F&G Annuities & Life Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 21, 2025

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to F and G's Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty four Earnings Call. During today's presentation, all callers will be placed in a listen only mode. And following management's prepared remarks, the conference will be open for questions with instructions to follow at that time. I would now like to turn the call over to Lisa Fakwarsi Parker, Senior Vice President, Investors and External Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, operator, and welcome again, everyone, to our call. I'm joined today by Chris Blunt, Chief Executive Officer and Wendy Young, Chief Financial Officer. We look forward to addressing your questions following our prepared remarks. Today's earnings call may include forward looking statements and projections under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which do not guarantee future events or performance. We do not undertake any duty to revise or update such statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or changes in strategy.

Speaker 1

Please refer to our most recent quarterly and annual reports and other SEC filings for details on important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. This morning's discussion also includes non GAAP measures, which management believes are relevant in assessing the financial performance of the business. Non GAAP measures have been reconciled to GAAP where required and in accordance with SEC rules within our earnings materials available on the company's investor website. Please note that today's call is being recorded and will be available for webcast replay. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Chris Blunt.

Speaker 2

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and full year results. Our fourth quarter results rounded out an exceptionally strong year, both in terms of results and execution. I'd like to start by recognizing our employees for their hard work and achievements over the last year. It is through their efforts that we have achieved record sales growth, record AUM and record adjusted net earnings excluding significant items, while also continuing to diversify our earnings and expand our margin beyond spread based sources.

Speaker 2

All the while maintaining a strong balance sheet and returning capital to shareholders through our common and preferred dividends. In short, twenty twenty four's outperformance had many accomplishments worth highlighting. Starting with sales, F and G reported record gross sales of $15,300,000,000 for the full year 2024, a 16% increase over the full year 2023. This included $3,500,000,000 of gross sales in the fourth quarter. Record retail channel sales were $12,000,000,000 for the full year, a 20% increase over the full year 2023, driven by continued strong demand for individual annuity and life solutions.

Speaker 2

This included $2,500,000,000 of retail gross sales in the fourth quarter. From a retail channel perspective, we achieved record FIA, record MYGA and record IUL gross sales for the year, while maintaining targeted service levels despite higher volumes. Our distribution

Speaker 3

relationships are strong and we

Speaker 2

saw annual growth across all three retail Notably, we Notably, we've gained entry into a new market with our Ryla registered product launch in 2024. We have onboarded seven partners and our product is being well received, although admittedly it's taken longer to get onto platforms as this is our first registered product. Ryla is a fast growing market in the industry and we're just getting started. As we steadily expand on the broker dealer channel, we continue to see the potential for Ryla annual sales to be in the billions over the medium term. Robust institutional market sales were $3,300,000,000 for the full year comprised of $2,300,000,000 of pension risk transfer and $1,000,000,000 in funding agreements.

Speaker 2

Record pension risk transfer sales of nearly $2,300,000,000 for the full year reflect a 15% increase over the full year 2023. This included a robust $1,000,000,000 of PRT sales in the fourth quarter. Our growing PRT in force block has now crossed the $6,500,000,000 milestone and we serve more than 100,000 participants from a variety of plant types and industries. We continue to compete well in our targeted 100,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 deal size. We have also added new market segments with our ability to strategically move more upmarket or downmarket as opportunities arise.

Speaker 2

And we have selectively broadened our opportunities through additional PRT consultants. To date, we've not seen any meaningful impact from industry lawsuits, although it is something that we continue to monitor. We have a lot of places to deploy capital and at this time see continued strength in the PRT market with a healthy pipeline of $3,800,000,000,000 of U. S. Corporate pension plans at or near full funding.

