Get going here with our next presenter. Next up, I would like to welcome Ameriprise Financial. With us today, the company CEO, Jim Cracchiolo, as well as Walter Berman, the company CFO. Ameriprise continues to be a bit of a unique company in our coverage universe. The firm has successfully transitioned itself from pretty much an insurance company into a better-balanced business with financial advisory, asset management, annuities, and insurance now comprising about a quarter of the business each. It still feels like the stock hasn't found its home from an investor coverage perspective, which we continue to think creates an opportunity for investors. Meanwhile, the business mix continues to enable Ameriprise to pursue a significant return of capital. I think we saw some of that today with the company increasing its dividend by 22%.
If you look on a year-to-date basis, Ameriprise was able to return 12% of its daily average market cap this year, this is probably going to be one of the largest among financial services. If we're looking out into next year, the significant free cash flow and capital generation will probably enable Ameriprise to do something similar, looking out into next year. With that, I want to turn it over to Jim for a few opening remarks, we'll try to keep the presentation more in a fireside chat format. Plenty of room for questions.
Thank you, Alex. What I'd like to do is, Alex would like me to spend a little more time on board of Q&A. We just held our financial community meeting, there's documents that you'll find on the web if you weren't at the meeting. What we tried to do is put a little condensed version just to introduce some people that might not have seen it, to give you a little better overview, so that we can actually talk to some of the things that you might be interested in once you have a little more context for it. Let me begin, let me just say, you can read our disclosure statements.
I really want to introduce that there are a few things that we're thinking about as we move forward, it's really based on the strategy we put in place when we became a public company. We executed, as Alex said, a major transformation from how our company generated our earnings to where we are today. It's pretty significant, I'll talk to that in a few moments. Very important as we move forward, we think we can continue to build upon that foundation. Very critically, there are a few number of significant things occurring beyond what we see today. We have a very difficult political climate, very different market climate, an understanding that we might be in a slow growth environment today.
If you look past that, you can see some very significant secular growth trends occurring that we are right at the center of, that we can actually capitalize on. Our model is, I think, much more valuable than people are thinking at this point. We look at some of the segments, and I think we're undervalued from that perspective. If you look at the totality of the company as a significant retail player in this particular center of space, I think there's a lot of opportunity for the company to be revalued. With that, I think there's an opportunity for us to continue to create the type of value that we created since we became public. If you look at the company today, we are a diversified retail financial services player. We really focus on the mass affluent population that continues to grow.
We have established a brand out there in the marketplace that is trusted today. Going through the financial crisis, the growing awareness of our company and the way we actually navigated that crisis and how we're actually appealing to the consumer today is very strong and one that can continue to take ground. We also have a very strong growing wealth management business. I'll give you some of the stats, but as a public company really focused on this business, we're one of the few players out there that have the ability to continue to take ground and actually as an independent company, should be looked at as a key asset for someone to invest in. We also have transformed ourselves now into a large global asset manager. Very different than the past through the combination of acquisitions and reestablishing this as a more integrated company today.
Our annuity and protection business, unlike other players in this market, we only sell and develop that product for our retail client that has very good consumer behavior, very good planning for retirement type of behavior. Our assets stay with us longer. We have a better risk profile, and the behavior of the clients is much stronger, we can generate very strong returns there. Overall, the company is stronger today than ever before. As Alex mentioned to you, we've been able to return a good amount of capital to our shareholders, raise our dividend. We have a good free cash flow that's continuing to grow, and we have the ability and flexibility both to navigate as well as further invest.
If you look at our performance just over the last number of years since we became public through the financial crisis, our revenue has grown significantly. Our earnings has grown significantly, up 94% over that period. Our ROE today stands at 13.4%, and that's in a very difficult interest rate environment. Our assets under management and administration's up over $600 billion. If you look at that on a performance basis, we perform probably on a total shareholder return of a +43% versus a -47% for diversified financials, a -15% for life index, and a -10% against the asset management index. We outstripped the S&P Index, which was roughly a +15% during this period of time. When I mentioned the growth that's occurring beyond what we see today in the public markets, it's really around the retirement opportunity.
