10-K 1 d10k.htm FORM 10-K Form 10-K
Table of Contents

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 


 

FORM 10-K

(MARK ONE)

x ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

 

FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2003

 

OR

 

¨ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

 

FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM             TO            

 

COMMISSION FILE NUMBER 001-16707

 


 

Prudential Financial, Inc.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter)

 

New Jersey

(State or Other Jurisdiction

of Incorporation or Organization)

 

22-3703799

(I.R.S. Employer

Identification Number)

 

751 Broad Street

Newark, New Jersey 07102

(973) 802-6000

(Address and Telephone Number of Registrant’s Principal Executive Offices)

 

SECURITIES REGISTERED PURSUANT TO SECTION 12(b) OF THE ACT:

 

Title of Each Class


 

Name of Each Exchange on Which Registered


Common Stock, Par Value $.01

(including Shareholder Protection Rights)

6.75% Equity Security Units

 

New York Stock Exchange

 

New York Stock Exchange

 

SECURITIES REGISTERED PURSUANT TO SECTION 12(g) OF THE ACT: NONE

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes x No ¨

 

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ¨

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an accelerated filer (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act).

Yes x No ¨

 

As of June 30, 2003, the aggregate market value of the registrant’s Common Stock (par value $0.01) held by non-affiliates of the registrant was $18,405,058,430 and 546,955,674 shares of the Common Stock were outstanding. As of February 27, 2004, 532,851,788 shares of the registrant’s Common Stock (par value $0.01) were outstanding. As of June 30, 2003, and February 27, 2004, 2,000,000 shares of the registrant’s Class B Stock, for which there is no established public trading market, were outstanding and held by non-affiliates of the registrant.

 

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

 

THE INFORMATION REQUIRED TO BE FURNISHED PURSUANT TO PART III OF THIS FORM 10-K IS SET FORTH IN, AND IS HEREBY INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE HEREIN FROM, THE REGISTRANT’S DEFINITIVE PROXY STATEMENT FOR THE ANNUAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS TO BE HELD ON JUNE 8, 2004, TO BE FILED BY THE REGISTRANT WITH THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION PURSUANT TO REGULATION 14A NOT LATER THAN 120 DAYS AFTER THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2003.

 



Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

               Page
Number


PART I

   Item 1.    Business    1
     Item 1A.    Executive Officers    32
     Item 2.    Properties    34
     Item 3.    Legal Proceedings    34
     Item 4.    Submission of Matters to a Vote of Security Holders    38

PART II

   Item 5.    Market for Registrant’s Common Equity and Related Stockholder Matters    38
     Item 6.    Selected Financial Data    42
     Item 7.    Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations    44
     Item 7A.    Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk    105
     Item 8.    Financial Statements and Supplementary Data    111
     Item 9.    Changes In and Disagreements With Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure    189
     Item 9A.    Controls and Procedures    189

PART III

   Item 10.    Directors and Executive Officers of the Registrant    189
     Item 11.    Executive Compensation    189
     Item 12.    Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management    190
     Item 13.    Certain Relationships and Related Transactions    191
     Item 14.    Principal Accountants Fees and Services    191

PART IV

   Item 15.    Exhibits, Financial Statement Schedules, and Reports on Form 8-K    191

SIGNATURES

   205

Forward-Looking Statements

    

 

Certain of the statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including but not limited to those in the Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “expects,” “believes,” “anticipates,” “includes,” “plans,” “assumes,” “estimates,” “projects,” “intends” or variations of such words are generally part of forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are made based on management’s current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects upon Prudential Financial, Inc. and its subsidiaries. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting Prudential Financial, Inc. and its subsidiaries will be those anticipated by management. These forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and there are certain important factors that could cause actual results to differ, possibly materially, from expectations or estimates reflected in such forward-looking statements, including without limitation: general economic, market and political conditions, including the performance of financial markets and interest rate fluctuations; various domestic or international military or terrorist activities or conflicts; volatility in the securities markets; reestimates of our reserves for future policy benefits and claims; changes in our assumptions related to deferred policy acquisition costs; our exposure to contingent liabilities; catastrophe losses; investment losses and defaults; changes in our claims-paying or credit ratings; competition in our product lines and for personnel; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and foreign securities markets; risks to our international operations; the impact of changing regulation or accounting practices; Prudential Financial, Inc.’s primary reliance, as a holding company, on dividends from its subsidiaries to meet debt payment obligations and the applicable regulatory restrictions on the ability of the subsidiaries to pay such dividends; adverse litigation results; and changes in tax law. Prudential Financial, Inc. does not intend, and is under no obligation, to update any particular forward-looking statement included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

Throughout this Annual Report on Form 10-K, “Prudential Financial” and the “Registrant” refer to Prudential Financial, Inc., the ultimate holding company for all of our companies. “Prudential Insurance” refers to The Prudential Insurance Company of America, before and after its demutualization on December 18, 2001 (the “date of demutualization”). “Prudential,” the “Company,” “we” and “our” refer to our consolidated operations before and after demutualization. The “Plan of Reorganization” refers to Prudential Insurance’s Plan of Reorganization, dated as of December 15, 2000 and as amended from time to time thereafter, relating to Prudential Insurance’s demutualization.

 

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PART I

 

ITEM 1.    BUSINESS

 

Overview and Demutualization

 

Prudential Financial, Inc. is one of the largest financial services institutions in the U.S. Through our subsidiaries and affiliates, we provide a wide range of insurance, investment management and other financial products and services to individual and institutional customers in the U.S. and over 30 other countries through one of the largest distribution networks in the financial services industry. Our principal executive offices are located in Newark, New Jersey.

 

On the date of demutualization, Prudential Insurance converted from a mutual life insurance company owned by its policyholders to a stock life insurance company and became an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Prudential Financial. On that date, eligible policyholders, as defined in the Plan of Reorganization, received shares of Prudential Financial’s Common Stock or the right to receive cash or policy credits, which are increases in policy values or increases in other policy benefits, upon the extinguishment of all membership interests in Prudential Insurance.

 

On the date of demutualization, Prudential Financial completed an initial public offering of 126.5 million shares of its Common Stock at an initial public offering price of $27.50 per share, including 16.5 million shares issued as a result of the exercise of the over-allotment option granted to underwriters in the initial public offering. Also on the date of demutualization, Prudential Financial completed the sale, through a private placement, of 2.0 million shares of Class B Stock, a separate class of common stock, at a price of $87.50 per share. The Common Stock reflects the performance of the Financial Services Businesses and the Class B Stock reflects the performance of the Closed Block Business. Collectively, the Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business are referred to as the “Businesses.” See “—Segregation of the Businesses” below for a discussion of the Businesses. In addition, on the date of demutualization, Prudential Financial and Prudential Financial Capital Trust I, a statutory business trust, co-issued 13.8 million 6.75% equity security units for gross proceeds of $690 million. Furthermore, Prudential Holdings, LLC (“PHLLC”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Prudential Financial that owns the capital stock of Prudential Insurance, issued $1.75 billion in senior secured notes (the “IHC debt”), a portion of which were insured by a bond insurer. See “—Segregation of the Businesses—Separation of the Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business” for further discussion of the IHC debt. Concurrent with the demutualization, various subsidiaries of Prudential Insurance were reorganized, becoming direct or indirect subsidiaries of Prudential Financial.

 

The Plan of Reorganization required us to establish and operate a regulatory mechanism known as the “Closed Block.” The Closed Block is designed generally to provide for the reasonable expectations of holders of policies included in the Closed Block for future policy dividends after demutualization by allocating assets that will be used for payment of benefits, including policyholder dividends, on these policies. See Note 8 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for more information on the Closed Block.

 

The Plan of Reorganization provided that Prudential Insurance may, with the prior consent of the New Jersey Commissioner of Banking and Insurance, enter into agreements to transfer to a third party all or any part of the risks under the Closed Block policies. As of December 31, 2003, we have begun to put in place the reinsurance contracts necessary to transfer a portion of these risks.

 

Segregation of the Businesses

 

General

 

The businesses of Prudential Financial are separated into the Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business. For a discussion of the operating results of the Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business see “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” The Financial Services Businesses is comprised of our Insurance division, Investment division, and International Insurance and Investments division as well as our Corporate and Other operations. See “—Financial Services Businesses” below for a more detailed discussion of the divisions comprising the Financial Services Businesses. The Closed Block Business is comprised of the assets and related liabilities of the Closed Block and other assets and liabilities, including the IHC debt. See “—Closed Block Business” below for a more detailed discussion of the Closed Block Business.

 

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The following diagram reflects the allocation of Prudential Financial’s consolidated assets and liabilities between the Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business:

 

LOGO

 

There is no legal separation of the two Businesses. The foregoing allocation of assets and liabilities did not and does not require Prudential Financial, Prudential Insurance, any of their subsidiaries, or the Closed Block to transfer any specific assets or liabilities to a new legal entity. Financial results of the Closed Block Business, including debt service on the IHC debt, will affect Prudential Financial’s consolidated results of operations, financial position and borrowing costs. In addition, any net losses of the Closed Block Business, and any dividends or distributions on, or repurchases of, the Class B Stock, will reduce the assets of Prudential Financial legally available for dividends on the Common Stock. Accordingly, you should read financial information for the Financial Services Businesses together with the consolidated financial information of Prudential Financial.

 

The Common Stock reflects the performance of the Financial Services Businesses and the Class B Stock reflects the performance of the Closed Block Business. However, there can be no assurance that the market value of our Common Stock will reflect solely the performance of the Financial Services Businesses.

 

Separation of the Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business

 

In order to separately reflect the financial performance of the Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business since the date of demutualization, we have allocated all our assets and liabilities and earnings between the two Businesses, and we account for them as if they were separate legal entities. All assets and liabilities of Prudential Financial and its subsidiaries not included in the Closed Block Business constitute the Financial Services Businesses. Assets and liabilities allocated to the Closed Block Business are those that we consider appropriate to operate that business. The Closed Block Business consists principally of:

 

    within Prudential Insurance, the Closed Block Assets, Surplus and Related Assets, deferred policy acquisition costs and other assets and, with respect to liabilities, the Closed Block Liabilities;

 

    within PHLLC, the principal amount of the IHC debt, the related unamortized debt issuance costs and hedging activities, and a guaranteed investment contract; and

 

    within Prudential Financial, dividends received from PHLLC, and reinvestment thereof, and other liabilities of Prudential Financial, in each case as attributable to the Closed Block Business.

 

The Closed Block Assets consist of (i) those assets initially allocated to the Closed Block, (ii) cash flows from such assets, (iii) assets resulting from the reinvestment of such cash flows, (iv) cash flows from the Closed Block Policies, and (v) assets resulting from the investment of cash flows from the Closed Block Policies. The Closed Block Assets include policy loans, accrued interest on any of the foregoing assets and due premiums on the Closed Block Policies. The Closed Block Assets do not include assets relating to a closed block established for Canadian polices

 

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because these amounts are insignificant. The Closed Block Liabilities are Closed Block Policies and other liabilities of the Closed Block associated with the Closed Block Assets. The Closed Block Assets and Closed Block Liabilities are supported by additional assets outside the Closed Block that Prudential Insurance needs to hold to meet capital requirements related to the Closed Block Policies (the “Surplus Assets”), as well as invested assets held outside the Closed Block that represent the difference between the Closed Block Assets and the sum of the Closed Block Liabilities and the interest maintenance reserve (the “Related Assets” or, together with the Surplus Assets, the “Surplus and Related Assets”). The interest maintenance reserve, recorded only under statutory accounting principles, captures realized capital gains and losses resulting from changes in the general level of interest rates. These gains and losses are to be amortized into investment income over the expected remaining life of the investments sold.

 

On the date of demutualization, the majority of the net proceeds from the issuances of the Class B Stock and the IHC debt was allocated to our Financial Services Businesses. Also, on the date of demutualization, PHLLC distributed $1,218 million of the net proceeds of the IHC debt to Prudential Financial to use for general corporate purposes in the Financial Services Businesses. PHLLC deposited $437 million of the net proceeds of the IHC debt in a debt service coverage account maintained in the Financial Services Businesses which, together with reinvested earnings thereon, constitutes a source of payment and security for the IHC debt. The remainder of the net proceeds, or $72 million, was used to purchase a guaranteed investment contract to fund a portion of the bond insurance related to the IHC debt. To the extent we use the debt service coverage account to service payments with respect to the IHC debt or to pay dividends to Prudential Financial for purposes of the Closed Block Business, a loan from the Financial Services Businesses to the Closed Block Business would be established. Such inter-business loan would be repaid by the Closed Block Business to the Financial Services Businesses when earnings from the Closed Block Business replenish funds in the debt service coverage account to a specified level.

 

We believe that the proceeds from the issuances of the Class B Stock and IHC debt allocated to the Financial Services Businesses reflected capital in excess of that necessary to support the Closed Block Business and that the Closed Block Business as established has sufficient assets and cash flows to service the IHC debt. The investors in the Class B Stock and the bond insurer agreed to this allocation and usage of issuance proceeds. The Closed Block Business was financially leveraged through the issuance of the IHC debt, and dividends on the Class B Stock are subject to prior servicing of the IHC debt. It is expected that any inter-business loan referred to above will be repaid in full out of the Surplus and Related Assets, but not the Closed Block Assets. Any such loan will be subordinate to the IHC debt.

 

The Financial Services Businesses will bear any expenses and liabilities from litigation affecting the Closed Block Policies and, as discussed below, the consequences of certain potential adverse tax determinations. In connection with the sale of the Class B Stock and IHC debt, we have agreed to indemnify the investors therein with respect to certain matters, and such indemnification will be borne by the Financial Services Businesses.

 

Within the Closed Block Business, the assets and cash flows attributable to the Closed Block inure solely to the benefit of the Closed Block policyholders through policyholder dividends after payment of benefits, expenses and taxes. The Surplus and Related Assets inure to the benefit of the holders of Class B Stock. The earnings on, and distribution of, the Surplus and Related Assets over time will be the source or measure of payment of the interest and principal of the IHC debt and of dividends on the Class B Stock. The earnings of the Closed Block are reported as part of the Closed Block Business, although no cash flows or assets of the Closed Block inure to the benefit of the holders of Common Stock or Class B Stock. The Closed Block Assets are not available to service interest and principal of the IHC debt or dividends on the Class B Stock.

 

Inter-Business Transfers and Allocation Policies

 

Prudential Financial’s Board of Directors has adopted certain policies with respect to inter-business transfers and accounting and tax matters, including the allocation of earnings. Such policies are summarized below. In the future, the Board of Directors may modify, rescind or add to any of these policies. However, the decision of the Board of Directors to modify, rescind or add to any of these policies is subject to the Board of Directors’ general fiduciary duties. In addition, we have agreed with the investors in the Class B Stock and the insurer of the IHC debt that, in most instances, the Board of Directors may not change these policies without their consent.

 

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Inter-Business Transactions and Transfers

 

The transactions permitted between the Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business, subject to any required regulatory approvals and the contractual limitations noted above, include the following:

 

    The Closed Block Business may lend to the Financial Services Businesses, and the Financial Services Businesses may lend to the Closed Block Business, in either case on terms no less favorable to the Closed Block Business than comparable internal loans and only for cash management purposes in the ordinary course of business and on market terms pursuant to our internal short-term cash management facility.

 

    Other transactions between the Closed Block and businesses outside of the Closed Block, including the Financial Services Businesses, are permitted if, among other things, such transactions benefit the Closed Block, are at fair market value and do not exceed, in any calendar year, a specified formulaic amount.

 

    Capital contributions to Prudential Insurance may be for the benefit of either the Financial Services Businesses or the Closed Block Business and assets of the Financial Services Businesses within Prudential Insurance may be transferred to the Closed Block Business within Prudential Insurance in the form of a loan which is subordinated to all existing obligations of the Closed Block Business on market terms.

 

    An inter-business loan from the Financial Services Businesses to the Closed Block Business may be established to reflect usage of the net proceeds of the IHC debt initially deposited in the debt service coverage account, and any reinvested earnings thereon, to pay debt service on the IHC debt or dividends to Prudential Financial for purposes of the Closed Block Business.

 

    In addition to the foregoing, the Financial Services Businesses may lend to the Closed Block Business, on either a subordinated or non-subordinated basis, on market terms as may be approved by Prudential Financial.

 

    The Financial Services Businesses and the Closed Block Business may engage in such other transactions on market terms as may be approved by Prudential Financial and, if applicable, Prudential Insurance.

 

    The Board of Directors has discretion to transfer assets of the Financial Services Businesses to the Closed Block, or use such assets for the benefit of Closed Block policyholders, if it believes such transfer or usage is in the best interests of the Financial Services Businesses, and such transfer or usage may be made without requiring any repayment of the amounts transferred or used or the payment of any other consideration from the Closed Block Business.

 

    Cash payments for administrative purposes from the Closed Block Business to the Financial Services Businesses are based on formulas that initially approximated the actual expenses incurred by the Financial Services Businesses to provide such services based on insurance and policies in force and statutory cash premiums. Administrative expenses recorded by the Closed Block Business, and the related income tax effect, are based upon actual expenses incurred under generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”) utilizing the Company’s methodology for the allocation of such expenses. Any difference in the cash amount transferred and actual expenses incurred as reported under GAAP will be recorded, on an after-tax basis at the applicable current rate, as direct adjustments to the respective equity balances of the Closed Block Business and the Financial Services Businesses, without the issuance of shares of either Business to the other Business. This direct equity adjustment modifies earnings available to each class of common stock for earnings per share purposes. Internal investment expenses recorded and paid by the Closed Block Business, and the related income tax effect, are based upon actual expenses incurred under GAAP and in accordance with internal arrangements governing record keeping, bank fees, accounting and reporting, asset allocation, investment policy and planning and analysis.

 

Accounting Policies

 

Accounting policies relating to the allocation of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses between the two Businesses include:

 

    All our assets, liabilities, equity and earnings are allocated between the two Businesses and accounted for as if the Businesses were separate legal entities. Assets and liabilities allocated to the Closed Block Business are those that we consider appropriate to operate that business. All remaining assets and liabilities of Prudential Financial and its subsidiaries constitute the Financial Services Businesses.

 

   

For financial reporting purposes, revenues; administrative, overhead and investment expenses; taxes other than federal income taxes; and certain commissions and commission-related expenses associated with the Closed Block Business are allocated between the Closed Block Business and the Financial Services Businesses in

 

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accordance with GAAP. Interest expense and routine maintenance and administrative costs generated by the IHC debt are considered directly attributable to the Closed Block Business and are therefore allocated to the Closed Block Business except as indicated below.

 

    Any transfers of funds between the Closed Block Business and the Financial Services Businesses will typically be accounted for as either reimbursement of expense, investment income, return of principal or a subordinated loan, except as contemplated under “—Inter-Business Transactions and Transfers” above.

 

    The Financial Services Businesses will bear any expenses and liabilities from litigation affecting the Closed Block Policies and the consequences of certain potential adverse tax determinations noted below. In connection with the sale of the Class B Stock and IHC debt, we have agreed to indemnify the investors with respect to certain matters, and such indemnification will be borne by the Financial Services Businesses.

 

Tax Allocation and Tax Treatment

 

The Closed Block Business within each legal entity is treated as if it were a consolidated subsidiary of Prudential Financial. Accordingly, if the Closed Block Business has taxable income, it recognizes its share of income tax as if it were a consolidated subsidiary of Prudential Financial. If the Closed Block Business has losses or credits, it recognizes a current income tax benefit.

