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spk11: Good morning, and welcome to the Voya Financial second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Participants are limited to one question and one follow-up. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Michael Katz, EVP, Finance, Strategy, and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk02: Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to Voya Financial's second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. We appreciate all of you who have joined us for this call. As a reminder, material for today's call are available on our website at investors.voya.com or via the webcast. Turning to slide two, some of the comments made during this conference call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities law. I refer you to this slide for more information. We will also be referring today to certain non-GAAP financial measures. GAAP reconciliations are available in our press release and financial supplement found on our website, investors.voya.com. Joining me on the call are Rod Martin, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, as well as Mike Smith, our Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer. After their prepared remarks, we will take your questions. For that Q&A session, we have also invited our Vice Chairman and Chief Growth Officer, Charlie Nelson, as well as the heads of our businesses, specifically Heather LaValle, Wealth Solutions, Christine Hertzellers, Investment Management, and Rob Gruka, Health Solutions. With that, let's turn to slide three, as I would like to turn the call over to Rod.
spk03: Good morning. Let's begin on slide four with some key themes. We delivered strong results during the second quarter with record adjusted operating earnings per share. This was driven by strong investment income and solid performance across our businesses. Our clear and focused strategy is enabling us to drive greater outcomes for our workplace and institutional clients, and this was demonstrated by the results we delivered. In Wealth Solutions, full-service recurring deposits for the trailing 12 months grew approximately 7% compared with the prior year period. We generated $238 million in full-service net flows. This was driven by growth in both our corporate and tax-exempt markets. In investment management, we generated $249 million of net flows during the second quarter. This was driven by a return to institutional inflows and continued funding of new mandates, particularly in fixed income strategies. In health solutions, annualized in-force premiums grew nearly 10% year over year, This significant increase reflects growth across all of our product lines. In addition to exceptional earnings growth, we continue to demonstrate our focus on being good stewards of shareholder capital. We repurchased over $500 million of shares in the second quarter, leading to $753 million of shares repurchased during the first half of this year. and we had approximately $1.5 billion of excess capital as of June 30. We expect to repurchase at least a billion dollars of our shares during 2021. We're well positioned to continue to build upon the more than $7.5 billion of capital that we've returned to shareholders through both share buybacks and dividends since our IPO. This quarter, we also continue to advance our focus on the workplace and institutions. On June 9, we completed the sale of the independent financial planning channel of Voya Financial Advisors. And on July 1, we completed our acquisition of Benefit Strategies, a leading third-party administrator of Health Account Solutions. This strategic acquisition will expand our capability to meet the evolving needs of our workplace and institutional clients. Through our purposeful actions, we've positioned Voya to meet the complex and increasing needs of our clients. Our unique digital capabilities, insights, and focus on client needs will enable us to create greater value for all of our customers and have positioned us to generate further earnings per share growth. Voya has a clear focus and unique solutions that will enable us to take advantage of the opportunities before us. We look forward to sharing more detail about the next phase of our growth strategy at our investor day in November. Turning to slide five, as an original signatory of the CEO action for diversity and inclusion, Voya recently held a day of understanding. This annual initiative encourages organizations to dedicate a day to hosting conversations that advance diversity, equity, and inclusion. And in May, we once again celebrated Voya's National Day of Service in its new hybrid format. Voya employees volunteered approximately 10,000 hours to numerous nonprofits across the country. As highlighted in a recent Forbes article, Voya's 2021 inclusive advertising campaign, which features a family with special needs, has contributed to new brand highs. This includes total brand awareness, ethics, trust, and interest in doing business. This campaign is a continuation of our long-standing commitment to people with disability and special needs, which helped enable Voya to earn recognition as a best place to work for disability inclusion for the fourth consecutive year. Voya earned a score of 100% on the 2021 Disability Equality Index. The actions taken by our people and our company reflect our culture and carry through all that we do in our communities and for our customers. We will continue to focus on the needs of all Americans in our businesses, our company, and in defining the character of our brand. With that, let me ask Mike Smith to provide more details on our performance and results.
