.

Now, I will cover our business results for the quarter, starting with the United States businesses and beginning with annuities. Our annuity business reported adjusted operating income of $17 million for the first quarter compared to $115 million a year ago. Results for the current quarter include several discrete, largely market-driven items that Rich mentioned, with a net negative impact of $66 million.

Current quarter results include charges of $215 million to strengthen our reserves for guaranteed minimum death and income benefits, reflecting the equity market decline in the quarter, largely for our older products that don't contain the auto rebalancing feature we package with our current living benefits. This increase in reserves is based on our projection of where account values will be over time, starting with balances at the end of the quarter and limiting the assumed growth under reversion to mean to a 10.5% overall annual return.

In setting these reserves, we estimate the extent to which our guarantees will be in the money over time and apply a dynamic lapse assumption that considers the tendency of contract holders to keep their annuities in force when the guarantees are in the money since we expect more of the guarantees to turn into claims than if these customers lapsed at our average rates.

Current quarter results also include accelerated amortization of deferred policy acquisition and other costs amounting to $112 million, reflecting market performance. This charge is based on the same projection of where account values will be over time that drove our reserve strengthening.

Going the other way, the breakage between changes in the values of our living benefit guarantees and our hedging instruments resulted in a positive contribution of $261 million to current quarter results after related amortization of DAC. As Rich mentioned, this was mainly driven by our update of the market-based measure of our nonperformance risk.

All of the variable annuity living benefit features we offer today come packaged with an auto rebalancing feature where customer funds are reallocated to fixed income investments to support our guarantees in the event of market decline.

Given the popularity of these features over the past several years, driven by our highest daily benefits, nearly 60% of our account values with living benefits at March 31 are subject to auto rebalancing, limiting our exposure to escalating costs of hedging in the current market.

Charges in the year-ago quarter for accelerated amortization and reserve strengthening to reflect actual experience together with hedge breakage amounted to $32 million. Stripping all of these items out of the comparison, annuity results were down $64 million from a year ago, reflecting lower fees in the current quarter due to the market-driven declines in account values with spread income from funds rebalanced to the general account a partial offset.

Our gross variable annuity sales for the quarter were $2.1 billion compared to $2.8 billion a year ago. We feel that our gross sales have held up quite well in relation to the overall market and net sales for the quarter were $665 million.

The retirement segment reported adjusted operating income of $159 million for the current quarter compared to $124 million a year ago. As Rich mentioned, current quarter results benefited by $13 million from updating our market-based measure of nonperformance risk for retirement product guarantees that we account for as embedded derivatives.

Stripping that benefit out of the comparison, results for the retirement business were up $22 million from a year ago, primarily as a result of higher net investment spreads. These higher spreads reflected growth of our full-service stable value balances, credit and rate reductions and the maturity of a guaranteed investment contract dating back to before our demutualization that was generating a negative spread.

Current quarter full-service gross sales and deposits were $10.5 billion, bolstered by a $4.2 billion major case win. Our full-service persistency was over 95% and net flows were $6.3 billion for the quarter. Our stable value funds are especially attractive to plan participants in the recent market environment, growing more than $3 billion over the past year and reaching $36.6 billion at the end of the first quarter.

The asset management segment reported a loss of $1 million for the current quarter compared to adjusted operating income of $119 million a year ago. The contribution to results from performance-based fees was down roughly $70 million from a year ago when we benefited from a stronger commercial real estate market.

The results from proprietary investing activities were also less favorable than a year ago, mainly related to commercial real estate as well. In addition, asset management fees were below the year-ago level as market value declines more than offset the benefit of net inflows of third-party institutional funds of more than $8 billion over the past year.

Adjusted operating income from our individual life insurance business was $40 million for the current quarter compared to $96 million a year ago. Most of the negative swing in results came from the higher net amortization of deferred policy acquisition costs and other items, together with related costs driven by unfavorables separate account performance as Rich mentioned. We estimate that these market-driven costs had a negative impact of about $32 million in comparison to the year-ago quarter. The remainder of the decrease came from less favorable mortality experienced and from a lower level of fees driven by the market-driven decline in average separate account balances for our variable life business.