 

If the Closed Block Business within any legal entity has taxable income, it pays its share of income tax in cash to the Financial Services Businesses. If it has losses or credits, it receives its benefit in cash from the Financial Services Businesses. If the losses or credits cannot be currently utilized in the consolidated federal income tax return of Prudential Financial for the year in which such losses or credits arise, the Closed Block Business will receive the full benefit in cash, and the Financial Services Businesses will subsequently recover the payment for itself at the time the losses or credits are actually utilized in computing estimated payments or in the consolidated federal income tax return of Prudential Financial. Certain tax costs and benefits are determined under the Plan of Reorganization with respect to the Closed Block using statutory accounting rules that may give rise to tax costs or tax benefits prior to the time that those costs or benefits are actually realized for tax purposes. If at any time the Closed Block Business is allocated any such tax cost or a tax benefit under the Plan of Reorganization that is not realized at that same time under the relevant tax rules but will be realized in the future, the Closed Block Business will pay such tax cost or receive such tax benefit at that time, but it shall be paid to or paid by the Financial Services Businesses. When such tax cost or tax benefit is subsequently realized under the relevant tax rules, the tax cost or tax benefit shall be allocated to the Financial Services Businesses. The foregoing principles will be applied so as to prevent any item of income, deduction, gain, loss, credit, tax cost or tax benefit being taken into account more than once by the Closed Block Business (including the Closed Block) or the Financial Services Businesses. For this purpose, items determined under the Plan of Reorganization with respect to any period prior to the date of demutualization (“Pre-Closing Tax Attributes”) shall be taken into account with any such Pre-Closing Tax Attributes relating to the Closed Block being attributed to the Closed Block Business and all other Pre-Closing Tax Attributes being attributed to the Financial Services Businesses. The Closed Block Business will also pay or receive its appropriate share of tax or interest resulting from adjustments attributable to the settlement of tax controversies or the filing of amended tax returns to the extent such tax or interest relates to controversies or amended returns arising with respect to the Closed Block Business and attributable to tax periods after the date of demutualization, except to the extent that such tax is directly attributable to the characterization of the IHC debt for tax purposes, in which case the tax shall be borne by the Financial Services Businesses. In particular (and without limitation of the foregoing) if a change of tax law after the date of demutualization, including any change in the interpretation of any tax law, results in the recharacterization of all or part of the IHC debt for tax purposes or a significant reduction in the income tax benefit associated with the interest expense on all or part of the IHC debt, the Financial Services Businesses will continue to pay the foregone income tax benefit to the Closed Block Business until the IHC debt has been repaid or PHLLC has been released from its obligations to the bond insurer and under the IHC debt as if such recharacterization or reduction of actual benefit had not occurred.

 

Financial Services Businesses

 

The Financial Services Businesses is comprised of three divisions, containing eight segments, and our Corporate and Other operations. The Insurance division is comprised of our Individual Life and Annuities segment and our Group Insurance segment. The Investment division is comprised of the Investment Management, Financial Advisory, Retirement and Other Asset Management segments. The International Insurance and Investments division is comprised of the International Insurance and International Investments segments.

 

See Note 19 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for revenues, income and loss, and total assets by segment of the Financial Services Businesses.

 

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Insurance Division

 

The Insurance division conducts its business through the Individual Life and Annuities and Group Insurance segments.

 

Individual Life and Annuities

 

Our Individual Life and Annuities segment manufactures and distributes individual variable life, term life, universal life and non-participating whole life insurance, and variable and fixed annuity products, primarily to the U.S. mass affluent market and mass market. In general, we consider households with investable assets or income in excess of $100,000 as mass affluent. Our life products are distributed primarily through Prudential Agents and increasingly through third parties. Our annuity products are distributed through a diverse group of independent financial planners, broker-dealers and banks as well as through Prudential Agents.

 

On May 1, 2003, we acquired Skandia U.S. Inc. (“Skandia U.S.”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Skandia Insurance Company Ltd. (“Skandia”), for a total purchase price of $1.184 billion. Beginning May 1, 2003, 100% of the assets acquired and liabilities assumed and the results of operations have been included in our consolidated financial statements. The annuity operations of Skandia U.S. are included as a component of our individual annuity business discussed below. Our acquisition of Skandia U.S. included American Skandia, Inc. (“American Skandia”). American Skandia, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, is one of the largest distributors of variable annuities through independent financial planners in the U. S. American Skandia also operates a mutual fund business, the results of which are included within the Investment Management segment. The acquisition significantly expanded and diversified our third party distribution capabilities in the U.S. and broadened our array of product offerings.

 

Skandia has agreed to indemnify us for certain losses, including losses resulting from litigation or regulatory matters relating to events prior to closing the transaction and brought within four years, subject to an aggregate cap of $1 billion. Under the terms of a License Agreement, we will have the right to use the “American Skandia” name in conjunction with our own name in the U.S. in the annuity business for five years and in the mutual fund business for two years. Skandia has agreed not to compete with us in the U.S. in the annuity business for five years and in the mutual fund business for two years.

 

The integration of American Skandia is expected to continue through the first quarter of 2005. Currently, the distribution, marketing and product development functions as well as many administrative, support, and control functions have been combined with Prudential’s existing annuities business. Key management from both organizations have been retained, and all major decisions related to the integration have been communicated. In 2004, integration efforts will focus on consolidating systems platforms and operations functions. The integration of American Skandia is proceeding as planned.

 

Products

 

Variable Life Insurance

 

We offer a number of individual variable life insurance products that provide a return linked to an underlying investment portfolio designated by the policyholder while providing the policyholder with the flexibility to change both the death benefit and premium payments. Each product provides for the deduction of charges and expenses from the customer’s investment account. We also offer variable life products targeted to the estate planning and corporate-owned life insurance markets.

 

Term Life Insurance

 

We offer a variety of term life insurance products. Most term products include a conversion feature that allows the policyholder to convert the policy into permanent life insurance coverage. We most recently repriced our term insurance portfolio in June 2003.

 

Universal Life Insurance

 

We offer universal life insurance products that feature a market rate fixed interest investment account and flexible premiums. In June 2003, we updated our universal life insurance products and began to offer survivorship universal life, which covers two individuals on a single policy and provides for payment of a death benefit upon the death of the second insured individual.

 

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Non-participating Whole Life Insurance

 

We offer a non-participating whole life insurance product with guaranteed fixed level premiums and guaranteed cash values.

 

Variable and Fixed Annuities

 

We offer variable annuities that provide our customers with the opportunity to invest in proprietary and non-proprietary mutual funds and fixed-rate options. The investments made by customers in the proprietary and non-proprietary mutual funds represent separate accounts for which the contractholder bears the investment risk. The investments made in the fixed rate options are credited with interest at rates determined by us, subject to certain minimums. Additionally, our variable annuities products offer certain minimum death benefit and living benefit guarantee options. We also offer fixed annuities that provide a guarantee of principal and a guaranteed interest rate to be credited to the principal amount for a specified period of time.

 

Marketing and Distribution

 

Prudential Agents

 

Our Prudential Agents distribute variable, term, universal and non-participating whole life insurance, variable and fixed annuities, and investment and protection products with proprietary and non-proprietary investment options as well as selected insurance products manufactured by others.

 

The following table sets forth the number of Prudential Agents, field managers, home office and field staff and field offices as of the dates indicated:

 

     As of December 31,

     2003

   2002

   2001

Prudential Agents

   4,320    4,389    4,387

Field management

   411    472    573

Home office and field staff

   965    1,053    1,202

Prudential field offices

   72    79    79

 

Prudential Agents historically have sold life insurance products primarily to customers in households with income ranging from about $20,000 to $80,000 per year. More recently, Prudential Agents have increasingly targeted mass affluent individuals as well as small business owners.

 

The majority of Prudential Agents are multi-line traditional agents. Other than certain training allowances or salary paid at the beginning of their employment, we pay Prudential Agents on a commission basis for the products they sell. In addition to commissions, Prudential Agents receive the employee benefits that we provide to other Prudential employees generally, including medical and disability insurance, an employee savings program and qualified retirement plans.

 

Historically, the Individual Life and Annuities segment has been compensated for property and casualty insurance products sold through its distribution network. Following the sale of the property and casualty insurance operations, Prudential Agents will have continued access to non-proprietary property and casualty products under distribution agreements entered into with the purchasers of these businesses; therefore, the Individual Life and Annuities segment will continue to be compensated for sales of these products, although the extent of these revenues cannot be predicted.

 

Third Party Distribution

 

Our individual life and annuity products are offered through a variety of third party channels, including independent brokers, general agencies, producer groups, banks and broker-dealers. Our third party distribution capabilities in the U.S. were significantly expanded when we acquired American Skandia. We have historically focused on serving the intermediaries who provide insurance solutions in support of estate and wealth transfer planning for affluent individuals and corporate-owned life insurance for businesses. However, we have expanded our target market to include mass affluent individuals in addition to affluent individuals. The life insurance products offered are generally the same as those available through Prudential Agents. The annuity products offered via the third party channels include both Prudential and American Skandia branded products. We do not currently sell American Skandia branded products through Prudential Agents. Our third party efforts are supported by a network of internal and external wholesalers.

 

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Underwriting and Pricing

 

Life Insurance

 

Our life insurance underwriters follow detailed and uniform policies and procedures to assess and quantify the risk of our individual life insurance products. We require the applicant to take a variety of underwriting tests, such as medical examinations, electrocardiograms, blood tests, urine tests, chest x-rays and consumer investigative reports, depending on the age of the applicant and the amount of insurance requested. Our universal life insurance contracts and the fixed component of our variable life insurance contracts feature crediting rates, which are periodically reset. In resetting these rates, we consider the returns on our portfolios supporting the interest-sensitive life insurance business, current interest rates, the competitive environment, and our profit objectives.

 

Annuities

 

We earn investment management fees based upon the average assets of the mutual funds in our variable annuity products and mortality and expense fees and other fees for various insurance-related options and features based on average daily net asset value of the annuity separate accounts or the amount of guaranteed value. We price our fixed annuities as well as the fixed-rate options of our variable annuities based on assumptions as to investment returns, expenses and persistency. Competition also influences our pricing. We seek to maintain a spread between the return on our general account invested assets and the interest we credit on our fixed annuities. To encourage persistency, most of our variable and fixed annuities have withdrawal restrictions and declining surrender or withdrawal charges for a specified number of years.

 

Reserves

 

We establish reserve and policyholder fund liabilities to recognize our future benefit obligations for our in force life and annuity policies. For variable and interest-sensitive life insurance and annuity contracts, we establish policyholders’ account balances that represent cumulative gross premium payments plus credited interest and/or fund performance, less withdrawals, expenses and mortality charges.

 

Reinsurance

 

Since 2000, we have reinsured the majority of the mortality risk we assume under our newly sold individual life insurance policies. The maximum amount of individual life insurance we may retain on any life is $30 million under an individual policy and $50 million under a second-to-die life policy.

 

Group Insurance

 

Our Group Insurance segment manufactures and distributes a full range of group life, long-term and short-term group disability, long-term care, and corporate- and trust-owned life insurance in the U.S. to institutional clients primarily for use in connection with employee and membership benefits plans. Group Insurance also sells accidental death and dismemberment and other ancillary coverages and provides plan administrative services in connection with its insurance coverages.

 

Products

 

Group Life Insurance

 

We offer group life insurance products including basic, supplemental or optional dependent term and universal life insurance. We also offer group variable universal life insurance and supplemental and voluntary accidental death and dismemberment insurance. Many of our employee-pay coverages include a portability feature, allowing employees to retain their coverage when they change employers or retire. We also offer a living benefits option that allows insureds that are diagnosed with a terminal illness to receive up to 50% of their life insurance benefit upon diagnosis, in advance of death, to use as needed.

 

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Group Disability Insurance

 

We offer short- and long-term group disability insurance, which protects against loss of wages due to illness or injury. Short-term disability generally provides coverage for three to six months, and long-term disability covers the period after short-term disability ends. We also offer absence management and integrated disability management services in conjunction with a third party.

 

Other

 

We offer individual and group long-term care insurance and group corporate- and trust-owned life insurance. Long-term care insurance protects the insured from the costs of care in the community, at an adult day care center, a nursing home or similar live-in care situation or at home by providing a home health or a personal care aide. Group corporate- and trust-owned life insurance are group variable life insurance contracts typically used by large corporations to fund benefit plans for retired employees. These latter products also may be used as vehicles to deliver deferred compensation or non-qualified benefits to active employees.

 

Marketing and Distribution

 

Group Insurance has its own dedicated sales force that is organized around products and market segments and distributes primarily through employee benefits brokers and consultants. Group Insurance also distributes individual long-term care products through Prudential Agents as well as third party brokers and agents.

 

Underwriting and Pricing

 

Group Insurance’s product underwriting and pricing is centralized. We have developed standard rating systems for each product line based on our past experience and relevant industry experience. We are not obligated to accept any application for a policy or group of policies from any distributor. We follow uniform underwriting practices and procedures. If the coverage amount exceeds certain prescribed age and amount limits, we may require a prospective insured to submit to medical examinations.

 

We determine premiums on some of our policies on a retrospective experience rated basis, in which case the policyholder bears some of the risk associated with claim experience fluctuations during the policy period. We base product pricing of group insurance products on the expected pay-out of benefits that we calculate using assumptions for mortality, morbidity, interest, expenses and persistency, depending upon the specific product features.

 

Our other policies are not eligible to receive experience based refunds. The adequacy of our initial pricing of these policies determines their profitability. Long-term disability, in particular, involves a commitment to insure disability that continues typically up until a person reaches normal retirement age and, accordingly, contains the risk that loss experience is affected by circumstances we did not expect when we issued a policy and exceeds pricing assumptions. In addition, the trend towards multiple year rate guarantees for new policies, which are typically three years for life insurance and two years for disability insurance, further increases the adverse consequences of mispricing coverage and lengthens the time it takes to reduce loss ratios.

 

We have refocused group life and disability on improved risk selection and reduced benefits ratios. We continuously make pricing adjustments, when contractually permitted, which consider the emerging experience on our group insurance products. While there can be no assurance, we expect these actions, as well as pricing discipline in writing new business, will allow us to maintain or improve our benefits ratios.

 

Reserves

 

We establish and carry as liabilities actuarially determined reserves that we believe will meet our future obligations. We base these reserves on actuarially recognized methods using prescribed morbidity and mortality tables in general use in the U.S., which we modify to reflect our actual experience when appropriate. Reserves also include claims reported but not yet paid, claims incurred but not reported and claims in the process of settlement.

 

Reinsurance

 

We reinsure portions of our disability insurance risks with third party reinsurers. Effective July 1, 2003, we terminated our catastrophic reinsurance coverage on our group life and accidental death and dismemberment products, based on an evaluation of its cost effectiveness given its current pricing.

 

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Investment Division

 

The Investment division conducts its business through the Investment Management, Financial Advisory, Retirement, and Other Asset Management segments.

 

Investment Management

 

The Investment Management segment provides a broad array of investment management and advisory services, mutual funds and other structured products. These products and services are marketed and provided to the public and private marketplace as well as the Insurance division, the International Insurance and Investments division, and the Retirement segment.

 

Investment Management and Advisory Services Operating Data

 

The following tables set forth Investment Management and Advisory Services assets under management at fair market value by asset class and source as of the dates indicated.

 

     December 31, 2003

     Equity

  

Fixed

Income(2)


   Real
Estate


   Total

     (in billions)

Retail customers(1)

   $ 42.5    $ 37.7    $ 1.0    $ 81.2

Institutional customers

     31.2      50.8      12.8      94.8

General account

     2.9      123.8      1.1      127.8
    

  

  

  

Total

   $ 76.6    $ 212.3    $ 14.9    $ 303.8
    

  

  

  

     December 31, 2002

     Equity

  

Fixed

Income(2)


   Real
Estate


   Total(3)

     (in billions)

Retail customers(1)

   $ 33.2    $ 46.5    $ 0.2    $ 79.9

Institutional customers

     24.4      47.2      13.6      85.2

General account

     2.7      118.8      1.4      122.9
    

  

  

  

Total

   $ 60.3    $ 212.5    $ 15.2    $ 288.0
    

  

  

  

     December 31, 2001

     Equity

  

Fixed

Income(2)


   Real
Estate


   Total

     (in billions)

Retail customers(1)

   $ 44.2    $ 52.3    $ —      $ 96.5

Institutional customers

     39.6      39.5      10.0      89.1

General account

     1.9      110.5      1.4      113.8
    

  

  

  

Total

   $ 85.7    $ 202.3    $ 11.4    $ 299.4
    

  

  

  


(1)   Consists of individual mutual funds and both variable annuities and variable life insurance in our separate accounts. Fixed annuities and the fixed-rate option of both variable annuities and variable life insurance are included in our general account.
(2)   Includes private fixed income assets of institutional customers of $6.3 billion as of December 31, 2003, $4.9 billion as of December 31, 2002, and $4.1 billion as of December 31, 2001, and private fixed income assets in our general account of $47.3 billion, $47.1 billion, and $45.1 billion, as of those dates, respectively. Included in these private fixed income assets are commercial and agricultural mortgages for institutional customers of $2.3 billion as of December 31, 2003, $2.1 billion as of December 31, 2002 and $2.6 billion as of December 31, 2001 and commercial and agricultural mortgages for our general account of $17.2 billion, $17.5 billion and $16.9 billion, as of those dates, respectively.
(3)   Reflects reclassification of amounts by client category as of January 1, 2002, based on internal management criteria, which reduced the amount attributed to retail customers by $3.3 billion and increased the amounts attributable to institutional customers and the general account by $2.8 billion and $0.5 billion, respectively.

 

Most of the retail customer assets reflected in the foregoing tables are invested in our mutual funds and our variable annuities and variable life insurance products. These retail assets under management are gathered by the Insurance division, the International Insurance and Investments division and third party networks, including financial advisors associated with our joint venture with Wachovia Corporation (“Wachovia”) discussed under “—Financial Advisory “ below.

 

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In addition, we provide investment management services for our institutional customers through direct sales. As described below, within this segment we utilize the same investment management capabilities to provide asset management and services for institutional customers and our retail customers’ assets. We also provide investment management services for our general account as described under “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Realized Investments Gains and General Account Investments—General Account Investments.”

 

Mutual Fund Operating Data

 

The following table sets forth our mutual fund products, including wrap-fee and unit investment trust products, at fair market value as of the dates indicated. We no longer sponsor unit investment trusts and transferred sponsorship of existing trusts to a successor sponsor as of January 1, 2004.

 

     As of December 31,

     2003

   2002

   2001

     (in billions)

Mutual funds(1)

   $ 46.8    $ 49.8    $ 57.8

Wrap-fee products(2)

     19.8      15.2      18.0

Unit investment trusts

     0.8      0.8      1.2

(1)   Mutual funds includes those sold as retail investment products. Also includes balances from funds for which we act as sub-adviser of $3.2 billion, $2.4 billion and $1.5 billion as of December 31, 2003, 2002 and 2001, respectively.
(2)   Wrap-fee product assets include $3.4 billion, $2.8 billion and $3.1 billion of proprietary assets as of December 31, 2003, 2002 and 2001, respectively.

