Exhibit 99.1
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| For Immediate Release | | Contact: | | Bob DeFillippo |
| December 4, 2007 | | | | (973) 802-4149 |
PRUDENTIAL FINANCIAL, INC. ANNOUNCES 2008 EARNINGS
GUIDANCE AND 2008-2010 RETURN ON EQUITY GOALS
NEWARK, N.J. –Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE:PRU) announced today 2008 earnings per share guidance and return on equity goals for 2008 – 2010 at its Investor Day conference in New York City. Management stated its expectation that Prudential Financial would achieve Common Stock earnings per share in the range of $8.00 to $8.20 for 2008, based on after-tax adjusted operating income of the Financial Services Businesses. Management also raised its target for return on equity to a range of 16 percent to 18 percent for the 2008 – 2010 period. The 2008 earnings per share expectation assumes flat to modest positive returns in the S&P 500 Index for the fourth quarter of 2007 and appreciation in the S&P 500 Index of 8 percent for the year 2008, and a number of additional factors that are in the company’s Current Report on Form 8-K dated December 4, 2007 filed earlier today with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which also relate to the return on equity target range. The return on equity target range is based on after-tax adjusted operating income of the Financial Services Businesses and on attributed equity excluding accumulated other comprehensive income related to unrealized gains and losses on investments and pension and postretirement benefits.
Management also reaffirmed its previous guidance that Prudential Financial expects that it will achieve Common Stock earnings per share in the range of $7.45 to $7.60 for the year 2007, based on after-tax adjusted operating income of the Financial Services Businesses.
Adjusted operating income, which is not measured in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), should not be viewed as a substitute for income determined in accordance with GAAP, and our definition of adjusted operating income, which can be found below under “Non-GAAP Financial Measure,” may differ from that used by other companies.
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Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a financial services leader with approximately $637 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2007, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Leveraging its heritage of life insurance and asset management expertise, Prudential is focused on helping individual and institutional customers grow and protect their wealth. The company’s well-known Rock symbol is an icon of strength, stability, expertise and innovation that has stood the test of time. Prudential’s businesses offer a variety of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds, investment management, and real estate services. For more information, please visit www.prudential.com.
Non-GAAP Financial Measure
Adjusted operating income is a non-GAAP measure of performance of our Financial Services Businesses. Adjusted operating income excludes “Realized investment gains (losses), net,” as adjusted, and related charges and adjustments. A significant element of realized investment gains and losses are impairments and credit-related and interest rate-related gains and losses. Impairments and losses from sales of credit-impaired securities, the timing of which depends largely on market credit cycles, can vary considerably across periods. The timing of other sales that would result in gains or losses, such as interest rate-related gains or losses, is largely subject to our discretion and influenced by market opportunities as well as our tax profile. Realized investment gains (losses) representing profit or loss of certain of our businesses which primarily originate investments for sale or syndication to unrelated investors, and those associated with terminating hedges of foreign currency earnings and current period yield adjustments are included in adjusted operating income. Realized investment gains and losses from products that are free standing derivatives or contain embedded derivatives, and from associated derivative portfolios that are part of an economic hedging program related to the risk of those products, are included in adjusted operating income. Adjusted operating income also excludes investment gains and losses on trading account assets supporting insurance liabilities and changes in experience-rated contractholder liabilities due to asset value changes, because these recorded changes in asset and liability values will ultimately
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accrue to contractholders. Trends in the underlying profitability of our businesses can be more clearly identified without the fluctuating effects of these transactions. In addition, adjusted operating income excludes the results of divested businesses, which are not relevant to our ongoing operations. Discontinued operations, which is presented as a separate component of net income under GAAP, is also excluded from adjusted operating income.
Our expectations of Common Stock earnings per share and return on equity are based on after-tax adjusted operating income. Because we do not predict future realized investment gains / losses or recorded changes in asset and liability values that will ultimately accrue to contractholders, we cannot provide a measure of our Common Stock earnings per share or return on equity expectations based on income from continuing operations of the Financial Services Businesses, which is the GAAP measure most comparable to adjusted operating income. We believe that the presentation of adjusted operating income as we measure it for management purposes enhances understanding of the results of operations of the Financial Services Businesses by highlighting the results from ongoing operations and the underlying profitability of our businesses. For additional information about adjusted operating income, please refer to our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2007, on the Investor Relations Web site atwww.investor.prudential.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain of the statements included in this release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U. S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “expects,” “believes,” “anticipates,” “includes,” “plans,” “assumes,” “estimates,” “projects,” “intends,” “should,” “will,” “shall,” or variations of such words are generally part of forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are made based on management’s current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects upon Prudential Financial, Inc. and its subsidiaries. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting Prudential Financial, Inc. and its subsidiaries will be those anticipated by management. These
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forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and there are certain important factors that could cause actual results to differ, possibly materially, from expectations or estimates reflected in such forward-looking statements, including, among others: (1) general economic, market and political conditions, including the performance and fluctuations of stock, real estate, and other financial markets; (2) interest rate fluctuations; (3) reestimates of our reserves for future policy benefits and claims; (4) differences between actual experience regarding mortality, morbidity, persistency, surrender experience, interest rates or market returns and the assumptions we use in pricing our products, establishing liabilities and reserves or for other purposes; (5) changes in our assumptions related to deferred policy acquisition costs, valuation of business acquired or goodwill; (6) changes in our claims-paying or credit ratings; (7) investment losses and defaults; (8) competition in our product lines and for personnel; (9) changes in tax law; (10) economic, political, currency and other risks relating to our international operations; (11) fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and foreign securities markets; (12) regulatory or legislative changes; (13) adverse determinations in litigation or regulatory matters and our exposure to contingent liabilities, including in connection with our divestiture or winding down of businesses; (14) domestic or international military actions, natural or man-made disasters including terrorist activities or pandemic disease, or other events resulting in catastrophic loss of life; (15) ineffectiveness of risk management policies and procedures in identifying, monitoring and managing risks; (16) effects of acquisitions, divestitures and restructurings, including possible difficulties in integrating and realizing the projected results of acquisitions; (17) changes in statutory or U.S. GAAP accounting principles, practices or policies; (18) changes in assumptions for retirement expense; (19) Prudential Financial, Inc.’s primary reliance, as a holding company, on dividends or distributions from its subsidiaries to meet debt payment obligations and continue share repurchases, and the applicable regulatory restrictions on the ability of the subsidiaries to pay such dividends or distributions; and (20) risks due to the lack of legal separation between our Financial Services Businesses and our Closed Block Business. Prudential Financial, Inc. does not intend, and is under no obligation, to update any particular forward-looking statement included in this document.
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The information referred to above, as well as the risks of our businesses described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, and our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2007, should be considered by readers when reviewing forward-looking statements contained in this release. Additional historical information relating to our financial performance is located on our Web site atwww.investor.prudential.com.
