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Citi Asset Managers, Broker Dealers & Exchanges and Insurance Conference

Feb 25, 2020

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

To introduce Voya for this fireside chat. We have CFO Michael Katz, as well as Mike Katz and Josh Smith, so a lot of Mikes and a lot of Smiths. What I thought I'd do is just kind of go through some questions at the outset, then we'll open it up to the audience to the extent that you have some. I thought I'd start maybe high level and then work our way through the businesses. You guys have given guidance for 10% EPS growth over the next couple of years, and obviously there's different factors that can cause that number to be achieved. How do you think about the top line versus margin versus buyback maybe this year and as we kind of think through the next couple of years?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining me. Suneet, thanks for organizing this. I think the way to think of our 10% growth is going back to our Investor Day in 2018, where we announced a plan in -- and frankly including a life business that we've recently announced our transaction. Our intent then and our conviction was that we could grow earnings per share at 10% plus from 2018 levels. Fast-forward us a year or so, and we've announced a sale of our life and some other closed blocks that will reduce earnings. What we're now saying is that by the end of 2021, we'll be back where we would've been had we not done the life transaction.

The earnings per share that we will have in the fourth quarter of 2021 will be in the range of $1.80 to $1.90, which reflects a 10% plus growth rate from the baseline that we had in 2018. As an exit rate. 2021 itself will not achieve that because of the effects of the transaction. When we announced the -- when we talked at Investor Day, we talked about three sources of earnings growth. The first was capital management. Including the $1 billion plus that we expect to purchase in 2020, we'll have repurchased $7 billion in shares over a little more than seven years since our IPO. Our original IPO market cap was about $5 billion, we will have repurchased more than our original market cap in the time since our IPO in 2013. That was one source of EPS growth.

The second was expense management. We were, in 2018, in the process of removing stranded costs related to the sale of our annuity business at the end of 2017 and closed in 2018. We've achieved that. We've removed all the stranded costs, and we announced additional cost saves that would further accelerate our earnings trajectory. Finally, we pointed to organic growth driven by flows and driven by growth in in-force premium. We said at the time, and we continue to believe, that the growth in earnings would emerge more in the second half of that 2019-2021 period. You've got capital management, you've got expense growth, and you've got organic growth driving earnings in the latter part of 2020 and then into 2021. You include the effects of the life transaction. Right?

Which will, on top of the organic growth that was already expected, drive further earnings growth as we take out stranded costs that have to be removed from the life transaction. We'll be a far simpler company in the absence of a life business. We're removing 5 legal entities. We're removing 15 administrative systems. We're selling a broker-dealer. That gives us a range of possibilities to think about our overall overhead and frankly, corporate structure. Things that we can do to remove costs. In addition, the proceeds from the life transaction will be $1.5 billion. We guided to about $700 million of debt repurchase. That gives us $800 million of capital, plus an existing excess capital position of $900 million, plus the capital we'll generate in 2020 and in 2021, all of which can be applied then to either share repurchase from a modeling perspective.

You add all that up, and while our current run rate earnings in the quarter would show a pretty steep path to get from where we are to the $1.80-$1.90, think of it as already in place organic growth manifesting, kind of turbocharged, if you will, by further expense saves and an even greater pace of capital management actions.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Got it. If we unpack that a little bit, the broker-dealers, the simplification of legal entities. Is that a meaningful expense reduction opportunity incremental to the 250+?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Yeah. I think we guided to, we've said the stranded cost related to the life business is $130 million, give or take, and that we plan to address that by the end of the year. While we don't have clear visibility into all the steps we're taking, what we can say is that we have the track record. We have the machinery, if you will. We went through a very, I think, robust process in identifying cost savings opportunities the first time around when we sold the annuity business. The way we went at that will be just as applicable this time. We've maintained that machinery in place so that it can be used and spun up pretty quickly.

We've got work to do. At time of close, there will be transition service fees coming from the buyer that will help offset some of that stranded cost immediately. In the meantime, we don't have that, and the earnings from the life business are in net income below the line, but the stranded costs are above, and we can talk about that more in a minute. That'll create some degree of offset immediately, and then as those transition services are terminated, we'll have opportunities to remove the cost, remove the activities that are driving those transition services, and also think about other overhead restructuring that we can do.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Got it. I guess the other thing that's changed, obviously, relative to when you first laid out the 10%+, is the rate environment.

which, based on your most recent guidance for retirement, has slowed the underlying earnings growth there. Maybe give a sense of how you're thinking about, I guess, where rates are now and what that could mean.