 

Since the 1990s, there has been an industry trend for products such as mutual funds to include investment alternatives that are managed by asset managers other than the product sponsor. Over the last several years, we have been building investment management choice into most of our mutual fund products. We are able to offer customers investment alternatives in some of our products that may be advised by third parties with asset management styles that we may or may not offer.

 

Investment Management and Advisory Services Products and Services

 

Public Equity and Fixed Income Asset Management

 

Our public equity and fixed income organizations provide discretionary and non-discretionary asset management services to a wide range of clients. We manage a broad array of publicly traded equity and debt asset classes using various investment styles. In 2000, substantially all of our active public equity asset management capabilities were consolidated into our wholly owned subsidiary, Jennison Associates, LLC (“Jennison”). Jennison is a widely recognized manager of institutional assets and is a leading sub-advisor for mutual fund assets.

 

Real Estate Asset Management

 

Our real estate organization provides asset management services for single-client and commingled real estate portfolios and manufactures and manages a variety of real estate investment vehicles, primarily for institutional clients. Our real estate investment vehicles range from fully diversified funds to specialized funds that invest in specific types of properties or specific geographic regions or follow other specific investment strategies.

 

On December 31, 2002, we acquired TMW Immobilien AG and TMW Real Estate Group, LLC (together “TMW”), one of the largest independent investment managers for international real estate with $3.9 billion in net assets under management. TMW is headquartered in Munich, Germany and Atlanta, GA, with offices throughout Europe, and has been integrated with the rest of our institutional real estate management activities.

 

Private Equity and Fixed Income Asset Management

 

Our private fixed income organization provides asset management services to our clients by investing predominantly in private placement investment grade debt securities, as well as below investment grade debt securities, and mezzanine debt financing. These investment capabilities are utilized by our general account and institutional clients through direct advisory accounts, separate accounts, or private fund structures. A majority of the private placement investments are directly originated by our investment staff.

 

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At the end of 2001, we decided to exit our private equity asset management business through divestiture and rationalization of the remaining activities into our private fixed income asset management business. The remaining assets we manage, primarily for our general account, include venture capital, leveraged buyouts, development capital, mezzanine debt and certain special situations, but we do not intend to sponsor new funds other than for mezzanine debt.

 

Commercial Mortgage Origination and Servicing

 

Our commercial mortgage banking business provides mortgage origination and servicing, for our general account, institutional clients, and for government sponsored entities such as Fannie Mae and FHA. Commercial mortgage loans for securitization transactions are included in the Other Asset Management segment, as described below under “—Other Asset Management—Commercial Mortgage Securitization.”

 

Mutual Funds Products and Services

 

We manufacture, distribute and service investment management products utilizing proprietary and non-proprietary asset management expertise in the U.S. retail market. Our products are designed to be sold by Prudential Agents and third party financial professionals. We offer a family of retail investment products consisting of 87 mutual funds and four wrap-fee products as of December 31, 2003. These products cover a wide array of investment styles and objectives designed to attract and retain assets of individuals with varying objectives and to accommodate investors’ changing financial needs. On May 1, 2003, we acquired Skandia U.S. which included a mutual fund business. The operations of the acquired mutual fund business have been combined with our existing mutual fund business.

 

The following table sets forth the net sales (redemptions) of our retail mutual funds, which include funds that we manage in third party products (“sub-advised funds”), by asset class for the periods indicated. Net sales (redemptions) are equal to gross sales minus redemptions. This data excludes mutual funds sold through defined contribution plan products. Commencing in November 2003, our joint venture with Wachovia ceased offering several Prudential money market funds as investment options, which is the primary driver of the decline in money market assets from December 31, 2002 to December 31, 2003, reflected in the table below.

 

     Year Ended December 31,

 
     2003

    2002

    2001

 
     (in millions)  

Equity

   $ (1,210 )   $ 99     $ 642  

Fixed income

     (337 )     (358 )     (66 )
    


 


 


Total mutual funds net sales (redemptions) other than money market

     (1,547 )     (259 )     576  

Money market

     (11,447 )     (3,944 )     1,363  
    


 


 


Total net sales (redemptions)(1)

   $ (12,994 )   $ (4,203 )   $ 1,939  
    


 


 



(1)   Includes net sales from sub-advised funds of $144 million, $1,332 million and $1,187 million in 2003, 2002 and 2001, respectively.

 

The following table sets forth our retail mutual fund assets, including sub-advised funds, under management by asset class at fair market value as of the dates indicated.

 

     As of December 31,

     2003

   2002

   2001

     (in billions)

Equity

   $ 19.1    $ 13.0    $ 17.7

Fixed income

     8.0      6.9      7.0

Money market

     19.7      29.9      33.1
    

  

  

Total assets under management

   $ 46.8    $ 49.8    $ 57.8
    

  

  

 

Wrap-Fee Products

 

We offer several wrap-fee products that provide access to mutual funds and separate account products with the payment of fees based on the market value of assets under management. Our wrap-fee products have higher minimum investment levels than our mutual funds and offer a choice of both proprietary and non-proprietary investment management. We also provide private label wrap-fee products for other financial services firms. Net sales of our wrap-fee products were $0.9 billion in 2003, $0.4 billion in 2002 and $1.4 billion in 2001.

 

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Marketing and Distribution

 

Investment Management and Advisory Services

 

We provide asset management services across a broad array of asset classes to certain segments of the Financial Services Businesses. We obtain third party retail clients through our mutual fund business, discussed below. We generally distribute to third party institutional clients through our proprietary sales force.

 

Mutual Funds

 

We distribute our mutual fund products through Prudential Agents and through third party financial intermediaries, including financial advisors associated with our joint venture with Wachovia discussed under “—Financial Advisory” below. Third party intermediary sales represents the fastest growing sales channel on a net basis. Additionally, we work with third party product manufacturers and distributors to include our investment options in their products and platforms.

 

Our product offerings are positioned to help financial professionals provide investment advice that helps their clients grow and protect their wealth. We provide these professionals with access to proprietary and non-proprietary investment alternatives along with tools and education to support their role as advisor. We call this strategy “advised choice” and believe it helps meet the desire of advisors and their clients to have access to choice of products and asset managers within the context of the consultative process.

 

Financial Advisory

 

The Financial Advisory segment consists of our 38% investment in Wachovia Securities and our equity sales, trading and research operations.

 

Wachovia Securities

 

On July 1, 2003, we completed the previously announced agreement with Wachovia to combine each company’s respective retail securities brokerage and clearing operations into a joint venture, Wachovia Securities Financial Holdings, LLC (“Wachovia Securities”), creating one of the nation’s largest retail brokerage and clearing organizations. We have a 38% ownership interest in the joint venture, while Wachovia owns the remaining 62%. We account for our 38% ownership of the joint venture under the equity method of accounting and, beginning on July 1, 2003, report earnings from the joint venture on the equity basis. Periods prior to July 1, 2003 reflect the results of our previously wholly owned securities brokerage and clearing operations on a fully consolidated basis.

 

Wachovia Securities provides full service securities brokerage and financial advisory services to individuals and businesses. As of December 31, 2003, it had total client assets of $603.1 billion and approximately 11,500 registered representatives.

 

The segment results reflect transition costs, including transition costs incurred by the joint venture, in connection with the combination as well as expenses relating to obligations retained in connection with the contributed businesses, primarily retained litigation and regulatory matters. We and Wachovia have each agreed to indemnify the other for certain losses, including losses resulting from litigation or regulatory matters relating to events prior to March 31, 2004, arising from the operations of the respective contributed businesses.

 

At any time after July 1, 2005 and on or prior to July 1, 2008, we may, subject to certain limitations, put our interests in the new organization to Wachovia for a price generally equal to our initial $1.0 billion equity contribution plus our share of transition costs, as adjusted to reflect additional investments made by us. At any time after July 1, 2008, we may, subject to certain limitations, put our interests in the new organization to Wachovia for a price generally equal to our share of the then appraised value of the common equity of the organization, determined as if it were a public company and including a control premium such as would apply in the case of a sale of 100% of its common equity. The agreement between Prudential Financial and Wachovia also gives us put rights, and Wachovia call rights, in certain other specified circumstances, at prices determined in accordance with the agreement.

 

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Equity Sales, Trading and Research Operations

 

We engage in equity securities sales and trading primarily for our institutional clients, executing transactions on both an agency and a principal basis in listed and NASDAQ equities and equity options. We make a market in more than 900 NASDAQ securities.

 

Our research analysts produce reports and studies on the economy; the domestic equity markets, industries and specific companies; investment and portfolio strategies; and regulatory, political, legislative and tax issues. We seek to focus our research coverage on companies of greatest interest to our clients, located both in the U.S. and abroad.

 

Retirement

 

Our Retirement segment manufactures and distributes products and provides administrative services for qualified and non-qualified retirement plans for companies of all sizes. We offer products across the defined contribution market including the 401(a), 401(k), 403(b), 457 and Taft-Hartley markets. We also offer products in the non-qualified retirement market. Additionally, we offer guaranteed products such as guaranteed investment contracts (“GICs”), funding agreements and group annuities for defined contribution plans, defined benefit pension plans, structured settlements and non-qualified entities.

 

On November 17, 2003, we announced that we had entered into a definitive Stock Purchase and Asset Transfer Agreement (the “Stock Purchase Agreement”) with CIGNA Corporation (“CIGNA”) and certain of its affiliates, pursuant to which we will acquire CIGNA’s retirement business. Pursuant to the Stock Purchase Agreement, we will purchase all of the issued and outstanding capital stock of CIGNA Life Insurance Company, a life insurance company domiciled in the State of Connecticut (“CIGNA Life”), Global Portfolio Strategies, Inc., a registered investment adviser, and CIGNA Financial Services, Inc., a registered broker dealer. In addition, CIGNA’s thrift subsidiary, CIGNA Bank & Trust Company, F.S.B., will merge into our thrift subsidiary, The Prudential Savings Bank, F.S.B. The total consideration payable in the transaction is a cash purchase price of $2.1 billion, subject to certain adjustments.

 

Significant portions of the acquisition are being effected through reinsurance transactions between CIGNA Life and Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (“CGLIC”), a life insurance company domiciled in the State of Connecticut and an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of CIGNA and other affiliates of CGLIC. As a result, CGLIC and its affiliates, on the one hand, and CIGNA Life, on the other hand, will each remain liable for the performance of insurance contracts issued by it and subject to such reinsurance transactions. Each has agreed to place assets in amounts sufficient to support the reinsured general account insurance liabilities into trust accounts to secure their respective obligations under these arrangements. CGLIC and its affiliates will retain the underlying assets relating to reinsured separate account contracts. Following the closing of the transaction, the parties will ask CGLIC’s customers to agree to novate the existing contracts so that CIGNA Life can assume direct responsibility to the customers for the contracts issued by CGLIC and reduce the extent of the reinsurance arrangements.

 

Pursuant to the Stock Purchase Agreement, CIGNA will indemnify us for certain losses, including, subject to a basket of $25 million with a $12.5 million deductible and a cap of 75% of the purchase price, for losses related to breaches by CIGNA of its representations and warranties contained in the Stock Purchase Agreement. We have agreed to indemnify CGLIC and CIGNA after the closing for any breach by CIGNA Life of its contractual obligations under the reinsurance and other agreements.

 

The transaction is subject to various closing conditions, including, among others, state insurance and other regulatory approvals. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2004.

 

The completion of this transaction will position us as one of the U.S.’s leading providers of retirement products and services and will increase the Retirement segment’s assets to about $120 billion, based on account values as of the announcement of the transaction. The acquisition will add about $50 billion to our assets under management, and will double both our defined contribution record keeping operation’s assets, to about $55 billion, and participant base, to about 2 million based on asset values and participant counts as of the announcement of the transaction. The transaction will also bring additional defined benefit and defined contribution products and services to our total retirement capabilities.

 

Products and Services

 

Defined Contribution Products and Services

 

Our primary defined contribution product, PruArray, offers plan sponsors access to more than 700 mutual funds, approximately 45 of which are sponsored by Prudential, with the balance sponsored by more than 30 other mutual fund

 

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companies. PruArray also offers stable value investment options. We tailor PruArray to the various defined contribution product markets, as appropriate, and to suit retirement plans of different sizes. We also offer defined contribution plan services including participant and plan reporting, plan testing, call center services, voice response and Internet capabilities, participant communication and educational services and record keeping administration.

 

Guaranteed Investment Contracts and Funding Agreements

 

We offer general account GICs and funding agreements, through which customers deposit funds with us under contracts that typically provide for a specified rate of interest on the amount invested through the maturity of the contract. We are obligated to pay principal and interest according to the contracts’ terms. This obligation is backed by our general account assets, and we bear all of the investment and asset/liability management risk on these contracts. As spread products, general account GICs and funding agreements make a profit to the extent that the rate of return on the investments we make with the invested funds exceeds the promised interest rate and our expenses. We also offer credit-enhanced GICs, which have a triple-A rating, the highest rating possible, as a result of a guarantee from a financial insurer. In addition, we offer separate account and synthetic GICs, through which we hold customers’ funds either in a separate account or in trust outside of our general account for the benefit of the customer. We pass all of the investment results through to the customer, subject to a minimum interest rate, and we do not earn spread income. As fee-based products, separate account and synthetic GICs are less capital intensive and produce lower levels of income than spread products. To the extent that Prudential’s asset management units are selected to manage client assets associated with fee-based products, those units also earn investment management fees from those relationships. A limited amount of our in force GIC business may be redeemed at the option of the holder prior to the applicable termination dates.

 

Group Annuities

 

We offer group annuities primarily to defined benefit plans to provide fixed lifetime benefits for a specified group of plan participants. These annuities are generally single premium annuities that provide for either immediate or deferred payments. We offer fixed payment annuities backed by our general account (spread products) as well as separate account annuities (fee products) that permit a plan sponsor to realize the benefit of investment and actuarial results while receiving a general account guarantee of minimum benefits. We also offer fixed and variable annuities, under group annuity contracts, to individuals taking lump sum distributions from defined contribution plans.

 

Structured Settlement Products

 

We offer structured settlement products backed by our general account (spread products), which are customized annuities used to provide ongoing periodic payments to a claimant in malpractice or personal injury lawsuits instead of a lump sum settlement.

 

Marketing and Distribution

 

Defined contribution plans are sold through the financial advisors associated with our joint venture with Wachovia under a distribution agreement, as well as other third party financial advisors, brokers, consultants, and, to a lesser extent, Prudential Agents. A high concentration of these plans have been in the core and small plan markets, with less than $50 million in plan assets. Our distribution network includes over 100 third party distributors including brokers, regional broker-dealers and others. In addition, we have a small direct sales force to develop sales among plans with greater than $50 million in plan assets.

 

Prior to 2003, we primarily sold GICs and funding agreements. In 2003, we broadened our distribution and established our Funding Agreement Notes Issuance Program through which we sell funding agreements associated with medium-term notes.

 

Underwriting and Pricing

 

We set our rates for guaranteed products using a proprietary pricing model that considers the investment environment and our risk, expense and profitability assumptions. Upon sale of a product, we adjust the duration of our asset portfolio and lock in the prevailing interest rates. Business unit management continuously monitors cash flow experience and works closely with our Asset Liability and Risk Management Group to review performance and ensure compliance with our investment policy.

 

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Reserves

 

We establish reserves and policyholder fund liabilities to recognize our future benefit obligations for our products. Our liabilities for our general account GICs and funding agreements represent cumulative contractholder account balances. Our liabilities for our Group Annuities and other accumulation products are established based on our own actuarial assumptions. We perform a cash flow analysis in conjunction with determining our reserves for future policy benefits.

 

Other Asset Management

 

Our Other Asset Management segment consists of our commercial mortgage securitization operations, our hedge portfolios and our proprietary investment and syndication activities.

 

Commercial Mortgage Securitization

 

We originate and purchase commercial mortgages that we in turn sell through securitization transactions. We also originate interim loans when we expect the loan will lead to a securitization opportunity. As of December 31, 2003, our warehouse balance of mortgages pending securitization and interim loans totaled approximately $0.9 billion. In general, the assets we securitize are serviced by our Investment Management segment.

 

Hedge Portfolios

 

We offer certain fixed income hedge strategies to clients of our Investment Management segment, through a number of fund vehicles. We are currently marketing these funds to institutional investors domestically and internationally. Income on our proprietary capital investment in these funds is recognized in the Other Asset Management segment.

 

Proprietary Investments and Syndications

 

We also make proprietary investments in public and private debt and equity securities, including controlling interests, with the intention to sell or syndicate to investors, including our general account. After sale or syndication, these assets are generally managed by our Investment Management segment.

 

Beginning on January 1, 2003, the Other Asset Management segment includes a portfolio, with a fair value of approximately $360 million, of primarily real estate related investments previously included in Corporate and Other operations. The portfolio consists of certain of the Company’s co-investment interests in funds, operating companies, and other investment vehicles managed by the Investment Management segment. The Other Asset Management segment will provide substantially all future co-investment in these vehicles.

 

International Insurance and Investments Division

 

The International Insurance and Investments division conducts its business through the International Insurance and International Investments segments.

 

International Insurance

 

Our International Insurance segment manufactures and distributes individual life insurance products to the affluent market in Japan, Korea and other foreign markets through Life Planners. In addition, as part of the operations of Gibraltar Life Insurance Company, Ltd. (“Gibraltar Life”), we offer similar products to the broad middle income market across Japan through Life Advisors, a business we operate separately from our Life Planners. We commenced sales in foreign markets using the Life Planner model, as follows: Japan, 1988; Taiwan, 1990; Italy, 1990; Korea, 1991; Brazil, 1998; Argentina, 1999; the Philippines, 1999; and Poland, 2000. We also have a representative office in China.

 

We run each country operation on a stand-alone basis with local management and sales teams initially supported by senior International Insurance staff based in Asia and Newark, New Jersey. Each operation has its own marketing, underwriting and claims and investment management functions, with the exception of Japan, for which a large portion of the investment portfolio is managed by our International Investments segment. Each operation invests predominantly in local currency securities, typically bonds issued by the local government or its agencies. In our larger operations, we have more diversified portfolios.

 

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The International Insurance segment includes the operations of Gibraltar Life from the acquisition date, April 2001. Gibraltar Life, formerly Kyoei Life Insurance Company, Ltd., was acquired for a combination of cash and an extension of credit in the form of a subordinated loan in exchange for 100% of Gibraltar’s newly issued common stock.

 

Products

 

We currently offer various traditional whole life, term life and endowment policies, which provide for payment on the earlier of death or maturity. In some of our operations we also offer certain health products with fixed benefits. We also offer variable life products in Japan and Korea and offer interest-sensitive life products in Japan, Taiwan and Argentina. Generally, our international insurance products are non-participating and denominated in local currency, with the exception of products in Argentina, which are mostly U.S. dollar denominated, and a limited number of policies in Japan and Korea that are also U.S. dollar denominated. For these dollar denominated products, both premiums and benefits are payable in U.S. dollars.

 

Marketing and Distribution

 

The following table sets forth the number of Life Planners and Life Advisors, as well as the number of field managers and agencies for the periods indicated.

