Voya Financial (NYSE: VOYA) reported Q4 EPS of $1.07, $0.03 worse than the analyst estimate of $1.10.

"In 2019, we made strong progress on our organic growth objectives across our Retirement, Investment Management and Employee Benefits businesses, which are core to our strategy and plans for continued growth," said Rodney O. Martin, Jr., chairman and CEO, Voya Financial, Inc. “Specifically, Retirement full-service recurring deposits increased 10.7% compared with 2018; Investment Management generated $2.6 billion in positive net flows (excluding divested annuities and sub-advisor replacements) in 2019; and Employee Benefits grew in-force premiums 10.3% compared with the prior-year period. This organic growth — combined with our focus on cost savings and capital management — enabled us to grow full-year 2019 normalized adjusted operating earnings per share by 18% compared with full-year 2018.

"Our recently announced transaction to divest the Individual Life business and other closed blocks will not only accelerate our plans to generate free cash flow from Individual Life, but also reduces risk and further simplifies Voya. Importantly, the transaction reflects the completion of a fundamental restructuring of Voya — we have purposely evolved to become a company with a clear focus and strategy centered on our high-growth, high-return, capital-light businesses. With our continued focus on growth, we expect normalized adjusted operating earnings per share (EPS) to reach a quarterly run rate of $1.80 to $1.90 by the end of 2021, and we remain committed to growing normalized adjusted operating EPS by at least 10% in both 2020 and 2021.

"We further executed on our cost-savings initiatives during 2019 in line with our focus on simplifying our company while also ensuring that we are well positioned to invest in the growth of our businesses. As of the fourth quarter, we have successfully removed all of the stranded costs associated with the 2018 sale of the majority of our annuities businesses, and we remain on track to achieve run-rate cost savings of at least $250 million by the end of 2020. We will build upon our track record of reducing expenses to also effectively address stranded costs related to the Individual Life transaction.

"In 2019, we continued to deliver on our commitment to being good stewards of shareholder capital, repurchasing more than $1 billion of common stock during the year and increasing the common stock dividend. Looking ahead, in 2020 we plan to repurchase at least $1 billion of common stock and, in doing so, will have returned to shareholders approximately $7 billion of excess capital in the seven years since we became a public company.

"Voya is well positioned to continue its momentum in 2020, in part by benefiting from the strong cultural attributes that distinguish our company and help set us apart in the marketplace. Last month, Voya was named one of the 2020 World\'s Most Admired Companies by Fortune magazine. Just last week, we were recognized on Barron\'s list of the 2020 100 Most Sustainable Companies, ranking third overall and, for the second year in a row, we were the highest-ranked financial services company. We are actively building upon all that we\'ve achieved for our customers, business partners and shareholders so that we can continue to drive greater value for all of our stakeholders and achieve our vision to be America\'s Retirement Company," added Martin

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