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Yeah

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

What the offsets are.

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

The guidance we've given is that 100 basis point decline in rates from basically the level that they were at at Investor Day, which think of that as in the high twos on the 10-year treasury. 100 basis point decline would've produced in 2019 a 2% drag on earnings, which is basically what we saw. To the extent that rate environment were to stay there, you see another 1% decline in earnings in 2020, and then further if the rate environment persisted even more, another 1%. A total of a 4% drag from where we thought we'd be. Suneet, you mentioned the change in retirement guidance. We had originally guided to an overall three-year CAGR of 4%-7% for retirement. Now, I've just kind of laid out that there's about a 4%-4.5% drag, particularly given where rates are now.

We're going from 4-7 to a CAGR of 1%-4% over the three-year period from 2018-2021. That's internally consistent, at least in terms of the overall rate drag. Look, obviously there's a lot of new news being absorbed and reflected in the marketplace, it's hard to tell where it's all going to go out. Certainly the rates being down in the 130s, I think where we're at in the 10-year at close yesterday, I haven't looked today. We'll add to the pressure. It's not geometric. It doesn't change dramatically. It just simply moderately accelerates the rate at which the book yield will decline. To the extent that they persist, we may need to refresh that guidance if we stay down in the 130, 120 range. Right now, probably the best thing I could say is it's not meaningfully more.

Think of it as an extrapolation from the existing guidance.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

I guess going the other way, I think you took up your guidance for a couple of segments, maybe give a sense of what's going on there and how that could be an offset.

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

In particular, we increased the guidance for employee benefits. We had originally said that over the three-year period, it would grow at a rate somewhere between 7%-10%. We increased that to 11%-14%. That simply reflects the fact that last year was a fabulous year for employee benefits. Earnings grew 20%. If you just do the math on the CAGR from 2018 levels to 2021 levels, 11%-14% is a reflective of a high single-digit growth in employee benefits going forward. That growth has been driven by growth in our voluntary products. In particular, they grew 25%. The in-force premium grew 25% last year, and we can come back to that. Stop Loss held in nicely, despite us taking some fairly meaningful underwriting actions to ensure that we were going to get the target loss ratios that we expected and we did.

We had very favorable experience in both group life and in voluntary last year. All of that added up to, we just kind of hit on all cylinders in employee benefits. I still think a high single-digit growth in that business is very attractive, and that's what gets you to the 11-14.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

In investment management, was there anything that you guys changed there?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Nothing really changed, and we're saying that the earnings over the three-year period will grow 5%-8% on a three-year CAGR basis. Feel very good about that. The pipeline is strong, and from a net flows, we've been generating strong institutional net flows for several years now based on strong performance and our ability to craft solutions for institutional clients. Also, in the second half of the year, you saw a turnaround on our retail side, where we were in positive net flows there. We're exclusively an active manager. There's not any meaningful passive money in our shop. That's been driven by a couple of really strong performing funds. Our Voya Strategic Income Opportunities Fund on the retail side basically tripled. It grew from about $1 billion at the beginning of the year to over $3 billion now.

Has gained access to a number of pretty robust fund platforms, and we're pretty excited about where that can go.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

You hit on this earlier, but I want to give you the opportunity to talk about it a little bit more just to make sure everyone's on the same page in terms of the above the line, below the line noise associated with the life deal, because I think there's probably some moving pieces there that people need to understand.

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Thanks for the opportunity to clarify. The fundamental issue here is that upon announcement of the sale of the life business, the life earnings go below the line. They're going to discontinued ops or businesses to be exited via reinsurance, right? Because we intend to no longer be in those businesses, but we still get the economic benefit until close. It's coming through net income, it's not coming through operating. However, GAAP would cause us to put the overhead costs that were otherwise allocated to the life business, those remain above the line. That's about $30 million a quarter. That is coming through as stranded cost and reducing what would otherwise be the operating run rate. We're going to normalize in our presentation of operating results by removing those stranded costs to give a sense of the true run rate.

