All right. Thank you everyone for being here. The next session is with Corebridge Financial, and I'd first like to say thank you to Kevin Hogan, CEO, for joining us today for the discussion. You know, I thought we would start with, I think, an opening statement. that Kevin's going to make, and then we'll go through, you know, a series of questions.
Fantastic. Thanks, Alex. I appreciate the opportunity to be here this afternoon. I want to thank Barclays for organizing the Global Financial Services Conference and everybody here in the room for joining us this afternoon. You know, it's a little bit difficult for me to believe, but in the next week, we're going to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the IPO of Corebridge Financial. And as I think back on it, I'm very proud of what our team has accomplished in that time. We've returned $3.5 billion of capital to our shareholders. We've grown our premiums and deposits by 34%.
And we are well on track to deliver the financial targets that we set at the time of the IPO, including a 12%-14% return on equity, even though alternative returns are returning at a slightly lower level than our long-term expectations. And we're already on track to deliver the 60%-65% payout ratio on adjusted after-tax operating income, even excluding the U.K. Life transaction this year. And the fact that we were able to accomplish all of that while also completing a complex separation from our former parent company and also the divestiture of our international operations, I think reinforces our execution capability. And now, what Corebridge Financial is is a pure play, U.S.-focused life and retirement specialist.
Each of our four businesses, Individual Retirement, Group Retirement, Life Insurance, and Institutional Markets, are leaders in their markets. They have a strong distribution platform, a differentiated go-to-market strategy, and all of them benefit from one of the most important macro trends in this country, which is the aging of America. You know, we've been focused on four strategic levers to deliver what we've delivered up until now, and we continue to have upside in each of these levers. First is organic growth, and when I say organic growth, I mean modest organic growth. Enough organic growth to be able to grow our earnings and cash flows, so that we can not only provide an attractive return to our shareholders, but a growing return to our shareholders.
Our sources of income are up 15% since the IPO, and as I said, each of our businesses are very well positioned, and we're not dependent on any one rate environment or any one external environment. We have multiple products, multiple channels, multiple sources of income. The second lever is balance sheet optimization. We actively manage our ALM profile, which we think is important, the nature of our business. But we're also optimizing our asset portfolio. And as an indication of that, over the last couple of years, we've actually improved the credit quality of the portfolio to single A from A minus, while also increasing yield. And we have further opportunities to optimize our balance sheet and our asset portfolio.
With our strong origination platform, we continue to source assets which are attractive to support the liabilities representing the products that we sell. The third lever that we're pulling is expense efficiency. We delivered on the Corebridge Forward modernization and expense reduction program. You know, we've delivered $280 million that is already earned in of the $400 million run rate savings. We anticipate the you know the bulk of the remainder of that to earn in this year. We haven't stopped there. We're using the capabilities that we built to continue focusing on expense efficiency and adopting a philosophy of continuous improvement. The fourth lever is active capital management. We've demonstrated that since the IPO, and it continues to be a focus of ours.
We're committed to that 60%-65% payout ratio. And, you know, we are confident in our ability to continue to grow earnings per share. Like I said, we have multiple products, multiple sources of income. We're not dependent on any one external environment. We have a strong balance sheet, high quality investment portfolio, and we're executing with discipline. So I feel really strongly that Corebridge continues to represent a compelling investment opportunity.
Okay. Well, thank you for those comments. I'm going to come back to a lot of different pieces of that through the conversation, but maybe we could start on the annuity market. You know, we've seen really robust sales for both Corebridge and the broader market. You know, how much of that do you see as being interest rate driven versus, you know, things that are more sustainable to the, you know, growth trajectory of the spread-based products?
Yeah, I think it's much more than just the recent interest rate cycle. Actually, this isn't just a moment in time. There are three structural drivers to the annuity opportunity in the country. The first one I touched on at the beginning, which is the aging of America. You know, with four million people turning sixty-five this year and each year for the next decade, the driver of the demand is going to be significant. And it's related to the second factor, which is the advisor community, the support of the advisor community. There's a whole new generation of financial advisors that have started to understand the value of a, you know, fixed income-oriented products as part of a long-term savings plan.
