And most of that growth is coming from our spread and in general account business, which is actually growing at 4%, and that’s coming off 2022, where we had the $8 billion PRT deal. And that growth is not just PRT. I mean, PRT was about $5.3 billion, but we’re also seeing continued strength across a range of spread-based products, be they structured settlements and be they some of our products in our risk solutions business, and so on.
Elyse Greenspan: Thanks. And then my second question: how should we think about dividends to parent that you guys could take in 2024, as you could look to upstream the capital that you guys are getting from the Holdings transaction?
Michel Khalaf: Yes. Hi, Elyse, it’s Michel. Thanks for the question. So we talked about the reinsurance transaction as providing us with significant financial flexibility. And as you heard from John, our RBC ratio is approximately 400%. And I would just note here that the 5.2 Holdco cash does not yet include any of the reinsurance proceeds. So the excess capital is sitting in our statutory entities and it will ultimately migrate to the Holdco. We view excess capital as fungible and we will redeploy it over time. And in the absence of attractive organic or inorganic growth opportunities as I think we’ve built a good track record in terms of being deliberate and expeditious, post major divestitures and how we return capital to shareholders.
And as you’ve seen since we closed on the transaction, we’ve leaned into buybacks especially in January. I wouldn’t sort of consider January as monthly run rate for the full year, but we’re going to continue to be opportunistic here. Hope that helps.
John McCallion: And I would just add Elyse, I mean, just too kind of put a finer point on just the financial flexibility and the fungibility of that, I mean, we might, because we have excess capital at the OpCo, we might think differently at the Holdco, it’ll depend, right? I mean, I don’t think we have to necessarily have it all at the Holdco. We have a range of 3 to 4. It might give us some ability to manage more differently within that range because we have access at the OpCos, I think we just want to, I think the flexibility is the key point.
Elyse Greenspan: Thank you.
Operator: Next we go to the line of Alex Scott with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Alex Scott: Hi, good morning. First, what I have for you is just going back to the VII guide quickly. Could you frame for us how much of the lower VII guide is maybe a little more specific to first quarter VII and what you see in results that you sort of already have eyes on since it’s lagged, as opposed level setting, like the ongoing expectation?
John McCallion: Hey, good morning, Alex, it’s John. I’d love to say that we have great insights into the, as a result of having the lag, but I’m not so sure that has proven out the way we thought it would each quarter. I think all we know is that we think, we kind of believe that it’ll bump along the, kind of the bottom again before becoming a more meaningful contributor in the outer quarters. We think managers, even though the S&P jumped up in the quarter; it was kind of late in the quarter. We believe managers will be a bit cautious in their yearend remarks and maybe remain conservative before writing investments up based on some of the public market multiples. So that’s kind of our base case assumption. We don’t have a lot of insight yet in actual financial statements that have come through. So obviously those will come through as we move through the quarter.
Alex Scott: Got it. Okay, that’s helpful. Maybe for a second one just on what you saw around pricing in group benefits, maybe in the U.S., and LatAm, around yearend enrollment and so forth. I mean, margins are really good. Are you seeing any competition that’s starting to heat up there?
Ramy Tadros: Thanks, Alex. It’s Ramy here. I would say we’re really off to a strong start in 2024. If you look at 2023, overall sales were up 9% year-over-year, as John mentioned. And we saw a very strong persistency in line with our expectations. And we also saw the rate actions that we were able to take also in line with our expectations across market segments. So while there is competition and it is a competitive market, when we think about pricing as well as persistency, I think all the non price factors of differentiations that we’ve talked about in the past are playing into our favor here. And we’ve been able to hold margins and as you’ve seen, we’ve expanded the margin outlook. One, [ph] I can give you a bit of a flavor on that.
We’re still in the midst of it, but initial indications in terms of our sales growth are in the 5% to 10% again year-over-year with really solid growth across the product portfolio, across both core and voluntary. So these are really good indicators for us both in terms of volume and margin as we look into 2024.
Alex Scott: Understood. Thank you.
Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, we have time for one last question from John Barnidge with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
John Barnidge: Good morning. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Maybe sticking with group benefits. Can you maybe talk about growth in employee counts among your corporate partners, whether it’s larger and the small or the jumbo in maybe a viewpoint of one-one renewals with that. Thank you.
Michel Khalaf: Yes. Hey, John, I don’t have that number handy. Specifically in terms of employee count. The best thing you could look at for an indicator for that is just overall employment levels because we have a very diversified book up and down market. It’s highly diversified by industry. So you could think of us as reflecting the broader economy in terms of our employee count. But the one that I would look at more closely is, and this is where we see a lot of white space with respect to employee counts, is the penetration rate in the workspace. We still see plenty of opportunity to drive penetration of our own products, be they voluntary or employee paid. And that’s through the deployment of the right technology, the right tools, the right engagement capabilities. And that’s really what’s been fueling our voluntary growth over the past few years. And that’s where we see continued future growth opportunities.
John Barnidge: Thank you for that. My follow up question you talked about the frequency of asbestos claims hasn’t declined as expected. Can you maybe talk about that versus what the assumption was? Thank you.
