Prompt:
Human: I'm pleased that you're able to join us today.
The slides are available on our website at investors.
We caution you that such statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from our expectations.
Leading our discussion today are Maria Pope, President and CEO, and Jim Ajello, Senior Vice President of Finance, CFO and Treasurer.
Hot summer weather and power market volatility had a significant impact on our region and on our results this quarter.
Turning to slide four, we reported net income of $50 million or $0.56 per share for the third quarter of 2021.
This compares with the loss of $17 million or $0.19 per share for the third quarter of 2020.
Year-to-date financial performance is on track.
And despite, third quarter volatility in the energy markets and higher O&M, we are reaffirming our 2021 earnings guidance of $2.70 to $2.85 per share.
Our long-term outlook remains unchanged and we are reaffirming our 4% to 6% long-term earnings growth guidance.
Overall, our business is strong, driven by load growth from the technology and digital sectors, as well as elevated residential use due in part to the hot summer weather and continued COVID constraints.
Year-to-date revenue is up 12% versus 2020 and for the quarter, up 17% versus last year.
Jim will cover third quarter results in more detail, provide regulatory and capital updates and discuss the outlook for the rest of the year.
The ongoing impacts of climate change underscore the importance of investments and actions that we are taking to rapidly transition to a clean energy future and meet our 2030 decarbonization goals while also ensuring that we have sufficient capacity.
We estimate that our 2030 targets will require approximately 1,500 to 2,000 megawatts of additional carbon-free resources and approximately 800 megawatts of non-emitting capacity resources.
In addition to removing coal from our portfolio, we're seeking approximately 1,000 megawatts of renewables and non-emitting capacity resources as part of our RFP, which will be issued in December.
As part of this procurement, we plan to add 375 to 500 megawatts of renewables to our portfolio.
We will also bring on approximately 375 of non-emitting to special capacity.
We will work with the OPUC and parties to evaluate opportunities to procure additional resources, so the types of projects submitted in the IRP process, excuse me, the RFP process make sense for customers and are attractively priced.
We could see procuring about a third of our clean energy resources needed to meet the 2030 emissions target reductions with this RFP.
We not only need more renewables.
We need to upgrade the grid to integrate these resources, making it easier for customers to participate in demand response and distributed energy programs, helping to keep service reliable and affordable.
In our recent distributed resource, excuse me, distributed system plan.
We lay out plans for the grid of the future that supports robust two-way energy flows and better manages energy use, especially during peak periods.
We estimate that as much as 25% of flexibility needed to meet our decarbonized future would come from customers and distributed energy resources, such as solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles.
During the 2021 summer heat up, we worked with customers to save 62 megawatts of power equivalent to powering 25,000 homes.
We're working to significantly grow this program to 500 megawatts by the end of 2023.
We are very pleased to have been selected by the Department of Energy as part of their connect communities program and are working with local DE&I groups on the placement of resources, such as batteries, two-way EV charging and solar panels to ensure that our customers in underserved communities participate in this clean energy transition.
As one of the early participants in the western energy and balance market, we have been a leader in advocating for the expansion and strengthening of wholesale markets to increase reliability, accelerate decarbonization, and lower cost for customers.
PGE and our utility partners across the west are working to bolster reliability planning, advance integrated markets, and examine the benefits of a Western Regional Transmission Organization.
Throughout these processes, we'll continue to advocate for rigorous resource adequacy standards.
Sustainability is foundational to our business.
In September, we published our ESG report, building upon our number one ranked voluntary renewable program.
Sustainability is part of the fabric of everything we do, including financing.
We recently adopted a green financing framework, under which we successfully placed $150 million in green bonds.
Yesterday, we filed a rate case with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to review our third-party transmission revenue.
The revenue that we receive from these new prices, we'll offset retail customer prices through a revenue credit.
We continue to make progress on our 2022 general rate case and have reached settlements with stakeholders.
In October that resolves the cost of equity and gives at 9.5% as well as the 50/50 cash structure.
We look forward to working with stakeholders on the remaining items.
Dawn retired as President and CEO of TransAlta in March, her deep experience in the energy sector, as well as her leadership in transforming a thermal based generation company to a leading clean renewable energy company will be important as we advance our own transformation.
Our third quarter results reflect the ongoing opportunity and the challenge as the economy enters a new normal.
We experienced strong load growth from higher demand and hotter weather.
At the same time, volatility in the power markets was evident throughout the summer.
The fundamentals of our economy remained strong and are fueling strong growth in energy demand and a growing labor market with continued job growth in the region.
This quarter, we had strong deliveries across our customer segments with additional benefit from a favorable weather.
Our high tech and digital services sectors continue to grow at a rapid pace 9% higher when compared to Q3 2020.
Customers are expanding capacity and we've seen an uptick in site selection activity by data center developers and others.
Residential usage remains significantly elevated as remote work continues.
We anticipate these trends to continue and this has contributed to our strong year-over-year load growth.
Turning to slide five.
We reported GAAP income of $0.56 per share in the third quarter of 2021, compared to a GAAP loss of $0.19 per share in the third quarter of 2020.
Non-GAAP income for the third quarter of 2020 is $0.90 after removing the negative impact of the energy trading losses.
I'll cover our financial performance quarter-over-quarter on slide six.
Beginning with the loss of $0.19 per share for the third quarter of 2020, we will add back the $1.09 one-time impact of the energy trading losses.
We experienced a $0.37 increase in total revenues, primarily due to the strong economy driving growth in our service territory with the balance due to warmer weather.
This represents a 17% year-over-year increase in total revenues.
Offsetting this was a $0.39 of unfavorable power cost.
We experience substantially higher market prices due to warmer weather and increased regional demand for capacity, as well as lower renewable generation.
As a result, we are forecast to be above the $30 million threshold to begin customer cost sharing pursuant to our power cost adjustment mechanism.
Through the quarter, we have deferred $27 million, which represents 90% of the variance above that threshold.
We anticipate the regulatory process related to this deferral will begin in 2022 after the pending rate case concludes.
Our power costs this summer were not materially impacted by rising natural gas prices.
Our portfolio is well positioned and a bit long to balance gas price fluctuation and we have significant gas storage at the 4.1 billion cubic foot North Mist facility that we can draw on as needed.
There was $0.11 decrease to earnings per share from cost associated with our fixed operating expenses, including $0.03 for enhanced wildfire mitigation, $0.04 of additional vegetation management, including work that was delayed as we focused on storm restoration during the second quarter, $0.02 of service restoration costs and $0.02 of miscellaneous other expenses.
There was an $0.18 decrease to earnings per share from administrative expense.
Half of the year-over-year increase is attributed to items that were unique to 2020, including $0.07 in adjustments to incentive programs, following the energy trading losses in the prior period and $0.02 from the deferral of bad debt following the approval of the COVID-19 deferral.
The remaining administrative expense can be attributed to $0.06 for outside services to support improvements to our customer experience, a $0.02 increase in employee benefit expenses and $0.01 from miscellaneous other expenses.
While O&M was higher this quarter when compared to Q3 2020, on a year-over-year basis our cost have increased only 2% annually since 2019.
The fact that we have reduced planned outages by 29% year-over-year, stood up a large wildfire prevention program and greatly increased vegetation management is a testament to the efficiency we built into the O&M program.
Managing consistent with inflation, while increasing wildfire resiliency, improving our customer experience and growing our digital capabilities demonstrates the effectiveness and efficiency of our workforce, as well as the use of technology.
Finally, there was a $0.03 decrease to earnings per share from the following items; $0.03 benefit from lower depreciation and amortization due to plant retirements, $0.04 of higher tax expense due to the timing difference of asset retirements in 2020, and $0.02 from other unfavorable miscellaneous items.
Turning to slide seven.
Last month, we reached an agreement with stakeholders on cost of capital in our 2022 general rate case.
Our agreement supports a capital structure of 50% debt, 50% equity, and a 9.5% allowed ROE.
We see this as a constructive outcome and look forward to discussing remaining unsettled issues with parties in the case.
As you see saw earlier this month, we made several regulatory filings, which we shared-in which we shared our plans to advance the strategy to meet our targets for reducing greenhouse emissions in the power we serve to customers.
We still plan to bid in benchmark resources into the RFP process.
To support our bids, we filed for an affiliated interest entity that will help support our decarbonization interest.
Our proposal is intended to address certain structural tax disadvantages encountered by utilities due to the unintended consequences of tax normalization requirements.
The affiliate interest would provide a greater price benefit to our customers as PGE decarbonizes its generation portfolio.
Turning to slide eight, which shows our updated capital forecast through 2025.
We increased our capital expenditure forecast by over $100 million this quarter.
This increase is concentrated in 2022 and is primarily associated with grid-based investments.
With our recent settlement in the GRC, assuming approval by the OPC, this affirms that we will not need to issue equity in 2022 to meet our capital requirements, unless there is a significant renewable addition stemming from the aforementioned RFP.
We continue to maintain a solid balance sheet, including strong liquidity and investment grade ratings, accompanied by a stable credit outlook.
