Good afternoon, and welcome to the 2014 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Voya Financial Incorporated. It's shortly after noon on Wednesday, July 30th, and I'll now call the meeting to order. I'm Rod Martin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Voya Financial. On behalf of the directors, officers, and employees, I thank you for attending our first annual meeting, which we're conducting virtual through the internet. We hope this forum will allow more of our stockholders to participate in our annual meeting and hear our story. Following the official items of business, I'll provide a brief business presentation, then take your questions. Now I'll turn it over to our Corporate Secretary, Harris Oliner, for the formal business of the meeting.
Thanks, Rod, and good afternoon, everyone. Before turning to the formal items of business, I would like to make a few introductions. We are happy to have with us all nine members of our board of directors. We also have in attendance members of our executive committee and representatives from our independent registered accounting firm, Ernst & Young. Also attending is Peter Schiavarelli, the designated Inspector of Elections. Mr. Schiavarelli has filed with me his oath as inspector and has provided me with his duly executed certificate of quorum. With that, we will now begin the official business for this annual meeting. As indicated in our proxy statement, we are here today to consider the following items. One, the election of the nine directors who make up our board of directors. Two, an advisory vote on the approval of executive compensation.
Three, an advisory vote on the frequency of future advisory votes on executive compensation. Four, a vote to approve the adoption of the Voya Financial, Inc. 2014 Omnibus Employee Incentive Plan. Five, a vote to approve the amended and restated Voya Financial, Inc. 2013 Omnibus Non-Employee Director Incentive Plan. Six, a vote to ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the company's auditors for 2014. The polls for voting on all matters are hereby open. The vote will now be taken on the foregoing six matters. If there are any stockholders logged on who have not already submitted a proxy and wish to vote their shares, you may do so now by clicking on the Vote Here button on your screen. If you have previously provided your proxy card or voted online, your shares will be voted accordingly.
If you wish to change your vote, you may do so now. We will now pause to allow stockholders to vote. On behalf of the board of directors of the company, I would like to express my appreciation to all stockholders who returned their proxies. The polls for voting on all matters are hereby closed. I have received the Inspector of Elections report of the votes cast. The preliminary vote report is as follows. As to the election of directors, each director received over 91% of the votes cast, and as such, each of Jane Chwick, Patrick Flynn, Barry Griswell, Fred Hubbell, Henny Koemans, Rod Martin, Willem Nagel, Debbie Wright, and Dave Zwiener is hereby elected. As to the second matter, over 99% of the votes were cast in favor of approving, on an advisory basis, the compensation of the company's named executive officers.
As to the third matter, over 95% of the votes were cast for every year as the frequency of future advisory votes on executive compensation. As to the fourth matter, over 98% of the votes were cast to approve the adoption of the Voya Financial, Inc. 2014 Omnibus Employee Incentive Plan. As to the fifth matter, over 98% of the votes were cast to approve the amended and restated Voya Financial, Inc. 2013 Omnibus Non-Employee Director Incentive Plan. As to the final matter, over 99% of the votes were cast to ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2014. Full voting results will be reported by the company on a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within the next four business days.
Before our Chairman and CEO, Rod Martin, provides a business update and takes your questions, I would like to remind everyone that statements made today, which are not historical or current facts, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements reflect management's current expectations or beliefs. We call to your attention the fact that the company's results could differ from these statements. As you know, the company has filed with the SEC report that lists some of the factors that may cause results to differ materially from these statements. The company assumes no duty to update these forward-looking statements. Please also note that we will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures.
In particular, all references on this call to ROE, return on equity, ROC, return on capital, or other measures containing those terms are to ongoing business adjusted operating return on equity or ongoing business adjusted operating return on capital as applicable, which are each non-GAAP financial measure. For a reconciliation of these items to the most closely comparable GAAP measure, please refer to Voya Financial, Inc.'s most recent quarterly investor supplement available on our investor relations website at investors.voya.com. With that, I turn it back to our Chairman and CEO, Rod Martin.
Thank you, Harris. Today I'd like to cover a brief overview of Voya Financial, our transformation story, our value proposition, and our focus on improving shareholder value. Briefly, I call your attention to the cautionary statements on the slide. In today's presentation, I'll be talking about some non-GAAP measures and some forward-looking information. I'll begin by highlighting the key elements of our investment narrative. First, we're a leading franchise in attractive markets. Second, we have a strong track record of execution with a 12% compound annual growth rate in our ongoing business-adjusted operating earnings from 2010 through 2013. Third, we have an experienced management team executing a comprehensive return on equity or ROE improvement program. We've targeted a 400 -500 basis point increase in our ROE to 12%-13% by 2016.
Fourth, behind the strength of our Retirement Solutions, Investment Management, and Insurance Solutions business, we have a bold vision to be America's retirement company. Voya Financial is one of the largest retirement-focused companies in the financial services industry. We have more than $514 billion in assets under management and assets under administration. We have more than 13 million customers, more than 220,000 points of distribution, and approximately 7,000 employees dedicated to helping our customers become retirement ready. Our ongoing business has a diverse earnings profile and generated $1.2 billion in adjusted operating earnings for the 12-month period ended March 31, 2014. 75% of those ongoing business-adjusted operating earnings came from our retirement and Investment Management businesses. 25% came from our Insurance Solutions business.
