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American International Group, Inc. (AIG)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, May 1, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to AIG's First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Liz Werne. Please go ahead.

Liz Werne

Management

Good morning, everyone. Before we get started I’d like to remind you that today’s presentation may contain certain forward-looking statements which are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes and circumstances. Any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or events, actual performance or events may differ possibly materially from such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause this include the factors described in our 2014 Form 10-K under management’s discussion and analysis of financial conditions and results of operations under risk factors. AIG is not under any obligation and expressly disclaims their obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a results of new information, future events or otherwise. Today's presentation may contain non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation of such measures to the most comparable GAAP figures is included in our financial supplement, which is available on our website. This morning in the room we have our CEO, Peter Hancock, our CFO, David Herzog, and the two heads of our businesses, John Doyle and Kevin Hogan. With that, I’ll turn it over to you sir.

Peter Hancock

CEO

Thanks, Liz. And thank you all for joining us this morning. I’d like to discuss key highlight from the first quarter, the progress we're making towards our financial targets and the quality and strength of our balance sheet. Turning to page 3, book value per share excluding accumulated other comprehensive income and our deferred tax asset was over $60, up 4% for the quarter and 14% from a year ago. We're confident that we will achieve our targeted book value growth of at least 10% this year to improving profitability and active capital management. Our ROE improvement is also on track, even after considering certain noteworthy items in the quarter, which David will discuss. On the expense front we continue to evaluate opportunities to simplify our businesses and provide the greatest value to our customers. Again we made progress in the first quarter and remain committed to our annual targets through 2017 of 10% per share to 110% [ph] book value per share growth, excluding AOCI and DTA and 50 basis points of normalized ROE improvement and 3% to 5% expense reductions through 2017. Our first quarter results demonstrated our commitment to balancing growth profitability and risk. Looking across our businesses, we saw improved underwriting results in commercial insurance. Within our consumer segment, we continue to invest in our Japan integration which will provide a platform for long-term profitability. John and Kevin will provide additional comments on the performance of their respected businesses and how they are been positioned for sustained profitability. Our disciplined use of value based metrics was evident again this quarter, as we actively managed our capital structure. Our year-to-date execution of debt retirement that spreads exceeding those of our debt issuance resulted in about $170 million of incremental economic value for shareholders. We also continue to…

David Herzog

CFO

Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone. This morning, I will speak to our quarterly financial results, the progress towards our financial objectives and our capital management. Turning to slide 5, you can see our total insurance pretax operating income was down about 7% from a year ago. The comparison reflects unusually strong alternative investment returns a year ago, combined with a negative impact of low interest rate environment that we're in. Consistent with our comments last quarter, we expect continued pressure on investment income given the current interest rate environment. Our insurance earnings comparison was also impacted by nearly $220 million swing in the workers compensation discount between periods. In the first quarter, we adopted a quarterly process for adjusting the workers compensation discount based on changes in the interest environment which is consistent with our statutory reporting practice. While the change in discount is reflected in our operating earnings, the corresponding appreciation in the fixed income securities that support these reserves is recorded in the balance sheet and accumulated other comprehensive income, so from an economic standpoint they offset. Excluding these discount changes, total insurance operating income was up about 2% from the same period last year. John and Kevin will provide more details on the commercial and the consumer operating results in their remarks. Reported net income was $2.5 billion and included after tax gains associated with sale of a portion of our PICC P&C shares and the Prudential B shares, which combined for just shy of $575 million in gains. The share sold in PICC were accounted for as available for sale and bring our ownership to 8.2% down from 9.9%. The monetization of this portion of the PICC P&C investment reflects further derisking of our balance sheet given the significant share appreciation since our 2013…