That'll be because we currently get the earnings, and so it's a strange geography issue, I think, in GAAP reporting that causes a bit of a distortion. Also at close, and I mentioned this earlier, we'll get fees that will help offset a meaningful portion of that stranded cost. Once we have a clear visibility into that and we know the fees and we're reporting the fees that we're getting that offset those costs, then we'll stop normalizing for any excess, and we'll just let it flow accordingly.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Okay, one more on the high level, we can get into the segments. You've done the annuity deal. You've done the life deal. It feels like you're pretty happy with what you have-

the hand that you're playing with today. Are there any other blocks or businesses that you'd consider that you think about as non-core that you'd consider exiting?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Look, I think this has been a very deliberate strategy for us since IPO, is to get to the businesses that we want to be in, that's retirement, employee benefits, investment management. I think we're very focused on making those businesses the best they can be. One question we get is around the retail broker-dealer and what are the plans for that. Look, we think advice is a critical part of the retirement equation. It's a very important part of our retirement business. The Retail Wealth Management and our Voya Financial Advisors is our top distributor for tax-exempt markets. It's one of our largest corporate 401 sources. It remains a very critical part of our ongoing strategy. We're very bullish on the sectors we're in. We think they all create an opportunity for us to generate high returns, strong cash flow conversion.

They're capital light. We think present a very compelling profile for us.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Okay. Just maybe walking through the segments, in terms of retirement, we talked about this a little bit earlier, so we don't have to dwell on it, but the guide down to the 1%-4% growth. Is that just all rates? Is there anything that you can do on the crediting rate side to help offset that? Have you already factored that in?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

It's predominantly rates. It's a combination of things. I think you should think about it as really the rate driven. I think the other thing to think about is 2018 was just a year where things just hit on all cylinders, right? We had a really strong year where to the extent things broke one way, they tended to break to the good. 2018 was a tough comp. You did see a step back in 2019. In order to get to 1%-4% three-year growth from that 2018 level is actually going to require high single-digit growth in retirement going forward. That's just math. Specifically to the question of can we do things on interest rates? Yeah, there's some room. Over the last couple, three years, we took significant action in reducing the amount of new flow into existing high-guarantee products.

We have a meaningful amount of our fixed account product that has minimum guarantees of 3%, 3.5% or 4%. Until a couple of years ago, we were still accepting new flow into that, and that was accelerating the rate of compression. We've since basically just stopped that flow and moved those customers' new flow into products with lower guarantees, say 1%. The existing assets, to the extent the customers left it in those older accounts, it's still there at the 3%, but it's not getting any bigger. There's no new money going that way. That will, over time, create some room in the crediting rate.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Maybe talking about the competitive dynamics in retirement. One of the things that we're used to hearing about the retirement business in general is fee compression. I just don't recall that being an issue for you guys, certainly not to the same extent it is for others.

Maybe some sense in terms of is it mix or is there something that you're doing differently? Are you feeling it? Is it just not as big of a pressure?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

I think if you look at our gross fee rate over the last couple of years, it's gone down about one basis point a quarter. That's the fee income divided by the assets under management has come in about one basis point a quarter. That's largely mix. Yes, it's competitive. Fees have been competitive for as long as I've been in or around the 401(k) business, and that goes back, in my case, to the late 1990s at a competitor, right? It's always been competitive. Fees have always mattered. It will continue to be that way. What matters more than the gross fee is the bottom line, the net, right? Bringing in a big case at a rate that's lower than your gross fee rate will naturally just lower the water level, if you will.

If we're able to do that in a way that's margin accretive. I think if you look at our profitability in retirement over the last three or four years, the broader arc, we've gone from a high single-digit ROC to a 12%, 13%, 14% higher ROC. We've done that by removing cost, by making good decisions around which clients to keep and which clients to allow to move on to other carriers. We've gotten better rates where appropriate, or we've let business walk out the door. I think we've been far more disciplined about our approach to profitability. We think that that can continue. It will continue to be competitive.

The gross fee will likely come down over time on a basis point level, but we think the margins will still be strong, and we'll be able to deliver the kinds of returns that we've come to expect.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

It's interesting because even though you're seeing some fee compression, the other thing that's happening is you're growing. The other theme that we see a lot of times with 401(k) related companies is the industry's in outflows. The demographics suggest that that will likely continue as baby boomers age. Again, you seem to be moving in the opposite direction in terms of better deposits, better flow performance. I guess, what's the secret sauce there?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

A couple of thoughts to leave you with because I don't think there is a secret sauce. I think we're just really good at managing retirement assets and providing services to retirement customers. I'd say it's a combination of our capabilities, and we compete from the very largest plans to some of the very smallest plans, and we take the capabilities that we build for these big record-keeping clients, some of the largest companies in America, and we use those capabilities to spread across our business, both in the corporate space and in our tax-exempt client base.