And we're seeing that in multiple channels, not just in the bank channel, but also in the broker-dealer channels, financial advisors. But and certainly, the interest rate environment is something that's helped. It's helped, you know, relative to the timing of these long-term investment plans. But, you know, the most important part of the curve to pricing annuities is the belly of the curve, the five- to 10-year area. And if you even look at what the forward expectations are for that part of the curve, I think that these products are going to continue to be a very attractive part of a long-term savings plan. The other thing that I would say is that, you know, there's a broad range of annuities out there. Not all products are interest sensitive.
You know, we have a broad range of fixed annuities, indexed annuities, variable annuities, each of which have both income solutions, as well as accumulation solutions. And so, you know, we have a very strong relationship with our distribution partners. We focus on the top 50, you know, distribution, independent distribution organizations in the country, and we understand that each of them have slightly different strategies, to work with their advisors. And so we have a broad range of product to serve what the advisor strategy is for a particular customer, you know, at any given time. And so I don't think of this as a moment in time. I actually think of this as our moment to serve.
I'll also add that while we have a broad product range, we are looking forward to introducing our own version of a RILA product sometime before the end of the year. We serve a broad range of customer needs, and the risk appetite for RILA is slightly different than our other products. We actually see a long-term upside opportunity in the annuities that isn't just dependent on the rate environment, but the conditions are very attractive for the business for the foreseeable future.
Very helpful. Maybe drilling into pricing a little bit, can you describe the competitive environment you see there? I guess, particularly, we all sort of see and hear more from the private equity-backed insurance companies and, you know, some of the private debt origination activity out there. And just in the context of all that, you know, what are you seeing on the price front?
Look, I mean, the market is competitive. You know, price is relevant, but we haven't seen behavior that I would characterize as irrational, and the way I think about that is whether or not we're able to achieve our new business margins on the business that we're writing, and we are, and we're comfortable with the business that we are writing, and so I think that's one, you know, context relative to that. The second thing that I would say is that, you know, spread income is only one of our sources of income. We have multiple sources of income, and so, as I mentioned, right, we can serve our advisors in a variety of areas and products. You know, back to the competitive environment.
We have a very strong relationship between our investments team and our business team, and you know, we're aware of what assets are available at any given point in time to support products, and we'll never issue a liability that we don't know what the asset strategy is to support it, but at the same time, we have a broad enough set of liabilities that when attractive assets are available, we have the confidence that we can acquire them and find a way to put them to work, and you know, we've long been in the spread businesses, so a relevant part of our liabilities do have illiquid periods.
You know, for the liquidity part of the liabilities, private and structured credit has long been one of the asset classes that we originate in order to support those liabilities. While that's something that, you know, may be new to some parts of the market, that has been an element of our strategy for some time. We like private and structured credit. You know, we have illiquidity premium that we can be able to take advantage of as opposed to going up the risk curve. We like the structural subordination. We like the credit protections as opposed to unsecured credit. Unsecured credit is always subject to idiosyncratic risk. You know, our asset strategy reflects our liabilities.
You know, we are pricing new business to what the conditions are now, and we're comfortable with where that new business pricing is. And as I pointed out, we have a multiple range of products, and multiple sources of incomes, and we have great relationships with our distribution partners. And our strategy is to understand not just what they want on the shelf one or two quarters from now, but what their strategy calls for one or two years from now, which allows us to start to build products and services now to support their strategies then.
And just as an indication of that, of the retail annuities that we sold in the last year, 30% of them have a feature which is proprietary to a single distribution partner. And so we have a lot of differentiation. We support advisor strategies. And yes, the environment is competitive, but we find it to be rational. And the business that we're writing is very attractive.
Got it. Next one on reinsurance. I thought I'd ask, you know, both about Bermuda and some of the things you're doing with internal reinsurance, that are relative to the business, as well as third-party reinsurance and, you know, optionality with some of these, you know, structures can give you?