We believe we have the right mix of businesses to support our focus on providing our customers with asset accumulation, asset protection, and asset distribution products, services, and advice. There are three key elements to the Voya Financial investment narrative. We've established a solid foundation, we have a premier franchise, and we're focused on driving ROE improvement. Let me highlight each element. First, we've established a solid foundation to create long-term value for our shareholders. At the center of our value creation philosophy is our plan to improve our ROE to 12%-13% by the end of 2016. We are currently executing on more than 30 ROE improvement initiatives. For the trailing 12-month period ended March 31, 2014, our ROE improved 200 basis points to 10.3% from 8.3% in 2012.
We've also strengthened our balance sheet, improved our ratings outlook with all rating agencies, and now have a positive outlook on all of Voya Financial's ratings. We've de-risked our investment portfolio, and we're prudently managing our closed block variable annuity segment with a hedge program designed to protect regulatory and rating agency capital. With that overview of our foundation, I'll turn to the growth of our three businesses within our premier franchise, which we manage with a "one Voya" perspective. While each of the businesses is strong on its own, the power of these businesses coming together is what defines the core of our value proposition. Our retirement, investment, and insurance businesses are the foundational building blocks of our franchise.
Our entire organization is committed to helping Americans become both financially and emotionally ready for their retirement years, as retirement readiness is one of the most daunting financial challenges facing Americans today. Retirement Solutions is our largest earnings contributor. We're one of the largest Defined Contribution retirement plan providers in the U.S. Our business profile converges with powerful demographic trends presenting us with solid growth prospects. Investment Management is our fastest-growing business. We're one of the largest institutional money managers committed to serving as a reliable partner to our clients so as we can help them meet their long-term investment objectives. The key to profitable growth in this business is to convert our strong investment track record into scale in our higher margin asset management categories. Insurance Solutions is our refocused business.
We're targeting the product segments of the market that best match our lower capital, higher return approach to the market, such as our indexed life product portfolio. While we've scaled back our presence in individual life, we see an opportunity to expand our employee benefit business, particularly in the stop-loss, group life, and voluntary benefits business. Let me turn to our ROE improvement plan. We're making steady progress towards our ROE improvement target of 12%-13% by the end of 2016. We have a comprehensive plan with clear goals to improve the profitability and effectively manage our capital and focused on ROE and ROC, or return on capital, as the key measures of our success.
We developed our plan in 2011 with our executive committee, with the support of a leading strategic consulting firm and a leading actuarial consulting firm, executed a series of business performance diagnostics to better understand the profitability and capital intensity of each of our products and distribution platforms. During this assessment phase, more than 30 ROE initiatives were identified, a detailed roadmap was created for executing our plan. We have clearly defined projects, milestones, deadlines, and reporting tools for each of these initiatives, there would be an infrastructure in place to track and measure success. We've also established a robust governance structure that is involved in actively monitoring all of the work streams.
We identified a baseline ROE of 8.3% in 2012. We established our goal to reach an ROE of 12%-13% by the end of 2016, which is a 400-500 basis points of improvement. We focused on ROC for the businesses because we did not allocate debt to the business unit. We identified a baseline ROC of 7.2% in 2012. We established our goal to reach our target ROC of 10%-11% by 2016 or a 300-400 basis points improvement. To achieve these goals, we need and expect improvement that averages approximately 110 basis points of ROE improvement per year. What I really like about our plan is all about execution. You can see that our ongoing business adjusted operating ROE for the trailing 12 months period ended March 31 was 10.3%.
Excluding the effect of items that we do not expect to recur at the same level, such as higher than expected alternative investment income over the last 12 months, ROE increased to 10.1% from 9.8%. Our ROE plan is designed to generate steady improvement. We are committed to that plan. I believe that our focus on transforming our business will allow us to achieve our long-term ROE improvement objective, 12%-13%, by the end of 2016. Reaching our 2016 targets involves all of our businesses and functions. There is no silver bullet. Every business, every segment, and every function is expected to contribute to the improvement. If we achieve the targets, we would expect to generate more than $1.7 billion in excess capital by 2016 after funding our new business strain and our holding company expenses.
Beginning in March of this year, we began to return excess capital to shareholders through a $300 million share repurchase authorization from our board. Through April, we have repurchased $265 million in common stock. We are pleased to deploy our capital in this way and believe that investing in our stock is an excellent use of our capital. In summary, I'm pleased with the steady progress we're making with our transformation. Voya Financial is a premier franchise with leading positions in attractive markets. The management team is committed to continuing the execution of our ROE improvement plan. We'll build on our solid foundation, which is based on a recapitalized and de-risked balance sheet. We have three businesses offering quality products and services to meet our customers' needs for asset accumulation, protection, and distribution, and we have an exciting new brand.
We have a lot of confidence based on our track record and continued focus on execution. With that, I'll turn it back over to Harris so that we can take any questions you may have at this time.
Thank you, Rod. At this time, we would be happy to take your questions and address any interest or concern. If you have logged into the meeting with your control number and wish to ask a question of the board, management, or our independent accounting firm, you may do so by typing your question into the box at the bottom of the screen. We will now pause to allow for questions. On behalf of the board and management of Voya Financial, Inc., I'd like to thank you for participating in our annual meeting, and we greatly appreciate your continued support of Voya Financial.