John Doyle

Management

Thank you, David. I will review the first quarter results for commercial insurance and briefly comment on an acquisition and strategic investment we recently completed. Pretax operating income for the commercial segment was $1.5 billion, an increase from the prior year quarter and reflects strong property casualty and mortgage insurance results. Turning to slide 12, commercial property casualty had positive growth and improved underwriting profitability. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange, net premiums written increased 6% from the year ago quarter, renewal of the single multi year policy accounted for about 40% of this net premium growth. We grew in property, particularly in the Americas and Asia Pacific regions benefiting from improved client retention rates. Financial lines had a strong quarter, with growth in the mid single digit range and in all regions. We continue to optimize our casualty portfolio in the US, which led to a slight decline in net premiums in the quarter in that segment. International casualty also grew in the quarter, especially net premiums were flat when compared to the same period a year ago with modest growth in marine and credit lines. We continue to see a range of price activity across markets, in the US rate change in specialty was a positive 3.2% and financial lines were also up by nearly 3%. We also continue to successfully raise rates where needed in segments of US casualty. However, property rates did decline by 5.4% in the US for the quarter. Pricing outside of the US is under modestly more pressure, but rate of adequacy is generally more attractive in these markets. We have confidence in the accident year loss ratio trends and continued growth in risk adjusted profitability, due to our active management of business mix and from enhanced pricing, risk selection tools and claim…

Kevin Hogan

Management

Thank you, John, and good morning everyone. This morning I'll discuss the trends in our consumer insurance businesses and provide an update on our ongoing investments in Japan. In the first quarter, consumer generated pretax operating income of $945 million. The performance of the business reflects the sustained low interest environment and reflects stable property casualty underwriting results. Turning to slide 16, operating income from retirement was$800 million for the quarter benefiting from increase in fees due to increased asset under management. Investment income comparisons were negatively impacted by very strong alternative returns a year ago and a decline in base portfolio income. Reinvestment rates were below the weighted average yield of the overall portfolio and average assets declined driven by the significant return of capital to parent over the last 12 months. As you can see on slide 17, base yields for fixed annuities and group retirement declined sequentially consistent with the anticipated 4 to 6 basis point quarterly reduction I spoke to last quarter. We would expect that trend to continue for the rest of the year, should interest rates remain at current levels. The impact in net investment spreads was partially mitigated by adhering to disciplined new business pricing and active management of crediting rates. The outflow of older policies which carry higher crediting rates than current rates offered, also contributed to the reduction in our cost of funds, which has declined consistently for both fixed annuities and group retirement over the last 12 months. Assets under management ended the year at nearly $227 billion, 2% higher than a year ago. Strong net flows in retirement income solutions and positive separate account investment performance were partially offset by net outflows for fixed annuities in group retirement. AUM growth was achieved while paying out over 8 billion in…

Liz Werne

Management

Thank you. Operator, could we open up the line for Q&A now.

Operator

Operator

Certainly. Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We'll hear from Jimmy Bhullar, JPMorgan.

Jimmy Bhullar

Analyst

Hi, good morning. First I had a question for Peter just on your stake in AerCap. The lockup on part of the shares has expired already. So is this a core holding or would you consider selling it at some point and if you do what's your view on how you would use the proceeds? And then secondly, you have been buying back stock on a consistent basis, but you haven't really raised the dividend over the past, I think it's been five quarters that you haven't. So if you could just discuss your reasoning for that?

Peter Hancock

CEO

So, as far as AerCap is concerned, it’s certainly core. We are looking at the various options in terms of pace and timing of disposition and are very conscious of the value of that stake and we'll make a decision based on if when and – if we get fair value for that divesture. As far as redeployment of the proceeds, it would become part of the broader pool capital that we generate through both non-core asset disposal, derisking of the DIB and DTA monetization and dividends from the opcos. And we have a sort of waterfall hierarchy of how we think of deploying that capital. We certainly want to prioritize organic growth meeting our customer’s needs. We also are well aware of the opportunities to buyback shares if they are trading below what we view as intrinsic value. And I think that as we start to near or exceed intrinsic value we will also want to explore a dividend policies that are a bit more consistent with peers. So I think that we recognize that we're in a sort of transition period as we continue to monetize non-core assets.

