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ATHS, Athene Holding Ltd
We are a leading financial services company that specializes in issuing, reinsuring and acquiring retirement savings products designed for the increasing number of individuals and institutions seeking to fund retirement needs.
Through this relationship, Apollo allows us to leverage the scale of its asset management platform to source attractive assets for our investment portfolio.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Next report Est. 11/3–11/11 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 45 days of period end · has filed ~38 days after · the wire records it on arrival
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- The spread on the float and the growth in book value. What decides it: the gap between what the invested reserves earn and what is credited to policyholders, the mortality and fee margins on top, and the scale of the float against equity. Benefits exceed premiums by design, so a P&C combined ratio is the wrong lens; the risks are interest rates and reserve adequacy. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- A life insurer is read on the spread it earns on a large float and the growth in book value, not a combined ratio: benefits exceed premiums by design, since claims fall due decades after the premium and are funded by the investment income on accumulated reserves. Whether the spread holds as rates move, and whether the reserves prove adequate, are what the 10-K decides, not an earnings multiple.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMJun 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $4.1B | $8.8B | $7.5B | $16.3B | $14.8B | $26.3B | $19.2B | $28.2B | $20.7B | $25.7B | $29.0B | RevenueRevenue |
| $240M | $2.5B | $3.5B | $6.4B | $6.0B | $14.3B | $11.6B | $12.7B | $1.3B | $2.6B | $2.8B | Premiums earnedPremiums |
| $2.9B | $3.3B | $4.1B | $4.6B | $4.8B | $7.1B | $7.6B | $11.1B | — | — | $12.0B | Investment incomeInv. inc. |
| $712M | $1.5B | $1.2B | $2.3B | $2.2B | $4.2B | ($5.7B) | $4.6B | $5.6B | $5.1B | — | Pretax incomePretax |
| $773M | $1.4B | $1.1B | $2.2B | $1.5B | $3.9B | ($2.9B) | $4.7B | $3.5B | $2.7B | $833M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| -9% | 7% | 10% | 5% | 13% | 9% | — | — | 13% | 17% | — | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $1.2B | $3.2B | $2.9B | $2.7B | $4.2B | $10.3B | $6.3B | $5.0B | $1.9B | $5.2B | $6.3B | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| 11% | 15% | 13% | 16% | 8% | 19% | -41% | 34% | 21% | 13% | 4% | Return on equityROE |
| — | — | — | — | 8% | 19% | −59% | 27% | 18% | 10% | 0% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| — | — | — | — | $0 | $0 | $1.3B | $937M | $452M | $752M | $752M | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| — | — | $105M | $832M | $428M | $8M | $0 | $0 | — | — | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| ($2.7B) | ($5.8B) | ($8.2B) | ($10.0B) | ($14.8B) | ($27.9B) | ($34.4B) | ($43.6B) | ($61.9B) | ($63.8B) | — | Investing cash flowInv. cash |
| $1.2B | $5.0B | $3.7B | $8.5B | $14.5B | $19.6B | $26.5B | $44.8B | $59.4B | $61.3B | — | Financing cash flowFin. cash |
| ($13M) | $32M | $0 | $0 | ($26M) | ($2M) | ($15M) | $10M | ($3M) | $5M | — | Exchange-rate effectFX |
| ($320M) | $2.5B | ($1.6B) | $1.2B | $3.8B | $2.0B | ($1.7B) | $6.1B | ($620M) | $2.6B | — | Change in cashΔ cash |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| — | — | — | $117.9B | $165.7B | $190.6B | $213.2B | $257.6B | $299.4B | $360.8B | — | Float (life basis)Float |
| $86.7B | $100.2B | $125.5B | $146.9B | $202.8B | $235.1B | $243.9B | $300.6B | $363.3B | $442.2B | $472.9B | Total assetsAssets |
| $79.8B | $91.0B | $117.2B | $132.7B | $182.6B | $213.0B | $233.4B | $279.3B | $337.5B | $406.6B | — | Total liabilitiesTotal liab. |
| $1M | — | $0 | $750M | $1.5B | $2.1B | $3.4B | $7.4B | $9.5B | $15.1B | — | Noncontrolling interestsNCI |
| $6.9B | $9.2B | $8.3B | $13.4B | $18.7B | $20.1B | $7.2B | $13.8B | $16.4B | $20.5B | $18.6B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
The year, in the company's words
the filing →Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.
