PART I

Item 1.    Business

Index to Business

Item 1.    Business

Overview

We are a leading retirement services company that issues, reinsures and acquires retirement savings products designed for the increasing number of individuals and institutions seeking to fund retirement needs. We generate attractive financial results for our policyholders and shareholders by combining our two core competencies of (1) sourcing long-term, generally illiquid liabilities and (2) investing in a high quality investment portfolio, which takes advantage of the illiquid nature of our liabilities. Our steady and significant base of earnings generates capital that we opportunistically invest across our business to source attractively-priced liabilities and capitalize on opportunities. Our differentiated investment strategy benefits from our strategic relationship with Apollo Global Management, LLC (Apollo) and its indirect subsidiary, AAM. AAM provides a full suite of services for our investment portfolio, including direct investment management, asset allocation, mergers and acquisition asset diligence and certain operational support services, including investment compliance, tax, legal and risk management support. Our relationship with Apollo and AAM also provides us with access to Apollo’s investment professionals across the world as well as Apollo’s global asset management infrastructure that, as of December 31, 2016 , supported more than $191 billion of assets under management (AUM) across a broad array of asset classes. We are led by a highly skilled management team with extensive industry experience. We are based in Bermuda with our U.S. subsidiaries’ headquarters located in Iowa.

We began operating in 2009 when the burdens of the financial crisis and resulting capital demands caused many companies to exit the retirement market, creating the need for a well-capitalized company with an experienced management team to fill the void. Taking advantage of this market dislocation, we have been able to acquire substantial blocks of long-duration liabilities and reinvest the related investments to produce profitable returns. We have been able to generate strong financial returns in a multi-year low rate environment. We believe we have fewer legacy liability issues than our peers given that all of our retail and flow reinsurance liabilities were underwritten after the financial crisis, and the majority of the liabilities we acquired through our acquisitions and block reinsurance were acquired at a discount to book value.

We have established a significant base of earnings and, as of December 31, 2016 , have an expected annual investment margin of 2-3% over the 7.8 year weighted-average life of our deferred annuities, which make up a substantial portion of our reserve liabilities. Even as we have grown to $72.4 billion in investments, including related parties, $71.8 billion in invested assets and $86.7 billion of total assets as of December 31, 2016 , we have continued to approach both sides of the balance sheet with an opportunistic mindset because we believe quickly identifying and capitalizing on market dislocations allows us to generate attractive, risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders. Further, our multiple distribution channels support growing origination across market environments and better enable us to achieve continued balance sheet growth while maintaining attractive profitability. We believe that in a typical market environment, we will be able to profitably grow through our organic channels, including retail, flow reinsurance and institutional products. In more challenging market environments, we believe that we will see additional opportunities to grow through our inorganic channels, including acquisitions and block reinsurance, due to market stress during those periods. We are diligent in setting our return targets based on market conditions and risks inherent to our products offered and acquisitions or block reinsurance transactions. In general, we may accept lower returns on products which may provide more certain return characteristics, such as funding agreements, and we may require higher returns for products or transactions where there is more inherent risk in meeting our return targets, such as with acquisitions. Generally, we target mid-teen returns for sources of organic growth and higher returns for sources of inorganic growth. If we are unable to source liabilities with our desired return profile in one of our channels, we generally will not sacrifice profitability solely for the sake of increasing market share and instead we will typically focus on our other channels to identify growth opportunities that meet our preferred risk and return profile.

As a result of our focus on issuing, reinsuring and acquiring attractively-priced liabilities, our differentiated investment strategy and our significant scale, for the year ended December 31, 2016 , in our Retirement Services segment described below, we generated an investment margin on deferred annuities of 2.77% and an operating ROE excluding AOCI of 19.1% . We currently maintain what we believe to be high capital ratios for our rating and hold more than $1.5 billion of capital in excess of the level we believe is needed to support our current operating strategy, and view this excess as strategic capital available to reinvest into organic and inorganic growth opportunities. Because we hold this strategic capital to implement our opportunistic strategy and to enable us to explore deployment opportunities as they arise, and because we are investing for future growth, our consolidated ROE for the year ended December 31, 2016 was 13.1% , and our consolidated operating ROE excluding AOCI for the same period was 12.5% , in each case, without the benefit of any financial leverage or capital return through dividends or share buyback programs. On a consolidated basis, for the year ended December 31, 2016 , we generated net income available to AHL shareholders of $805 million , and operating income, net of tax, of $760 million . Investment margin, operating income, net of tax, and operating ROE excluding AOCI are not calculated in accordance with GAAP. See Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Key Operating and Non-GAAP Measures for additional discussions regarding non-GAAP measures.

As of December 31, 2016 , we had $6.9 billion of total AHL shareholders’ equity and $6.5 billion of total AHL shareholders’ equity excluding AOCI. Our top-level U.S. insurance subsidiary, Athene Annuity & Life Assurance Company (AADE), had a U.S. RBC ratio of 478% and ALRe had a Bermuda Solvency Capital Requirement (BSCR) ratio of 228% , each as of December 31, 2016 . Our ALRe RBC ratio, which is used in evaluating our capital position and the amount of capital needed to support our Retirement Services segment, was 529% as of December 31, 2016 , when applying the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) RBC factors. Our main insurance subsidiaries are rated A- for financial strength by each of S&P and Fitch, each with a stable outlook, and by A.M. Best, with a positive outlook. AHL has a counterparty credit rating of BBB from S&P and an issuer default rating of BBB from Fitch, each with a stable outlook, and an issuer credit rating of bbb- from A.M. Best, with a positive outlook. See Financial Strength Ratings . We currently have no financial leverage, and have an undrawn $1.0 billion credit facility in place to provide an additional liquidity cushion in challenging economic or business environments or to provide additional capital support.

We operate our core business strategies out of one reportable segment, Retirement Services. In addition to Retirement Services, we report certain other operations in Corporate and Other. Retirement Services is comprised of our U.S. and Bermuda operations, which issue and reinsure retirement savings products and institutional products. Retirement Services has retail operations, which provide annuity retirement solutions to our policyholders. Retirement Services also has reinsurance operations, which reinsure multi-year guaranteed annuities (MYGA), fixed indexed annuities (FIA), traditional one year guarantee fixed deferred annuities, immediate annuities and institutional products from our reinsurance partners. In addition, our funding agreement backed notes (FABN) program is included in our Retirement Services segment. Corporate and Other includes certain other operations related to our corporate activities and our German operations, which is primarily comprised of participating long-duration savings products. In addition to our German operations, included in Corporate and Other are corporate allocated expenses, merger and acquisition costs, debt costs, certain integration and restructuring costs, certain stock-based compensation and intersegment eliminations. In Corporate and Other we also hold more than $1.5 billion of capital in excess of the level of capital we hold in Retirement Services to support our operating strategy.

We believe we hold a sufficient amount of capital in our Retirement Services segment to support our core operating strategies. This level of capital may fluctuate depending on the mix of both our assets and our liabilities, and also reflects the level of capital needed to support or improve our current ratings as well as our risk appetite based on our internal risk models. The level of capital we currently allocate to our Corporate non-reportable segment is our U.S. subsidiaries’ statutory capital in excess of a U.S. RBC ratio of 400%, as well as the Bermuda capital for ALRe in excess of 400% RBC when also applying NAIC RBC factors. We view this excess as strategic capital, which we expect to deploy for additional organic and inorganic growth opportunities as well as expect to contribute to ratings improvements over time. We manage our capital to levels which we believe would remain consistent with our current ratings in a recessionary environment. For additional information regarding our segments, including financial information related thereto, refer to Note 19 – Segment Information to the consolidated financial statements.

We have developed organic and inorganic channels to address the retirement services market and grow our assets and liabilities. By focusing on the retirement services market, we believe that we will benefit from several demographic and economic trends, including the increasing number of retirees in the United States, the lack of tax advantaged alternatives for people trying to save for retirement and expectations of a rising interest rate environment. To date, most of our products sold and acquired have been fixed annuities, which offer people saving for retirement a product that is tax advantaged, has a minimum guaranteed rate of return or minimum cash value, and provides protection against investment loss. Our policies often include surrender charges ( 86% of our deferred annuity products, as of December 31, 2016 ) or market value adjustments (MVA) ( 73% of our deferred annuity products, as of December 31, 2016 ), both of which increase persistency and protect our ability to meet our obligations to policyholders.

Our organic channels have provided deposits of $8.8 billion , $3.9 billion and $2.9 billion for the years ended December 31, 2016 , 2015 and 2014 , respectively. Withdrawals on our deferred annuities were $4.2 billion , $4.4 billion and $4.4 billion for the years ended December 31, 2016 , 2015 and 2014 , respectively. While there can be no assurance that we will meet our growth targets, we believe that our new deposits should continue to significantly surpass our withdrawals as we continue to grow our retail and flow reinsurance channels. Absent any significant unexpected market conditions or regulatory impacts and assuming we can meet our pricing targets, we believe that with our ratings and the strong growth in our organic channel in 2016, new deposits from our organic channels and withdrawal experience with respect to our deferred annuities should be similar in the near-to-mid-term to our 2016 production and withdrawal experience, respectively. Within our organic channels, we have focused on developing a diverse suite of products that allow us to meet our risk and return profiles, even in today’s low rate environment. As a result, not only were we able to deliver strong organic growth in 2016, but we were able to do so without sacrificing profitability. Going forward, we believe the 2015 upgrade of our financial strength ratings to A- by each of S&P, Fitch and A.M. Best, as well as our 2016 outlook upgrade to positive by A.M. Best and our recent FIA and MYGA new product launches will continue to enable us to increase penetration in our existing organic channels and access new markets within our retail channel, such as selling through financial institutions. This increased penetration will allow us to source additional volumes of profitably underwritten liabilities. Our organic channels currently include:

Our inorganic channels, including acquisitions and block reinsurance, have contributed significantly to our growth. We believe our internal acquisitions team, with support from Apollo, has an industry-leading ability to source, underwrite and expeditiously close transactions, which makes us a competitive counterparty for acquisition or block reinsurance transactions. We are highly selective in the transactions that we pursue; ultimately closing only those that are well aligned with our core competencies and pricing discipline. Since our inception, we have evaluated a significant number of merger and acquisition opportunities and have closed on five acquisitions. In connection with our five acquisitions through December 31, 2016 , we sourced reserve liabilities backed by approximately $65.9 billion in total assets (net of $9.3 billion in assets

ceded through reinsurance). The aggregate purchase price of our acquisitions was less than the aggregate statutory book value of the businesses acquired.

We have sourced a high quality portfolio of invested assets. Because we have remained disciplined in underwriting attractively priced liabilities, we have the ability to invest in a broad range of high quality assets and generate attractive earnings. As of December 31, 2016 , approximately 93.2% of our AFS fixed maturity securities, including related parties, were rated NAIC 1 or NAIC 2, the two highest credit rating designations under the NAIC’S criteria (with investments of our German operations rated by applying NRSRO equivalent ratings to map NAIC ratings). In addition to our core fixed income portfolio, we opportunistically allocate 5-10% of our portfolio to alternative investments where we primarily focus on fixed income-like, cash flow-based investments. For instance, our alternative investment positions include significant equity stakes in two asset platforms that originate high quality credit assets (such as residential mortgage loans (RML), leveraged loans and mortgage servicing rights) that are well aligned with our investment strategy. Our relationship with AAM and Apollo allows us to take advantage of our generally illiquid liability profile and identify asset opportunities with an emphasis on earning incremental yield by taking liquidity risk and complexity risk, rather than assuming solely credit risk. While alternative investments are a relatively small portion of our overall portfolio, our alternative investments strategy has been an important driver of returns. In general, we target returns for alternative investments of 10% or higher on an internal rate of return (IRR) basis over the expected lives of such investments.

Through our efficient corporate structure and operations, we believe we have built a cost-effective platform to support our growth opportunities. We believe our fixed operating cost structure supports our ability to maintain an attractive financial profile across market environments. Additionally, we believe we have designed our platform to be highly scalable and support growth without significant incremental investment in infrastructure, which allows us to scale our business production up or down because of our cost-effective platform. As a result, we believe we will be able to convert a significant portion of our new business spread into operating income.

Relationship with Apollo

We have a strategic relationship with Apollo which allows us to leverage the scale of its asset management platform. Apollo’s indirect subsidiary, AAM, serves as our investment manager. In addition to co-founding the Company, Apollo assists us in identifying and capitalizing on acquisition opportunities that have been critical to our ability to significantly grow our business. The Apollo Group consists of (1) Apollo,

(2) AAA Guarantor - Athene, L.P. (AAA Investor), (3) any investment fund or other collective investment vehicle whose general partner or managing member is owned, directly or indirectly, by Apollo or one or more of Apollo’s subsidiaries, (4) BRH Holdings GP, Ltd. and its shareholders and (5) any affiliate of any of the foregoing (except that AHL and its subsidiaries and employees of AHL, its subsidiaries or AAM are not members of the Apollo Group). Members of the Apollo Group are significant owners of our common shares and Apollo employees serve on our board of directors. We expect our strategic relationship with Apollo to continue for the foreseeable future. See Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence.

The Apollo Group controls and is expected to continue to control 45% of the total voting power of AHL and five of our 13 directors are employees of or consultants to Apollo and our Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer is a dual employee of both AHL and AAM. Further, our bye-laws generally limit the voting power of our Class A common shares (and certain other of our voting securities) such that no person owns (or is treated as owning) more than 9.9% of the total voting power of our common shares (with certain exceptions).

