“The answer is yes, we can. And we're going to be very mindful. Obviously, the primary use for proceeds from the Corebridge sell-down will go to share repurchase, but we could continue to work on leverage a little bit to give us even more financial flexibility over time.”

In context

“at a place where leverage can actually begin to come up as you see opportunities, particularly if you do engage in M&A? And then on the core operations, I mean can you frame at all like how much dry powder you see in terms of being able to lean into some of these opportunities if they get better at casualty? Peter Zaffino: So thanks, Alex, for the question on leverage, yes, we have a lot of -- I think it goes into what I said about potential M&A where we've given ourselves a lot of financial flexibility if we find something compelling and attractive. I think the high teens of a leverage to total capital, including AOCI, we're very comfortable with, but absolutely what you were asking is a truth, which is if we find opportunities, can we increase our leverage to be able to execute on that? The answer is yes, we can. And we're going to be very mindful. Obviously, the primary use for proceeds from the Corebridge sell-down will go to share repurchase, but we could continue to work on leverage a little bit to give us even more financial flexibility over time. In terms -- I just want to make sure I understand the second part which is having -- we have a lot of capital. I don't think it's a moment in time and to quantify what we think is excess today, I don't think is something that is overly constructive just because we intend to grow into that. We have shown real opportunities in our business to acquire new business. We had a terrific new business quarter. That momentum continues. And I think look at them, property was probably the one that was sort of slowing down in terms of pricing, but Milton and Helene have changed a lot. And I think that there'll be more flight to quality and there'll be more flexibility for AIG in terms of our ability to drive property growth and on a risk-adjusted basis throughout the world. And so like I think the bal”