I think when you think about the capabilities that we're able to bring to bear, in addition, we've made, since IPO and even before, a very conscious effort to invest in our culture, invest in sustainability, thinking about ESG, thinking about how to provide services to folks with special needs through our Voya Cares program. Those are all things that we talk about with clients and ultimately show to clients in a way that we think differentiates us. Do we win on price? No, we're competitive. If we're up in a situation where the lowest price by a basis point wins, we may or may not win that case.

What we hear from our clients a lot is that our approach to doing the way we do business, our approach to helping those either with special needs or who have family members with special needs, providing the know-how and the resources to help them do that, our commitment to sustainability and doing things the right way. Just today, we were announced by Ethisphere as a world's most ethical company for the seventh year in a row. That's as long as we've been eligible for that. A couple of weeks ago, we were number 3 on the Barron's list of sustainable companies. All of those things come together into a company that, a provider that customers want to do business with, and we think it shows in the results.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Certainly some commercial benefits from some of these accolades that you get.

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Clearly. We believe it's hard to tell, but we think 20% or more of our retirement sales are influenced by that.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Last one on retirement, maybe just some thoughts on the SECURE Act. It seems like it's rare when we have something that both sides of the aisle actually agree on. How much of this is an opportunity, and then over what sort of timeframe?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

It's clearly a good thing for the industry. I think it reflects a recognition amongst policymakers, as you say, on both sides of the aisle, that we need to do more to encourage Americans to save for their retirement. Over time, we think it'll be beneficial. We're not viewing it as an overnight change or a sudden accelerator. I think it'll be gradual. We're already in one of the things that gets talked about a lot are Multiple Employer Plans. We're already in that space. We have those capabilities. To the extent that those become more prevalent or popular, then we're certainly more than able to serve those very, very well. It's a slow build. This is not going to dramatically show up in earnings. I think it's, as I said at the beginning, it's a good thing for the industry.

It will result in, I think, increased use of retirement plans by both companies who sponsor them as well as the participants within.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Shifting gears to Investment Management, I guess your margin target is 30%-32% by 2021. I think you're tracking below that, although obviously, performance fees in the fourth quarter helped.

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Yep.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Maybe just give us a sense of how you expect to get there, maybe flow assumptions or market assumptions.

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Let's step back and think about where we've come over the last couple of years with Investment Management. We were pretty much right there at the 30% to 32% before the annuity transaction in 2018. That resulted in a fairly significant loss of assets and the associated revenue, and so we took a step back in terms of margin as a consequence of that transaction. Our plan has been from that time, and we continue to execute on that, to address it through flows, address it through the removal of stranded cost and the additional expense savings that we had flagged at Investor Day, and continued strong performance. As well as, and you'll see this in the back half of 2020 and 2021, we have a private equity firm, Pomona, that is going to be back in the market with their 10th fund.

That will produce some fairly significant ramp-up in fee revenue at a relative to existing basis points levels will be at a higher level of basis points, and that'll provide a lot of extra momentum to the back half of 2021 for earnings to get us, we think, to the 30%-32%. The other question that you may have is, well, that's great. You just announced a life transaction, and you're going to lose some assets from that. Yes. We're going to retain 80%, roughly, of the assets that are affected, at least initially, and we'll have that for at least two years, and then it'll grade off over the five to follow. We'll have assets under management for at least seven years related to the life transaction. That is not an impediment.

We still expect to be able to achieve the 30%-32%, even in light of the life transaction.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Got it. You gave us some good color on fee compression in retirement. If we were to ask the same question about investment management, what does it look like? What are you feeling? How do you think it plays out over the next few years?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

The answer is pretty similar. Again, I think that gross fee yield does not equal margin. I think what you'll see in terms of the fee rate that we're getting on inflows versus outflows, that will bounce from quarter to quarter. If we get a $5 billion mandate in a core bond fund, that will certainly lower our gross fee, but I promise you it's accretive to margin because we won't have to add much, if any, expense. That fee just drops basically right through to the bottom line. Pay attention to margin and our track record of growing it and our continued progress along those lines. As I alluded to earlier, it's going to be for us more about business mix. As Pomona comes online, that's going to drive the gross fee margin up as we have more and more success.

