Earnings Labs

Prudential Financial, Inc. (PRU)

Q2 2009 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 7, 2009

$96.63

-0.29%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen thank you for standing by. And welcome to the Second Quarter 2009 Earnings Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct the question and answer session. Instructions will be given to you at that time. (Operator Instructions). And as a reminder today's conference call is being recorded. I will now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Eric Durant. Please go ahead.

Eric Durant

Management

Thank you Scythia. In order to help to understand Prudential Financials, we will make some forward-looking statements in the following presentation. It possible that actual results may differ materially from the predictions we make today. Additional information regarding factors that could cause such a difference appears in the section titled forward-looking statements of non-GAAP measures of our earnings press release for the second quarter of 2009, which can be found on our website at www.investor.prudential.com. In addition, in managing our businesses we use a non-GAAP measures, we call it adjusted operating income to measure the performance of our financial services businesses. Adjusted operating income excludes net investment gains and losses as adjusted and related charges and adjustments as well as results from divested businesses. Adjusted operating income also excludes recorded changes and asset values that will ultimately accrue to contract folders and record changes in contract folders and liabilities, resulting from changes in asset values. The comparable GAAP presentation and the reconciliation between the two for the second quarter are set out in a earnings press release on our website. Additional historical information relating to the companies financial performance is also located on our website. Okay. Now that we're legal John Strangfeld Jr., will lead off with his comments followed by Rich Carbone and Mark Grier, will walk you through the second quarter after that, John, Rich and Mark will be joined by Peter Sayre, Ed Baird and Bernard Winograd for your Q&A. We expect to wish you a good day around noon today. John.

John R. Strangfeld Jr.

Management

Thank you, Eric. And good morning everyone. And thank you for joining us and we appreciate your interest in Prudential. As Eric mentioned as is our practice Rich and Mark, will walk you through the specifics on the quarter, but first I would like to kick things off with some high level comments. I'd like to begin by saying that we remained very positive about our mix of businesses, the quality of the businesses that make up the mix, and the momentum we see even in the face of what remain a difficult business environment. Overall and because of these factors we believe there is ample evidence that we are gaining grounds in the marketplace. Second quarter results obviously reflect improvements in financial markets though in many ways more importantly indicating clear trends that we are improving our competitive position. In some areas it's absolute in others it's relative, but the signs are unmistakable. Adjusted operating income in the quarter nearly matched the strong result of the year ago and several of our businesses had never been healthier. We consider the earnings performance of our businesses respectable under the circumstances and we believe we are well positioned to do better overtime. Sales inflows are even better measures and the progress that businesses are making. They were solid virtually across the board in the second in the quarter and the first half overall. Our individual annuities business posted record variable annuity sales in the quarter, DA sales were up 23% from the prior year and net variable annuity sales topped 2 billion, more than thee times our previous record. US individual life insurance also registered favorable sales result a year-over-year increase of 17%. Importantly our sales through third party distribution increased by 35% and now represents roughly 75% of total sales…

Richard J. Carbone

Management

Thanks John and good morning everyone. As you've seen from yesterday's release, we reported common stock earnings per share of $1.88 for the second quarter. This compares to a $1.96 for the quarter a year ago, and is based on adjusted operating income for the financial services business. Now, we ended the quarter on a very high level, we benefited from good performance at major businesses, offsetting some cases by cumulative market decline and account values over the past year, reducing fee income. Also the cost of holding excess liquidity, which is showing up with a negative spread was a drag on results for the quarter. On the other hand, improving financial market conditions, contributed to favorable results, mostly through unlocking adjustments. As in past quarters, operating results of some of our businesses are affected by these great (ph) items, I will go through the major ones right now. At our individual annuity business, we released the portion of our results for guaranteed minimum debt and income benefits, resulting in a benefit of about $0.46 per share and we had a positive unlocking of debt also in annuities. Reducing amortization of deferred policy acquisition and other cost, reducing benefits of $0.24 per share. Our individual life insurance business, also recorded a reduction in net preservation of debt and related cost of $0.04 per share reflecting that recovery of account values. Now going back to annuities. It gets complicated. In the annuity business we include the impact of hedging breakage in our adjusted operating income. The hedging breakage represents the difference between the change in the value of the derivatives we used to hedge our annuity living benefit guarantees and the changes in the value the embedded derivative liabilities for these guarantees. The change in the fair value of the embedded…