Speaker 2

Funding agreements were $1,000,000,000 for the full year as compared to $1,200,000,000 in the full year 2023. There were no funding agreements in the fourth quarter. We view these sales as opportunistic and volumes vary quarter to quarter depending on market conditions. From a funding agreement perspective, in the second quarter, we successfully returned to the FABN market for the first time in two years, given favorable market conditions with a $600,000,000 issuance. At year end, we had approximately $2,500,000,000 of funding agreement back notes outstanding in aggregate under our $5,000,000,000 shelf registration.

Speaker 2

In addition, funding agreements include $400,000,000 of FHLB activity for the full year 2024. Overall, this year demonstrates the strength of our multi channel distribution platform. This year has also been a good example of how we consistently manage sales to achieve targeted returns, which can result in quarterly fluctuations. In the fourth quarter, we made the decision to allocate capital to the highest returning business, specifically indexed annuity and pension risk transfer sales, which resulted in a reduction in MYGA sales and funding agreements. F and G's net sales retained were $10,600,000,000 for the full year 2024, a 15% increase over the full year 2023.

Speaker 2

This included $2,500,000,000 of net sales in the fourth quarter. We have profitably grown assets under management before flow and reinsurance to a record $65,300,000,000 at the end of the quarter, an increase of 17% over the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. This included record retained assets under management of $53,800,000,000 a 10 increase over the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. AUM growth was driven by net new business flows and net debt and equity proceeds over the last twelve months. As a quick update on our investment portfolio, since 2020, we have selectively repositioned $2,700,000,000 of assets to optimize, de risk and position the portfolio to perform in varying market conditions while also improving its credit quality.

Speaker 2

At year end, the retained portfolio is high quality with 97% of of fixed maturities being investment grade. We continue to hold very little office exposure at 1.7% of our total portfolio. Credit related impairments remain low and stable, averaging seven basis points over the last three years and six basis points over the past five years, well below our pricing assumption. We have also hedged two thirds of our floating rate assets, which are now only 6% of our total portfolio net of hedging. Our fixed income yield was 4.59% in the fourth quarter, '13 basis points higher than the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three, benefiting from higher yields on new investments.

Speaker 2

On a sequential basis, our fixed income yield decreased seven basis points from the third quarter, primarily due to higher cash balances and the runoff of some higher yielding in force assets. We expect this to rebound in 2025 as we fully deploy cash, refine our strategic asset allocation between public and private assets and align our pricing actions in response to the macro environment, helping to mitigate the impact of spread compression. Also, we have refreshed our annual portfolio stress test, which is conservative and assumes no management action. Once again, the stress test has confirmed that our portfolio is well positioned to withstand a sharp downturn in the economy. We see F and G's winter twenty twenty four investor presentation for further details.

Speaker 2

Beyond sales and AUM growth, we continue to diversify our earnings beyond spread based sources, driving margin expansion. Adjusted ROA excluding significant items was 127 basis points for the year, up 10 basis points over the 117 basis points achieved in the full year 2023. Wendy will provide further details in a few minutes. In aggregate, we've invested $680,000,000 in strategic owned distribution companies through two majority stakes taken in 2024 and two minority stakes purchased in 2023. Our strategic owned distribution portfolio is performing well.

Speaker 2

We generated EBITDA of $65,000,000 in 2024 and estimate annualized EBITDA of approximately $90,000,000 in 2025 with double digit annual growth expected over the medium term. One final area to highlight centers on our balance sheet strength and capital allocation. We were well prepared to drive growth and capture the market opportunity in 2024, while returning $125,000,000 of capital to shareholders through common and preferred dividends. Additionally, our commitment to strong ratings and achieving ratings upgrades over time was recognized through our AM Best Financial Strength Rating upgrade to A or excellent in early twenty twenty four and our Moody's long term issuer rating upgrade in mid-twenty twenty four. Overall, our strong performance has generated significant ROE expansion.

