Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE:PRU) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Ken Tanji: Hey, Erik, I’ll start and then turn it over to Caroline to give a broader business context. But just from a sheer sensitivity to short-term rates, yes, we are benefiting from short-term rates. And generally, overall, our variable annuity business is sensitive to rates, both long-term and short-term. So a rise in both is actually helping us. In terms of short-term rates, we did see a pickup in earnings, because we’re earning a higher return from collateral, that’s posted on our hedging positions, and that’s driven by the uptick in short-term rates. But there’s more dynamics going on broadly for the business. So maybe Caroline, I’ll turn it over to you for that.

Caroline Feeney: Yes, of course, Ken. So Erik, first, I should point out that the individual annuities market had a record year last year with over $300 billion of sales and our own individual retirement strategies business delivered strong sales and earnings, and our sales success continues to be driven by our FlexGuard suite of index variable annuities where we now have over $12 billion in sales clearly reinforcing our leadership position as a top five player in this market. We also saw, Erik, some strong growth in our fixed indexed and fixed annuity solutions with fourth quarter results twice that of what we saw in the third quarter. Actually, in fact, more than 25% of our sales for the quarter came from these products. So ultimately, we’re pleased with the progress we’ve made in this space. And we like the diversification these products bring to our overall business mix and the role they can play as a strong complement to our FlexGuard suite of solutions.

Operator: Thank you. Next question today is coming from Tom Gallagher from Evercore ISI. Your line is now live.

Tom Gallagher: Good morning. Ken, should we think about that reduction being a planned use of the $4.5 billion of Holdco cash in 2023. I think you have a callable instrument in the middle part of the year of $1.5 billion. Should we assume your planning on calling that, or you still expect — should we expect that to remain outstanding?

Ken Tanji: Yes. Generally are — and again, I think I mentioned this on the last call, our overall level of debt has been pretty consistent over the last few years. And we do have the ability to call about $1.5 billion of debt this year in June. But that’s up to us. We’re not obligated to do so. It is our practice to pre-fund upcoming maturities and calls and we’ve factored that into our debt issuance plans last year. Having said that, we’re going to continue to evaluate the market conditions in our liquidity position and factor that into the decision to — and the timing to call the debt or not. And we’re also going to look at our overall funding needs going forward. And again, our discipline is to pre-fund upcoming plan. So it’s really an ongoing cycle is the best way you should think of it.

Tom Gallagher: Okay. Thanks. And then can you — just for my follow-up, can you talk about how big of a GUL charge you took at — for the — at PICA for year-end? And any other, we’ll call it, adjustments that we consider that occurred on a statutory basis at year-end between I assume there might have been AAT reserve releases or any other ins and outs that you can provide on the statutory impacts? Thanks.

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