Mark B. Grier

Management

Thank you Rich, Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Thanks for joining us on the call. Let me start on the investment portfolio. We managed our investment portfolio primarily with the focus on its cash flow prospects, since our general accounting investments are mainly supporting long-term insurance liabilities. Despite un-recovery of values with credit spreads narrowing on many asset classes during the second quarter we continue to live with a substantial disconnect between the market values for many classes of investments and their underlying cash flow prospects. With that said I'll start with our fixed maturity portfolio. Gross unrealized losses on our fixed maturities in our general account stood at $7.8 billion at the end of the second quarter. This represents a recovery of about 3.4 billion in comparison to the first quarter driven by credit spread narrowing across nearly all asset classes. Roughly $2.1 billion of total gross unrealized losses at the end of the second quarter relate to sub-prime holdings. This compares to $2.6 billion at the end of the first quarter. Market trading in sub-prime securities has been limited and is not exhibited the characteristics of an orderly market. In fact there have been virtually no recent transactions in the securities we hold. Given the lack of an active market, our pricing as of June 30th, considers market assumptions applies to our cash flow estimates in combination with third party pricing. Total sub-prime holdings were just under $5 billion at the end of the second quarter based on amortized cost. This represents a decrease of about 500 million from the first quarter reflecting roughly $300 million of pay downs during the quarter and the $200 million of credit impairments that Rich mentioned. At June 30th, the general account fixed portfolio included $7.9 billion of commercial mortgage backed…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). Our first question will come from the line of Suneet Kamath from Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Suneet Kamath

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

Great, thanks. Just two quick questions on capital. First John I think you mentioned in your opening comments that the capital you raised would be only used for organic growth purposes. So is it fair to say that if you decided to pursue an M&A transaction that you would use sort of fresh capital newly raised capital and then how do you think about the what hope you could proceed meaning if once you get those dollars do you think that you want to whole that as buffer again to downside scenario or would you be comfortable putting that money to work in an acquisition if something came up. And then separately for Rich just quickly on the 100 basis point improvement in RBC from the Wachovia deal does that number fluctuate depending on whether or you not get cash versus stock and how should we think about that? Thanks.

John Strangfeld Jr.

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

Suneet John, let me take the first part and then I will flip it over to Rich for the Part B. On M&A I think it's fair to assume that anything is significant we've assume would required external financing and we would not stretch ourselves with respect to leverage, and that's been our mantra on this and that's the way we continue to think about it that's how we represented we did the share raise recently. Rich?

Richard Carbone

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

Yeah, the way we structured the ownership inside the Prudential Insurance of the Wachovia JV it would not make any difference between cash and stock. But it would be our intend to, to sell the stock within a very short timeframe.

Suneet Kamath

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead.

John Nadel

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning everybody. A quick one real quick following up on the Wachovia put I was just want to go back and sort of think about you guys provided formal notification to well as about month and half ago. As I understand it they were supposed to comeback to you within the couple of weeks after that and give you a sense for the cash and stock mix and just wondering if you got that notification and so can you give us a sense for what's going to common in terms of cash stock next?

Mark Grier

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Yeah, John its Mark. Just as a general statement up front first both of us are complying with everything that we've agreed to and the process is proceeding. I would say on an orderly basis toward making sure that we did through an orderly settlement of this in January. Their requirement was to notify as of either stock or cash or a combination of the two. They notified us that they would be delivering a combination of the two. And we're working on how and when will be more specific.