Speaker 2

We've expanded adjusted return on equity excluding AOCI and significant items over the last year from 10% to over 12% as we advance toward our targeted range of 13% to 14%. I'm very proud of our accomplishments and confident that F and G will continue to generate shareholder value through continued execution of our strategic priorities. Critical to our execution is ensuring that we have the people in place to effectively manage our rapid growth. As a result, we are evolving our organizational structure to ensure that we continue to maximize the many opportunities that I see ahead of us over both the medium and longer term. As we announced last evening, Wendy Young has been appointed Chief Liability Officer effective April 1.

Speaker 2

This is a new role at F and G and reflects the importance of reinsurance to our go forward strategy and the increasing complexity of our business. In her new role, Wendy will lead all aspects of the company's liability management, reinsurance activities in our offshore entities. I am grateful that Wendy has agreed to lead this effort given its importance to our long term success. Wendy's deep knowledge of F and G as well as her prior work as CEO of our Bermuda business makes her the ideal executive to assume this role. I am also very grateful for her partnership and leadership as our CFO over the last three years as she has been instrumental to our success.

Speaker 2

I am also very excited to welcome Connor Murphy to F and G as our next CFO. Connor brings extensive industry experience having held a variety of executive roles at industry leading insurance companies. Most recently, Connor was the President and CEO of Resolution Life US. Prior to that, he was the Chief Operating Officer of Bright House Financial when it was spun off by MetLife. Connor also held CFO roles for MetLife's European and Latin American businesses during his seventeen year tenure at Met.

Speaker 2

Connor's experience is a perfect match for our newly defined CFO role, which will oversee our financial management and help to guide the optimization of our business and strategic capital allocation as we continue to scale. Connor will start on April 1, and I'd like to officially welcome him to F and G. As you can see, these are two very important roles that require two uniquely qualified executives. I look forward to partnering with both Wendy and Connor as they step into these positions, and I'm thankful to have such an accomplished team as we continue to build an industry leading business. Let me now turn the call over to Wendy to provide further details fourth quarter financial highlights.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Chris. As Chris highlighted, I will be assuming the newly created role of Chief Liability Officer on April 1, and I am thrilled to take on this new opportunity. This role will allow me to focus on leading management of our liabilities as well as our reinsurance strategy and our offshore entities, which are becoming increasingly integral to our growth strategy and long term success. I would like to personally thank Chris for this new opportunity given that it is terrific match with much of the work and experience that I have had over the past twenty five years here at F and G. I look forward to continuing to support F and G's growth and success and getting started in my new role this spring.

Speaker 4

I'm also looking forward to working closely with Connor and helping him to successfully transition into F and G. Turning to our results, our operating performance continues to be strong. This morning, I'll focus my comments on adjusted net earnings and ROA as well as our strong capital and liquidity position. Starting with earnings, for the fourth quarter, excluding significant items, adjusted net earnings were $153,000,000 up 17% over $131,000,000 in fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. This excludes alternative investment returns below our long term expectations by $32,000,000 and significant income items of $22,000,000 For the full year 2024, excluding significant items, adjusted net earnings were $657,000,000 up 22% over $539,000,000 in the full year 2023.

Speaker 4

This excludes alternative investment returns below our long term expectations by $145,000,000 and significant income items of $34,000,000 This strong performance reflects asset growth, margin diversification from accretive low reinsurance and owned distribution, disciplined expense management and higher interest expense as a result of planned capital markets activity. Notably, we are benefiting from increased scale as our ratio of operating expense to AUM before flow reinsurance decreased to 60 basis points at year end 2024 from 63 basis points at year end 2023. As expected, our variable expenses grew in line with our in force book and gross sales, while we held our fixed expense growth to a single digit rate. Adjusted ROA excluding significant items was 127 basis points in 2024, which reflects an increase of 10 basis points over 2023. As compared to prior year, retained ROA was stable at 102 basis points, low reinsurance fee income increased from 13 to 16 basis points and owned distribution margin expanded from two to nine basis points.

