Earnings Call Transcript - SLF Q4 2023

Operator, Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Sun Life Financial Q4 2023 Conference Call. My name is Shree, and I'll be your conference operator today. The host of the call is David Garg, Senior Vice President, Capital Management and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Garg.

David Garg, Senior Vice President, Capital Management and Investor Relations

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sun Life's Earnings Call for the Fourth Quarter of 2023. Our earnings release and the slides for today's call are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at sunlife.com. We will begin today's call with opening remarks from Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer. Following Kevin, Manjit Singh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will present the financial results for the quarter. After the prepared remarks, we will move to the question-and-answer portion of the call. Other members of management are also available to answer your questions this morning. Turning to Slide 2, I draw your attention to the cautionary language regarding the use of forward-looking statements and non-IFRS financial measures, which form part of today's remarks. As noted in the slides, forward-looking statements may be rendered inaccurate by subsequent events. And with that, I will now turn things over to Kevin.

Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, David, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 4. We delivered strong performance during the fourth quarter, contributing to strong full year results for 2023. Our results show the strength and resilience of our business mix and the positive impact we're having on our clients. We achieved strong underlying earnings for the quarter of $983 million, up 10% year-over-year. Our strong results were broad-based with strength in Canada, U.S. and SLC management. Underlying ROE of 18.4% this quarter is above our medium-term financial objective of 18% plus, reflecting our strong earnings and disciplined financial management. Further, we maintained a strong capital position with an SLF LICAT ratio of 149%. Our results reflect exceptional individual protection sales and good momentum in our group health and protection businesses in the fourth quarter. Strong group health and protection sales were driven by both our Canadian and U.S. Group businesses. In Canada, sales were up 63% year-over-year, largely due to higher large case sales and in the U.S., both Dental and Health and Risk Solutions sales were strong. This quarter, DentaQuest was awarded two new Medicaid dental benefits contracts in two states and commercial dental sales increased 55% over the prior year. The dental business has recorded more than US$650 million in sales since the closing of the DentaQuest acquisition on June 1, 2022. Individual protection sales were driven by strong performance in Asia, with sales up 49% year-over-year. International high net worth sales were 2x higher than the prior year and Hong Kong sales were 4x higher. Our Hong Kong sales growth reflected our diversified mix of high-performing quality-focused distribution channels, including our broadened broker network and new agency teams focused on Mainland Chinese individuals and our bancassurance partnership with Dah Sing Bank. Canadian individual protection sales were up 23% year-over-year, driven by higher third-party sales. Wealth sales and asset management gross flows were up in the quarter with the Canadian business up 32% due to higher individual wealth and defined benefit sales. SLC demonstrated strong capital raising, closing the year with $177 billion in fee-earning AUM, up 8% over the prior year. SLC also won the 2023 CIOs Industry Innovation Awards for Private Credit. MFS experienced outflows primarily driven by industry conditions. During the year, MFS became the 9th largest fund group for the U.S. retail mutual fund industry based on AUM. And next month, MFS celebrates their 100th anniversary. Congratulations to Michael Roberge and our colleagues at MFS on this milestone. Keeping with MFS, I want to recognize their recent leadership announcement with Michael Roberge set to become Executive Chair of MFS on January 1, 2025, and Ted Maloney to take on the role as their CEO. Ken has been with MFS for almost 20 years and is currently their Chief Investment Officer. Congratulations to both Mike and Ted. Turning to Slide 5. Our full year 2023 results were driven by similar factors as seen during the fourth quarter. Underlying net income increased 11% to $3.7 billion, supported by growth across all businesses. Underlying ROE of 17.8% was also strong. Total assets under management reached $1.4 trillion in 2023, demonstrating the resilience of our business in a challenging environment. Turning to Slide 6. This quarter, we delivered on several key business initiatives that help drive our client impact strategy forward. Providing access to care and helping clients live healthier lives remains a top priority. We remain a leader in health benefits and services in Canada and the U.S. and are increasingly leveraging digital partnerships to support our clients' health journeys. This quarter, we finalized a contract with the Government of Canada to be the administrator of the Canadian dental care plan, which will provide access to dental care for up to 9 million additional Canadians. We also completed the acquisition of Dialogue, Canada's premier virtual health care and wellness platform. And finally, in Canada, we completed a minority investment in Pillway, a virtual pharmacy offering increased choice