 

     Japan

     Excluding Gibraltar Life

   Gibraltar Life

     As of December 31,

   As of December 31,

     2003

   2002

   2001

   2003

   2002

   2001

Number of Life Planners/Life Advisors

   2,347    2,119    1,992    4,826    5,155    6,121

Number of field managers

   358    325    299    603    620    753

Number of agencies

   60    51    46    80    77    66
     All Other Countries

   Total

     As of December 31,

   As of December 31,

     2003

   2002

   2001

   2003

   2002

   2001

Number of Life Planners/Life Advisors

   2,642    2,386    2,112    9,815    9,660    10,225

Number of field managers

   543    472    491    1,504    1,417    1,543

Number of agencies

   118    101    105    258    229    217

 

Life Planner Model

 

Our Life Planner model is significantly different from the way traditional industry participants offer life insurance in Japan and in most of the other countries where we do business. It is different from the way we market through the Life Advisors of Gibraltar Life as well. We believe that our selection standards, training, supervision and compensation package are key to the Life Planner model and have helped our International Insurance segment achieve higher rates of agent retention, agent productivity and policy persistency than our local competitors. In general, we recruit Life Planners with:

 

    university degrees, so that the Life Planner will have the same educational background and outlook as the target customer;

 

    a minimum of two to three years of sales or sales management experience;

 

    no life insurance sales experience; and

 

    a pattern of job stability and success.

 

The Life Planner’s objective is to sell protection-oriented life insurance products on a needs basis to upper middle and upper income customers.

 

Life Advisors

 

Our Life Advisors are the proprietary distribution force for products offered by Gibraltar Life. Their focus is to provide individual protection products to the broad middle income market in Japan, particularly through its

 

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relationships with affinity groups. In July 2001, we introduced a new compensation plan designed to improve productivity and persistency that is similar to compensation plans in our other International Insurance operations. Life Advisor compensation, which was based on a high fixed salary component in the past, has been changed to a variable compensation structure.

 

Underwriting and Pricing

 

Our International Insurance segment is subject to substantial local regulation that is generally more restrictive for product offerings, pricing and structure than U.S. insurance regulation. Each International Insurance operation has its own underwriting department that employs variations of our domestic practices in underwriting individual policy risks designed to assess and quantify risks. In setting underwriting limits, we also consider local industry standards to prevent adverse selection and to stay abreast of industry trends. In addition, we set underwriting limits together with each operation’s reinsurers.

 

Pricing of individual life insurance products, particularly in Japan and Korea, is more regulated than in the U.S. In Japan, premiums are different for participating and non-participating products, but within each product type they are generally similar for all companies. The mortality and morbidity rates and interest rates that we use to calculate premiums are restricted by regulation on the basis of product type. The interest rates do not always reflect the market rates we earn on our investments, and, as a result, we experience negative spreads between the rate we guarantee and the rate we earn on investments. These spreads had a negative impact on the results of our Japanese insurance operations, other than Gibraltar Life, over the past three years, and the profitability on our products in Japan from these operations results primarily from margins on mortality, morbidity and expense charges.

 

Reserves

 

We establish and carry as liabilities actuarially determined reserves, which we believe will meet our future obligations. We base fixed death benefit reserves on appropriate assumptions for investment yield, persistency, mortality and morbidity rates, expenses and margins for adverse deviation. In Japan, Korea and Argentina, we set reserves for variable and interest-sensitive life products according to premiums collected plus investment results credited less charges.

 

Reinsurance

 

International Insurance reinsures portions of its insurance risks with both selected third party reinsurers and Prudential Insurance under reinsurance agreements primarily on a yearly renewable term basis. International Insurance also buys catastrophe reinsurance that covers multiple deaths from a single occurrence in Japan, Taiwan and Brazil and has a coinsurance agreement with Prudential Insurance for U.S. dollar denominated business in Japan. The catastrophe reinsurance market has tightened considerably since September 11, 2001, resulting in significant increases in premium and additional exclusions from coverage.

 

International Investments

 

Our International Investments segment offers private banking, offshore and onshore proprietary and non-proprietary asset management, investment advice and product choice services to high net worth and mass affluent retail clients and to institutional clients in selected international markets. These services are marketed through our own and third-party distribution networks and encompass the businesses of private wealth management, global derivatives and international investments that are described in more detail below.

 

In early 2004, we acquired an 80 percent stake in Hyundai Investment and Securities Co., Ltd. (“HITC”) and its subsidiary, Hyundai Investment Trust Management Co., Ltd. (“HIMC”) for approximately $300 million pursuant to an agreement with the Korean Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Korean Financial Supervisory Commission. Under the agreement, we may acquire the remaining 20 percent within three to six years after the closing. HIMC distributes its products primarily through HITC, as well as third party distributors, and had approximately $12 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2003. As a result of this transaction, Prudential is expected to become the largest foreign-owned asset manager in Korea in terms of assets under management, according to data as of December 31, 2003 released by the Korean Investment Trust Companies Association.

 

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Our private wealth management business offers local and offshore financial advisory, private banking and portfolio management services primarily for retail investors. This business leverages personalized relationship management, local expertise, investment discipline and a tailored range of products, including private banking, delivered through our investment professionals in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, as well as in London, Geneva, Monaco and Amsterdam.

 

Our global derivatives operations provide advice, sales and trading on a global basis covering a wide variety of commodity, financial and foreign exchange futures and forward contracts, including agricultural commodities, base and precious metals, major currencies, interest rate and stock indices. We conduct these operations through offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and are members of most major futures exchanges. Our client base is primarily institutional. We conduct futures transactions on margin according to the regulations of the different futures exchanges.

 

Our international investments business includes manufacturing of proprietary products and distribution of both proprietary and non-proprietary products, all tailored to meet client needs in targeted countries. In this business, we invest in asset management and distribution businesses in targeted countries around the world to expand our mass affluent customer base outside the U.S. and to increase our global assets under management. Additionally, this business manages a large portion of the general account investment portfolio of our international insurance operations in Japan.

 

Corporate and Other Operations

 

Our Corporate and Other operations include corporate-level activities and international ventures that we do not allocate to our business segments, as well as the Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services operations and certain divested and wind-down businesses, except for our discontinued operations.

 

Corporate-Level Activities

 

Corporate-level activities consist primarily of corporate-level income and expenses not allocated to any of our business segments, including costs for company-wide initiatives and income from our qualified pension plans, as well as investment returns on our capital that is not deployed in any of our segments. Corporate-level activities also include returns from investments that we do not allocate to any of our business segments, including a debt-financed investment portfolio, which was substantially reduced in 2001 and the remainder liquidated in 2002, and transactions with other segments. Corporate-level activities also include certain obligations relating to policyholders whom we had previously agreed to provide insurance for reduced or no premium in accordance with contractual settlements related to prior life insurance sales practices remediation.

 

Residential Real Estate Brokerage Franchise and Relocation Services

 

Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services is our integrated real estate brokerage franchise and relocation services business. The real estate group markets franchises primarily to existing real estate companies. Our franchise agreements grant the franchisee the right to use the Prudential name and real estate service marks in return for royalty payments on gross commissions generated by the franchisees. The franchises generally are independently owned and operated.

 

Our relocation group offers institutional clients a variety of services in connection with the relocation of their employees. These services include coordination of appraisal, inspection and sale of relocating employees’ homes, equity advances to relocating employees, assistance in locating homes at the relocating employee’s destination, household goods moving services, client cost-tracking and a variety of relocation policy and group move consulting services.

 

Wind-down Businesses

 

Individual Health

 

In 1992, we ceased writing individual disability income policies and a year later ceased writing hospital expense and major medical policies due to declining sales and poor financial results. Most of our disability income policies are non-cancelable, which means that we can neither change the premium nor cancel the coverage. The 1997 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act guarantees renewal of all hospital and medical expense policies. Under

 

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certain circumstances, we are permitted to change the premiums charged for individual health coverage if we can demonstrate that the premiums have not been sufficient to pay claims and expenses. As of July 1, 1999, we reinsured all the disability income policies.

 

Canadian Operations

 

We have retained and continue to service several blocks of insurance not sold with our divested Canadian businesses described under “—Divested Businesses—Other” below. A significant portion of the retained business constitutes paid-up individual life insurance.

 

Divested Businesses

 

The following operations are businesses that have been or will be sold or exited that did not qualify for “discontinued operations” accounting treatment under GAAP. We include the results of these divested businesses in our income from continuing operations, but we exclude these results from our adjusted operating income. See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Consolidated Results of Operations” for an explanation of adjusted operating income.

 

Property and Casualty Insurance

 

In the fourth quarter of 2003, we sold our property and casualty insurance companies that operate nationally in 48 states outside of New Jersey, and the District of Columbia, to Liberty Mutual Group (“Liberty Mutual”), as well as our New Jersey property and casualty insurance companies to Palisades Group. These operations were previously reflected in the results of our former Property and Casualty Insurance segment, which was part of our Insurance division. Historically, the companies we sold manufactured and distributed personal lines property and casualty insurance products, principally automobile and homeowners coverages, to the U.S. retail market.

 

We have reinsured Liberty Mutual for certain losses including: any further adverse loss development on the stop-loss reinsurance agreement with Everest Re Group, Ltd. (“Everest”) discussed below; any adverse loss development on losses occurring prior to the sale that arise from insurance contracts generated through certain ‘discontinued’ distribution channels or due to certain loss events including mold damage or the California wildfires of October 2003; stop-loss protection on losses occurring after the sale and arising from those same distribution channels of up to $95 million, in excess of related premiums and other adjustments; and stop-loss protection on losses occurring prior to the sale and arising from most other business for up to 75% of the first $30 million of adverse loss development recorded through October 31, 2005. The reinsurance covering the losses associated with the discontinued distribution channels will be settled based upon loss experience through December 31, 2008 with a provision that profits on the insurance business from these channels will be shared, with Liberty Mutual receiving up to $20 million of the first $50 million. As of December 31, 2003, we have recorded a liability of $119 million representing our estimate of our obligations under these reinsurance contracts.

 

The Company has agreed not to compete with the buyers. In New Jersey, the non-compete agreement is effective until the earlier of December 31, 2008, or the termination of our distribution agreement with Palisades Group. Outside of New Jersey, the non-compete agreement is effective until the later of December 31, 2006, or the termination of our distribution agreement with Liberty Mutual.

 

Certain expenses incurred at the corporate level that previously were allocated to the Property and Casualty Insurance segment have been reclassified to Corporate and Other operations. These expenses, which we will seek to mitigate over time, will continue to be absorbed by Corporate and Other operations in future periods.

 

Gibraltar Casualty

 

In September 2000, we sold all of the stock of Gibraltar Casualty Company (“Gibraltar Casualty”), a commercial property and casualty insurer that we had placed in wind-down status in 1985, to Everest. As of the date of sale, Gibraltar Casualty’s largest continuing exposures were potential liabilities for asbestos and environmental claims. Upon closing of the sale, a subsidiary of the Company entered into a stop-loss reinsurance agreement with Everest whereby the subsidiary reinsured Everest for up to 80% of the first $200 million of any adverse loss development in excess of Gibraltar Casualty’s carried reserves as of the closing of the sale to Everest. This subsidiary was subsequently sold to Liberty Mutual, as part of the sale discussed above. The $106 million of reserves at the closing date of the sale

 

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to Liberty Mutual related to the reinsurance agreement with Everest remained the direct obligation of this subsidiary, and therefore those reserves are no longer included on our balance sheet. We have reinsured Liberty Mutual with regard to any further adverse loss development on the stop-loss reinsurance agreement with Everest and have recorded a liability for the remaining $54 million of this obligation as of December 31, 2003, which is included as part of our obligations under reinsurance contracts to Liberty Mutual disclosed above.

 

Prudential Securities Capital Markets

 

In the fourth quarter of 2000, we announced a restructuring of Prudential Securities’ activities to implement a fundamental shift in our business strategy. We subsequently exited the lead-managed equity underwriting for corporate issuers and institutional fixed income businesses. As of December 31, 2003 we had remaining assets amounting to approximately $700 million related to this business’s institutional fixed income activities.

 

Other

 

We previously marketed individual and group life insurance, annuities and group health insurance in Canada through a Canadian branch of Prudential Insurance and through Prudential of America Life Insurance Company (“PALIC”), as well as property and casualty insurance through other Canadian operations. In 1996, we sold substantially all of the Canadian branch’s operations and policies in force and all of our Canadian property and casualty operations. Also, in 2000, we sold our interest in PALIC. We have indemnified the purchasers of both the Canadian branch and PALIC for certain liabilities with respect to claims related to sales practices or market conduct issues arising from operations prior to the sale, except for the sale of the property and casualty insurance operations. While we believe that we have adequately reserved in all material respects for these contingent liabilities, we may be required to take additional charges that could be material to our results of operations in any particular quarterly or annual period.

 

Prior to May 1996, we conducted substantial residential first mortgage banking and related operations through The Prudential Home Mortgage Company, Inc. and its affiliates. During 1996 and 1997 we sold substantially all of the business operations, mortgage loan inventory and loan servicing rights of this business. In 2002, we negotiated a release from future indemnification obligations with Wells Fargo, buyer of the largest portion of the portfolio, related to pre-sale activity. However, we remain liable with respect to certain claims concerning these operations prior to sale. While we believe that we have adequately reserved in all material respects for the remaining liabilities, we may be required to take additional charges that could be material to our results of operations in any particular quarterly or annual period.

 

In the fourth quarter of 2002, we decided to divest of certain international securities operations. Certain branches of these operations, formerly reported as discontinued operations, are included in “divested businesses,” reflecting a change in the timing of the divestiture process. Also, in the second quarter of 2003, we decided to exit certain Japanese asset management units.

 

Discontinued Operations

 

Discontinued operations reflects the results of the following business which qualified for “discontinued operations” accounting treatment under GAAP:

 

    We sold substantially all of the assets and liabilities of our group managed and indemnity healthcare business to Aetna Inc. (“Aetna”) in a transaction that closed on August 6, 1999.

 

    We discontinued our web-based business for the workplace distribution of voluntary benefits, which included an impairment of our investment in a vendor of the distribution platform, in the third quarter of 2002.

 

    We discontinued certain international securities operations in the fourth quarter of 2002.

 

    We discontinued our retail broker-dealer operations in Tokyo in the fourth quarter of 2002 and subsequently sold these operations in the third quarter of 2003.

 

    We discontinued our specialty automobile insurance business in the first quarter of 2003 and subsequently sold these operations in the third quarter of 2003.

 

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    We discontinued our existing consumer banking business in the third quarter of 2003, as we decided to exit this business.

 

    We discontinued our work-place distribution property and casualty insurance operations in the fourth quarter of 2003. We subsequently sold these operations in the first quarter of 2004.

 

Closed Block Business

 

As a mutual insurance company, we issued most of our individual life insurance products on a “participating” basis, whereby policyholders are eligible to receive policyholder dividends reflecting experience. These life insurance products were historically included in our former Traditional Participating Products segment. In connection with the demutualization, we ceased offering domestic participating products. The liabilities for our individual in force participating products were segregated, together with assets that will be used exclusively for the payment of benefits and policyholder dividends, expenses and taxes with respect to these products, in the Closed Block. We selected the amount and type of Closed Block Assets and Closed Block Liabilities included in the Closed Block so that the Closed Block Assets initially had a lower book value than the Closed Block Liabilities. We expect that the Closed Block Assets will generate sufficient cash flow, together with anticipated revenues from the Closed Block Policies, over the life of the Closed Block to fund payments of all policyholder benefits to be paid to, and the reasonable dividend expectations of, policyholders of the Closed Block Policies. We also segregated for accounting purposes the Surplus and Related Assets that we need to hold outside the Closed Block to meet capital requirements related to the products included within the Closed Block. No policies sold after demutualization will be added to the Closed Block and its in force business is expected to ultimately decline as we pay policyholder benefits in full. We expect the proportion of our business represented by the Closed Block to decline as we grow other businesses and as the in force business of the Closed Block declines. A minor portion of our former Traditional Participating Products segment consisted of other traditional insurance products that are not included in the Closed Block. For a discussion of the Closed Block Business, see “—Segregation of the Businesses—Separation of the Financial Services Business and the Closed Block Business.”

 

Prior to the date of demutualization, our Closed Block Policies were included in our former Traditional Participating Products segment. Upon the establishment of the Closed Block Business, we transferred $5.6 billion of net assets previously associated with the former Traditional Participating Products segment, including the majority of the net proceeds of the Class B Stock and IHC debt issuances, to the Financial Services Businesses, representing capital in excess of the amount we believe necessary to support the Closed Block Business. This capital was initially allocated to our Corporate and Other operations in our Financial Services Businesses as of the date of demutualization. Accordingly, results of the Closed Block Business do not include returns on this capital, which were historically included in the results of the former Traditional Participating Products segment. To a minor extent, the former Traditional Participating Products segment included other traditional insurance policies that were not placed in the Closed Block and that are now included in the Individual Life and Annuities segment in our Financial Services Businesses.

 

Historically, the participating products included in the Closed Block have yielded lower returns on capital invested than many of our other businesses. The separation for reporting purposes of the Closed Block Business from our Financial Services Businesses permits us to better identify the results of these businesses. However, the relatively lower returns on traditional participating products will continue to affect our consolidated results of operations for many years.

 

Our strategy for the Closed Block Business is to maintain the Closed Block as required by our Plan of Reorganization over the time period of its gradual diminishment as policyholder benefits are paid in full. We are permitted under the Plan of Reorganization, with the prior consent of the New Jersey Commissioner of Banking and Insurance, to enter into agreements to transfer to a third party all or any part of the risks under the Closed Block policies. As of December 31, 2003, we have begun to put in place the reinsurance contracts necessary to transfer a portion of these risks. As discussed in Note 8 to the Consolidated Financial Statements, if performance of the Closed Block is more favorable than we originally assumed in funding, we will pay the excess to Closed Block policyholders as additional policyholder dividends, and it will not be available to shareholders. See Note 19 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for revenues, income and loss, and total assets of the Closed Block Business.

 

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Intangible and Intellectual Property

 

We use numerous federal, state and foreign service and trademarks. We believe that the goodwill associated with many of our marks, particularly the word marks “Prudential,” “Prudential Financial,” “Growing and Protecting Your Wealth” and our “Rock” logo, are significant competitive assets in the U.S. In a number of countries outside North and South America, primarily the United Kingdom, western Europe, and parts of Asia, there are limitations on our use of the “Prudential” name and mark. Where these limitations apply, we combine our “Rock” logo with alternative word marks. We believe that these limitations do not materially affect our ability to operate or expand internationally.

 

Ratings

 

Claims-paying and credit ratings are important factors affecting public confidence in an insurer and its competitive position in marketing products. Rating organizations continually review the financial performance and condition of insurers, including Prudential Insurance and our other insurance company subsidiaries. Our credit ratings are also important to our ability to raise capital through the issuance of debt and to the cost of such financing.

 

Claims-paying ratings represent the opinions of rating agencies regarding the financial ability of an insurance company to meet its obligations under an insurance policy. Credit ratings represent the opinions of rating agencies regarding an entity’s ability to repay its indebtedness. The following table summarizes the ratings for Prudential Financial, Inc. and certain of its subsidiaries as of the date of this filing.

 

     S&P(1)

   Moody’s(2)

 

A.M.

Best(3)


   Fitch(4)

Insurance Claims-Paying Ratings:

                  

The Prudential Insurance Company of America

   A+    A1   A+    AA-

PRUCO Life Insurance Company

   A+    A1   A+    AA-

PRUCO Life Insurance Company of New Jersey

   A+    NR*   A+    NR

American Skandia Life Assurance Corporation

   A+    NR   A+    AA-

The Prudential Life Insurance Co. Ltd. (Prudential of Japan)

   AA-    NR   A+    NR

Gibraltar Life Insurance Company, Ltd.