Jimmy Bhullar

Analyst

And just if I could ask one more for John, on pricing trends in P&C obviously the market commentary has gotten worse and especially on the commercial side. So how confident are you in the goals that you'd laid out for improvement in your combined ratio? And if trends remain the way they are would you – do you consider that you'd need to revise the targets down a little bit, in terms of…

John Doyle

Management

Jimmy, I didn’t see much different price activity in the first quarter than the fourth. And as I said its – property cat market its quite competitive, right, outside of that on average things are fairly stable. Some companies are in better position to get rate and others, right, so not all, not all are equal. I think for example I reported good financial lines rate increases in the first quarter, I think if you hear from brokers the overall rate activity in that market is not quite so positive and I think we are positioned very favorably in that market and are able to get a bit of different result than the market can. Having said all that, the underwriting improvement, I remain confident as I said 1 to 2 point improvement during the course of this year. Its not all about prices, its about managing mix business, its about further implementing and developing the tools that we rolled out over the course of the last several years, both in underwriting and in claims. And then lastly, and we saw a bit in the first quarter here, our short tail results last year, the attritional losses in property in particular we're a bit elevated and I would expect not in every quarter, but I would expect over the course of the year that will move back to more normal levels.

Jimmy Bhullar

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We'll next hear from Randy Binner, FBR Capital Markets.

Randy Binner

Analyst

Hey, good morning, thanks. I appreciate the comments in the slide deck about derisking that's happened in the company over the last several years. I'm wondering what that means as far as a potential non-bank SIFI off-ramp? And what I'm getting at is if there was an off-ramp and you could explore a structural change similar to what we saw at GE, would that not be necessary now that you view yourself as having a more derisked balance sheet?

Peter Hancock

CEO

Well, AIGs regulated buyback 200 regulators, the Fed is simply the designated enterprise wide one as a result of the SIFI designation. To date, they've been extremely constructive coordinators of those regulators and have prioritized derisking exactly along the lines that management would have done already. So we see them as a very highly aligned regulator with our intentions to create a robust balance sheet to serve our clients. The amendment to the Collins Amendment that occurred in the first quarter which allowed the Fed to treat insurance companies differently from banks was a significant positive in our view in terms of the potential risk that future application of the SIFI regulation would be detrimental. So we are still awaiting greater clarity on exactly how SIFI rules will be applied in the future, but so far, as I said they have been extremely constructive. But the discussion of the off ramp certainly means that there is a strategic question to be answered at some point down the road, as to whether in the light of however those rules get applied and formulated, whether the optimal path is to not be a SIFI. And as we think about the criteria for SIFI designation, it’s really important that we recognize it is not simply size of assets. It's a multidimensional set of parameters most of which we looked very good on. So, the other thing to remember is should you get off this off-ramp the 200 other regulators that are also very interested in how we run the company. So it’s not clear to me getting off that an off-ramp changes management’s flexibility in any material way.

Randy Binner

Analyst

I appreciate that. The quick follow up, if there were a structural change in the company split, is there any color or guidance you could give us on what the status of the NOL would be? If say for instance AIG became a life and a P&C company or a domestic international, whatever the split is, would that NOL be structurally in place after that?

Peter Hancock

CEO

I think we explained and probably point enough detail in the shareholders letter, that there would be significant tax consequence – negative tax consequences or something like that.

David Herzog

CFO

And that language will also be included in the 10-Q.

Randy Binner

Analyst

All right. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And next we'll hear from Brian Meredith, UBS.

Brian Meredith

Analyst

Yes, good morning. Two questions here for you. First one, just for John I'm just curious can you talk a little bit about your strategy in the property Insurance lines? You've had some good growth there although we continue to see pretty significant rate decreases. Is it where you're attracted the business is better underlying loss ratios, can you tell a little bit about that?