Sure, absolutely. So let's start with Bermuda. We're always looking for opportunities to optimize our regulatory capital, and we see Bermuda as the next tool in our toolkit relative to that. You know, there are certain products, the Bermuda regulatory environment favors certain products and also economic principles, and one of them is tight matching of assets and liability profile. That's a part of our management strategy. It has long been. And so there are certain of our products, not all of them, but certain of our products that benefit from that environment. And we chose to start by reinsuring part of our new business sales of fixed annuities and indexed annuities. You know, but as we look at our further use of Bermuda, there are other products that we can begin to reinsure some of our new business into Bermuda.
But then as a next step, we have the opportunity to potentially engage in portfolio transactions that also have characteristics that benefit for the Bermuda environment. And as we expand in Bermuda, you know, look, Bermuda is an environment where, you know, there are opportunities to potentially attract third-party capital. And at an appropriate time, we will, you know, further explore that potential. More broadly relative to transactions, we're also always looking for opportunities to optimize our portfolio. And I think we've, over the years, demonstrated the ability to execute transactions both large and small. On the larger end, when we created Fortitude Re and divested of that, that demonstrated our ability to execute complex transactions.
And more recently, the sale of our international subsidiaries, generating $1.3 billion in proceeds, you know, we demonstrated, you know, an ability to act efficiently, there. So we're constantly on the lookout for further ways to optimize, the portfolio. That includes external reinsurance transactions. And we've been in a number of discussions. Some go further than others relative to that, but any transaction, needs to be accretive for our shareholders. It needs to be accretive in terms of value. It needs to be accretive in terms of, structure, you know, and risk and so forth. And so we are prepared to act as we identify a transaction that benefits, our shareholders, and I think we've demonstrated the ability to execute efficiently.
And next, if we could, I guess, go back to the spread conversation a little bit. You know, a very topical part of the conversation is sort of sensitivity to the shape of the interest rate curve, and I think some of the banks were giving disclosure and so forth earlier today. So I thought, you know, I'd ask you the question of, you know, what's your sensitivity to the curve? And like the, you know, short inverse, long, and what matters the most for your business?
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Alex, appreciate it. Look, of course, in our portfolio, there's certainly some elements of interest rate sensitivity as much related to our active asset liability matching strategy as you know as anything. You know, when you're asking about the spread businesses, I mean, the spread businesses are just one of our businesses. As I mentioned, 54% of our sources of income. As I think about managing the spread business, I'll talk about the new business part separately from the in-force. In terms of new business, you know, because of this close relationship that we have with the investments and the new business team, we're pricing to current conditions, where yields are and credit spreads are. We're not trying to guess where they go.
You know, with our capabilities, you know, for the most sensitive product right now, which is fixed annuities, we reprice once a week. We have the ability to reprice more frequently. During the pandemic, there were times where we were repricing daily when there was external volatility that warranted that. You know, we will price the new business at what today's spreads are, and if we can make our margin, we'll deploy that capital. We have other products, other channels that we can mobilize that capital to. We have other options if we're not able to make those margins. But right now, we're confident that we will, based on the drivers that are there and the competitive environment that exists. Looking forward, you know, whatever the external environment is, that's one strategy.
You know, let's now talk about the in-force. So we believe in ALM. It's one of our disciplines. And so, you know, as the rates change going forward, we expect that the earnings from the in-force are going to earn through per our expectations. And so, you know, we're confident in our ability to price the new business. We're comfortable with the in-force. And as I talked about, the part of the curve that's most sensitive for the pricing of the new business is that five to 10-year area. And even looking at what the forward outlook for that is, you know, we're confident in the business there. So, you know, we're confident in delivering a growth in earnings per share. We're not dependent on any one product or channel or any one external environment.
Very helpful. Maybe sticking with net investment income for a moment, alternative returns have been, you know, something that investors have also been focused on over the last couple of years. Could you talk about your current outlook for, I guess, alternative returns or variable investment income more broadly?
