“If you look at the outlook for the year, we expect full year earnings to kind of remain strong, in line with guidance.”

In context

“d earnings in recent quarters? John McCallion: Yes. Now we did see some benefit in earnings. We saw a 4% increase in adjusted earnings on a reported as well as an 8% increase on a constant currency basis. This was driven both by favorable underwriting given by the surrenders, as well as variable investment income. When you look at surrender activities, it was higher than expected in the quarter, given we had the weaker yen as some customers choose to lock in some of the gains. And if we look at the VII in the quarter, Asia does get a higher allocation of real estate equity funds in the -- and so in the quarter, we did see better performance in the real estate relative to the prior year. We've also had good expense management in the quarter, and that's contributed to the stronger earnings. If you look at the outlook for the year, we expect full year earnings to kind of remain strong, in line with guidance. VII performance will continue to be a factor that will impact our earnings going forward. Ryan Krueger: Thank you. Operator: We'll go next to Wes Carmichael at Autonomous Research. Wes Carmichael: Hey good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just focusing on Japan for a second, but with the SMR ratio around 670% in the quarter, could you maybe just give us an update regarding the transition to ESR in Japan, if there's been any material changes in how you're feeling about implementation at this point? John McCallion: Wes, it's John. Good morning. So as you mentioned, 670% is our estimate for the quarter. We'll file that in a few weeks. I'd just like to start out by saying no concerns around capital generation or dividends, right? And that ratio tends to have some asymmetrical imp”