Next, I am pleased to introduce Ameriprise Financial CEO, Jim Cracchiolo, and CFO, Walter Berman. The two executives who have been spearheading one of the best cash flow stories within financial services. Jim's going to have brief prepared remarks, then we'll move to a fireside chat format where I'll ask him a series of questions. Jim?
Thank you, Tom. Good morning, everyone. What I'd like to do just for a few minutes is just give you a brief perspective on how we're thinking about Ameriprise in 2013. Then, as we'll do that, we'll move to Tom's questions, as he said, so that we can get to some particular areas that you would like to focus on. First and foremost for me is, today I would say Ameriprise is the strongest it's ever been as a company. I consider Ameriprise a retail financial services firm. The core elements of the company, I feel very good about because I think there are three legs to our stool, the complement of those legs gives us an opportunity for growth opportunities, to take advantage of what I see as a changing marketplace, particularly around consumer need.
Then with that, the strength and the diversity to actually generate a very good return to shareholders with a consistent profile and less risk over time and less volatility. The combination of two, Walter and I, and my team have been working on since we became a public company. We've made good progress to that, we think we can continue along those lines. Let me begin there. Today, Ameriprise has two core growth strategies that we go to market with. Our Advice and Wealth Management business, which is our retail client relationships, one that we foster under the Ameriprise brand with our advisor force. It is a strong and growing business. It's one of the largest networks out there. Our core element, with a leader in it, is financial planning advice. The client opportunity, we think for the future is significant.
More baby boomers moving to retirement, more of those baby boomers need financial advice to navigate through 30 years in retirement. The level of assets that are accumulating and transferring in retirement is significant, that's going to increase over the next number of years. We are a player in that business. We are one of the top retirement players and one that we're going to look to continue to grow our positioning in because we think this is a very large pool of assets and a very large profit pool that no one has staked out a majority claim to. In fact, if you're doing well, you have a few % share of that market, the market is growing. Ameriprise is a player today. We're one of the better players out there and one that we think we can continue to increase our presence in.
With that, we have been making strong investments in the business over the last number of years, from establishing a strong brand to building the technology and core capabilities to even positioning us so that we can have our advisors actually continue to be highly productive. We have, in addition, started to recruit experienced people from the industry to join us because we think our value proposition is strong and one that we can help advisors increase their productivity and their client base over time. We've been making great progress in the business. Our margins have been improving. Our productivity has been growing. We have established ourselves more formally, and we're taking more space with our branding and positioning. We think that can continue. We believe there is growth here, not just from a top line, but also from a margin perspective.
We're going to continue to look to grow those margins so that we get them into the mid-teens. We know that we're facing headwinds from short-term interest rates when we manage so much cash that if short-term interest rates came back, that will be a complement, and one that will boost profitability even further. Even without that, we are making the right investments that we think we can continue on the right trajectory for the future. We think we can establish ourselves even more formally in as we move to the retirement focus, even in a stronger way around what we're going to be bringing to market. The second leg of the stool is our asset management business.
In our asset management business, very clearly, we do have a global platform today that we're continuing to make more global with the combination of Threadneedle that we have in the U.K. and Columbia here in the United States. Now, over the years, we've transformed this business from a proprietary asset management now to more of a global asset management. We still have work to do to complete that transition and to more formally establish ourselves in the marketplace. Here again, I believe the asset management space will continue to grow globally. I believe there is a level of consolidation that will continue to occur. I believe that there is space there for good quality companies that have good performance and good products and good distribution and can invest appropriately to take advantage of that space.
Over the years since we acquired Columbia, we've made tremendous change to what we have and what we can deliver. We do have a good product platform today. We do have good performance. We do have a global reach with Threadneedle that has also excellent performance. We have to bring that to life to establish ourselves in the broader distribution channels, which was third-party institutional, third-party retail, and also to have more of a global product positioning for where flows have gone. We are making those changes. We're overcoming what I would call the headwinds from both the merger as well as what has occurred across the industry in flows. I think we will get that on a good positive path as we move into the future.
Economically, we already made that a good economic path and one that we can build upon. There's more work to do on the flow side because of some of the outflows we experienced from Bank of America and some of the positioning of some of the old products like Marsico and the V&R, et cetera. We believe that we have all the components in place that we can build upon. As a fund family here in the U.S., and with Threadneedle internationally, I think we have a great foundation that we can build off of and get into the economic realm that we're looking for, as well as in a growth realm. That combines with the third leg of our stool, which is our protection and annuity products. Those products are a great complement because they're only sold to our retail clients.