Competitive Strengths

We believe the following strengths will allow us to capitalize on the growth prospects for our business:

In addition, our corporate platform enables us to be highly scalable and allows us to onboard incremental business without significant additional investment in infrastructure and with low incremental fixed operating cost. As a result, we believe we should be able to convert a significant portion of incremental net investment income from additional invested assets and liabilities into operating income.

Growth Strategy

The key components of our growth strategy are as follows:

We expect our retail channel to continue to benefit from the ratings upgrade in 2015, our improving credit profile and recent product launches. We believe this should support growth in sales at our desired cost of crediting through increased volumes via current IMOs and access to new distribution channels, including small to mid-sized banks and regional broker-dealers. We are implementing the necessary technology platform, hiring and training a specialized sales force, and have created products to capture new potential distribution opportunities.

Our reinsurance channel also benefited from the 2015 ratings upgrade. We target reinsurance business consistent with our preferred liability characteristics, and as such, reinsurance provides another opportunistic channel for us to source long-term liabilities with attractive crediting rates. For the years ended December 31, 2016 , 2015 and 2014 we generated deposits through our flow reinsurance channel of $3.5 billion , $1.1 billion and $349 million , respectively. We expect to grow this channel further as we continue to add new partners, some of which prefer to do business with higher rated counterparties such as us.

In addition, after having sold our first funding agreement under our FABN program in 2015, we sold additional funding agreements in the first quarter of 2017 and expect to grow our institutional products channel over time. We are pursuing pension risk transfer transactions in 2017.

In furtherance of our strategy of growth through acquisitions, we routinely review and conduct investigations of potential acquisitions of business or blocks of business, some of which may be material. When we believe a favorable opportunity exists, we seek to enter into discussions with target companies or sellers regarding the possibility of such acquisitions. At any given time, we may be in discussions with one or more counterparties. There can be no assurances that any such negotiations will lead to definitive agreements, or if such agreements are reached, that any transactions would be consummated.

Additionally, while our organic growth initiatives and acquisitions have largely been focused on opportunities in the United States, our acquisition of Delta Lloyd Deutschland AG (DLD) in October 2015 demonstrated the geographic scalability of our strategy and our ability to capitalize quickly on international market environments as well. While we continue to believe that the European market provides a compelling growth opportunity to amass liabilities at one of the most favorable costs of funding in a number of years, we have come to realize that the opportunity over the next several years is larger than we initially anticipated. We have concluded that, in order to fully capitalize on this opportunity, we would need to commit capital to the European market at a level in excess of our targeted investment size, creating the need for third party capital to support growth. See further discussion on the AGER equity offering within Products–German Products below.

Recently, we have also developed our capabilities to undertake pension risk transfer transactions. Pension risk transfer transactions usually involve the issuance of a group annuity contract, sometimes through a separate account, in exchange for the transfer of pension liabilities from a terminating defined benefit plan. U.S. pension liabilities are estimated to be $2 to $3 trillion with an estimated $1 trillion of liabilities that may become available for closeout, with approximately $15 to $20 billion of expected annual closeout activity over the next several years. We are focused on medium- and large-sized deals where we believe that we can be competitive. We believe that we can leverage our sourcing expertise to underwrite these transactions and maintain our focus on writing profitable new business.

Similarly, in 2013, AAM proposed that Athene and an Apollo co-investor fund and launch AmeriHome, a mortgage lender and servicer with expertise in mortgage industry fundamentals that we believe are key to operating a successful and sustainable mortgage lender/servicer. Like our investment in MidCap, our equity investment in AmeriHome meets the key characteristics we look for in an alternative investment. Our equity investment in AmeriHome is held indirectly through an investment fund, A-A Mortgage Opportunities, LP (A-A Mortgage), and AmeriHome is currently A-A Mortgage’s only investment. Abiding by its core principles, AmeriHome has grown profitably, with A-A Mortgage returning an annualized net investment earned rate of 11.62% and 14.05% for

the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 , respectively. As of December 31, 2016 , our equity investment in A-A Mortgage was valued at $417 million .

Reserve liabilities represents our policyholder liability obligations, including liabilities assumed through reinsurance and net of liabilities ceded through reinsurance, and therefore does not correspond to interest sensitive contract liabilities, future policy benefits, dividends payable to policyholders and other policy claims and benefits as disclosed on our consolidated balance sheets. Reserve liabilities includes the reserves related to assumed modified coinsurance (modco) and funds withheld agreements in order to appropriately match the costs incurred in the consolidated statements of income with the liabilities. Reserve liabilities is net of the ceded liabilities to third-party reinsurers as the costs of the liabilities are passed to such reinsurers and, therefore, we have no net economic exposure to such liabilities, assuming our reinsurance counterparties perform under our agreements. The majority of our ceded reinsurance is a result of reinsuring large blocks of life business following acquisitions.

Item 1.    Business

The following summarizes our reserve liabilities by product:

Annuities

We offer deferred and immediate annuities, which are focused on meeting the needs and objectives of people preparing for, approaching or living in retirement. The combination of financial strength, innovative product design and an effective sales strategy enables us to compete successfully in the market and meet the evolving needs of the rapidly growing population of retirees.

Fixed Indexed Annuities – The majority of our reserve liabilities are FIAs. An FIA is a type of insurance contract in which the policyholder makes one or more premium deposits which earn interest at a crediting rate based on a specified market index on a tax deferred basis and is entitled to receive periodic or lump sum payments a specified number of years after the contract has been issued. FIAs allow policyholders the possibility of earning such interest without risk to principal, unless the contract is surrendered during a surrender charge period. A market index tracks the performance of a specific group of stocks or other assets representing a particular segment of the market, or in some cases, an entire market. Our FIAs include a provision for a minimum guaranteed surrender value calculated in accordance with applicable law, as well as death benefits as required by non-forfeiture regulations. We generally buy options on the indices to which the FIAs are tied to hedge the associated market risk. The cost of the option is priced into the overall economics of the product as an option budget.

The value to the policyholder of an FIA contract is equal to the sum of premiums paid, premium bonuses, if any, and index credits based on the change in the relevant market index, subject to a cap (a maximum rate that may be credited), spread (a credited rate determined by deducting a specific rate from the index return) and/or a participation rate (a credited rate equal to a percentage of the index return), less any fees for riders. Caps on our FIA products generally range from 2% to 5% when measured annually and 0.5% to 2% when measured monthly. Participation rates generally range from 25% to 100% of the performance of the applicable market index. Caps, spreads and participation rates can typically be reset no more frequently than annually, and in some instances no more frequently than every two to four years, at the relevant U.S. insurance subsidiary’s discretion, subject to stated policy minimums. Certain riders provide a variety of benefits, such as lifetime income or additional liquidity, for a set charge. As this charge is fixed, the policyholder may lose principal if the index credits received do not exceed the amount of such charge.

We generate FIA income from our investment margin, which is based on the difference between income earned on the investments supporting the liabilities and the interest credited to customers, and fees received for riders. For the year ended December 31, 2016 , retail sales of FIA products were $4.5 billion and flow reinsurance of FIA products was $686 million . According to sales information from participating members of LIMRA, for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 (the most recent period that data is currently available), we were the 3rd largest FIA provider in the United States based on retail FIA sales. For the year ended December 31, 2015 , retail sales of FIA products were $2.4 billion and flow reinsurance of FIA products was $298 million . According to sales information from participating members of LIMRA, for the year ended December 31, 2015, we were the 6 ^th largest FIA provider in the United States based on retail FIA sales and according to information from participating members of LIMRA, as of December 31, 2015 (the most recent period that specific market share data is currently available), we were the 3 ^rd largest FIA provider based on fixed indexed deferred annuity assets (exclusive of reinsurance).

Fixed Rate Annuities – Fixed rate annuities include annual reset annuities and MYGAs. Unlike FIAs, fixed rate annuities earn interest at a set rate (or declared crediting rate), rather than a rate that may vary based on an index. Fixed rate annual reset annuities have a crediting rate that is guaranteed for one year. After such period, we have the ability to change the crediting rate once annually to any rate at or above a guaranteed minimum rate at our discretion. MYGAs are similar to annual reset annuities except that the initial crediting rate is guaranteed for a specified number of years, rather than just one year, before it may be changed at our discretion. On April 11, 2016, we introduced our first MYGA product designed for the financial institutions channel. For the year ended December 31, 2016 , we had retail sales of $6 million of annual reset annuities and $772 million of MYGAs, as well as flow reinsurance of $2.8 billion of MYGAs. For the year ended December 31, 2015 , we had retail sales of $14 million of annual reset annuities and $14 million of MYGAs, as well as flow reinsurance of $830 million of MYGAs. As of December 31, 2016 , crediting rates on outstanding annual reset annuities ranged from 1% to 6% and crediting rates on outstanding MYGAs ranged from 1% to 6% . As of December 31, 2016 , 53% of our fixed rate annuities were set at the guaranteed minimum crediting rate.

Retirement Services cost of crediting on deferred annuities for the years ended December 31, 2016 , 2015 and 2014 , was 1.96% , 1.92% and 1.94% , respectively.

Payout Annuities – Payout annuities primarily consist of single premium immediate annuities (SPIA), supplemental contracts and structured settlements. Payout annuities provide a series of periodic payments for a fixed period of time or for the life of the policyholder, based upon the policyholder’s election at the time of issuance. The amounts, frequency and length of time of the payments are fixed at the outset of the annuity contract. SPIAs are often purchased by persons at or near retirement age who desire a steady stream of payments over a future period of years. Supplemental contracts are typically created upon the conversion of a death claim or the annuitization of a deferred annuity. Structured settlements generally relate to legal settlements.

Income Riders to Fixed Annuity Products – Many of our in-force deferred annuities are issued with riders that provide guaranteed living withdrawal benefits (GLWB). Riders providing GLWB features are sometimes referred to as income riders and permit policyholders to elect to receive guaranteed payments for life from their contract without having to annuitize their policies, which provides policyholders with greater flexibility in the future. Income riders, particularly on FIAs, have become very popular among policyholders. LIMRA estimates that 62% of FIA premium for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 (the most recent period that specific market share data is currently available) included an income rider.

We broadly characterize the income riders on our deferred annuities as either guaranteed or participating. Guaranteed income riders provide policyholders with a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal amount that is determined based upon the age of the policyholder when the policy is purchased and the age of the policyholder when he or she elects lifetime income. Participating income riders tend to have lower levels of guaranteed income but policyholders have the opportunity to receive greater levels of income if the policies’ indexed crediting strategies perform well.

Our in-force block of deferred annuities contains policies with income riders that were sourced through both retail operations and acquisitions, such as the acquisition of a substantial block of policies having such riders in connection with the Aviva USA acquisition. With respect to our retail operations, we have generally not competed aggressively in the guaranteed income rider segment as we historically believed that such riders were not priced within our pricing discipline. However, recently competitors have been issuing annuities with what we believe are more rationally-priced lifetime income benefit features. In the current environment, we believe that we can grow our retail sales by offering competitive guaranteed income rates while earning an attractive spread, and on April 11, 2016, we introduced “Ascent Pro,” offering policyholders the option to select a guaranteed income rider. In connection with this product offering and others involving income riders, we sometimes use reinsurance with third parties, which assume the risks arising from such products that are in excess of our pricing tolerance. We continually monitor market rationality for opportunities to grow our business, including in the area of guaranteed income riders, taking into account what we believe to be optimal product and product feature mix.

Withdrawal Options for Deferred Annuities – After the first year following the issuance of a deferred annuity, the policyholder is typically permitted to make withdrawals up to 5% or 10% (depending on the contract) of the prior year’s value without a surrender charge or MVA, subject to certain limitations. Withdrawals in excess of the allowable amounts are assessed a surrender charge and MVA if such withdrawals are made during the surrender charge period of the policy. For the years ended December 31, 2016 , 2015 and 2014 , withdrawals on our deferred annuities were $4.2 billion , $4.4 billion and $4.4 billion, respectively. The surrender charge of most of our products is typically between 8% and 15% of the contract value at contract inception and generally decreases by approximately one percentage point per year during the surrender charge period. The surrender charge period of our most popular products ranges from 3 to 15  years. The average surrender charge (excluding the impact of MVAs) is 7.6% for our deferred annuities as of December 31, 2016 .

At maturity, the policyholder may elect to receive proceeds in the form of a single payment or an annuity. If the annuity option is selected, the policyholder will receive a series of payments either over his or her lifetime or over a fixed number of years, depending upon the terms of the contract. Some contracts permit annuitization prior to maturity. In addition to the foregoing rights, a policyholder may also elect to purchase a guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit rider which provides the policyholder with a guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit for the life of the contract.

Funding Agreements

We focus on opportunistically issuing funding agreements to institutional investors at attractive prices. Funding agreements are negotiated privately between an investor and an insurance company. They are designed to provide an agreement holder with a guaranteed return of principal and periodic interest payments, while offering competitive yields and predictable returns. The interest rate can be fixed or floating. If the interest rate is a floating rate, it may be linked to the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), the federal funds rate or other major index.

Life and Other (Excluding German Products)

Life and other products include other retail products, including run-off or ceded business, statutory closed blocks and ceded life insurance.

German Products

Our German products include the annuity, life insurance and unit-linked products managed by the Athene Deutschland GmbH (AD), Athene Deutschland Holding GmbH & Co. KG (ADKG), Athene Deutschland Verwaltungs GmbH, Athene Lebensversicherung AG (ALV) and Athene Pensionskasse AG (APK) (collectively, German Group Companies). Our primary German product type is endowment policies, which are traditional German life insurance policies that include legally guaranteed interest, the right of policyholders to participate in certain portions of ALV's results and a death benefit. The legally guaranteed interest rate is reset annually and ranges from 1.75% to 4.00% . The policyholder

makes one or more premium deposits and is entitled to receive periodic or lump sum payments. These policies include a provision for minimum guaranteed surrender value calculated in accordance with applicable law, as well as death benefits. In addition, AD manages unit-linked life insurance policies, in which premium deposits are invested in fund units specified by the policyholder, and which includes a death benefit the value of which is tied to the performance of the fund units in which the premium deposits are invested. AD also manages pension insurance and disability insurance.