Yeah, absolutely. So our alternatives portfolio, as a reminder, is about $5.5 billion. Around 75% of it is private equity, 25%, real estate equity, and we have a small portfolio of hedge funds. And, you know, the alternatives we expect over a long period of time to return 8%-9%. They do not always return that. Sometimes they return less, like the last couple of quarters. Sometimes they return more. If you look over the last five years, our alternative returns have been around 14%.... and so it's a comfortable part of the asset allocation that we have. In terms of the, you know, the third quarter, we're seeing trends similar to the second quarter, and we expect alternative returns to be in the same dollar zip code.
As we expected, real estate equity, we think, will perform a little bit better in the second half than what it did in the first half. But as returns are coming in for the third quarter, we are aware of some losses on the hedge funds and also on some call and tender activity that, you know, may offset that. And so, you know, in a nutshell, in the third quarter, we would expect the dollar returns for alternatives to be in the same zip code as in the second quarter.
Maybe, touching on overall credit, could you discuss, you know, how you'd expect your investment portfolio to perform in a recessionary period? And is there any tactical things you'd point out about the portfolio and some of the actions that I think you mentioned in your opening remarks?
Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So, you know, first of all, we have a high-quality investment portfolio. 95% of it is investment grade. It is also a highly diversified portfolio, and diversification is an important part of our credit management strategy. The third thing is that we do believe in active management of the portfolio. And going back to the beginning part of the pandemic, we began de-risking certain elements of it, and more recently, we've continued that. And we've been able to improve the credit quality in the portfolio, as I mentioned, to single A from A minus, while maintaining or increasing the actual yield in the portfolio.
We've been able to do that by, you know, selling some of our higher yield investments and reallocating to higher grade investments and capturing comparable returns at a lower capital charge. We continue to do that. We did some of it in the first half. We've done quite a bit of it in the last two years. And so we believe in active portfolio management. And, you know, the next thing I would say is that we've historically had a conservative, a prudent, I should say, reserving philosophy. And so we're comfortable with the reserves that we have in the portfolio.
You know, with the strong balance sheet that we have, with the multiple sources of income that we have, with not being dependent on any one product or channel at any given time, and with the high quality, well-diversified, actively managed asset portfolio, as well as a prudent reserving position, we believe that we're as well positioned as anyone could be for a credit event that might be, you know, related to some potential recession. I talked about private credit before. We get questions about private credit. We actually see private and structured credit as a very relevant asset class to support the liabilities in our portfolio, and we're comfortable with our position there.
And maybe before we leave the investment portfolio, any update you can provide just on how the commercial mortgage loans are performing, and particularly the office portfolio?
Sure, absolutely. So like the rest of our asset portfolios, our CML portfolio is high quality and well diversified. Our largest allocation is to multifamily. But you asked about the office portfolio. So our U.S. office portfolio is about 2% of our invested assets. You know, the sector is under some pressure, as we had you know, talked about at the time. But you know, we have continued to see the portfolio evolve as we had anticipated. The balances are down about 10% year over year, associated with paydowns in the portfolio. And you know, we have a well-distributed maturity profile. For this year, we have about $100 million of maturities left, and we're already starting to you know, focus on maturities for next year.
And as with the rest of our investment portfolio, you know, we believe that we are prudently reserved. We've increased our reserves in this portfolio to around 6%, which I think you will find is on the more conservative end, and that reflects our philosophy and so, you know, the sector is under some pressure. It's performing largely as, you know, we had expected and you know, we are confident you know, that with our strong balance sheet and diverse sources of income, et cetera, that you know, any exposure we may have for losses in the commercial mortgage loan area, the office area, is something that is manageable for us, and it's going to play out over a long period of time.
Got it. Maybe pivoting over to some of the Institutional Markets business you do, and in particular, the Pension Risk Transfer business. How do you see that evolving through the year, just given the back half tends to be a little heavier?
Yeah. We focus on a subset of the PRT business that's not quite as seasonal. You know, since two thousand and sixteen, we've focused on the full plan termination space, a subset of the market, we focus on that because in order to administer these more complex programs, there are fewer participants, and therefore, we find the economics more attractive. Now, we treat each of these transactions as if they're a miniature M&A transaction. We have to understand both the liabilities and the assets and the economics from a variety of different perspectives, and so starting with the liability side, you know, back in two thousand and sixteen, we began building the data sources to be able to understand the optionalities in the liabilities....