John Doyle

Management

Sure, Brian. So the real rate pressure in the property markets is really in the cat market, and it’s in the wholesale market herein London, it’s in the United States. The growth that we've have seen in the last couple of years is been around getting into the middle market in property which we were not a player in, in many markets around the world. It was also entering the large limit space as well. We've made very meaningful investment over the course of the last several years in our engineering capabilities. In fact, we've hired over 500 engineers in the last 4 years and are now winning largely non-cat business due to our engineering capability, which I can tell you it’s not the reason why we want property business going back some time. So our analytics and capability helping our clients manage their property related cost of risk over time is the key there. What I would also share with you is that, outside of a couple of major markets, primarily the United States and the United Kingdom, we chose to operate historically and not quite sure why, but chose to operate in a sub scale way. So our risk appetite in many other countries around the world was set by that country and really trying to manage to a result – a P&L result for that country. So we've increased our risk appetite in many smaller countries around the world and beyond that being attractive business for us from a property perspective is also change who we are to our customers in those markets. In many countries outside of the United States the commercial business is really a property led market and as we've improved our capability there our customers see us in a entirely different way and it position us in the future to write the casualty and other specialty lines of business unlike we had in the past.

Brian Meredith

Analyst

I'm curious is any of the increase also because of the new wrap models? Does that make the property look more attractive than the casualty?

Peter Hancock

CEO

Absolutely…

John Doyle

Management

Sure, yes, low rates and our wrap model, yes, low interest rate. Thank you, Peter. So low rates and the wrap model was what's guiding really all of our strategies. We're pursuing value, not volume. So that said, a fair amount to it. I guess, one other factor not so much this year over prior year, although it’s like a little bit of role, is lower reinsurance cost over the course for the last several years as well. So you're observing really new premium written increases.

Brian Meredith

Analyst

Got you. And one quick one for David. I'm just curious on the DIB you talked about its going to be I guess going away next quarter. Where are those results going to be reported? And I think you also said that $2 billion of capital are going to be freed up from the DIB. Does that mean we're pretty much done with the DIB as far as additional capital be freed up going forward?

David Herzog

CFO

A couple of things Brian, the assets that will be freed up it may – some of it maybe cash, maybe securities. We would look to report those in our financial supplement in the other invested assets. There is a schedule in there, but you'll be able to see where those assets are because we still will get earnings off of those assets. So you'll see the assets there and then it will be in the other line and we'll make sure there is enough transparency around the earnings results, so that you're able to see what the assets are, what the yields are. So that will be about $2 billion, it will come out in the very near term. The other aspect of assets in the direct investment both global capital markets are the residual interest in the Maiden Lane III investment and I know the team is working hard to likewise free that up and now there were lot of capital requirements associated with that, but nonetheless it does give us more flexibility by having that asset outside of the direct investment book. And then that asset would monetize in the normal course over the next several years, if we chose to try to do something on a accelerated basis that will be a discussion for another day.

Brian Meredith

Analyst

Great, thank you.

David Herzog

CFO

You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll now hear from Jay Cohen, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Jay Cohen

Analyst

Yes, thank you. Just a quick follow-up on Brian's question, that is, I seem to recall there was about $6 billion to $7 billion of equity at the DIB. Is that right?

Peter Hancock

CEO

Yes.

David Herzog

CFO

Yes, that was about $7 billion at the end of the year and when we filed our 10-Q in the next day or so you can expect to see about the same amount and its – and then again, you'll see an update to that in the second quarter.

Jay Cohen

Analyst

And the capital that gets freed up, I assume that's unencumbered, that you can do with what you want at the corporate level?

David Herzog

CFO

Well, yes, it is unencumbered, but it would be then – we'll look at it like we do other available or deployable capital in the context of the facts and circumstances at the time.

Jay Cohen

Analyst

That's great. Then David for you another one. I seem to recall you mentioning that for the rest of the year you expect the insurance to send to the holding company another $5 billion to $6 billion. Did I hear that right?

David Herzog

CFO

You did.

Jay Cohen

Analyst

And that's in addition to what you did in the first quarter?

