MetLife reported a $620 million quarterly loss driven by $1.4 billion in investment losses which included $857 million of derivative losses.
MetLife Chief Executive C. Robert Henrikson said operating earnings increased 18% from the year-earlier quarter "despite the current economic challenges." Sales increased in numerous product areas in the U.S. and internationally, he said.
One of the bright spots of MetLife’s Q3 numbers came from revenue growth at MetLife Bank. During an earnings call with analysts, Bill Wheeler, EVP and CFO said that:
The bank’s revenues have increased $232 million over the year-ago period, due to the acquisitions of both the forward mortgage and reverse mortgage operation in 2008. Also, forward and reverse mortgage origination volumes have increased substantially this year.
RMD asked MetLife for a breakdown of how much of the revenue came from the reverse mortgage operation and a MetLife spokesperson said they couldn’t provide that information.
While we don’t know how much revenue the division generated, MetLife’s reverse mortgage business is up big compared to last year. You can see from the chart below, both retail and wholesale numbers are up substantially.