There is a significant wave of people moving to retirement. That wave is increasing. In fact, today, you have the first baby boomers in retirement, that's going to continue to shift the asset flow in this area. If you look at this over the next 10 years, you're going to see a significant increase in retirement type of assets and people accumulating for retirement. In addition, the mass affluent and mass population continues to accumulate wealth even in this cycle, and they will continue. It's looked to expand by about 6% on a compounded annual growth rate. As you research this and speak to clients and prospects, they have a significant desire for advice. The reason for that is we live in a complex world. The level of volatility today is even greater. There are a significant number of products and services.
The question is, how do you put them together to get a retirement check? Not only are two-thirds of the population seeking advice, 73% actually feel they're unprepared for retirement, and over 54% of that population actually would like to work with a financial advisor. We are right at the center of that. We go to market only two ways. This is where, even though we have a segment approach as we came out public, people needed to understand how our business is made up. We only approach the market two ways, one as a wealth management and retirement market server, and the other as an asset manager. All of the products and services we offer, either that we manufacture or we network, is against our client base in the wealth management space. Annuities, protection. We have one of the largest wrap businesses.
We actually serve clients to satisfy a whole range of their needs. This is the growing part of our business. In the asset management, this is the only place where we manufacture product that we sell through third parties outside of Affinity PNC business. This now has transformed itself into more of a global asset management. I'll go over a little of the stats there. If you look at our wealth management business and how we serve client needs, this is a retail branded proposition, over 2 million plus clients. We are the leader in financial planning and advice in the industry. We have one of the highest client satisfaction and retention rates in the industry. Over 9,700 financial advisors that we have grown over many years. Number 5 in the branded advisor force.
More CFPs, certified financial planners, than anyone, we serve a full range of needs. We also have one of the largest wrap programs. If you look at that in combination to our financial planning business, two-thirds of our business is fee-based. It's more like an asset management in that regard. In addition to that, we're top 10 in some of the insurance and annuity areas that we choose to play in, like variable universal life, it's made for mainly our clients, that gives us a better risk profile and return profile. We're also a leader in retirement space. We're one of the top five planners for retirement and advice, at the same time in the IRA market. That's really our makeup, that's how we go to market, that's how our revenue is generated in a diversified way.
If you look at the growth, just on the advice and wealth business as a segment, it's also substantial, actually, you'll see it mirrored any of the actual public venues out there. In that regard, our operating revenue per advisor continues to grow. We have double-digit improvements in productivity over the last decade. Every year, as you look at it, except for the year of the financial crisis, the advice and wealth management operating earnings continues to grow nicely, and our margin improvement is also strong at 11.5%. Remember, all of the revenue and the earnings that we would generate from the cash side of that business, we're in a very difficult market with all-time low in interest rates. That is not factored in here into the earnings stream, and if you put it there, you'll find that margins would expand even further.
Not only what we establish in the size and scope and what we have in place, which is a key asset and one that you can't recreate today, is also the idea that we can grow that business as we have been by deepening relationships, by adding more mass affluent and affluent clients. That's where we've been growing. Our advisor force is starting to grow again. We went through a major transformation of our employee network to really make it more of a productive channel. We've been adding experienced people, and we're continuing to focus to actually start to grow the financial advisor network over the next number of years and continue the growth that we have in productivity and expanding our margins. In the asset management world, this has gone through a major transformation.
If you looked at our asset management business five years ago, you would find that it was more focused as a proprietary support that we're expanding through third parties. Today, the mix, the makeup, the global nature of it, you can see 25% roughly of our assets are in the international markets. With Columbia, together, that's over $400 billion of assets, makes us one of the largest asset managers, both here and around the world. We have a nice makeup between fixed and equity and some alternative. We have a very strong platform on the retail side, a growing platform on institutional side. It makes us one of the largest players. Number seven in long-term funds, number four in the U.K.
We have over 100 four and five-star funds between our domestic business and the Threadneedle business that are rated funds in the U.K. and Europe, and broad retail and institutional distribution, which we never had before. If you look at the size and scope from an earnings power and revenue, you can see revenue's up nicely, $2.2 billion for the three quarters. Earnings to $400 million for the three quarters, and our operating margin on an adjusted basis is 33.7%. That's where we are today, and we're in a difficult market. We have to reestablish ourselves, get our brand out there, integrate our networks, integrate our back office, integrate our investment professionals. We've established today we have strong investment performance that we know we can leverage.