Total available liquidity at $930 million is just over $1 billion.
At PGE sustainability is woven into the fabric of who we are as a company and we stand behind that through our actions as an organization, including in our financing plans.
This quarter, we renewed and increased by $150 million our revolving credit facility to include sustainability linked performance metrics.
We also refinanced the Wheatridge renewable energy facility with low cost debt under a green bond in alignment with our green financing framework.
The demand for this was evident as it was nearly six times oversubscribed.
Our investors are keen to purchase debt linked to sustainable investments.
Going forward, we will seek out opportunities to tie our long-term debt toward our sustainability strategy through capital investments.
Not only are these actions good for our business, but they're also good for society.
Turning to slide nine.
Our year-to-date 2021 performance remains on track and we reaffirm our guidance range of $2.70 to $2.85 and remain on track to achieve long-term earnings growth guidance of 4% to 6% from the 2019 base year.
The picture for 2021 and beyond remains clear, strong growth in cost demand for clean, affordable, safe, reliable and equitable energy paves the way for us to execute on our long-term financial targets and deliver value for customers and investors alike.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
compname reports q3 earnings per share of $0.56.
reaffirms fy earnings per share view $2.70 to $2.85.
q3 earnings per share $0.56.
reaffirming estimate for full-year 2021 earnings guidance of $2.70 to $2.85 per diluted share.


Prompt:
Human: Before we begin our call today, I want to remind you that in order to talk about our company, we're going to mention a few things that are not historical facts.
These non-GAAP measures are adjusted net loss, adjusted net income, adjusted loss per share, adjusted earnings per share, adjusted operating loss, adjusted operating profit, EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA.
We're using these non-GAAP measures today because they allow us to compare performance consistently over various periods without regard to non-recurring items.
In addition, RPC is required to use EBITDA to report compliance with financial covenants under our revolving credit facility.
Please review these disclosures if you're interested in seeing how they are calculated.
rpc.net for a copy.
During the fourth quarter, we continued to execute our downsizing plans, first disclosed in October, including closing various facilities and scrapping equipment.
In addition, we reduced headcount by approximately 21% since the end of the second quarter.
Our CFO, Ben Palmer, will discuss this and other financial results in more detail, after which I will have a few closing comments.
During the fourth quarter, we recorded additional impairment and other charges of $10.6 million related primarily to severance and underutilized assets, bringing the total of impairment and other charges to $82.3 million in 2019.
We do not currently expect any additional significant charges based on this review.
For the fourth quarter of 2019, revenues decreased to $236 million compared to $376.8 million in the prior year.
Revenues decreased due to lower activity levels resulting from a more pronounced fourth quarter seasonal decline than in the prior year, lower pricing, and a smaller fleet of pressure pumping equipment.
Adjusted operating loss for the fourth quarter was $17.3 million compared to an operating profit of $19.7 million in the fourth quarter of the prior year.
Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $23.2 million compared to EBITDA of $61.7 million in the same period of the prior year.
For the fourth quarter of 2019, RPC reported a $0.07 adjusted loss per share compared to a $0.06 diluted earnings per share in the prior year.
Cost of revenues during the fourth quarter of 2019 was $176.9 million or 75% of revenues compared to $274.4 million or 72.8% of revenues during the fourth quarter of 2018.
Cost of revenues decreased primarily due to lower materials and supplies expenses and other expenses associated with lower activity levels.
In addition, cost of revenues declined due to lower employment costs as a result of our downsizing.
Cost of revenues as a percentage of revenues increased primarily due to significantly lower activity levels and more competitive pricing for our services.
Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased to $36.8 million in the fourth quarter compared to $40 million in the fourth quarter of the prior year and this was due to lower employment costs.
Depreciation and amortization expense was $40.3 million during the fourth quarter of 2019, a decrease of 5.2% compared to $42.6 million in the prior year.
Technical Services segment revenues for the quarter decreased 38.7% compared to the same quarter of the prior year.
Excluding impairment and other charges, we incurred an operating loss of $17.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 compared to 19.9% [Phonetic] operating profit in the prior year.
These results were due to lower pricing and activity in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Our Support Services segment revenues for the quarter decreased 13.2% compared to the same quarter in the prior year.
Operating profit in the fourth quarter of 2019 was $1.2 million compared to $2.5 million in the prior year.
On a sequential basis, RPC's fourth quarter revenues decreased 19.5% to $236 million from $293.2 million in the third quarter due primarily to pronounced seasonally lower activity levels and slightly lower pricing.
Cost of revenues during the fourth quarter of 2019 decreased by $48.3 million or 21.5% due to lower activity levels and our cost reduction actions.
As a percentage of revenues, cost of revenues decreased from 76.8% in the third quarter to 75% in the current quarter due primarily to a favorable job mix within RPC's pressure pumping service line.
Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased to $36.8 million during the fourth quarter of the current year compared to $42.6 million in the prior quarter.
RPC generated an adjusted operating loss of $17.3 million during the fourth quarter of 2019 compared to an adjusted operating loss of $21 million in the prior quarter.
Our adjusted EBITDA was $23.2 million compared to adjusted EBITDA of $22.8 million in the prior quarter.
Our Technical Services segment revenues decreased by 55.6% [Phonetic] or 20.3% to $218.9 million in the fourth quarter.
The Technical Services segment incurred a $17.2 million operating loss in the current quarter compared to an operating loss of $18.2 million in the prior quarter.
Our Support Services segment revenues in the fourth quarter were $17.1 million compared to $18.8 million in the prior quarter.
Operating profit was $1.2 million in the fourth quarter compared to $1.6 million operating profit in the prior quarter.
At the end of the fourth quarter, RPC operated 10 pressure pumping fleets.
We will continue to adjust the number of fleets based on conditions and customer activity level.
At year-end '19, RPC's pressure pumping fleet totaled approximately 735,000 hydraulic horsepower.
Fourth quarter 2019 capital expenditures were $41.4 million and the full-year total of $250.6 million and we currently estimate 2020 capex to be approximately $80 million.
As 2020 begins, we are focused on improving utilization and well site execution as well as effectively managing our costs.
We believe the actions taken as a result of our strategic assessment better align our operations with current market conditions.
Despite the challenging environment during 2019 and approximately $250 million of capital expenditures, we ended the year with $50 million in cash and no debt.
We will continue to maintain a strong balance sheet and allocate capital to maximize long-term shareholder returns.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
q4 adjusted loss per share $0.07.
q4 revenue $236 million versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $237.6 million.
qtrly revenue decreased by 19.5% due to seasonally lower activity levels and a smaller active fleet of pressure pumping equipment.
rpc - during q4, continued to execute downsizing plans, including closing facilities, scrapping equipment & reducing headcount.
rpc -in connection with preparation of q4 financial statements, additional impairment and other charges of $10.6 million in technical services segment.


Prompt:
Human: The Everest executives leading today's call are Juan Andrade, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mark Kociancic, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
We are also joined by other members of the Everest management team.
Management comments regarding estimates, projections and similar are subject to the risks, uncertainties and assumptions as noted in these filings.
Management may also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures.
For nearly 50 years, Everest has been a source of strength for our customers.
This has never been more important than in today's public health, economic, social and natural catastrophe-impacted environment.
Our business is running smoothly.
And our people continue to demonstrate the passion, professionalism and resilience that differentiates Everest.
I am particularly proud of Everest recently being named by Business Insurance as one of the best places to work in 2020, a meaningful achievement in the current environment.
The economic recovery is uneven, and there was significant natural catastrophe activity in the quarter.
Despite this, Everest has continued to grow and generate operating profit.
Our broadly diversified Reinsurance and Insurance franchise, our financial strength, deep distribution relationships and our focus on providing solutions to our customers represent the foundation that position us well for the strength we see in the reinsurance and Insurance Markets today.
In addition, we have added two exceptionally talented and seasoned global executives to our management team.
Mark Kociancic, our new Group Chief Financial Officer, joins us from SCOR, where he was the group CFO since 2013.
Jim Williamson, our new Group Chief Operating Officer, joins us from Chubb.
Both of these executives have made an immediate impact to Everest.
Craig has played an important role in the growth and evolution of Everest.
Craig will remain with the company until the end of 2020 to assist Mark with a smooth and seamless transition.
We have also further fortified our already strong capital base with a $1 billion senior notes offering completed on October 7.
This is very efficient long-term 30-year capital at a low 3.5% coupon.
As I said in the second quarter earnings call, we have the capital to play offense in this improving market, and we also have capital flexibility.
We chose to exercise some of this flexibility opportunistically, given the state of credit markets and the low borrowing rates available.
We will seek to deploy these proceeds as favorable market opportunities continue to develop and in support of our overall strategy to grow book value over time.
Our already strong company is now even stronger.
Everest's strength is evidenced by our third quarter results for the group, where despite the high frequency of natural catastrophe activity, we achieved 16% gross written premium growth and improved attritional combined ratio of 85.8%, excluding cat and pandemic impacts, net investment income of $234 million, operating income profit of $97 million, net income of $243 million, book value per share growth of 7% from year-end 2019 or 9% adjusted for dividends, and a record shareholders' equity of $9.6 billion.