Speaker 4

From a sequential perspective, excluding significant items, adjusted ROA of 127 basis points was right in line with the trailing twelve month trend that we highlighted in Q2 and Q3 to help smooth lumpiness and surrender fee income that occurred in those time periods. As I mentioned last quarter, our actuarial assumptions continue to reflect elevated surrenders of the short term. Over time, surrenders are expected to normalize as rates become less volatile. Elevated terminations provide a boost to earnings from higher surrender charge fees when they occur. Beyond that initial benefit, terminations can temporarily pressure near term spreads.

Speaker 4

Long term terminations provide benefits through freed up capital, which can be deployed to new business with renewed surrender charges and longer surrender periods. This should further improve the liability profile, resulting in stickier enforced liabilities that generate significant margins over time. As Chris mentioned, adjusted return on equity excluding AOCI and significant items was 12% in the fourth quarter as compared to approximately 10% in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. Now turning to our balance sheet. We ended the year with a GAAP book value attributable to common shareholders excluding AOCI of $5,600,000,000 or $44.28 per share at 12/31/2024, an increase of 10% as compared to $40.42 at 12/31/2023.

Speaker 4

Our consolidated debt outstanding was $2,200,000,000 at December 31. F and G has successfully completed the following recent capital markets activity as expected. In October 2024, F and G issued $500,000,000 of senior notes with net proceeds used to fully pay down its $365,000,000 revolver balance and the remainder to be used for general corporate purposes. In January of twenty twenty five, F and G issued $375,000,000 of junior subordinated notes with net proceeds to be used for general corporate purposes, including the repayment of debt. In early February of twenty twenty five, F and G fully redeemed its $300,000,000 of outstanding senior notes due in May of twenty twenty five at par.

Speaker 4

On a pro form a basis, our annualized interest expense is approximately $165,000,000 or roughly a 7% blended yield on the $2,300,000,000 of total debt outstanding. We continue to target holding company cash and invested assets at two times interest coverage. We also remain committed to our long term target of approximately 25% debt to capitalization, excluding AOCI and expect that our balance sheet will naturally delever as shareholders' equity excluding AOCI grows. Now moving on to our strong statutory capital position. As expected, we ended the year with an estimated company action level risk based capital or RBC ratio of over 410% for our primary operating subsidiary, providing a buffer above our 400% target.

Speaker 4

Importantly, F and G maintained strong capitalization and financial flexibility across all of our statutory balance sheets, including our offshore entities, which are conservatively managed to the most stringent capital requirements of our regulators and for rating agencies. Let me now turn the call over to Chris to wrap up.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Wendy. Over the last eighteen months, our business has benefited from favorable market conditions and secular demand for our products that is poised to continue. We have made strong progress toward the medium term financial targets that we laid out at our twenty twenty three Investor Day. Growing AUM by 50%, expanding adjusted ROA excluding significant items to 133 basis points to 155 basis points, increasing adjusted ROE excluding AOCI and significant items to 13% to 14% and expanding our PE multiple. We have executed well over the past twelve months and in the case of adjusted ROA are already closing in on the lower end of the range.

Speaker 2

Of course, we're excited to continue to progress toward our Investor Day targets. And from here, we expect that our pace will be a little more moderate given the strong success that we have achieved so quickly. We remain focused on continuing to deliver long term shareholder value by driving sustainable asset growth from our retail and pension risk transfer growth strategies, generating ROA expansion from enhanced investment margin, scale benefits and fee based earnings from accretive flow reinsurance and diversifying earnings through strong growth in our middle market life insurance business and owned distribution strategies. As you can tell, I could not be more excited with the opportunities that we have in front of us as we enter 2025. This concludes our prepared remarks.

Speaker 2

Let me now turn the call back to our operator for questions.

Operator

Thank Our first question is from John Barnidge with Piper Sandler. Please proceed.