AGER Equity Offering

While we continue to believe that the European market provides a compelling growth opportunity to amass liabilities at one of the most favorable costs of funding in a number of years, we have come to realize that the opportunity over the next several years is larger than we initially anticipated. We have concluded that, in order to fully capitalize on this opportunity, we would need to commit capital to the European market at a level in excess of our targeted investment size, creating the need for third party capital to support growth. We, together with Apollo, have undertaken a process whereby our subsidiary, AGER Bermuda Holding Ltd., a Bermuda domiciled holding company and the holding company of our German Group Companies (AGER) is seeking to raise capital as part of a private offering of its equity securities (AGER Offering) in order to pursue expansion opportunities in Europe. As a founding investor, we expect to retain a sizable equity stake in AGER. However, in the event the AGER Offering is successful, our stake in AGER will be reduced and ultimately held as an alternative investment rather than as a consolidated subsidiary. Additionally, as described in further detail below, we expect to have the opportunity to be AGER’s preferred reinsurer for spread liabilities, which will establish a new potential funding channel for our business.

Subject to the approval of a special committee of our board of directors comprised solely of disinterested directors, it is currently being proposed that Apollo and Athene will collectively commit up to €500 million in the AGER Offering. Our contribution would include the valuation of our German Group Companies at approximately €90 million (which is in line with our invested capital in our German Group Companies). This valuation of our German Group Companies will be fixed at the time of the closing of the commitments for the AGER Offering regardless of whether our German Group Companies operate at a profit or at a loss or otherwise increase or decrease in value from the time the commitments are final until the time of the capital call from AGER that results in AGER and its subsidiaries being deconsolidated from us, which may be as long as nine months or more. As a result, to the extent that our invested capital and/or fair value of our German Group Companies increases or decreases during such time period, we may incur a gain or loss upon deconsolidation.

The completion of the AGER Offering is conditioned upon obtaining (1) a sufficient amount of subscription commitments to allow AGER to take advantage of the opportunities in the European market over the next two to four years, (2) any required regulatory approvals, and (3) other customary terms and conditions. Prior to the successful completion of the AGER Offering and the initial material capital call in exchange for the issuance of new equity interests of AGER, AGER and our German Group Companies will continue to be consolidated subsidiaries of AHL. We expect the AGER Offering, if successful, to raise €1 billion or more from third parties.

In order to align the interests of Athene and AGER, upon the completion of the AGER Offering, we expect to enter into a cooperation agreement with AGER, pursuant to which, among other things, (1) we will agree not to compete with AGER in Europe (other than the United Kingdom), and (2) AGER will agree not to compete with us in the United States and the United Kingdom. Under the cooperation agreement, we would also have the right to reinsure approximately 20% of the spread business written or reinsured by any insurance or reinsurance company owned or acquired by AGER. An affiliate of Apollo is expected to act as investment adviser in regard to AGER’s investment portfolio and provide investment services and advice. Both the services Apollo provides for AGER, and the fee they receive for doing so, may differ from the existing services provided to our German Group Companies.

In the event the AGER Offering is not completed for any reason, AGER and the German Group Companies would continue to be consolidated subsidiaries of AHL.

Distribution Channels

We have developed four dedicated distribution channels: retail, reinsurance (including flow and block reinsurance), institutional products and acquisitions, which support opportunistic origination across differing market environments and which we believe enable us to achieve stable asset growth while maintaining attractive returns.

Retail

We have built a scalable platform that allows us to originate and rapidly grow our business in fixed annuity products directly from our customers in spite of today’s low-rate environment. We have developed a suite of retirement savings products, distributed through our network of approximately 28,000 independent agents in all 50 states. Sales of fixed annuities were $5.3 billion , $2.5 billion and $2.5 billion for the years ended December 31, 2016 , 2015 and 2014 , respectively. We expect that our upgrade to a financial strength rating of A- by each of S&P, Fitch and A.M. Best in 2015 will continue to allow us to increase our share with existing IMOs and enter into relationships with regional banks, broker-dealers and other financial institutions, resulting in a potential increase in annual sales at an attractive cost of crediting. We are focused in every aspect of our retail channel on providing high quality products and service to our policyholders and maintaining appropriate financial protection over the life of their policies.

Reinsurance

Reinsurance is an arrangement under which an insurance company, the reinsurer, agrees to indemnify another insurance company, the ceding company or cedant, for all or a portion of the insurance risks underwritten by the ceding company. Reinsurance is designed to (1) reduce the net amount at risk on individual risks, thereby enabling the ceding company to increase the volume of business it can underwrite, as well as increase the maximum risk it can underwrite on a single risk, (2) stabilize operating results by leveling fluctuations in the ceding company’s loss experience, (3) assist the ceding company in meeting applicable regulatory requirements and (4) enhance the ceding company’s financial strength and surplus position. As mentioned above, reinsurance can also be used to acquire or sell blocks of business. In general, annuity reinsurance is executed in the form of a flow transaction or a block transaction.

We conduct the majority of our reinsurance transactions through our subsidiary, ALRe. Founded on June 9, 2009, ALRe is licensed as a Class E insurer carrying on long-term business in Bermuda; one of the largest reinsurance markets in the world by reserves, with a regulatory regime deemed equivalent to the European Union’s Directive (2009/138/EC) (Solvency II) for commercial insurers. As a fixed annuity reinsurer, ALRe partners with life and annuity insurance companies to develop solutions to their capital requirements, enhance their presence in the retirement market and improve their financial results. The specific liabilities ALRe targets to reinsure include MYGAs, FIAs, traditional one year guarantee fixed deferred annuities, immediate annuities and institutional products. ALRe only targets business consistent with our preferred liability characteristics, and as such, reinsurance provides another opportunistic channel for us to source long-term liabilities with attractive crediting rates. For various transaction-related reasons, from time to time, our U.S. insurance subsidiaries, in particular AADE, will reinsure business from third-party ceding companies and retrocede a portion of the reinsured business to ALRe. Our flow reinsurance channel generated deposits of approximately $3.5 billion , $1.1 billion and $349 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 , 2015 and 2014 , respectively.

ALRe has been involved in reinsurance and retrocession transactions with 16 third-party cedents. Since inception through December 31, 2016, deposits from such transactions totaled approximately $10.7 billion , inclusive of third-party cedent business that flows through AADE, split between block transactions of $3.6 billion and flow business of $7.1 billion . As of December 31, 2016 , ALRe had on-going flow reinsurance and retrocession treaties involving six third-party cedents rated A- or better for a quota share of such cedents’ new deposits, including both MYGAs and FIAs. ALRe was first rated by A.M. Best, Fitch and S&P in early 2015, which we believe is helpful in establishing reinsurance relationships with third-party cedents.

In our reinsurance transactions, as opposed to acquisitions, we acquire assets and liabilities associated with a certain book of business, as opposed to the assets or stock of a target company, which allows us to acquire only that portion of the target’s business that we wish to acquire without assuming additional liabilities.

Institutional Products

Funding Agreements – We participate in a FABN program, which is a medium term note program under which funding agreements are issued to a special-purpose trust that issues marketable notes. The proceeds of the issuance of a series of notes are used by the trust to acquire a funding agreement with matching interest and maturity payment terms from AADE. The notes are underwritten and marketed by major investment banks’ broker-dealer operations and are sold to institutional investors. In 2015, we issued our first funding agreement under the FABN program in the aggregate principal amount of $250 million . The funding agreement has a carrying value of $246 million as of December 31, 2016 and matures in October 2018. In the first quarter of 2017, we issued additional funding agreements under the FABN program in the aggregate principal amount of $650 million , of which $600 million matures in January 2022 and $50 million matures in October 2018.

Athene Annuity and Life Company (AAIA) is a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines (FHLBDM) and Athene Life Insurance Company (ALIC) is a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis (FHLBI). Each issued funding agreements to the relevant Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) in exchange for cash advances in an aggregate amount of $641 million outstanding, with respect to AAIA, and $50 million outstanding, with respect to ALIC, each as of December 31, 2016 . We have decided to wind down the ALIC entity. In connection with that decision, we decided to withdraw our membership in the FHLBI.

Pension Risk Transfer – We have developed capabilities to undertake pension risk transfer transactions. Pension risk transfer transactions usually involve a single premium group annuity contract issued for the purpose of discharging certain pension plan liabilities. Our planned pension risk transfer annuities are nonparticipating contracts. The assets supporting the guaranteed benefits for each contract may be held in a separate account. We will fully guarantee all benefit payments as provided for in the group annuity contract. The group annuity benefits may be purchased for retired and terminated employees or employees covered under terminating or ongoing pension plans. Both immediate and deferred annuities may be purchased by a single premium at issue. There are generally no cash surrender rights, with some exceptions including certain contracts that include liabilities for cash balance pension plans or lump sums. Under GAAP, these annuity contracts are treated as general account products. We are focused on medium- and large-sized deals where we believe we can be competitive.

Acquisitions

Acquisitions are an important source of growth in our business. We have a proven ability to acquire businesses in complex transactions at terms favorable to us, manage the liabilities that we acquire and reinvest the associated assets. Through December 31, 2016 , we have closed four acquisition transactions in the U.S.: Liberty Life Insurance Corporation (Liberty Life), Investors Insurance Corporation, Presidential Life Corporation and Aviva USA; and one international acquisition, DLD, collectively representing reserve liabilities backed by approximately $65.9 billion in total assets (net of $9.3 billion in assets ceded through reinsurance).

The acquisition of Aviva USA marked a significant milestone in our history. As a result of the acquisition we grew to approximately four times our size immediately prior to the acquisition (as measured by total assets). The acquisition significantly enhanced our retail channel, increased our scale, improved our infrastructure and further demonstrated our integration abilities, in this case having successfully integrated a company with a significantly larger employee headcount and IT and operational footprint.

In October 2015, we acquired the German life insurance business of Delta Lloyd N.V., an Amsterdam-based financial services provider. The German life insurance businesses acquired have been in run-off since the beginning of 2010 by action of the predecessor owner. Accordingly, our German insurance subsidiaries do not write new life insurance business, except for a limited number of new co-insurance policies, and all distribution partner contracts have been terminated.

We plan to continue leveraging our expertise in sourcing and evaluating transactions to profitably grow our business. We believe that our demonstrated ability to source transactions, consummate complex transactions and reinvest assets into higher yielding investments as well as our relationship with Apollo provides us with distinct advantages relative to other acquirers.

In general, we seek to reinsure or otherwise dispose of those portions of the target company’s business that we do not wish to retain, if any. Our largest dispositions of such businesses are described below.

We continue to have the primary legal obligation to satisfy claims and obligations relating to those policies not novated to Accordia or FAFLIC. As a consequence, if Accordia or FAFLIC were unable to satisfy its reinsurance obligations on such life policies, we would be responsible for satisfying those contractual obligations reinsured by Accordia or FAFLIC, respectively. We do not maintain a security interest in the custody account discussed above, and therefore in the event of an Accordia insolvency, the assets of the custody account may be available to satisfy the

claims of Accordia’s general creditors. In addition, in the event of an Accordia insolvency, our claims against Accordia would be subordinated to those of its policyholders. As of December 31, 2016 , both Accordia and FAFLIC were rated A- by A.M. Best.

Protective Life Insurance Company (Protective)

On April 29, 2011, AADE ceded substantially all of its life and health business to Protective under a coinsurance agreement. As part of this transaction, we transferred assets backing reserves and miscellaneous other liabilities on the life and health business. The reserve assets were placed in a trust account maintained by Protective for our benefit to secure the obligations of the reinsurer of the acquired business. As of December 31, 2016 , the statutory book value of assets in this trust was $1.5 billion and the outstanding obligations ceded pursuant to the arrangement amounted to $1.5 billion . In the event that Protective is unable to satisfy its reinsurance obligations with respect to the policies ceded and the trust assets prove insufficient to satisfy the resulting obligations, we would have the primary legal obligation to satisfy such deficiency. In the event of a Protective insolvency, our claim against Protective would be subordinated to those of its policyholders. As of December 31, 2016 , Protective was rated A+ by A.M. Best.

Investment Management

Investment activities are an integral part of our business and our net investment income is a significant component of our total revenues. Our investment philosophy in the United States is to invest a portion of our assets in securities that earn us incremental yield by taking liquidity risk and complexity risk and capitalizing on our long-dated and persistent liability profile to prudently achieve higher net investment earned rates, rather than assuming solely credit risk. We have established a significant base of earnings and as of December 31, 2016 have an expected annual investment margin of 2-3% over the 7.8 year weighted-average life of our deferred annuities, which make up a substantial portion of our reserve liabilities. Because we have remained disciplined in underwriting attractively priced liabilities, we have the ability to invest in a broad range of high quality assets to generate attractive earnings.

Our differentiated investment strategy benefits from our strategic relationship with Apollo and its indirect subsidiary, AAM. AAM provides a full suite of services for our investment portfolio, including direct investment management, asset allocation, mergers and acquisition asset diligence and certain operational support services, including investment compliance, tax, legal and risk management support. AAM provides portfolio management services for substantially all of our invested assets (excluding our German invested assets) and currently provides direct asset selection for 81% of our investment portfolio (excluding Germany). The remaining 19% is outsourced to Apollo and its affiliates to access additional sourcing and underwriting capabilities. Substantially all of the assets subject to a sub-advisory arrangement are sub-advised by Apollo affiliates. AAM allocates portions of our asset portfolio to sub-advisors to manage based on market opportunities. AAM also provides a slate of other asset and portfolio management services to us.