We have a very good risk profile. We have very good books of business built over decades. We generate good flow from that. From that, we don't have any exceptional risks that aren't covered in the way we manage the business, the way we hedge it, the way we price the product, and the way we distribute it. To me, I think there's always a bit of a negative overhang when you say variable annuity or guarantee based on what we've seen in the industry. I believe Ameriprise is differentiated. 47% of my book doesn't have a guarantee. Okay? Number 1. Number 2 is, the book that has a guarantee is very well hedged. Number 3, it's all sold to my client that has a very good, consistent behavior, consistent with the way the product was sold and delivered and priced.
Number 4, we've actually curtailed any new business from the old guarantees because of interest rates, et cetera, and put in a Managed Volatility Fund, and all new sales are coming from that. Part of Number 4, we're also going to be launching variable annuities without guarantees again because there's demand in my system. For a combination of those reasons and a few more that we can get into, I believe we have a very differentiated profile that can generate a very good return without a very large capital call. My protection business, it's mainly asset accumulation. Mortality is reinsured. Again, all to my clientele, stay with me a long time. Behavior is very good. The underwriting is excellent. I can generate very high returns on that business.
That becomes a nice complement when I'm thinking of deep, long-term relationships with my retail client in complement to very strong investment management in our wrap programs with our advisors and fee-based businesses. That's why I can generate a very good profitability in total from a retail relationship. Remember, that retail relationship is one of the most deep ones out there across the industry. When I look at players like USAA and others, we probably have a very like type of depth of relationship. Every client, on average, at least, has four relationships with us. For those that really do the business that we're looking to do deep in, have over seven relationships with us. That's why client retention is very strong. That's why advisor retention is very strong. That's why profitability per asset is very strong for us.
The combination of those three businesses with what I've said that we have, has now enabled us to generate over 90% of our earnings as free cash flow. In addition, based on how we've been managing the business, enhancing our risk management, tightening our exposures, moving out of businesses that had a bit higher risk or call on capital, we've been able to free up hundreds of billions of dollars a year in capital that we're also returning to the shareholders. Last year, we got out of the banking business, not because we didn't like the bank we developed, and not that it wasn't profitable, it was, but we felt that the call on capital for the future, being in the banking business with the extra regulation, would inhibit us making the type of decisions and the shareholder returns that we wanted to generate for the future.
We made that decision, like we made the decision the year before to get out of sales of variable annuities to third parties because we didn't see the behavior profiles and the returns that we liked. There are a number of things that we continue to do along those lines that free up even more capital. Going forward, as Tom said, we might have been one of the best cash flow and capital return stories. We want to continue that. We believe we can get our returns on equity up to the high teens initially, and then over the 20% range, consistent profile, good return to you, and at the same time, have a nice, diversified, growing retail franchise, a branded retail franchise. Very important. That's why we think we continue to be a good story.
That's why we continue to maintain the focus we have. We have not changed our strategy since we've become a public company. Through financial crisis, through what has occurred in the industry, to environmental changes and interest rates and market conditions, we feel today we've been able to navigate with this strategy. If the market continues to improve, the environment continues to get more normalized, we think we can continue to take advantage of it based on the strategy we have in place. That's really what I wanted to introduce Ameriprise to you again in discussing it for 2013, and I'll turn it over
Thanks, Jim. I'll start with one question for you, Jim, and then one for Walter as well. Jim, can you comment on top strategic priorities for the year?
Well, our focus for the year will be very much continuing to focus on growing the productivity of our Advice & Wealth Management business. You'll see new advertising in the market that we just launched in January with Tommy Lee Jones. You'll see a greater push and focus that we're bringing to our advisor force around what we're calling Confident Retirement, is really the focus of how do you deal with the baby boomers moving to retirement and give them comfort around how do you actually manage their financial future. We're training our advisor force even in a more intricate and focused way to take advantage of that opportunity. We'll continue to recruit out there, and we'll continue to manage our expense base appropriately to deliver the margin improvements. Columbia, we have a very strong focus in twofold.
