Voya Financial Reports Better-Than-Expected Q4 Earnings

Voya Financial Inc VOYA reported its fourth quarter results Wednesday morning. The company earned $0.91 per share on revenue of $369 million. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.79 per share on revenue of $310.7 million.

Voya Financial noted that its quarterly net loss available to shareholders was $107 million, or $0.49 per share, compared with net income of $1.379 billion, or $5.60 per share a year ago. The year-over-year change was primarily attributed to a $1.622 billion gain resulting from the release of a tax valuation allowance last year.

Total assets under management stood at $271 billion and total assets under management and administration totaled $452 billion at the end of the quarter. Book value per share (excluding AOCI) was $57.44.

"During 2015, we continued to execute on more than 20 growth, margin, and capital initiatives to drive greater value for our customers and our shareholders, and we remain on track to achieve our Adjusted Operating ROE target of 13.5% to 14.5% by 2018," said Rodney O. Martin, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer, Voya Financial. "In addition to achieving several positive results across our businesses in the fourth quarter, such as positive net flows in both Retirement and Annuities, our CBVA hedge program once again protected regulatory and rating agency capital from market movements. At the same time, we continued to provide significant value to shareholders, in part through the use of approximately $1.5 billion of excess capital during 2015 to repurchase our shares. With our board having increased our share repurchase authorization by $700 million, we will continue to be both prudent and opportunistic in repurchasing our shares in 2016.