spk06: Thank you, Rod. Turning to our financial results on slide seven. we delivered record after-tax adjusted operating earnings per share of $2.20 in the second quarter of 2021, which included four notable items. First, 77 cents of prepayment and alternative income above our long-term expectations, mostly linked to first quarter equity market strength. Second, 11 cents of favorable DAC, VOVA, and other intangibles unlocking from equity markets in the quarter. Third, $0.08 of unfavorable COVID-19 related claims impacting health solutions. And fourth, $0.11 of other items, which is primarily driven by incentive compensation related to the strong performance in the quarter. Second quarter gap net income of $459 million reflects several favorable items, including strong underlying operating results and alternative income, gains from the sale of our independent financial planning channel, and the sale of our equity investments in venerable. These favorable items were partly offset by CMOB mark-to-market and restructuring costs. Moving to slide eight, Wealth Solutions delivered record-adjusted operating earnings of $295 million in the second quarter. This was materially higher than $37 million in the second quarter of 2020, largely driven by a recovery in alternative income. Alternative and prepayment income was $96 million above our long-term expectations, while we also experienced a favorable DAC unlock in the quarter due to strong equity markets. Underlying core business results were also solid this quarter. Investment spread continued to benefit from the crediting rate actions taken earlier this year and higher surplus income. Fee-based revenues benefited from business growth and from higher asset levels, that were helped by favorable equity markets. Partially offsetting this was the loss of revenue from the sale of our independent financial planning channel. Looking ahead, we expect the sale to reduce pre-tax adjusted operating earnings by $10 to $15 million in the second half of 2021. Administrative expenses were also favorable year over year due to a prior year legal accrual not repeating and our continued focus on expense disciplines. Returning to deposits and flows. Full-service recurring deposits grew 6.7% to over $11 billion on a trailing 12-month basis, led by rising employee and employer contributions. We continue to expect full-year 2021 recurring deposit growth in the range of 6% to 8%. We generated $238 million of positive full-service net flows, contributing to $2.3 billion of inflows over the last 12 months. We experienced modest record-keeping and stable value net outflows of $755 million and $502 million in the second quarter, respectively. Looking ahead, we anticipate record-keeping net outflows in the second half of 2021 due to the termination of one large case client and higher participant surrenders as a result of elevated equity markets. Higher equity markets meaningfully improve earnings, but they also increase the size of full-service and record-keeping participant surrenders. While the number of participant surrenders are unplanned, the equity effect on participant surrenders will be a headwind for both record-keeping and full-service net flows. Despite this headwind, we still expect overall full-year full-service net flows to remain positive. We remain bullish on the growth outlook for 2022 due to our robust pipeline, strong RFP activity, and favorable client retention trends. On slide nine, investment management delivered 66 million of adjusted operating earnings, higher than the second quarter of 2020 by 46 million. The year-over-year improvement included significantly favorable investment capital results, which in this quarter were 20 million above our long-term targets. Revenues were higher year over year due to growth in both institutional and retail client assets. Administrative expenses were elevated relative to second quarter 2020, largely due to variable compensation associated with strong investment capital results in the quarter. Our adjusted operating margin, including notables, was 34% in the quarter. Turning to flows. We saw a return to positive overall net inflows with $249 million in the quarter. This mostly reflected institutional demand, which was partially offset by modest retail net outflows. We saw fixed income demand from U.S. institutional clients in investment-grade credit and long-duration solutions. And we continue to see a demand for private credit and commercial mortgage loans from our insurance channel clients. Our domestic strength was partially offset by some weakness in international flows this quarter. Retail flows improved sequentially, however, remained slightly negative this quarter. Looking ahead, we expect overall net outflows in the third quarter, driven by a $3 billion client outflow related to a divestiture by an insurance client. As a result, we are lowering our full year 2021 organic growth expectations to 1% to 3%. Notwithstanding this, we are still seeing great demand for our solutions across a diverse set of strategies. Encouragingly, this includes demand for higher margin products that are strengthening our revenue yield profile. For these reasons, we believe our long-term growth outlook remains positive, driven by three key strengths. First, our continued exceptional investment