Our growth in the quarter stems from a combination of new business opportunities, improved rate levels and high retention rates on our existing book.
The underwriting loss for the quarter was driven by the previously announced $300 million in catastrophe losses.
This is in the context of an estimated $35 billion industry loss in the third quarter.
We also added $125 million to our COVID-19 loss provision, reflecting the ongoing nature of this event and our prudent reserving philosophy.
This provision is predominantly IBNR.
Excluding catastrophes and the pandemic impact, our attritional combined ratios for the group in each of our segments, Reinsurance at 83% and Insurance at 94%, improved year-over-year and are reflective of the earnings generating power of the Everest franchise.
Underwriting profitability remains at the core of everything we do.
On a nine-month year-to-date basis, Everest has grown 15% and delivered an 88% attritional combined ratio, excluding the pandemic impact.
Everest Reinsurance had 20% quarterly growth year-over-year.
We executed our strategies to underwrite a high-performing book of business with higher economic returns and lower volatility.
We executed on reinsurance opportunities in several classes, including facultative risk, Property & Casualty and in certain territories, including the U.S., Canada and Latin America.
Traditional capital from highly rated carriers, like Everest, has become more relevant and supply is tight.
We see the favorable pricing environment continuing for the foreseeable future.
We also continue to be disciplined and rigorously evaluate each transaction.
John Doucette is available to provide additional details on market conditions during the Q&A.
Everest Insurance had solid execution in the quarter with continued underlying margin improvement over 2019 and 6% growth year-over-year, despite exposure reductions in certain lines given the current economic environment.
The attritional combined ratio, excluding the pandemic impact, improved to 94% for the quarter compared to 96% in the third quarter of 2019.
We are strategically managing the Insurance portfolio to build a more diversified business and steer our mix toward product lines that earn higher margins over the long term.
Our significant position in both E&S and Retail channels give us access to a wide set of opportunities.
For the quarter, the main insurance growth drivers were continued rate momentum of plus 19% excluding workers' compensation, and plus 13% including workers' compensation.
We had strong growth across property, excess casualty and D&O, where market capacity is constrained and we are seeing the strongest rate increases and better terms.
We had continued strength in the excess and surplus line space.
And we also had strong renewal retention in both our Retail and E&S businesses.
Mike Karmilowicz is available to provide additional details on market conditions during the Q&A.
Regarding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the $125 million loss provision in the third quarter was comprised of $110 million for Reinsurance and $15 million for Insurance.
Our overall COVID-19 loss provision year-to-date is $435 million, of which 85% is IBNR.
Consistent with our analytical rigor, we continue to take a measured approach to our COVID-19 loss estimation that is based on credible, fact-based and supportable information.
We instituted a thorough loss estimation process at the start of the pandemic.
It is conducted team by team and contract by contract.
As events unfold and more data becomes available, we are continuously testing our estimates.
The claims data we're seeing is consistent with our expectations.
It is also important to reiterate that as a reinsurer, our analysis is specific to each situation.
And similar to reserving, we have established an equally prudent and rigorous claims process.
We evaluate claims presented based on existing policy and contract terms and conditions.
Lastly, we remain comfortable with the exposure and loss reserves in our Mortgage business in the context of the ongoing economic uncertainty from the pandemic.
In summary, Everest continued to perform well in the third quarter despite the uncertainty in the world today.
We continue to purposely seek the best opportunities to write business at attractive returns.
We have a talented team, a diversified global platform and a strong capital position, all of which allows us to provide attractive solutions to our clients and capture the improving opportunities in front of us.
I am very excited to be joining the great team here at Everest with its excellent talent base and culture.
I look forward to contributing to the company's continuing growth and success.
I think my industry experience and skill sets will be assets to further augment the great foundation that has been built here at Everest.
Everest delivered a strong set of financial results for the third quarter of 2020.
We achieved significant net income and positive operating income, continued our growth into favorable market conditions and strengthened our already robust capital position.
For the third quarter of 2020, Everest reported strong net income of $243 million.
This is more than double the $104 million of net income for the third quarter of 2019.
On a year-to-date basis, net income was $451 million compared to $792 million for the first nine months of 2019.
Year-to-date, net income included $67 million of net after-tax realized capital gains compared to $90 million in the first nine months of 2019.
Third quarter results were driven by strong premium growth across the group, strong investment income performance and improved attritional loss and combined ratios.
We also had Q3 catastrophe activity of $300 million, pre-tax and net of reinsurance and reinstatement premiums.
And we added $125 million COVID-19 pandemic loss provision.
Year-to-date, our COVID-19 provision stands at $435 million.
And as Juan stated, it's predominantly IBNR.
The group experienced an underwriting loss in Q3 of $115 million due to the elevated level of natural catastrophes in the quarter as compared to an underwriting loss of $28 million in 2019.
Turning to Everest's market position and growth.
On a year-to-date basis, gross written premium was $7.7 billion, up $1 billion or 15% compared to the first three quarters of 2019.
This reflects balanced and diversified growth in both segments, with Reinsurance up 15% and Insurance up 15% compared to last year.
During the third quarter of 2020, the company reported $300 million of catastrophe losses.
These losses are pre-tax and net of reinsurance and reinstatement premiums and related to Hurricanes Laura, Isaias, Sally; wildfires in California and Oregon; and other events including the Midwest United States derecho windstorm.
The after-tax basis amount was approximately $240 million.
On a year-to-date basis, the results reflected net pre-tax and net of reinstatement catastrophe losses of $345 million compared to $335 million during the first nine months of 2019.
Excluding catastrophe losses and the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, the comparable combined ratios were 85.8% for Q3 2020 and 87.1% for Q3 2019, an 88% through the first nine months of 2020 and 87.7% for the first nine months of 2019, mostly attributable to the Reinsurance business mix changes.
Excluding the pandemic loss estimate, the group attritional loss ratio for the third quarter of 2020 was 59.3%, down from 59.7% compared to Q3 2019.
Excluding the pandemic loss estimate, the group attritional loss ratio for the first nine months of 2020 was 60.2%, up from 59.5% for the first nine months of 2019, primarily due to the continued change in Reinsurance business mix year-over-year.
For the Reinsurance segment, the Q3 2020 attritional loss ratio, excluding the pandemic loss estimate, was 57.5%, essentially flat from 57.6% in Q3 2019.
Year-to-date, it stood at 58.5%, excluding the pandemic loss, up from 57.5% for the first nine months of 2019.
This increase was related to the continued shift toward more pro rata business, which carries a higher loss pick versus excess of loss, but allows us to benefit directly from the firming primary market.
The Reinsurance division has $323 million of year-to-date operating profitability, given its $294 million of year-to-date net investment income.
For the Insurance segment, the Q3 2020 attritional loss ratio, excluding the impacts from the pandemic, was 64.8%, down from 65.9% in Q3 2019.
Year-to-date, it stood at 65.2%, down compared to 65.6% for the first nine months of 2019.
Our U.S. franchise, which makes up the majority of our Insurance business, continues to run an attritional combined ratio in the low 90s, excluding the pandemic loss estimate.
The Insurance division has $62 million of year-to-date operating profitability, given its $126 million of year-to-date net investment income.
The Q3 group commission ratio of 20.2% was down compared to the prior year Q3 level of 23.3%.
This was driven by business mix and Reinsurance, notably more facultative business written and earned, and also higher ceding commission received in the Insurance segment.
The group commission ratio of 21.7% year-to-date was down compared to the prior year figure of 23%, largely due to the same reasoning.
The group expense ratio remains low at 6.1% for the first nine months of 2020, in line with our expectations.
Q3 investment income increased strongly to $234 million versus $181 million for Q3 2019.
For investments, pre-tax investment income was $420 million year-to-date as compared to $501 million for the first nine months of 2019.
The fixed income portfolio generated $408 million of investment income year-to-date compared to $383 million for the same period last year.
As expected, net investment income increased substantially as we recorded $89 million quarter-to-date of largely fair market value adjustments of our limited partnership investments in this line.
The limited partnership result was due to the impact of improvement in the economy and financial markets.
As a reminder, we report our limited partnership income one quarter in arrears.
The pre-tax yield to maturity on the investment portfolio was 3.1%, diminishing from 3.4% one year ago.
We continue to hold a well-diversified, high credit quality bond portfolio with conservative duration at approximately 3.5 years.
The current overall fixed income reinvestment yields are averaging approximately 2%.
Other income and expense included $38 million of foreign exchange gains during the first nine months of 2020 compared to a loss of $44 million for 2019.
Regarding income taxes, our effective tax rate on operating income was minus 0.1% through Q3.
There is a year-to-date tax benefit of $31 million related to the CARES Act that we reported in the first quarter.
Excluding this benefit, the effective tax rate on year-to-date operating income would be 8.9%.
