F&G Annuities & Life, Inc.

Greetings, and welcome to the F&G Annuities and LIFE fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Lisa Foxworthy-Parker, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and External Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Great. Thanks, Operator. And welcome, everyone, to F&G's fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings call. Joining me today are 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. Please refer to our most recent SEC filings for a discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. This morning's discussion also includes non-GAAP financial measures that we believe may be meaningful to investors. Non-GAAP measures have been reconciled to GAAP where required in accordance with SEC rules within our earnings release, financial supplement, and investor presentation, all of which are available on the company's website. Today's call is being recorded and will be available for webcast replay at FGLife.com. It will also be available through telephone replay beginning today at 1 p.m. Eastern Time through March 9, 2023. And now, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Chris Blunt.

Good morning, and thanks for joining us today. We're proud to have reached a milestone in the quarter by becoming a publicly listed company. I'd like to start by thanking our team, our parent, Fidelity National Financial, and our partners for all of their contributions. to achieve F&G's December 1st listing on the New York Stock Exchange. For those new to our story, the purpose of this public listing is to provide for a sum-of-the-parts valuation. That is, to provide recognition of F&G's value creation as a standalone public company, and in turn, to unlock the value of the 85% majority ownership in F&G held by our parent, F&F. We view this as a win-win. For F&G, it allows investors to invest directly in F&G and creates new optionality for F&G as we gain access to the public markets over time, while continuing to benefit from F&F's majority ownership. F&F views this as a competitive advantage as F&G's primarily spread-based business provides a steady and growing source of earnings that will benefit F&F over time, as well as a counter-cyclical business model to their title business. I could not be more pleased with our overall results in this inaugural quarter following F&G's transition back to a public company. F&G is well positioned for growth through its multi-channel new business platform, and our entire team is working hard every day to create long-term shareholder value. Turning to our results, F&G reported total gross sales of $2.7 billion in the fourth quarter, a 23% increase over the prior year quarter. On a full year basis, F&G reported record gross sales of $11.3 billion in 2022, an 18% increase over full year 2021, boosting our ending assets under management to nearly $44 billion as of December 31st. The continued growth has us well ahead of our goal of doubling assets under management to $50 billion over five years, as outlined at the time of our acquisition by F&F in 2020. We are on target to achieve that goal this year. Our retail channels reported record gross sales of 2.5 billion in the fourth quarter, a 79% increase over the prior year quarter. On a full year basis, our retail channels reported record gross sales of 8.5 billion, a 37% increase over the full year 2021. We saw growth across all three retail channels, including agent, bank, and broker-dealer channels, which was driven by increased demand for our products in the rising rate environment, expanding relationships with new and existing distribution partners, traction from a comprehensive product portfolio that meets a broad range of consumer needs, and backed by strong customer satisfaction levels as F&G was ranked number two by J.D. Power among individual annuity providers in 2022. We are well-positioned for continued profitable growth in our retail channels and excited about several initiatives that are underway. In our bank and broker-dealer channels, we are a leading carrier with our top partners and have a growing product and partner footprint with nearly 20 partners at year-end. In our agent channel, we are committed to our deep, long-tenured partners as a leading provider of annuity and life insurance solutions. We are also pursuing a strategy to expand our owned life insurance distributions, while boosting our presence in underserved multicultural and middle market segments. We were pleased to announce a 49% equity investment in a leading independent agent