Look, it's competitive, just like retirement. It's going to continue to be competitive. We think we've got the performance and the track record to be able to continue to collect appropriate fees. We've got specialty capabilities where it's just difficult to replicate. It's not subject to being put into an ETF format. These are very distinct capabilities with long track records that we think will continue to perform very well.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Have you said how big the Pomona fund is going to be, the one that's launching?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

It'll be larger than the last one, but we haven't said the exact number, no.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Have you said what the last one was?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

It was about $1.8 billion.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Okay. $1.9. All right.

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

That's what you say.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Shifting gears to employee benefits. A lot of the growth has been voluntary.

We've seen that kind of across the board. Can you just maybe talk about what you're seeing there?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Yeah. The growth in voluntary has been, for us, has been driven by a couple of things. One is there's a broad industry growth that's fueled by, I think the adoption of high-deductible health plans by employers and employees as they seek to find ways to reduce the burden of ongoing medical plan premiums. That has led to an increasing understanding on the part of both employers and employees that when someone's now facing $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 deductible, and an annual limit that's a couple of times that, they've got an exposure if they get sick or they get hurt. They need coverage to help offset some of that. The voluntary products that we sell, accident, hospital indemnity, critical illness, provide that cash in that kind of situation.

What we're seeing with employers is a lot of them are bringing these products into their environment that they never had before. Over half of our sales last year in the voluntary space were with plans with employers where these products didn't exist in their environment. They didn't have them on their platform. They weren't choices for their employees. In a mature-ish industry such as the life insurance industry that I've been in my whole career, this is an unusual opportunity. Usually, you're in fighting to take someone else's business. This is brand new. It's been a big source of the growth for the industry broadly, and we've been right alongside with that. In addition, for us, we've come from basically nowhere in the voluntary space to close to top 5-ish.

We've done that by having basically, we think, an edge in terms of the way we administer the billing process. About four or five years ago, we took a clean sheet of paper. We were in the voluntary space not making much progress, and this was back when I was responsible for it. We said, "How can we make this process better for the employer and for the benefits administrator that we work with?" We found a way to essentially take the data in a flexible way so that we weren't forcing an employer to fit our mold. We were taking the data as they had it and found a way to absorb it into our system, to ingest it in a way that reduced the amount of pain for them.

We think that capability has given us a real edge to kind of boost us to move past a lot of the competitors that we've moved up past in the league tables.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

On the topic of voluntary, I think one of the other players in the industry has talked about some aggressive competition, particularly related to upfront commissions causing some churn in that business. Any thoughts on that dynamic? Are you seeing that same trend?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Not really, but that's because most of our sales are brand new, right? We would say certainly it's competitive. Commissions are a basis for competition, as are capabilities like administrative simplicity. We're not seeing anything that we think is unhealthy or causing a concern.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Just a couple quick numbers, one's on employee benefits. I think we talked about earlier earnings growth is 11%-14%.

Your in-force premiums, I think, are 7%-10% growth. Is that delta there, is that benefit ratio improvement or is it mix or sort of what's driving that?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

It's benefit ratio improvement primarily. One of the other things we guided to in the last call was we lowered our target loss ratio. We expected it previously to be in the range of 71%-74%. We lowered that a percent on each side to be 70%-73%. That's because the voluntary growth has exceeded our expectations relative to other growth. The proportion of business that's voluntary is greater than we thought. Voluntary has typically a lower loss ratio than our other two businesses, and so that's just the weighted average is taking us down, and that's a big source of the growth you're going to see.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

In terms of pricing, you feel pretty confident that you're achieving your target returns in that business?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Yeah. Our returns for the last couple of years have been in the high 20s, and last quarter, I think last year, we reported a 30%+ return on capital. We're very happy with the performance of that. We've just gone through the annual underwriting cycle for Stop Loss. All indications to us are the market was competitive, but also constructive. We're pleased with what we got via the renewal and new business pricing cycle. Time will tell, but we're comfortable with it right now and have no reason to believe otherwise. The last year's cycle, which is kind of the basis upon which you make your rate adjustments, that's performing quite well. We're right in the middle of our target range for the 2019 January 1st business, which is the largest chunk. We remain pretty bullish on the profitability picture there.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Okay. Moving to maybe capital and free cash flow.