Speaker 5

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. Can you talk about the evolving organizational structure at the company and what that growth opportunity means? And I know Bermuda could be an opportunity. So love to hear more about the changing organizational structure.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes, happy to. Good morning, John. So this is Chris. Yes, I think it's pretty simple just as our business has continued to grow. You've seen the stats, we've quintupled sales, we've gone into multiple new distribution channels, but we're also driving real value and real accretion through some of the flow reinsurance arrangements and other arrangements that we have.

Speaker 2

So, yes, we just sort of determined that the opportunities were big enough and the levers to drive margin and value big enough that it was time to do a little divide and conquer. And some of it is frankly, we saw an opportunity to add a very talented versatile athlete to the team. So So as we've continued to expand, when we look at the opportunities in front of us in terms of potential new business opportunities, expanding our channels of distribution, etcetera, yes, we get pretty excited about it. And then the last piece I would say is, the offshore environment, there's just a lot going on, right, in terms of both changes in the regulatory world, different partnerships, etcetera. So it just felt like us, it was a great opportunity to make that change.

Speaker 5

Thanks for that, Chris. And then in your prepared remarks, you mentioned you're not seeing meaningful impact from industry lawsuits related to pension risk transfer and you had a great volume in the quarter there. Can you maybe talk about where you're competing in the market and your outlook amid that industry litigation that other people have called out? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure. Yes, I think there's probably a couple of things at play. One, we've been pretty consistently playing in, I would say, the $100,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 space and that's been just a good place for us to play. It fits in terms of the size of our balance sheet. So we still see a lot of opportunities.

Speaker 2

We haven't felt an impact yet. I think some of that is our structure is pretty straightforward. We're a 100% U. S. Company regulated by the state of Iowa, where our majority shareholder is a large public U.

Speaker 2

S. Company regulated by the state of Florida. And so, I think that combined with some of the capabilities that we have partnering with Blackstone on the investment side, it's been a good fit. So we continue to be optimistic. On the institutional side, as you probably noticed, we reentered the FABN market.

Speaker 2

So I think that's another attractive opportunity for us. So I guess if we did see a slowdown or there was something overall impacting the space, we've got a lot of places to source premium. But right now, we're not seeing that. It still looks like there's a lot of opportunity for us to bid on deals.

Speaker 5

Thank you for that. Appreciate the comments.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Wes Carmichael with Autonomous Research. Please proceed.

Speaker 3

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Chris, I just want to get your updated perspective on growth from here and maybe that we've done to capital management a little bit too, but how are you thinking about the growth rate over the next few years in terms of net sales or retained AUM?

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks, Wes. And I know Wendy, you want to jump in here too, but I think strong. I mean, we're still quite excited about the overall backdrop. The places that we play, we still see a lot of secular demand and people are tired of hearing it, but it's true and it's a huge driver.

Speaker 2

It's baby boomers getting older, it's people embracing fixed annuities as a fixed income surrogate in portfolios. I think Evolutions products like Ryla now start competing with other asset based types of investment opportunities for folks. So none of that changes in our view, even if you see rates tick down a little bit. So we think the secular demand is really strong. And then unique to us, we're still adding distribution partners.

Speaker 2

It's not like we've been doing this for twenty years. We're adding banks, we're adding broker dealers, we're penetrating within the channels that we're in already. So, yes, we've seen a ton of growth. We're really proud of going from $3,000,000,000 to $15,000,000,000 in gross sales, but I don't think the demand side of this has peaked at all. To the capital question and Wendy can touch base on this as well, but yes, we continue to form Flow Reinsurance partners.

Speaker 2

We look at all sorts of different ways to continue to fund the growth. So we're pretty excited. We just came off our Board meeting. The Board is pretty fired up and I think that's a reflection of the opportunity in front of us. I don't know, Wendy, if there's anything you want to add to the capital question?

Speaker 4

Yes. We had a tremendous sales year and just really proud of the fact that we're able to come up with solutions to support that growth and I don't see that changing. Again, Chris has indicated we continue to have partners that approach us and have great discussions and look forward to continuing with that effort.