Through our relationship with Apollo, AAM has identified unique investment opportunities for us. AAM’s knowledge of our funding structure and regulatory requirements allows it to design bespoke strategies and investments for our portfolio. For example, we hold a significant investment in MidCap through a consolidated investment fund managed by Apollo, together with loans made directly to MidCap. When we originally invested in MidCap Financial Holdings, LLC (MidCap Financial) in November 2013, MidCap Financial was a specialty finance company which primarily originated lending opportunities in the healthcare sector. With the assistance of Apollo, MidCap Financial entered new lending markets, raised substantial equity capital and restructured as MidCap in January 2015. MidCap represents a unique investment in an origination platform made available to us through our relationship with Apollo and, from time to time, provides us with access to assets for our investment portfolio. As of December 31, 2016 , our exposure, including loaned amounts, to MidCap and its predecessor entities approximated $761 million , which represented 1% of our total invested assets and 11% of total AHL shareholders’ equity. As of December 31, 2016 , the value of our equity investment in MidCap had increased by 30% since our original investment in November 2013.

Since its inception, AAM has developed a track record for delivering sound investment returns. According to AAM, for the years ended December 31, 2016 , 2015 and 2014 , it generated total returns on the invested assets in our U.S. and Bermuda accounts owned by us or in accounts supporting reinsurance ceded to our subsidiaries by third-party insurers (the North America Accounts), net of management and sub-advisory fees, but gross of any other direct or indirect fees and expenses paid or payable directly or indirectly by us, of 6.41% , 3.30% and 6.82% , respectively. See Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence for further discussion of fees paid or payable to Apollo and its affiliates, including AAM, and Item 1A. Risk Factors—Risks Relating to Our Investment Manager for further discussion regarding the risks inherent in historical total return figures.

Below is AAM's total return compared to the Barclays Aggregate Index and the Barclays Corporate Index. AAM has outperformed the Barclays Aggregate Index and the Barclays Corporate Index since 2009.

Note: This chart presents AAM’s total return relative to the performance of the Barclays Aggregate Index and the Barclays Corporate Index, with each index presented without any deduction for fees given that such indices are not actual portfolios managed by investment advisors. Such presentation is provided solely as an indication of the performance of fixed income strategies. No index, including the Barclays indices presented here, is directly comparable to AAM’s total return as the composition of the portfolio generating AAM’s total return inherently differs from the portfolio of securities represented by the respective index. In particular, with respect to the above presentation, the AAM total return figures reflect the performance of certain equity securities, structured securities and other asset classes not represented in either of the Barclays indices presented above. Athene’s historical results are not necessarily indicative of its future operating results. This chart is not intended to imply that AAM’s total return is correlated with the performance of either of the indices presented and AAM’s total return, and the volatility of such return, may be, and in many cases is likely to be, materially different from the performance of such indices.

We are downside focused and our asset allocations reflect the results of stress testing. Additionally, we establish what we believe are conservative risk thresholds which in turn define risk tolerance across a wide range of factors, including credit risk, liquidity risk, concentration risk and caps on specific asset classes. We protect against rising interest rates, as our assets are generally slightly shorter in effective duration than our liabilities, resulting in a risk profile that we believe could sustain substantial increases in rates over and above what is implied by current futures markets without sustaining net losses. See Hedging Program and Derivatives for further discussion. As of December 31, 2016 , 29% of our invested assets were floating rate investments which would allow us the flexibility to quickly increase our crediting rates in a rising interest rate environment, if desired.

As a result of our robust combination of underwriting and investment management capabilities, we are able to achieve investment margins that provide attractive risk-adjusted returns and that provide us with a base of future earnings. We generated net investment income of $2.9 billion , $2.5 billion and $2.3 billion for the years ended December 31, 2016 , 2015 and 2014 , respectively. We generated consolidated net investment earned rates of 4.35% , 4.24% and 4.29% for the years ended December 31, 2016 , 2015 and 2014 , respectively. We believe that achieving an investment margin of 2-3% on our deferred annuities would maintain our attractive financial profile and is achievable given our underwriting and asset management capabilities. Moreover, our investing capabilities support our ability to sell fixed annuities profitably and to competitively price acquisitions while meeting our earnings expectations.

The deep experience of the AAM investment team and Apollo’s credit portfolio managers assists us in sourcing and underwriting complex asset classes. AAM has selected a diverse array of corporate bonds and more structured, but highly rated asset classes. We also maintain holdings in floating rate and less rate-sensitive investments, including collateralized loan obligations (CLO), non-agency RMBS and various types of structured products. These asset classes permit us to earn incremental yield by assuming liquidity risk and complexity risk, rather than assuming solely credit risk.

In addition to our core fixed income portfolio, we opportunistically allocate 5-10% of our portfolio to alternative investments where we primarily focus on fixed income-like, cash flow-based investments. Our alternative investment strategy is inherently opportunistic rather than being derived from allocating a fixed percentage of assets to the asset class and the strategy is subject to internal concentration limits. Individual alternative investments are selected based on the investment’s risk-reward profile, incremental effect on diversification and potential for attractive returns due to sector and/or market dislocations. We have a strong preference for alternative investments that have the following characteristics, among others: (1) investments that constitute a direct investment or an investment in a fund with a high degree of co-investment; (2) investments with debt-like characteristics (for example, a stipulated maturity and par value), or alternatively, investments with reduced volatility when compared to pure equity; and (3) investments that have less downside risk. In general, we target returns for alternative investments of 10% or higher on an IRR basis over the expected lives of such investments.

As of December 31, 2016 , 93.2% of our AFS fixed maturity securities, including related parties, were rated NAIC 1 or NAIC 2 (with investments of our German operations rated by applying NRSRO equivalent ratings to map NAIC ratings).

Our asset portfolio is managed within the limits and constraints set forth in our Investment and Credit Risk Policy. Under this policy, we set limits on investments in our portfolio by asset class, such as corporate bonds, emerging markets securities, municipal bonds, non-agency RMBS, commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), CLO, commercial mortgage whole loans and mezzanine loans and alternative investments. We also set credit risk limits for exposure to a single issuer that vary based on ratings. In addition, our asset portfolio is constrained by its scenario-based capital ratio limit and its stressed liquidity limit.

As part of our reinvestment strategy for the investment portfolios of our acquired companies, we generally seek to reinvest assets at yields higher than the related assets being liquidated for reinvestment. We have reinvested a substantial portion of the investment portfolio acquired in our acquisition of Aviva USA, which contributed to the increase in fixed income and other net investment earned rates on this block of business to 4.12% for the year ended December 31, 2015 from 3.50% (on an annualized basis) for the fourth quarter of 2013.

In Germany, our wholly owned subsidiary, ADKG, provides investment management services to our other German Group Companies. ADKG entered into an investment advisory agreement with AAME pursuant to which AAME provides advisory services for a significant portion of our German investment portfolio.

Reserves

We establish and carry actuarially-determined reserves that are calculated to meet our future obligations, which require us to make certain assumptions regarding expenses, investment yields, mortality, morbidity and persistency, with a provision for adverse deviation as appropriate, each as of the date of issue or acquisition. The assumptions used require considerable judgment. We review overall policyholder experience at least annually and update these assumptions when deemed necessary based on additional information that becomes available. For immediate annuity products, assumptions used in the reserve calculation can only be changed if the reserve is deemed to be insufficient. For all other insurance products, current assumptions are used in the calculation of reserves. For FIAs, the aggregate initial liability is equal to the deposit received plus a bonus, if applicable, and is split into a host component and an embedded derivative component. Thereafter, the host contract accretion rate is updated each quarter so that the present value of actual and expected guaranteed cash flows is equal to the initial host value and the embedded derivative liability is recognized at fair value, with the change in fair value recorded in interest sensitive contract benefits in our consolidated statements of income. Changes in, or deviations from, the assumptions used to set our reserves can significantly affect our reserve levels and related results of operations. See Item 1A. Risk Factors—Risks Relating to Our Business for additional discussion on assumptions and estimates.

Persistency is the probability that a policy will remain in force from one period to the next. We make assumptions about persistency based on expected policyholder behavior in future periods, including full and partial contract surrenders. Policyholder behavior is influenced by a number of factors including, but not limited to, recent and current performance of the policy, contractual guarantees contained within the policy, availability of alternative products and general economic conditions.

A surrender rate is the percentage of account value surrendered by the policyholder. A lapse rate is the percentage of account value canceled by us due to nonpayment of premiums or surrender of the policy. Our surrender rate experience on our FIA products for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 was within our assumed ranges. Our estimate of surrender behavior is based on assumptions reflecting actual experience and we believe that, over the duration of the policies, we may experience a wide range of policyholder behavior and market conditions.

Mortality is the incidence of death among policyholders triggering the payment of underlying insurance benefits by the insurer. In addition, mortality also refers to the ceasing of payments on life-contingent annuities due to the death of the annuitant. We utilize a combination of actual and industry experience when setting our mortality assumptions.

We also set reserves for the guaranteed minimum benefits for some of our products. The assumptions used to establish the liabilities for our product guarantees require considerable judgment. At issue, and at each subsequent valuation, we determine the present value of the cost of guaranteed minimum benefits contained in our policies in excess of benefits that are funded by the account value. We also calculate the expected value of the future cost of providing these benefits. In making these projections, a number of assumptions are made and we update these assumptions as experience emerges, when required. We have limited experience to date on policyholder behavior for our guaranteed minimum benefit products which our acquirees began issuing in 2006, and as a result, future experience could lead to significant changes in our assumptions. If emerging experience deviates from our assumptions on utilizations of these benefits, such deviations could have a significant effect on our reserve levels and related results of operations. We periodically review these assumptions and, if necessary, update them based on additional information that becomes available. Changes in or deviations from the assumptions used can significantly affect our reserve levels and related results of operations.

To the extent actual experience differs from assumptions and estimates used to establish reserves, we may be required to increase or decrease our reserves to reflect changes in our expectations. Any such increase could cause a material increase in our liabilities and a reduction in our profitability, including operating losses and a reduction of capital.

Outsourcing

With regard to our U.S. business, we outsource some portion or all of each of the following functions to third-party service providers:

We closely manage our outsourcing partners and integrate their services into our operations. We believe that outsourcing such functions allows us to focus capital and our employees on our core business operations and perform differentiating functions, such as actuarial, product development and risk management functions. In addition, we believe an outsourcing model provides predictable pricing, service levels and volume capabilities and allows us to benefit from technological developments that enhance our customer self-service and sales processes that we would not otherwise be able to take advantage of without reinvesting more of our own capital.

The majority of our new business and policy administration is handled in-house. For some closed in-force blocks of business we partner with Alliance – One Services, Inc., Concentrix Insurance Administrative Solutions Corporation and Infosys McCamish Systems, LLC to provide policy administration services. For administration of annuities issued in support of pension risk transfer transactions, we intend to use Conduent. For information technology services, we use some providers for managed services or supplemental labor, including Tata Consulting Services Limited and UST Global Inc., and use Hewlett Packard Company for data center, infrastructure and related services. For investment management services, we use AAM, AAME and Apollo. We believe that we have a good relationship with our principal outsource service providers.

Affiliated Reinsurance

Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries participate in reinsurance arrangements pursuant to which each cedes certain insurance risks to ALRe. ALRe is a fully licensed, operational and fully equity capitalized reinsurance company with third-party clients. Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries have entered into modco agreements with ALRe under which they cede to ALRe a 100% quota share of their respective obligations to repay the principal upon maturity or earlier termination and to make periodic interest payments under funding agreements issued by them. Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries have similar arrangements with ALRe with respect to substantially all of their other core business, under which generally 80% of all such business is ceded to ALRe on a modco basis. To support these internal reinsurance arrangements, ALRe holds the substantial majority of our capital with $6.1 billion of statutory capital as of December 31, 2016 . ALRe had a BSCR ratio of 228% as of December 31, 2016 .

Hedging Program and Derivatives

We use, and may continue to use, derivatives, including swaps, options, futures and forward contracts and reinsurance contracts to hedge risks such as current or future changes in the fair value of our assets and liabilities, current or future changes in cash flows, changes in interest rates, equity markets, currency fluctuations and changes in longevity. In particular, we purchase options and equity futures to hedge the market risk exposure inherent in our FIA products, which have crediting rates tied to certain market indices. Our hedging program is focused on hedging our economic risk exposures and reducing the variation in our realized investment margin.

We use a combination of equity options; equity index futures; and variance, interest rate, and currency swaps to hedge the risks from the equity derivatives embedded in our FIAs. Through the use of our hedging strategy, we are able to minimize the net impact on capital and surplus of market variations affecting our embedded derivatives.

In addition to hedging the risks from embedded derivatives, we also use currency swaps and futures to hedge mismatches between the currency of our liability cash flows and our assets. Although cash-flow matching and ALM analyses are employed to manage our interest rate and funding exposures, we may also use interest rate derivatives to ensure that our net economic interest rate exposure is within our risk tolerances.

Despite utilizing sophisticated risk management tools and strategies in selecting assets as well as hedges, we remain subject to the risk that our hedging strategies may not have the desired impact on the results of operations or financial condition due to inaccuracy of management’s assumptions or estimates or to the transaction costs or execution risk associated with those strategies. See Item 1A. Risk Factors for further discussion on risks associated with hedging and derivatives.

