MetLife Inc. says it expects to report more than $1 billion in net income for the current quarter and has held variable annuity income guarantee exposure to manageable levels.
Executives at MetLife, New York, said today during the company's investor day that revenue should range from $7.9 billion to $8.5 billion for the fourth quarter, up from $7.7 billion for the fourth quarter of 2007.
Net income should range from $1.2 billion to $2 billion, up from $1.1 billion for the fourth quarter of 2007, Met Life says.
But net income for the year likely will drop to $3.3 billion to $4.1 billion, from $4.3 billion for 2007, executives said.
Net income for the year will fall because of the turmoil in the credit market and stock market, executives said.
But MetLife executives flatly rejected an analyst prediction that it would lose heavily in VA guarantees, and they said the analysts had used incorrect assumptions in modeling its guarantee exposure.
One analyst estimated that all insurers have about $50 billion in exposure to guaranteed minimum income benefits, and that MetLife accounted for about $6.3 billion of that total.
"This is NOT correct!" MetLife says.