And so the first phase is really understanding, you know, the liability profile and how it's going to evolve over time. The next phase is then determining what are the assets that are necessary to support that liability profile, and determine that portfolio. And in these transactions, most of the times we get paid, not necessarily in cash, but in assets in kind. And so the third element is making sure you have the strategy for transitioning from the assets that you get to the assets that you need, and appropriately hedging those exposures to not take on any undue risk. So as you can imagine, these are more complex transactions. They're close negotiations with the consultants and with the clients, and therefore, we don't necessarily have one to announce each quarter.
But over time, we do expect that this portfolio is going to continue to grow. The pipeline in both the U.S. and in the U.K. is very strong. This year's expected volumes are anticipated to be about the same as last year's, and our outlook for next year is actually in the comparable area. So this is a long-term growth opportunity for us. And in the first half of the year, our reserves are up 17% in the pension risk transfer space, year over year. So, you know, in pension risk transfers, like the rest of our Institutional Markets business, we have confidence in our ability to for it to contribute to our growth in earnings and cash flows over time and contribute to our ability to grow our earnings per share.
So next, I wanted to switch over to the life insurance business, and was interested in the growth opportunities you see there, you know, particularly in light of, you know, I think some of your peers that you compete with, that maybe have some of the legacy issues that you guys are, you know, fortunate to not have in that business. Does that create an environment that you can seek out some good growth?
Yeah, you know, absolutely. Look, risk management is a core part of our strategy, and it has long been, and it was of our predecessors. And so we have been able to avoid some of the industry pitfalls, such as, you know, we haven't had a reserve issue on guaranteed universal life, and frankly, we have no long-term care. And that means that we can focus on the portfolio and how we're going to grow the portfolio. And we chose to focus on a subset of the life insurance business a number of years ago, that is less interest rate sensitive than the broad part of the market, and that we believe represents a long-term growth opportunity.
We have our leading term suite with a strong indexed universal life suite, and more recently, we've been investing a lot in our middle market capabilities. I think in our investments in the data infrastructure that's necessary, in the predictive modeling that supports that business, in the automated underwriting, as well as in the digital customer experience, are what have allowed us to grow, outgrow the market eight consecutive quarters.
I think there's a long-term upside opportunity in each of those areas, because the macro opportunity that drives the life insurance business is both the aging of America, but also the fact that there are 60 million people that are either uninsured or underinsured in the marketplace. Those two trends together, I think, are driving a lot of that opportunity. You know, life is a very important business to us, and we see the upside of growing both its earnings and cash flows and contributing to our growth in earnings per share over time.
Very helpful. I wanted to go back to the conversation of the aging population in the U.S. and this whole concept of peak 65, you know, age cohort over the next several years. You know, what are some of the challenges and opportunities that it presents to your business?
So Peak 65, I think, essentially we, you know, defines our marketplace. You know, the fact that 4 million people are going to turn age 65 each year for the next decade, each of our businesses serves needs directly related to that macro trend. In Individual Retirement, we have multiple products. We have fixed and indexed and variable annuities, both income solutions and accumulation solutions. We have strong relationships with our distribution partners, and we meet what each of their strategy is relative to their advisors. Individual Retirement, extremely well positioned, and we're introducing our own RILA sometime before the end of the year, which really is the next step in our product suite, there.
In the Group Retirement business, we haven't talked about group, but we have a very profitable and strong in-plan business, that the real growth opportunity and where we serve this Peak 65 opportunity is in the wealth management opportunity in that business. And, you know, we have two opportunities to serve. We serve during the in-plan period while employees or participants are working, but then we have the ability to build a relationship with them to serve them after they retire. Of the 1.9 million customers in our Group Retirement business, 1.7 million of them have yet to retire. And so that's a huge opportunity for our field force of advisors to build relationships and to serve that wealth management opportunity over time.