and convenience for our clients. In the U.S., we successfully launched a pilot of Sun Life Health 360, an app built using Dialogue's flexible digital engagement platform as a front door to health and wellness support. It's an example of how we are leveraging our strategic capabilities across markets to create value for our clients and advancing how we think and act more like a digital company. Through this pilot, over 63,000 members now have access to Sun Life Health 360, bridging the gap in accessing care and helping facilitate better health outcomes. We're continuing to roll out the platform to more members and further enhancing the app by enabling access to programs focused on kidney, joint and muscle condition, among others. We continue to expand our distribution capabilities and product suite to support our clients in achieving lifelong financial security. During the quarter, we formed a securities investment dealer, Sun Life Canada Securities, having received regulatory approval from the Canadian investment regulatory organization. We anticipate an operational launch later this year. Our expanded offerings in Sun Life Canada Securities will broaden access to wealth solutions to help clients achieve lifetime financial security. SLC Management recently announced a strategic relationship with Scotiabank to distribute our alternative investment products to the Canadian retail market through Scotia Global Wealth Management. This relationship will provide Canadian high net worth investors with access to our world-class alternative investment capabilities. In Singapore, we launched a new indexed universal life product, providing high net worth clients a dynamic balance between long-term protection and growth and the flexibility to customize premium payments and investment allocations. This product has been well received by the market. We're doing more to think and act like a digital company, harnessing the power of generative AI. We're testing and learning with several Gen AI experiments across the organization, balancing innovation while managing risk. This quarter, we launched a new Gen AI-powered tool that helps developers write and test code more efficiently. The tool was launched to over 2,000 employees, and we're seeing productivity gains from the first group of adopters enabling the delivery of new digital experiences for our clients. In the U.S., Gen AI is helping improve productivity in our call centers by analyzing and summarizing calls and delivering insights on clients' top concerns. We're excited about the potential Gen AI has to help create more exceptional client experiences and improve workplace productivity. Finally, we continue to be recognized for our progress in sustainability and our inclusive culture. Sun Life was recognized by Corporate Knights as being among the Global 100 most sustainable corporations in the world for the 15th consecutive year and the 6th consecutive year as the top bank insurance company in North America. Additionally, Sun Life received numerous employer recognitions in 2023, including being certified as a great place to work in several key markets. SLC Management was also named 2023 Best Places to Work in Money Management for the fourth year in a row by pensions and investments. We are pleased to receive these recognitions as they reflect our inclusive culture and our commitment to our people. Turning to Slide 7. We remain confident in the resilience of our strategy and our ability to execute on our strategy. In 2024, we'll be focused on taking the next step in our digital development, advancing how we think and act like a digital company. This means building on the strong foundation we have built over the last four years under our digital enterprise program, where we have been modernizing our tech stack and building our agile working model. 2024 will see us continue to evolve towards thinking and acting more like a digital company, including building out new apps and new features on existing apps to support our clients' financial security and healthy living. We will also continue to look for and execute on synergies between asset management and insurance, building on the strong capabilities at SLC and MFS. We have built a strong health business in Canada and the U.S., and we'll continue to deepen the impact we have on client health, and we will accelerate our momentum in Asia, focusing on building quality distribution and strong execution. Finally, we will continue to evolve our culture towards bolder thinking, driving a bias to action and delivering on results. In closing, I'd like to wish our Asian colleagues around the world good health, happiness, and prosperity as they celebrate Lunar New Year over the next few days and welcome the year of the Dragon. Kung Hei Fat Choi. Gong Xi Fa Cai, Chuc Mung Nam Moi for all of those that are celebrating their new year. I'd also like to recognize Black History Month, where we're celebrating the outstanding contributions and achievements of black individuals who have made a positive impact in our communities. It's important to continue to build a more inclusive culture for everyone. And I'd like to share a final note that this will be Manjit's last call as our Chief Financial Officer. As you all know, Manjit will be taking on the role of President of our Asia business starting in March. Manjit on behalf of all Sun Life's congratulations on your new appointment. We're looking forward to working with you in your new capacity and continue to see great things coming out of Sun Life Asia. And with that, I will turn the call over to Manjit, who will walk us through the fourth quarter financial results.