John Nadel

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Okay. And Mark is it fair to assume that some point and maybe we've already begun that prudential we began a sort of hedging or forward sales or some sort of transaction to remove the downside risk associated with the drop and well as the stock?

Mark Grier

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Well, I don't to make too many specific comments on that at this point but we will have an objective to preserve the value of the consideration and also to satisfy the RBT objectives as Rich mentioned.

John Nadel

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Okay. Great, and then the last one is just little bit higher level John instead of maybe going after the guidance and how it differs versus last quarter and what in what might have changed? And sort of thought maybe take a step back and think about the ROE of the company that the guidance implies. If we strip out the negative effects, the negative one timers in the 1Q and the positive net one timers in the 2Q and look at the mid-point or maybe even the high end of your range of guidance for 2009 implies that an ROE on an operating basis normalized around 10%. And so obviously there is a lot of drags here holding high cash balances, the SMP is clearly while re bounding nicely still down meaningfully year-over-year. Real estate related earnings are down, but X capital management X and M&A transaction, you know that sort of thing, if we just assumed reasonably stable macro conditions from here, where can that ROE go over the next couple of years?

John Strangfeld Jr.

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Okay, John. Happy to address that, actually let me take that in two parts, both because it make references for the run rate earnings. So why don't I address that and then we'll talk about ROE longer term.

John Nadel

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Thanks.

John Strangfeld Jr.

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

So if you look at the second half versus the first half run rate let me just explain that a little, I appreciate you keeping our low, earnings to spend a little I guess this questions about this. If you look at our core run rate earnings in Q1 and Q2 the rate around the dollar form in Q1 $1.23 in Q2, as we look to the second half, we were thinking about guidance, we're not factoring in more aggressive, investment returns we are also not factoring in the deployment of the recent capital raise into the businesses. So you do have some of that dragged you were describing. What we are factoring in is the impact of the capital rates in terms of additional shares and also in terms of additional interest cost.

John Nadel

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Yeah.

John Strangfeld Jr.

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

And we figured that those two factors, is the additional shares and showing through its cost account for about $0.10 to $0.15 per quarter in terms of their impact and hence when we adjust for the capital rates, therefore we see a lot of consistency between the first half and the second half. Now you're primary question -- so let me just clarify that but, your primary questions are long term our long term goal or aspiration is that ROE in the low to mid teens in normalized markets. Now normalized markets has a lot of qualification to it.

John Nadel

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Yeah.

John Strangfeld Jr.

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Whether its the equity market, whether it's a level of interest rates whether is the commercial real estate markets, institutional retail buying behavior and also it presumed in that is it active management of capital and liquidity as well. So we think it's obviously pretty hard to find the time arising for that, given all the forces at work. But what underpins our optimism long-term is the quality of our business mix. And we think that's what underpins our long-term aspirations. So that's it that's my response to your two questions.

John Nadel

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Yeah. That's great. Thank you John.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Nigel Dally

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Great. Thank you. And good morning. First question annuity hedging, you mentioned that you started to hedge the GMTB on a limited basis with marked it up around 1000 want to give more aggressive and trying to eliminate some of that risk. Second the loss on proprietary investment in asset management seems to a recurring item that we think for several quarter now. Can you provide some additional data along the total level of proprietary investments to keep back this driving net losses and also is it correct to assume that this losses are on legacy petitions which are probably difficult to unwind? Thanks.

Mark Grier

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

I'll this is Mark I'll start with the first question. I don't want to go into a lot more detail about the whole annuity picture as you aware its fairly dynamic with respect to some of things happening on the statutory accounting front and we are examining everything that we do their with respect about stat and GAAP and hedging and products. Factoring in the lessons learned over the past 12 months. You heard on investor day discussions around thinking about variable capital and how it comes back when the market goes up and we are experiencing the benefit of some of that right now. And we're going to get back to you at some point I'm not sure it would be Investor Day with a broader story about the entire annuity picture for us. But I would say that we're looking for an efficient and effective ways to make sure that we're making the right decisions in the context of the market and the risk and particularly still considering the nature of the risk meaning some of it is genuinely is variable. So, I don't want a go too much further than that in terms of talking about what we're doing except that we have become more active around guaranteed minimum death benefits.

