It’s — and finally our institutional pipeline remains very strong at $12 billion. And the effective fee rate on that is three times the effective fee rate we have today in the institutional business. So definitely revenue accretive. So, we have a lot of strength to feel good about. That said, we cannot predict the rates. And the rate uncertainty definitely keeps the investors on the sidelines, and skews the flows towards money market funds and low risk low fee products. So, cannot time it perfectly, feel confident in terms of our ability to perform well. But definitely there could be some sluggish growth, depending on the rate environment.
Jimmy Bhullar: Okay. And then Robin on the protection, I think earnings have been weaker than your estimates or your guidance for six of the past seven quarters. And there’s always some reason, obviously for that. And it’s varied over time. But what still gives you the confidence that 50 to 75? Is the right range should — or have you thought about lowering the range given results in the last several quarters?
Robin Raju: Sure, Jimmy, you’re right. It’s come in below our expectations over the last few periods, but on a normalized basis for those. For the reinsurance that I mentioned, it did come in at the lower end our range, even given — even taking into account the alternative portfolio. So, seeing that come through and knowing if we went back to our 15% reinsurance coverage that we’ve had, we would have been at the lower end of the range. And also seeing growth claims improved quarter-over-quarter, that’s what gives us confidence and the range. But we’re not just relying on competence, we’re going to obviously explore actions to reduce the volatility of the business because honestly, it’s a small part of Equitable Holdings’, we generate $1.3 billion of cash flows, it’s grown to $2 billion of cash flows.
And, we’re answering questions about volatility and a small segment here. So, we’ll look to reduce that going forward and get the focus back on how we’re growing cash flows by 50% to 2027.
Jimmy Bhullar: Okay, thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Alex Scott from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Alex Scott: Hey, good morning. First one, I had just a quick follow-up on the comments on the fiduciary rule. I think you mentioned there was no private right of action. I noticed in the right, I thought there was an enforcement section that mentioned the private right of action. I think there may be a nuance there with like title one versus title two or something. But just interested in that piece of your comment and what your read of that language on enforcement was?
Robin Raju: Yeah, at this time, we would view it as nuanced but we’ll be coming back with more details on that.
Alex Scott: Okay, understood. Second question I had was just on the environment for RILA products and competition. Are you seeing any more competition coming in from the private equity players? Are they starting to get any more traction in some of the distribution channels where I think you all haven’t had they competed directly with them? Are you still able to avoid some of that pressure? Is there a sort of legging more into private debt allocations and you’re able to provide pretty, pretty strong pricing?
Nick Lane: Yeah, at this time and per to the comments Robin made, we had a record quarter in terms of flows and sales. Competitive dynamics continue to be positive vis-à-vis other markets given our edge in terms of being a pioneer in the market, given our distribution footprint, both Equitable Advisors and privileged third party. And given our innovation space, we think we’re uniquely captured to capture a disproportionate share of the value there?
Mark Pearson: Nick, it’s still the case that it’s sort of eight players in the market there against nearly 50 players in the fixed annuity market. So, we’re aware, Alex of the possible new entrants, but at the moment, we don’t see them, pricing remains very, very strong.
Alex Scott: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Suneet Kamath from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Suneet Kamath: Thanks. Good morning. So Mark, I think in your closing comments, you talked about being opportunistic with capital. And clearly you have a lot of capital at the holding company, is one way we might see that is you traveling above the 60% to 70% payout target for some period of time as we move into 2024?
Mark Pearson: We’re not changing any guidance. But if you look in this last quarter, we actually did travel up slightly higher than that particular ratio. I think as both Robin and I have said with a healthy balance sheet, as we have now and the excess cash that does enable us to look at opportunities. I mean, the most recent one we did of course, just a month or so ago was CarVal that really was a way to accelerate our strategy in the build out of Alts that remains an area we were very interested in. And we remain very interested in in wealth management and growing distribution in that side. So, all I would say so need for the right deal at the right price and more we can see accretion for our shareholders, we will be very interested in looking at them. But it’s not our strategy, our strategy remains to build out those businesses. And if we see a way to accelerate it, we will sort of look at it.
Suneet Kamath: Got it, makes sense. And then I guess as we think about the build out of the private asset portfolio within the general account, I think you’re marching towards that sort of $25 billion, how should we think about the capital requirements associated with that growth in private?