Manjit Singh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. Let's begin on Slide 9, which provides an overview of our fourth quarter results. We delivered strong results this quarter as underlying net income of $983 million and underlying earnings per share of $1.68 were up 10% and 11%, respectively. This was driven by strong performance in U.S. and Canada as well as resilient asset management earnings. We are pleased that our underlying ROE of 18.4% crossed the 18% mark this quarter. Our peer-leading ROE is driven by our attractive mix of businesses across wealth and asset management, group health and protection, and individual protection. Wealth and Asset Management comprised 40% of our Q4 underlying earnings and were up 7% from the prior year. This was driven by higher asset management fee-related earnings and higher investment income, reflecting volume growth and increased yields. Group Health and Protection businesses comprised 40%, 34% of underlying earnings and grew 14% year-over-year. Results were driven by good sales growth, improved disability experience, and higher investment contribution, partially offset by lower dental earnings. Individual protection comprised 26% of underlying earnings and increased 23% from last year. This was driven by business growth and higher investment earnings, partially offset by the sale of the Sun Life U.K. business. New business CSM of $381 million was up 51% from the prior year, reflecting strong sales in Asia and Canada. For the full year, we added over $1 billion of new business CSM. Reported net income for the quarter was $749 million, $234 million lower than underlying earnings. The difference between underlying and reported net income was driven by acquisition-related costs, amortization of intangibles, and unfavorable market-related impacts. Market-related impacts were primarily driven by negative interest rate experience, reflecting lower rates and unfavorable real estate experience. Real estate experience reflects modestly negative total returns in the current quarter versus our long-term expectations of approximately 2%. We are long-term investors and continue to view real estate as a key component of our diversified investment portfolio. Over the last 10 years, our North American real estate portfolio has generated annualized total returns in excess of our current long-term assumptions. Our balance sheet and capital position remain strong. This provides us financial flexibility to support attractive organic and inorganic business opportunities, return capital to shareholders, and maintain resilience to absorb potential impacts from volatile market conditions. SLF LICAT of 149% increased two points from the prior quarter, primarily driven by strong organic capital generation. Total capital generation in the quarter before payment of dividends was just over $1 billion, reflecting good business results and favorable capital impacts from lower interest rates. Book value per share increased 2% quarter-over-quarter, holdco cash remained strong at $1.6 billion, and our leverage ratio remains low at 21.5%. Now let's turn to our business group performance, starting on Slide 11 with MFS. MFS net underlying income of US$191 million was down $11 million or 5% from the prior year, reflecting higher expenses, partially offset by higher A&A and increased investment income. Reported net income of US$183 million was down 18% year-over-year, driven by the fair value changes in shares owned by MFS management. Pre-tax net operating margin of 39% remained resilient. AUM of US$599 billion was up $43 billion from the prior quarter, driven by market appreciation, partially offset by net outflows of $11.2 billion. MFS investment performance was strong. Over 95% of fund assets ranked in the top half of their respective Morningstar categories for both five and 10-year performance. Short-term performance was impacted by the significant outperformance of a small group of equities relative to MFS's broader core and growth-oriented strategies. Turning to Slide 12. SLC Management generated underlying net income of $70 million, up from $48 million last year, driven by higher fee-related earnings and higher seed investment income. Fee-related earnings of $92 million were up 26% year-over-year. The increase reflects strong capital raising and deployment of capital into fee-earning AUM over the past year as well as the AAM acquisition. Reported net income was $47 million, up $29 million year-over-year, largely due to growth in underlying earnings. Capital raising of $5.5 billion increased over the prior quarter, driven by demand for public debt at SLC fixed income and strong fundraising at BGO. For the full year, SLC Management raised $13.1 billion of capital. Total AUM of $223 billion was up $13 million from the prior year. Turning to Slide 13. Canada, underlying net income of $350 million was driven by strong growth across all businesses. Reported net income of $348 million was in line with underlying earnings as unfavorable market-related impacts and acquisition-related expenses were largely offset by favorable ACMA. Wealth and Asset Management underlying earnings were up 28% year-over-year on increased investment income from higher volumes and yields. Group Health and Protection underlying earnings increased 56% year-over-year, reflecting business growth and improved disability experience driven by higher margins, lower claims volumes, and shorter claim durations. Individual Protection earnings were up 9% year-over-year and higher investment earnings, partially offset by unfavorable mortality experience. Both group and individual protection businesses posted strong sales growth. Group sales were up 63% in higher large case sales while individual sales were up 23% due to higher par life sales. Turning to Slide 14. U.S. underlying net income of US$187 million was up 8% from last year. Reported net income of US$77 million includes unfavorable ACMA negative market-related impacts and acquisition-related expenses. Group Health and production underlying earnings were down from the prior year, driven by lower dental results, partially offset by growth in Group Benefit earnings. Our Group Benefit businesses benefited from strong revenue growth, driven by good sales and disciplined pricing, higher investment returns, and improved mortality experience, partially offset by less favorable morbidity experience compared to the prior year. U.S. morbidity experience in the quarter remained favorable in stop-loss and group disability, partially offset by unfavorable dental experience. U.S. Group sales of $932 million were up 4% year-over-year, driven by strong stop-loss sales. We are pleased with this performance during this important part of our annual sales cycle. Lower dental results were driven by the impact of Medicaid redeterminations on member count, which drove lower dental premiums and higher loss ratios. Looking forward, we expect the added revenue from 2023 sales as well as our current sales pipelines to more than offset the impacts from the Medicaid redetermination process, driving good dental revenue and earnings growth in 2024. Individual protection results increased year-over-year, reflecting the inclusion of our legacy U.K. business and better mortality experience. Slide 15 outlines Asia's results for the quarter. Underlying net income of $143 million was up 5% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. Normalizing for the impact of insurance experience, Asia's results were in line with the prior quarter, reflecting good core business fundamentals. Reported net income of $44 million includes unfavorable market impacts, partially offset by favorable tax benefits. We continue to see good sales momentum in Hong Kong with sales up 4x year-over-year and high net worth, where sales grew 88%. The strong sales results also drove new business CSM of $223 million, up 82% from the prior year. Overall, we closed the year on a high note. We delivered year-over-year underlying earnings growth of 10%, generated peer-leading underlying ROE of 18.4%. We maintained an excellent capital position, had strong sales momentum in both our individual protection and group health and protection businesses and our asset management businesses were resilient, delivering steady contribution in a challenging environment. Looking ahead, we are optimistic that our strong fundamentals and focus on execution will help carry our strong performance into the new year. In closing, as Kevin noted, this will be my last call as CFO. I'd like to thank my finance team for all their tremendous support over the past three years in my tenure as CFO. I would also like to thank our investors and analysts for your thoughtful engagement. Now I'll turn the call over to David for Q&A.