One is we're looking to turn around those flows, make greater progress in the third-party distribution channels, ensure that we have the right product lineup to distribute, particularly through places like the intermediary platform with the capabilities we have. As important, we're starting to build more of the global capabilities. We're putting together a combination of Threadneedle and Columbia to take advantage of what we see as institutional activity in the global marketplace that we think that we can get a share of. Recently, as an example, we just brought on a new head of our global asset allocation, Jeff Knight, who joined us, who has years of experience in this area and a very good reputation, and he's going to help build that business out for us.
For Walter, I think your commitment for this year for share buybacks and common dividends essentially uses up your earnings plus the freed up capital from the bank sale. Still leaves you with $2 billion plus of excess, if I'm not mistaken. How should we think about plans for utilizing the $2 billion plus, or is that just going to be something that probably you hold on to for a while?
Yeah. Let me just go back. Just so we understand, you're 100% correct that we want to give people some sort of guidance that from the standpoint coming off the CCAR, that we'd be totally consistent. The minimum would be that we would do 100% of earnings plus the $375 coming out to cover dividends and share buyback for 2013. We certainly reserve the right to increase that as we look at the circumstances. Again, it is, as Jim has said, and we've all said that, holding on to the $2 billion, the pluses for the contingencies we talked about covering the contingencies with when we run our stress testing and other things. The $2 billion is really then meant to use for either acquisition, buyback, or other elements in managing the business.
It's not our intent in a long time to continue to hold on to that. We obviously generate a lot each year, therefore it is something that gets evaluated based upon the circumstances that we see, both for situations outside and certainly look at all elements of the price, everything as it relates to that, to evaluate the best ways to return to shareholders.
Walter, do you have a timeframe in mind over which you would expect to utilize at least the majority of the $2 billion? Is it over a couple of years? Is it over five years?
For timeframe, if you want refer to Jim.
I think what Walter and I laid out in November was that we would be looking to bring that down over the next few years. I think it would all depend on a combination of factors. Okay? Environment, most important. Number two, our stock price and value. If our price was to fall, we would probably even accelerate more buybacks. If it continues and continues to appreciate, we'll return what we think is a reasonable, appropriate amount to continue along a good track path. We'll continue to evaluate dividends. We've been increasing them substantially over the last few years. We think there's still some opportunity in that area. The last thing I would say is when people are always concerned, well, since you have the capital, you're going to go out and do a stupid acquisition.
I tried not to do any stupid acquisitions for the last seven years we've been public. We look at a lot. We evaluate a lot. The ones that we've done, we've gotten very good returns on. We're going to continue to be very disciplined and not use our capital for the sake of using it. We have the ability, if there's something that made sense, that would be complementary, that again, we can execute and get a very high IRR on, we would use that out of the cash that we have. We would not go back to shareholders. Having some of that available is always good in case something comes along, but we're not holding that amount because that's all we're looking to do.
Got it.
I do want to add something because one of the things we've always talked about is we do have the excess, and that is a fact as of this moment. We generate it. An important thing about the way we have operated the foundation of it, both the asset quality, the liquidity, the duration, the elements that will have a velocity change that could negate it or impact it, we feel we're in excellent position. It does give us that unique ability in the industry.
Got it. I guess just to follow up on that topic, if I think about your asset management platform, I think about core competency being active equity management. If you look at the last several, looks like we're starting to see signs of life there in terms of industry flows. If you look at the last several years, most flows have been in other asset classes, fixed income, passive equities. Given that that's the case and if you think about that potentially continuing Do you feel like there's a product hole void that you do need to fill? Would M&A be the most appropriate way to fill that, in your view?
I think there are two aspects of that. I think there are a few things occurring across the industry that we're cognizant of and would be looking to try to focus our resources to capitalize on. Number one is, I do believe there is a greater focus on solutions. I don't just mean an alternative per se, or a hedge fund per se. I think those have grown and will continue to have good space. I believe institutions and even retail consumers, as our advisors are looking, they're looking for what can I generate as a return to satisfy a certain need or objective I have? I think Columbia and Threadneedle are well outfitted for that. Our managed portfolios at Threadneedle have always performed exceptionally well. Our ability to deliver solutions, as we have with our retail clientele for Columbia, is very strong.