Nigel Dally

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Okay.

Mark Grier

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

And now let Bernard comment on the proprietary investment.

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Nigel the proprietary investing the principle driver there of trends that we've been seeing recently and particularly in this quarter has been commercial real estate market. We have been in a process of lowering the amount of capital we have committed to proprietary investing, it's down under a $1 billion and it that's cut roughly in half at its peak. And I would just say here that the driver is a combination of things that in the commercial real estate market the way in which the performance manifests itself is that the you have initially weakness in asset values and subsequent weakness in mortgage portfolios. As the asset value impact on equity begins to make it's way into the performance approval the delinquency and Wachovia with the mortgage portfolios. So, the underlying cause at the moment and since the beginning of the year has been primarily the real estate market and it will continue to be the real estate market but the mix is going to shift a little bit and then more of it will be a mortgage side going forward.

Nigel Dally

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Okay. That's great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line Tom Gallagher Credit Suisse Group. Please go ahead.

Thomas Gallagher

Analyst

Hi, just a first of all for Bernard so, if I understood you correctly the you have two impacts here, one is the mark-to-market of the decline of value -- the second is the I guess the losses you would experience on the loans which are I presume you putting up loan loss reserves for senior loans that you have there and is that's right or we likely to see similar sized drags do you think for the next several quarters on the loan side because I presumed it called up on the mark-to-market stuff that's my first question.

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Well, we're trying to catch up on the mark-to-market stuff but some of this is not in the indirect in the sense that you have accrued incentive fees at risk for call back. So, it's not necessarily linear, you are can't necessarily get to the point where in turns around until the market itself begins to turn around, we are not there just yet. Having said that yes what I do think that the next year and just to clarify the 900 million is what we had outside of the interim loan portfolio of 1.08 billion, but the mix of where those losses will come from is probably going to increasingly be driven by the recognition of problems in the loan -- in the mortgage loan world over the next 18 months. I will Rich speak to this if we need to but the we are not in a position to reserve what we think we the ultimate losses will be in the mortgage portfolio we have to reserve -- increase reserve as the experience actually arises. And while we've taken our view of the ultimate loss into account in our stress testing another forward looks, we are in terms of current period recognition constrained is to what we've been recognized until the problems actually arise in the mortgage portfolio.

Thomas Gallagher

Analyst

And one more quick follow up on that if I may, and as we think about this billion 9 loan book, is it all related to what you're doing in the general account in terms of the senior loans, I presume this is somewhat the lower quality a bit more speculative, but is that all connected, should we view this as an early indication of what we might see in the CRE loan book at Prudential Insurance company?

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

No. If the general accounts have had appetite for lending of this kind it would be in the general account. This is deliberately a more aggressive loan portfolio than we use to support the liabilities that the general account is supporting, the principal difference is while we're not all the way to the place, where the banks are, we're not doing construction lending (ph) and we're certainly not doing speculative lending, we're doing in effect redevelopment lending on established properties that are going through some kind of repositioning. And so the loan loss and the risk of loss is higher here, than what we've experienced in the -- or expect to experience for that matter in the general account portfolio.

Thomas Gallagher

Analyst

Okay, okay, thanks. And then, just one last question, just generally, I guess maybe even for John, the does the big jump in variable annuity sales concern you at all? And that may sound a bit kind of intuitive but, the reason I ask is when I see as dramatic an increase in sales and net flows in a preferred product like variable annuities, I guess I wonder, why are we seeing such a dramatic change and is that indicative of the fact that may be your products are more aggressive or is that something you've looked into and how overall should we be thinking about that?

John Strangfeld Jr.

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

I think, let me ask Bernard to elaborate on this, I think a lot of this has been with the fact that we do each product re-tooling well before the rest of the market has and we're quite comfortable in where we're at. Bernard.