   A    A2   NR    NR

Credit Ratings:

                  

Prudential Financial, Inc.:

                  

Commercial Paper

   A-2    P-2   AMB-1    F1

Long-term senior debt

   A-    A3   a-    A

Redeemable Capital Securities

   A-    A3   a-    A

The Prudential Insurance Company of America:

                  

Capital and surplus notes

   A-    A3   a    A

Prudential Funding, LLC:

                  

Commercial paper

   A-1    P-1   AMB-1    F1

Long-term senior debt

   A+    A2   a+    A+

American Skandia Life Assurance Corporation

   A+    NR   NR    NR

*   “NR” indicates not rated.
(1)   Standard & Poor’s Ratings Group’s (“S&P”) claims-paying ratings currently range from “AAA (superior)” to “CCC (extremely vulnerable).” These ratings reflect S&P’s opinion of an operating insurance company’s financial capacity to meet the obligations of its insurance policies in accordance with their terms. According to S&P’s publications, “A+” rated insurance companies have strong financial security characteristics, but are somewhat more likely to be affected by adverse business conditions than insurers with higher ratings. The symbol (+) following “A” shows a company’s relative standing within the “A” rating category. An insurer rated “AA” has very strong financial security characteristics, differing only slightly from those rated higher. A “+” or “-” indicates relative strength within a category.
    An S&P credit rating is a current opinion of the creditworthiness of an obligor with respect to a specific financial obligation, a specific class of financial obligations or a specific financial program. S&P’s long-term issue credit ratings range from “AAA (highest rating)” to “D (payment default).” S&P publications indicate that an “A+” rated issue is somewhat more susceptible to the adverse effects of changes in circumstances and economic condition than obligations in higher rated categories; however, the obligor’s capacity to meet its financial commitment to the obligation is still strong. S&P short-term ratings range from “A-1 (highest category)” to “D (payment default).” Within the A-1 category some obligations are designated with a plus sign (+) indicating that the obligor’s capacity to meet its financial commitment on the obligation is extremely strong.
(2)   Moody’s Investors Service, Inc.’s (“Moody’s”) insurance claims-paying ratings (sometimes referred to as “financial strength” ratings) currently range from “Aaa (exceptional)” to “C (lowest rated).” Moody’s insurance ratings reflect the ability of insurance companies to repay punctually senior policyholder claims and obligations. Moody’s indicates that “A1” rated insurance companies offer good financial security, but elements may be present which suggest a susceptibility to impairment sometimes in the future. Numeric modifiers are used to refer to the ranking within the group—with 1 being the highest and 3 being the lowest. However, the financial strength of companies within a generic rating symbol (“A” for example) is broadly the same.

 

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    Moody’s credit ratings currently range from “Aaa (best quality)” to “C (lowest rated).” Moody’s credit ratings grade debt according to its investment quality. Moody’s considers “A2” and “A3” rated debt to be upper medium grade obligations, and that while factors giving security to principal and interest are considered adequate, elements may be present that suggest a susceptibility to impairment sometime in the future.
    Moody’s short-term ratings are opinions of the ability of issuers to honor senior financial obligations and contracts. Prime ratings range from “Prime-1” (P-1), which represents a superior ability for repayment of senior short-term debt obligations, to “Prime-3” (P-3), which represents an acceptable ability for repayment of such obligations. Issuers rated “Not Prime” do not fall within any of the Prime rating categories.
(3)   A.M. Best Company’s (“A.M. Best”) claims-paying ratings for insurance companies currently range from “A++ (superior)” to “F (in liquidation).” A.M. Best’s ratings reflect its opinion of an insurance company’s financial strength, operating performance and ability to meet its obligations to policyholders. A.M. Best considers “A+” rated companies to have a superior ability to meet their ongoing obligations to policyholders.

 

    An A.M. Best long-term credit rating is an opinion of the capacity and willingness of an obligor to pay interest and principal in accordance with the terms of the obligation. A.M. Best long-term credit ratings range from “aaa (exceptional)” to “d (in default),” with ratings from “aaa” to “bbb” considered as investment grade. A rating of “a” is assigned to issuers that possess a low level of credit risk and a strong capacity to meet the terms of the obligation.
    An A.M. Best short-term credit rating reflects an opinion of the issuer’s fundamental credit quality. Ratings range from “AMB-1+,” which represents an exceptional ability to repay short-term debt obligations, to “AMB-4,” which correlates with a speculative (“bb”) long-term rating.
(4)   Fitch Ratings Ltd.’s (“Fitch”) claims-paying ratings (sometimes referred to as “financial strength” ratings) currently range from “AAA (negligible risk factors)” to “DD (company is under an order of liquidation).” Fitch’s ratings reflect its assessment of the likelihood of timely payment of policyholder and contractholder obligations. According to Fitch, “AA-” companies have very high claims-paying ability, strong protection factors and modest risk which may vary slightly over time due to economic and/or underwriting conditions.
    Fitch long-term ratings currently range from “AAA (highest credit quality),” which denotes exceptionally strong capacity for timely payment of financial commitments, to “D (default).” Investment grade ratings range between “AAA” and “BBB.” Short-term ratings range from “F1 (highest credit quality)” to “C (high default risk).” Within long-term and short-term ratings, a “+” or a “–” may be appended to a rating to denote relative status with major rating categories.

 

The ratings set forth above with respect to Prudential Financial, Prudential Funding, LLC, Prudential Insurance and our other insurance and financing subsidiaries reflect current opinions of each rating organization with respect to claims-paying ability, financial strength, operating performance and ability to meet obligations to policyholders or debt holders, as the case may be. These ratings are of concern to policyholders, agents and intermediaries. They are not directed toward stockholders and do not in any way reflect evaluations of the safety and security of the Common Stock. A downgrade in our claims-paying or credit ratings could limit our ability to market products, increase the number or value of policies being surrendered and/or hurt our relationships with creditors or trading counterparties. Our claims-paying ratings are an important factor affecting public confidence in most of our products and, as a result, our competitiveness. The interest rates we pay on our borrowings are largely dependent on our credit ratings.

 

Competition

 

In each of our businesses we face intense competition from domestic and foreign insurance companies, asset managers and diversified financial institutions. Many of our competitors are large and well-capitalized and some have higher claims-paying or credit ratings than we do. We compete in our businesses generally on the basis of price, quality of service, scope of distribution, quality of products and brand recognition. The relative importance of these factors varies across our products and the markets we serve.

 

In recent years, there has been substantial consolidation and convergence among companies in the financial services industry, particularly as the U.S. laws separating banking and insurance have been relaxed, resulting in increased competition from large, well-capitalized financial services firms. In particular, a number of large commercial banks, insurance companies and other broad-based financial services firms have established or acquired other financial services businesses such as a broker-dealer or an insurance company. Many of these firms also have been able to increase their distribution systems through mergers or contractual arrangements. We expect consolidation to continue and perhaps accelerate. While we are among the largest competitors in terms of market share in many of our business lines, in some cases there are one or more dominant market players in a particular line of business. The trend toward consolidation in the financial services industry may result in competitors with increased market shares, or the introduction of larger or financially stronger competitors through acquisitions or otherwise, in those or other lines of business in which we compete.

 

Certain of our products compete on the basis of investment performance. A material decline in the investment performance of these products could have an adverse effect on our sales. Rankings and ratings of investment performance have a significant effect on our ability to increase our assets under management.

 

Competition for personnel in all of our businesses is intense, including for Prudential Agents, other captive sales personnel and our investment managers. In the ordinary course of business, we lose personnel from time to time in

 

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whom we have invested significant training. We are directing substantial efforts on refocusing our Prudential Agents, improving recruiting and retention and on increasing the productivity of Prudential Agents. The loss of key investment managers could have a material adverse effect on our Investment Management segment.

 

Many of our businesses are in industries where access to multiple sales channels may be a competitive advantage. We believe that insurance and investment products will continue to be sold primarily through face-to-face sales channels, although customers’ desire for objective and not product-related advice will, over time, increase the amount of insurance and investment products sold through non-affiliated distributors such as independent agents, insurance brokers and investment advisors. In addition, we expect that insurance and investment products will increasingly be sold through direct marketing, including through electronic commerce.

 

The proliferation and growth of multiple sales channels puts pressure on our face-to-face sales channels to either increase their productivity or reduce their costs. We continue our efforts to strengthen and broaden our sales channels, but we cannot assure they will be successful. We run the risk that the marketplace will make a more significant or rapid shift to non-affiliated and direct distribution alternatives than we anticipate or are able to achieve ourselves. If this happens, our market share and results of operations could be adversely affected.

 

Our current claims-paying ratings have substantially reduced our ability to sell traditional guaranteed products. A downgrade in our claims-paying ratings could adversely affect our ability to sell our insurance products and reduce our profitability.

 

Our international life insurance business, other than Gibraltar Life, competes by focusing on a limited market using our Life Planner model to offer high quality service and needs-based protection products. Certain competitors, including Sony Life in Japan, employ or seek to employ versions of the Life Planner model.

 

Regulation

 

Overview

 

Our businesses are subject to comprehensive regulation and supervision. The purpose of these regulations is primarily to protect our customers and not our shareholders. Many of the laws and regulations to which we are subject are regularly re-examined, and existing or future laws and regulations may become more restrictive or otherwise adversely affect our operations. U.S. law and regulation of our international business, particularly as it relates to monitoring customer activities, is likely to increase as a result of the recent terrorist activity in the U.S. and abroad and may affect our ability to attract and retain customers.

 

Our international operations face political, legal, operational and other risks that we do not face in our U.S. operations, including the risk of discriminatory regulation, nationalization or expropriation of assets, price controls and exchange controls or other restrictions that prevent us from transferring funds from these operations out of the countries in which they operate or converting local currencies we hold into U.S. dollars or other currencies.

 

The discussion below is of U.S. regulation. Our international operations are subject to similar types of regulation in the jurisdictions in which they operate.

 

Insurance Operations

 

State insurance laws regulate all aspects of our domestic insurance businesses, and state insurance departments in the fifty states, the District of Columbia and various U.S. territories and possessions monitor our insurance operations. Prudential Insurance is organized in New Jersey and its principal insurance regulatory authority is the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance. Our other insurance companies are principally regulated by the insurance departments of the states in which they are organized. Our international insurance operations are principally regulated by non-U.S. insurance regulatory authorities in the jurisdiction in which they operate, including the Japanese Ministry of Finance and Financial Services Agency. Generally, our insurance products must be approved by the insurance regulators in the state in which they are sold. Our insurance products are substantially affected by federal, state and non-U.S. tax laws. Products in the U.S. that also constitute “securities”, such as variable life insurance and variable annuities, are also subject to federal and state securities laws and regulations. The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. (“NASD”), state securities commissions and non-U.S. authorities for products offered outside the U.S. regulate and supervise these products.

 

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Asset Management Operations

 

Our investment products and services, including mutual funds and private banking activities, are subject to federal, state and non-U.S. securities, fiduciary, including the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), and other laws and regulations. The SEC, the NASD, state securities commissions, the Department of Labor and similar non-U.S. authorities, such as the United Kingdom’s Financial Services Authority (“FSA”), are the principal regulators that regulate our asset management operations. Federal, state and non-U.S. tax laws also substantially affect our investment products and services.

 

Securities Operations

 

Our securities operations, principally conducted by a number of SEC-registered broker-dealers and non-U.S. broker-dealers, are subject to federal, state and non-U.S. securities, commodities and related laws. The SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”), state securities authorities, the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”), the NASD and similar U.S. and non-U.S. authorities, such as the FSA, are the principal regulators of our securities operations.

 

Regulation Affecting Prudential Financial

 

Prudential Financial is the holding company for all of our operations. Prudential Financial itself is not licensed as an insurer, investment advisor, broker-dealer, bank or other regulated entity. However, because it owns regulated entities, Prudential Financial is subject to regulation as an insurance holding company and a savings and loan holding company.

 

Insurance Holding Company Regulation

 

Prudential Financial is subject to the insurance holding company laws in the states where our insurance subsidiaries are, or are treated as, organized, which currently include New Jersey, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Minnesota, New York and others. These laws generally require each insurance company directly or indirectly owned by the holding company to register with the insurance department in the insurance company’s state of domicile and to furnish annually financial and other information about the operations of companies within the holding company system. Generally, all transactions affecting the insurers in the holding company system must be fair and arm’s length and, if material, require prior notice and approval or non-disapproval by the state’s insurance department.

 

Acquisition of Control

 

Under the New Jersey statute governing the demutualization and the Plan of Reorganization, until December 17, 2004, no person, other than Prudential Financial, its subsidiaries or any employee benefit plans or trusts sponsored by us, may offer to acquire 5% or more of Prudential Financial’s Common Stock or total voting power without the prior approval of the New Jersey insurance regulator. Under this statute, the New Jersey insurance regulator may not approve the acquisition unless he or she determines, among other things, that:

 

    the acquisition would not frustrate the Plan of Reorganization;

 

    either Prudential Financial’s Board of Directors has approved the acquisition or extraordinary circumstances that the Plan of Reorganization did not contemplate have arisen that justify their approval of the acquisition; and

 

    the acquisition would be in the interests of our policyholders.

 

The New Jersey statute governing the demutualization provides that any security that is subject to an agreement regarding acquisition or that is acquired or to be acquired in violation of the statute or in violation of an order of the New Jersey insurance regulator may not be voted at any shareholders’ meeting, and any action of shareholders requiring the affirmative vote of a percentage of shares may be taken as though these securities were not issued and outstanding. If these securities are voted, however, any action taken at a shareholders’ meeting will be valid unless it materially affects control of Prudential Financial or unless a New Jersey court has otherwise ordered.

 

Most states, including the states in which our insurance companies are domiciled, have insurance laws that require regulatory approval of a change of control of an insurer or an insurer’s holding company. Laws such as these that apply to us prevent any person from acquiring control of Prudential Financial or of our insurance subsidiaries unless that

 

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person has filed a statement with specified information with the insurance regulators and has obtained their prior approval. Under most states’ statutes, acquiring 10% or more of the voting stock of an insurance company or its parent company is presumptively considered a change of control, although such presumption may be rebutted. Accordingly, any person who acquires 10% or more of the voting securities of Prudential Financial without the prior approval of the insurance regulators of the states in which our insurance companies are domiciled will be in violation of these states’ laws and may be subject to injunctive action requiring the disposition or seizure of those securities by the relevant insurance regulator or prohibiting the voting of those securities and to other actions determined by the relevant insurance regulator.

 

In addition, many state insurance laws require prior notification of state insurance departments of a change in control of a non-domiciliary insurance company doing business in that state. While these prenotification statutes do not authorize the state insurance departments to disapprove the change in control, they authorize regulatory action in the affected state if particular conditions exist such as undue market concentration. Any future transactions that would constitute a change in control of Prudential Financial may require prior notification in those states that have adopted preacquisition notification laws.

 

These laws may discourage potential acquisition proposals and may delay, deter or prevent a change of control of Prudential Financial, including through transactions, and in particular unsolicited transactions, that some or all of the stockholders of Prudential Financial might consider to be desirable.

 

Bank and Savings and Loan Holding Company Regulation

 

Although The Prudential Bank and Trust Company is a “bank” as defined in the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, Prudential Financial is exempted from regulation as a bank holding company under federal law as long as we continue to comply with certain restrictions. As a result of its ownership of The Prudential Savings Bank, F.S.B., Prudential Financial is a savings and loan holding company. Federal and state banking laws generally provide that no person may acquire control of Prudential Financial, and gain indirect control of The Prudential Bank and Trust Company, The Prudential Savings Bank, F.S.B. or Prudential Trust Company, without prior regulatory approval. Generally, beneficial ownership of 10% or more of the voting securities of Prudential Financial would be presumed to constitute control.

 

Insurance Operations

 

State Insurance Regulation

 

State insurance authorities have broad administrative powers with respect to all aspects of the insurance business including:

 

    licensing to transact business,

 

    licensing agents,

 

    admittance of assets to statutory surplus,

 

    regulating premium rates for certain insurance products,

 

    approving policy forms,

 

    regulating unfair trade and claims practices,

 

    establishing reserve requirements and solvency standards,

 

    fixing maximum interest rates on life insurance policy loans and minimum accumulation or surrender values, and

 

    regulating the type, amounts and valuations of investments permitted and other matters.

 

State insurance laws and regulations require our insurance companies to file financial statements with insurance departments everywhere they do business, and the operations of our insurance companies and accounts are subject to examination by those departments at any time. Our insurance companies prepare statutory financial statements in accordance with accounting practices and procedures prescribed or permitted by these departments.

 

State insurance departments conduct periodic examinations of the books and records, financial reporting, policy filings and market conduct of insurance companies domiciled in their states, generally once every three to five years.

 

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Examinations are generally carried out in cooperation with the insurance departments of other states under guidelines promulgated by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (“NAIC”). The New Jersey insurance regulator completed a financial examination of Prudential Insurance and its indirect insurance subsidiary, PRUCO Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, for each of the previous five years for the period ended December 31, 2001, and found no material deficiencies.

 

Financial Regulation

 

Dividend Payment Limitations.    The New Jersey insurance law and the insurance laws of the other states and countries in which our insurance companies are domiciled regulate the amount of dividends that may be paid by Prudential Insurance and our other insurance companies. See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources” for more detail.

 

Risk-Based Capital.    In order to enhance the regulation of insurers’ solvency, the NAIC adopted a model law to implement risk-based capital requirements for life, health and property and casualty insurance companies. All states have adopted the NAIC’s model law or a substantially similar law. The RBC calculation, which regulators use to assess the sufficiency of an insurer’s capital, measures the risk characteristics of a company’s assets, liabilities and certain off-balance sheet items. RBC is calculated by applying factors to various asset, premium and liability items. Within a given risk category, these factors are higher for those items with greater underlying risk and lower for items with lower underlying risk. Insurers that have less statutory capital than the RBC calculation requires are considered to have inadequate capital and are subject to varying degrees of regulatory action depending upon the level of capital inadequacy. The RBC ratios for each of our insurance companies currently are well above the ranges that would require any regulatory or corrective action.

 

The NAIC approved a series of statutory accounting principles which have been adopted, in some cases with modifications, by all state insurance regulators. The measurement of statutory capital under these principles has resulted in an increase in our RBC ratios.

 

IRIS Tests.    The NAIC has developed a set of financial relationships or tests known as the Insurance Regulatory Information System to assist state regulators in monitoring the financial condition of insurance companies and identifying companies that require special attention or action by insurance regulatory authorities. Insurance companies generally submit data annually to the NAIC, which in turn analyzes the data using prescribed financial data ratios, each with defined “usual ranges.” Generally, regulators will begin to investigate or monitor an insurance company if its ratios fall outside the usual ranges for four or more of the ratios. If an insurance company has insufficient capital, regulators may act to reduce the amount of insurance it can issue. None of our insurance companies is currently subject to regulatory scrutiny based on these ratios.

 

Insurance Reserves.    State insurance laws require us to analyze the adequacy of our reserves annually. Our actuary must submit an opinion that our reserves, when considered in light of the assets we hold with respect to those reserves, make adequate provision for our contractual obligations and related expenses.