We believe that we have a complement of skills that we can build upon to increase our presence in the solution providing area, rather than just provide a mutual fund with a certain level of performance against a benchmark. Things like asset allocation, things like how do you manage credit? I think Columbia's well-known, and could be better known based on its capabilities for credit management, both for income generation and risk management. Those are capabilities that we'll be looking to bring to life. I think things like ETFs, yes, have grown and passive, I think you also see in that broaden out to active ETFs because people somewhat like the format, not just the idea that it's a passive. This is something that we'll invest time and energy in over time, over the number of years as a complement.
As markets more normalize, I think you may always have passive as a part of that, again, if you go back to indexing, actives always took a certain role based on more normalized market conditions, I think part of that will come back.
Okay. Shifting gears to the Advice & Wealth Management segment. Can you comment on what you see as margin expansion opportunity there? I know there was a temporary setback just based on the sale of the bank, talk about how do you see that playing out over the next several years? Is a couple of 100 basis points up the ceiling, or do you think you can continue to go beyond that? Also, a related question, just the recruiting environment. It would seem like it's a pretty fertile environment, just given challenges at the wire houses. Does that really create an opportunity for you?
On the margin front, we do see an opportunity to continue to grow the margins, both on rate as well as absolute in the AWM business. We think of that for a few different things. Number 1 is we've made some strong investments over time, not that we're excluding new investments. I'll give you an example. Two years ago, we weren't thought about anywhere in the online and client website space, et cetera. Today, we got rated number 3 as one of the best online capabilities for both client as well as for mobile. That's across every player, including direct players in the industry. We have made a lot of investments, and we'll continue to make investments to deliver what clients want, where, when, and how they need it.
There are things like that we'll continue to invest in so that we continue to have a great positioning. We've made good investments. The brokerage platform was a big one. We're winding that down the cost side of it. We did the complete transformation, and that was excellent in what we did in the conversion. We didn't negatively impact clients nor advisors, and actually, we have a better capability. We think we can manage our expense base tightly as we move forward, even making new investments and advertising. We think that what we're building into the system, the advisors we've added, and the training, and the new things we're coming out with, like Confident Retirement, will help to grow productivity that will add to margin. We are also continuing to more fully utilize our employee channel. Right now, that's not adding to our margin.
That's detracting a little bit as we kept space, and our utilization isn't up to where we want it to be. As we recruit more in and get more productivity in there, that will start to add to margin. The combination of those, we think we can actually get a few points more in margin without interest. You add interest, then I think we can be in the upper teens.
Got it. How about on the recruiting side? What the opportunity is right now.
The opportunity continues to be good. It's not that it's not a competitive market. It is. It's not that others aren't paying up for some of the talent that may be out there. We try to really focus on those people that would like to join us for a combination of reasons, values, culture, leadership, and a focus on financial advice and planning. We believe that we have a very good value proposition that we can recruit people in at an appropriate compensation package, and help them become more productive, which is where the winning is. The winning is not just to bring someone on board and have account. The winning is to bring them on board, get them even more productive, and build more client relationships as part of Ameriprise. We see that continuing.
We see good success from what we've already started, we can see that continuing at sort of the relative ramp rate that we had.
Just, I guess a follow-up for Walter. The margin strain just implied by Jim's comments would be maybe 200-300 basis points from the cash drag, I should say, from low interest rates embedded within the Advice & Wealth Management business. Is that the right ballpark number to think about? I believe what you guys had said on the quarter related to that was there was an increase in allocations to cash during 4Q. The way I envision that is that temporarily hurts your margin more. Obviously, represents a tailwind going forward if either rates rise or if money comes back out of cash. Is this likely to be kind of a near-term issue where we're going to see margins compressed a little bit more as a result of just this near-term dynamic, or not necessarily?
I think it's kind of two things. It's not a drag, per se, from the standpoint, obviously, it's embedded in there. You will see because of some of the arrangements that we've had with the placement of money, where some of the spread fee will come off a little. That's a marginal impact that you'll see. As it relates to now on the volume side, we are up at very high levels of cash, which we are still earning funds on. The opportunity for us, I've indicated, you should figure for the first 100 basis points of anything going up, you usually retain around 85 basis points of that. On a book, now $19 billion is a lot. We know we're into $14 billion-$15 billion, because you assume that will get redeployed.
It's a substantial increase on the margin because you're going to keep 85% of that, and that will go right to the bottom line. Just have to do with calculation revenue versus PTI. To us, it's a big opportunity. It just demonstrates how the assets stay with us, and it's just a matter of the redeployment, and this is the upside that Jim was talking about.