- Revenue+24.1%
“Revenues Revenues increased by $5.0 billion to $25.7 billion in 2025 from $20.7 billion in 2024. The increase was primarily driven by an increase in net investment income, an increase in premiums and an increase in VIE investment related gains (losses), partially offset by a decrease in investment related gains (losses).”
✓ figure matches the filed record
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- Return on equity 13%SolidNet income $2.7B ÷ equity $20.5BIndustry peers: median 10%
What this means
What it earns on shareholders' capital, the underwriting result plus what the float earns invested. Durably above the ~10% cost of equity is what compounds book value.
- Spread over crediting 2.7% · FY2023Last reported FY2023FY2023, the most recent year reported: (investment income $11.1B − interest credited $4.2B) ÷ that year's float $257.6B
What this means
The life insurer's engine — what the float earns invested less what is credited to policyholders — read at the most recent year the filing data carries all three legs, and named rather than passed off as current.
The float and book value
- Float $360.8B17.6× equityPolicy benefits + deposits + guarantees − recoverables − DAC − receivables = $360.8B
What this means
Money held against future claims and invested in the meantime. Buffett's insight was that good underwriting makes this float cost less than nothing, a pool of other people's money the owners earn on. Basis note: DAC deduction unavailable; receivables deduction unavailable. The larger it is against equity, the more that leverage works, for better or worse.
- Not enough data
What this means
Equity or share count missing.
The reserves
- Not enough data
What this means
Not disclosed in the filings' structured data — the absence is itself worth knowing on a business whose product is a promise.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.
- Insider ownership6.8%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2021 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Pension & retirement, Acquisitions, Insurance reserves as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Insurance — Life & Health
The same industry, side by side on the spread-and-book-value lens. Each column names the period it is read over, and a median resting on fewer than three years carries that count beside it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.
| Company | Revenuelatest FY, USD | ROEmedian over the record | Yield on floatmedian over the record | Return on assetsmedian over the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| METMetLife Inc. | $77.1B | 9% | 5.1% | 0.7% |
| PFHPrudential Financial, Inc. | $60.8B | 9% | 4.3% | 0.5% |
| SLFSun Life Financial Inc. | $30.3B | 12% | 3.1%1y | 0.9% |
| ATHSAthene Holding Ltd | $25.7B | 14% | 3.7% | 0.9% |
| RGAReinsurance Group of America | $23.7B | 9% | 9.7% | 1.0% |
| CRBGCorebridge Financial Inc. | $19.0B | 14% | 5.1% | 0.4% |
| LNCLincoln National | $18.2B | 11% | 4.1% | 0.4% |
| PUKPrudential Public Limited Company | $11.5B | 10% | — | 0.4% |
| Group median | — | 11% | 4.3% | 0.6% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookAn insurer is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what Athene Holding Ltd’s record justifies.
The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). An insurer earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; the premium above that prices each point of durable excess return. A higher cost of equity lowers the justified multiple for an insurer.
Enter a price above to run it.
Graham applied the same standards to financial enterprises (Intelligent Investor ch.14): the 15× multiple cap on averaged earnings, and P/E times price-to-book at most 22.5. The gate marks the bargain-hunter’s floor, not a verdict.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Tangible book $12.8B on 0M shares, a 15% normalized return on it. The dials set the multiple such a return would justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. It assumes the insurer keeps earning that return; an underwriting cycle, a reserve shortfall or a bad year on the float changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.
Manual order: ← ATEX its page in the Manual ATI →
Industry order: ← AFL the Insurance — Life & Health chapter BHF →