The group insurance business reported adjusted operating income of $93 million in the current quarter compared to $90 million a year ago. The results for the year-ago quarter benefited by $20 million from a cumulative adjustment of premiums on a large case. Stripping that out of the comparison, results are up by $23 million from a year ago, driven by more favorable claims experience on both group life and group disability.

Turning to our international businesses, within our International Insurance segment, Gibraltar Life's adjusted operating income was $131 million in the current quarter compared to $128 million a year ago. Current quarter results benefited from improved investment margins reflecting strategies we implemented, including increased US dollar investing, as well as continued growth of our book of US dollar fixed annuity business.

On the other hand, Gibraltar absorbed higher expenses than a year ago, including costs associated with the Japanese guarantee fund. Sales from Gibraltar Life, based on annualized premiums in constant dollars, were $105 million in the current quarter, up 9% from a year ago. The increase was driven by sales of our life insurance protection products in the bank channel, which were launched in that channel about a year ago and contributed $13 million to current quarter sales.

Our Life Planner business, the International Insurance operations other than Gibraltar Life, reported adjusted operating income of $294 million for the current quarter, up $9 million from a year ago. The increased tract continued business growth in Japan. However, during the quarter, we incurred costs related to consolidating and enhancing back offices, which will have a substantial and rapid payback. In addition, Japanese guarantee fund costs also partially offset the benefits of business growth.

Sales from our Life Planner operations, based on annualized premiums in constant dollars, were $224 million in the current quarter compared to $233 million a year ago. Sales in both Japan and Korea were negatively affected by market conditions and particularly during the early part of the quarter from continued concerns about American companies tracing back to well-publicized financial difficulties of one company late last year.

Foreign currency translation was not a major factor in the comparison of our International Insurance results due to our currency hedging programs. The International Investment segment reported adjusted operating income of $10 million for the current quarter compared to $26 million a year ago, reflecting a lower contribution from our asset management operations in Korea.

Corporate and other operations reported a loss of $166 million for the current quarter compared to a $51 million loss a year ago. As Rich mentioned, corporate and other results are bearing the costs of our conservative management of liquidity in the current environment, as well as our bolstering of capital of some of our regulated entities as required.

Mainly as a result of our management of liquidity and capital, interest expense net of investment income had a negative impact of roughly $100 million in the comparison of corporate and other results to a year ago. A $7 million gain in the current quarter on the early redemption of about $245 million of our 2007 convertible debt issue was a partial offset to our net financing costs.

In addition, our real estate and relocation business reported a $63 million loss in the current quarter compared to a $23 million loss a year ago, reflecting continued unfavorable residential real estate market conditions.

Briefly on the Closed Block business, the results of the Closed Block business are associated with our Class B stock. The Closed Block business reported net income of $19 million for the current quarter compared to a net loss of $8 million a year ago. Current quarter results reflect a decrease to the policyholder dividend scale for 2009. We measure results for the Closed Block business only based on GAAP.

To sum up, reported results for our US businesses and market values in our investment portfolio continue to be negatively affected by the difficult financial markets. Our reported results are also bearing the cost of conservative liquidity management and actions we have taken to bolster the capital of our insurance companies as needed.

Our business models are sound and we reported solid sales and net flows both domestically and internationally with value propositions that are highly attractive to clients who are focused more than ever on financial security and piece of mind. We have positioned our investment portfolio defensively and we remain comfortable with its risk profile.

Finally, we have ample liquidity to fulfill our commitment and we continue to feel confident that we have the financial flexibility and capital resources to successfully manage through the current environment while enhancing our competitive position. Thank you for your interest in Prudential and now we look forward to hearing your questions.

(Operator Instructions). Suneet Kamath, Sanford Bernstein.

Good morning. Thanks. Just two questions related to the unusual items in the quarter. On the discount rate related to the market-based nonperformance risk, the question is why did you make that change now? Was that something that the auditors required you to do or is that your call? And are we going to be truing this up now every quarter through the operating earnings line?

And then the second question related to the variable annuity reserve strengthening, did I hear you right saying that what the reserve now contemplates is 10.5% market appreciation per year going forward, so if we miss that bogey, we may need to build more reserves ahead? Thanks.

Suneet, it's Rich. No, the auditors didn't ask us to do this. This is GAAP. We have to reflect our own credit standings in the calculation of reserve that we apply FAS 157 to, which is mark-to-market. So if we have a liability, we must reflect our own credit rating. It changed during the quarter from year-end. We merely used the updated data.