life insurance distribution partner since this last month, which aligns to our diversified growth strategy and is accretive to our shareholders. This builds on our 30% equity investment in Freedom Equity Group, one of F&G's top independent agent life distribution partners, which closed in late 2021. Next, turning to institutional markets where we have achieved cumulative sales of 6.3 billion since launch in mid-2021, providing meaningful diversification and scale. These cumulative sales include 2.5 billion in pension risk transfer, with 11 transactions completed, ranging from 65 million to 500 million in size, and over 47,000 covered lives. $2.6 billion of funding agreement-backed note issuances under our $5 billion shelf registration and $1.2 billion of federal home loan bank funding agreements. For the fourth quarter, institutional sales included approximately $250 million of pension risk transfer. For the full year, we reported $2.8 billion of institutional sales in 2022 split evenly between pension risk transfer and funding agreements and in line with our expected 2 to 4 billion annual sales run rate, dependent on appetite and market conditions. F&G's total net sales retained were 1.9 billion in the fourth quarter and 9 billion for the full year, a 7% decrease and a 3% increase over fourth quarter and full year 2021, respectively. This reflects the increase of MIGA flow reinsurance from 50% to 75% with a speed of re, effective September 1st. As a reminder, we utilize flow reinsurance, which provides a lower capital requirement on seeded new business, while allocating capital to the highest returning retained business. From our perspective, this is a smart financial decision as it enhances cash flow, provides fee-based earnings, and is accretive to F&G's returns. Asset center management for the quarter totaled nearly $44 billion at December 31st, reflecting a $7 billion or 19% increase over the prior year quarter, driven primarily by new business growth and stable in-force retention. Our high-quality investment portfolio is performing very well, and our strategic investment management partnership with Blackstone remains a differentiated competitive advantage for F&G. Our portfolio is diversified and well positioned to withstand uncertainty in the macro environment and well matched to our clean and stable liability profile. Fixed income yield, excluding alternative investment volatility and variable investment income, has expanded to 4.27% for the fourth quarter as compared to 3.75% in the fourth quarter of 2021. This primarily reflects upside from the 18% of our portfolio held in floating rate assets and higher yields on new investments. Our targeted allocation to alternative assets remains approximately 5%. Since the FNF merger in June of 2020, FNG's alternative investment portfolio has returned 12% on average, and returns have been less volatile than the S&P 500 index. Our financial results for 2022 demonstrate the underlying earnings power of the F&G business model, where profitable asset growth drives earnings and we benefit from a rising rate environment. F&G's growth is underpinned by a strong balance sheet, ample sources of liquidity, and financial flexibility to optimize returns. Our management team is seasoned and has experience throughout various economic cycles. And we've reached an inflection point of scale where our strong capitalization supports both organic growth and the distribution of a portion of our adjusted net earnings to shareholders over time. Overall, 2022 is another breakout year for F&G. We continue to execute on our diversified growth strategy, win in our target markets, and position ourselves for the future as a public company. Looking ahead, we're in a great position to further grow the company and deliver value to our shareholders. As part of this, we see many opportunities to expand our profitability in addition to growing our assets under management. For 2023, we expect to generate double-digit growth in total gross sales. To recap, we have strong momentum as we head into 2023 with many opportunities ahead of us to further expand our business, which will ultimately drive margin expansion and improved returns. We're also focused on unlocking the inherent value in our business as we focus on delivering value to our shareholders. We look forward to updating you on our progress and execution through the balance of the year. Let me now turn the call over to Wendy Young to provide further details on F&G's fourth quarter highlights, strong balance sheet, and financial flexibility.