Along with growth and profitability, positive cash flow was a highlight this quarter as we generated record operating cash flows of approximately $1.1 billion for the third quarter of 2020 compared to $633 million in Q3 2019, reflecting the strength of the growth in premiums in 2020 compared to 2019.
Everest has a strong balance sheet, which was endorsed by the market with our very attractively received debt raise during October.
Everest solidified its very strong capital position in the aforementioned opportunistic $1 billion senior notes offering in early October with a low coupon of 3.5% and 30-year tenure under very favorable market conditions.
This represents very efficient long-term capital for Everest.
The debt leverage ratio pro forma for Q3 stands at 15.1%.
Shareholders' equity for the group was $9.6 billion at the end of the third quarter, up from $9.1 billion at year-end 2019.
The increase in shareholders' equity in the first nine months of 2020 is largely due to the $451 million of net income; the mark-to-market impact on the fixed income assets, which increased by $349 million from December 31, 2019 plus $387 million of paid dividends and share buybacks.
Net book value per share stood at $239.98, up 7% from year-end 2019, or plus 9.3% when adjusted for dividends.
Again, I'm very excited about the future of Everest and the opportunity to further help drive its performance off a strong base.
 Assistant:

Chosen response: qtrly gross written premium of $2.8 billion, reflecting growth of 16% over same quarter in 2019.


Prompt:
Human: Actual results could differ materially from expected results.
Last night, we reported a loss of $1.24 in adjusted operating EPS, which included $474 million in COVID-19 impacts or $5.31 per share.
In the context of a quarter that saw pandemic related deaths reached their highest peak in some of our markets.
This was obviously a challenging quarter for us.
But if I take a step back, our core business performed well overall, and we consider this another solid quarter, further demonstrating the resilience of our global business platform and franchise.
Both our Asia Traditional and Financial Solutions businesses had excellent results.
U.S. Group and individual health performed well, and Australia was breakeven.
During the quarter, we completed a number of in-force transactions, deploying $100 million in capital, which will further add value to our underlying earnings engine.
The transaction pipeline remains very good with opportunities in all our regions.
Our approach to capital deployment during this crisis remained balanced and disciplined as we seek opportunities to deliver long-term value.
I'm also proud to announce that for the 10th consecutive year, RGA has been ranked #1 for business capabilities on a global basis by NMG in their 2020 global reinsurance report.
Leveraging our capabilities and being a trusted partner as well as a thought leader, has allowed us to deliver value to our clients throughout the past year.
A point of personal pride in this organization and a tribute to all our employees and our culture of client centricity.
Results in our U.S. Mortality business were significantly impacted by the certain COVID-19 claims seen in the first three months of the year.
Considering the elevated level of population depth, these results are not unexpected.
Our large claim experience was in line this quarter after being very favorable in the previous two quarters.
And our mortality performance over the past 12 months, after adjusting for COVID-19 claims, has been in line with our expectations.
Todd and Jonathan will provide additional information on COVID-19 impacts for all our businesses.
As we look forward, there is reason for optimism as increasing vaccination rates in the U.S., U.K. and Canada should reduce the level of COVID-19 deaths through the remainder of the year.
And other markets should follow, as vaccine availability continues to expand.
RGA's business fundamentals are strong, our business prospects are robust and we are taking appropriate actions to protect our business and position RGA for profitable growth.
As a final point, it is worth reflecting that through the end of the first quarter, RGA has incurred over $1.2 billion in COVID-19 claims since the pandemic began.
Our ability to absorb these claims is a testament to our financial strength, but it also serves as a reminder of the important purpose that our industry and RGA play in helping millions of families around the world who have been affected by this pandemic.
RGA reported a loss for the quarter of $115 million on a pre-tax adjusted operating basis.
Adjusted operating earnings per share was a loss of $1.24 per share, which includes COVID-19 impacts of $5.31 per share.
Our trailing 12-month adjusted operating ROE was 3.7%, which was reduced by COVID-19 impacts of 8.8%.
Reported premiums increased 3% in the quarter.
Growth was 5%, excluding the premium decline in Australia, reflecting our continued caution in that market.
The effective tax rate on pre-tax adjusted operating loss was 26.9% for the quarter, above the expected range of 23% to 24% due to the geographical mix of the earnings.
Beginning with the U.S., the U.S. and Latin America traditional segment reported a pre-tax, adjusted operating loss of $344 million in the quarter, including COVID-19 claim cost of $358 million.
Let me spend a minute providing a little bit more detail.
For individual mortality, approximately $340 million of claim costs are attributed to COVID-19.
The approach used to estimate COVID-19 claims is consistent with that used throughout 2020.
We also experienced some excess mortality claims in the quarter that is likely directly or indirectly related to COVID-19.
Which is not unexpected, given the excess mortality experience that has been observed in the general population throughout the pandemic.
It is important to note that our mortality experience over the past 12 months, excluding COVID-19, was in line with our expectations.
Our group and individual health business both performed better than our expectations in the quarter.
Variable investment income was strong in the quarter as the limited partnership investment performance was favorable.
Our asset-intensive business reported results modestly below the expected run rate due to some unfavorable policyholder experience.
U.S. Capital Solutions reported results that were in line with our expectations.
The traditional segment, first quarter results reflected COVID-19 claim cost of approximately $26 million.
Our Financial Solutions segment performed well in the first quarter, reflecting favorable longevity experience, which we attribute to COVID-19.
In the Europe, Middle East and Africa segment, our traditional business results reflected a meaningful level of COVID-19 claims in both the U.K. and South Africa.
We estimate the COVID-19 claim cost for the EMEA traditional segment in the quarter were $98 million.
EMEA's Financial Solutions business results -- reflect the negative effects of model updates and the longevity offset from COVID-19 was lower-than-expected as a result of longer reporting lags, but we expect that benefit to come through in future periods.
Turning to our Asia Pacific traditional business.
In the first quarter, Asia had favorable underwriting experience across most of the region.
While we did see some COVID-19-related impacts, they were modest and within our expectations.
Australia results were breakeven for the quarter.
While there remains some uncertainty in the Australian market, we are continuing to see progress and remain prudent in our approach to new business and focused on actions to improve results.
Our Asia Pacific Financial Solutions business continued to produce good results in the first quarter, benefiting from organic growth and favorable experience on existing treaties.
The Corporate and Other segment reported pre-tax adjusted operating income of $94 million.
Adjusting for that, the results were better-than-expected from our run rate and reflected lower overall expected expenses.
Going forward, there is the potential for additional volatility and variable investment income from the change in unrealized gains and losses on our equity method investments.
Moving on to investments.
The non spread portfolio yield for the quarter was 5.67%, reflecting strong variable investment income.
Excluding the previously mentioned accounting correction, the yield was 4.52%, as we had strong contribution this quarter from the limited partnership investments.
Our overall investment portfolio, average quality of A was maintained and credit impairments were negligible.
We continue to have ample liquidity as we continue to prudently manage capital during the remainder of the pandemic.
RGA's global platform, strong balance sheet and effective capital management strategy have been vital to RGA's success during this pandemic.
While we expect to have some additional COVID-19 claims in 2021, we feel confident about RGA's ability to produce attractive financial results in the future.
As Anna mentioned, Q1 COVID-19 general population deaths were at their highest levels in many countries, notably the U.S. and the U.K.
Our models continue to track well to actual results and our overall COVID-19 mortality claim costs, which only include claims that we believe will ultimately be reported with the COVID-19 cause of death, were within our expected range based on the level of general population deaths.
The U.S. continues to be the driver of our mortality claim costs, accounting for 74% of our global total.
This was approximately $17 million per 10,000 U.S. general population deaths at the lower end of our model estimates and very consistent with the prior quarter.
Both the U.K. and Canada had Q1 COVID-19 mortality claim costs in excess of our model ranges, which we are attributing primarily to short-term volatility.
The U.K. and Canada had a greater number of larger COVID-19 claims in the quarter relative to what we saw in 2020.
After considering this quarterly volatility, we are reiterating our previous rules of thumb for claim cost estimates in these markets as shown on slide 12.
All other markets combined, accounted for approximately 10% of our COVID-19 mortality claim costs in line with our expectations, with the majority of this coming from South Africa, consistent with the high level of general population death they experienced this quarter.
India accounted for less than 1% of our COVID-19 claim costs in the quarter.
Both countries have experienced a significant level of excess mortality beyond what is being reported in general population COVID-19 figures, much of which we believe is likely COVID-19.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, over the last 12 months, South Africa has accounted for approximately 5% of our COVID-19 mortality claim costs and India approximately 2%.
The majority of our Q1 longevity experience is based on reporting from Q4 2020 and the significant increase in U.K. general population mortality in Q1 of 2021 is not yet reflected in our results.
We do expect to see this impact over the next several quarters as reporting is received.
Going forward, the ultimate longevity offset to our global mortality claim costs may be lower than our 10% rule of thumb, given our concentration of this business in the U.K. and the success of their vaccination efforts to date.
The significant reduction in general population mortality rates as vaccination levels rise in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada is expected to reduce our COVID-19 mortality claim costs over the remainder of 2021.
