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Genworth Financial, Inc. (GNW)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Oct 30, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Please stand by, we're about to begin. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Genworth Financial's Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Mar, and I am your coordinator today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will facilitate a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference call. The conference is being recorded for replay purposes. Also, we ask that you refrain from using cell phones, speaker phones or headsets during the Q&A portion of today's call. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Amy Corbin, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Corbin, you may proceed.

Amy Corbin - Senior Vice President, Investor Relations

Management

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Genworth's third quarter 2015 earnings call. Our press release and financial supplement were released last evening; and this morning, our earnings presentation was posted to our website and will be referenced during our call. We encourage you to review all of these materials. Today you will hear from our President and Chief Executive Officer, Tom McInerney, followed by Kelly Groh, our Chief Financial Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we will open up the call up for a question-and-answer period. In addition to our speakers, Kevin Schneider, President and CEO of our Global Mortgage Insurance Division, Dan Sheehan, Chief Investment Officer and David O'Leary, our President of our U.S. Life Insurance Division will be available to take your questions. During the call this morning, we may make various forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ materially from such statements. We advise you to read the cautionary notes regarding forward-looking statements in our earnings release and related presentations as well as the risk factors of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and our quarterly filings on Form 10-Qs as filed with the SEC. This morning's discussion also includes non-GAAP financial measures that we believe may be meaningful to investors. In our financial supplement, earnings release and investor materials, non-GAAP measures have been reconciled to GAAP, where required, in accordance with SEC rules. Also, when we talk about the results of our international businesses, please note that all percentage changes exclude the impact of foreign exchange. And finally, references to statutory results are estimates, due to the timing of the filing of the statutory statements. And now I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Tom McInerney. Thomas J. McInerney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Amy, and good morning, everyone.…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer portion of the call. Our first question comes from Nigel Dally with Morgan Stanley. Nigel P. Dally - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. Thank you. Good morning. First question just on the life block sale. With the capital freed up, should we take it from your comments that all of that capital is going to be retained at the sub level? And also under the tax sharing, how much cash would you expect GLIC to be paying to the parent annually? Thomas J. McInerney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, Nigel, in terms of the sale of the two blocks, the capital is $100 million to $150 million, and we'll have the flexibility to either have that go to the parent or retain it into the sub. What was your second question? Nigel P. Dally - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Just the amount of the cash coming up from the tax sharing. Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I'll take that one. Thomas J. McInerney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hey, Nigel, it's Kelly Groh. I'll take that. We're going to provide more details on that when we get closer to closing the transaction in the first quarter. Obviously, it depends on the tax position of the rest of our subsidiaries and we'll be utilizing the NOLs in the other subs subsequent to the closing of the transaction. Nigel P. Dally - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Then to the question on domestic MI. So the single premium lender paid NIW was up about 64%. Now you talked about being selective there. It seems like a very large increase. So just hoping you can discuss what's driving that increase. Kevin D. Schneider - Executive Vice President – Genworth and President & CEO, Global Mortgage Insurance Division: Hi, Nigel. This is Kevin. Overall we had good growth in the total market, both in the lender paid portion and in the borrower paid portion of the market. We've previously discussed that we'll participate in that selectively and there'll be quarters where it'll be a little bit lumpy. But we saw some opportunities this time that were good profitable opportunities for us. The overall change it was up probably $500 million overall in terms of the overall growth in the single premium side. So I don't consider it a particularly a big up take. I'm not sure, you'd consider that as a run rate. It was just some opportunistic pricing opportunities for us within the period. And it was frankly within our expectations of where we'd be for the year. Nigel P. Dally - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