Yeah. One is the rate. Because of what Bernanke did in August, rates actually in the short term came down a bit more. As contracts roll off, we'll have a little spread squeeze again in 2013. As far as the increase in cash, that to me wouldn't be a drag. It's actually a big positive, and I'll tell you why. Two things occurred in the fourth quarter. One is we brought in strong client inflows, meaning cash came in. If that sits for a while before it's redeployed, that's fine. Right? We're already seeing some of that being redeployed as activity has continued to hold up. The second part was what you said is people because of dividend, reaping dividend extras because of what happened, or because of model changes at the end of the year because of the fiscal cliff, they were concerned.
They left more cash and freed up a little more cash for year-end tax selling. I think all of that will go back into the market, and it's just a matter of time, and I see activity already picking up to deploy it. If you say that cash is not negative, it's actually positive because there's client money there waiting to go to work as soon as our advisors feel comfortable. I see activity continuing along those lines, I think that will be a positive. The flows are actually enhanced coming in, that's a positive. The last piece is the rate. As Walter said, if rates do go up, the short-term rates, most of that will come to the bottom line very quickly. Now, between you and I, it depends on when you see some signs of that turnaround.
The cash is there. It's not like we have to do anything.
Right.
Once the rate goes up, we can get rate out there and how we invest that out or do it with the portfolio. That's something that will be an incremental benefit when it occurs.
Okay. I guess just hitting on kind of the last piece of the puzzle here. Can you comment on the strategic importance of your life and annuity business? Jim, from some of the remarks you made earlier, there's clearly a benefit to having that from a client overall solution set that you're providing and the stickiness of your customers. If you look at multiples right now of some of your annuity and life insurance company peers, it's clearly an anchor as it relates to you guys, I would say. Thinking about several companies trading below book value and at pretty depressed P.E. multiples. How do you balance the two of those? Unless you believe there's a light at the end of the tunnel where those companies are going to get revalued. Do you see still this part of the business being part of the long-term plans for your company?
Let me do this first. I'm going to ask Walter to talk a little more to complement what I just said in my opening, a little more about the book we have and why we think it's differentiated, and why it should not have the sort of negative overhang that I think is out there. I will then complement that with how I think about it strategically. Okay?
Great. Okay.
Let me just reiterate what Jim said and put a different color. The start point of our book is very good from a shareholder value standpoint. Even looking at it on a standalone basis, it meets all the standards that we would look at on a shareholder basis of understanding its risk-return profile. I'll just elaborate on one or two points that Jim made. 47% of this book has no living benefits on it. It's pricing. When we went into living benefits, both the pricing and the features were all geared towards something that met our clients' need but also met our shareholder needs. We're fully hedged on a basis on a static long-term hedging being adjusted to cover the exposure profile and not have to catch. We feel very, very comfortable with that.
When even that dynamic changed, we changed the product to meet our clients' needs in the environment that we were in when we went to the Managed Volatility product, that all met our return characteristics. The products themselves, I'm talking variable annuity primarily in this case, works for us. We'll demonstrate that. We'll show you that the start point is very, very good for us, and it is generating appropriate returns on that basis, and certainly, the income. The protection life and health is always been an accumulation product. We've never been aggressive on the terms and conditions as it relates to it, that also has generated exceptional returns and meets our clients' needs and the ease of doing business with us, not just on the financial side. Again, a perfect example is the fixed annuities.
We have a block that is going to be repriced in 2014, which is going to basically start improving our spreads, and that will go down to a minimum of one and a half % guaranteed minimum interest rate. It generated substantial profitability for us back in 2009, and it is still being well managed. We have not changed the characteristic of its risk profile on duration, any of the elements of the investment quality. We feel very good about the book itself. As you look at us on the integrated model that Jim talked, it really does provide us capabilities to meet the needs of our clients. We still allow other manufacturers in. It's just that this product works for us as a manufacturer.
If we then look at that, if I was experienced the type of combination of challenge or risk profile or return issues that I think is generally attributed out there, I would say, yes, strategically, I would want to do something different. If we look under and peel the onion here, I have a very good book. I wouldn't get the value that I actually see based on so-called what people might be attributing against the industry today, if I tried to do something strategically different with it. I do believe, on the other hand, that the way people can see the results of this is to look at actually what it is returning, what the risk profile really is versus what the overall industry thought might be.