I think the current guide in terms of free cash flow conversion is 85%-95% at the higher end.

As we think about kind of the steady state and kind of moving forward, is that sustainable or how do you think that plays out over the next couple of years? I guess what's the end game here?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

It's very sustainable over the next couple of three years. I think the business mix that we've had with the life transaction has shifted to even a higher level of cash conversion, that's the reason for the guide to the higher end of that guidance we'd originally given at Investor Day of 85%-95%. The life business was the lowest conversion ratio. That's going to be gone. That's going to move us up. One of the things that I think distinguishes us is our deferred tax asset and the fact that we don't expect to pay cash taxes for the next 5-7 years. You can think of that in your modeling as effectively offsetting and even offsetting plus the cost in our corporate segment. You think about the conversion ratio in our investment management, it's 90%-100%.

For retirement, it's a little bit less than that. Employee benefits is 80%-90%. You think about that plus offsetting all the corporate costs. That's what gets us to that high conversion ratio, and it should continue for the next several years.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

On the DTA, obviously, just focusing on what's been in the press, there have been discussions about M&A with you guys being a target. One of the points that comes up in conversations with investors is how do we think about the DTA in a transaction? Is it a poison pill? Can you still get the value of that or can the buyer get the value of that? Any just thoughts conceptually around how we should think about that?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

It's difficult to speculate on a deal that's not in front of me. Just broadly speaking, there are limitations on tax assets and their transferability in a hypothetical transaction, right? When asked that, my response is always, first of all, we're very committed to growing Voya. Voya's not for sale, but the board has shown and the management team has shown, I think, the discipline to focus on delivering shareholder value, and in the end, we'll do what's right for shareholders. That said, think now about a transaction. There will be some degree of friction. It'll depend on the circumstances of the buyer. It'll depend on the circumstances and the structure that gets chosen. It's really difficult to try and make any generalization about that. But it probably won't be a $1 for $1. That would be clear.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

On the capital return, you've generally used these accelerated share repurchase programs. Are you able to go into the market while those are going on or does that restrict you from being able to-

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Maybe the easiest way to say it is there's no one answer to that question. The answer is, it depends. I think you can typically, when you have an ASR in flight, you can typically work with the other party that's performing it to find ways to do open market transactions if and when you choose to. It's not a hard and fast no.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

As the stock price goes up, the other thing that we need to think about are the warrants and the dilution from the warrants. Has there been any discussions on buying those in? Is that something that's even possible?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

There have been lots of discussions about what we should do with the warrants. Just to step back for those not familiar with the story. At IPO, ING, which we spun out of in 2013, issued some warrants, and they're now in the money. ING actually exited those positions a couple of three years ago now, and they're held by some of the larger investment banks. I think there may be opportunities for us to take some of them out over time. I think that's a relative trade-off decision. As the stock goes up, it looks more and more attractive. Until yesterday, it was looking even more. Now today, maybe not so much, we'll see how things go.

We'll continue to evaluate that and look at it with the same discipline and rigor and focus that we've used from the beginning in terms of how we use excess capital.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

We have a couple of minutes left. Does anyone in the audience have any questions? Yes, go ahead.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Could you give some characterization on how retention trends are looking in the Stop Loss business?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Retention trends. You mean like how

Speaker 3

How business is retaining.

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Oh. It's been fairly consistent with where we've been. I don't think we've given specific guidance as to think of it as in the neighborhood of two-thirds, three-quarters of the business we retain every year. No big changes in 2019.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3

Great. Just one other question. In the flow business where you talked about where you have ambitions for growth, can you talk about any of the executional risks that you and the management team have targeted as things you need to manage around, I guess?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Executional risk as it relates to?

Speaker 3

Do you need to hire more salespeople?

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Oh. Well, we have invested fairly meaningfully over the last couple of years in our investment platform. We've added wholesaling capabilities. We've broadened our institutional investment distribution team. I think we've got the infrastructure we need. We'll continue to make I would say at the margin type of investments. Broadly speaking, we think we're pretty well-positioned.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Okay. Well, I think we're out of time, let's end it there. Thanks, Mike.

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Thanks, Suneet.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

so much for-

Michael Katz
EVP and CFO, Voya Financial

Thank you all.

Suneet Kamath
Analyst, Citi

Have a good day.