performance. demonstrated by 89% of our fixed income funds outperforming their three, five, and 10-year benchmarks in the second quarter. Second, the strength of our distribution channels and a significant unfunded pipeline. And third, the diversity in our solutions providing clients with a differentiated value proposition. Turning to slide 10, Health Solutions delivered a record earnings quarter with adjusted operating earnings 63 million in the second quarter, despite the impact of excess group life claims related to COVID. This result compares favorably to 36 million in the second quarter of 2020. Similar to the other businesses, health solutions benefited from strong alternative and prepayment income, which exceeded our long-term target by 11 million. Underlying business performance was exceptional. Annualized in-force premiums grew 9.8% year over year. We experienced growth across all product lines, including double-digit growth in voluntary and stop loss. The total aggregate loss ratio was 71.6% on a trailing 12-month basis, within our targeted range of 70% to 73%. We continued to see favorable voluntary loss ratios in the second quarter. Also reflected in the total aggregate loss ratio is $73 million of COVID-related claims over the last 12 months, of which 13 million were incurred in the second quarter of 2021. We attributed an additional 15 million of previously reported claims to COVID following the receipt of updated cause of death information, 5 million of which impacted the first quarter of 2021. Please note that this does not change previously reported financial results. We continue to expect a pre-tax COVID earnings impact of roughly 10 million for the remainder of the year and overall impact of the pandemic to be within our expected range of 1 to 2 million per 10,000 U.S. deaths. This quarter, we closed on our acquisition of benefit strategies, which accelerates our presence in the fast-growing HSA market and expands on our range of solutions offered through the workplace. We expect future earnings momentum to be supported by reduced COVID-related headwinds and a strong pipeline of 2022 activity. Turning to slide 11. In the third quarter, we show the effects of alternative income returning for our long-term expectation of 9% annual growth and the favorable second quarter DAF unlock not repeating. We pay a seasonally higher preferred stock dividend in the third quarter and will realize a full quarter's impact of the sale of our independent financial planning channel. We also expect health solutions voluntary loss ratios to normalize. Specific to wealth solutions, we foresee continued headwinds from lower interest rates. Favorable third quarter EPS items include an improvement in group life underwriting due to lower COVID-related claims, We also expect lower incentive compensation in the third quarter. Third quarter EPS also includes a $0.09 per share benefit from the late June ASR program. Potential market impacts affecting third quarter outlook are not included on this page. There are, of course, other factors that could affect third quarter results, including potential share repurchases over and above the second quarter ASR, warrant dilution, business growth, and additional unexpected COVID-19 impacts. While we typically do not guide on excess prepayment and alternative income, there may be upside to third quarter adjusted operating earnings following strong equity market performance in the second quarter. Turning to slide 12. Year to date, we have returned almost $800 million to shareholders and more than $7.5 billion of capital to shareholders since we have been a public company. through dividends and share repurchases. In the second quarter, we repurchased $518 million in shares through a combination of ASRs and open market repurchases. This quarter's repurchase activity puts us well on track to reach at least $1 billion of repurchases in 2021. Our ending excess capital position was $1.5 billion. which included the majority of the proceeds from the sale of our independent financial planning channel. Our estimated RBC ratio is 545%, while our financial leverage ratio was 30.2%. Our leverage ratio is lower than last quarter, reflecting strong earnings, gain on sale impacts, and increases in AOCI and non-controlling interests driven by financial markets. Finally, with respect to our COVID-related capital impacts, Year-to-date, we have incurred roughly 20 million of net negative ratings migration and credit impairments, including a net positive impact in the second quarter. Due to improving macro conditions, our previously shared stress scenarios no longer apply. That said, we could see up to a gross 100 million of credit-related impact in the second half of 2021 in the unlikely event there is a significant shock from COVID-related impact. In summary, we are pleased with our record second quarter earnings results and the performance of our underlying businesses. We believe our highly regarded workplace and institutional franchises are poised for long-term success, and we generate high free cash flow and have a significant excess capital position. We will continue to act as good stewards of capital as we look to deploy proceeds in the best interest of shareholders. With that, I will turn the call back to the operator. so that we can take your questions.