For our next question, we move to Ryan Krueger, KBW. Ryan Krueger - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Hi, thanks. Good morning. I first had a follow-up question on the Life Insurance taxes and intercompany tax sharing payments to the holding company. I guess I just wanted to clarify, the Life company will be able to pay taxes to the holding company to utilize, I guess, tax positions with overall tax-sharing agreement. But won't those payments still ultimately be sent to the IRS, or they're actually being retained at the holding company? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sorry about that. I'm just trying to make sure my mic is on. No, they won't. We currently have ample foreign tax credits and net operating losses in the rest of the system. So really what happens is, we're utilizing with this transaction all of NOLs within the U.S. Life companies. Then once those are utilized, those go to cover NOL utilization, given the Life, non-Life election we did a few years back. So there's no payments to the IRS in the foreseeable future. Ryan Krueger - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay, okay. Got it. Thanks. And then a question on I guess the holding company cash usage. Every quarter you disclose the hold company net other items, which I assume is primarily expenses. And on a year-to-date basis that number is $219 million. Can you just give us a sense of how you'd expect that to run going forward if this was a fairly normal level at this point or should we expect any changes going forward? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes. You know in our slide we did go through that, and the net other items for the quarter were about $57 million. The thing that would I say on that is we did opportunistically buyback some debt, so that was about $50 million of the total there. Ryan Krueger - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: $50 million of the year-to-date total? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: No, $50 million of the quarter total of the $57 million. Ryan Krueger - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay. Can you give us any sense of on an annual basis what you'd typically expect that to be? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes. I mean, we'll continue to opportunistically look at debt repurchases, but I don't have a forecast for you. Ryan Krueger - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay. All right. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Geoffrey Dunn of Dowling & Partners. Geoffrey Murray Dunn - Dowling & Partners Securities LLC: Thank you. Good morning. Just a quick follow-up on the last question. What piece of debt did you buyback this quarter? What maturity? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes, Geoff, we kind of went across the spectrum, obviously focusing on shorter-term stuff, and we'll fully disclose that in the 10-Q when we file it. Geoffrey Murray Dunn - Dowling & Partners Securities LLC: Great. Then in terms of the PMIERs, your original range was $500 million to $700 million, now you're up at $725 million. Can you give us an idea of the relative cushion you have over your minimum required assets? Kevin D. Schneider - Executive Vice President – Genworth and President & CEO, Global Mortgage Insurance Division: Yes. Geoff, we have continued to asses our PMIERs compliance really from the beginning, thinking about the buffer we might need, and we're probably not going to disclose the relative levels until we get through the fourth quarter and conclude all of our full compliance and repping of that compliance with the GSEs. But this is how I think about it and how it might help you see where we're headed. There's really sort of two components we think about in our buffer. The first is you have some uncertainty in the performance metrics of the business. So the relative levels of NIW, the different mixes of that NIW, which have different capital charges associated with it, where persistency goes. If your lapse is higher, you may lose some of the benefit of some of the buffers or it may go the other way for you and you may gain some benefits and then ultimately…

Operator

Operator

We move now to Steven Schwartz, Raymond James & Associates. Steven D. Schwartz - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey, good morning, everybody. First, Kevin, just a quick follow-up to your comments there. The reference to competition in the MI, I'm assuming you're referencing tiered pricing. Is that correct? Kevin D. Schneider - Executive Vice President – Genworth and President & CEO, Global Mortgage Insurance Division: I'm referencing competitive pricing from – when you said tier pricing, I think we're seeing it in all of our pricing right now, both the borrower paid pricing and the lender paid premium pricing. Steven D. Schwartz - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. All right. I'll move on to other stuff. Just wanted to make sure. Kelly, can you maybe tell us – the loss ratio in LTC was up. That was due to some of these remediation efforts. Can you give us a clue as to what that ratio might have been ex what you discovered during the remediation efforts? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. I think that ratio excluding those would have been about 74%, instead of 76%. Steven D. Schwartz - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay, great. Thank you. And where would you be so far in the run rate of cash savings? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Oh, yes, I think you're talking about our run rate that we put out there from a target perspective, $100 million. Steven D. Schwartz - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Right, yes. Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay. Marty last quarter said we were on a run rate of about $50 million. I've reviewed that so far, and we've made more progress…

Operator

Operator

We'll take the next question from Sean Dargan of Macquarie. Sean Dargan - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Thanks and good morning. Just sticking to Australia, so GMA announced the share repurchase program last night or authorization and you will participate in that to keep your ownership level stable. I'm just wondering what the thought process is there because you'll in a sense be I guess using capital to buy back the shares of that company. I guess what the thought process of that versus a common dividend increase is? And what's the end game? Is it to get up the share price so that you can exit your ownership stake and use that to address the 2018 maturity? Kevin D. Schneider - Executive Vice President – Genworth and President & CEO, Global Mortgage Insurance Division: Sean, Australia has significant capital levels in excess of their management targets. I think there's a number of capital management initiatives that are available to the business, you'll see continued steady common dividend payment. There has been some level earlier in this year in terms of special dividends. There is some limitation on those due to the franking credits associated with the business. The share buyback opportunity for the Australian business will come out of their capital base and I think it's sort of an interesting time to do that given where the share price is trading, which is significantly below the book value of the business. So, there is a number of different opportunities. We're going to work to continue to really to manage and optimize that capital. If we get some share improvement that will certainly be helpful along the way. But there is a number of opportunities there, and maybe Tom has some additional comments on that. Thomas J. McInerney - President,…

Operator

Operator

Next we go to Suneet Kamath with UBS.