We've also reestablished, and we're beginning to grow our distribution so that we can expand and get into good net inflows over time. We can capture some global growth opportunities. We're already looking to bring the resources of both Threadneedle and Columbia together to attack the market. We've already set up operations in Asia, and we think we can continue to expand our margins as we have been in the past. The results of the company overall, when you put that together, has shown good bottom line and top-line growth. Again, if you measure this on a basis from 2009 to 2011, you'll find that against any one of the separate indices, asset management, insurance, or the wealth, you'll find that we are as strong, if not stronger. On a consolidated basis, we're probably, again, on a consolidated basis, in the top.
If you look at our ability to generate returns, you can see again, in a more difficult market with higher capital requirements, we continue to improve our overall return on equity of 13.4%. In that return, we already have a very strong capital base and an excess capital base. 90% of our earnings gives us the ability to do something with, return to shareholders, buy companies, further invest in the company if we wanted to. We've increased our dividends twice this year, declaring a second one today, so over a 50% increase in dividends. Since we became public, we've increased our dividend every year except 2009 through the financial crisis. We repurchased $1.2 billion in shares year to date.
If you look at that, when we started our buyback program, started it up again a year ago, you'll find that continues to be quite significant, and as Alex said, one of the most significant across the industry, let alone in the marketplace. Our balance, we're looking to continue that balanced approach. How do we continue to look at dividends, buybacks, as well as have some flexibility for potential acquisitions? Now, where are we going with that? I can't dictate every year because of markets. We saw what the Fed did in the third quarter and how that affected a little bit of our DAC unlocking, impacting a bit of our current period earnings. You know what happened in the markets just based on what's happened in Europe.
Overall, I think what I said to you five and a half years ago when we came public, these are sort of my focus on revenue growth, earnings per share growth. I've raised the return on equity here to 15%-18%. We will be above 15% next year. Now, with that, I think this company, with a strong capital position, good flexibility to continue to grow, can be in that higher range. I don't think you're going to find many financial services companies as a S&P 500 company that will be here in financial services because of the capital requirements and the changes that have occurred from a regulatory perspective. I believe this is a very good, strong business, has the ability to continue to grow, is in the right space based on what's happening beyond the current environment that you see.
Even today, even with the environment, I will say that we are undervalued. If you look at the makeup of our company, if you just did it purely on an earnings stream rather than how we generate the earnings, the better profile we have because of the deep relationships. Even on this basis, you can see that we're roughly at a 7.8 PE. A good part of our business, a growing part of our business, is in the wealth management and asset management space, and you can look at the PEs there. We can stand up, and if you look at us on those segment bases against the competitors in that space that have these PEs, you'll find that we are growing as strongly, if not stronger, and in many cases have the capabilities and the performance that would merit those type of PEs.
In addition, I would also argue that our annuities and protection space, since it's all my clients and it has very good risk behavior, it's hedged very well. I reinsure my mortality risk, mainly in asset accumulation protection products. You can also find that I think we deserve a higher PE than the average of what's out there in the industry for these businesses. I think today, even if you assume that you're going to go through a difficult climate, we are undervalued. Overall, I think we've gone through a major transformation when we first came public to actually reinvest in ourselves. We reinvested over $4 billion into ourselves. We've established a strong brand, a positioning. We're right in the right space that's going to continue to grow no matter what happens politically in our environment or even short term in the markets.
I think the company is undervalued today just based on the sum of the parts, let alone the idea that this is one of the few types of companies, really as an independent company with the focus that we have, the size and scale that we have, and the earnings that we have, and the ability to return to shareholders. I think we can continue to create substantial value moving forward. That's my overview, Alex, and I'll take any questions.
Great. Maybe I'll start off with a few, and we'll hand it over to the audience. Bigger picture question for you, Jim. First, priorities into 2012. It feels like since the Columbia acquisition, the last year and a half to two years have really been about integrating Columbia, making sure you guys get the fund lined up all set, and then you also step up your recruiting efforts on the FA side. Given that these things seem to be in place now, what are your top priorities heading into next year?
Yeah. Top priorities are going to continue that we really want to continue to build in the wealth management space. We're going to continue to actually grow our relationships, try to add more clients, build the productivity of our advisor force, actually generate stronger margins in the employee part of our network. We're already at very strong margins in our franchisee channel, and now that we're building the scale necessary and making that more productive and bringing in experienced recruits, that still has a lot of upside for us. That's going to be continuing our focus. We're going to continue, as you saw, we put a new brand campaign in the market with Tommy Lee Jones that's really starting to build awareness again for us. That's where we're going to invest.