David Garg, Senior Vice President, Capital Management and Investor Relations

Thank you, Manjit. To help ensure that all our participants have an opportunity to ask questions this morning, please limit yourself to one or two questions and then requeue without any additional questions. I will now ask the operator to poll the participants.

Operator, Operator

That will come from the line of Meny Grauman with Scotiabank.

Meny Grauman, Analyst

Hi, good morning. I wanted to ask about the impact of real estate this quarter and just see whether the impact was concentrated in any particular geography or property?

Randolph Brown, Analyst

Meny, thank you for the question. It's Randy Brown. The decrease in the valuation in real estate, I would say it's primarily office and worse in the U.S. than other areas. And what we're seeing is actually pretty healthy for the market because we're getting the difference between buyers and sellers with these valuation write-downs, closing that gap, which is leading to the beginning of actually a functioning market again because we had seen a dearth of activity and you need that activity to get the market back to balance. So I would say primarily office and primarily U.S., but it was also in Canada as well. Additionally, as we talked about in priors, we are seeing revaluation in things like industrial and multifamily as well, simply a delayed response to the increase in interest rates. So we've seen the underlying metrics change and adjust and this was something that had been signaled broadly in the real estate markets.

Meny Grauman, Analyst

As a follow-up, it seems that the drag is increasing. I'm curious if you could share your outlook or guidance on how reasonable it is to assume that these impacts have peaked. It appears that the impact is growing larger each quarter.

Randolph Brown, Analyst

Sure. Thank you. The expectation is you saw the very rapid increase in interest rates that really peaked in the summer. And so the decrease in valuations in Q3 and Q4 as a result of the increase in rates is quite logical. The expectation is that real estate prices will continue to normalize for the first half of 2024 and then stabilize. But I do want to remind people we are long-term holders; our typical hold period is 10 to 20 years in our portfolio. We're cash buyers. So we have absolutely no pressure to sell, so we can weather situations like this and actually benefit from them because it gives us opportunities to go into the market and buy things that we think could be really attractive long-term values. As Manjit said, we have outperformed our long-term expectations over the last decade. So it's an asset class that is important to our big global diversified asset holding, high quality. It has a place in it. It's performing well over the long run, and we think it will continue to do so.