Suneet L. Kamath - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. I wanted to follow-up on Ryan's question about the HoldCo net other items. This number has been moving around quite a bit. But, if I just track it so far this year, it's quite a bit higher than last year, and in some quarters it's actually exceeded the interest expense. So I don't know if this is a question or more of a request. I think it'd really be helpful given so many of us are focused on holding company cash to really get a sense of what's in here. And then, Kelly, I think you were asked for a forecast, which I don't think you were able to give. But I really encourage you to rethink that because to the extent that this number is moving around a lot, it really can have a significant impact on the cash position, and it calls into question whether that 1.5 times interest coverage number is enough, particularly in quarters when it exceeds the interest expense. So, I just wanted to get some thoughts there. Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes. We'll acknowledge your input and consider giving a forecast in the future.

Suneet L. Kamath - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then I guess, Tom, for you. We've been on this consistent track over the past couple of quarters of talking about $1 billion to $2 billion of debt reduction. So I was a little surprised to hear the comment earlier that you're thinking about potentially refinancing the 2018 debt. Obviously that would move us off that debt reduction. So what's going on in terms of your thinking around that? Thomas J. McInerney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes. So, Suneet, we still look at the $1 billion to $2 billion as a firm target for debt reduction. And let me tell you the principal driver of that $1 billion to $2 billion is because we do want to increase the optionality for the company. We do think that with the debt at its current levels – now it will come down because we will take care of the 2016 with the proceeds from LPI. But we do think by getting the debt down in that range of $1 billion to $2 billion, it allows us to look at strategic options that we can't look at or aren't feasible without doing that. So that's still the focus. I think what Kelly said is we have a number of levers to use to reduce debt, and we've done the LPI deal, the term life blocks, we're continuing to look at other life annuity blocks, the MIE deal. I think Kelly just meant that one of the options we have for the 2018 maturity would be to refinance it. I'm not saying we will refinance it, but it is an option. I think that's all she meant by that.

Suneet L. Kamath - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then I guess on the active life reserve review in the fourth quarter, I think you said you're going to be looking at all of your assumptions, but I just would note there were some comments out of Moody's around it becoming more difficult to get price increases approved by the regulators. And given that's such an important component of your active life reserve, does that play into your thinking around what you've built-in in terms of that reserve, i.e. the Moody's commentary? Thomas J. McInerney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I don't want to comment on Moody's. I will say and I mentioned this in my remarks. I think we've made very strong progress in premium increases. Year-to-date, we have received on average 29% increase on $700 million of premiums. And you don't see that yet because obviously that, we'll call it, rounded to $30 million, and $700 million will come in on the anniversary days going forward. So I think we're making very good progress on premium increases. We're right on track. I know a lot of investors questioned, our target was $500 million at its peak and $5 billion net present value, but we're right on track with that. So I'm very pleased with how we're doing. As I have said in the past and I said today, one of my key priorities personally is to work with Elena Edwards and the team with the regulators. And I think that's all going very well. We continue to spend a lot of time with individual states, with the NAIC, with a number of key regulators who are focused on long-term care, and I do believe that they agree with us. They need to give us increases on the old blocks to get those to breakeven and I think we're making very good progress on that. Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Suneet. Let me add one more thing to that. We are currently working on our margin testing, we'll finish that in the fourth quarter, and definitely provide lot more details on the fourth quarter earnings call. The one thing I did want people to remember though, is last year we did unlock our PGAAP block because we have to test our PGAAP and our direct written business separately. And since we unlocked that, it has no margin, it will be more sensitive to adverse changes. But it's less sensitive to interest rates. It benefits less from rate increases just given the age of the business.

Suneet L. Kamath - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

We'll move next to Scott Frost of Merrill Lynch.

Scott Frost - BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple of things. What's the unassigned surplus of GLIC in Q3 right now? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. We've got that in our slides, it's about $76 million.