spk11: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask your question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star two. As a reminder, participants are limited to one question and one follow-up. Our first question comes from Jimmy Bowler with JP Morgan. Please proceed.
spk15: Hi, good morning. So I had a question primarily on the asset management business. And if you can sort of give us a little bit more insight into the $3 billion mandate that you're losing, what it actually is in terms of asset class, and then the fees and or the margins on that business, just so we get a better sense of the impact on revenues. And then relatedly, what gives you the confidence that you will actually have positive flows for the year? And how should we think about, like, what's driving that?
spk03: Jimmy, thank you. Good morning. Christine?
spk09: Yeah, thank you, Jimmy. So first, let's start with the $3 billion outflow. It was as a result of a client that sold a business, so not at all related to investment performance. And so, you know, how to think about what that mandate was, it was core public fixed income. And so when you think about, you know, mandates that we manage just given the size of the relationship with our client as well as it being public fixed income, it's on the lower side of what we typically do in terms of basis points as far as how to think about that. Now, you know, moving on to your question about, you know, in the context of that outflow, what gives us the confidence, you know, because we're We just pivoted our guidance down from two to four to one to three. So very strong. And we expect to have our sixth straight year of positive net cash flow sourced from our distribution team. So why is that? What do we see? We see a really robust pipeline. It's not just one, you know, huge mandate that we're expecting to fund, but rather it's quite diversified both on client type as well as strategy. And I would say, Jimmy, you know, one thing, too, that we've seen this year that is really changing that's gone from a bit of a headwind, if you will, in converting our flows into wind was commercial real estate. You know, due to COVID, we have strong demand for that asset class, and it was just hard to get out. But as we've seen the economy reopen and capital getting exchanged, you know, that's really starting to pick up for us. So from a lot of lenses as we look at it, you know, we're confident that we're going to have a strong remainder of the year.
spk15: Okay. Then if I could just ask one more on buybacks. I think you mentioned that you intend to do at least $1 billion. I just want to, and you've been doing a lot more than that, obviously, through the first half, if you prorate that. So is the billion sort of a minimum number that you intend to do? And what's the likelihood of upside to that, assuming your results are fairly stable and credit's fine?
spk03: Jimmy, it's Rod. What we've said is we will do at least a billion dollars. And as you well point out, we've returned almost 800 million to shareholders in the first half of this year. And if, as you're well familiar, if you look at the, at least a billion dollars in a single year basis, that's over 10%, well over 10% of our market cap. So we've got a lot of confidence in the momentum that we have. We've got a lot of, we're very proud of the track record that we've, that's delivered back to me, the seven and a half plus billion dollars and the, we feel good about where we are in the year and what we'll deliver for the second half of the year.
spk11: Thank you. Our next question comes from John Barnage with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.
spk05: During QQ21, IM closed its first new infrastructure fund on project financing the renewable space. Can you talk about fees for this relative to the overall fixed income business? and how big of a business opportunity this could be. Thank you. Christine?
spk09: Sure, John. Thanks for the question. So, yes, you're absolutely right. We did do our first close of a really differentiated product, which is an infradet fund that's focused on renewable energy. So think the nexus of infrastructure and ESG all-in-one product offering. So we're very excited about the potential for the fund and the value it's going to give clients. So we did our first close. We are working on a second close in the third quarter. And, again, you know, really excited long run about what we're going to be able to do with this particular offering. And I would say, you know, not to get specifically into the fees themselves, but know that this is a differentiated private credit structure. So it's going to have meaningfully higher fees than your normal fixed income mandates. And, again, just one other thought about what's going to drive growth that makes us excited is we're working on actually creating a fund that will be more capital efficient for our insurance clients. So, again, just another reason to think why this is going to be a real winner for us in the long run.
spk05: Great. Max is traditionally 15% to 18%. It's been above that in the first half of the year. Does it seem likely this dynamic should probably persist, assuming VII in the near term is favorable? Thank you for the answers.