 

The NAIC has adopted a model regulation called “Valuation of Life Insurance Policies Model Regulation” that establishes new minimum statutory reserve requirements for individual life insurance policies written after the effective date of the regulation. These reserve standards have been enacted by most of the states, generally with a January 1, 2000 effective date. As a result, insurers selling some individual life insurance products such as term life insurance with guaranteed premium periods have adjusted reserves and/or shortened guarantee periods. While the model regulation has been enacted by the states in which we have domestic companies, the enactment of the regulation has not had a material impact on us. The NAIC is currently considering revisions to this regulation, but we do not expect the revisions to have a material impact on us.

 

Market Conduct Regulation

 

State insurance laws and regulations include numerous provisions governing the marketplace activities of insurers, including provisions governing the form and content of disclosure to consumers, illustrations, advertising, sales practices and complaint handling. State regulatory authorities generally enforce these provisions through periodic market conduct examinations.

 

Insurance Guaranty Association Assessments

 

Each state has insurance guaranty association laws under which life and property and casualty insurers doing business in the state are members and may be assessed by state insurance guaranty associations for certain obligations

 

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of insolvent insurance companies to policyholders and claimants. Typically, states assess each member insurer in an amount related to the member insurer’s proportionate share of the business written by all member insurers in the state. For the years ended December 31, 2003, 2002, and 2001, we paid approximately $1.2 million, $1.6 million and $2.1 million, respectively, in assessments pursuant to state insurance guaranty association laws. While we cannot predict the amount and timing of any future assessments on our insurance companies under these laws, we have established reserves that we believe are adequate for assessments relating to insurance companies that are currently subject to insolvency proceedings.

 

State Securities Regulation

 

Our mutual funds, and in certain states our variable life insurance and variable annuity products, are securities within the meaning of state securities laws, and therefore are subject to regulation by state securities commissioners. Such regulation may affect investment advice, sales and related activities for these products.

 

Federal Regulation

 

Our variable life insurance products, as well as our variable annuity and mutual fund products, generally are securities within the meaning of federal securities laws, are registered under the Securities Act of 1933 and are subject to regulation by the SEC and the NASD. Federal and some state securities regulation similar to that discussed below under “—Asset Management Operations” and “—Securities Operations” affect investment advice, sales and related activities with respect to these products. In addition, although the federal government does not comprehensively regulate the business of insurance, federal legislation and administrative policies in several areas, including taxation, financial services regulation and pension and welfare benefits regulation, can significantly affect the insurance industry. Congress also periodically considers and is considering laws affecting privacy of information and genetic testing that could significantly and adversely affect the insurance industry.

 

Tax Legislation

 

Current federal income tax laws generally permit certain holders to defer taxation on the build-up of value of annuities and life insurance products until payments are actually made to the policyholder or other beneficiary and to exclude the build-up of value which is paid as a death benefit under a life insurance contract. Congress from time to time considers legislation that could make our products less attractive to consumers, including legislation that would reduce or eliminate the benefit of this deferral on some annuities and insurance products, as well as other types of changes that could reduce or eliminate the attractiveness of annuities and life insurance products to consumers.

 

In June 2001, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (the “2001 Act”) was enacted. The 2001 Act contains provisions that will, over time, significantly lower individual tax rates. This will have the effect of reducing the benefits of tax deferral on the build-up of value of annuities and life insurance products. The 2001 Act also includes provisions that will eliminate, over time, the estate, gift and generation-skipping taxes and partially eliminates the step-up in basis rule applicable to property held in a decedent’s estate. Some of these changes might hinder our sales and result in the increased surrender of insurance and annuity products.

 

In May 2003, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (the “2003 Act”) was enacted. Individual taxpayers are the principal beneficiaries of the 2003 Act, which includes an acceleration of certain of the income tax rate reductions enacted originally under the 2001 Act, as well as capital gains and dividend tax rate reductions. Although most of these rate reductions expire after 2008 or later, these reductions have the effect of reducing the benefits of tax deferral on the build-up of value of annuities and life insurance products. These changes may hinder our sales and result in increased surrender of insurance and annuity products.

 

The Bush Administration has also recently proposed that many of the foregoing rate reductions be made permanent, as well as several tax-favored savings initiatives that, if enacted by Congress, could also adversely affect the sale of our annuity, life and tax-qualified retirement products and increase the surrender of such products.

 

ERISA

 

ERISA is a comprehensive federal statute that applies to employee benefit plans sponsored by private employers and labor unions. Plans subject to ERISA include pension and profit sharing plans and welfare plans (including health, life and disability plans). ERISA provisions include reporting and disclosure rules, standards of conduct that apply to plan fiduciaries, prohibitions on conflict-of-interest transactions and certain transactions between a benefit plan and a

 

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party in interest (“prohibited transactions”), and a scheme of civil and criminal penalties and enforcement. Our insurance, asset management, plan administrative services, brokerage and other businesses provide services to employee benefit plans subject to ERISA, including services where we may act as an ERISA fiduciary. In addition to ERISA regulation of those businesses in the sales of products to and provisions of services to ERISA plans, we become parties in interest to those plans and subject to ERISA’s prohibited transaction rules for transactions with those plans, which may affect our ability to enter transactions, or the terms on which transactions may be entered, with those plans, even in businesses unrelated to those giving rise to party in interest status.

 

USA Patriot Act

 

The USA Patriot Act of 2001 (the “Patriot Act”), enacted in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, contains anti-money laundering and financial transparency laws and mandates the implementation of various new regulations applicable to broker-dealers and other financial services companies including insurance companies. The Patriot Act seeks to promote cooperation among financial institutions, regulators and law enforcement entities in identifying parties that may be involved in terrorism or money laundering. Anti-money laundering laws outside of the U.S. contain some similar provisions. The increased obligations of financial institutions to identify their customers, watch for and report suspicious transactions, respond to requests for information by regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies, and share information with other financial institutions, require the implementation and maintenance of internal practices, procedures and controls.

 

Asset Management Operations

 

Some of our separate accounts, mutual funds and other pooled investments, in addition to being registered under the Securities Act of 1933, are registered as investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940, and the shares of certain of these entities are qualified for sale in some states and the District of Columbia. We also have several subsidiaries that are registered as broker-dealers under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) and are subject to federal and state regulation, including but not limited to the SEC’s net capital rules. In addition, we have several subsidiaries that are investment advisors registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Our Prudential Agents and other employees, insofar as they sell products that are securities, are subject to the Exchange Act and to examination requirements and regulation by the SEC, the NASD and state securities commissioners. Regulation also extends to various Prudential entities that employ or control those individuals.

 

Federal and state regulators are devoting substantial attention to the mutual fund and variable annuity businesses. As a result of publicity relating to widespread perceptions of industry abuses, there have been numerous proposals for legislative and regulatory reforms, including mutual fund governance, new disclosure requirements concerning mutual fund share classes, commission breakpoints, revenue sharing, advisory fees, market timing, late trading, portfolio pricing, annuity products, hedge funds and other issues. It is difficult to predict at this time whether changes resulting from new laws and regulations will affect the industries or our asset management businesses, and, if so, to what degree.

 

For a discussion of potential federal tax legislation and other federal regulation affecting our variable annuity products, see “—Insurance Operations—Federal Regulation” above.

 

Securities Operations

 

A number of our subsidiaries and Wachovia Securities, in which we have a 38% ownership interest, are registered as broker-dealers with the SEC and with some or all of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, a number of our subsidiaries are also registered as investment advisors with the SEC. Our broker-dealer affiliates are members of, and are subject to regulation by “self-regulatory organizations,” including the NASD and the NYSE. Many of these self-regulatory organizations conduct examinations of and have adopted rules governing their member broker-dealers. In addition, state securities and certain other regulators have regulatory and oversight authority over our registered broker-dealers.

 

Broker-dealers and their sales forces are subject to regulations that cover many aspects of the securities business, including sales methods and trading practices. The regulations cover the suitability of investments for individual customers, use and safekeeping of customers’ funds and securities, capital adequacy, record keeping, financial reporting and the conduct of directors, officers and employees.

 

The commodity futures and commodity options industry in the U.S. is subject to regulation under the Commodity Exchange Act. The CFTC is the federal agency charged with the administration of the Commodity Exchange Act and

 

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the regulations adopted under the act. A number of our subsidiaries are registered with the CFTC as futures commission merchants, commodity pool operators or commodity trading advisors. Our futures business is also regulated in the U.S. by the National Futures Association.

 

The SEC and other governmental agencies and self-regulatory organizations, as well as state securities commissions in the U.S., have the power to conduct administrative proceedings that can result in censure, fine, the issuance of cease-and-desist orders or suspension, termination or limitation of the activities of a broker-dealer or an investment advisor or its employees.

 

As registered broker-dealers and members of various self-regulatory organizations, our U.S. registered broker-dealer subsidiaries and Wachovia Securities are subject to the SEC’s Uniform Net Capital Rule. The Uniform Net Capital Rule sets the minimum level of net capital a broker-dealer must maintain and also requires that at least a minimum part of a broker-dealer’s assets be kept in relatively liquid form. These net capital requirements are designed to measure the financial soundness and liquidity of broker-dealers. Our broker-dealers are also subject to the net capital requirements of the CFTC and the various securities and commodities exchanges of which they are a member. Compliance with the net capital requirements could limit those operations that require the intensive use of capital, such as underwriting and trading activities, and may limit the ability of these subsidiaries to pay dividends to Prudential Financial.

 

Other Businesses

 

Our domestic banking operations are subject to extensive federal and state regulation, including examination and review by state authorities of consumer finance offices. Prudential provides trust services through Prudential Trust Company, a state-chartered trust company incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, The Prudential Bank and Trust Company, and The Prudential Savings Bank, F.S.B. Our non-U.S. banking operations are subject to banking and securities regulation in the jurisdictions in which they are doing business. The sale of real estate franchises by our real estate brokerage franchise operation is regulated by various state laws and the Federal Trade Commission. The federal Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and state real estate brokerage and unfair trade practice laws regulate payments among participants in the sale or financing of residences or the provision of settlement services such as mortgages, homeowners insurance and title insurance.

 

Privacy Regulation

 

Federal and state law and regulation require financial institutions to protect the security and confidentiality of health-related and customer information and to notify customers and other individuals about their policies and practices relating to their collection and disclosure of health-related and customer information and their policies relating to protecting the security and confidentiality of that information. Federal and state laws also regulate disclosures of that information. Congress and state legislatures are expected to consider additional regulation relating to privacy, security and other aspects of personal information. Federal and state laws and regulations regulate financial institutions’ abilities to make telemarketing calls and to send unsolicited e-mail messages to consumers and customers, and they may consider additional or more detailed legislative or regulatory requirements regarding these subjects. Similar consumer and employee privacy laws regulate our non-U.S. business operations.

 

Environmental Considerations

 

Federal, state and local environmental laws and regulations apply to our ownership and operation of real property. Inherent in owning and operating real property is the risk of hidden environmental liabilities and the costs of any required clean-up. As to our commercial mortgage lending, under the laws of certain states, contamination of a property may give rise to a lien on the property to secure recovery of the costs of clean-up. In several states, this lien has priority over the lien of an existing mortgage against such property. In addition, in some states and under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (“CERCLA”), we may be liable, as an “owner” or “operator,” for costs of cleaning-up releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances at a property mortgaged to us. We also risk environmental liability when we foreclose on a property mortgaged to us. Recent legislation provides for a safe harbor from CERCLA liability for secured lenders that foreclose and sell the mortgaged real estate, provided that certain requirements are met. However, there are circumstances in which actions taken could still expose us to CERCLA liability. Application of various other federal and state environmental laws could also result in the imposition of liability on us for costs associated with environmental hazards.

 

We routinely conduct environmental assessments for real estate we acquire for investment and before taking title through foreclosure to real property collateralizing mortgages that we hold. Although unexpected environmental

 

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liabilities can always arise, based on these environmental assessments and compliance with our internal procedures, we believe that any costs associated with compliance with environmental laws and regulations or any clean-up of properties would not have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

 

Employees

 

As of December 31, 2003, we employed 39,422 employees. We believe our relations with our employees are satisfactory.

 

In January of 2002, the Office of Professional Employees International Union (“OPEIU”), Local 153 (AFL-CIO), filed petitions with the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) seeking to represent those of our Prudential Agents who formerly had been represented by the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union (AFL-CIO). In April of 2002, the NLRB conducted a mail ballot election, the result of which was that a majority of those who voted, voted against OPEIU representation. On February 2, 2004, the NLRB certified the April 2002 election results as final. On February 18, 2004, the OPEIU filed a new petition to represent the same group of Prudential Agents. A hearing is scheduled before the NLRB on March 11, 2004, and it is anticipated that an election date will be set at that time.

 

Available Information

 

You may access our press releases, financial information and reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (for example, our Annual Report on Form 10-K, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and our Current Reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to those Forms) online at www.investor.prudential.com. Copies of any documents on our website are available without charge, and reports filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission will be available as soon as reasonably practicable after they are filed with or furnished to the Commission.

 

ITEM 1A.    EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

 

The names of the executive officers of Prudential Financial and their respective ages and positions, as of March 1, 2004, were as follows:

 

Name


   Age

  

Title


  

Other Directorships


Arthur F. Ryan

   61   

Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President

   Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Vivian L. Banta

   53    Vice Chairman    None

Mark B. Grier

   51    Vice Chairman    None

Rodger A. Lawson

   57    Vice Chairman    None

John R. Strangfeld, Jr.

   50    Vice Chairman    None

Robert Charles Golden

   57    Executive Vice President    None

Richard J. Carbone

   56   

Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

   None

John M. Liftin

   60   

Senior Vice President and General Counsel

   None

Sharon C. Taylor

   49   

Senior Vice President, Corporate Human Resources

   None

 

Biographical information about Prudential Financial executive officers is as follows:

 

Arthur F. Ryan was elected Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Prudential Financial in December 2000, and served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Prudential Financial from January 2000 to December 2000. He joined Prudential Insurance as the Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President

 

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in December 1994. Mr. Ryan was with Chase Manhattan Bank from 1972 to 1994, serving in various executive positions including President and Chief Operating Officer from 1990 to 1994 and Vice Chairman from 1985 to 1990. Mr. Ryan was elected a director of Prudential Financial in December 1999 and has been a director of Prudential Insurance since December 1994.

 

Vivian L. Banta was elected Vice Chairman of Prudential Financial in August 2002. Since January 2000, she variously served as Executive Vice President of Prudential Financial, Senior Vice President, Individual Financial Services, Executive Vice President, Individual Financial Services, Executive Vice President, U.S. Consumer Group, and Chief Executive Officer, Insurance Division of Prudential Insurance, a position she also holds at this time. Prior to joining Prudential, Ms. Banta was an independent consultant from 1998 to 1999, and served as Executive Vice President, Global Investor Services, Group Executive for Chase Manhattan Bank from 1991 to 1997.

 

Mark B. Grier was elected Vice Chairman of Prudential Financial in August 2002. He served as a director of Prudential Financial from December 1999 to January 2001, Executive Vice President from December 2000 to August 2002 and as Vice President of Prudential Financial from January 2000 to December 2000. He was elected Executive Vice President of Prudential Insurance in May 1995. Since May 1995 he has variously served as Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President, Corporate Governance, Executive Vice President, Financial Management, and Vice Chairman, Financial Management the position he holds at this time. Prior to joining Prudential, Mr. Grier was an executive with Chase Manhattan Corporation.

 

Rodger A. Lawson was elected Vice Chairman of Prudential Financial in August 2002. He was Executive Vice President of Prudential Financial from February 2001 to August 2002, and previously served as Executive Vice President, International Investments and Global Marketing Communications of Prudential Insurance. He served as Executive Vice President, Marketing and Planning of Prudential Insurance from June 1996 to October 1998. Prior to joining Prudential, Mr. Lawson was the President and Chief Executive Officer of VanEck Global from April 1994 to June 1996; Managing Director and Partner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Global Private Banking and Mutual Funds, Bankers Trust Company from January 1992 to April 1994; Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Fidelity Investments—Retail from May 1985 to May 1991 and President and Chief Executive Officer of Dreyfus Service Corporation from March 1982 to May 1985.

 

John R. Strangfeld, Jr. was elected Vice Chairman of Prudential Financial in August 2002. He was Executive Vice President of Prudential Financial from February 2001 to August 2002. He served as Head of Prudential Investment Management of Prudential Insurance from October 1998 until March 2002. Mr. Strangfeld was also elected Chairman and CEO of Prudential Securities in October 2000 until July 2003. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Managers of Wachovia Securities Financial Holdings, LLC, which was formed in July 2003 as part of the merger of the retail brokerage and securities clearing business of Prudential and Wachovia. He has been with Prudential since July 1977, serving in various management positions, including the executive in charge of Prudential’s Global Asset Management Group since 1996; Senior Managing Director, The Private Asset Management Group from 1995 to 1996; and Chairman, PRICOA Capital Group (London) Europe from 1989 to 1995.

 

Robert Charles Golden was elected Executive Vice President of Prudential Financial in February 2001 and was elected Executive Vice President, Operations and Systems of Prudential Insurance in June 1997. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer for Prudential Securities.

 

Richard J. Carbone was elected Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Prudential Financial in December 2000 and November 2001, respectively, and was elected Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Prudential Insurance in July 1997. Prior to that, Mr. Carbone was the Global Controller and a Managing Director of Salomon, Inc. from July 1995 to June 1997; and Controller of Bankers Trust New York Corporation and a Managing Director and Controller of Bankers Trust Company from April 1988 to March 1993; and Managing Director and Chief Administrative Officer of the Private Client Group at Bankers Trust Company from March 1993 to June 1995.

 

John M. Liftin was elected Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Prudential Financial in December 2000. He served as a director of Prudential Financial from December 1999 to January 2001 and as Vice President of Prudential Financial from January 2000 to December 2000. He was elected Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Prudential Insurance in April 1998. Prior to that, Mr. Liftin was an independent consultant from 1997 to 1998 and the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Kidder, Peabody Group Inc. from 1987 to 1996.

 

Sharon C. Taylor was elected Senior Vice President, Corporate Human Resources for Prudential Financial in June 2002. She also serves as Senior Vice President, Corporate Human Resources for Prudential Insurance and the Chair of The Prudential Foundation. Ms. Taylor has been with Prudential since 1976, serving in various human

 

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resources management positions, including Vice President of Human Resources Communities of Practice, from 2000 to 2002; Vice President, Human Resources & Ethics Officer, Individual Financial Services, from 1998 to 2000; Vice President, Staffing and Employee Relations from 1996 to 1998; Management Internal Control Officer from 1994 to 1996; and Vice President, Human Resources and Administration from 1993 to 1994.

 

ITEM 2.    PROPERTIES

 

We own our headquarters building located at 751 Broad Street, Newark, New Jersey, which comprises approximately 0.7 million square feet. Excluding our headquarters building and properties used by the International Insurance and Investments division, which are discussed below, we own 13 and lease 17 other principal properties throughout the U.S., some of which are used for home office functions. Our domestic operations also lease approximately 375 other locations throughout the U.S.

 

For our International Insurance operations, we lease nine home offices located in Argentina, Brazil, China, Italy, Japan, The Philippines, Poland and Taiwan and own home offices in Japan and Korea. We also own approximately 270 and lease approximately 300 other properties, primarily field offices, located throughout these same countries. For our International Investments segment, we own one branch office and lease approximately 45 other branch offices throughout Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, and Taiwan, as well as various countries in Europe.