Speaker 3

Got it. Thanks. And then a follow-up just on the core ROA. If I adjust for alps and prepays and the actuarial adjustment, I mean, it was a little bit of a sequential compression, I think it's 18 basis points or so. So now you're kind of running in the neighborhood of 115 basis points in the quarter.

Speaker 3

And I think Wendy, you talked about surrenders normalizing, so that's a little bit of the driver, but there's also a little bit of compression from the fixed portfolio and still a pretty competitive environment. So any update on how you expect the ROA to trend from here?

Speaker 4

Yes. So you're exactly right. The prepays were a big driver of that decrease quarter over quarter. And as we indicated in our prepared remarks, we'll be looking to invest some of that cash that was generated because of prepays, get that done as soon as we can to get that back, look at the asset runoff, any repositioning we can do there. And then of course, we always have our renewal rate setting process that we can adjust to make sure that that does not continue.

Speaker 4

So we expect it to rebound west in 2025.

Speaker 5

Yes. The only other thing

Speaker 2

I'd add is, we did $1,000,000,000 of PRT during the quarter and you don't want to rush that allocation in terms of deploying assets. And so when you've got privates in the grid, you can see a lag as well. So, yes, I think Wendy sized it up nicely. It's not we're not anticipating to be as nearly as dramatic as it might look when you look at the particular quarter.

Speaker 3

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Alex Scott with Barclays. Please proceed.

Speaker 6

Hi, good morning. I just wanted to see if you can give us a sense of how much impact there still is in the crediting rate for surrenders being a bit elevated. And it just externally, it makes it a little difficult for us to understand the direction of spreads just knowing that I think some of the heightened surrender fees is maybe allowed crediting the crediting rate to stay lower than it otherwise would have during this period where there's some movement from the book into new products and so forth. So I was just hoping you could help us think through like what that level was this quarter. I think you guys usually give it in the Qs and Ks and where you expect that to trend?

Speaker 4

Yes. So just based on where the interest rate environment continues to hang out, we're still thinking that surrenders will continue until something dramatically happens in the rate environment. They were a little bit lighter in the quarter. I think in the QFS, there's a trend of the actual surrenders. They were down a bit.

Speaker 4

So we don't disclose the surrender charge amount in detail, but our outlook is that it's going to continue for a while.

Speaker 2

Yes. And we'll think about Alex, this is Chris, if there's anything we can do to help you because I get the challenge, it is tricky. The other thing that's maybe not as apparent, but we're a big beneficiary of some of this in our own distribution business as well. So that business continues to along nicely. We're really excited about that.

Speaker 2

So yes, I get the challenge. And as you know, in the long run, I actually think this is going to be value accretive because you're going to just have a newer book and as rates tick down, I think the duration of that spread is going to be longer. But it does create a little bit of noise in the interim. So I don't have an easy answer for you on that one, but we'll think about is there a way we can help with that.

Speaker 6

Cool. Sounds good. And then as a follow-up, I wanted to ask about the funding agreement backed note market. We've seen a lot of issuance, I guess, in the whole industry recently. Is that maybe help us understand like what's the dynamic there that makes it particularly attractive right now for the industry?

Speaker 6

And as a company that's sort of beginning to grow into that, what kind of opportunity is there for you?

Speaker 4

Yes, I appreciate that question. A lot of the issuers right now, I think we've talked about this before, they're higher rated than we are, which impacts the cost of funds. So we balance capital allocation pretty tightly. So we will allocate capital just based on where we think we'll get the highest returns on that capital. So we look at FABN and we'll issue when we believe that's the right way to go in a particular quarter.

Speaker 2

Yes. And I'd say I know you know this, but order of priority, fixed index annuities, Ryla, very strategic, high returning, particularly on a risk adjusted basis. So we want to make sure that we always have ample capital to drive that every single year. PRT, love that business, love the duration of the spread. So those would be the most highest.