As far as the other question goes, we have a mean reversion assumption when we calculate our reserves. Implicit in that mean reserve assumption is a 10.5% forward return assumption. And if we don't achieve that in any given quarter, there will be unlockings to both DAC and the GMDB reserve.

And I'm sorry. You also asked if we could expect updates to the 133 reserve as a result of nonperformance risk and the answer to that question is yes going both ways. And obviously as our spreads come in and our credit standing improves, it will result in a reversal of that roughly $240 million gain in the mark, I should say, in the first quarter and that will unwind itself as a charge through the P&L in the future.

Peter has something to add.

This is Peter Sayre. Suneet, on the mean reversion, after the four-year period, it's at $0.105. The long-term assumption is lower than that beyond the four years, which is 8%.

Okay, thanks.

John Nadel, Sterne, Agee.

Hi, good morning. Thank you. John, I was interested in your comments about over half of the normalized earnings -- over half of the normalized earnings of the businesses were generating sort of record results this quarter. And it got me to thinking about your longer-term ROE. And obviously there is a lot of market dynamics in effect here, but I guess the way I would ask the question is, as you look at the businesses that are actually underperforming, has there been anything that you would characterize as you have reviewed those businesses as sort of permanent return reduction in terms of the potential returns for those businesses i.e., annuities or asset management as you look out? And if so, what kind of overall impact do you think that has on your franchise ROE objectives?

John, hi. I think the one area where that might have some application is in terms of the annuity ROE, particularly on the old block of business as opposed to on our new block of business. But there you would have -- there that force could be at work.

Okay. And any way of sort of thinking about the quantification of that? I suppose the older business will over time just be muted further by new business growth, correct?

Yes, and then we are in the process -- and maybe Bernard could speak specifically as to let us give you a current view on what that mix shift is in terms of the mix of the old versus the new.

John, it's Bernard Winograd. I think the sales at this point are 100% in the new product and the auto rebalancing product, which has a very different characteristic. So I think if you are trying to understand it, it is reasonably easy to extrapolate just by estimating what the impact of our sales are.

The difficult thing to extrapolate is what is the persistency going to be of the old block that has the depressed ROE. And the answer is highly dependent upon the level of the stock market. As long as people's guarantees are substantially in the money, we are expecting persistency there to be quite high.

Got you. Okay, thank you. And then the last thing I would ask is just as you look at the performance, especially of the credit markets since the end of the quarter, you know, obviously April was a very good month and it seems to be continuing through at least the early parts of May.

Any estimate you can give us on the impact that that might be having on your unrealized loss position relative to March 31?

This is Mark. We don't comment on our interim financial numbers, but I think our moves would be consistent with the improvement in the market.

Okay, thank you.

Nigel Dally, Morgan Stanley.

Great, thank you and good morning. First for Rich on the RBC ratio. How would the scenarios that you laid out change if we use the current level of the S&P of around 900? It would just be useful if we could isolate the impact of the equity markets on how those ratios change.

Second, also hoping to get an update on the Wachovia put option. Given your solid liquidity capital, is an early exit from the Wachovia put still on the table? Also, is the final value being determined? If not, why not?

Last, given the need for Wells to raise capital under the stress test, should we still expect that you will be paid in cash or is equity now looking more likely? Thanks.

I think Mark will take the put question first, Nigel.

Yes, the headline over the put would be that we have no reason to expect that this won't play out as specified by the contract and as we have been telling you. I would add that as we have said before, we would have an open mind about discussions. So anything that anyone wants to talk about, we are willing to discuss, but our plan right now is reflected in the stress scenarios that Rich talked about, is that this will play out according to the contract.

Wells will have the choice about cash or stock, and I can't speak to their capital plans or capital needs or intentions in that regard.

Finally, with respect to the final value, as you know we will go through a process that includes the appropriate appraisals and arrive at that on a calendar that will have that happening sometime this summer in anticipation of settling in January.

On the S&P sensitivity, there are so many moving parts. So if I gave you a simple rule of thumb, and it is not linear, which is the other problem, but an S&P move of 100 points translates to more or less 50 points in RBC ceteris paribus.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you.

