Voya Financial (NYSE: VOYA) reported Q1 EPS of $1.07, $0.05 worse than the analyst estimate of $1.12.

First-quarter 2019 net income available to common shareholders of $0.42 per diluted share

• First-quarter 2019 adjusted operating earnings1 of $1.07 per diluted share, after-tax; Normalized for the following items, first-quarter 2019 adjusted operating earnings were $1.22 per diluted share, after-tax:
  • $0.01 per diluted share, after-tax, of favorable deferred acquisition costs and value of business acquired (“DAC/VOBA”) and other intangibles unlocking; and
  • $(0.16) per diluted share, after-tax and DAC/VOBA, of prepayment fees and alternative investment income below the company’s long-term expectations.

“During the first quarter, we continued to execute on our plans to achieve organic growth and cost savings as well as effectively deploy excess capital,” said Rodney O. Martin, Jr., chairman and CEO, Voya Financial, Inc. “Our normalized first-quarter 2019 adjusted operating earnings were $1.22 per diluted share, after-tax, up 23% compared with the first quarter of 2018. Our results reflect several notable achievements in our organic growth plans, including an 11% increase in Retirement full service recurring deposits for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2019; more than $1 billion in Institutional net flows in Investment Management; and a 14% increase in annualized in-force premiums in Employee Benefits compared with the first quarter of 2018.

"We also concluded the first quarter with over $700 million in excess capital, which demonstrates the continued strong free cash flows generated by Voya\'s businesses and will enable us to continue to execute on our capital deployment plans. Following the completion of the $250 million accelerated share repurchase agreement that we entered into during the first quarter, we entered into a new, $236 million agreement early during the second quarter, which, when completed, fully utilizes our existing share repurchase authorization. Subsequently, we\'ve received from the board of directors an additional $500 million share repurchase authorization.

“As we previously announced, we intend to increase our common stock dividend to a yield of at least 1% and we expect to do so beginning in the third quarter of 2019. As we continue to execute on share repurchases given the current attractive valuation levels of our common shares, providing a higher-yielding dividend will enable us to attract new investors to Voya.

“Overall, we are on track to achieve the plans that we shared during our Investor Day in November 2018, and we remain committed to achieving our target of at least 10% annual adjusted operating earnings per share growth over the next three years, on a normalized basis. With our strong, established presence in the workplace and focus on institutional clients, we remain well positioned to achieve our vision to be America\'s Retirement Company,” added Martin.

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