At the same time, we continue to closely monitor the impact that the pandemic variants are having and countries that are at earlier stages of vaccine rollouts where higher mortality could persist for a longer period of time.
Let me hand it back to Todd.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
q1 adjusted operating loss per share $1.24.
in q1, consolidated net premiums totaled $2.9 billion, an increase of 3% over last year's q1.


Prompt:
Human: Then Tom Dineen, our Chief Financial Officer, will give an overview of the third quarter 2021 financial results, and then I will discuss our operations and the state of the market.
Copy of these documents may be obtained by contacting the company or the SEC or on the company website at ruger.com/corporate or, of course, the SEC website at sec.gov.
We do reference non-GAAP EBITDA.
Now Tom will discuss the company's third quarter 2021 results.
For the third quarter of 2021, net sales were $178.2 million and diluted earnings were $1.98 per share.
For the comparable prior year period, net sales were $145.7 million and diluted earnings were $1.39 per share.
For the first nine months of 2021, net sales were $562.7 million and diluted earnings were $6.64 per share.
For the corresponding period in 2020, net sales were $399.6 million and diluted earnings were $3.31 per share.
The substantial increase in profitability for the third quarter compared to the third quarter of 2020 was primarily attributable to the increase in sales and production, resulting in favorable leveraging of fixed costs including depreciation, engineering and other indirect labor expenses.
Compared to the second quarter of 2021, profitability declined principally due to three factors: First, all of our firearms facilities took a very well-deserved shutdown week in July, which reduced the number of workdays in the quarter to 59 compared to 64 workdays in Q2.
This decrease in production reduced sales and resulted in some unfavorable deleveraging of fixed costs.
Second, after a relatively quiet second quarter, COVID positive cases in our plants were then tripled in the third quarter.
This resulted in significant increases in lost production.
And third, following six quarters of exceptional demand, excess resales decreased from the second quarter, adversely impacting our overall profitability.
Our strong financial results yielded significant cash generation.
During the first nine months of 2021, we generated $117 million of cash from operations.
We reinvested $15.6 million of that back into the company in the form of capital expenditures.
We estimate that 2021 capital expenditures will be approximately $20 million, predominantly related to new product development.
Our ability to shift manufacturing equipment between cells and between facilities improves our overall utilization and allows for reduced capital investment.
Our balance sheet at October 2, 2021, remain strong.
Our cash and short-term investments, which are invested in U.S. T-bills totaled $192.7 million.
Our current ratio was 3.8:1, and we had no debt.
Our stockholders' equity was $338.1 million, which equates to a book value of $19.21 per share, of which $10.95 per share was cash and short-term investments.
In the first nine months of 2021, we returned $45.2 million to our shareholders through the payment of dividends.
Our Board of Directors declared a $0.79 per share quarterly dividend for shareholders of record as of November 15, 2021, payable on November 30, 2021.
Upon receiving this $0.79 quarterly dividend, shareholders will have received $3.36 of dividends per share in 2021.
As a reminder, our quarterly dividend is approximately 40% of net income, and therefore, it varies quarter-to-quarter.
That's the financial update for the quarter.
Demand for our products has remained strong.
Despite a moderation of overall industry demand, as reflected in the last two quarters of adjusted NICS, we shipped all of the firearms that we built this quarter without the need to aggressively promote or discount any of our products.
We've just begun to replenish the distributor and retail inventories that were largely depleted over the past 18 months, putting us in a great position as we head into the fourth quarter, which has traditionally been a period of strong demand.
The estimated unit sell-through of the company's products from the independent distributors to retailers increased 9% in the first nine months of 2021 compared to the prior-year period.
For the same period, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, background checks, as adjusted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, commonly referred to as NICS checks, decreased 11%.
The increase in the sell-through of the company's products compared favorably to the decrease in adjusted NICS background checks, and may be attributable to strong consumer demand for Ruger products, increased production in 2021 and the introduction of new products that have been met with strong demand.
New product development continues to drive results.
The MAX-9 pistol and the Ruger LCP MAX pistol, which were both launched in 2021 remain in strong demand.
In the first nine months of 2021, new product sales represented $116 million or 22% of firearm sales compared to $88 million or 24% of firearm sales in the first nine months of 2020.
As a reminder, we include only major products introduced in the past eight quarters in our new product sales metric.
Derivatives, product line extensions of mature product families and models introduced more than two years ago are not included.
We are hard at work on some exciting new product initiatives, including the return of Marlin lever action rifles, which we begin -- plan to begin shipping later in the fourth quarter.
Since March of 2020, our workforce has been strengthened by 370 folks, an increase of just over 20%, and our quarterly unit production has increased by more than 160,000 units or 45% during that period.
A 20% increase in personnel yielding a 45% increase in production.
That is a tremendous accomplishment by our operations teams at all of our manufacturing plants.
Despite the growth in production at the end of third quarter 2021, our finished goods inventories remained near historic lows and distributor inventories of Ruger products were 150,000 units lower than they were at the end of 2019, the last time inventories were at what we would consider normal or expected pre-COVID-19 levels.
As Tom mentioned earlier, after an unprecedented 16-month run of seemingly insatiable product demand and continual monthly production increases, we took a one week shutdown during the first week of July.
This is our first shutdown in two years, which gave our workforce a very well-deserved break and allowed us to perform some routine maintenance and reconfigure some of our manufacturing operations.
The shutdown reduced our third quarter production sales and earnings, but that was a small price to pay.
It was the right thing to do, and I'm glad we did it.
Our dedicated and hard-working folks deserved and needed a break.
And after the shutdown, we are better prepared as we head into what we expect will be a busy fourth quarter and 2022.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, we have remained proactive in maintaining the health and safety of our employees and mitigating its impact on our business.
We provide all hourly employees with additional paid time off and offer incentives to any employee who becomes vaccinated.
If practical, we allow employees to work remotely.
And we continue to follow robust cleaning, sanitizing and social distancing protocols to maintain a cleaner and safer workplace.
With the United States once again seeing a rise in COVID-19 cases in positivity rates, we remain vigilant and are proactively adjusting our plan accordingly to keep our associates healthy and safe and to minimize any disruption to our business.
Our financial strength, evidenced by our debt-free balance sheet provides financial security and flexibility as we manage through the challenges like COVID-19 and remain focused on our long-term goals and the creation of shareholder value.
In the third quarter, we added a 225,000 square foot facility in Mayodan, North Carolina, about 1.5 miles down the road from our original Mayodan building that we purchased in 2013.
This new facility doubles the size of our footprint in Mayodan and provide some room for expansion.
We moved our finished goods inventory, our ShopRuger operations and our customer service call center into the new facility.
This freed up some manufacturing space in our original building in addition to the overall -- excuse me, to the available space in the new facility.
Those are the highlights of the third quarter of 2021.
Operator, may we have the first question?
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
compname reports q3 sales of $178.2 million.
compname reports third quarter diluted earnings of $1.98 per share and declares quarterly dividend of 79¢ per share.
q3 earnings per share $1.98.
q3 sales $178.2 million.


Prompt:
Human: We appreciate your time and interest in Raymond James Financial.
With us on the call today are Paul Reilly, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Paul Shoukry, Chief Financial Officer.
Calling your attention to slide two.
These statements include, but are not limited to, information concerning future strategic objectives, business prospects, financial results, anticipated timing and benefits of our acquisitions, including our proposed acquisitions of Charles Stanley PLC and TriState Capital Holdings, and our level of success in integrating acquired businesses, anticipated results of litigation and regulatory developments, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic or general economic conditions.
We urge you to consider the risks described in our most recent Form 10-K and subsequent Forms 10-Q and Forms 8-K, which are available on our Investor Relations website.
During today's call, we will also use certain non-GAAP financial measures to provide information pertinent to our management's view of ongoing business performance.
I want to first, by apologizing, I'll sound like a broken record, using the word record over and over again.
It really was an outstanding year and quarter.
I wish management could take credit, but it is really the work of our advisors and associates that delivered these results.
Their dedication and perseverance during the fiscal year was amazing.
We've proven once again that focusing on our time-tested client-first strategy and providing outstanding service to our advisors and their clients will guide us through uncertain economic and global conditions, in this case, in record-setting fashion.
The record results we generated would not have been possible without everyone's contribution.
Starting on slide four with our quarterly results.
The fiscal fourth quarter capped off what was a record fiscal year on a number of fronts.
The firm reported record quarterly net revenues of $2.7 billion and record quarterly net income of $429 million, or earnings per diluted share of $2.02, which reflects the impact of the three for two stock split in September.
Excluding the $10 million of acquisition-related expenses, quarterly adjusted net income was $437 million and adjusted earnings per diluted share equaled $2.06.
The increase in quarterly net revenues was largely driven by record investment banking revenues and record assets under management and related administrative fees, primarily due to higher private client group assets and fee-based accounts.