Financial Strength Ratings

Our access to funding and our related cost of borrowing, the attractiveness of certain of our subsidiaries’ products to customers, our attractiveness as a reinsurer to potential ceding companies and requirements for derivatives collateral posting are affected by our credit ratings and insurance financial strength ratings, as well as those of our subsidiaries, which are periodically reviewed by the rating agencies. Financial strength ratings and credit ratings are important factors affecting consumer confidence in an insurer and its competitive position in marketing products as well as critical factors considered by ceding companies in selecting a reinsurer.

As of December 31, 2016 , Fitch, S&P and A.M. Best had issued credit ratings, financial strength ratings and/or outlook statements regarding us, as listed below. Credit ratings represent the opinions of rating agencies regarding an entity’s ability to repay its indebtedness. Financial strength ratings represent the opinions of rating agencies regarding the financial ability of an insurer or reinsurer to meet its obligations under an insurance policy or reinsurance arrangement and generally involve quantitative and qualitative evaluations by rating agencies of a company’s financial condition and operating performance. Generally, rating agencies base their financial strength ratings upon information furnished to them by the Company and upon their own investigations, studies and assumptions. Financial strength ratings are based upon factors of concern to policyholders, agents, intermediaries and ceding companies and are not directed toward the protection of investors. Credit and financial strength ratings are not recommendations to buy, sell or hold securities and they may be revised or revoked at any time at the sole discretion of the rating organization.

Item 1.    Business

In addition to the financial strength ratings, rating agencies use an outlook statement to indicate a medium or long-term trend which, if continued, may lead to a rating change. A positive outlook indicates a rating may be raised and a negative outlook indicates a rating may be lowered. A stable outlook is assigned when ratings are not likely to be changed. Outlooks should not be confused with expected stability of the issuer’s financial or economic performance. A rating may have a stable outlook to indicate that the rating is not expected to change, but a stable outlook does not preclude a rating agency from changing a rating at any time without notice.

A.M. Best, S&P and Fitch review their ratings of insurance companies from time to time. There can be no assurance that any particular rating will continue for any given period of time or that it will not be changed or withdrawn entirely if, in their judgment, circumstances so warrant. While the degree to which ratings adjustments will affect sales and persistency is unknown, we believe if our ratings were to be negatively adjusted for any reason, we could experience a material decline in the sales of our products and the persistency of our existing business. See Item 1A. Risk Factors for further discussion about risks associated with financial strength ratings.

Competition

We operate in highly competitive markets. We face a variety of large and small industry participants, including diversified financial institutions and insurance and reinsurance companies. These companies compete in one form or another for the growing pool of retirement assets driven by a number of external factors such as the continued aging of the population and the reduction in safety nets provided by governments and private employers. In many segments, product differentiation is difficult as product development and life cycles have shortened. In addition, we have experienced pressure on fees as product unbundling and lower cost alternatives have emerged. As a result, scale and the ability to provide value-added services and build long-term relationships are important factors to compete effectively. See Item 1A. Risk Factors — Risks Relating to Our Business for further discussion on competitive risks. We believe that our leading presence in the retirement market, diverse range of capabilities and broad distribution network uniquely position us to effectively serve consumers’ increasing demand for retirement solutions, particularly in the FIA market.

We face competition in the FIA market from traditional insurance carriers such as Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz) and American Equity Investment Life Insurance Company (AEL). Principal competitive factors for FIAs are initial crediting rates, reputation for renewal crediting action, product features, brand recognition, customer service, cost, distribution capabilities and financial strength ratings of the provider. Competition may affect, among other matters, both business growth and the pricing of our products and services. According to LIMRA, for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 (the most recent period that specific market share data is currently available), the leading two providers of FIAs were Allianz and AEL with market shares of 17.7% and 9.6%, respectively. The aggregate market share of the top ten providers of FIAs for the same period was 65.9%. For the nine months ended September 30, 2016 (the most recent period that data is currently available), we were the 3rd largest FIA provider in the United States based on retail FIA sales, and our market share for the same period was 6.9% . According to LIMRA, for the year ended December 31, 2015, the leading two providers of FIAs were Allianz and AEL with market shares of 16.0% and 12.5%, respectively. The aggregate market share of the top ten providers of FIAs for the same period was 66.0%. For the year ended December 31, 2015, we were the 6th largest FIA provider in the United States based on retail FIA sales, and our market share for the same period was 4.5%.

Reinsurance markets are highly competitive, as well as cyclical by product and market. As a reinsurer, ALRe competes on the basis of many factors, including, among other things, financial strength, pricing and other terms and conditions of reinsurance agreements, reputation, service and experience in the types of business underwritten. The market impact of these and other factors related to reinsurance is generally not consistent across lines of business, domestic and international geographical areas and distribution channels. ALRe’s competition includes other insurance and reinsurance companies, such as Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated and Global Atlantic.

We also face competition in the market for acquisition targets, such as profitable blocks of insurance and whole businesses. Such competition is likely to intensify as insurance businesses become more attractive acquisition targets for both other insurance companies and financial and other institutions and as the already substantial consolidation in the financial services industry continues. We believe that our demonstrated ability to source and consummate complex transactions is a competitive advantage over other similar acquirers. We also compete for potential acquisition opportunities based on a number of factors including perceived financial strength, brand recognition, reputation and the pricing we are able to offer, which, to the extent we determine to finance a transaction, is in turn dependent on our ability to do so on suitable terms.

Finally, we face strong competition within our institutional products channel. With respect to funding agreements, namely those issued in connection with our FABN program, we compete with other insurers that have active FABN programs, such as AIG and MetLife. Within the funding agreement market, we complete primarily on the basis of interest rates and term. With respect to pension risk transfer, we compete with other insurers that offer pension risk transfer annuities, such as MetLife and Prudential Financial, Inc. Within the pension risk transfer market, we compete primarily on the basis of price, underwriting and investment capabilities.

Employees

As of December 31, 2016 , we had approximately 1,125 employees located in Bermuda and the United States, and approximately 200 employees located in Germany and the United Kingdom. We believe that our employee relations are good. Whereas none of our employees located in Bermuda or the United States are subject to collective bargaining agreements and we are not aware of any current efforts to implement such agreements, one of our German Group Companies, ALV, is a member of the employers’ association of insurance companies in Germany ( Arbeitgeberverband der Versicherungsunternehmen in Deutschland e.V. ). As such, ALV is required to apply the collective bargaining agreements entered into with the association and the relevant trade union to those employees that are members of the trade union. In addition, each of the German Group Companies applies these collective bargaining agreements based on individual agreements to most of the non-unionized staff as well. As of December 31, 2016 , approximately 200 employees of our German Group Companies were directly or indirectly subject to such agreements. The collective bargaining agreements are for an indefinite term and apply as long as the relevant German Group Company is a member of the employers’ association. There are also joint local employee representative bodies for the German operations, such as works councils and an economics committee, which have statutory co-determination, information and participation rights in accordance with German laws. The German Group Companies are required to apply and comply with various collective agreements with these local employee representations, such as works agreements. Two employee representatives are members of the supervisory board of our principal German life insurance carrier, ALV.

Regulation

Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries are licensed to transact insurance business in, and are subject to regulation and supervision by, all 50 states of the United States and the District of Columbia. Our German Group Companies licensed as insurers are subject to the relevant laws and regulations applicable to insurers in Germany, including but not limited to the German Insurance Supervision Act ( Versicherungsaufsichtsgesetz (VAG)), and ALRe, a Bermuda domiciled insurer, is subject to regulation and supervision by the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) and compliance with all applicable Bermuda law and Bermuda insurance statutes and regulations, including but not limited to Bermuda's Insurance Act 1978 (Bermuda Insurance Act). Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries are licensed, regulated and supervised in all jurisdictions where they conduct insurance business. The extent of such regulation varies, however; most jurisdictions have regulations and laws that require insurers and agents to be licensed and set standards of solvency and business conduct to be maintained by the insurer. Additionally, state statutes and regulations often require state approval of policy forms, policy language, rates and in some instances, marketing materials. Most states’ statutes and regulations prescribe permitted types and concentrations of investments. Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries are required to file detailed annual financial statements with supervisory agencies in each of the jurisdictions in which they transact an insurance business.

From time to time, in the ordinary course of business and like others in the insurance and financial services industries, our U.S. insurance subsidiaries receive requests for information from government agencies in connection with such agencies’ regulatory or investigatory authority. Such requests can include market conduct examinations, subpoenas or demand letters for documents to assist the government in audits or investigations. Each such subsidiary reviews such requests and notices and takes appropriate action. Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries have been subject to certain requests for information and investigations in the past and could be subject to them in the future.

United States

General

Each of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries is organized and domiciled in one of the following states: Delaware, Iowa, or New York (each, an Athene Domiciliary State) and is also licensed in such state as an insurer. The insurance department of each Athene Domiciliary State regulates the applicable U.S. insurance subsidiary, and each U.S. insurance subsidiary is regulated by each of the insurance regulators in the other states where such company is authorized to transact insurance business. The primary purpose of such regulatory supervision is to protect policyholders rather than holders of any securities, such as the AHL common shares.

In addition, as part of our acquisition of Aviva USA, we acquired a special purpose insurance company, Athene Re IV, which is a subsidiary of AAIA. Athene Re IV is domiciled in Vermont and provides reinsurance to AAIA in order to facilitate the reserve financing associated with a closed block of policies resulting from the demutualization of a prior insurance company currently part of AAIA. As part of the acquisition of AAIA, the liabilities associated with such closed block of insurance policies, including any exposure to payments due from such special purpose insurance company subsidiary, were reinsured to Accordia. We do not write business that requires the use of captive reinsurers. The substantial majority of all policyholder obligations written or held by our insurance subsidiaries are reinsured to ALRe, a fully licensed, operational and fully equity capitalized reinsurance company with third-party clients. For more information on our reinsurance structures, see Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations .

Generally, insurance products underwritten by our U.S. insurance subsidiaries must be approved by the insurance regulators in each state in which they are sold. Those products are also substantially affected by federal and state tax laws. For example, changes in tax law could reduce or eliminate the tax-deferred accumulation of interest credited on the premiums paid by the holders of annuities and life insurance products, which could make such products less attractive to potential purchasers. A shift away from annuity products could reduce the investment income that our U.S. insurance subsidiaries earn on premiums or deposits received from the sale of such products, as well as the assets upon which our U.S. insurance subsidiaries earn income. In addition, certain insurance policies may also be subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (as amended, ERISA).

State insurance authorities have broad administrative powers over our U.S. insurance subsidiaries with respect to all aspects of their insurance business including: (1) licensing to transact business; (2) licensing of producers; (3) prescribing which assets and liabilities are to be considered in determining statutory surplus; (4) regulating premium rates for certain insurance products; (5) approving policy forms and certain related materials; (6) determining whether a reasonable basis exists as to the suitability of the annuity purchase recommendations producers make; (7) regulating unfair trade and claims practices; (8) establishing reserve requirements, solvency standards and minimum capital requirements (MCR); (9) regulating the amount of dividends that may be paid in any year; (10) regulating the availability of reinsurance or other substitute financing solutions, the terms thereof and the ability of an insurer to take credit on its financial statements for insurance ceded to reinsurers or other substitute financing solutions; (11) fixing maximum interest rates on life insurance policy loans, minimum crediting rates on accumulation products and minimum allowable surrender values; (12) regulating the type, amounts and valuations of investments permitted; (13) setting parameters for transactions with affiliates; and (14) regulating other matters.

The rates, forms, terms and conditions of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries’ reinsurance agreements with unaffiliated third parties generally are not directly subject to regulation by any state insurance department in the United States. This contrasts with primary insurance where, as discussed above, the policy forms and premium rates are generally regulated by state insurance departments.

From time to time, increased scrutiny has been placed upon the U.S. insurance regulatory framework, and a number of state legislatures have considered or enacted legislative measures that alter, and in many cases increase, state authority to regulate insurance and reinsurance companies. In addition to legislative initiatives of this type, the NAIC and state insurance regulators are regularly involved in a process of reexamining existing laws and regulations and their application to insurance and reinsurance companies.

Furthermore, while the federal government in most contexts currently does not directly regulate the insurance business, federal legislation and administrative policies in a number of areas, such as employee benefits regulation, age, sex and disability-based discrimination, financial services regulation and federal taxation, can significantly affect the insurance business. It is not possible to predict the future impact of changing regulation on the operations of Athene. See Item 1A. Risk Factors .

NAIC

The NAIC is an organization, the mandate of which is to benefit state insurance regulatory authorities and consumers by promulgating model insurance laws and regulations for adoption by the states. The NAIC also provides standardized insurance industry accounting and reporting guidance through the NAIC Accounting Manual. However, model insurance laws and regulations are only effective when adopted by the states, and statutory accounting and reporting principles continue to be established by individual state laws, regulations and permitted practices. Changes to the NAIC Accounting Manual or modifications by the various state insurance departments may affect the statutory capital and surplus of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries. AHL has entered into capital maintenance agreements with each of its material U.S. insurance subsidiaries, pursuant to which AHL agrees to provide capital to the subsidiary to the extent that the capital of the subsidiary falls below a specified threshold as set with the applicable subsidiary’s domestic regulator.

Some of the NAIC pronouncements, particularly as they affect accounting issues, take effect automatically in the various states without affirmative action by the states. Statutes, regulations and interpretations may be applied with retroactive impact, particularly in areas such as accounting and reserve requirements. Also, regulatory actions with prospective impact can potentially have a significant impact on currently sold products. The NAIC continues to work to reform state regulation in various areas, including comprehensive reforms relating to life insurance reserves.