Thanks, Chris. Today, I'll provide more details about our financial results and key performance metrics perspective on the new LDTI accounting standard, and capital liquidity and leverage positions. Overall, S&G's financial performance in the fourth quarter was strong and builds on our proven track record. We have strong capitalization and financial flexibility to successfully execute our growth strategy. Starting with adjusted net earnings. For the fourth quarter, we reported adjusted net earnings of $138 million, or $1.10 per share. This included a $34 million recognized gain from alternative investments, a $58 million one-time tax benefit from carryback of capital losses, $12 million from actuarial assumption updates, and other income items. The alternative investment net investment income based on management's long-term expected return of approximately 10% was $91 million. For full year 2022, we reported adjusted net earnings of $345 million, or $3 per share. This included a $100 million recognized gain from alternative investments, $49 million income from actuarial assumption and reserve updates, $21 million of CLO redemption gains and other income, $20 million of net income tax benefits, and $5 million of other expenses. The alternative investments net investment income based on management's long-term expected return of approximately 10% was $265 million. I'll note that on a net income basis, we had a $100 million loss in the quarter prior to non-gap adjustments, largely driven by mark-to-market movement and economic assumption review updates reflecting current macroeconomic conditions. Despite short-term volatility reflected in our quarterly results, F&G continues to generate consistent economics over time. Since the merger with F&F over two years ago, F&G has far exceeded our original expectation for growth and delivered approximately $1.1 billion of adjusted net earnings over the last 10 quarters on a cumulative basis. Our adjusted return on asset continues to trend over time above our target of 100 basis points, while even having moderated net retained sales. Further details are provided in our earnings release and quarterly financial supplement, as well as our investor presentation available on our website. Next, as we look forward to 2023, the new accounting standard for long-duration targeted improvements, or LDTI, becomes effective and is geared to fair value certain long-dated liabilities. Overall, we view the adoption of LDTI as an insignificant to our total book value, given our mix of business, prudent liability assumptions, and recent purchase accounting associated with the F&F acquisition, which marked our assets and liabilities to fair value as of June 1, 2020 merger date. Also, as a reminder, fixed index annuity base reserves are already at fair value and not impacted by LDTIs. Our estimate of the January 1, 2021 transition impact remains in line with our previously disclosed range. We are expecting an increase to gap shareholders' equity by up to $200 million, reflecting the net after-tax effect of the new LDTI measurement drivers, offset by the removal of shadow accounting for actuarial intangible balances. As of December 31, 2022, we expect the LDTI impact in relation to the current market conditions to support a favorable impact to total shareholders' equity at or greater than the transition impact, although subject to our ongoing implementation process. Of course, the ultimate impact upon adoption of LDTI on January 1, 2023, may differ materially from our estimates based on the performance of the company's business during 2022 and macroeconomic conditions, including changes in interest rates. We look forward to providing further details with the first quarter of 2023 results, which will include recasted results on the new LDTI basis. There will likely be timing differences when sources of actual earnings emerge, although from an economic perspective, the underlying product profitability is unchanged. As a reminder, this is a U.S. GAAP accounting standard only with no impact to statutory results, insurance company cash flows, or regulatory capital. Turning to our balance sheet, our capital, liquidity, and leverage position is strong. We ended the quarter with a GAAP book value excluding AOCI of $4.6 billion or $36.66 per share with $126 million common shares outstanding as of December 31, 2022. Our underlying business fundamentals delivered solid growth in GAAP book value, excluding AOCI of 7% year-over-year before capital actions and non-economic mark-to-market movements. There is a page in our investor presentation detailing this analysis of book value per share. As just mentioned, our GAAP shareholders' equity will be restated for adoption of LDTI accounting standard in the first quarter of 2023. Our strong capitalization supports growth and distributable cash. Our Board of Directors has approved the initiation of a dividend program at an initial aggregate amount of approximately $100 million per year. This translates into a dividend yield of approximately 3.6% based on F&G's recent market capitalization of approximately $2.7 billion and demonstrates the underlying strength in our business, as well as our commitment to creating value for our shareholders. We paid our first public company quarterly dividend in January 2023 in the amount of 20 cents per share of common stock, or 25 million. Going forward, starting next quarter, we expect to announce the record date and payment date for each dividend, subject to Board of Director approval following completion of the relevant fiscal quarter and with payment in the third month of each subsequent quarter. Next, turning to leverage. F&G's debt-to-capitalization ratio excluding AOCI was 19% as of December 31st, including $550 million proceeds from a new senior unsecured third-party revolving credit facility that closed in the fourth quarter. We are pleased to also successfully complete our first debt issuance as a public company on January 13, 2023, issuing $500 million of 7.4% senior unsecured notes due in 2028. This senior note issuance, as well as a $35 million partial paydown on the revolving credit facility in January, are not reflected in our capital position as of December 31. Based on current debt outstanding, our pro forma debt to capitalization ratio, excluding AOCI, is in line with our long-term target of 25%, and our annual interest expense on debt outstanding is approximately $95 million. We intend to use the net proceeds from the revolver and senior note issuance to support the growth of the business and for future liquidity needs. On February 21, 2023, we have executed an amendment to increase the revolving credit facility from $550 million to $665 million, although the additional capacity remains undrawn. F&G received strong support from its bank group, and the additional undrawn revolval availability provides us with more financial flexibility to execute our growth plan and capital deployment strategy as we work to enhance returns for shareholders. Now, moving on to our statutory capital positions. We came into 2022 with a strong balance sheet, which allowed us to effectively weather a period of significant market volatility while growing the business. As expected, we ended the year with a strong and stable capital position, having an estimated company action level risk-based capital, or RBC, ratio of approximately 440% for our primary operating subsidiary, providing a buffer well above our 400% target. For full year 2022, we had positive capital generation from our in-force book and successfully executed on our planned reinsurance and debt capacity initiative to support growth of the business. To wrap up, F&G is well positioned to fund its continued growth with positive and growing in-force capital generation, ample opportunity for future reinsurance programs, and available debt capacity as our balance sheet delevers with book value growth over time. On the ratings front, we are pleased that AMBEST has revised our outlook to positive from stable in December, and we continue on a positive outlook with Moody's. This reflects the focus that we have placed on our interactions with the rating agencies, as well as our proven track record, balance sheet strength, financial transparency, and commitment to achieving upgrades over time. With that, I will now hand back to Chris to provide some final comments before we head into Q&A.

