Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Voya Financial's (VOYA) Q1 Earnings Beat Estimates, Up Y/Y

Read MoreHide Full Article

Voya Financial, Inc.’s (VOYA - Free Report) first-quarter 2020 net operating income of $1.10 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 26.4%. Further, the bottom line improved 2.8% year over year.

The company’s results benefited from organic growth across all business units and strong underwriting results in Employee Benefits segment.

Voya Financial’s revenues of $225 million surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.4%. However, the top line declined 9.6% from the year-ago quarter.

Assets under management and administration were $538 billion as of Mar 31, 2020.

Voya Financial, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Voya Financial, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Voya Financial, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Voya Financial, Inc. Quote

Segmental Update

Retirement’s adjusted operating earnings of $124 million decreased 3.9% year over year due to negative DAC/VOBA and other intangibles unlocking, lower investment spreads and higher administrative expenses.

Investment Management posted adjusted operating earnings of $40 million, up 17.6% year over year due to higher fee-based margin driven by positive net flows and strong investment capital revenues. It generated $3.1 billion of institutional net flows in the first quarter, which soared 179% year over year.

Employee Benefits’ adjusted operating earnings were $61 million, up 60.5% year over year on the back of improved underwriting results, courtesy of growth in the Voluntary block and improvement in the loss ratio for Group Life, Stop Loss and Voluntary.

Corporate incurred adjusted operating losses of $91 million, narrower than the year-ago quarterly loss of $100 million. This can be attributed to reduced pension costs and elimination of expenses related to divestiture of most of the company’s annuity businesses in 2018.

Share Repurchase and Dividend Update

In first-quarter 2020, Voya Financial repurchased shares worth $406 million. The company has $280 million left under its existing share buyback program as of Mar 31, 2020.

Last month, the company approved a quarterly dividend of 15 cents per share. The dividend will be paid on Jun 26, 2020 to shareholders of record as on May 29.

Financial Update

Voya Financial exited the first quarter with $612 million in excess capital.

2020 Outlook for Cost Savings Unchanged

Despite the COVID-19-induced financial market volatility, Voya Financial retains its cost savings target for 2020.  By the end of this year, it plans to achieve cost savings of at least $250 million.

Zacks Rank & Performance of Other Insurers

Voya Financial carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Among other insurance industry players, which have reported first-quarter earnings so far, the bottom lines of Chubb Limited (CB - Free Report) , Assurant, Inc. (AIZ - Free Report) and First American Financial Corporation (FAF - Free Report) beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Today's Best Stocks from Zacks

Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2019, while the S&P 500 gained and impressive +53.6%, five of our strategies returned +65.8%, +97.1%, +118.0%, +175.7% and even +186.7%.

This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 – 2019, while the S&P averaged +6.0% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +54.7% per year.

See their latest picks free >>

Published in