We have a new investment in our big brokerage platform, adding to the front end systems. That's a significant investment this year, and next year that will be complete. A lot of that's already in our investment plans. That continues in the margins we told you, and that will get us over a big hump at the end of next year. With those things in mind, I feel good outside of not knowing exactly what will happen in the environment. We've navigated that quite well through the past financial crisis. We don't think it will be as severe no matter what we're facing today. In the asset management space, we spent a lot of time and effort. We put together two very large companies, and we reestablished ourselves, and people aren't necessarily thinking about it, is going through a severe climate.
We put together two large companies, and we're coming out with a very good company today that has strong investment performance. It has good product that we can sell. It has good investment processes in place today. It has diversified and significant distribution capabilities. The performance of both Columbia and Threadneedle together, I think gives us the platform to further expand. Now, with that, we're going through the reestablishment, so it took some time and effort. We had to face some outflows, some institutional clients through the change with Bank of America. I think we're getting over the hump in the beginning part of next year, the first and second quarter, we will complete whatever that implication is from the parent type flows. We've offset that with new revenue coming in. We're winning bigger mandates, we're winning better mandates at higher fees.
Even though we face some of that volatility on the flows, the revenue side is being offset. Now, the issue we face today is what I think broadly across the industry. We're all in a bit of outflows. The thing that I can say to you on a positive side is that our outflows from when we did the merger and the integration has not grown. It's stayed stable when others have gotten worse because of the market climate. Having said that, I think we have good product and good performance. As the retail and institutional clients start to come back, as things settle down, I think we'll be in the right place with established resources to attack the market. I do feel good about our makeup. Having said that, I don't like the idea that we're in outflows today.
Got it. This is a good extension to my next question. I want to spend a couple of minutes on advice and wealth management segment. It feels like the last couple of quarters have seen one of the better organic growth rates you guys had from a headcount perspective. October, as it came up at your Analyst Day, was again, one of the better months for recruiting. Two questions there. Number one, what do you think is driving that? Can you give us a little bit of a few characteristics maybe from the advisors you're currently bringing in? The second one is, again, more from a probably a little more secular perspective. What are you seeing from the advisors and wirehouses and their appetite to go independent and how that sort of fits into your business model?
I think there are two things. There's one of, as you've outlined, what's happening in the broader environment, there's one, what's happening with us. Let me start with what's happening with us first. If you go back three years, we really didn't recruit externally. We built our network internally, organically by bringing new people into the business and helping them build books of business. As you would know, since we've been doing that for many years, we had a machine that did that. We were able to recruit one to 2,000 people a year. We had a very large group of management and leadership that helped train and develop. We had significant marketing resources devoted to helping them establish books.
Three years ago, particularly through a difficult climate, we said, "We're going to change this and make that system more of a productive system rather than a feeder system into our independent network." In doing so, we acquired H&R Block to reestablish the employee platform, integrated it in, we started recruiting. Today, we went through the system of getting rid of many of those novices that would wash out, but not replenishing them. Making them more productive, what remained, looking to recruit experienced people. That's what we're doing today. Having said that, it takes a change, right? You got to get your leadership, your managers, et cetera, to start thinking about how do you recruit experienced people, how do you onboard those people, how do you get them developed differently in your model than you would for someone homegrown.
The improvement has been significant from a margin and profitability basis. It's also been significant in a sense that the people we've brought on board have been able to bring over most of their assets. They're back to now generating the type of production that they were before we acquired them. We're starting to gain traction, and our knowledge and capability, how to onboard, how to recruit, how to get our brand out there. We never advertised in that channel. First time we're putting ads out there to say, "Hey, we're in the business. We have an open door now. Come visit us." That's taken some time to develop more on an organic basis rather than just because there was a major avalanche that occurred in 2009. That's how we're sort of building that momentum.
In addition, I would say that there is still the idea that people are a bit rattled in the industry. They are looking to say, "Where do I want to be in the future?" For a whole bunch of reasons. There are changes that are occurring, there are consolidations that occur. They're looking at where they are today and whether the people and how they think about that business. I think we are an alternative. We're a company built around our network. We're a company that has good stability. We're a company that has improved our trust and credibility through a cycle. I think we have a values-driven culture. We value people that can produce in the $300,000-$500,000 range, rather than just a $1 million plus. I think there's an opportunity for us to continue to grow and recruit.