Annualized return on equity for the quarter was 21.3% and adjusted annualized return on tangible common equity was 24.1%, a very impressive result, especially in the near zero-rate environment and given our strong capital position.
Moving to slide five.
We ended the quarter with record total client assets under administration of $1.18 trillion, up 27% on a year-over-year basis and 1% sequentially.
We also achieved record PCG assets and fee-based accounts of $627 billion and record financial assets under management of $192 billion.
We continue to focus on supporting advisors and their clients through leading technology solutions and a client-focused culture.
As a result, we had a fantastic year in terms of advisor retention as well as record results in recruiting new advisors to the Raymond James platform through our multiple affiliation options.
We ended the quarter with records of 8482 financial advisors, net increases of 243 over the prior period and 69% over the preceding quarter, representing a new record during the fiscal year we recruited financial advisors with approximately $330 million of trailing 12-month production and approximately $54 billion of client assets to our domestic independent contractor and employee channels.
Also in the Private Client Group, advisors generated domestic net new assets of approximately $83 billion in fiscal 2021, representing 10% of domestic PCG assets at the beginning of the fiscal year, a very strong result reflecting our excellent retention and record recruiting.
Additionally, this year, new account openings and advisor productivity were very strong contributing to the excellent net new asset results.
Also worth noting on the slide is the impressive loan growth at Raymond James Bank during the quarter, up 5% sequentially to a record $25 billion.
This growth was driven by securities-based loans to the Private Client Group clients as well as a strong corporate loan growth.
Moving to segment results on slide six.
The Private Client Group generated record quarterly net revenues of $1.8 billion and pre-tax income of $222 million, a 12.3% pre-tax margin reflecting significant operating leverage over the past year.
The Capital Markets segment generated record quarterly net revenues of $554 million and pre-tax income of $183 million, representing an extremely impressive 33% pre-tax margin to net revenues.
These record results were driven by record investment banking revenues, strong tax credit fund revenues and solid fixed income brokerage revenues.
The Asset Management segment generated record net revenues of $238 million and record pre-tax income of $114 million, up 29% and 46% over the year ago period respectively.
These results were primarily due to growth in financial assets under management, driven by net inflows to fee-based accounts in the Private Client Group partially offset by market depreciation and net outflows for the Carillon Tower Advisers during the quarter.
Raymond James Bank generated quarterly net revenues of $176 million and pre-tax income of $81 million.
Quarterly net revenues increased 9% over the year ago quarter, as higher levels of earning assets offset year-over-year compression in the bank's net interest margin.
Sequentially, net revenues grew 4% due to higher asset balances during the quarter.
The pre-tax income growth year-over-year was due to the aforementioned revenue growth and lower bank loan provision for credit losses in the current quarter.
Compared to the preceding quarter, the bank's pre-tax income declined largely due to a reserve release in the preceding quarter compared to a loan loss provision, primarily associated with the strong loan growth during the fiscal fourth quarter.
Looking at the fiscal year 2021 results on slide seven, we generated record net revenues of $9.76 billion, up 22% over fiscal year 2020 and record net income of $1.4 billion, up 73% over fiscal 2020.
Excluding losses on the extinguishment of debt and acquisition-related expenses during the year, adjusted net income was $1.49 billion, up 74% over adjusted net income in fiscal 2020.
Moving to the fiscal year results on slide eight.
The Private Client Group, Capital Markets and Asset Management segments, generated record net revenues and record pre-tax income and all of our segments realized substantial operating leverage during the fiscal year.
Once again, these results reinforce the value of our diverse and complementary businesses.
I'll begin with consolidated revenues on slide 10.
Record quarterly net revenues of $2.7 billion grew 30% year-over-year and 9% sequentially.
Record asset management fees grew 8% sequentially, commensurate with the sequential increase in the beginning of the quarter balance of fee-based assets.
Private Client Group assets and fee-based accounts were up 2% during the fiscal fourth quarter, providing a modest tailwind for this line item for the first quarter of fiscal 2022.
Consolidated brokerage revenues of $541 million grew 9% over the prior year, but declined 2% from the preceding quarter.
Institutional fixed income brokerage revenues remain solid, albeit down from the strong levels of the comparison periods.
Brokerage revenues in PCG were up 17% on a year-over-year basis, but flat sequentially due to lower trading volumes, which offset the benefit from higher asset balances and associated trailing commissions.
For the fiscal year, brokerage revenues were up 13% to a record $2.2 billion, reflecting records for both PCG and fixed income, which had a fantastic year that was a testament to their leading position in the depository segment.
Account and service fees of $170 million increased 21% year-over-year and 6% sequentially, largely due to higher average mutual fund assets driving higher associated service fees.
Paul already discussed our record investment banking results this quarter.
So let me touch on other revenues.
Other revenues of $74 million were up 35% sequentially, primarily due to higher tax credit funds revenues.
We also had $18 million of private equity valuation gains during the quarter of which approximately $5 million were attributable to non-controlling interest reflected in other expenses.
Moving to slide 11.
Clients' domestic cash sweep balances, which are the primary source of funding for our interest-earning assets and the balances with third-party banks that generate RJBDP fees ended the quarter at a record $66.7 billion, up 6% over the preceding quarter and representing 6.3% of domestic PCG client assets.
As we continue to experience growing cash balances and less demand from third-party banks during fiscal 2021, $10.8 billion of client cash is being held in the client interest program at the broker dealer.
Over time that cash could be redeployed to our bank or third-party banks as capacity becomes available, which would hopefully earn a higher spread than we currently earn on short-term treasuries.
On slide 12, it was great to see an 8% sequential increase in the combined net interest income and BDP fees from third-party banks to $198 million.
This growth was largely attributable to strong asset growth and a resilient net interest margin at Raymond James Bank, which remained right at 1.92% for the quarter.
We expect the bank's NIM to settle right around 1.9% over the next couple of quarters.
The average yield on RJBDP balances with third-party banks remained flat at 29 basis points in the quarter.
If banks demand for deposits doesn't improve from current levels, we believe there will be downward pressure on this yield in fiscal 2022, especially in the back half of the fiscal year, which is why we have been so focused on generating on-balance sheet growth in assets that could deliver good risk-adjusted returns.
Moving to consolidated expenses on slide 13.
First our largest expense compensation.
The compensation ratio decreased sequentially from 67.2% to 65.8% largely due to record revenues in the capital markets segment, which had a very low 52% compensation ratio during the quarter.
Given our current revenue mix and disciplined management of expenses, we are confident we can maintain a compensation ratio of 70% or lower in this near-zero short-term interest rate environment.
And as we experienced in fiscal 2021, we can do meaningfully better than 70% with Capital Markets revenues at or near these record levels, which is our expectation for at least the next quarter or two.
Non-compensation expenses of $361 million decreased 15% sequentially, primarily driven by the $98 million loss, on extinguishment of debt in the fiscal third quarter.
Somewhat offsetting this favorable variance, we had a modest provision for credit losses during the quarter, compared with a bank loan loss reserve release in the fiscal third quarter.
Overall, our results in fiscal 2021 show, we have remained focused on managing controllable expenses, while still investing in growth and ensuring high service levels for advisors and their clients.
While we are still finalizing our fiscal 2022 budget, we do expect expenses to increase meaningfully in fiscal 2022, for a variety of reasons.
First and foremost, we are going to continue investing in people and technology, to support the phenomenal growth of our business over the past year, ensuring we maintain very high service levels and leading technology solutions for advisors and their clients.
We also expect business development expenses to pick-up, as travel recognition trips and conferences have already started resuming in the fiscal first quarter, which our advisors and associates are really excited about.
Just as a reminder, business development expenses totaled about $200 million in fiscal 2019, before the start of the pandemic.
Additionally, whereas we had a $32 million net benefit for credit losses in fiscal 2021, we would expect bank loan loss provisions for credit losses associated with net loan growth, in fiscal 2022.
Slide 14 shows the pre-tax margin trend over the past five quarters.
Pre-tax margin was 20.8% in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2021.
And adjusted pre-tax margin was 21.2%, which was boosted by record revenues and still relatively subdued business development expenses.
At our Analyst and Investor Day in June, we outlined a pre-tax margin target of 15% to 16% in this near-zero interest rate environments.
And right now, we believe, the top end of that range is an appropriate target given the aforementioned expense growth, we currently expect in fiscal 2022.
But, as we experienced during the fiscal year, there is a meaningful upside to our margins, when Capital Markets revenues are as strong as they have been in fiscal 2021.
On slide 15, at the end of the quarter, total assets were approximately $61.9 billion an 8% sequential increase, reflecting solid growth of loans at Raymond James Bank as well as a substantial increase in client cash balances being held on the balance sheet.
Liquidity and capital remained very strong.
The total capital ratio of 26.2% and a Tier 1 leverage ratio of 12.6% are both over double the regulatory requirements to be well capitalized, giving us significant flexibility to continue being opportunistic and grow the business.
You can see that RJF corporate cash at the parent ended the quarter at $1.15 billion, decreasing 26% during the quarter, as we have restricted the cash that we plan on using to close on the Charles Stanley acquisition, which we currently expect to close in the first or second quarter of fiscal 2022, for as soon as we receive the requisite regulatory approvals.