David Herzog

CFO

Yes.

Jay Cohen

Analyst

So now we're talking north of $8 billion?

David Herzog

CFO

Yes, that – that’s the way the math works.

Jay Cohen

Analyst

Okay. And then lastly if you could just give us what you think assuming no more debt capital management, the quarterly run rate for your corporate interest that would be helpful given all the changes that's occurred there?

David Herzog

CFO

Well, you can see that in the financial supplement, I think it was about – I want to say 275 or so this particular quarter, I think that’s right. So yes, it was about 275 million in this quarter, in the second quarter, look again on page 13 of the financial supplement you'll be able to see that. And I – again I, that maybe down slightly given the timing of what we did, again, you'll see the changes to that going forward. But again, we'll be opportunistic about how we deploy the capital and the remaining access or even future access to the capital markets. The debt capital markets have been – has been open and we've taken the advantage of like what we believe to be cost effective capital.

Jay Cohen

Analyst

Yes, looks like some well timed issuance. Thanks for the answers.

David Herzog

CFO

You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

And we'll now hear from Tom Gallagher, Credit Suisse.

Tom Gallagher

Analyst

Good morning. David, just one last follow up to the last few questions about the DIB capital. So the $2 billion you said that's already been freed up? The $2 billion of DIB and GCM capital, so that's already been taken out or are you planning to take it out shortly?

David Herzog

CFO

No, Tom it will be done in the second quarter, so it’s not currently out. So as I said when we file the 10-Q you'll see the – in the disclosure about the direct investment book, global capital markets when you look at the net asset value that will be reported at that point in time, it is still in there. And as I said in the second quarter i.e. now we will move upwards of $2 billion out and then as get to work on the – on an additional extraction which would be principally the Maiden Lane III notes.

Tom Gallagher

Analyst

And what – and I assume the $2 billion would be counted as non-core, and I think you've been pretty clear at that. So that could be additive to your $6 billion authorization if you determine that's the appropriate use for it? I just want to make sure I should be adding the $2 billion on top of what you've already announced?

David Herzog

CFO

It would be incremental to that, the dividends and distribution and our – the dividends and distributions that I commented on were not subject to monetization on non-core assets and the 2015 capital plan that we – that management prepared and reviewed with our board and other various stakeholders was not contingent upon the monetization of non-core assets.

Tom Gallagher

Analyst

And the Maiden Lane opportunity in terms of how much that could end up harvesting and is that something we should plan on within this calendar year as well?

David Herzog

CFO

I am not going to comment on that Tom, it is – would be encumbered but I don’t want to comment on what we may or may not do.

Tom Gallagher

Analyst

Okay. Then just two other quick ones if I could. The core earnings definition to get you to the 7.8% ROE this quarter, did that include the $0.08 of gains from the legacy real estate investments? And if so, should we really be thinking about that as part of core or should we be stripping it out?

David Herzog

CFO

Well, we – first of all on the normalization and our definition of operating income, we gave the disclosure around the normalizations in the sprit of transparency. So we're not redefining our principal non-GAAP measure of operating income. The real estate is a – it maybe legacy or it maybe long standing, but it is not non-core, I mean, those are investments that we make in the normal course and we consider them part of the operating income. Now, they are going to be lumpy, they are going to be – they are going to vary from periods to period and so they would, again, we don’t expect the same kind or same level of mark or the same level of monetization. And so some portion of that you can view it how you – however you like to view it, we view in total over a long period of time, that’s part of the return on those invested assets.

Tom Gallagher

Analyst

But I guess my question related to that is there a pool of sizable real estate investments that could be harvested over multiple years that we should be thinking about as sort of a sustainable source of gains that you would have there…

David Herzog

CFO

I think…

Tom Gallagher

Analyst

Unusually large?