spk06: Mike? Hey, John. Thanks for the question. In any quarter where the alternative income or other factors drive outsized earnings results, that's going to drive a higher tax rate and potentially, as we've seen the last couple of quarters, because the alternatives have performed so well, even a little above our range of 15 to 18. We clearly don't expect that to be a persistent effect, but so long as the alternative performance continues to be strong, that will drive that result.
spk11: Thank you. Our next question comes from Eric Bass with Autonomous Research. Please proceed with your question.
spk07: Hi, thank you. I was hoping you could talk a bit about the outlook for retirement recurring deposits and the trends you're seeing at a participant and employer level. And is there any potential for upside to your outlook given the economic recovery we're seeing?
spk01: Heather? Yeah, thank you, Eric. I mean, you know, we'll start by saying that right now we're very much in line with our targets of the 68% recurring deposit growth on a trailing 12-month basis for the year. As you commented, we are seeing some nice double-digit growth in our employer contributions and employee contributions. And we still expect to see sequential improvement in recurring deposits throughout the year. We're also seeing an increase in participants contributing. So overall, macroeconomics are definitely helping us to improve our recurring deposit view for the year. And really what I would say is For now, for us, it is just expecting that we are going to come in right on target and that we're benefiting from macroeconomic conditions driving our growth.
spk07: Got it. Thank you. And then there was recently another large consolidation transaction in the retirement market. So just wondering your views if the threshold for adequate scale is changing at all, and does this shift your views at all on M&A?
spk03: Heather, you want to begin on the scale piece first?
spk01: Yeah, happy to. Yeah, so for starters, we're a top five defined contribution provider, and we're at scale to compete in all of the markets that we play in. And if you look at it, our organic growth rate over the past several years has outpaced the industry. Specifically, we have not needed inorganic growth to drive our success. And we're winning in the market, and our competitive position is really resonating with clients and intermediaries. And when you think about it, when the decision comes down to a small number of very fine companies, Voya stands out. We stand out around our unique culture, our purposeful innovation and our commitment to the retirement market, our competitive suite of workplace offerings across health, wealth, and investment management that are improving customer outcomes. And the other thing that I would say around this is that when we see movement in the industry and, frankly, this type of consolidation, they create opportunities for us to win business. We tend to see an increase in off-cycle RFP volumes during consolidation, and Voya has been actually a strong beneficiary of this type of activity in the past. And so bottom line is we really like our position to win and grow organically in our target markets and are at scale to compete today.
spk11: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Kruger with KBW. Please proceed with your question.
spk08: Thanks. Good morning. When you think about the $1.60 to $1.70 ETF range that you had guided to for the fourth quarter of this year, can you just comment on if you feel like everything that's happened this year, if you're still on track for that?
spk03: Sure, Ryan.
spk06: Mike? Ryan, thanks for the question. So in short, if you continue to use the old definition of normalized earnings, which we've really gone away from, but just to keep it on an apples to apples basis, we would expect that we would be at the low end of that range, in or around the bottom of the range. However, there's an important factor to consider, which is that includes the impact of incentive compensations this year that is really pretty much entirely driven by the outsized alternative performance. And that's one of the reasons I think that we've gone away from the normalized is it was very difficult to kind of fully extract the impacts of outsized alternative performance. So if you do back that out, and I think it's a fair way to look at it, we'd actually be toward the top end of that range And backing out is also important as you think about 2022 because the increased expense is a temporary phenomenon. It goes away as incentive comp starts over beginning in 2022. And the last thing is just to keep in mind is as you think about alternative income and we tend to want to back it out, it's still pretty helpful in terms of the excess capital position. It's been a meaningful contributor to that $1.5 billion gap. of excess and will enable us to put it to work in ways that I think are very beneficial to shareholders. So it's real money, but it's, you know, we single it out as it's not sustainable, but also the incentive comp effects are related to that, I think, especially this year. And so think of it as we'll be in a good position, tax the incentive comp, I think we'd be near the top end of that range.
spk08: That's really helpful. And just to make sure I have this right. So ongoing higher incentive comp in the back half of the year will run, I guess it sounds like maybe in like mid to high single digits cents per quarter in the next couple of quarters before going back to normal index in 2022.
spk06: That is correct. Think of that as about depending on share count, seven to eight cents.