Slide 16 provides a summary of our capital actions, over the past five quarters.
During the fiscal year, we repurchased nearly 1.5 million shares, split adjusted for $118 million.
As of October 27th, $632 million remained under the current share repurchase authorization.
Due to the restrictions following our announced acquisition of TriState Capital Holdings, we do not expect to repurchase common shares until after closing.
Lastly, on slide 17, we provide key credit metrics for Raymond James Bank.
The credit quality of the bank's loan portfolio remains healthy with most trends continuing to improve.
Criticized loans declined and non-performing assets remain low at just 20 basis points.
The bank loan loss provision of $5 million was primarily driven by strong loan growth during the quarter.
The bank loan allowance for credit losses as a percent of loans held for investment, declined from 1.34% in the preceding quarter to 1.27% at quarter end.
For the corporate portfolios these allowances are higher at around 2.25%.
Overall, I'm very pleased with our fantastic results for this quarter and the fiscal year, which exceeded many records.
As for our outlook, we are well positioned entering fiscal 2022 with strong capital ratios, quarter-end records for all of our key business metrics and strong activity levels for financial advisor recruiting and investment banking.
In the Private Client Group segment, results will benefit modestly by starting the fiscal first quarter with a 2% sequential increase of assets in fee-based accounts.
Additionally, based on our robust recruiting pipeline, we hope to continue our current recruiting trend as prospective advisors are attracted to our client-focused values and leading technology platforms.
In the Capital Markets segment, the investment banking pipeline remains very strong and we expect a solid fixed income brokerage results, driven by demand from the depository client segment.
In the Asset Management segment, if equity markets remain resilient, we expect results will be positively impacted by higher financial assets under management.
And Raymond James Bank should continue to grow, as we have ample funding and capital to grow the balance sheet.
We will continue to focus on lending to PCG clients through our securities-based loans and mortgages and we will continue to be selective and deliberate in growing our corporate loan and agency-backed securities portfolio.
As we look ahead, we remain focused on the long-term and our long-term growth.
And as we've outlined at our recent Analyst and Investor Day, those key growth initiatives include driving organic growth across our core businesses continuing to expand our investments in technology and sharpening our focus on strategic M&A.
Our recent announcements to acquire TriState Capital and Charles Stanley Group demonstrate our focus on these initiatives and our commitment to deploy excess capital over time.
We believe these acquisitions stay true to our long-standing criteria, which is a good cultural fit, a strategic purpose and makes sense for our shareholders.
These results are a testament to the dedication of everyone in the Raymond James family.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
raymond james qtrly earnings per share $2.02.
qtrly net revenues of $2.70 billion, up 30% over prior year's fiscal q4.
qtrly earnings per share $2.02.
qtrly adjusted earnings per share $2.06.
quarter-end private client group assets under administration of $1.12 trillion, up 26% over sept 2020.


Prompt:
Human: We're excited to share these strong results with you.
But before I turn things over to Jay Farner, I will read our disclaimers.
Today's call is to provide you with information regarding our fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 performance in addition to our financial outlook.
Our commentary today will also include non-GAAP financial measures.
And with that, I'll turn things over to Jay Farner to get us started.
The excellent results that we're about to discuss and the innovations that drove them are a testament to your focus and dedication in what was an incredibly difficult year for the world.
Your contributions to our clients and communities were a shining example of how successful our for-more-than-profit mindset can truly be.
The platform continues to be the key to our long-term success in the verticals where we operate as well as the record results that we've achieved in 2020.
Over the next few minutes, you'll see how the technology that we've built and refined over decades will continue to drive success, not only in the products that you're familiar with today, but also in product extensions and entirely new verticals in the future.
If you were to ask us what our most important product is, we'd say it's the platform itself.
In walking through our results, I'll provide updates on each of the key pillars of the Rocket Platform, our technology, the strength of our brand, the Rocket Cloud Force, which I'll discuss later, and our data science foundation.
I'll finish today's remarks by talking about how our platform allows us to continue to grow and become more efficient in our existing lines of business while also launching and rapidly scaling new businesses.
Our mission over the last several decades has been to take the most complicated and stressful transactions in life and simplify them with technology.
Whether those transactions are mortgage, real estate, auto sales, or any number of new initiatives we're currently incubating, we provide a simple digital process, exceptional client experience, and certainty.
This mission began in 1998 when our founder and Chairman, Dan Gilbert, wrote an email committing all of the company's resources to moving online.
His vision was simple, but decades ahead of its time.
Most of the Internet companies of that era focused on problems like search, advertising, or basic e-commerce.
Dan saw things differently.
He spotted the potential to take the most complex transaction in a consumer's life, the buying and financing of a new home, and leverage technology to make it accessible online to consumers across the country.
For more than two decades, we've been quietly building our technology platform right here in Detroit to transform the way our clients experience life's most important events.
We've continued to strengthen our digital products and infrastructure in 2020, deploying nearly 4,500 product features throughout the year and delivering improvements to our platform every 28 minutes on average.
Supporting our platform is our strong national brand that consumers and partners know and trust.
As we grow, we continue to invest and find new ways to extend our reach and expand our marketing channels we leverage, allowing us to connect with more and more clients.
I'm pretty sure the majority of you were among the nearly 100 million fans who watched the Super Bowl a couple of weeks ago.
In that game, we ran two 60-second advertisements highlighting that "certain" is better when it comes to buying a home.
We aired one commercial, highlighting rocket mortgage and our technology that helps bring certainty to the home buying process, something that is needed now more than ever in today's red hot real estate market.
The second demonstrated the significant role mortgage brokers play in American homeownership.
As you know, brokers are important partners as we continue to extend the reach of our platform.
This massive exposure, the first-ever national advertisement showcasing brokers during a super Bowl allows them to align with the power of the Rocket brand to create differentiation in their local markets.
Our ads were ranked Nos.
1 and 2 on USA Today's ad meter, which I am certain is the most prestigious consumer ranking of top Super Bowl ads.
This means not only were our ads led by millions of consumers, but also received tremendous lift and visibility through social media, news articles, and TV networks playing our ads for free.
All told, our Super Bowl activation resulted in more than 3.3 billion consumer impressions.
When you look at the areas where we continue to excel and set the standard, you see both a company and a brand that some of the most well-respected organizations in the world want to associate with.
We've talked about our relationship with American Express, with State Farm, Intuit, Charles Schwab, and others in the past.
On our last call, I also hinted that we would soon be announcing a new partnership.
Today, I am happy to share that Morgan Stanley and E*TRADE have entered into a new agreement with Rocket Mortgage, where our company will originate, close, and service conforming mortgages for their clients.
This arrangement allows Morgan Stanley to continue focusing on its jumbo lending while allowing Rocket Mortgage to provide conforming loan options to the firm's millions of clients.
We are very excited about this opportunity, which will kick off this year.
Another pillar of our business model is the incredible Rocket Cloud Force, now consisting of more than 6,600 U.S.-based professionals trained to advise our clients on complex transactions.
The COVID pandemic truly proved that the power of our Rocket Cloud Force can be harnessed anywhere as our team members work from home in locations across the country.
The versatility and skill of this team allows us to continue exploring new verticals and services.
Our ability to build, train and license large-scale sales teams provides us a significant competitive moat.
Today's consumer expects simple, powerful digital experiences, backed by support and consultation from trusted advisors.
The Rocket Cloud Force's ability to seamlessly integrate into the online experience with timely, accurate, and actionable information is a game changer.
In markets where the legacy experience can be confusing and discouraging, like buying or selling a home, searching for a car, or considering a personal loan, our digital solutions and trusted advisors provide confidence and certainty.
Along with our powerful Rocket Cloud Force, our company also continues to rapidly grow its use of ethical, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to streamline the business.
We have the benefit of millions of clients working with us each year to buy a car, get a personal loan, buy a home or refinance a mortgage, and we've been able to leverage this information to build sophisticated models to ensure our brand is in front of our clients and top of mind when they're ready to transact.
In fact, since the beginning of 2019, data science has driven more than $75 billion in application volume.
The importance of data cannot be overstated.
It is this information that allows us to quickly innovate, anticipate the market and, in some cases, develop new companies altogether.
These real-time insights are a significant market advantage and consistently guide us to the right decisions with incredible efficiency.
Together, these pillars of our business: our scalable platform, our national brand, our Rocket Cloud Force, and our strategic use of data, combine to create a technology powerhouse that continues to accelerate at scale.
It took our company 25 years to close our first 1 million loans.
In 2020 alone, we have helped more than 1.1 million clients with their mortgage, automotive, real estate, or personal loan needs.
Innovation and execution, paired with a highly trained Rocket Cloud Force, creates a flywheel that continues to rapidly accelerate.
I'm even more excited about where we're going in the future.
Just three years ago, we launched Rocket Auto with the belief that we can leverage our platform and Rocket Cloud Force to help simplify the process of purchasing a car.