Peter Hancock

CEO

I think that you should think about it in the broader context of our private equity and alternative investment portfolio, some of which is held within the statutory balance sheet, some of which is held at the holding company and so that is in the and fin sup and totals about $35 billion. And so the real estate portion of that is about $4.5 billion and we have an expected return on that entire portfolio which we – then normalize above or below when we come up with our ROE calculation. So I wouldn’t think of it as any different then the alternatives.

Tom Gallagher

Analyst

That's helpful, Peter. And just one last quick one. I notice you showed catastrophe budget and earnings normalizing for catastrophes, that's the first time I've noticed that. Can you comment on what your full year cat load budget would be for 2015?

Peter Hancock

CEO

We haven’t done that, and I think that we would – had a substantial seasonality to it and so I would treat it with high degree of caution because it – which quarter the cat hits is obviously is a very sensitive to that. But you obviously get a whole lot more in win season, but as we know, Super Storm Sandy just happened to fall in the fourth quarter. So you've got some – you're going to be careful before you did that. We have not disclosed the full year numbers, short answer.

Tom Gallagher

Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll now hear from Meyer Shields, KBW.

Meyer Shields

Analyst

Thanks, good morning. Going back really quickly to the global capital markets and the DIB, is there any sort of run rate income that we should anticipate this providing in the future?

David Herzog

CFO

As I've said, and this is David, as I've said in the past we would expect on that pool of assets, or pool of the net assets somewhere between an 8% to 10% pretax return on the NAV, overall is a reasonable proxy, its not that simplifying any structure, the imagination. But it’s a – it gives you signal of what our expectation is. And so that will give you a sense of it.

Meyer Shields

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. I didn't know whether that had changed. And then really quickly, John, you talked about anticipating once 200 basis points of I think it was core or adjusted loss ratio improvement. What's the anticipated aggregate loss cost that's been baked into that?

John Doyle

Management

We do that obviously by product and geography, there is a pretty meaningful range, we haven’t disclosed it an aggregate number to date, but we obviously look at that when – in our actual rate activity and other underwriting actions that we take when we make loss picks and loss picks adjustments on a quarter-to-quarter basis. So that’s obviously factored in then. The 100 to 200 basis point improvement is the accident year loss ratio, the share compared – as adjusted compared to prior year.

Meyer Shields

Analyst

Okay. That's fair. One last question if I can, the adverse development on commercial auto liability, is that actual claim emergence or was that the product of an actuarial review?

John Doyle

Management

It’s a autos relative to the rest of our portfolio in commercials, relatively short tail lines, so it’s largely related to recent emergence and increase in both frequency and severity, some underlying economics trends that led to it. So it wasn’t detailed on reserve review, but emergence that we observed over the course of last few months and felt like we needed to take action on. So of course, we're taking underwriting actions as well and dealing with pricing, attachment points and the like and adjusting our underwriting approach as we look forward as well. It will take a little bit of time obviously for those actions to earn in that is still factored into the underwriting improvement that I anticipate during the course of this year.

Meyer Shields

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll now hear from Josh Stirling, Sanford Bernstein.

Josh Stirling

Analyst

Hey, good morning and thank you for taking my call. So listen Peter, I was looking at the proxy and you have a few different measures of how you measure executive performance. One of them is really interesting, I think you call it contributive normalized ROE for the different segments, commercial and consumer. And if I understand it correctly I think it's intending to back out noise from cats and alternatives and such normalized, but also to back out the strategic investments which are currently a big drag on your current earnings. And if I'm reading it right it says you're absent all those things your target right now for commercial is about 16% ROE and something like 26% in consumer. I was curious if you could help us think through how we should think about these in the context of both sort of reported numbers and the long-term goals which are obviously much lower. But also just maybe make it simple. I know this is a long way off given all the investments, but can we look at these as the targets that you're hoping to deliver once you finish investing and start realizing the benefits of all the efforts to fix P&C?

