“We remain committed to achieving a full year direct expense ratio below 12.3% in 2022, demonstrating our consistent execution and focus on an efficiency mindset.”

In context

“ue to the transfer of PES to corporate and other from RIS and MetLife Holdings that I discussed earlier. In addition, Asia’s higher VII year-over-year was primarily due to strong real estate equity fund performance, as well as higher PE asset balances. Turning to page eight, this chart shows a comparison of our direct expense ratio over the prior five quarters, including 11.7% in Q1 of 2022. As we have highlighted previously, we believe our full year direct expense ratio is the best way to measure performance due to fluctuations in quarterly results. Our first quarter direct expense ratio benefited from solid topline growth and ongoing expense discipline. This included approximately 40 basis points from premiums that relate to participating cases in Group Benefits due to excess mortality. We remain committed to achieving a full year direct expense ratio below 12.3% in 2022, demonstrating our consistent execution and focus on an efficiency mindset. I will now discuss our cash and capital position on page nine. Cash and liquid assets at the holding companies were approximately $4.2 billion at March 31st, which was down from $5.4 billion at December 31st, but remains above our target cash buffer of $3 billion to $4 billion. The sequential decline in cash at the holding companies reflect the net effects of subsidiary dividends, payment of our common stock dividend, share repurchases of $915 million in the first quarter, as well as holding company expenses and other cash flows. Our first quarter tends to be lower in subsidiary dividends and higher in holding company expenses. Therefore, we would expect HoldCo cash balances to increase in the second quarter due to higher subsidiary dividends, as well as proceeds from the sale of our Pola”