I don't know if there's going to be what occurred back in 2009, but I do know that things seem like they're opening up again. It seems like more people are interested to think and evaluate the opportunity.
Okay. Just staying with the segment for one second, Walter, one for you. A year ago, you guys laid out 12% pre-tax margin targets in that business. Feels like you're already there. From Jim's comments, it feels like the advisors you're bringing in are more productive. Their business is stickier. Is 12% still the number, or do we think it's a little bit conservative now?
As we indicated, the 12% was a target for 2012, and as we talked about at the FCM, we have done that without the benefit of the interest calculations that we thought we would get on the short end. It appears that certainly that would be a number that over time that we will exceed, and we haven't said exactly where it's going, but certainly we have the opportunity to perform at a higher level than the 12%.
Alex, I would say, if you factored in the opportunity that over time short rates will go up, you will get a big boost there even off of the 12. I would say we still have the ability to increase off the 12, even with interest rates not, by doing the things that I just mentioned to you. As I said, it's not as though I'm not under-investing right now. I'm actually investing a bit more. Brand, technology, et cetera, for the platform. I do believe. I think there's always one big caveat, right? We manage a lot of assets there, so if markets depreciate or if client activity continues to slow because of major volatility that we experience, yeah, there's going to be sort of a blip in that.
If things continue the way it is, I think we can continue to make progress.
Okay. I think we have some time for questions from the group. Yes, Tom.
Can you define a little bit more precisely who the end market is? I mean, who you really mass affluent is a pretty big term, right? Number 1, number 2, when someone comes over to you from another firm, can you make a value proposition to them that there's more, because of your vertical integration and product, that there's more profit opportunity for them than what they could get in a traditional wire house model? Is there anything that you can show there?
Yeah. I think, first of all, the target segment that is our sort of core, and again, you always have in any model, in any business, sort of, you got the top 5, 10, 20% of where you get. For instance, in our case, our core that we really approach, where we're growing a lot is probably in the average investable asset category of a minimum, let's say, $200,000 to $1 million. Okay? Our sweet spot, when we bring in a client, and on average, we bring them in to start with about three to $400,000 in assets. Okay? That's our sweet spot, as you think about that mix of $100,000, $200,000 minimum to $1 million. Okay? Now, our advisors, of course, will get people one, two, $3 million.
If you said that is where your bulk of assets and where your bulk of clientele and where you serve the most, that's it. Okay? That's why we say the sort of the mass affluent leading to the affluent, but we're not in the higher wealth categories of $10 million plus. Okay? On the other side, as you think about an advisor joining us, the advisor will join us for a few reasons. Number one, the stability of who we are as a company, how we're really making the advisor one of the front and center things of our business. We're not part of a major bank or institution. We're not run from a perspective that investment banking and trading and capital markets is our core in that sense. That's one reason. Number two is our value proposition around the advice.
We've invested hundreds of millions of dollars to position ourselves to give us the tools, the capabilities, the training to help people think about a more full-fledged model rather than just managing investment assets. People are starting to realize, particularly in the upper echelon, that that's what clients want today. Right? It's not just, can I beat an index? It's the idea that, how do I actually navigate markets like this? How do I satisfy the goals I have, the needs I have? That's the other part of the equation that we sell. I think, we also have a culture that we are very close. Even though we're a large company, I spend personal time with advisors. So does my leadership team. We think about how to make them productive every day.
It's not something that says we just want to recruit people and put them in the desk. We're not a network. We think about it as when we bring someone on board, they're our clients, they're our advisors, they're part of the company. How do we make that successful? How does that actually add brand value? That in itself, it's a subtle thing, but it's an important thing. Again, it's not for everyone. Having said that, I think there is an awakening that that's important again, culturally.
Yes. Questions.
Within the context of your growth goals, your acquisitions, the return of capital, could you just reiterate where your goals are in terms of where your targets are for your credit rating?
Well, today, we have not been downgraded through this financial crisis by any one of the rating agencies. Clearly, we have a strong position. Walter, I'll let you respond to that.
Yeah. Looking at it today, and certainly looking at the ratings we have at the holding company and at the operating company, I think those ratings are appropriate to support both the needs of the company from a capital standpoint and also the brand positioning. I think we're quite comfortable, and our ranges of where we are within those ratings are conservative, and so we feel that those are well-positioned. As Jim said, we've managed through that through the entire dislocation and have not had any downgrade. That's where we think right now where it works for us both from a positioning of the company and from the capital markets view of it. Questions.