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Yeah. Let me try to explain, why we're feeling comfortable with what we sell, which is a notable contrast, I think to a lot of our competitors in this space. The auto re-balancing feature that Mark referred to earlier that we package with living benefits, you know transfers takes a lot of the risk of offering this guarantee out of the product and we wind up with what we think is a very attractive risk reward ratio. It is something which for -- where we remain the only significant player offering this kind of products in the annuity space. There was more channel resistance to this product than there is now, and as the auto re-bouncing has demonstrated its virtues I think we found it easier to add new distributors -- we don't have final numbers yet but we think our market share is now 12 to 13% instead of 8 and I think the fact that some competitors are pulling back because they don't have similar risk reward products and that there is in general, an example here the kind of slides quality we talked about in generally the domestic markets it's a combination of all those things. The superior products, a good corporate sponsor and weakened competition.

Thomas Gallagher

Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Mark Grier

Analyst · John Nadel from Sterne Agee. Please go ahead

Tom another point there also is were this on the basis of the old book we would have about this on the basis of the new book which we've been writing to closing in on two years we're very comfortable with the risk profile.

Thomas Gallagher

Analyst

Understood. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Dan Johnson from Citadel, please go ahead.

Dan Johnson

Analyst · Citadel, please go ahead

Hey thanks. Just a simple one can you remind us as to how much of the Wachovia gain has already been booked. So depending on what the final number is we can figure out the remaining shareholders equity attrition? Thank you.

Richard Carbone

Analyst · Citadel, please go ahead

Yeah, the -- this is Rich. There was a gain booked on the options back a year so build sitting inside of stockholders equity but that is not benefiting the RBC ratio. So I think you want to ignore that and if we use the benchmark of 5 billion the after-tax gain is somewhere a tune of 1.7 billion.

Dan Johnson

Analyst · Citadel, please go ahead

1.7 for on a GAAP basis but the whole -- I guess you'd call that 5 billion plus whatever tax offset would go to benefit the RBC which is where you get your 100 points?

Richard Carbone

Analyst · Citadel, please go ahead

Well, there is already -- remember now the investment is carrying in PICA. So PICA is already enjoying a $2 billion carrying value that's a good asset and was a surplus. So the incremental add to surplus would be the 1.07 billion plus some incremental tax benefits upon a $5 billion assumption for gross proceeds.

Dan Johnson

Analyst · Citadel, please go ahead

Got it, and that gets you to your...

Richard Carbone

Analyst · Citadel, please go ahead

100 RBC.

Dan Johnson

Analyst · Citadel, please go ahead

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We have time for one final question and that would be from the line of Mark Finkelstein from Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead.

Mark Finkelstein

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

Hi. Actually one quick follow question on the asset management commercial real estate comments. I'm curious what is the PRU exposure to unfunded commitments. I believe there is a fair amount that are cut in the funds. I don't if there is co-investments on those. And in those scenarios if there is losses that you assume to occur in portfolio, do you take those today or does that occur actually when they are funded. Just wondering if this is a relevant discussion?

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

This is Bernard. We won't throw in the exact number on the unfunded comments but the short answer is that to the question that I assume is on your mind which is that when we fund the commitment we are buying in at current market values, not at some historical cost basis that is no longer in the occurred values.

Richard Carbone

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

But if -- this is Rich, if this got trapped inside of a FAS-5 contingent liability and there was a loss contract per se we would analyze it for recognizing the loss at that point in time.

Mark Finkelstein

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

Okay. All right, and then I guess just I think in the past you said that VA Carven (ph) is expected to have little impact I guess. Can you just give an update on a current thinking on that and with the equity market up should that turn into a benefit, what are the sensitivities if anything you can disclose around that?

Richard Carbone

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

We haven't refreshed our calculations of the current markets, but because of the way we held reserves, we didn't take full advantage of lowering or lowering down our RBC because of the regulatory regime at the time, so we topped them up which is why when we implement VA Carven (ph) the numbers are going to be order of magnitude a 100 and 120 million bucks. And may be come down from there, but we haven't done that calculation that's the downside.

