Voya Financial (NYSE: VOYA) reported Q3 EPS of $0.84, $0.34 worse than the analyst estimate of $1.18.

• Third-quarter 2018 net income available to common shareholders of $0.87 per diluted share
• Third-quarter 2018 adjusted operating earnings1 of $0.84 per diluted share, after-tax; Normalized for the following items, third-quarter 2018 adjusted operating earnings were $1.34 per diluted share, after-tax:
  • $(0.70) per diluted share, after-tax, of unfavorable deferred acquisition costs and value of business acquired (“DAC/VOBA”) and other intangibles unlocking — unfavorable annual assumption updates in Individual Life were partially offset by favorable assumption updates in Retirement and the company\'s legacy annuities in Corporate; and
  • $0.20 per diluted share, after-tax and DAC/VOBA, of prepayment fees and alternative investment income above the company’s long-term expectations.
• Board of directors authorizes an additional $500 million of share repurchases
• Voya completes strategic review of Individual Life business
  • Voya will cease new individual life insurance sales on Dec. 31, 2018 and retain the in-force block
  • Decision supports Voya’s focus on its higher-growth, higher-return, capital-light businesses
  • Retaining the block provides value to shareholders, including earnings and capital diversification and at least $1 billion of expected free cash flow from Individual Life over the next five to six years
• Voya to hold investor day on Tuesday, Nov. 13

“During the third quarter, we continued to make strong progress on our 2018 priorities,” said Rodney O. Martin, Jr., chairman and CEO, Voya Financial, Inc. “Our commitment to achieving our growth plans this year was demonstrated in the third quarter by positive net flows in both Retirement and Investment Management and an increase in annualized in-force premiums in Employee Benefits. We also generated strong bottom-line results. Excluding the negative impact of DAC/VOBA and other intangibles unlocking and the benefit of prepayment fees and alternative investment income above our long-term expectations, normalized third-quarter 2018 adjusted operating earnings were $1.34 per diluted share, after-tax. This demonstrates our commitment to improving our adjusted operating earnings per share to reach $1.30 to $1.40 per share by the end of the second quarter of 2019.

"In addition to organic growth, we continued to execute on our capital initiatives as we repurchased $250 million of common stock in the third quarter. We also received an additional share repurchase authorization of $500 million from the board of directors, which will enable us to continue to deliver further shareholder value through share repurchases. Finally, we continued to focus on achieving cost savings and began to take actions to lower our debt-to-capital ratio by the end of this year.

“We are looking forward to our upcoming Investor Day on Nov. 13, when we\'ll share our long-term growth plans and opportunities to build upon the profitable growth we\'ve achieved over the past several years, generate further shareholder value, expand our relationships with our customers, and achieve our vision to be America\'s Retirement Company,” added Martin.

Voya also announced today that the company has concluded the strategic review of its Individual Life business. The company will cease all new sales of individual life insurance on Dec. 31, 2018 and retain the in-force block of policies.

“Following the sale of substantially all of our individual annuities businesses earlier this year, we conducted a thorough review of our Individual Life business to determine the best path forward. We carefully considered our broader, go-forward strategy of largely focusing on the workplace and institutional clients, analyzed the options available to us, and concluded that ceasing new sales aligns with our plans to focus on our higher-growth, higher-return, capital-light businesses: Retirement, Investment Management and Employee Benefits,” said Martin.

“Further, continuing to own the in-force block will benefit shareholders in that it will provide earnings and capital diversification and generate higher free cash flows. Specifically, we expect our Individual Life business to increase free cash flow conversion to 70% to 80% and generate meaningful free cash flow of at least $1 billion over the next five to six years.

“Voya will continue to be good stewards of shareholder capital. As we have over the past several years, we will continue to explore and pursue opportunities to maximize the value of our in-force life insurance business,” concluded Martin.

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Voya Financial (VOYA) click here.