With the delevering in Europe, perhaps some asset management properties might shake loose. Can you remind us what your M&A appetite is, what return hurdles you target, and probably most importantly, a little bit what you just touched on, how do you evaluate the deals in the context of keeping that robust balance sheet?
Strategically, I'll talk about, Walter can give you sort of the financial metrics around that. Very clearly, we think there will be opportunities that will occur based upon the dislocation that's occurring in Europe. Okay? Whether those opportunities are right for us, we would have to see, but we have the ability. We are looking to further diversify and grow our asset management more globally. As you saw in my pie chart, it represents about 25% of our assets. I would like over time that we truly have that as a global platform, being more like 50% of our assets. I think there is that opportunity. We are investing organically, internationally, and with Columbia to get ourselves scaled up in places like Asia, Middle East, et cetera, even beyond Europe.
In that regard, I think there are opportunities to look at certain other opportunities that come along. Now, as we went through the last acquisitions we did, you know that we look, number 1, strategically, can we integrate that well? Does it give us a better platform in the end? Number 2 is, can we do it in a way that generates good returns to our shareholders versus the alternatives of buying back and dividend returns, et cetera. As we evaluate that, we can't say that, yes, we would be jumping on things that come around. I would say that we would have an interest, and we would evaluate them if they seem appropriate. We have the flexibility, including against how we're returning to shareholders to do that, because we're sitting with a very strong capital position.
Of our earnings coming up again, a lot of it's going to be ability for us to use. We will evaluate some of the opportunities. I can't say there's anything on the horizon at this moment, but I could say that we'll continue to look just like we looked over the last number of years. Walter,
Yeah. The only thing, listen, creating shareholder value is the key event, we look at over a multiple of measurements that will do that. Clearly, we look at it from if we used equity or if we used cash, we evaluate it on an individual and then on an aggregate basis. We look to be, really as a general rule, to be accretive and looking at the synergies, taking into consideration that Jim was talking about the strategic side within a 2-year period. Those are elements that we basically evaluate. The most important thing is preserving the safety and soundness of our balance sheet in conjunction with generating the operating capability within the business. Those are the general place. There is a constant evaluation, both on individual and aggregate basis, as we evaluate it.
Now, since I've been running Ameriprise or its predecessor, Financial Advisors, we did 4 acquisitions. Each one of them has created significant value based on the purchase price and our ability to extract both the synergies as well as give us a better platform. I think one of the questions in the past is our credibility around that. I think we have good credibility today. We've learned a lot. I also believe that in a slow growth environment, that is an alternative on how we can even grow and expand further.
Okay. Maybe we have a question, 1 more maybe.
Last one from me then. You guys operate 1 of the larger financial advisory networks in the country. Over the last 2 years, even longer I guess, we've seen massive amount of money going into fixed income, probably closer to $1 trillion of retail capital. The traditional equity business has been under pressure over the last 4 years. What are you hearing from your financial advisors from the asset allocation perspective heading into next year? Are people still think that 2% returns in fixed income is the way to go, or there's some better alternatives that might be creeping up?
I would say, again, our approach from an advisory perspective is that you invest over time and that you make sure that you have reasonable allocations because again, as you think about retirement, et cetera, just investing in fixed income is not going to do it for you. I think what our models do and what our advisors do is that there is still a good allocation to equities, but not as high as it was a number of years ago. Having said that, I think the biggest issue we face and have faced, and some of it has improved, but I think people are not continuing the improvement trend right now, is that people are holding more cash. People are, if they're in equities, they're not necessarily running for the doors. Our advisors aren't cashing them out.
The new investment has slowed, and they're holding a bit more cash, or they're holding it in short-term instruments so that they don't get hit initially with the volatility of investing a lot right now. Having said that, I would say that our advisors are still deploying that cash into a mix of equities and fixed income, but they're holding a bit more cash and probably holding a bit more fixed, rather than the way it used to be where they would invest a bit more in the equity side. I haven't seen a fundamental shift, but I've seen more of it was gradually improving back to equities, and now it's a little more on hold based on what you saw from August. Hopefully, if things settle down again, the migration back will occur.
I just think it's a little more on hold based on what we just saw in the level of volatility through October and now November.
I appreciate you guys making the time today. Thank you.