Let me just overlay one thing, which is to remind you that when we present our scenarios, we include the actions that we will take to achieve RBC objectives. So when Rich puts that number out, that is an unmanaged impact and we have substantial resources, as you heard reflected in the RBC numbers that he talked about that even in extreme scenarios, to ensure that we can manage to RBC targets that make sense.

I understand. Great. Thank you.

Tom Gallagher, Credit Suisse.

Hi, I guess just on that last comment, a follow-up first and then I had a few other questions. But Rich, when you talk about the options available to you to bolster statutory capital under the stress tests, can you I guess articulate what those are and try and give some kind of quantification of those?

Yes, I will tell you what they are and quantification ebbs and flows, but let me give you some of the bigger ones. Okay, the first one, and we have talked about this before was PICA owes the holding company $3.5 billion as of year-end in medium-term notes. We are repatriating or we are settling those loans between the holding company and PICA and either downstreaming that back to PICA as capital or as PICA sends it back up, because PICA is a regulated entity of the holding company, it has to be done at arm's length. PICA is actually recording an intercompany gain, which has the same effect to surplus as to whether they paid me the full amount and then I gave it back to them or they booked a gain down below. So that bolsters their surplus that way and that train has left the station. We are running that through the rest of the year and by year-end, we will have settled between PICA and the holding Company that entire $3.5 billion.

Another item is we are moving our hedge positions for the FAS 133, the guarantees under our annuities, back under PICA from an offshore sub and that bolsters the capital within PICA because of the interplay between the liability, the mark-to-market on the liability and the mark-to-market on the hedged asset.

We also have -- we really don't use reinsurance a lot and so we have some reinsurance alternatives that are out there and we have some excess collateral in certain subsidiaries that are behind our XXX financings and those are represented by surplus notes between the parent company and the subs and the subs can pay back those surplus notes. And as we move down -- as we move down the plane from 800 to 700 to 600, we would trigger each one of these things along the way.

Okay, that's helpful. And if we kind of roll all those up, are we talking about a $5 billion potential contribution to surplus? Is it anything in that ballpark?

Let's see. No, I don't think it is $5 billion. I don't think it is $5 billion. Let me think. Now wait a minute now, with the hedge notes, with the hedge notes, it could be. It could be $4 billion to $5 billion with the hedge notes, with the hedge notes. With the retail notes and the hedges, yes.

Okay. Yes, that certainly would explain why you have substantial buffer in those sort of scenarios you laid out. That is helpful. The other questions I had were -- just on the holding company cash position, that seemed to have gotten a lot better just overall, if you think about it from a coverage standpoint. Just want to know what is behind the scenes. Why are you now holding cash that is essentially two times the amount of short-term debt if we include the converts that are due as opposed to last quarter, it was about one times? And also what was the source of that cash available there?

Sure. Cash is real simple. It is the retail notes. They are paying off the medium-term notes throughout the year and why are we holding it? Because it's a regulated entity. As they pay it back up to us, it is going to sit at the holding company, so we have a cash cushion that takes us through well into 2010. I am actually targeting a cash cushion that will take us well into 2011.

Got it. Thank you.

Jeff Schuman, KBW.

Thank you. Good morning. I was hoping to reconcile a few things. Mark and Rich and John all made some comments about capital. I think Mark closed by expressing comfort with the capital position. Rich has just told us at current market levels that the RBC is probably 450-ish and that sort of downside market scenarios are manageable. And yet, John, I thought in your opening remarks you made a comment about opportunistically considering access to capital. I'm wondering if you could sort of clarify what you meant by that?

I guess a couple different things. I think we view this as being a time where there is lots of opportunities in terms of organically growing our business, and there could be other opportunities as well. And what we recognize is that there could be circumstances under which, just as we are being opportunistic in opportunities we pursue, there may be opportunities with regard to financing alternatives as well and we are just simply acknowledging that in this environment. There is not much more to say.

Okay. So I should think of it maybe possibly in more of an offensive context rather than a defensive context necessarily?

Yes, it's balanced. That is a balanced way to think about it.

Okay and one other clarification. I thought I understood Mark to say that the appraisal related to the put was still in front of us, but I thought that there had been historic appraisals that were long since done that were locked away to be examined on the contingency that you exercise the Wachovia put. So have I misunderstood that? Were there no historical appraisals done?