Pursuant to its “Solvency Modernization Initiative,” the NAIC reviewed the U.S. financial regulatory system and all aspects of financial regulation affecting insurance companies. Though broad in scope, the Solvency Modernization Initiative focused on: (1) capital requirements; (2) corporate governance and risk management; (3) group supervision; (4) statutory accounting and financial reporting; and (5) reinsurance. This initiative has resulted in the recent adoption by the NAIC of the Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA) Model Act, which has been enacted by a number of states, including Delaware, Iowa and New York, and requires insurance companies to assess the adequacy of their and their group’s risk management and current and future solvency position. Under the ORSA Model Act, certain insurers must undertake an internal risk management review no less often than annually (but also at any time when there are significant changes to the risk profile of the insurer or its insurance group), in accordance with the NAIC’s ORSA Guidance Manual, and prepare an ORSA Report assessing the adequacy of the insurer’s risk management and capital in light of its current and future business plans. The ORSA Report is required to be filed with a company’s lead state regulator and made available to other domiciliary regulators within the holding company system. As of December 31, 2016 , we were in compliance with all ORSA Report filing requirements.

In December 2012, the NAIC approved a new valuation manual containing a principle-based approach to life insurance company reserves. Principle-based reserving is designed to tailor the reserving process to specific products in an effort to create a principle-based modeling approach to reserving rather than the factor-based approach historically employed. Pursuant to the NAIC’s Standard Valuation Law (SVL), a minimum of 42 states representing at least 76% of total life insurance premiums written in the United States must pass legislation substantially similar to the SVL for the SVL to become operative as an NAIC model law. As of July 1, 2016, these minimum threshold requirements have been satisfied such that the SVL is now operative, and principle-based reserving became effective prospectively on January 1, 2017. Delaware and Iowa have each adopted a form of the SVL. New York is expected to adopt a form of the SVL in January 2018.

In November 2014, the NAIC adopted the Corporate Governance Annual Disclosure Model Act and Model Regulation (together, the Corporate Governance Model Act), which requires an insurer to provide an annual disclosure regarding its corporate governance practices to its lead state and/or domestic regulator. As adopted by the NAIC, the requirements of the Corporate Governance Model Act were intended to be effective January 1, 2016, with the first annual disclosure due by June 1, 2016. The Corporate Governance Model Act must be adopted by the individual states for the new requirements to apply, and specifically in Delaware, Iowa and New York for the changes to apply to our U.S. insurance subsidiaries. Iowa has adopted a form of the Corporate Governance Annual Disclosure Model Act, and the first corporate governance annual disclosure under that law was due on June 1, 2016. Neither Delaware nor New York has adopted the Corporate Governance Model Act, and it is not possible to predict whether Delaware and/or New York may adopt the Corporate Governance Model Act in the future; however, the NAIC is seeking to make the Corporate Governance Model Act part of its accreditation standards for state solvency regulation, which may motivate states to adopt the Corporate Governance Model Act.

Insurance Holding Company Regulation

Each direct and indirect parent of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries (including AHL) is subject to the insurance holding company laws of each of the Athene Domiciliary States. These laws generally require an insurance holding company and insurers that are members of such holding company system to register with their U.S. insurance regulators and to file certain reports with those authorities, including information concerning their capital structure, ownership, financial condition, certain intercompany transactions and general business operations. Generally, under these laws, transactions between our U.S. insurance subsidiaries and their affiliates, including any reinsurance transactions, must be fair and reasonable and, if material or of a specified category, require prior notice and approval or non-disapproval by the insurance department of each applicable Athene Domiciliary State.

Most states, including each of the Athene Domiciliary States, have insurance laws that require regulatory approval of a direct or indirect change of control of an insurer, which would include a change of control of its holding company. Laws such as these prevent any person from acquiring direct or indirect control of any of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries or their holding companies unless that person has filed a statement with specified information with the commissioner or director of the insurance department of the applicable Athene Domiciliary State (each, a Commissioner) and has obtained the Commissioner’s prior approval. Under most states’ statutes, including those of each of the Athene Domiciliary States, acquiring 10% or more of a voting interest in 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 a voting interest in a direct or indirect parent of any of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries (or AHL) without the prior approval of the Commissioner of the applicable Athene Domiciliary State will be in violation of the applicable Athene Domiciliary State’s law and may be subject to injunctive action requiring the disposition or seizure of those securities by the Commissioner or prohibiting the voting of those securities and to other actions determined by the Commissioner. Further, a willful violation of these laws is punishable in each Athene Domiciliary State as a criminal offense. In addition, the Model Insurance Holding Company System Regulatory Act (Amended Holding Company Model Act) requires any controlling person of a U.S. insurer seeking to divest its controlling interest in the insurance company to file with the relevant insurance commissioner a confidential notice of the proposed divestiture at least thirty days prior to the cessation of control (unless a person acquiring control from the divesting party has filed notice of the proposed acquisition of control with the Commissioner). After receipt of the notice, the Commissioner must determine those instances in which the parties seeking to divest or to acquire a controlling interest will be required to file for or obtain approval of the transaction. These laws may discourage potential acquisition proposals and may delay, deter or prevent an acquisition of control of a direct or indirect parent of any of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries (including AHL) (in particular through an unsolicited transaction), even if the shareholders of such parent consider such transaction to be desirable. Our bye-laws include limitations on the voting power exercisable by shareholders of the Company other than the Apollo Group so that certain persons or groups (Control Groups) are deemed not to hold more than 9.9% of the total voting power conferred by our shares.

Holding company system regulations currently in effect in New York require prospective acquirers of New York domiciled insurers to provide detailed disclosure with respect to intended changes to the business operations of the insurer, and expressly authorize the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) to impose additional conditions on such acquisitions. Pursuant to these regulations, the NYSDFS may limit the changes that the acquirer may make to the insurer’s business operations for a specified period of time following the acquisition without the NYSDFS’ prior approval. In particular, the regulation provides the NYSDFS with the specific authority to require acquirers of New York domiciled life insurers to post assets in a trust account for the benefit of the target company’s policyholders. In making such determination, the NYSDFS may consider whether the acquirer is, or is controlled by or under common control with, an investment manager such as Apollo. The NAIC’s former Private Equity Issues Working Group, which was formed to develop best practice recommendations relating to acquisitions of control of insurance or reinsurance companies by private equity and hedge funds, adopted narrative guidance for state insurance examiners to consider in reviewing applications for an acquisition of an insurer. Such guidance has been adopted by the NAIC and is included in the 2015 Annual/2016 Quarterly edition of the NAIC’s Financial Analysis Handbook.

Although Athene Re IV is not subject to insurance holding company laws, the Vermont insurance regulator may use all or a part of the holding company law framework described above in determining whether to approve a proposed change of control.

In December 2010, the NAIC adopted the Amended Holding Company Model Act. The Amended Holding Company Model Act introduces the concept of “enterprise risk” within an insurance holding company system and imposes more extensive informational requirements on parents and other affiliates of licensed insurers or reinsurers, with the purpose of protecting the licensed companies from enterprise risk, including requiring an annual enterprise risk report by each ultimate controlling person identifying the material risks within the insurance holding company system that could pose enterprise risk to the licensed companies. An enterprise risk is an activity or event involving affiliates of an insurer that could have a material adverse effect on the insurer or the insurer’s holding company system. The Amended Holding Company Model Act must be adopted by the individual states for the new requirements to apply. Iowa, Delaware and New York have each adopted a form of the Amended Holding Company Model Act.

In December 2014, the NAIC adopted additional amendments to the Amended Holding Company Model Act for consideration by the various states that address the authority of an insurance commissioner to act as the group-wide supervisor for an internationally active insurance group or to acknowledge the authority of another regulatory official, from another jurisdiction, to so act. These changes to the Amended Holding Company Model Act must be enacted by the individual states before they will become effective, and specifically in Delaware, Iowa and New York for the changes to apply to our U.S. insurance subsidiaries. Delaware has adopted a form of these changes to the Amended Holding Company Model Act, and Iowa has adopted similar provisions under a predecessor statute. It is not possible to predict with any degree of certainty the additional capital requirements, compliance costs or other burdens these changes may impose in the future.

In addition, the NAIC has adopted a revised Suitability in Annuity Transactions Model Regulation (SAT), which places new responsibilities upon issuing insurance companies with respect to the suitability of annuity sales, including responsibilities for training agents. Many states, including Iowa, Delaware and New York, have already enacted laws and/or regulations based on SAT, thus imposing suitability standards with respect to sales of FIAs and variable annuities. The NYSDFS recently issued a circulated letter emphasizing insurers' obligations under laws and regulations based on SAT when replacing a deferred annuity contract with an immediate annuity contract. Future changes in such laws and regulations, including those that may result from any delay, repeal or modification of the DOL fiduciary rule, could adversely impact the way we market and sell our annuity products.

Restrictions on Dividends and Other Distributions

Current law of two of the Athene Domiciliary States, Delaware and Iowa, permits the payment of dividends or distributions which, together with dividends or distributions paid during the preceding twelve months do not exceed the greater of (a) 10% of the insurer’s surplus as regards policyholders as of the immediately preceding year end or (b) the net gain from operations of the insurer for the preceding twelve-month period ending as of the immediately preceding year end. Current law of New York permits the payment of dividends or distributions which, together with dividends or distributions paid during any calendar year, (1) do not exceed the greater of (a) 10% of the insurer’s surplus as regards policyholders as of the end of the immediately preceding calendar year or (b) the net gain from operations of the insurer for the immediately preceding calendar year, not including realized capital gains, not to exceed 30% of the insurer’s surplus as regards policyholders as of the end of the immediately preceding calendar year or (2) do not exceed the lesser of (a) 10% of the insurer’s surplus as regards policyholders as of the end of the immediately preceding calendar year or (b) the net gain from operations of the insurer for the immediately preceding calendar year, not including realized capital gains. Any proposed dividend in excess of these amounts is considered an extraordinary dividend or extraordinary distribution and may not be paid until it has been approved, or a 30-day waiting period has passed during which it has not been disapproved, by the Commissioner. Additionally, under current law of the Athene Domiciliary States, AAIA may only pay dividends from the insurer’s earned profits on its business, which shall not include contributed capital or contributed surplus, and AADE may only pay dividends from that part of its available and accumulated surplus funds which is derived from realized net operating profits on its business and realized capital gains, and ALICNY may only pay dividends pursuant to the "greater of" standard described above from that part of its positive unassigned funds, excluding 85% of the change in net unrealized capital gains or losses less capital gains tax, for the immediately preceding calendar year. Further, as a condition to each of the NYSDFS’ and Iowa Insurance Division's (IID) approval of Athene’s acquisition of Aviva Life and Annuity Company of New York (ALACNY, now ALICNY) and AAIA, respectively, in connection with the broader Aviva USA acquisition, Athene agreed not to cause ALACNY or AAIA to declare, distribute or pay any dividend for five years from the date of acquisition of control of ALACNY or AAIA without the prior written consent of the NYSDFS or the IID, as applicable. The Athene Domiciliary States’ insurance laws and regulations also require that each of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries’ surplus as regards policyholders following any dividend or distribution be reasonable in relation to such U.S. insurance subsidiary’s outstanding liabilities and adequate to meet its financial needs.

Credit for Reinsurance Ceded

The ability of a ceding insurer to take reserve and capital credit for the reinsurance purchased from reinsurance companies is a significant component of reinsurance regulation. Typically, a ceding insurer will only enter into a reinsurance agreement if it can obtain credit on its statutory basis financial statements against its reserves (report lower net reserves) and/or toward its MCR (the denominator in its RBC calculation) for the reinsurance ceded to the reinsurer. With respect to U.S.-domiciled ceding companies, credit is usually granted when the reinsurer is licensed or accredited in the state where the ceding company is domiciled. States also generally permit ceding insurers to take credit for reinsurance if the reinsurer: (1) is domiciled in a state with a credit for reinsurance law that is substantially similar to the credit for reinsurance law in the ceding insurer’s state of domicile, and (2) meets certain financial requirements. Credit for reinsurance purchased from a reinsurer that does not meet the foregoing conditions is generally allowed to the extent that such reinsurer secures its obligations with qualified collateral.

ALRe has provided, and may in the future provide, reinsurance to our U.S. insurance subsidiaries in the normal course of business. Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries have entered into modco agreements with ALRe under which they will cede to ALRe a 100% quota share of their respective obligations to repay the principal upon maturity or earlier termination and to make periodic interest payments under funding agreements issued by them. Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries have similar arrangements with ALRe with respect to substantially all of their other core business, under which between 80% and 100% of all such business is ceded to ALRe on a modco basis, net of third party reinsurance. ALRe is not licensed, accredited or approved in any state in the United States and, consequently, ALRe must collateralize its obligations to our U.S. insurance subsidiaries or any third-party cedant in order for any of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries or any third-party cedant to obtain credit against its reserves on its statutory basis financial statements (unless the basis for such reinsurance transaction is modco). ALRe is domiciled in Bermuda, one of the largest reinsurance markets in the world by reserves with a regulatory regime deemed by the European Commission (EC) in November 2015 to be equivalent to the European Union (EU) Solvency II. The delegated act granting Bermuda equivalency under Solvency II was approved by the European Parliament and Council in March 2016.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act) provides that only the state in which a ceding insurer is domiciled may regulate the financial statement credit for reinsurance taken by that ceding insurer; other states are no longer able to require additional collateral from unauthorized reinsurers or otherwise impose their own credit for reinsurance laws on ceding insurers that are licensed, but not domiciled, in such other states.