Everyone knows buying a car is complicated and intimidating.
It's an experience that few consumers look forward to, but we've been able to make it approachable and enjoyable.
Starting from zero in 2017, we've organically scaled Rocket Auto to more than $750 million of gross merchandise value in 2020.
Now that we've validated the model, we will continue to invest in accelerating the growth in 2021 and beyond.
Our partner network is another increasingly important growth driver for Rocket Companies.
We continue to evolve and diversify from our original direct-to-consumer business model.
Partner volume made up 38% of our closed loan volume in 2020, up from 23% just two years ago.
We view this evolution similar to Amazon's past decision to open up its marketplace to third-party sellers.
Like Amazon, we've built a proprietary platform and have the capacity to process millions of transactions a year.
The partner network brings growth and diversification to our business.
Supporting these efforts, in late January, we announced that we launched a directory of nearly every broker in the country on rocketmortgage.com.
We then promoted that directory with the Super Bowl ad that I mentioned earlier.
The impact has been tremendous.
In less than one month since launching, we've had tens of thousands of consumers visit the directory and click through to contact a broker.
All of these elements together have created an incredibly profitable company that has shown an ability to grow, strengthen and scale in any market environment.
The fourth quarter of 2020 was no exception.
All of our businesses performed above expectations, leading to a full-year adjusted revenue of $16.9 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $11.1 billion.
As a result of our exceptional financial performance, Rocket Companies has generated substantial capital.
And today, we're excited to announce that we are sharing our success with our shareholders.
As Julie will soon explain, our Board has authorized a special dividend of $1.11 per share for holders of our stock as of March 9 to be paid on March 23.
We're also accelerating our long-term approach of launching and scaling new businesses from the ground up.
I'm pleased to announce the creation of Rocket Labs.
Rocket Labs' mission is to incubate new businesses within Rocket Companies that leverage our platform and provide our clients with services that complement our existing core products.
Our approach is to empower small, independent teams to work on big ideas and concepts, which form the core of our future products.
We are excited about Rocket Labs and the possibilities it represents.
Before I turn things over to Julie to share our financial results, I'm going to take a moment to give her a proper introduction.
Julie and I have worked together inside this company for 17 years.
During that time, she's led the finance and accounting teams and done a tremendous job managing all aspects of our liquidity.
It's Julie's foresight that has helped us continue to grow in all market cycles.
Not only that, but there's nobody who knows the financial side of this industry better.
We're all lucky to be working alongside her.
With that introduction, Julie, take it away.
I'm pleased to again report strong financial results for Rocket Companies.
For the full-year of 2020, Rocket Companies generated $16.9 billion of adjusted revenue and $11.1 billion of adjusted EBITDA as we wrapped up a record-setting year.
In discussing today's results, I'll walk through some of the key advantages of Rocket Companies' business model.
In particular, I'll highlight the power of our platform to unlock scale, drive efficiency and serve as a launchpad for new businesses focused on simplifying complicated transactions.
I will also provide some insights on our capital allocation priorities.
Our 2020 results demonstrate true growth at scale.
For the full-year 2020, we generated $320 billion of closed loan volume, representing an increase of 121% year over year.
Our success in 2020 was broad-based, with consistent increases across both our direct-to-consumer and partner network channels.
Our growth was so balanced between new and existing client relationships.
2020 was also a year of robust growth across Rocket Companies, with particular strength at Amrock, our title company, with revenues increasing 124% to $1.3 billion during the year.
Rocket Auto, our automotive retail marketplace, also generated robust results orchestrating more than $750 million in gross merchandise value of automotive e-commerce transactions.
This equates to just over 32,000 auto units in 2020 up more than 60% as compared to 2019.
We finished 2020 on a particularly strong note, with fourth-quarter rate lock volume of $96 billion and closed loan volume of $107 billion, both significantly exceeding the high end of our expectations.
Multiple drivers contributed to the outperformance in Q4.
In particular, we are seeing a consumer that is increasingly comfortable completing large complex transactions online.
Continuing the trend, we've seen throughout 2020, our automated, self-serve, digital experience was our fastest-growing channel in Q4.
We also saw strength in Q4 from our branded partnerships and mortgage broker partners after launching the Rocket Pro TPO brands to the broker community and releasing multiple enhancements to our TPO software portal during the fourth quarter.
Rocket Homes also finished the year on a strong note as they assisted clients with nearly $1.6 billion of real estate transactions during the fourth quarter alone.
While current industry estimates on market size very widely, it is clear that Rocket gained meaningful market share in 2020.
Our full-year closed volume growth of 121% substantially exceeded any estimate of the overall industry's growth from third-party sources, which estimates 67% growth on average.
Our Platform business model is the key to enabling our growth at scale that is truly unmatched.
To put this in perspective, Rocket Mortgage's incremental closed volume of $175 billion in 2020 and was more than double the growth of any other market participant.
In fact, our incremental gain in 2020 alone, was nearly large enough to eclipse the entire all-in closed loan volume of the nation's second largest originator last year.
Growing at this pace in a complex category like home loans requires a platform with broad reach scalable infrastructure and centralized software-driven operations.
The Rocket platform is built to perform and grow in the largest, most complex markets.
Our infrastructure also leads to a highly efficient economic model with substantial operating leverage.
Our 2020 results demonstrate Rocket's ability to drive increased scale from a single platform with limited incremental cost.
For the full-year 2020, a Rocket's adjusted revenue increased by $11 billion year over year.
We drove this revenue growth while only adding $2 billion of expenses during the year, or $3 billion of annualized operating expenses based on our fourth quarter.
To demonstrate the efficiency of the business model, Rocket's transactions per production team member in 2020 will roughly triple the industry average.
While our low-cost platform model is driving record profitability, we're continuing our long-term strategy to reinvest in the business.
Key targets for investment include our brand, product development, and initiatives to drive growth in the purchase market.
We continue to invest in talent growth, particularly in technical roles.
As an example, our data science team now includes over 300 professionals.
We're seeing high performers choose to join Rocket across multiple teams, including the ongoing expansion of our technology and product strategy teams.
Our brand is another key investment priority, including our recent Super Bowl ads, which generated significant brand recognition and drove record traffic to our online and mobile properties.
Among our key product development priorities is Rocket Logic, the next generation of our core workflow management platform.
The new platform guides users through the next best action, resulting in faster, more accurate workflows.
We are very impressed with our initial pilot where we are seeing 20% improvement in turn times within the pilot group.
What's even more exciting is that Rocket Logic can be applied to enhance processes beyond mortgage origination.
We expect Rocket Logic and our many automation initiatives to drive continued efficiency in the business model.
The core of our economic flywheel is that we are constantly leveraging our profitability advantages to reinvest in the business, further strengthening our competitive position.
Another key advantage of the Rocket Companies' platform is our ability to test, launch and rapidly scale new business models.
This entrepreneurial approach can be seen in our scaled mortgage operations.
In two years, our partner network has grown from less than $20 billion in closed loan volume to $120 billion on an annual basis.
We see similar opportunity within our early stage, rapidly expanding businesses such as Rocket Auto, Rocket Loans, and Rocket Homes.
To that end, and as Jay announced a few minutes ago, the launch of Rocket Labs will further accelerate our focus on expanding the business in ways that leverage our platform and serve our client base.
We believe our clients will be greatly served over time with these additional business lines.
Turning to our first-quarter outlook.
We expect closed loan volume of $98 billion to $103 billion compared to $51.7 billion in the first quarter of 2020; net rate lock volume of $88 billion to $95 billion, up from $56 billion in the first quarter of 2020; and gain-on-sale margins of 3.6% to 3.9% compared to 3.25% in the first quarter of 2020.
We're excited about the continued strength and momentum of the Rocket platform.
We ended 2020 with an extremely strong balance sheet, including $2 billion of cash and $7.7 billion of total liquidity.
Total liquidity includes cash on hand, undrawn lines of credit, undrawn MSR lines, and corporate cash used to self-fund loan originations, which could be transferred to funding facilities at our option.
As we communicated at the time of our IPO last summer, our capital allocation priorities always start with properly capitalizing and reinvesting in the business.
As I discussed earlier, we are actively deploying capital with investments in our platform, our brand, and our talent.
We also want to deploy through add-on acquisitions that would be additive to our economic flywheel and bring value to our client base.
Our next priority is to return capital to shareholders through dividends, opportunistic use of share buybacks, or a combination of the two.
Given our record level of profitability in 2020, the Board approved a special dividend of $1.11 per Class A common share funded by an equity distribution of $2.2 billion.
Our substantial cash generation provides us significant optionality to drive long-term value for our shareholders.
Additionally, we remain authorized to repurchase up to $1 billion of Rocket Companies' common stock.
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Chosen response:
compname reports special dividend of $1.11 per class a share of common stock.
compname announces special dividend of $1.11 per class a share of common stock.
sees closed loan volume of between $98 billion and $103 billion in q1 2021.
sees net rate lock volume of between $88 billion and $95 billion in q1 2021.