Speaker 2

FABN, probably the most opportunistic. If we've got excess capital and the spreads make sense, we'll issue it. If we don't, we won't. So and then I put MYGA somewhere in between. It's important to our clients.

Speaker 2

We want to be continue to be in the MYGA market. It's profitable, particularly since we flow out 90% of our MYGA, but that's sort of the pecking order of how we think about deploying capital to new product sales.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Mark Hughes with Truist Securities. Please proceed.

Speaker 7

Yes, thanks. Good morning, Chris. Good morning, Wendy.

Speaker 3

Good morning, Mark.

Speaker 7

On the MYGAs, what has happened in the market to kind of get those back into position where you'd be more active? Is this kind of a good level for the foreseeable future?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think the demand is always going to be there. And again, it's tricky to answer because I don't I think the demand for MYGA is explosive right now. Obviously, the rate market is volatile. So we always want to be a little cautious and careful that you're not chasing the rates up or chasing them down too quickly to see you want that to stabilize a little bit.

Speaker 2

But I would say the fall off in MYGA in this quarter was 100% driven by a good thing, which was just incredible demand. I mean our FIA sales were up big time for the year. We had another really strong quarter for FIA. So again, that's always going to be the priority from a capital allocation standpoint. But I would say demand for getting a rate of north of 5% guaranteed tax deferred, that's not going away.

Speaker 2

That's going to be there for quite some time.

Speaker 7

Okay. When we think about the ROA, you gave some good detail. I think you talked about the expect ROA expansion to be a little more moderate from here. What is the base? Is the base the $127,000,000 or should we think about the sequential progress off the 115,000,000 from the quarter?

Speaker 2

Yes. No, I think the base is 127. Again, we're always going to have some noise quarter to quarter, but we don't give a lot of guidance. But I think Wendy would have gotten guidance of the year award last year, because I think she said or last quarter, think about the last twelve months, which was like 01/1926, '1 hundred and '20 '7. So, yes, we're not saying we can't grow it from here, we can.

Speaker 2

We're just saying we're not going to be able to add 10 basis points to ROA every year. I wish we could. And I go back to our Investor Day presentation where we said, hey, we're going to grow AUM by 50%, we're going to increase ROA from, I think the base was 110 to 133 to 155. And obviously, we're at 127 already. So we've had a nice sort of step function jump up.

Speaker 2

So, yes, all we're trying to say is we can still grow it from there. We feel good about getting to our Investor Day target and keep in mind, we're only a little over a year into that process. So we're feeling really good about all the measures. Just to finish it out, we said we'd take ROE up to 13% to 14% and I think we were 12.4% this quarter. So we're making great progress there.

Speaker 2

And obviously the multiple has gone up as well since Investor Day. So I just keep going back to that. That is our public plan that we're shooting for. And I would say a little over a year into it, we're feeling really good.

Speaker 7

On the owned distribution, I think you said the outlook for $90,000,000 in EBITDA in 2025, up from $65,000,000 How much of that growth is internal organic? I'm trying to recall whether there is any interim M and A in 2024 that would influence that progression from the 65 to the 90?

Speaker 2

Yes, there was some of the full year effect of FEG going, I think from whatever our initial stake was to 100% ownership there. But the bulk of it is just these businesses are tuned really well. I mean, we partnered with good people and this is the advantage of we're not just a financial investor, we've known a lot of these folks personally for twenty years in some cases. So, you're really trying to underwrite is quality of management teams, their strategy, are they going to be a winner in this overall consolidation? And right now, we just feel awesome about who we've partnered with.

Speaker 2

The backdrop helps. Obviously, their focus is either primarily IUL and that business is just humming for us right now or they're selling FIAs and fixed annuities. And as you know, that business is doing great. So for us, we just couldn't feel any better about the progress there and we see that continuing. I don't see anything that's going to derail that in the near term.