 

We believe our properties are adequate and suitable for our business as currently conducted and are adequately maintained. The above properties do not include properties we own for investment only.

 

ITEM 3.    LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

 

We are subject to legal and regulatory actions in the ordinary course of our businesses, including class action lawsuits. Our pending legal and regulatory actions include proceedings specific to us and proceedings generally applicable to business practices in the industries in which we operate. In our insurance operations, we are subject to class action lawsuits and individual lawsuits involving a variety of issues, including sales practices, underwriting practices, claims payment and procedures, additional premium charges for premiums paid on a periodic basis, denial or delay of benefits, return of premiums or excessive premium charges and breaching fiduciary duties to customers. In addition to the types of claims generally affecting our insurance operations, with respect to our former automobile and homeowners insurance businesses, we are also subject to certain individual and class action lawsuits involving a variety of issues arising out of activities prior to the sale of these businesses. In our investment-related operations, we are subject to litigation involving commercial disputes with counterparties or partners and class action lawsuits and other litigation alleging, among other things, that we made improper or inadequate disclosures in connection with the sale of assets and annuity and investment products or charged excessive or impermissible fees on these products, recommended unsuitable products to customers, mishandled customer accounts or breached fiduciary duties to customers. In our securities operations, we are subject to class action lawsuits, arbitrations and other actions arising out of our former retail securities brokerage, account management, underwriting, former investment banking and other activities, including claims of improper or inadequate disclosure regarding investments or charges, recommending unsuitable investments or products that were unsuitable for tax advantaged accounts, assessing impermissible fees or charges, engaging in excessive or unauthorized trading, making improper underwriting allocations, breaching alleged duties to non-customer third parties and breaching fiduciary duties to customers. We may be a defendant in, or be contractually responsible to third parties for, class action lawsuits and individual litigation arising from our other operations, including claims for breach of contract and payment of real estate taxes on transfer of equitable interests in residential properties in our relocation businesses, or the businesses we are winding down or have divested, including claims under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, in connection with our divested residential first mortgage operations and claims related to our discontinued healthcare operations. We are also subject to litigation arising out of our general business activities, such as our investments, contracts, leases and labor and employment relationships, including claims of discrimination and harassment.

 

In some of our pending legal and regulatory actions, parties are seeking large and/or indeterminate amounts, including punitive or exemplary damages. The following is a summary of certain pending proceedings.

 

Insurance

 

In August 2000, plaintiffs filed a purported national class action against us in the District Court of Valencia County, New Mexico, Azar, et al. v. Prudential Insurance, based upon the alleged failure to adequately disclose the increased costs associated with payment of life insurance premiums on a “modal” basis, i.e., more frequently than once

 

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a year. Similar actions have been filed in New Mexico against over a dozen other insurance companies. The complaint includes allegations that we should have disclosed to each policyholder who paid for coverage on a modal basis the dollar cost difference between the modal premium and the annual premium required for the policy, as well as the effective annual percentage rate of interest of such difference. Based on these allegations, plaintiffs assert statutory claims including violation of the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act, and common law claims for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment and fraudulent concealment. The complaint seeks injunctive relief, compensatory and punitive damages, both in unspecified amounts, restitution, treble damages, pre-judgment interest, costs and attorneys’ fees. In March 2001, the court entered an order granting partial summary judgment to plaintiffs as to liability and permitting us to appeal the order. In January 2003, the New Mexico Court of Appeals reversed the finding of summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs and affirmed the denial of the Company’s motion to dismiss all claims on federal pre-emption grounds but dismissed the counts in the complaint for breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing and breach of fiduciary duty. The case was remanded to the trial court to determine if the alleged nondisclosures were material to plaintiffs. Hearings on materiality were held in September and November 2003. The trial court has not yet issued a decision.

 

In October 2001, four housing advocacy groups and several individuals represented by one of the groups filed an action against the Company in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, National Fair Housing Alliance, Inc., et al. v. Prudential Insurance, et al. The complaint alleges, inter alia, that Prudential Insurance and Prudential Property and Casualty Insurance Company intentionally engaged in discriminatory practices to limit, restrict or deny homeowners insurance in several urban areas, including Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Richmond, Virginia and Toledo, Ohio, as well as suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The complaint asserts causes of action based on alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act and describes allegedly discriminatory homeowners insurance underwriting guidelines, terms and conditions and rating territories. The complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and compensatory and punitive damages in unspecified amounts. In July 2002, the District Court denied our motion to dismiss and, in August 2002, denied our motion for reconsideration of its decision.

 

Securities

 

In 1999, a class action lawsuit, Burns, et al. v. Prudential Securities, Inc., et al. was filed in the Marion County, Ohio Court of Common Pleas against Jeffrey Pickett (a former Prudential Securities, Inc. (“Prudential Securities” or “PSI”) Financial Advisor) and Prudential Securities alleging that Pickett transferred, without authorization, his clients’ equity mutual funds into fixed income mutual funds in October 1998. The claims were based on theories of conversion, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and negligent supervision. Compensatory and punitive damages in unspecified amounts were sought by plaintiffs. In October 2002, the case was tried and the jury returned a verdict against Prudential Securities and Pickett for $11.7 million in compensatory damages and against Prudential Securities for $250 million in punitive damages. In July 2003, the court denied PSI’s motion to set aside or reduce the jury verdict and sustained the judgment in the amount of $269 million, including interest and attorneys fees. PSI has appealed.

 

In November 1998, purchasers of initial public offering (“IPO”) securities filed a purported class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Gillet v. Goldman, Sachs & Co., et al., against over two dozen underwriters, including Prudential Securities. This and a number of similar actions naming Prudential Securities and other underwriters were consolidated under the name In re Public Offering Fee Antitrust Litigation. The amended complaint alleges that the defendants conspired to fix at 7% the spread that underwriting syndicates receive from issuers of securities in certain offerings in violation of the federal antitrust laws, and seeks treble damages and injunctive relief. In February 2001, the District Court dismissed the purchaser cases for lack of antitrust standing, without leave to replead. Plaintiffs appealed that dismissal and, in January 2003, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and remanded the action to the District Court. In February 2004, the District Court dismissed the claims for damages on the ground that plaintiffs were indirect purchasers of the IPO securities but did not dismiss the claim for injunctive relief. In July 2001, a consolidated class action complaint was filed by IPO issuers alleging the same violations of the antitrust laws as purchasers, In re Issuer Plaintiff IPO Antitrust Litigation, in the same District Court. Defendants’ motions to dismiss that complaint were denied.

 

In June 2001, an action was commenced in Circuit Court, Cole County, Missouri, Lakin, et al. v. Prudential Securities Inc., et al., against Prudential Securities, Prudential Investments and Prudential Savings Bank by the insurance commissioners for Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee and Oklahoma in their capacities as liquidators of six insurance companies previously controlled by Martin R. Frankel. The complaint alleges that, in connection with accounts maintained by the insurance companies at Prudential, the Prudential defendants allowed Mr. Frankel and his associates to transfer funds without proper authority and failed to detect and stop their looting activities. The complaint asserts causes of action for negligence, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty, and seeks compensatory

 

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damages in an amount to be proved at trial. In August 2001, we removed the case to the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Central Division. In December 2001, plaintiff moved for leave to file an amended complaint that contains substantially the same allegations as its original complaint. In March 2002, the court granted Prudential Savings Bank’s motion to dismiss it from the action. Plaintiffs appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit which reversed and remanded the case to the trial court. The case is in discovery.

 

An affiliate of Prudential Securities was a participant in a technology-related joint venture that brought a lawsuit in 1986 against Kyocera Corporation (“Kyocera”), a Japanese corporation, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, LaPine Technology Corp. v. Kyocera Corp. The complaint alleges, among other things, claims for breach of contract relating to the manufacture and distribution of computer disk drives. In September 1987, the District Court granted Kyocera’s motion to compel arbitration and in 1994 an arbitration tribunal subsequently rendered a decision in favor of the joint venture. In December 2003, Kyocera paid $332 million to certain subsidiaries of Prudential Financial in settlement of the arbitration award rendered against Kyocera.

 

Other Operations

 

Mutual Fund Market Timing Practices

 

The Company has received formal requests for information from regulators and governmental authorities relating to the purchase and sale of mutual fund shares and, in some cases, variable annuities. The regulators and authorities include, among others, the SEC, the NYSE, the NASD, the New Jersey Bureau of Securities, the State of New York Attorney General’s Office, the United States Attorney, District of Massachusetts (“USAM”) and the Securities Division of Massachusetts (the “MSD”). The Company is cooperating with all such inquiries.

 

The MSD filed an administrative complaint against three former brokers and two former managers of a branch office in Boston, MA (the “Boston Branch”) of the retail brokerage business formerly owned by PSI, alleging violations of state securities laws. The SEC has filed a similar civil action against five former brokers and one former manager of the Boston Branch in Massachusetts federal court. The Company is not a party to these actions. In addition, the Company has received subpoenas from the USAM for documents pertaining to the purchase and sale of mutual fund shares and certain former brokers and their supervisors.

 

The MSD also filed an administrative complaint against PSI alleging that PSI knew or should have known about alleged deceptive market timing and late trading in mutual funds in the Boston Branch, failed reasonably to supervise the conduct of the brokers in the Boston Branch and failed to implement controls designed to prevent and detect violations of Massachusetts securities law.

 

These matters could lead to proceedings that result in disgorgement, fines or other sanctions. The Company is unable to estimate its ultimate exposure at this time.

 

Demutualization

 

The New Jersey law governing the demutualization provides that a Commissioner’s order approving or disapproving a plan of reorganization shall be a final agency decision subject to appeal in accordance with, and within the time period specified by, the rules governing the courts of the State of New Jersey. In 2001, certain policyholders, including plaintiffs in the lawsuits described below, filed notices of appeal with the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division that challenged the Commissioner’s approval of the Plan of Reorganization, including its provision for distribution of consideration to non-participating policyholders. In September 2003, in In the Matter of the Plan of Reorganization of The Prudential Insurance Company of America, the Appellate Division affirmed the Decision and Order of the New Jersey Commissioner of Banking and Insurance, approving the Plan of Reorganization. In November 2003, the Supreme Court of New Jersey denied appellants’ petition for certification and dismissed their appeal of the Appellate Division’s affirmance.

 

As previously reported, other lawsuits challenging the Plan of Reorganization were pending in the Superior Court of Essex County, New Jersey (Hutcheson v. Prudential Insurance, et al., Denenberg v. Prudential Insurance and Scala v. Prudential Insurance) and in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (Wright, et al. v. Ryan, et al.). All these cases have been dismissed.

 

Other

 

In November 1996, plaintiffs filed a purported class action lawsuit against Prudential Insurance, the Prudential Home Mortgage Company, Inc. and several other subsidiaries in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex County,

 

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Capitol Life Insurance Company v. Prudential Insurance, et al., in connection with the sale of certain subordinated mortgage securities sold by a subsidiary of Prudential Home Mortgage. In February 1999, the court entered an order dismissing all counts without prejudice with leave to refile after limited discovery. In May 2000, plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint that alleges violations of the New Jersey securities and RICO statutes, fraud, conspiracy and negligent misrepresentation, and seeks compensatory as well as treble and punitive damages. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss that was denied in October 2001. In October 2002, plaintiffs’ motion for class certification was denied. Since that time, the court has permitted nine additional investors to intervene as plaintiffs.

 

In November 2003, an action was commenced in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Enron Corp. v. J.P. Morgan Securities, Inc., et al., against approximately 100 defendants, including Prudential Insurance and other Prudential entities, who invested in Enron’s commercial paper. The complaint alleges that Enron’s October 2001 prepayment of its commercial paper is a voidable preference under the bankruptcy laws and constitutes a fraudulent conveyance. The complaint alleges that the Company received prepayments of approximately $100 million. All defendants have moved to dismiss the complaint.

 

In August 1999, a Prudential Insurance employee and several Prudential Insurance retirees filed an action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Dupree, et al., v. Prudential Insurance, et al., against Prudential Insurance and its Board of Directors in connection with a group annuity contract entered into in 1989 between the Prudential Retirement Plan and Prudential Insurance. The suit alleged that the annuitization of certain retirement benefits violated ERISA and that, in the event of demutualization, Prudential Insurance would retain shares distributed under the annuity contract in violation of ERISA’s fiduciary duty requirements. In July 2001, plaintiffs filed an amended complaint dropping three counts, and we filed an answer denying the essential allegations of the complaint. The complaint seeks injunctive and monetary relief, including restitution to the Prudential Retirement Plan of amounts alleged to have been wrongfully withdrawn and disgorgement of profits made on the use of Plan assets. In March 2002, the court dismissed certain of the claims against the individual defendants. In February 2004, the court denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The non-jury trial commenced on February 17, 2004, and has not been completed.

 

Discontinued Operations

 

We have agreed to indemnify Aetna for certain litigation involving the disposed healthcare operations, and we have been sued directly for certain alleged actions occurring before the disposition of those operations. This litigation includes class action lawsuits and individual suits involving various issues, including payment of claims, denial of benefits, vicarious liability for malpractice claims, contract disputes with provider groups and former policyholders, purported class action lawsuits challenging practices of our former managed care operations, including the class action lawsuits described below, and coordination of benefits with other carriers.

 

Nationwide class action lawsuits brought by policyholders and physicians were filed against us in 1999-2000 in several United States District Courts and were consolidated for pre-trial purposes in October 2000, along with lawsuits pending against other managed health care companies, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, in In re Managed Care Litigation. In one of these actions, Shane v. Humana, et al., a purported nationwide class action lawsuit brought on behalf of provider physicians and physician groups, the complaint alleges that Prudential and other health care companies engaged in an industry-wide conspiracy to defraud physicians by failing to pay under provider agreements and by unlawfully coercing providers to enter into agreements with unfair and unreasonable terms. An amended complaint, naming additional plaintiffs, including three state medical associations, and an additional defendant, was filed in March 2001, and alleges claims of breach of contract, quantum meruit, unjust enrichment, violations of RICO, conspiracy to violate RICO, aiding and abetting RICO violations, and violations of state prompt pay statutes and the California unfair business practices statute. The amended complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages in unspecified amounts, treble damages pursuant to RICO, and attorneys’ fees. In September 2002, the District Court granted plaintiffs’ motion for class certification of a nationwide class of provider physicians. That order has been appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The appeal is pending.

 

The policyholder claims in In re Managed Care have been resolved. Batas and Vogel v. Prudential Insurance was filed by policyholders in New York County Supreme Court in 1997 and alleges breach of contract, fraud, tortious interference with contractual relations claims and violations of the New York deceptive acts and practices statute relating to the provision of managed care. Plaintiffs’ motion to certify a nationwide class of non-ERISA plan policyholders is pending.

 

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Summary

 

Our litigation is subject to many uncertainties, and given its complexity and scope, its outcome cannot be predicted. It is possible that our results of operations or cash flow in a particular quarterly or annual period could be materially affected by an ultimate unfavorable resolution of pending litigation and regulatory matters depending, in part, upon the results of operations or cash flow for such period. Management believes, however, that the ultimate outcome of all pending litigation and regulatory matters, after consideration of applicable reserves, should not have a material adverse effect on our financial position.

 

ITEM 4.   SUBMISSION OF MATTERS TO A VOTE OF SECURITY HOLDERS

 

No matter was submitted to a vote of security holders of Prudential Financial during the fourth quarter of 2003.

 

PART II

 

ITEM 5.   MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY AND RELATED STOCKHOLDER

MATTERS

 

General

 

The Common Stock was issued to eligible policyholders in Prudential Insurance’s demutualization and sold to investors in Prudential Financial’s initial public offering. The Common Stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “PRU” on December 13, 2001. The following table presents the high and low closing prices for the Common Stock on the New York Stock Exchange during the periods indicated and the dividends declared per share during such periods:

 

     High

   Low

   Dividends

2003:

                    

Fourth Quarter

   $ 42.21    $ 36.00    $ 0.50

Third Quarter

     38.26      33.51      —  

Second Quarter

     34.73      29.28      —  

First Quarter

     34.48      27.03      —  

2002:

                    

Fourth Quarter

   $ 32.10    $ 25.50    $ 0.40

Third Quarter

     32.99      27.35      —  

Second Quarter

     35.75      31.05      —  

First Quarter

     32.09      30.05      —  

 

On February 27, 2004, there were 3,366,793 registered holders of record for the Common Stock and 532.9 million shares outstanding. The closing price of the Common Stock on the New York Stock Exchange on February 27, 2004, was $46.39.

 

The Class B Stock was issued to institutional investors (two subsidiaries of American International Group, Inc. and Pacific Life Corp.) in a private placement pursuant to Section 4(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 on the date of demutualization. There is no established public trading market for the Class B Stock. During the fourth quarter of 2002 and 2003, Prudential Financial paid an annual dividend of $9.625 per share of Class B Stock. On February 27, 2004, there were 3 holders of record for the Class B Stock and 2.0 million shares outstanding.

 

Prudential Financial’s Board of Directors currently intends to continue to declare and pay annual dividends on the Common Stock and Class B Stock. Future dividend decisions will be based on, and affected by, a number of factors including the financial performance of the Financial Services Businesses and Closed Block Business for the Common Stock and Class B Stock, respectively; our overall financial condition, results of operations, cash requirements and future prospects; regulatory restrictions on the payment of dividends by Prudential Financial’s subsidiaries; and such other factors as the Board of Directors may deem relevant. Dividends payable by Prudential Financial are limited to the amount that would be legally available for payment under New Jersey corporate law. For additional information on dividends and related regulatory restrictions, see “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources” and Note 12 to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

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On the date of demutualization, Prudential Financial and Prudential Financial Capital Trust I (the “Trust”), a statutory business trust, co-issued 13.8 million 6.75% equity security units (the “Units”). Each Unit has a stated amount of $50 and initially consists of a contract (requiring the holder to purchase shares of Prudential Financial’s Common Stock on November 15, 2004, at a price determined by a formula described in the contract) and a redeemable capital security of the Trust with a stated liquidation amount of $50.

 

The distribution of Common Stock to eligible policyholders in the demutualization was exempt from registration under the Securities Act of 1933 pursuant to Section 3(a)(10) based on the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance’s approval of the Plan of Reorganization.

 

See Item 12 for information about our equity compensation plans.

 

Common Stock and Class B Stock

 

The Common Stock and the Class B Stock are separate classes of common stock under New Jersey corporate law.

 

Holders of Common Stock and Class B Stock will be entitled to dividends if and when declared by Prudential Financial’s Board of Directors out of funds legally available to pay those dividends. To the extent dividends are paid on the Class B Stock, shares of Class B Stock are repurchased or the Closed Block Business has net losses, the amount legally available for dividends on the Common Stock will be reduced. In addition, payment of dividends will be subject to the following additional conditions:

 

    Common Stock will be entitled to receive dividends, if and when declared by Prudential Financial’s Board of Directors, only out of assets of the Financial Services Businesses legally available for the payment of dividends under the New Jersey Business Corporation Act as if the Financial Services Businesses were a separate New Jersey corporation; and

 

    Class B Stock will be entitled to receive dividends, if and when declared by Prudential Financial’s Board of Directors, only out of assets of the Closed Block Business legally available for the payment of dividends under the New Jersey Business Corporation Act as if the Closed Block Business were a separate New Jersey corporation.