Thanks, Wendy. We're excited about our current opportunities and well-positioned to execute on our growth strategy. We expect to continue growing, albeit at a moderated pace compared to recent record levels, and to expand our business with a focus on further improving our profitability, which we believe over time will drive multiple expansion to deliver value to shareholders. I look forward to providing further details on our first quarter earnings call. This concludes our prepared remarks, and let me now turn the call back to our operator for questions.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions.

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Andrew Klagerman with Credit Suisse.

Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning. First question is around cost of funds. It came in at about 2.38% in the quarter. Last quarter, it was 235, and year over year, it was 283. Could you talk about the drivers, especially in a higher interest rate environment than a year ago, could you talk about the drivers of what's keeping it down and where we should expect it to migrate over the course of the year?

Sure. Wendy, do you want to start and I'll jump in?

Sure. Thanks, Andrew, for the question. Basically, being a spread business, even though interest rates are up, we're able to purchase the exact option that we need to credit whatever the policyholders are requesting in their policy. So we don't view that number as fluctuating a whole lot. It might, depending on the volatility, but it stays pretty range-bound. So I don't expect that just because interest rates are going up that our option costs on the FIA business are going to increase substantially, which is the main driver in that bucket.

Okay, so FIA option costs. We'll kind of keep it there unless volatility kind of spikes out or something. Got you. Then with regard to the revolving credit, I think 552 and the year – What's the thinking behind utilizing that as opposed to long-term debt? Sure, Chris.

I'll start. Yeah, go ahead, Wendy. Sorry.

Okay. So, great question. We, at the end of the year, wanted to make sure that we were starting the year with capital to grow the business. The debt markets were not that favorable towards the end of the year. And as you know, we were able to raise debt at the beginning of the year, but wanted to have a revolver as a standalone company to begin with, and it was just optimized to be able to start the year with growth capital. And we're planning on to go back during the year, but it just depends on the debt market and availability. And we'll pay down the revolver if we're successful later in the year with raising debt.

And, Wendy, the cost of those funds currently are at what yield?

The blended rate is around 5-6 between the two.

Got it. And then, you know, if I could just sneak one last one in, that'll be it. Just, you know, you're doing some exciting stuff around acquiring distribution. Can you talk about how you're – you know, your distribution partners are viewing that? Are they seeing that as a conflict? And, you know, how are carriers viewing your distributors that you're acquiring?

Yeah, this is Chris. So, Andrew, yeah, it's just a space that we've always loved. You know, it's a source of strength traditionally for F&G, particularly on the life side. These are organizations that we've worked with for decades. And so, A number of them are growing so quickly they need capital and their choices effectively are private equity. You know, private equity has been gobbling up a number of these firms. But many of them don't want to go that route, either looking for a more permanent partnership as opposed to more time bound fund investment in their company. And so in a lot of cases, folks have approached us and said, hey, you know, we need capital now. To grow, you guys are strategic partners. It's something you would be interested in. So for us, we just view it as, one, further strengthening our relationship with firms we've known for a long time. But more importantly, it's a source of earnings that doesn't have big capital intensity going forward. So we love this space. So far, it's really been in the life area. And these are middle market, predominantly cultural market-focused firms. So, yeah, that's just a space that we love. And if there's an opportunity to do more of that, we would do it. We haven't gotten pushback because, again, a number of our – from our other distribution partners because they all see the same dynamic that is happening right now. Firms are getting larger. Firms are starting to consolidate. So I think they look at it and view it positively.

Awesome. Thanks so much.

Our next question comes from the line of AJ Hayes with Stevens. Please receive your question.

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Based on past commentary, it appears your index universal life products continue to exceed expectations. Just wanted to see if we could get some color on what's driving the strength and then how you think 23 may stack up in comparison to the strong year you saw in 22.

Yeah, AJ, thanks. This is Chris. Yeah, as I said before, it's a great tie into the prior commentary. It's really driven by the same thing. So one, just huge appetite amongst the middle market and particularly the cultural markets of the U.S. for life insurance. You know, this is where young family formation is taking place. I've said to folks that it feels like the life insurance business of the 1960s in the United States. And so that is really what's driving it for us as well as some select brokerage relationships where we've known folks for a long time. But yeah, I think when I first joined four years ago, we were doing like $28 million of recurring premium and we're at $130 million of recurring premium now in that business. So yeah, we like it a ton. And so it is all related. It's a strengthening of distribution relationships. We happen to play In the middle market, a number of our peers play in the affluent market, and that's a space we like in terms of the profit footprint and the growth opportunities. So I think we're up to number three in policies, in IUL policies. So that's a dominant business for us. It's still small relative to the annuity business, but, yeah, it's grown at a breakneck clip, and we would expect that to continue for some time.