Meny Grauman, Analyst

To follow up on that, regarding your outlook for U.S. office space, have you concluded whether the valuation pressure is just temporary and not something structural? Are you willing to express that belief? I'd like your thoughts on the structural nature of the revaluation, especially concerning the property types that have been hit hardest in your portfolio.

Randolph Brown, Analyst

Yes. The office sector in particular, I think it's a bit structural for a while as a result of the change in working dynamics from work from the office or work from home, which changed during COVID. We are seeing a gradual return to office across the industry, but I don't think we ever get back to five days a week in the office across all sectors that would populate office space. So I think that piece of it is what I would call a temporary structural change. But over time, the economy is growing and demand for office space will rise. And so you need to have that transfer from trained holders who may need less space to new holders that are growing. So if you take an intermediate to long-term view on office, we think there will be opportunities actually to do quite well in office, but not yet.

Operator, Operator

And that will come from the line of Thomas MacKinnon with BMO Capital.

Tom MacKinnon, Analyst

Yes, thanks very much. I guess the first question maybe is for Kevin. This is Manjit's last call. And I think within five weeks, he's going to be in Asia. So just if you can update us as to how the search for his replacement is coming along? And I have a follow-up.

Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Thanks, Tom. And I want to say again that I want to thank Manjit for his leadership as the CFO over the past three years. He guided us through the IFRS 17 project which was one of the biggest projects the company has ever done and the end of COVID. And he's built a really strong followership at Sun Life, including in Asia. So I think he's still going to do a great job in Asia, and I'm looking forward to working with him as the President of Asia business. As you know, Manjit will be the CFO until mid-March when he takes over as the Head of Asia. We've already begun interviewing both internal and external candidates. We're seeing some really great people. And once we finish our search, we'll have an announcement on the new CFO.

Tom MacKinnon, Analyst

Okay. And I guess a follow-up would be with respect to the capital generation, I think, Manjit, you said it was over $1 billion before payment of dividends, and that's about 100% of your underlying earnings seems to be stronger than what you've kind of outlined as your medium-term guidance. What was driving that to be better in this quarter? And if you can comment about maybe utilization of the buyback, you've been quiet with respect to that. I guess maybe you had some of the material non-public info and a CFO change, and maybe that's what stopped you from buying back in the quarter, but what are your thoughts on that just given the good capital generation. Thanks.

Manjit Singh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Tom, so I'll take the first part of your question and then hand it over to Kevin for the buyback question. So as you noted, we have a very strong capital position at 149%. And again, that represents our strong mix of capital-light businesses. Over the medium term, we expect to generate capital between 75% and 85% of unit, and that's before dividends and after funding organic investments, and what that translates to is roughly 1 to 2 points per quarter on average. And as you noted, every quarter, that might bump around a little bit, this quarter was a little bit higher than that. And the main reason for that was in addition to strong business capital generation, we also saw some favorable capital impacts on market movements, primarily driven by the lower rate environment. So I'll turn it over to Kevin on the buyback.

Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Manjit. Tom, as you know, our decision on buybacks involves many factors, including our status on mergers and acquisitions and considering non-material public information, such as a change in the CFO. We plan to proceed with our buyback and will start purchasing once the blackout period concludes. Our intention regarding the buyback remains unchanged and is reflected in the company's current circumstances.

Operator, Operator

And that will come from the line of Gabriel Dechaine with National Bank Financial.

Gabriel Dechaine, Analyst

Hi, good morning. I do want to revisit the CRE thing, just a different angle, though. One, and I think Randy confirmed that, none of your properties are levered, so you're full. There's no mortgages on these properties. And then the other aspect of the commercial real estate exposure, the mortgage book itself, where you're the lender. I just want to confirm there were no losses and if there were, would we see that in dispose distinctly? Or would it just go through investment experience?

Randolph Brown, Analyst

Thank you, Gabriel. Randy again. In terms of the real estate equity portfolio, you are correct. We don't leverage. We do have one exposure to a fund in Asia because in Asia, they can't own U.S. property directly. So it's in the form of a REIT and the REIT has moderate leverage lower than the industry, but moderate leverage. That's really the only place. With respect to CML, we had one small loss that came through a rounding error. And other than that, we have no errors.

Gabriel Dechaine, Analyst

Okay. Manjit, can you address the other part of that?

Manjit Singh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So Gabe, on your second part of the question, if we did have any kind of impairments that would come through our credit experience line in the DOE.