Just as a snapshot, the people that have retired that we serve represent 14% of the customer base, but 34% of the assets in Group Retirement. So that wealth management opportunity is significant. In the Life Insurance business, the investments we've made in our digital platform are making it easier for customers to buy, and I talked about the macro trends there. Then Institutional Markets, you know, ultimately, the pension risk transfer business is also an outcome of that aging of America as companies look to de-risk their pension obligations. So Peak 65 defines our marketplace, it defines our opportunity, and that opportunity is significant.
And next, let's move over to capital management. You know, how do you think about Corebridge's capital generation capacity? And maybe just an update on the priority order for how you think about deploying it.
Yeah, absolutely. So look, since the IPO, you know, I think we've demonstrated our focus on active capital management. We paid our first dividend, I think, in thirty days from the IPO. We engaged our repurchase program about six months from the IPO. We've returned $3.5 billion since then. This year, we've already returned $1.4 billion to shareholders. So yeah, clearly, we're committed to that as a part of our strategy. And our strategy is to maintain a strong balance sheet while providing an attractive growing cash return to our shareholders. And our insurance subsidiaries are strong enough to be the foundation of that opportunity. Our subsidiaries have distributed, you know, $2 billion a year for the last couple of years to the parent company.
And you know, because we have the opportunity to not only provide that return to shareholders, but also invest in growth in the business, right? One of my strategies is modest organic growth, to grow the earnings and cash flows so that we can then grow that shareholder return over time. And if you look at the distributions from our insurance subsidiaries this year, that's also beginning to show modest incremental growth, which you know is how we're going to meet this promise. We're focused on this 60%-65% payout ratio, excluding transactions, et cetera.
Over time, that's going to, as we grow our earnings per share, so with a strong balance sheet, multiple sources of income, we're not dependent on any rate environment, we're going to be able to deliver on that promise of growing earnings per share and providing that attractive and growing cash return to shareholders.
I wanted to circle back quickly on the wealth management opportunity you mentioned in VALIC. I know, you know, VALIC's got its niche, and, you know, I think sometimes, you know, looking at these businesses, you sort of get lumped in with 401(k) and so forth. I mean, can you talk about the unique relationship that your advisors have with the customer base there, and why there's an interesting opportunity?
Absolutely. You know, Group Retirement, the heart and soul of Group Retirement is VALIC Financial Advisors, our field force of 1,100 financial professionals, and they play three important roles for the Group Retirement business. The first is they are the face of our relationship with our plan sponsors. We've chosen, a number of years ago, to focus on those plan sponsors that want human advisors actively involved with their participants. That's a part of our business model. And so that element of the relationship with the plan sponsors is very valuable. Plan sponsors know that when our advisors work with our customers, they're likely to save 35% more and have 50% more assets at retirement than their participants that don't work with the advisors. So I think that's a very important element of that business model.
Now, we have the opportunity, our advisors work with, you know, participants while they're in plan. You know, young school teachers or young healthcare workers, et cetera, getting off to the right habits early on and building those over their careers, and that's our in-plan business. And, you know, like the, rest of the defined contribution industry, for the last number of years, we've seen some outflows in that in-plan business, but the earnings have been very stable. And that is, you know, the base on which we can build this next opportunity that I'll talk about, which is the relationship that the advisor has as those participants reach retirement and household asset consolidation, and can continue to serve them past that retirement period. And VALIC Financial Advisors is a full-service broker-dealer, duly registered RIA.
They have all of the services available that any independent financial advisor firm would, and we also have a proprietary product suite that reflects the experience that we have in our Individual Retirements and our life businesses that have to fight and compete in the independent marketplace. And so, you know, the features in the products that the VALIC Financial Advisors have available reflect being honed in that competitive, independent marketplace, and we bring the best of breed features to those products.
And so our VALIC Financial Advisors are very equipped, you know, to serve that opportunity. And I just cited the numbers, but it is compelling. 1.9 million customers in Group Retirement, 1.7 yet to retire, and the people that have retired, 15% of the customer base, 34% of the asset base. So we believe that the Group Retirement business is going to be a long-term contributor to the, you know, growth of our portfolio and the shape of our earnings profile across the portfolio.
