What: Shares of Genworth Financial (GNW 1.87%) are trading down by more than 13% after the company missed earnings expectations for the second quarter.
So what: Genworth Financial reported a second quarter loss of $193 million, resulting in a net loss of $0.39 per share. Adjusted for one-time gains and costs, earnings were $0.24 per share, below the consensus estimate of $0.26 per share.
The company separately announced that it no longer expected to sell its life and annuity insurance businesses on its conference call with analysts. Previously, the company's stock popped on a potential sale of its life insurance business, when the company announced that it was "in the early stages" of discussions after its first quarter earnings report.
Genworth remains in a position where it needs capital to firm up its balance sheet through the sale of business lines or insurance contracts. It now plans to sell blocks of its life insurance contracts, hoping that the sales will allow it to raise capital without further negative impact to its credit ratings, which were cut to junk in 2014.
Now what: Genworth is moving forward on a sale of its lifestyle protection business, which had a negative, $306 million after-tax impact to the company's net income this quarter. All in all, the company hopes that asset sales can help it achieve its goal of reducing its outstanding debt by $1 to $2 billion, putting it back in the favor of credit ratings agencies, and thus its potential customers.
A falling share price may be a sign of a total loss of confidence in the company in recent months. Between a nearly half-billion dollar charge to realign reserves with expected claims in its long-tail insurance lines last year, to flip-flopping management preferences toward the sale of some of its assets, the company's falling share price -- is a clear sign that investors are simply losing confidence that the ship can be righted.