Mark Grier

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

Yeah, that answer's consistent with what we had said as of year end and as Rich said we haven't refreshed that but that's the downside, it's very small for us.

Mark Finkelstein

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

Okay. And then, just finally one last question, just looking at the corporate segment and I understand the comments on liquidity and excess liquidity and negative spread, should we be thinking about this level of loss, you know going forward is that, what's essentially embedded in guidance, I mean how should we think about the corporate segment for the back half of the year?

Richard Carbone

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

It's going to be pretty consistent with what you see, except that it doesn't have without bearing all the interest expense of that a billion dollars, that we issued in June, so if they can attack on another 35 million, 7% on the billing and 70 million, half of that's 35 million so you are going to have to add that right around.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

Right.

Richard Carbone

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

The two quarters.

Mark Grier

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

And, I think with respect to the time horizon you've got in mind, we would say we expected a more or less looked the way its expect for the items Rich mentioned.

Mark Finkelstein

Analyst · Fox Pitt Kelton, please go ahead

Right, okay great thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We have us on the line of Ed Spehar from Bank of America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead.

Edward Spehar

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

Thank you. I want to follow up on the liquidity question, just Rich could you tell me did you say that you are going to your plan was to put a $1.5 billion to $2 billion of the cash to work by year-end did I hear that?

Richard Carbone

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

No.

Edward Spehar

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

You didn't say that?

Richard Carbone

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

Well -- let me think about this well. So, yeah, I was going to bring the cash that the holding company down from the 3.05 billion which was net of CT and the inter-company borrowings and I was going to bring it down from the 3.05 to $2 billion and that 1.05 billion side would be put into the regulated entities. Yes, Ed you are correct.

Edward Spehar

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

Okay, so if we have no ability to allocate among segments at this point and we were just using corporate as a catch wouldn't there be improvement in corporate if that was our cat hew from this type of an action?

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

No, I don't think so I think I have got 1.5 billion seating in corporate making them in cash, making I don't know 1%. So, on the sure that down into the businesses its not going to improve corporate it may improve some of the business earnings modestly.

Edward Spehar

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

Yeah, I guess that's my point I just as a cat choral if we from the earnings overall earnings standpoint that there is a 5% let's say incremental investment income pick up as you move this money now?

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

There should be at but that maybe ceiling yes, I guess the answer is going to be simple answer yes.

Edward Spehar

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

Okay, and then on the Wachovia if we did assume the $5 billion number in terms of the earnings impact which is near-term which is just be thinking about investing assuming you sale any shares you get you are going to be investing after tax proceeds or the cash that you go correct?

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

Yes.

Edward Spehar

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

And what is that number if we said it was $5 billion that you get what is that means in terms of after tax cash to you.

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

Think of a 7 billion -- I'm sorry that became think of 3 billion.

Edward Spehar

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

So 3.07 billion to investment, mean there is no earnings impact from anything related to the senior numbers today correct?

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

Very small.

Edward Spehar

Analyst · America-Merrill lynch. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Next we'll go to the line of Jimmy Bhullar from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Jimmy Bhullar

Analyst

Hi. I had a couple of questions on items that have been discussed before but first on verbal notice, on the order rebalancing obviously it's a positive when the markets decline but it's does limit upside in the rising market. So I just wanted to get an idea whether you expect to see an uptick in withdrawals or just are you getting any push back from agents about that as the markets have been recovering. And then secondly on commercial real estate the losses are obviously been modest thus far and if Bernard could just address on what your view for commercial real estate on weather it losses are reflective of just improve fundamentals or is it expected that the losses would be lowed just given the lag versus the normal credit cycle?