Gabriel Dechaine, Analyst

Asia is becoming a significant focus for us. While our sales growth this quarter was strong, the 6% earnings growth didn’t meet expectations for this market. I understand that your management team invested considerable time traveling in the region recently. I would like to know your current perspective on the business. What improvements are necessary, and which franchises need renewal? Are there any specific challenges you’re facing, possibly in Vietnam where there are known lab issues? Please share your thoughts on the overall direction of the division and your strategy for moving forward.

Manjit Singh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks for your question, Gabe. So overall, I think if I step back and we have a tremendous franchise in Asia. One of the great things about Sun Life is we've been in Asia for a very long time, and we've built strong roots there. We've got an amazing group of people that work there, and we have excellent partners that we have in each one of our jurisdictions. In terms of individual businesses, I mean, those things will ebb and flow over time. Their Hong Kong business, our international high net worth business, as you heard on the call, are doing extremely well. And there are a few places like Vietnam that are going through a downturn right now, but we have a strong franchise. We have good people, and we have a good plan, and I expect that to turn around.

Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer

Gabe, it's Kevin. I want to add that you mentioned the quarter, and I believe Asia had a good quarter overall. It was slightly below our average of $150 million per quarter for the year, but we also experienced significant growth in this area. We observed strong growth in the CSM and robust sales. These two aspects should be considered together. The business growth for the quarter was $47 million, which is quite noteworthy. Additionally, the expected insurance earnings increased nicely over the year to $150 million for the quarter. Although the quarter may be a bit behind our $150 million run rate for the year, I would still say it reflects good results overall.

Gabriel Dechaine, Analyst

Okay. And in the long term, you just need to build scale, sell more products, and increase the in-force; that's really what it's all about.

Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer

We have been enhancing our distribution capabilities in all our markets. We have established several new bancassurance partnerships and focused on developing relationships with agency brokers. As I previously mentioned, we are seeing strong sales in Hong Kong and actively engaging with clients from Mainland China to increase business. Our strategy centers on understanding our clients' needs, ensuring we offer the right products, and improving distribution quality. We have made significant progress in these areas. Our growth thesis remains intact, and we anticipate 15% growth from Asia, which we aim to achieve in the medium term.

Operator, Operator

That will come from the line of Doug Young with Desjardins Capital Markets.

Doug Young, Analyst

Hi, good morning. I'd like to focus on Asia with a two-part question. It seems that one reason the underlying earnings haven't expanded as expected is due to expense experience, which included some lapses. Could you discuss the negative experiences this quarter? What were the main reasons, and are they likely to be temporary? Additionally, we've noticed a significant decline in equity markets in China and Hong Kong this year, and certain elements of your Asia business are linked to these markets. How should we understand the impact of this equity market movement on your business in Asia?

Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer

Doug, it's Kevin. So I would start by saying that I noted the strong business growth of $47 million, and you're right to point out that that was offset by experience losses, and those experience losses were roughly one-third from policyholder behavior, one-third from expenses, and one-third from other items. The expenses were a mix of things, including AIP, some project spend, and some investment we made in brand, which we think are all good things. So that's part of it. On the policyholder behavior, it was a mixture of things happening in Hong Kong where we were seeing the conversion of our term products into more permanent products. And on that conversion, we experienced a lapse loss in essence. But to offset that, we see growth in the CSM when they go into the new product. And we did see a little bit of lapse in other parts of the ASEAN. But it was a mixture of things. And I think that overall, I still come back to what I said to Gabe that if you look at where we're at and the mixture of the business growth being offset by some of these experienced things that were kind of a mixture of multiple pieces. If I step back and look at your question around equity performance, we have a fairly small exposure to China. I mean our business in China is a joint venture with Everbright Group that we own 25% of and it's not a major piece of the income or how we look at Asia. We think long term, it's got great potential, and we like the relationship with Everbright, but it's a smaller piece of our business in Asia. And in Hong Kong, you saw the growth we've had during the year. We continue to build out capabilities; we're the third largest MPF and we have a significant client base there that we think we can leverage. And we've been building out our access to Mainland Chinese individuals coming into Hong Kong to purchase both insurance and health products. And I would say that while there is some equity exposure, particularly in the MPS business, I think the broader fundamentals of the distribution capabilities that we're building out more than offset that, and you see that during the quarter.

Operator, Operator

We have no further questions at this time. I will turn things back to Mr. Garg for closing remarks.

David Garg, Senior Vice President, Capital Management and Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. This concludes today's call. A replay of the call will be available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Thank you, and have a great day.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today's program. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.