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Life Health > Annuities > Fixed Annuities

Midsize Annuity Issuer Might Put Itself Up for Sale

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National Western Life Group announced Tuesday that it has hired Goldman Sachs to help it conduct a review of “strategic alternatives to maximize value for the company’s stockholders.”

“No decision has been made to enter into a sale, merger or other strategic transaction,” National Western Life said.

The announcement appeared just two weeks after Midwest Holding announced that it has agreed to be acquired by Antarctica Capital, a New York-based asset manager.

The Midwest Holding share price increased to more than $27 — or the Antarctic Capital deal price — from less than $14 the day before the deal was announced, and the National Western Life share price increased to more than $375 after it announced its strategic review, from a closing price of $267.29 Monday.

What It Means

Just as rising interest rates are increasing the appeal of fixed annuities, other economic and accounting forces might shuffle the names of the insurers backing those annuities.

The Company

National Western Life is an Austin, Texas-based company that was founded in 1956 and has about 275 home office employees.

The company has $13 billion in assets and $19 billion of life insurance in force.

It reported $12 million in net income for the first quarter on $153 million in revenue, compared with $98 million in net income on $138 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2022.

The new Long-Duration Targeted Improvement accounting rules now require life insurers to put the effects of estimated changes in the value of life insurance and annuity product benefits obligations in current earnings. That “mark to market” requirement cut $40 million from the company’s earnings this quarter, after adding $61 million to earnings in the year-earlier quarter.

New sales of life insurance dropped to $24 million, from $39 million, because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on efforts to recruit insurance agents, and new sales of annuities dropped to $32 million, from $88 million.

Annuity sales dropped because National Western Life has focused on offering annuities aimed at clients who want income, and conditions in the first quarter favored issuers of multi-year guaranteed annuity products aimed at clients who want to maximize accumulation value, the company said.

National Western Life introduced the more favored products in late 2022, and it began to sell some of those products in the first quarter, the company added.

(Photo: Nicky Loh/Bloomberg)


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