Scott Frost - BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research

Analyst

Okay. The question – I'm trying to piece it all together with the debt guidance, a couple of things. USMI pays dividends, you said probably 2017, the long-term care premiums in force, but no expectations of dividends from GLIC by 2018, that's kind of what it sounds like. I'm trying to figure out how long is near-term when you said you're not going to be a near-term payer? And the reason I ask is, it looks like your liquidity might be challenged if they don't start paying dividends to the HoldCo at some point. Is that the right read? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Scott, I guess what I would say on that is, that was one of the reasons we did the life block transaction is frankly that ate up all of the – or that will eat up all of the NOLs in the Life companies. So, even though we're not planning on necessarily taking explicit dividends out of the company, it will help holding company cash to pay for accumulated NOLs related to past debt payments as the Life companies earn taxable income over time.

Scott Frost - BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research

Analyst

Got it. Okay, okay. You talked about the refi of the 2018s as one potential option. And I'm curious as to how you think you would do that. What capital markets options do you see as open to you? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. I mean there's obviously a high yield market that's available. When you look at where our debt is trading right now, you could do a five-year issuance around an 8% coupon. We've got 2.5 years really to make that decision, and a lot of time to evaluate the best options for our bondholders and our shareholders.

Scott Frost - BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research

Analyst

Okay. Great. And I just want to ask one last one. Could you remind us, I want to make sure I understand, there is an intercompany reinsurance arrangement regarding long-term care. Is it Brookfield Life or Brookfield Life and Annuity, and what I'm getting at is, you said you're unlikely to sell more of GMA AU. But if you were to do that or sell Canada, would proceeds be available to the holding company? And more specifically, if you had some adverse experience in long-term care, would the arrangement require you to pledge additional blocks of those two entities to support the reinsurance arrangement? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. I mean, Scott, this is Kelly. One of the things we've talked about in the past is the desire to repatriate that business, that's still a goal of ours, to repatriate from Bermuda the long-term care business. We think it adds transparency and it likely would be credit positive. We've evidenced that we've been able to bring capital up through our Bermuda subsidiaries, as we obviously talked about what we got from Australia this year. So, I'm not necessarily concerned about that at this time, but just it still is a goal of ours to do the long-term care repatriation either in 2016 or 2017.

Scott Frost - BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research

Analyst

Okay. And just to be clear, the repatriation would – I mean that would – there would be no encumbrance anymore if there is one now, on any of the other stakes that you have in International MI, is that accurate? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. That's accurate.

Scott Frost - BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research

Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on the new position. Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks, Scott.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we have time for one final question, which will come from Ken Billingsley of Compass Point. Ken G. Billingsley - Compass Point Research & Trading LLC: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I had a few long-term care questions here. From the press release, you talked about the higher mix of new claims with average reserves. I think that's multiple quarters that's come through. Does this mean that in the future that this is actually going to decline as it seems like there is a mix of new claims that actually have lower average reserve expectations coming in, and that there should actually be an improvement at some point in the future? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: We reset our assumptions last year as a part of our disabled life reserves. So, we look at our utilization and update that on a quarterly basis. And I'm not concerned with the claims trends we're seeing right now, they're as expected and they're what we're really building our rate action plans to address. And in terms of as we put on new claims, we obviously put those on at the higher factors on a per claim basis and really the development we saw in the quarter was consistent with our expectations. Ken G. Billingsley - Compass Point Research & Trading LLC: Then I guess my understanding was that these claims that were coming in, that there was just a higher percentage that had made, I guess, higher average daily amounts than what a normal mix would be. Is that wrong? Kelly L. Groh - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: No, no. I think you're right. As we see the aging of the business, that's automatically going to transition that…

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, I will now turn the call back over to Mr. McInerney for closing comments. Thomas J. McInerney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Mar, and thanks to all of you for your time and your questions today. I just want to summarize and say, we remain focused on our strategic priorities. I think we have a strong management team and we're pleased to have Kelly stepping into the CFO role, and I think you've seen some of her talent today answering all of your questions. In addition to a good management team we've got talented and dedicated employees, who continue to focus on rebuilding shareholder value. We're doing all we can in terms of priorities to implement those that add value, and are feasible, but we're also staying true to our mission, which is to help families achieve and maintain the dream of home ownership as well as helping families with funding solutions for their long-term care needs. So, with that, thank you very much, and we look forward to the next call in early February.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Genworth Financial's third quarter earnings conference call. Thank you for your participation. At this time, the call will end.