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MetLife (MET) Originates $15.1 billion in Private Placement Debt

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MetLife Inc’s (MET - Free Report) asset management business MetLife Investment Management (“MIM”) has announced that it originated $15.1 billion of private placement debt and structured credit in 2022. The above amount includes $4.1 billion of investments made for unaffiliated institutional clients.

MIM originated $8.5 billion, $1.9 billion and $4.7 billion worth of private placement in corporate, structured credit and infrastructure, respectively. It also added 94 new issuers to the portfolio. This aligns with MIM’s objective of diversifying across different issuers to protect its client’s wealth.

The corporate private placements team achieved growth in origination volume in the past year, owing to the strength of sourcing capabilities and relationships with agent banks, boutique advisory firms and its direct origination platform. This was achieved despite a slowdown in capital markets.

With the core focus being diversification, corporate private placement origination of $3.1 billion was spread across U.K. and European issuers. It accounted for 37% of total origination for 2022. Credit tenant leases origination volume grew 50% from 2021, indicating MIM’s efforts on executing the opportunities in this sector.  

MIM’s private structured credit investments were well diversified across commercial property assessed clean energy, low-income housing, residential credit, alternative financing and energy. Due to the increasing volatility of public-market pricing and increasing financial regulations, issuers are turning to private debt, which will increase private placement assets under MIM management and further increase MIM management fees.

MIM also provides capital for social and economic infrastructure development projects, benefiting from stable and predictable cash flows. Infrastructure origination in 2022 was diversified across assets related to transportation like rail, airport, marine projects, ports and toll roads. The top five areas of investment in 2022 included renewable power, communication, water utilities and social housing assets and projects.

Total Private Placement assets under management as of Dec 31, 2022, was $89.5 billion.

Price Performance

Shares of MetLife have lost 13.8% year to date compared with the industry’sdecline of 9.8%.

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

MetLife Inc currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks from the same space are CNO Financial Group (CNO - Free Report) , Goosehead Insurance (GSHD - Free Report) and Old Republic International (ORI - Free Report) .All these companies sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The bottom line of CNO Financial outpaced estimates in two of the trailing four quarters, met the same in one and missed on the other occasion, the average surprise being 14.2%.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CNO’s 2023 earnings suggests an improvement of 15.5%, while the same for revenues indicates growth of 3.5% from the corresponding year-ago reported figures. The consensus mark for CNO’s 2023 earnings has moved 15.5% north in the past 30 days.

Goosehead Insurance’s bottom line outpaced estimates in two of the trailing four quarters and missed the other two. The average of earnings surprises is 79.8%.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for GSHD’s 2023 earnings indicates a 67.3% rise, while the same for revenues suggests 26.6% growth from the prior-year reported figures.

The bottom line of Old Republic International outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, while it missed in one, the average surprise being 21.9%. The consensus mark for ORI’s 2023 earnings has moved 7.3% north in the past 60 days.

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