In November 2011, the NAIC adopted amendments to its Credit for Reinsurance Model Law and Regulation to implement reinsurance collateral reform. Under the amended Credit for Reinsurance Model Law and Regulation, collateral requirements may be reduced from 100% for unauthorized or non-accredited reinsurers meeting certain criteria as to financial strength and reliability that are domiciled in jurisdictions that are found to have strong systems of insurance regulation (each, a “Qualified Jurisdiction”). Once a state legislature enacts the amendments to the Credit for Reinsurance Model Law and Regulation and the standards become operative in that state, such reinsurers will be eligible to apply for “certified reinsurer” status and reinsurers that become so certified will be permitted to post collateral at reduced levels in that state. The new collateral levels will apply on a prospective basis only. The NAIC recently made the reinsurance collateral reform provisions of the amended Credit for Reinsurance Model Law and Regulation an accreditation standard. Delaware and Iowa have adopted the reduced collateral requirements under the Credit for Reinsurance Model Law and Regulation, and New York has adopted the reduced collateral requirements under a predecessor statute.

In December 2014, the NAIC approved Bermuda as a “Qualified Jurisdiction,” effective January 1, 2015, with respect to certain classes of insurers, including Class E insurers such as ALRe. The recognition of Bermuda as a Qualified Jurisdiction permits ALRe to apply for “certified reinsurer” status with the ability (if so certified) to post reduced collateral for coverage provided by ALRe to ceding insurers in the United States (including our U.S. insurance subsidiaries). The amount of collateral required to be posted by insurers with this designation varies based upon the insurers’ credit rating. ALRe is not currently certified to post reduced collateral in any state.

Statutory Investment Valuation Reserves

Life insurance companies domiciled in the U.S. are required to establish an asset valuation reserve (AVR) to stabilize statutory policyholder surplus from fluctuations in the market value of investments. The AVR consists of two components: (1) a “default component” for possible credit-related losses on fixed maturity investments and (2) an “equity component” for possible market-value losses on all types of equity investments, including real estate-related investments. Although future additions to the AVR will reduce the future statutory capital and surplus of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries, we do not believe that the impact under current regulations of such reserve requirements will materially affect our U.S. insurance subsidiaries. Insurers domiciled in the U.S. also are required to establish an interest maintenance reserve (IMR) for net realized capital gains and losses, net of tax, on fixed maturity investments where such gains and losses are attributable to changes in interest rates, as opposed to credit-related causes. The IMR is required to be amortized into statutory earnings on a basis reflecting the remaining period to maturity of the fixed maturity securities. These reserves are required by state insurance regulatory authorities to be established as liabilities on a life insurer’s statutory financial statements and may also be included in the liabilities assumed by our U.S. insurance subsidiaries pursuant to their reinsurance agreements with U.S.-based life insurer ceding companies.

Policy and Contract Reserve Adequacy Analysis

The Athene Domiciliary States and other states have adopted laws and regulations with respect to policy and contract reserve sufficiency. Under applicable insurance laws, our U.S. insurance subsidiaries are each required to annually conduct an analysis of the adequacy of all life insurance and annuity statutory reserves. A qualified actuary appointed by each such subsidiary’s board must submit an opinion annually for each such subsidiary which states that the statutory reserves make adequate provision, according to accepted actuarial standards of practice, for the anticipated cash flows resulting from the contractual obligations and related expenses of such subsidiary. The adequacy of the statutory reserves is considered in light of the assets held by such U.S. insurance subsidiary with respect to such reserves and related actuarial items, including, but not limited to, the investment earnings on such assets and the consideration anticipated to be received and retained under the related policies and contracts. At a minimum, such testing is done over a number of economic scenarios prescribed by the states, with the scenarios designed to stress anticipated cash flows for higher and/or lower future levels of interest rates. Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries may find it necessary to increase reserves, which may decrease their statutory surplus, in order to pass additional cash flow testing requirements.

U.S. Statutory Reports and Regulatory Examinations

Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries are required to file detailed annual reports, including financial statements, in accordance with prescribed statutory accounting rules, with regulatory officials in the jurisdictions in which they conduct business. In addition, each U.S. insurance subsidiary is required to file quarterly reports prepared on the same basis, though with considerably less detail.

As part of their routine regulatory oversight process, state insurance departments conduct periodic detailed examinations, generally once every three to five years, of the books, records, accounts and operations of insurance companies that are domiciled in their states. Examinations are generally carried out in cooperation with the insurance departments of other, non-domiciliary states under guidelines promulgated by the NAIC. There are currently no such examinations ongoing.

Vermont insurance laws and regulations applicable to Athene Re IV require it to file financial statements with the Commissioner of the Insurance Division of the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation. Additionally, Athene Re IV is subject to periodic financial examinations by the Insurance Division of the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation. The Vermont Department of Financial Regulation recently completed an examination of Athene Re IV for the period from January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2014. The final report was issued on September 21, 2016. There were no issues noted in the report.

Market Conduct Regulation

State insurance laws and regulations include numerous provisions governing the marketplace activities of insurers, including provisions governing claims settlement practices, the form and content of disclosure to consumers, illustrations, advertising, sales and complaint process practices. State regulatory authorities generally enforce these provisions through periodic market conduct examinations. In addition, our U.S. insurance subsidiaries must file, and in many jurisdictions and for some lines of business obtain regulatory approval for, rates and forms relating to the insurance written in the jurisdictions in which they operate. Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries are currently undergoing the following market conduct examinations, each in the ordinary course of business: (1) the Missouri Department of Insurance, Financial Institutions & Professional Registration is conducting a market conduct examination of AAIA, (2) the NYSDFS is conducting a triennial examination of AANY, (3) the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance is conducting a general market conduct examination of AAIA, (4) the New York Office of the State Comptroller is conducting an audit of AANY and ALICNY regarding abandoned property, (5) the State of Connecticut Insurance Department is conducting an examination survey of the market conduct practices of AAIA and (6) the State of Massachusetts is conducting a limited scope market conduct examination of AAIA. The California Department of Insurance is completing a review of the rating and underwriting practices of AAIA, AADE and AANY.

State insurance regulators have been scrutinizing claims settlement practices of insurance companies with regard to payment of death benefits. Through their authority to regulate market conduct, including claims settlement practices, state insurance regulators have been examining the use by insurance companies of the U.S. Social Security Administration’s Social Security Death Index (Death Master File) to identify deceased persons and the processes by which insurance companies search for beneficiaries of life and annuity contracts. In particular, these regulators have been looking at how insurance companies handle unreported deaths, maturity of life insurance and annuity contracts, and contracts that have exceeded limiting age to determine if the companies are appropriately identifying when death benefits or other payments under the contracts should be made. Several states have enacted new laws or adopted new regulations mandating the use by insurance companies of the Death Master File or other similar databases to identify deceased persons and more rigorous processes to find beneficiaries. The NAIC currently is developing a new model law to address the issue of unclaimed benefits.

In 2013, prior to our acquisition of Aviva USA, it entered into multi-state settlement agreements with the insurance regulators and treasurers for 48 states in connection with certain of its subsidiaries’ use of the Death Master File. As part of the settlement, AAIA and its subsidiary ALICNY agreed to pay a $4 million assessment for examination, compliance and monitoring costs without admitting any liability or wrongdoing, and further agreed to adopt policies and procedures reasonably designed to ensure timely payment of valid claims to beneficiaries in accordance with insurance laws and to timely report and remit unclaimed proceeds to the appropriate states in connection with unpaid property laws. Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries could continue to be subject to risks related to unpaid benefits, the Death Master File, and the procedures required by the prior multi-state settlement as they relate to our annuity business. Furthermore, administrative challenges associated with implementing the procedures described above may make compliance with the multi-state settlement and applicable law difficult and could have a material and adverse effect on our results of operations. AADE is currently undergoing a multi-state unclaimed property examination led by Verus Financial, on behalf of California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. Further, AADE is also a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the West Virginia Treasurer, State of West Virginia ex rel. John D. Perdue v. Liberty Life Ins. Co., Case No. 12-C-419, pursuant to which the Treasurer alleges that Liberty Life, now known as AADE, failed to adopt reasonable procedures, such as using the Death Master File, to identify deceased insureds with unpaid death benefits and timely escheat those unclaimed benefits to the state. The Treasurer accordingly seeks to recover unpaid death benefits, statutory interest and penalties.

Another area of focus by state insurance regulators has been on the use of third-party administrators (TPAs) to administer insurance policies.  Our U.S. insurance subsidiaries rely on TPAs to service certain annuity and life insurance policies and have experienced increased service and administration complaints related to the conversion and administration of the Aviva USA life insurance policies reinsured to affiliates of Global Atlantic by the TPA retained by such Global Atlantic affiliates to provide services on such policies, as well as on certain annuity policies that were on Aviva USA’s life systems that were also converted to and are being administered by the same TPA. As a result of these increased complaints and service-related issues, our U.S. insurance subsidiaries may be subject to increased regulatory scrutiny, including fines and penalties, and policyholder litigation.     

Capital Requirements

Regulators of each state have discretionary authority in connection with our U.S. insurance subsidiaries’ continued licensing to limit or prohibit sales to policyholders within their respective states if, in their judgment, the regulators determine that such entities have not maintained the required level of minimum surplus or capital or that the further transaction of business would be hazardous to policyholders.

In order to enhance the regulation of insurers’ solvency, the NAIC adopted a model law to implement RBC requirements for life, health and property and casualty insurance and reinsurance companies. All states have adopted the NAIC’s model law or a substantively similar law. The NAIC Risk-Based Capital for Insurers Model Act requires life insurance companies to submit an annual report (the Risk-Based Capital Report), which compares an insurer’s total adjusted capital (TAC) to its authorized control level RBC (ACL), each such term as defined pursuant to applicable state law. A company’s RBC is calculated by using a specified formula that applies factors to various risks inherent in the insurer’s operations, including risks attributable to its assets, underwriting experience, interest rates and other business expenses. The factors are higher for those items deemed to have greater underlying risk and lower for items deemed to have less underlying risk. Statutory RBC is measured on two bases, with ACL calculated as one-half company action level RBC (CAL). Regulators typically use ACL in assessing companies and reviewing solvency requirements. Companies themselves typically report and are compared using the CAL standard.

The Risk-Based Capital Report is used by regulators to set in motion appropriate regulatory actions relating to insurers that show indications of weak or deteriorating conditions. RBC is an additional standard for MCR that insurers must meet to avoid being placed in rehabilitation or liquidation by regulators. The annual Risk-Based Capital Report, and the information contained therein, is not intended by the NAIC as a means to rank insurers.

RBC is a method of measuring the level of capital appropriate for an insurance company to support its overall business operations, in light of its size and risk profile. It provides a means of assessing capital adequacy, where the degree of risk taken by the insurer is the primary determinant. The value of an insurer’s TAC in relation to its RBC, together with its trend in its TAC, is used as a basis for determining regulatory action that a state insurance regulator may be authorized or required to take with respect to an insurer. The four action levels include:

TAC and RBC are calculated annually by insurers, as of December 31 of each year. As of December 31, 2016, each of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries’ TAC was significantly in excess of the levels that would prompt regulatory action under the laws of the Athene Domiciliary States. As of December 31, 2016 , our U.S. RBC ratio was 478% . The calculation of RBC requires certain judgments to be made, and, accordingly, our U.S. insurance subsidiaries’ current RBC may be greater or less than the RBC calculated as of any date of determination.

Under U.S. statutory accounting principles (SAP), our U.S. domiciled subsidiaries defer the portion of realized capital gains and losses on fixed maturity securities attributable to changes in the general level of interest rates into an IMR. The IMR amortizes into future year statutory operating results based on a formula prescribed by the NAIC. The IMR provides a buffer to our statutory capital and surplus in the event we have to sell securities in an unrealized loss position. As of December 31, 2016 and 2015 , our aggregate IMR balance was $217 million and $238 million , respectively.

Insurance Regulatory Information System Ratios

The NAIC has established the Insurance Regulatory Information System (IRIS) to assist state insurance departments in their oversight of the financial condition of insurance companies operating in their respective states. IRIS is a series of financial ratios calculated by the NAIC based on financial information submitted by insurers on an annual basis. Each ratio has an established “usual range” of results. The NAIC shares the IRIS ratios calculated for each insurer with the interested state insurance departments. Generally, an insurance company will be required to explain ratios that fall outside the usual range, and may be subject to regulatory scrutiny and action if one or more of its ratios fall outside the specified ranges. None of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries are currently subject to non-ordinary course regulatory scrutiny based on their IRIS ratios.

Regulation of Investments

Each of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries is subject to laws and regulations in each Athene Domiciliary State that require diversification of its investment portfolio and limit the amounts of investments in certain asset categories, such as below-investment grade fixed income securities, real estate-related equity, partnerships, other equity investments, derivatives and alternative investments. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations would cause investments exceeding regulatory limitations to be treated as non-admitted assets for purposes of measuring statutory surplus and, in some instances, could require the divestiture of such non-qualifying investments. Accordingly, the investment laws in the Athene Domiciliary States could prevent our U.S. insurance subsidiaries from pursuing investment opportunities which they believe are beneficial to their shareholders, which could in turn preclude Athene from realizing its investment objectives. We believe that the investments our U.S. insurance subsidiaries have made are in compliance, in all material respects, with such laws and regulations as of December 31, 2016 .

