MetLife, Inc. (NYSE:MET) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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MetLife, Inc. (NYSE:MET) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript November 2, 2023

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MetLife Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Release Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Before we get started, I refer you to the cautionary note about forward-looking statements in yesterday's earnings release and to risk factors discussed in MetLife's SEC filings. With that, I will now turn the call over to John Hall, Global Head of Investor Relations.

John Hall: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for MetLife's third quarter 2023 earnings call. Before we begin, I’d point you to the information on non-GAAP measures on the Investor Relations portion of metlife.com, in our earnings release and in our quarterly financial supplements which you should review. On the call this morning are Michel Khalaf, President and Chief Executive Officer; and John McCallion, Chief Financial Officer. Also participating in the discussion are other members of senior management. Also last night, we released a set of supplemental slides which addressed the quarter. The slides are available on our website. John McCallion will speak to them in his prepared remarks if you wish to follow along.

A closeup of a person reading through a document outlining the advantages of life insurance.
A closeup of a person reading through a document outlining the advantages of life insurance.

An appendix to these slides features GAAP reconciliations and other information which you should similarly review. As usual, after prepared remarks, we will host a Q&A session. We will end Q&A just prior to the top of the hour. In fairness to everyone, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. With that, over to Michel.

Michel Khalaf: Thank you, John and good morning, everyone. As you can see from the report we posted last night, MetLife delivered another quarter of strong underlying results with sustained business momentum. MetLife's capacity to perform across a wide range of economic scenarios, there's a testament to the resilience of our all-weather strategy and is characterized by our unyielding focus on execution. And concentrating on those elements within our control, such as balance sheet security, investment performance, reserve adequacy, responsible growth, expense efficiency and capital deployment to name just a few, we have positioned MetLife to generate significant value for our shareholders and other stakeholders for many years to come.

Turning to the quarter. We reported adjusted earnings of $1.5 billion or $1.97 per share. Notable items in the quarter included our annual actuarial assumption review and other insurance adjustments, which had a positive impact of only $14 million or $0.02 per share on adjusted earnings. Excluding notable items, adjusted earnings per share were $1.95, up 43% from a year ago. As we previously indicated Variable investment income of $179 million fell below our quarterly outlook expectation. Private equity returns totaled 1.4%, while real estate equity risk trailed at minus 3%. In the aggregate, net income for the third quarter was $422 million compared to $1.1 billion in the prior year period. The third quarter result reflects the negative impact of certain required accounting adjustments associated with our previously announced reinsurance transaction.

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