spk08: Great. Thank you.
spk11: Thank you. Our next question comes from Humphrey Lee with Dowling and Partners. Please proceed with your question.
spk13: Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. My first question is related to the leverage ratio, which seems to have come down quite a bit given the size of the book value moves in the quarter. At this point, does it change your outlook for debt reduction for the back half of the year?
spk06: Humphrey, thank you. Mike? Humphrey, thanks for the question. So our outlook for the debt repurchase has been consistently $600,000 to $800,000 related to the, and this goes back to when we first announced the LIFE transaction, $600,000 to $800,000 of debt pay down. We made a down payment on that in the first quarter with $75 million. So for the balance, I would expect, given the favorable movement in leverage, and that was driven by strong earnings, including the gain on the sale of the financial planning channel, as well as favorable movements in AOCI as of June 30, as well as the non-controlling interest driven by equity markets. So that, I think, gives us a little more flexibility. It would probably push us toward the lower end of that range and maybe even below it. So we'll see how events unfold in the coming weeks. Obviously, you know, we're in a very dynamic situation. I think we still, we feel good about where the economy is heading overall and good about certainly the trajectory of, of Voya, but, um, we'll, we'll, we'll be, we'll be mindful of, of the environment and, you know, look to make probably a meaningful, uh, you know, progress on the debt pay down in the, in the third quarter, uh, if, if things are proceeding normally.
spk13: To help, um, so, uh, One of the health insurers has talked about rising medical costs in their outlook that is affecting their earnings for the back half of the year and maybe into 2022 on their earnings call. I know the topic of medical cost inflation is not new, but given some of the broader inflation concerns that we're seeing, how do you see the inflation affecting your stop-loss business? Does it change your pricing strategy in the near term?
spk12: Rob? Sure. Thanks, Humphrey. Inflation in medical is not a new thing. To your point, is it in a different stage or a different cycle of how it could impact cost around care and those things? Obviously, in this business, just a level set on stop loss is a reminder. It's a business that we're going to reprice every year. As we look at the balance of our growth, a big part of why the stop loss business has grown in the past is driven by exactly this dynamic around medical inflation. So there's an element of, you know, did you get your assumptions right for sure that we got to continue to pay attention to? Again, just come back to the, we get a reprice and reassess things on an annual basis, which certainly reduces the risk as you might think about it over a period of time. And, you know, the other dynamic I just point to sometimes, you know, there's a pure medical inflation cost of, you know, just resources that go into it. Another big driver that may be implied in here is just the cost of pharmaceuticals and the actual pipeline of drugs that are coming to market. We're equally paying attention to that. But again, you come back to this annual dynamic that's built into how the products are managed and run, and we feel good about how we're positioned to respond to that. We, like others, as you just pointed out, pay close attention to that as it evolves into the future, though.
spk11: Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Kligerman with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question.
spk04: Hey, good morning. So, just to follow up on the wealth solutions question about the competitive dynamics. I think when Empower did the transaction with Prudential, they showed a slide. I think they had $1.4, $1.5 trillion in assets under administration. And I think Boya is somewhere in the $500 billion range. So we think going forward, are there areas where you might want to acquire, that you might want to get bigger, even with the backdrop that you do have scale. And maybe just the same question in health solutions. We've seen peers do bolt-ons and acquire there, too. Maybe the same exact question in health solutions.
spk03: Andrew, I'll start and throw it to Heather. We've talked about previously when asked a question about what might we consider from an M&A perspective, looking at and evaluating adding a book of business in a line of business that we're in. So that is something that we certainly would consider. As Heather pointed out, we've got over 6 million participants. We've added 850,000 in the last two years. And one of the great parts about the RFP process, as Heather talked about, is The market's very efficient, and you're narrowed down to two very fine players, and then the choice is made. And increasingly, we're finding that choice is made with Voya. So would we consider adding a book of business? We would. But our plan through this year has been, as you know, fully organic, and we fully expect to meet or exceed that plan based just on the organic growth. But, Heather, feel free to jump in.
