KKR Wants Annuity Arm to Double Its Sales

News February 06, 2024 at 04:02 PM
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KKR now owns 100% of its Global Atlantic business, and it hopes Global Atlantic will increase total annual sales to about $20 billion, from about $10 billion per year today.

Rob Lewin, KKR's chief financial officer, talked about the company's vision for Global Atlantic today, during a conference call with securities analysts. "I think there's a lot of share we can gain there," he said.

Opportunities on his target list include selling big group annuities to pension plan sponsors that want to shed pension risk, getting products onto more distribution platforms and expanding fixed annuity marketing efforts.

"Historically, Global Atlantic hasn't been as active in the longer-duration fixed annuity market," he said. He expects the company to increase sales of fixed annuities with surrender charge periods of seven to 10 years.

What it means: Life insurers may face even more brutal competition for a chance to attract your clients' safe money assets.

The backdrop: KKR held the conference call to go over earnings for the fourth quarter of 2023 with the analysts.

KKR is a New York-based asset manager that may be best known for its $11 billion of private equity investment assets, its $1.8 billion in real estate investments and its $2.2 billion in credit investments.

KKR has also owned 63% of Global Atlantic, a life and annuity business that was formed by Goldman Sachs in 2004 and converted into a stand-alone business in 2013.

KKR acquired the Global Atlantic stake previously owned by outside investors in January.

The company as a whole reported $1 billion in net income for the fourth quarter on $4.4 billion in revenue, up from $121 million in net income on $2.5 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2022.

The insurance business accounted for $2.9 billion of the revenue.

The changes in the results reflect the effects of the Global Atlantic deal; a $695 million improvement in the amount of investment earnings attributed to the insurance business; and a $1.4 billion improvement in results for assets sold, written down or written off during the quarter.

Q4: The securities analysts, who are used to KKR's investment management business, asked mostly about KKR's non-insurance operations.

Some asked about how Global Atlantic might perform if interest rates fall.

At Global Atlantic, "management has done a great job," Lewin said. "It's a big reason we're excited to own 100% of the business."

In 2023, Global Atlantic benefited from higher rates, high variable investment income and other factors that might be hard for the business to replicate in the near term, he added.

But, even if rates fall, "we have so many levers to use to be able to grow the Global Atlantic franchise," Lewin said.

One reason for recent growth has been higher interest rates and higher rates on Global Atlantic's annuities, but "I don't think that tells the fully story," Lewin said. "I think what we're seeing is a real trend toward retirement products, somewhat agnostic to where interest rates are."

Credit: Gabby Jones/KKR/Bloomberg

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