Great. Appreciate the clarity there. And then, Chris, in your prepared remarks, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that you had said total institutional sales. It fell within your goal of about $2 billion to $4 billion annually. If I'm not mistaken there, from what I remember, this $2 billion to $4 billion goal was just for PRT. But is that how we should think about it going forward, as in total institutional sales should fall roughly within that $2 billion to $4 billion annually?

Yeah, I think that is a total number. And the reason there's just such a wide band, PRT is a market that we just love. And so, yeah, our goal is, our expectation is that we'd be growing that every single year. We like how we're positioned. We like how we've been received by both intermediaries and plan sponsors. We've got a really great team. And so that to us, along with FIA and the retail, is just a core product that you know, we expect to grow every single year. And if not, we would be disappointed. The other part of institutional though is the funding agreement back note market. And we love that as well. It's a great source of premiums and therefore spread. It's just a lot lumpier and opportunistic. So this year was just happened to be a challenging year one because of where rates and spreads were bouncing around, but also we were an active issuer in the market, raising debt and, and, you know, that can create some competition. So, Yeah, if rate environment calms down a little bit, you should expect us to try to jump back in with some FABNs. It's just a little harder for us to predict. And then, again, we've so many growth opportunities right now, we're always looking to maximize return on capital. So, again, I think of half of institutional as recurring business we want to just go after constantly, and some of it is a little more opportunistic issuance.

Great. Thank you so much, and congrats on the quarter.

Great. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Hughes with Truist. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you. Good morning.

Can you talk about those surrenders? If I'm looking at them properly, maybe up a little bit. I think we might have seen that with some of your competitors, but how are you looking at that number?

Thanks, Mark. Mark, it's not outside range of expectation. It's up a little bit from the September quarter, but again, it's within our expectation. Half of the Surrenders for the quarter were just normal MIGA runoff, so MIGAs that we've issued five, seven years ago maturing, so not out of our expectation. And just a reminder, 90% of our block is surrender charge protected, and a majority of it has MBA coverage. And so our surrender charges were actually up on – the higher surrenders because of the MBA that you saw a little bit increase in that surrender charge fee.

How about the PRT market? I don't know if you'd mentioned that, but are you seeing any kind of a pipeline there? It seems like a pension funding is pretty good these days, but interest rates, you know, may or may not help. How are you seeing that type of thing?

Yeah, this is Chris. That pipeline is great, I'm sure, for us and for competitors as well. So you hit it on the head. If you went back, I don't know, five years ago, I think average funding ratios were in the 80%, and now it's over 100%. And so, yeah, I think that's a great market. The timing is good, and we're quite optimistic on it.

And then on the FIA sales, I'm not seeing properly, up about 29%.

How do you feel like you're positioned in that market? Is that going to be a good growth market here in 2023?

Yeah, it should be. And for all the reasons that we talk about, one, you know, the rate environment is actually constructive here, meaning Option budgets are higher when there's just more crediting to play around with. So that's positive. And then the volatility that we've seen in the markets, just people are much more open to the idea of giving up a little upside for some downside protection. So we think opportunities there are great. Our business through our core independent agents continues to be really strong. Our relationships there are really good. And then again, we've added a number of bank and broker-dealer partners. We'll typically add five or six new relationships per year. So we would expect same-store sales growth, if you will, but we're adding stores as well. So yeah, that's a market we're still quite excited about.

And Wendy, did you repeat this point I think you all have made previously about a 1% return on assets? It's kind of a net return as being a pretty good bogey. Is that still the case?

Thanks, Mark. Yes, it's still a bogey. But as you've seen, the last 10 quarters, we've been increasing that. And as we diversify our earnings, you'll see that uptick a little bit. And then with 15% of our portfolio in floaters, we saw great expansion. In the QFS, there's a page that shows the quarter over quarter for 22, the expansion that we got from the floater. So even though that's our target, you should see that expand in 23.

Yeah. And the only thing I'd add to that is in a little bit of expense scale here, too. You know, we've doubled our assets in just about three years. And while we don't have a ton of fixed expenses, we do have some. So there's some margin upside from that as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. Ms. Foxworthy-Parker, I'd now like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.

Hey, thanks for joining us this morning. If you have any questions regarding our results or anything discussed on today's call, please feel free to contact us. We appreciate your interest in F&G and look forward to updating you on our first quarter earnings call. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day.