spk01: Yeah, thanks, Rod. I'll add a couple points onto what you said. I agree 100% with what you said, but I think some of the other things that have been pointed out with a prudential acquisition have been enhanced capabilities and particularly pointing to a non-qual capability. And, you know, when we look at not only our scale, we also look at the robust solutions that we offer across the market segment. And we already have a very strong non-qual business. We have continued to enhance our offerings around financial wellness. I think about our partnership with our health business and the HSA product that Rob's team has been growing is a wonderful complement, and we're seeing a lot of really positive momentum. So to me, it's not just around scale play. We have been taking appropriate action to bring down our expenses while continuing to invest in the business. We continue to enhance our platform, our participants' engagement, experience, our security protocols, and all of the things that, frankly, are really taking precedent in the minds of our clients and intermediary partners. So while we wouldn't rule it out, again, our focus is very much around what are the capabilities that we need and to make sure we can compete at scale and at a competitive cost structure, and we think we're well-positioned to do that.
spk12: This is Rob. Maybe I'll just answer to your point on pivoting to health for a sec. Just, you know, all great comments have been made. But, you know, in the health space, when you look back at us over the last few years, obviously we've done a tremendous job growing the top line. If you stack us up against a number of different competitors and you look at it in aggregate, you could argue we've been small. I think what I'd point at and push on is just where we choose to play is the product solutions capability, the service and customer support that goes with it. We have no trouble competing. And, again, you know, you see the results this quarter, 10% top line growth, record bottom line numbers. Feel good about our position as we move forward from here as well. And to Heather's comments, you know, how do we bring capabilities to play, be really deliberate on what we do versus what we don't do. and finding ways to differentiate ourselves and drive ultimately better outcomes. The work that's been going on will continue to go on, and we'll talk more about this at Investor Day. We see a lot of upside opportunity as we look into the future.
spk04: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.
spk11: Thank you. Our next question comes from Tom Gallagher with Evercore. Please proceed with your question.
spk14: Good morning. Just a question on the stranded cost program. Where do you see it going? And are you still on track to have it largely completed by the end of this year? I guess if you look at corporate expenses for the 3Q bridge, they seem to be running high. But from what I'm hearing from you, it sounds like that's more comp accrual than stranded costs. Is that fair?
spk06: Mike? Hey, Tom. Thanks for the question. So first, broadly speaking, the stranded cost program has two components. First, it's the stranded cost, but there's also transition service arrangement fees that are coming our way. And so what's coming through the corporate program or corporate line is a net of those things. We expect, you know, the stranded costs to be, you know, taken care of by the end of next year. Along the way, the TSA fees will come down kind of alongside that. It won't necessarily be joined at the hip, but they'll generally be consistent with that. So by the end of 22, we expect to be fully neutralized. In terms of the corporate walk, again, Think of it this way. You've got, you know, we came in at 71 loss for corporate in the second quarter. You've got, you know, a differential in incentive count between second and third quarter of about $7 million. And then there's going to be a couple of other things, largely improvement in the net stranded costs that gets you to another four. So that gets you to the 60th. And then you add in the press dividend in 70, and so then you've got, that's why we're bracketing 65 to 75 of the expectation for corporate.
spk14: Okay, thanks, Mike. And my follow-up is just a free cash flow conversion question. The 90% plus, or I think it's 95% that you're guiding to, just remind me, how many years left at that level how much of that is being driven by utilization of tax assets and what happens when you're done fully depleting the NOLs? Where would you see that trending on the other side?
spk06: Yeah, it's a pretty straightforward answer. We expect the tax benefit to persist for at least five years and maybe a few years beyond that. So it's a little hard to say where we'll be yet. when we get there, but that'll really depend on how the business mix evolves from here. But in all of our businesses, I think we've got pretty high cash conversion. Ultimately, though, the way to think about this is the tax benefit and the corporate costs, including debt and so on, are kind of netting out to be zero. So if and when, at the time the tax benefit does fully get utilized, then you would see the corporate start to come in and reduce it a bit over time.
spk11: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Elise Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.