Peter Hancock

CEO

The proxy obviously is backward looking and with the new operating committee I have had a chance to align the entire leadership around the stated public goals that we disclosed in the last conference call. So I think in next year’s proxy you'll see much clear alignment between our publicly stated goals and the way we pay people in the short term. The long-term incentive is unchanged and is linked to shares leveraged up and down based on our total shareholder return relative to a peer group, as well as our ability to maintain our credit default swaps, but within a range of our peers, so that we are never tempted to over lever our balance sheet in the pursuit of short term unsustainable shareholder returns.

Josh Stirling

Analyst

Okay. If I can ask a separate question on capital then, I think David last year I think you itemized that in addition to core dividends based on earnings from life and P&C the shareholders could count on liquidity from all the non-core assets, DIB, AerCap, et cetera, the DTA as being available for further buybacks. If we take a long-term view and I think this is probably, Peter, for you. I mean math would suggest that all adds up to $50 billion or more over say 5 years. As we think about the long-term future of AIG balancing the risk models and the conversations with all the 200 regulators, as well as your guys own growth ambitions for organic and acquisitions. How much of that free capital that you're going to generate do you think that we ought to imagine you're going to return to investors?

Peter Hancock

CEO

I think that it really is dependent on market opportunities. We've had a very benign capital markets environment for the last 6, 7 years since the crisis. I think that our clients depend on us to be there through good times and bad. I think acquisition opportunities become more attractive in downturns than they do at the top of the market. And I think that we have some very attractive organic growth opportunities as we rebuild our international life business focused on the largest and fastest growing markets in the UK, Japan and China. And the opportunities for supplemental help in the number markets is attractive, as well EMEA [ph] is obviously a small but meaningful signal of our ambitions there. But we are extremely focused on returning our excess capital to shareholders in the most efficient way possible. So through buybacks when we feel that we're trading below intrinsic and through dividends once we are trading above and a combination of the two, once we're above. So I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to what percentage of your number not mine $50 billion we might do, but that's the general gist of our philosophy.

Josh Stirling

Analyst

Okay, thanks Peter. Good luck.

Liz Werne

Management

I think we have time for one more. We can take one more question and then hopefully reach out to everybody who is in our queue.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our last question from Josh Shanker, Deutsche Bank. Mr. Shanker, your line is open. You maybe on mute.

Josh Shanker

Analyst

Thank you. Sorry about that. Two quickies. The general operating funds last year seemed much lower in the first quarter than the three that followed. Is there a seasonality to that or should we expect that to flatten out over time?

David Herzog

CFO

There is generally a seasonality to it, and lot of its related to project spend or compensation accruals, et cetera. Peter, you want to jump to that so…

Peter Hancock

CEO

Yes, seasonality’s would suggest that it repeats itself from year-to-year and I'd just say, I'd use the word lumpy. And so you're looking for the trend over time as opposed to any single quarter. We got projects which come in as I said and then we got severance that comes in sometimes. There are various things which will make it lumpy.

Josh Shanker

Analyst

That’s fine. And I just want to follow-up quickly on Randy Binner's question about regulators. I understand that the Board of Directors approved the $3.5 billion authorization yesterday. To understand the relationship with the Fed prior to the SIFI rules being codified to what extent are they aware and to what extent have you had their tacit understanding about your capital management plan?

Peter Hancock

CEO

We are very transparent with the Fed, at every stage. They sit in on our Board meetings, they certainly scrutinize our capital plan. We have the right to amend our capital plan, they are very focused on making sure the governance on how we amend or change our capital plan through time is done appropriately. And I think that in terms of constructive feedback from the Fed they have been very focused on the operational integrity of how we generate our stress test that help to determine our capital adequacy and we've made a lot of progress in tightening that up. So I'd say it’s a very constructive engagement to make sure that we are prudent and measured in a way we return capital.

Josh Shanker

Analyst

Okay. Well good luck with the rest of the year. And thank you for taking my questions.

Peter Hancock

CEO

Not at all.

Liz Werne

Management

Thank you, everyone. At this time we'd like to end the call and we look forward to catching up with anyone who was not able to get through in the queue this quarter. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude today’s conference. Thank you all for your participation.