Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VOYA) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Donald Templin: yes. thanks, Ryan. So, we are confident in being in that 12% to 17% three-year EPS growth guidance. the incremental macro headwind since the second quarter and the moderating of the stop loss favorability that occurred makes it, I think, a little bit more difficult to get to the top end of that range. To get us to the top end of that range, we’d likely need some combination of a reversal of the recent equity market declines, a more normal yield curve that’s not inverted, and loss ratios at the bottom end of our revised targets. But having said that, our confidence around being in that 12% to 17% range is driven by really a couple things. One, the commercial momentum that we’re experiencing in all three business segments, as Heather alluded to, the disciplined underwriting that we’re experiencing in health and the strong — the really strong year-to-date results that we’ve had there, and then our continued focus on expense management.

Ryan Krueger: Got it. Thank you. And my second question was on the investment management, just on the fee rate, went up a fair amount this quarter, I think there might be some impacts from NNIP and revenue guarantees and whatnot. So, can you give any more color on just how to think about the fee rate as we move into 2024 there?

Christine Hurtsellers: Sure, Ryan. this is Christine. So, when you think about the basis points or the fees, you’re absolutely right, it has been going up. And really, I want you to think about it as far as outflows have been lower basis point, a little bit lower margin business. And then behind the scenes, some of the things that we’re winning in, like international retail, as well as private debt, those tend to have higher basis points under management. So, think about that as the story. How to think about going forward? I mean, certainly given our strategy around growing and leveraging international retail, private and alternatives growth. we would over time expect to continue to see progress there. but I want to note, we don’t really manage the business to that metric.

What we think about really is operating margin and growth. And I just want to let you know that, we may see some “pressure” to that number next year for great reasons. And why I’m saying that is, we are seeing real interest, particularly out of Asia, when you think about fixed income, and I think that, I want to say the first time in my career, but a long time China’s short rates are actually lower than U.S. And so I think that the demand for high-quality fixed income, not only we’re seeing it in the U.S., but we’re also seeing it in the world. And so sometimes, these sovereign wealth funds is an example. They bring a lot of assets that aggress the fees, but we’re super excited. It’s margin accretive. And again, what we’re managing to is organic growth and we see great opportunities in 2024.

Ryan Krueger: Great. thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Scott with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Alex Scott: Hi. Good morning. First one I had for you is just on the health — the Benefitfocus business and comments sounded pretty optimistic around the year end. It was just interesting if you could apply more on how the cross-selling is going. I mean, are you expecting that this could potentially get a bigger bump in growth this year, because of some of the cross-selling efforts across your different clients? And is that something we should be thinking about at the end of the next quarter?

Rob Grubka: Hey, Alex. this is Rob. I’ll start and I guess Heather may want to chime in on the back end of this one. Look, we’re really excited about the conversations that are going on. but I want to be clear that this is a business, where it’s sort of the cycle of sale. And we talked about this acquisition is just longer, right. So, it’s a technology-driven sale. Those are big decisions. Generally, you’re unseating some prior technology provider. And so it tends to be more of a 12-month to 15-month sort of sales cycle. So, I wouldn’t think about things from a — sort of, hey, we’re going through any new enrollment now as we talked about, and then you’re going to see some sort of major change in what you’ve seen quarter-to-quarter.

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