spk10: Hi, thanks. Good morning. My first question, so in response to your question, you guys alluded to the fact that you could be at the Low end, or actually below the low end of that 600 to 800 million debt pay down that you had targeted. So if you're ending up lower on that debt pay down, then how come, you know, should we expect that then there could be incremental buybacks relative to the $1 billion plan for the year? Mike?
spk06: Well, and again, thanks for the question. Just to remind you, it's at least a billion, and we mean at least. So please don't view a billion as the target. Don't think of that as a ceiling. So certainly as we think about the use of proceeds, and our debt paydowns go down, then that would make more available for potential share repurchases. So it all hangs together. You know, the exact timing of that and so on is certainly paying down less debt does create a bit more flexibility for us on the other side.
spk10: Okay, great. And then in terms of health solutions, the margins there and the loss ratios have trended pretty well relative to your targets just when we neutralized for COVID. So anything kind of one-off that you've seen or should we just expect if things normalized, you know, kind of the ratios to stay, you know, within group life and stop loss kind of within the 77 to 80 and then maybe just a little bit of reversion to more normal levels within voluntary, like I think you pointed out.
spk12: Rob? Yeah, sure. Thanks, Elise. Look, I think you summarized it pretty well for me. You know, what we've seen, as you said, you know, without COVID and doing those views, we think our guidance is still appropriate. You know, obviously, we'll see how the third and fourth quarter transpire relative to COVID, and we'll be able to be more specific about expectations moving forward from there. We highlighted the impact and the strong results from a loss ratio perspective around the voluntary block. As you peel that back, just to call it out, it's not been said yet, but regardless of the product you looked at, we sort of saw that dynamic going on. We would expect that to revert as we put in the guide for 3Q, but we'll continue to monitor it closely. You know, stop loss has really been middle of the fairway for us so far this year. You know, lots of experience to continue to emerge in the back half of the year. But, again, based on what we're seeing at this point in time, we feel really good about the results that we're seeing. And, you know, just the overall trend of the book is running where we'd expect it to. And we'll try hard to keep it in the middle of the fairway and make it easy for you.
spk11: Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike Ward with UBS. Please proceed with your question.
spk16: Thanks. Good morning, guys. I just had one question. I was wondering about the investment portfolio stress tests, and I don't think this is necessarily front and center these days, thankfully, but one of your competitors actually with a very similar business mix as you guys this quarter, they lowered their credit loss expectations or their kind of stress case. to basically zero to actually maybe positive from upwards ratings migration a little bit. So I was wondering if, you know, if there are certain asset classes or sectors where you still see actual ratings migration risk in your portfolio.
spk06: Mike, do you want to start?
spk16: Sure.
spk06: Mike, thank you for the question. I think the way to think about this stress case is simply, you know, if things change from here in a meaningfully positive adverse way. I think we're just trying to sort of put an estimate of what it could mean. But I think as we look ahead, kind of in the most likely path, I don't think we're that far off from where, you know, what you described is. We don't see anything other than kind of normal levels of migration ahead. You know, and there's always an undertone of that. But we also have the ability to manage the portfolios. and create offsets as we go forward. So kind of, you know, our expectation is that it's not a capital impact. If, if we see, you know, a meaningful change in direction around economics, you know, potential shutdowns, lockdowns, you know, economic activity reverses, then, then maybe you could see some additional pressure there. And we were just trying to ballpark it and, Think of the 100 relative to where we had been, you know, six months ago or a year ago, thinking it could be potentially much, much larger than that. So overall, we feel good about the portfolio. I don't think there's a read-through in allocations or anything of the sort that would be a differentiator.
spk16: Thanks very much. Makes sense. Mm-hmm.
spk11: Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference call back over to Rod Martin for any closing remarks.
spk03: Thank you. Our success reflects the purposeful decisions that we've made as a company, as well as the continued resilience and agility of our people. With our strong capital and business performance and our clear focus on the workplace and institutions and our expanding capabilities to deliver solutions that our clients and customers value, Voya is well positioned for continued growth and success. We're excited about the opportunities before us, and we look forward to updating you at our Investor Day later this year. I hope you and your families remain healthy and safe. Thank you, and good day.
spk11: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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