AFLAC Earns $1.66 Per Share, Raises Dividend By 10%

AFLAC ($AFL) just released their third-quarter earnings report and the company earned $1.66 per share in operating profit.

This was a great report. In last week’s CWS Market Review, I said the company could easily earn $1.64 per share which was higher than Wall Street’s consensus ($1.60) and higher than the company’s guidance ($1.54 to $1.60). Even my optimistic forecast wasn’t high enough.

AFLAC also raised their quarterly dividend from 30 cents to 33 cents per share which is a 10% increase.

The best news is that AFLAC raised their 2011 guidance. The company said, assuming a stable yen/dollar exchange rate, that they expect to earn between $1.45 and $1.52 per share in Q4. For all of 2011, they expect to earn between $6.30 and $6.37 per share. Until now, the 2011 guidance was for $6.09 to $6.34 per share so this is good news.

For next year, the company reiterated its forecast of operating earnings growth of 2% to 5%.

Commenting on the company’s third quarter results, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Daniel P. Amos stated: “We are pleased with our overall results in the third quarter of 2011. Aflac Japan sales greatly exceeded our expectations, largely because of our ability to develop relevant products such as WAYS that appeal to banks and Japanese consumers alike. We are proud of Aflac Japan’s remarkable results, especially following two years of exceptional sales growth and the challenges in 2011 resulting from the most devastating natural disaster in Japan’s history. Our outstanding sales results in 2011 will create difficult comparisons in 2012.

“We were also pleased that Aflac U.S. continued to generate strong sales results, despite the continued weakness in the U.S. economy. Strategic coordination between our sales and marketing areas, which are more closely aligned than ever, continues to benefit our sales results. On the product side, sales have benefited significantly from the addition of group products to our Aflac U.S. product portfolio and strategic, coordinated sales and marketing efforts. On the distribution side, Aflac U.S. has continued to generate significant recruiting gains, which we believe benefited from targeted advertising activities that promote the Aflac sales opportunity. As a result of our positive performance in both Japan and the U.S., we posted strong consolidated financial results.

“As we have communicated over the past several years, maintaining a strong risk-based capital, or RBC ratio, remains a top priority for us. Although we have not yet completed our statutory financial statements for the third quarter, we estimate our RBC ratio will be within the range of 500% and 540% at the end of September. Our strong capital position has enabled us to increase our cash dividend for the 29th consecutive year. I am very pleased with the action by the board of directors to increase the quarterly dividend by 10.0%, effective with the fourth quarter of 2011. Our objective is to grow the dividend at a rate that’s in line with or somewhat better than earnings-per-share growth.

“With three quarters of the year complete, we continue to believe we are positioned for another year of solid financial performance. Throughout the year, both Aflac Japan and Aflac U.S. have continued to do a very good job managing our operations, including expense control. As we have stated previously, our expectation was to increase spending in the last half of the year, particularly on marketing and IT initiatives in the fourth quarter. Despite our expectation for higher spending in the fourth quarter, I am confident we will achieve our 2011 objective of growing operating earnings per diluted share at 8%, excluding the impact of the yen. If the yen averages 75 to 80 to the dollar for the last three months of the year, we would expect reported operating earnings for the fourth quarter to be in the range of $1.45 to $1.52 per diluted share. Under that exchange rate assumption, we would expect full year operating earnings of $6.30 to $6.37 per diluted share.

“Looking ahead, I want to reiterate our expectation that 2012 operating earnings per diluted share will increase 2% to 5% on a currency neutral basis. Furthermore, once the effects of our proactive investment derisking program and low interest rates have been integrated into our financial results, we believe the rate of earnings growth in future years should improve.”

Posted by on October 26th, 2011 at 4:29 pm


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