Very helpful. I'm moving around a little bit, but if I go back to individual annuities for a moment, the surrenders were elevated during the period, and a lot of that was associated with interest rates, so maybe isn't as topical and on the minds of investors at the moment. But I just wanted to ask you, you know, how are you seeing those trends progress? Are you starting to see that cool off as interest rate expectations shift and change?
Yeah, absolutely. So we have, as you know, we have a long experience in the fixed annuity business. We've been in it for decades. And in our experience, what drives surrender rates is, you know, where base rates and credit spreads are. That determines generally where crediting rates are going to be in the market. When crediting rates are up, surrender rates are up. When crediting rates are down, surrender rates are generally down. And we haven't, you know, really seen anything in this most recent interest rate cycle that have been outside of our expectations. The second thing that does drive sometimes surrender rates is when there are blocks of business that are exiting their surrender protection....
You know, because this is a very interest rate sensitive business, sometimes there are a large block of sales, and it's natural when they come up to their five- or seven-year period, whatever it may be, that you'll see a spike in surrender rates. We know that that is temporary. We did have one of those earlier this year. We anticipated it. We talked about it. We saw it in the first quarter, and then in the second quarter, we saw surrender rates begin to normalize. In our second quarter, surrender rates were the lowest in five quarters. So far in the third quarter, we've seen a continuation of that, you know, of that trend.
And so you know, we have a lot of experience in the fixed annuity business, managing fixed portfolio, managing crediting rates, being prepared for and managing surrenders. It's a part of managing that business, and it's a part of that managing that business that we're prepared for.
Maybe the last thing I'll ask you is just on valuations and, you know, life insurance more broadly, or Corebridge. When you look at valuations relative to the broader market or financials and so forth, you know, you're still under a fair amount of pressure, even though the environment's, you know, been pretty benign for credit thus far, and rates have been pretty supportive. What do you think, you know, Corebridge needs to do to, you know, change the perspective? Or, you know, what do you think is being misunderstood by the market?
So, look, I mean, we're focusing on what we can control. And what that means is we're focusing on executing on our strategies, delivering on, you know, our commitments to maximizing shareholder value. We have a very strong foundation, off of which to build. You know, we have multiple products, you know, multiple channels, et cetera. We have four market-leading businesses, each of which have a very strong distribution platform that represents decades of experience. And each of them are supported by this extremely important macro trend of the aging of America. So, you know, in terms of our market positions, we're in a very strong position. We have a highly diversified portfolio. Each of our businesses has multiple products. They serve multiple channels.
We serve different customer, you know, needs, different risk appetites, and we continue to add to that portfolio with our RILA, coming up, you know, in the second half of the year, and that means that we have diverse sources of income, and then we're not subject to any particular rate environment or any particular external environment, but we'll have sustainability, over time. We have a strong and clean balance sheet. You know, we have been focused on risk management. We have avoided many of the legacy pitfalls, and we have minimal legacy exposures, you know, in the balance sheet. We have a high quality, carefully managed investment portfolio, and we've recently enhanced our origination capability with partnerships with two of the most powerful originators of assets that are attractive for our industry.
So we feel great about, you know, our position relative to, you know, our investment strategy, a strategy that we control. We decide what our ALM position is. We determine what our origination partners are providing for us. It fits our strategy and our portfolio. And, you know, we're delivering very strong financial results. We, you know, we've delivered on the 12%-14% IPO. We're delivering on that 60%-65% payout ratio. We are confident in our ability to continue to grow earnings per share, and I think that's what we have to do. With multiple products, multiple channels, multiple sources of income, no one influenced by whatever external conditions are, a track record that we're developing, a disciplined execution of committed to an attractive and growing cash return to shareholders. We think that Corebridge represents a compelling investment opportunity.
I think that's a good place to end. We are at time, so thank you very much for joining us.
Thank you very much for having us.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you.