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Jimmy the VA question we have -- we are not -- we are still as you can tell by the difference between gross and net flows in the VA business. We're still not seeing the level of redemptions that we used to see historically in this business. We used to get maybe a 10% run rate redemptions it's looks like it's stabilized at about 8% at this point. Until the market get quiet a bit higher it's hard to believe that that pressure was likely to change.

Jimmy Bhullar

Analyst

Have you gotten pushback from people on the fact of their account values might not had gone up as much, especially if they bought around the bottom of the market?

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · from Nigel Dally from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Well, I think people bought at the bottom of the market but the short answer to your question is no, we haven't because there, they tend to compare where they are compare to what they could have been and they are feeling very good about this. I mean the general claim experience of people who are the beneficiaries of our auto rebalancing guarantees is that it is done for them exactly what they were told them what to do, which is limited their exposure in the downside and they willingly gave up and understood they were giving up offset in order to get that and that is what they want and that's what they are getting. So no we have not have push back on that point.

Jimmy Bhullar

Analyst

Okay.

Richard Carbone

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

With regard to commercial real estate I am not sure, I fully understood your question. As I said earlier that we do anticipate that of losses in the mortgage portfolio are going to be high over the next 18 months and that's a fact that there are very few delinquencies at all. At this point in the general account portfolio should not be taken as an indication that they won't be

Jimmy Bhullar

Analyst

That's basically what I was asking?

Richard Carbone

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

Yeah, it was so.

Jimmy Bhullar

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line Eric Berg with Barclays Capital. Please go ahead.

Eric Berg

Analyst · Barclays Capital. Please go ahead

Thanks for extending the call. I actually just have one question which is also a follow up on the real estate. Since you said Bernard that you expect losses in the general account in the mortgage portfolio to be high that's I think that's what you said. Is it correct to conclude from that, that you are expecting really dramatic reductions in commercial real estate values because I just think arithmetically has to be the case of the only way you would have a loss given your reasonably loan to value ratio, I don't have the exact number is it you have really is it if you are anticipating 30, 40% decline in property prices am I thinking about how you are thinking about the future, the real estate business correctly? Thank you.

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · Barclays Capital. Please go ahead

What Eric what we tell our clients is that we expect a peak to trough decline in real estate values, I should say our equity clients -- equity real state clients. We expect a peak to trough decline in commercial real estate values of 45%, and that we think 30% has occurred already which means its about 20% more from here.

Eric Berg

Analyst · Barclays Capital. Please go ahead

And just one quickly, do you expect -- some in curious said what we effect that sort of magnitude of decline, but not for us because we're much better what are...go ahead.

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · Barclays Capital. Please go ahead

We're talking, we may be talking about apples and oranges or lets juts be clear about this. That's a decline in equity values, once that translates into in terms of losses in the commercial real state portfolio is a totally different matter. I would say to you that we have an extrication that losses in our commercial real estate portfolio or -- mortgage portfolio, excuse me, are going to accelerate over the next 18 months. But I don't want to you to read into that, that we think they are going to be unusually high by historical standards. In fact we think our mortgage portfolio is much better positioned going into this down cycle than it was say in the last down cycle, where our exposure to the office sector almost losses occurred was 40% and is now only 20%. So we're feeling very good about the relative performance of our commercial loan portfolio, compared to our peer group, but we're not feeling good about the way in which those losses will be recognized. as to whether that it was -- excuse me we are feeling like the next 18 months will be worse than the last six and the fact that there has been very little in the way of delinquencies. So far it should not be taken as indication there won't be losses.

Eric Berg

Analyst · Barclays Capital. Please go ahead

So, just to be absolutely clear about this Bernard because as you point out it is easy to get it wrong. When you say that you are expecting the equity value peak to trough drop of 30 to 35, 45% do you mean owners a decline in the value of owner's equity and their building or do you mean a decline in the value of the building. So, those are two very different things.

Bernard Winograd

Analyst · Barclays Capital. Please go ahead

The latter. We are talking about the decline in the value of the building.

Eric Berg

Analyst · Barclays Capital. Please go ahead

Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

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