 

Dividends declared and paid on the Common Stock will depend upon the financial performance of the Financial Services Businesses. Dividends declared and paid on the Common Stock will not depend upon or be affected by the financial performance of the Closed Block Business, unless the Closed Block Business is in financial distress. Dividends declared and paid on the Common Stock also will not be affected by decisions with respect to dividend payments on the Class B Stock except as indicated in the following paragraph.

 

Dividends declared and paid on the Class B Stock will depend upon the financial performance of the Closed Block Business and, as the Closed Block matures, the holders of the Class B Stock will receive the surplus of the Closed Block Business no longer required to support the Closed Block for regulatory purposes. Dividends on the Class B Stock will be payable in an aggregate amount per year at least equal to the lesser of (i) a “Target Dividend Amount” of $19.25 million or (ii) the “CB Distributable Cash Flow” for such year, which is a measure of the net cash flows of the Closed Block Business. Notwithstanding this formula, as with any common stock, we will retain the flexibility to suspend dividends on the Class B Stock; however, if CB Distributable Cash Flow exists for any period and Prudential Financial chooses not to pay dividends on the Class B Stock in an aggregate amount at least equal to the lesser of the CB Distributable Cash Flow or the Target Dividend Amount for that period, then cash dividends cannot be paid on the Common Stock with respect to such period. The principal component of “CB Distributable Cash Flow” will be the amount by which Surplus and Related Assets, determined according to statutory accounting principles, exceed surplus that would be required for the Closed Block Business considered as a separate insurer; provided, however, that “CB Distributable Cash Flow” counts such excess only to the extent distributable as a dividend by Prudential Insurance under specified (but not all) provisions of New Jersey insurance law. See “—Convertibility” for the definition of “CB Distributable Cash Flow.” Subject to the discretion of the Board of Directors of Prudential Financial, we currently anticipate paying dividends on the Class B Stock at the Target Dividend Amount for the foreseeable future.

 

The shares of Common Stock will vote together with the shares of Class B Stock on all matters (one share, one vote) except as otherwise required by law and except that holders of the Class B Stock will have class voting or consent rights with respect to specified matters directly affecting the Class B Stock.

 

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If shares of Class B Stock are outstanding at the time of a liquidation, dissolution or winding-up of Prudential Financial, each share of Common Stock and Class B Stock will be entitled to a share of net liquidation proceeds in proportion to the respective liquidation units of such class. Each share of Common Stock will have one liquidation unit, and each share of Class B Stock will have 2.83215 liquidation units.

 

On December 18, 2001, Prudential Financial’s shareholder rights agreement became effective. Under the shareholder rights agreement, one shareholder protection right is attached to each share of Common Stock but not to any share of Class B Stock. Each right initially entitles the holder to purchase one one-thousandth of a share of a series of Prudential Financial preferred stock upon payment of the exercise price. At the time of the demutualization, the Board of Directors of Prudential Financial determined that the initial exercise price per right is $110, subject to adjustment from time to time as provided in the shareholder rights agreement. The shareholders rights agreement will expire by its terms on December 18, 2011.

 

Convertibility

 

The Common Stock is not convertible.

 

Prudential Financial may, at its option, at any time, exchange all outstanding shares of Class B Stock into such number of shares of Common Stock as have an aggregate average market value (discussed below) equal to 120% of the appraised “Fair Market Value” (discussed below) of the outstanding shares of Class B Stock.

 

In addition, if (1) Prudential Financial sells or otherwise disposes of all or substantially all of the Closed Block Business or (2) a “change of control” of Prudential Financial occurs, Prudential Financial must exchange all outstanding shares of Class B Stock into such number of shares of Common Stock as have an aggregate average market value of 120% of the appraised Fair Market Value of such shares of Class B Stock. For this purpose, “change of control” means the occurrence of any of the following events (whether or not approved by the Board of Directors of Prudential Financial): (a)(i) any person(s) (as defined) (excluding Prudential Financial and specified related entities) is or becomes the beneficial owner (as defined), directly or indirectly, of more than 50% of the total voting power of the then outstanding equity securities of Prudential Financial; or (ii) Prudential Financial merges with, or consolidates with, another person or disposes of all or substantially all of its assets to any person, other than, in the case of either clause (i) or (ii), any transaction where immediately after such transaction the persons that beneficially owned immediately prior to the transaction the then outstanding voting equity securities of Prudential Financial beneficially own more than 50% of the total voting power of the then outstanding voting securities of the surviving person; or (b) during any year or any period of two consecutive years, individuals who at the beginning of such period constituted the Board of Directors of Prudential Financial (together with any new directors whose election by such Board of Directors or whose nomination for election by the shareholders of Prudential Financial was approved by a vote of a majority of the directors of Prudential Financial then still in office who were either directors at the beginning of such period or whose election or nomination for election was previously so approved) cease for any reason, other than pursuant to (x) a proposal or request that the Board of Directors be changed as to which the holder of the Class Stock seeking the conversion has participated or assisted or is participating or assisting or (y) retirements in the ordinary course (as defined), to constitute a majority of the Board of Directors then in office.

 

Holders of Class B Stock will be permitted to convert their shares of Class B Stock into such number of shares of Common Stock as have an aggregate average market value equal to 100% of the appraised Fair Market Value of the outstanding shares of Class B Stock (1) in the holder’s sole discretion, in the year 2016 or at any time thereafter, and (2) at any time in the event that (a) the Class B Stock will no longer be treated as equity of Prudential Financial for federal income tax purposes or (b) the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance amends, alters, changes or modifies the regulation of the Closed Block, the Closed Block Business, the Class B Stock or the IHC debt in a manner that materially adversely affects the CB Distributable Cash Flow (as defined below); provided, however, that in no event may a holder of Class B Stock convert shares of Class B Stock to the extent such holder immediately upon such conversion, together with its affiliates, would be the “beneficial owner” (as defined under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934) of in excess of 9.9% of the total outstanding voting power of Prudential Financial’s voting securities. In the event a holder of shares of Class B Stock requests to convert shares pursuant to clause (2)(a) in the preceding sentence, Prudential Financial may elect, instead of effecting such conversion, to increase the Target Dividend Amount to $12.6875 per share per annum retroactively from the time of issuance of the Class B Stock.

 

“CB Distributable Cash Flow” means, for any quarterly or annual period, the sum of (i) the excess of (a) the Surplus and Related Assets over (b) the “Required Surplus” applicable to the Closed Block Business within Prudential Insurance, to the extent that Prudential Insurance is able to distribute such excess as a dividend to PHLLC under New Jersey law without giving effect, directly or indirectly, to the “earned surplus” requirement of Section 17:27A-4c.(3) of

 

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the New Jersey Insurance Holding Company Systems Law, plus (ii) any amount held by PHLLC allocated to the Closed Block Business in excess of remaining debt service payments on the IHC debt. For purposes of the foregoing, “Required Surplus” means the amount of surplus applicable to the Closed Block Business within Prudential Insurance that would be required to maintain a quotient (expressed as a percentage) of (i) the “Total Adjusted Capital” applicable to the Closed Block Business within Prudential Insurance (including any applicable dividend reserves) divided by (ii) the “Company Action Level RBC” applicable to the Closed Block Business within Prudential Insurance, equal to 100%, where “Total Adjusted Capital” and “Company Action Level RBC” are as defined in the regulations promulgated under the New Jersey Dynamic Capital and Surplus Act of 1993. These amounts are determined according to statutory accounting principles.

 

In the event of any reclassification, recapitalization or exchange of, or any tender offer or exchange offer for, the outstanding shares of Common Stock, including by merger, consolidation or other business combination, as a result of which shares of Common Stock are exchanged for or converted into another security which is both registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and publicly traded, then the Class B Stock will remain outstanding (unless exchanged by virtue of a “change of control” occurring or otherwise, or otherwise converted) and, in the event 50% or more of the outstanding shares of Common Stock are so exchanged or converted, holders of outstanding Class B Stock will be entitled to receive, in the event of any subsequent exchange or conversion, the securities into which the Common Stock has been exchanged or converted by virtue of such reclassification, recapitalization, merger, consolidation, tender offer, exchange offer or other business combination. If, in the event of any reclassification, recapitalization or exchange, or any tender or exchange offer for, the outstanding shares of Common Stock, including by merger, consolidation or other business combination, as a result of which a majority of the outstanding shares of Common Stock are converted into or exchanged or purchased for either cash or securities which are not public securities, or a combination thereof, the Class B Stock will be entitled to receive cash and/or securities of the type and in the proportion that such holders of Class B Stock would have received if an exchange or conversion of the Class B Stock had occurred immediately prior to the conversion, exchange or purchase of a majority of the outstanding shares of Common Stock and the holders of Class B Stock had participated as holders of Common Stock in such conversion, exchange or purchase. The amount of cash and/or securities payable upon such exchange or conversion will be calculated based upon the Fair Market Value of the Class B Stock as of the date on which the Common Stock was exchanged, converted or purchased and will be multiplied by 120%.

 

For purposes of all exchanges and conversions, the “average market value” of the Common Stock will be determined during a specified 20 trading day period preceding the time of the exchange or conversion. “Fair Market Value” of the Class B Stock means the fair market value of all of the outstanding shares of Class B Stock as determined by appraisal by a nationally recognized actuarial or other competent firm independent of and selected by the Board of Directors of Prudential Financial and approved by the holders of a majority of the outstanding shares of Class B Stock. Fair Market Value will be the present value of expected future cash flows to holders of the Class B Stock, reduced by any payables to the Financial Services Businesses. Future cash flows will be projected consistent with the policy, as described in the Plan of Reorganization, for the Board of Directors of Prudential Insurance to declare policyholder dividends based on actual experience in the Closed Block. Following the repayment in full of the IHC debt, these cash flows shall be the excess of statutory surplus applicable to the Closed Block Business over Required Surplus (as defined in the definition of “CB Distributable Cash Flow”) for each period that would be distributable as a dividend under New Jersey law if the Closed Block Business were a separate insurer. These cash flows will be discounted at an equity rate of return, to be estimated as a risk-free rate plus an equity risk premium. The risk-free rate will be an appropriate ten-year U.S. Treasury rate reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The equity risk premium will be eight and one quarter percent initially, declining evenly to four percent over the following 21 years and remaining constant thereafter. Fair Market Value will be determined by appraisal as of a specified date preceding the time of the exchange or conversion.

 

Any exchange or conversion of Class B Stock into Common Stock could occur at a time when either or both of the Common Stock and Class B Stock may be considered to be overvalued or undervalued. In the future, if the Class B Stock is exchanged for or converted into Common Stock, the number of shares of Common Stock then obtainable by the Class B Stockholders might constitute a higher proportion of the total shares of Common Stock then outstanding than the proportion represented by (x) the number of shares of Class B Stock initially issued divided by (y) the total number of shares of Common Stock outstanding upon completion of the demutualization. The degree of any such proportionate increase would depend principally on: the performance of the Closed Block Business over time and the valuation of the Closed Block Business at the time of exchange or conversion; whether the exchange or conversion implemented involves a premium; the number of any new shares of Common Stock we issue after the demutualization for financing, acquisition or other purposes or any repurchases of Common Stock that we may make; and the market value of our Common Stock at the time of exchange or conversion.

 

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ITEM 6.    SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

 

We derived the selected consolidated income statement data for the years ended December 31, 2003, 2002 and 2001 and the selected consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2003 and 2002 from our Consolidated Financial Statements included elsewhere herein. We derived the selected consolidated income statement data for the years ended December 31, 2000 and 1999 and the selected consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2001, 2000 and 1999 from consolidated financial statements not included herein.

 

On May 1, 2003 we completed our acquisition of Skandia U.S. Inc., which included American Skandia, Inc. Results for 2003 included results of American Skandia from the date of acquisition.

 

On July 1, 2003, we completed an agreement with Wachovia to combine each company’s respective retail securities brokerage and clearing operations forming Wachovia Securities. We have a 38% ownership interest in the joint venture, while Wachovia owns the remaining 62%. The transaction included our securities brokerage operations but did not include our equity sales, trading and research operations. As part of the transaction we retained certain assets and liabilities related to the contributed businesses, including liabilities for certain litigation and regulatory matters. We account for our 38% ownership of the joint venture under the equity method of accounting; periods prior to July 1, 2003, continue to reflect the results of our previously wholly owned securities brokerage operations on a fully consolidated basis. Accordingly, operating results for 2003 reflect our securities brokerage operations on a consolidated basis for the first six months of 2003 and earnings from the joint venture on the equity basis for the remaining six month period. Results for 2002 and prior years reflect our securities brokerage operations on a consolidated basis.

 

In April 2001, we completed the acquisition of Gibraltar Life, which has adopted a November 30 fiscal year end. Consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2003, 2002 and 2001 includes Gibraltar Life assets and liabilities as of November 30 and consolidated income statement data for 2001 includes Gibraltar Life results from April 2, 2001, the date of its reorganization, through November 30, 2001. Consolidated income statement data for 2002 and 2003 includes Gibraltar Life results for the twelve months ended November 30, 2002 and 2003, respectively.

 

We have made several dispositions that materially affect the comparability of the data presented below. In the fourth quarter of 2003, we completed the sale of our property and casualty insurance companies that operate nationally in 48 states outside of New Jersey, and the District of Columbia, to Liberty Mutual Group (“Liberty Mutual”), as well as our New Jersey property and casualty insurance companies to Palisades Group. Results for 2003 include a pre-tax loss of $491 million related to the disposition of these businesses. In the fourth quarter of 2000, we terminated the capital markets activities of Prudential Securities. This business had pre-tax income of $287 million in 2003 (including the gain from a $332 million settlement of an arbitration award), a pre-tax loss of $36 million in 2002, a pre-tax loss of $159 million in 2001, a pre-tax loss of $620 million in 2000, and pre-tax income of $23 million in 1999. The loss from these operations in 2000 included charges of $476 million associated with our termination and wind-down of these businesses. In 2000, we sold Gibraltar Casualty Company, a commercial property and casualty insurer that we placed in wind-down status in 1985. We incurred losses of $81 million in 2003 and $79 million in 2002 under a stop-loss agreement we entered into at the time of sale. Gibraltar Casualty had no impact on results in 2001 and incurred pre-tax losses of $6 million in 2000, and $72 million in 1999.

 

On December 18, 2001, Prudential Insurance converted from a mutual life insurance company owned by its policyholders to a stock life insurance company and became an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Prudential Financial. “Demutualization costs and expenses” amounted to $588 million in 2001, $143 million in 2000, and $75 million in 1999. “Demutualization costs and expenses” in 2001 include $340 million of demutualization consideration paid to former Canadian branch policyholders.

 

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You should read this selected consolidated financial information in conjunction with “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our Consolidated Financial Statements included elsewhere herein.

 

     Year Ended December 31,

 
     2003

    2002

    2001

    2000

    1999

 
     (in millions, except per share and ratio information)  

Income Statement Data:

                                        

Revenues:

                                        

Premiums

   $ 13,233     $ 13,053     $ 11,904     $ 9,966     $ 9,499  

Policy charges and fee income

     2,001       1,780       2,027       1,639       1,516  

Net investment income

     8,681       8,819       9,087       9,421       9,300  

Realized investment gains (losses), net

     270       (1,365 )     (674 )     (265 )     924  

Commissions and other income

     3,722       4,016       4,334       5,287       5,095  
    


 


 


 


 


Total revenues

     27,907       26,303       26,678       26,048       26,334  
    


 


 


 


 


Benefits and expenses:

                                        

Policyholders’ benefits

     13,424       13,378       12,457       10,473       10,203  

Interest credited to policyholders’ account balances

     1,830       1,846       1,804       1,751       1,811  

Dividends to policyholders

     2,602       2,644       2,722       2,724       2,571  

General and administrative expenses

     7,602       8,355       9,228       9,788       9,452  

Capital markets restructuring

     —         —         —         476       —    

Loss on disposition of property and casualty insurance operations

     491       —         —         —         —    

Demutualization costs and expenses

     —         —         588       143       75  
    


 


 


 


 


Total benefits and expenses

     25,949       26,223       26,799       25,355       24,112  
    


 


 


 


 


Income (loss) from continuing operations before income taxes

     1,958       80       (121 )     693       2,222  

Income tax expense (benefit)

     650       (189 )     (32 )     386       1,035  
    


 


 


 


 


Income (loss) from continuing operations

     1,308       269       (89 )     307       1,187  

Income (loss) from discontinued operations, net of taxes

     (44 )     (75 )     (65 )     91       (374 )
    


 


 


 


 


Net income (loss)

   $ 1,264     $ 194     $ (154 )   $ 398     $ 813  
    


 


 


 


 


Basic income from continuing operations per share—Common Stock(1)

   $ 2.07     $ 1.38     $ 0.07                  
    


 


 


               

Diluted income from continuing operations per share—Common Stock(1)

   $ 2.06     $ 1.38     $ 0.07                  
    


 


 


               

Basic net income per share—Common Stock(1)

   $ 1.99     $ 1.25     $ 0.07                  
    


 


 


               

Diluted net income per share—Common Stock(1)

   $ 1.98     $ 1.25     $ 0.07                  
    


 


 


               

Basic and diluted net income (loss) per share—Class B Stock(1)

   $ 89.50     $ (264.00 )   $ 1.50                  
    


 


 


               

Dividends declared per share—Common Stock

   $ 0.50     $ 0.40                          
    


 


                       

Dividends declared per share—Class B Stock

   $ 9.63     $ 9.63                          
    


 


                       

Ratio of earnings to fixed charges(2)

     1.79       1.04               1.22       1.79  
    


 


         


 


     As of December 31,

 
     2003

    2002

    2001

    2000

    1999

 
     (in millions)  

Balance Sheet Data:

                                        

Total investments excluding policy loans

   $ 172,889     $ 174,381     $ 157,400     $ 140,588     $ 151,445  

Separate account assets

     106,680       70,555       77,158       82,217       82,131  

Total assets

     321,274       292,616       292,901       272,619       285,073  

Future policy benefits, policyholders’ account balances and unpaid claims and claim adjustment expenses

     146,223       140,168       133,732       104,130       102,928  

Separate account liabilities

     106,680       70,555       77,158       82,217       82,131  

Short-term debt

     4,739       3,469       5,405       11,131       10,858  

Long-term debt

     5,610       4,757       5,304       2,502       5,513  

Total liabilities

     299,982       270,596       271,758       252,011       265,782  

Guaranteed beneficial interest in Trust holding solely debentures of Parent(3)

     —         690       690       —         —    

Equity

     21,292       21,330       20,453       20,608       19,291  

(1)   Earnings per share data for 2001 reflects earnings for the period from December 18, 2001, the date of demutualization, through December 31, 2001 only. Net income during this period was $38 million and $3 million for the Financial Services Businesses and Closed Block Business, respectively.

 

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(2)   For purposes of this computation, earnings are defined as income from continuing operations before income taxes excluding undistributed income from equity method investments, fixed charges and interest capitalized. Fixed charges are the sum of gross interest expense, interest credited to policyholders’ account balances and an estimated interest component of rent expense. Due to the Company’s loss in 2001, the ratio coverage was less than 1:1 and is therefore not presented. Additional earnings of $156 million would have been required in 2001 to achieve a ratio of 1:1.
(3)   Effective December 31, 2003, the Company adopted the revised guidance under FIN No. 46. As a result, the Trust was deconsolidated and the Prudential Financial debentures are reported as “Long-term debt.”

 

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