Third with that, to understand as well that these are my clients, my relationships built over decades, that I generate a very strong return on this client relationship, that I would want to manage those relationships and those products very well for paper that I underwrote, rather than to just try to get a short-term trading profit on some kind of packaging of a book. Ultimately, that risk would still come back to me if it wasn't done correctly. For all those reasons, we manage an excellent business. It will become a smaller part of my business. This is not going to be a fast-growing business. I'm not looking to grow it through third parties and the whole bit. Even in my own channel, it will take a certain amount of space for a certain clientele. My business mix is shifting.
I'm already over 50%. I will get that to 60% and 70% in the asset-light businesses. This actually might be a great complement, particularly as I now look to grow that business without even guarantees over the future. I would just say, I think when you take it in that type of fashion, it's very hard to think of a strategic thing that I would do differently because I'm not sure I would actually extract as much shareholder value as doing what I'm doing with it.
Got it. Why don't we turn it out to the audience, see if anyone has any questions? Connie?
Can you hold on one sec? We'll just get a microphone for you.
You've been very good in terms of capital returns. I guess what I'm wondering is, what needs to happen for you to accelerate that capital return and how you're thinking about your current dividend level?
Okay. I think we start the year with the understanding, in the last two years, we started the year telling you that we would return 90% of our earnings. Other people might say they're returning 65% to 35% or 50%, depending on their capital needs. The last two years, going into 2012 and going into 2011, we said we're going to return roughly 90% as a starting point. Those two years, we actually returned over 130%. The reason our excess capital didn't go down is because Walter and team and the strategic decisions we made along the lines of, Tom, you had asked, is we de-risked the business even further. We got out of business outside distribution of annuities. We got outside of the bank that we're doing now. We enhanced our hedging and risk management. We tightened the risk profile of products.
There's been a greater shift to those that are less capital intensive. We've been able to return to you over 130% and at the same time keep the same level of excess capital. This year, we did the same thing for last year. We got out of the bank, and just like we got out of outside distribution of annuities. In this case, we said right off the bat so that we weren't going to confuse you, we said we're going to add that $350 million on top of the 90%, which we then said will be 100% of our earnings returned to you at the start of the year. That's the stake in the ground we put.
That does not mean, and I want to be very clear, that does not mean that we might not return more to you, or we might not raise the dividend again. It just means that as we started the year, that was our starting point, not knowing economics, environment, not knowing where the stock price and other things may be, not knowing what we might want to do with dividends over time, just from a perspective that we knew we would want to increase the dividend, we didn't know how much by when. I would just say our starting point this year is almost 130 or more than 130% to start again. We may do more. If the stock price falls, we have an opportunity, maybe we would accelerate that even further because we think the shares are undervalued today.
They might even be a lot more undervalued if that happened. If the stock continues to rise, we think we can do a very good run rate depending on the value that we have. I'm not saying that we wouldn't return more this year. I'm just saying our starting point was to already tell you that we're going to return that much. Does that answer your question?
Yeah, I just want to throw another question.
When?
Sorry. When you think about your $2-plus billion in excess capital, that's been unchanged, you pointed out you de-risked the business. I'm trying to understand what makes you or what gets you to start really drawing down on some of that.
I would say our starting point is this. Our starting point would be to you that I would like the company to always be able to navigate any environment that comes and hits us without that causing any issue for us or for you as an investor, number 1. Number 2, I also believe that giving back to you over time with increasing dividends and buyback, et cetera, is also a way that you can always get a reasonably good return from me versus the market. Number 3, we always would like to have a little cash if something does come along that would be complementary so that we can use it, but that doesn't mean $2 billion plus.
I would just say the reason the $2 billion didn't go down is because Walter and team and my executive team has done a good job of freeing up hundreds of billions more of capital.
Hundreds of millions.
Based on the environment. What?
Millions, hundreds of millions.
$hundreds of millions, I'm sorry.
We're working on the $billions, yes.
We're working on the $billions. $hundreds of millions.
This is 2014. Thank you.
If that didn't occur, you would have saw a drawdown of the $2 billion. It's nice for you to know that I have the $2 billion. I can return it to you.
I'm not saying it's not. It's a very nice problem to have. I'm just wondering.
I think we're out of time with that. Thanks a lot, Jim and Walter.
Thank you.