Speaker 7

And if I could squeeze in one more on the FIA market up 57% is pretty strong taking a lot of share there. How would you characterize competition in that market, new players? And if you had to break down how much of that sales growth came from, I don't know, expanded distribution, new partnerships, I think market growth is pretty strong. How would we or how should we think about that magnitude of growth?

Speaker 2

Yes, I think there's two things happening here. One is, the product category is just coming into its own. So I think the industry last year was up 31%. We were up comfortably north of that. So it's nice to have a rising tide and people embracing the product.

Speaker 2

But again, every time you see volatility in the market, aging of baby boomers, all the trends that we keep talking about, I think people are just figuring out it's a great chassis that can meet a lot of different needs. One version of the product that's sort of flying off the shelves right now for everybody is the more income oriented version of an FIA and that's just obvious. You got a lot of boomers with assets looking to lock in guaranteed lifetime income. So, the macro trends are really good. And then yes, you hit it on top of that, we're getting growth in all of our channels.

Speaker 2

Our core agent channel continues to grow. Our bank channel continues to do really well. And now the big focus lately is we've been inching our way into the broker dealer market. So if I had to guess, I would say the bulk of the growth is less about adding distribution partners. It's that natural lag of you add a partner, you get your name out there, you sell MYGA and then you cross sell FIA.

Speaker 2

And so I think we're just seeing the continuation of that wave, if

Speaker 3

you will. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is a follow-up from Wes Carmichael with Autonomous Research. Please proceed.

Speaker 3

Hey, thanks. Thanks for taking the follow-up. I just want to come back to MYGA sales for a second, but it was a pretty significant decline at least year over year. And I think it was a little bit of an industry wide phenomenon in the quarter. But Chris, I think in the past you've talked about industry sales for annuities being pretty resilient even if interest rates move lower.

Speaker 3

So just wondering if there's any change in your thinking there. And I know you flow most of the MIGA out, but there's obviously some economics attached to that.

Speaker 2

Yes. Again, I chalk it up to quarter over quarter volatility. So again, I really don't think overseeing like a great slowdown in MYGA. And there's just so many factors that go into this, including we're no different. We aren't the only ones that would sit here and go, boy, we'd rather sell an FIA than a MYGA.

Speaker 2

I think everybody feels that way. So I'm sure that's a bit of a factor. Rate volatility is always a factor. And then, yes, I think when you get into the fourth quarter, when you're tonning it on lots of different fronts, people are always trying to just be cautious on capital levels as well and get the label in there. So I don't again, I still don't if I look at industry sales, if you back up and look at it for the year, yes, MYGA sales were down 7% and we were I think flat.

Speaker 2

So, but yes, I don't I'm not still I'm still not of the camp that we're going to see some big giant secular decline in demand for MIGA.

Speaker 3

Got you. And then I think as part of Wendy's transition, I think you mentioned it had to do with some of the changes in the regulatory world and it seems like there's a lot going on at the MAIC in terms of maybe asset adequacy testing for reinsurance, capital charges for structured securities, there's the bond project and then probably changes at the BMA too. So maybe can you just touch on from a broad perspective on what's most important on the horizon in the regulatory front?

Speaker 2

Yes, I think as you said, there's a lot of activity and I feel for regulators because it's the market's complex. I think everyone's worried about the same thing, which is, is there sufficient transparency in terms of what people are doing. We report everything up to Iowa in terms of how we use our own offshore entities. And so, again, we can only attest to what we're doing. We can't attest to what other players are doing.

Speaker 2

So, yes, I think there's activity in Bermuda, there's activity in Cayman, Domestic Regulators are very involved. So, I wouldn't say it was a big driver, but it's just back to the business is bigger, the business is more complex. There's big opportunity, but that comes with big responsibility that you are being transparent with what you're doing. You're communicating regularly with all of the regulators, most importantly, your domestic home regulators. So again, to me, it just begged for focus.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

This will conclude our question and answer session. Thank you for attending today's presentation and the conference call has been concluded. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Beauty Health Q4 2024
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