Yes, either I misspoke or you got a little bit confused, probably I misspoke. We have said repeatedly that we had appraisals done last spring based on 1/1/08 for this entity. So there are appraisals that are out there have been done and our process will work through those as we go through the formalities.

So have you --?

Yes, you are right.

So have you seen those appraisal outcomes or not?

No, we haven't.

When will you see them because I would've thought when you exercised the put that everyone would have a look? Is that not the case?

We haven't exercised the put yet. We have declared our intention to exercise the put, but the legal process will begin by June. We are still a little bit ahead of the legal process. So when we do exercise the put with a formal notice, then we will see those and we will tell everybody what the answer is.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.

But you are right. There are appraisals that have been done based on 1/1/08.

Great, thank you.

Ed Spehar, Bank of America.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Okay, thanks. Rich, I was wondering if we could get maybe just a little bit more on these other actions and specifically when you talk about settling the medium-term notes, should we be thinking about somehow like at 80% of par or something in that neighborhood? Is that the -- or is it more than that? Is it more than that --?

You could think about it that way, but I tried to make the point before, probably not very clear, it doesn't matter. They owe the holding company $3.5 billion. They can pay the holding company $3.5 billion. They have the wherewithal to do that. The holding company would downstream roughly $1 billion down to PICA to support PICA's capital in some of the stress scenarios. But because it is an intercompany -- because it is an intercompany transaction that requires an arm length's pricing, we have to settle those notes, and I am going to go the whole nine yards here, at $2.5 billion. So PICA pays the holding company $2.5 billion, a books and intercompany gain of $1 billion, all gets eliminated in consolidation, but that $1 billion sits in surplus of PICA. Can get there two ways. I could give it back to them or they could book it on the sale.

Okay, but that is roughly the number is $1 billion?

Yes. Not today. Ed, not today, when we are all done with the $3.5 billion.

Right, right. Okay. And the next question is that you gave us these various impacts and I am assuming that is the biggest one of the other actions, is that correct?

Yes.

Okay. But now when we move to this issue of hedges, moving the hedges back to -- moving them under PICA from the offshore sub, how much of the hedge gain that you have there in this offshore sub is really kind of an economic -- what you would consider an economic gain versus just the mismatch in timing of asset and liability valuations under stat?

Ed, this is Mark. I would consider most of that gain to be economic. We've overhedged the volatility in these living benefits. So a lot of the valuation of that hedge asset reflects high volatility that is not really a direct benefit to the liability holders. So I think of it as more economic than accounting.

Okay. But then that leads to the next question, which is we have obviously had very high, extraordinarily high implied vols for long-dated options. And so to the extent that those come in even a little -- I mean I am sure they have some already -- but how much -- how sensitive is that sort of -- that surplus in terms of the fluctuation in implied vols?

I can't give you a number, Ed, but it is very sensitive. The implied vols on that embedded derivative liability will -- and they have blown out, which is really what has put this thing where it is, when they come back down, the liability will reduce accordingly.

We've done some things to mitigate the potential impact of falling volatility on that statutory gain.

Okay. So I mean I guess the assumption is that if we get back down to those low levels that volatility is going to be high, right?

Oh, you mean -- now I see what you are saying. Yes, I think it is likely that, if the S&P goes to 650, we will be back in an environment of very high volatility.

Oh, I'm sorry, Ed. Is that what you mean?

No, no, no. That is a different -- I kind of snuck in a different question there.

Yes, I think -- there seems to be a pretty strong correlation between the massacre scenario in the market and the implied volatility in these long-dated options.

All right and can you just give us some sense of the dollar amount of the benefit you would get now if you moved the offshore underneath of PICA.

It's in the order of magnitude of $1 billion.

Okay. And then finally, I am assuming the RBC scenarios that you talk about take into account the hit to the equity portfolio in the Closed Block as well.

Yes, they do.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Eric Berg, Barclays Capital.

(technical difficulty).

Eric, we can't hear you. Hello? Hello, Eric? Did our meter run out?

He must be on a cell phone. We must have lost him. His line is still open.

Hello, Eric? Well, I think, given that we have seem to have lost Eric, it is time for us to wish you all a good day. So thank you for your interest in Prudential and we look forward to seeing you in the near future or listening to your questions three months from now. Thank you again.

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