Guaranty Associations

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have insurance guaranty fund laws requiring insurance companies doing business within those jurisdictions to participate in guaranty associations. Guaranty associations are organized to cover, subject to limits, contractual obligations under insurance policies issued by life insurance companies which later become impaired or insolvent. These associations levy assessments, up to prescribed limits, on each member insurer doing business in a particular state on the basis of their proportionate share of the premiums written by all member insurers in the lines of business in which the impaired or insolvent insurer previously engaged. Most states limit assessments in any year to 2% of the insurer’s average annual premium for the three years preceding the calendar year in which the impaired insurer became impaired or insolvent. Some states permit member insurers to recover assessments paid through full or partial premium tax offsets, usually over a period of years. Assessments levied against our U.S. insurance subsidiaries by guaranty associations during each of the past five years have not been material. While Athene cannot accurately predict the amount of future assessments or future insolvencies of competitors which would lead to such assessments, Athene believes that assessments with respect to pending insurance company impairments and insolvencies will not have a material effect on Athene’s financial condition or results of operations.

Federal Oversight

Although the insurance business in the United States is primarily regulated by the states, federal initiatives can affect the businesses of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries in a variety of ways. From time to time, federal measures are proposed which may significantly affect the insurance business. These areas include financial services regulation, securities regulation, derivatives regulation, pension regulation, money laundering, privacy regulation, taxation and the economic and trade sanctions implemented by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). OFAC maintains and enforces economic sanctions against certain foreign countries and groups and prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in certain transactions with certain persons or entities. OFAC has imposed civil penalties on persons, including insurance and reinsurance companies, arising from violations of its economic sanctions program. In addition, various forms of direct and indirect federal regulation of insurance have been proposed from time to time, including proposals for the establishment of an optional federal charter for insurance companies.

Title I of the Dodd-Frank Act established the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), which has authority to designate non-bank financial companies as systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), thereby subjecting them to enhanced prudential standards and supervision by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve). The prudential standards for non-bank SIFIs include enhanced RBC requirements, leverage limits, liquidity requirements, single counterparty exposure limits, governance requirements for risk management, stress test requirements, special debt-to-equity limits for certain companies, early remediation procedures, and recovery and resolution planning. Athene USA Corporation (Athene USA) and certain of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries may be above the initial quantitative threshold for treatment as a non-bank SIFI (total consolidated assets of $50 billion). If the FSOC were to determine that Athene USA or any of our U.S. subsidiaries is a non-bank SIFI, such entity would become subject to certain of these enhanced prudential standards.

The Dodd-Frank Act, which effected the most far-reaching overhaul of financial regulation in the U.S. in decades, established the Federal Insurance Office within the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury Department). While currently not having a general supervisory or regulatory authority over the business of insurance, the Director of the Federal Insurance Office performs various functions with respect to insurance, including serving as a non-voting member of the FSOC and making recommendations to the FSOC regarding non-bank financial companies to be designated as SIFIs. The Federal Insurance Office has been charged with providing reports to the U.S. Congress on (1) the global reinsurance market (provided in January 2015), (2) modernization of U.S. insurance regulation and possible federal involvement in supervision of insurance group holding companies (provided in December 2013) and (3) state regulators’ ability to access reinsurance information (provided in November 2013). Such reports could ultimately lead to changes in the regulation of insurers and reinsurers in the United States, including insurance group holding companies.

The Dodd-Frank Act also authorizes the Federal Insurance Office to assist the Secretary of the Treasury Department in negotiating covered agreements. A covered agreement is an agreement between the United States and one or more foreign governments, authorities or regulatory entities, regarding prudential measures with respect to insurance or reinsurance. The Federal Insurance Office is further charged with determining, in accordance with the procedures and standards established under the Dodd-Frank Act, whether state laws are preempted by a covered agreement. Pursuant to this authority, as of January 13, 2017, the Treasury Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative have negotiated a covered agreement with the European Union (Covered Agreement) to address, among other things, reinsurance collateral requirements. The Covered Agreement remains subject to the U.S. and the European Union completing their respective internal requirements and procedures necessary for the Covered Agreement to take effect with respect to each party. As such, it is uncertain when, if ever, the Covered Agreement will take effect.

FIAs

In recent years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and state securities regulators have questioned whether FIAs, such as those sold by our U.S. insurance subsidiaries, should be treated as securities under the federal and state securities laws rather than as insurance products exempted from such laws. On December 17, 2008, the SEC voted to approve Rule 151A, and apply federal securities oversight to FIAs issued on or after January 12, 2011. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, annuities that meet specific requirements are specifically exempted from being treated as securities by the SEC. We expect that the types of FIAs our U.S. insurance subsidiaries sell will meet applicable requirements for exemption from treatment as securities and therefore will remain exempt from being treated as securities by the SEC and state securities regulators. However, there can be no assurance that federal or state securities laws or state insurance laws and regulations will not be amended or interpreted to impose further requirements on FIAs. Treatment of these products as securities would require additional registration and licensing of these products and the agents selling them, as well as cause our U.S. insurance subsidiaries to seek new or additional marketing relationships for these products, any of which may impose significant restrictions on their ability to conduct business as currently operated. On July 12, 2010, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Rule 151A.

Unclaimed Property Laws

Each of our U.S. insurance subsidiaries is subject to the laws and regulations of states and other jurisdictions concerning the identification, reporting and escheatment of abandoned or unclaimed money or property. State treasurers, controllers and revenue departments have been scrutinizing escheatment practices of life insurance companies with regard to unclaimed life insurance and annuity death benefits. As with state insurance regulators, state revenue authorities have been looking at how life insurance companies handle unreported deaths, maturity of life insurance and annuity contracts, and contracts that have exceeded limiting age to determine if the companies are appropriately determining when death benefits or other payments under the contracts should be treated as unclaimed property. State treasurers, controllers and revenue departments have audited life insurance companies, required escheatments and imposed interest penalties on amounts escheated for failure to escheat death benefits or other contract benefits when beneficiaries could not be found at the expiration of statutory dormancy periods.

Regulation of OTC Derivatives

We use derivatives to mitigate a wide range of risks in connection with our businesses, including options purchased to hedge the derivatives embedded in the FIAs that we have issued, and swaps, futures and/or options may be used to manage the impact of increased benefit exposures from our annuity products that offer guaranteed benefits. Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act creates a comprehensive framework for the federal oversight and regulation of the OTC derivatives market and entities, such as us, that participate in the market and requires U.S. regulators to promulgate rules and regulations implementing its provisions. Regulations have been finalized and implemented in many areas and are being finalized for implementation in others.

The Dodd-Frank Act divides the regulatory responsibility for swaps in the United States between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC regulates swaps and swap entities, and the SEC regulates security-based swaps and security based swap entities. The CFTC and the SEC have jointly finalized certain regulations under the Dodd-Frank Act, including critical rulemakings on the definitions of “swap,” “security-based swap,” “swap dealer,” “security-based swap dealer,” “major swap participant” and “major security-based swap participant.” In addition, the CFTC has substantially finalized its required rulemaking under the Dodd-Frank Act, including regulations relating to the registration and regulation of swap dealers, major swap participants and swap execution facilities, reporting, recordkeeping, mandatory clearing and mandatory on-facility trade execution. The SEC has yet to implement its regulatory regime for security-based swaps and market participants transacting in security-based swaps, including security-based swap dealers and major security-based swap participants subject to the SEC’s oversight. As a result of this bifurcation and the different pace at which the agencies have promulgated and implemented regulations, different transactions are subject to different levels of regulation.

The Dodd-Frank Act and the CFTC rules thereunder require us, in connection with certain swap transactions, to comply with mandatory clearing and on-facility trade execution requirements, and it is anticipated that the types of swaps subject to these requirements will be expanded over time. In addition, new regulations require us to comply with mandatory minimum margin requirements for uncleared swaps and, in some instances, uncleared security-based swaps. Uncleared swap variation margin regulations issued by U.S. bank prudential regulators, the CFTC and regulators in certain other jurisdictions, such as the European Union and Canada, are scheduled to take effect on March 1, 2017. These regulations require market participants to enter into agreements consistent with the requirements thereunder and a failure to do so could result in trading disruptions. Derivative clearing requirements and mandatory margin requirements could increase the cost of our risk mitigation and could have other implications. For example, increased margin requirements, combined with netting restrictions and restrictions on securities that qualify as eligible collateral, could reduce our liquidity and require increased holdings of cash and highly liquid securities with lower yields causing a reduction in income. In addition, the requirement that certain trades be centrally cleared through clearinghouses subjects us to documentation that is significantly more counterparty-favorable and may entitle counterparties to unilaterally change such terms as trading limits and the amount of margin required. The ability of any such counterparty to take such actions could create trading disruptions and liquidity concerns. Finally, the requirement that certain trades be centrally cleared through clearinghouses concentrates counterparty risk in both clearinghouses and clearing members. The failure of a clearinghouse could have a significant impact on the financial system. Even if a clearinghouse does not fail, large losses could force significant capital calls on clearinghouse members during a financial crisis, which could lead clearinghouse members to default. Because clearinghouses are still developing and the related bankruptcy process is untested, it is difficult to anticipate or identify all actual risks related to the default of a clearinghouse.

The Dodd-Frank Act and new regulations thereunder and similar regulations issued by non-U.S. jurisdictions that may indirectly apply to us could significantly increase the cost of derivative contracts, reduce the availability of derivatives to protect against risks we encounter, reduce our ability to monetize or restructure our existing derivative contracts, and increase our credit risk exposure. If we reduce our use of derivatives as a result of the Dodd-Frank Act and the regulations thereunder and other similar regulations, our results of operations may become more volatile and our cash flows may be less predictable which could adversely affect our financial performance. Additionally, we have always been subject to the risk that hedging and other management procedures might prove ineffective in reducing the risks to which insurance policies expose us or that unanticipated policyholder behavior or mortality, combined with adverse market events, could produce economic losses beyond the scope of the risk management techniques employed. Any such losses could be increased by the increased cost of entering into derivatives and the reduced availability of customized derivatives that might result from the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the future of Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act and the related regulations implemented by the CFTC and the SEC and their impact on us remain uncertain and unpredictable, particularly in light of actions taken by the Trump administration. On February 3, 2017, President Trump signed an Executive Order that establishes core principles for regulating the U.S. financial system and provides a framework for comprehensive change to current financial regulation, and on February 24, 2017, President Trump also signed an Executive Order that requires federal agencies to designate a “Regulatory Reform Officer” and a “Regulatory Reform Task Force” to evaluate existing regulations and make recommendations to repeal, replace or modify regulations that, among others, inhibit job creation, are ineffective or impose costs that exceed benefits. At this point it is difficult to predict the impact of these Executive Orders on Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act, derivatives regulatory schemes in other jurisdictions and our derivatives activities.

Consumer Protection Laws and Privacy and Data Security Regulation

Numerous other federal and state laws also affect Athene’s earnings and activities, including federal and state consumer protection laws. As part of the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to supervise and regulate institutions that provide certain financial products and services to consumers. Although the consumer financial services subject to the CFPB’s jurisdiction generally exclude insurance business of the kind in which our U.S. insurance subsidiaries engage, the CFPB does have authority to regulate non-insurance consumer services which are offered by issuers of securities in our U.S. insurance subsidiaries’ investment portfolio.

Federal and state laws and regulations require financial institutions, including insurers, to protect the security and confidentiality of nonpublic personal information, including certain 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 practices relating to protecting the security and confidentiality of that information. State laws regulate use and disclosure of Social Security numbers and federal and state laws require notice to affected individuals, law enforcement, regulators and others if there is a breach of the security of certain nonpublic personal information, including Social Security numbers. In addition, state laws and regulations restrict the disclosure of the medical record and health status information obtained by insurers.

Federal and state lawmakers and regulatory bodies may be expected to consider additional or more detailed regulation regarding these subjects and the privacy and security of nonpublic personal information. Furthermore, the issues surrounding data security and the safeguarding of consumers’ protected information are under increasing regulatory scrutiny by state and federal regulators, particularly in light of the number and severity of recent U.S. companies’ data breaches. The Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Communications Commission, the NYSDFS and the NAIC have undertaken various studies, reports and actions regarding data security for entities under their respective supervision. Some states have recently enacted new insurance laws that require certain regulated entities to implement and maintain comprehensive information security programs to safeguard the personal information of insureds and enrollees.

The NAIC recently instituted a 50-state market conduct examination of multiple insurers that were the subject of separate data breaches. The NAIC also has created a Cybersecurity Task Force to look into various data security issues. In June 2015, the NAIC adopted a guidance document that sets forth twelve principles for effective insurance regulation of cybersecurity risks based on similar regulatory guidance adopted by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. In December 2015, the NAIC adopted the “Roadmap for Cybersecurity Consumer Protections”, which describes the protections to which the NAIC believes consumers should be entitled from their insurance companies, agents and other businesses concerning the collection and maintenance of consumers’ personal information, as well as what consumers should expect when such information has been involved in a data breach. In March 2016, the NAIC’s Cybersecurity Task Force exposed for public comment a draft of a new model law addressing cybersecurity, which is intended to establish the exclusive standards for data security and breaches applicable to insurance licensees in states adopting such law. After receiving input from industry groups and regulators, a second draft of the model law was published for comment. If adopted in its current form, upon the occurrence of a data breach, the model law could subject us to two separate and different data breach legal frameworks, depending on the state in which the breach is deemed to have occurred, as many states have pre-existing and broadly applicable privacy laws and regulations presently in effect. We cannot predict the effect or the compliance costs if state and federal regulators pursue investigations and increase the regulatory requirements for the security of protected information.

In addition to the NAIC’s proposed model law, state lawmakers and regulatory bodies may consider additional or more detailed regulation regarding these subjects and the privacy and security of nonpublic personal information. The NYSDFS recently published a new regulation entitled Cybersecurity Requirements for Financial Services Companies (23 NYCRR 500), which became effective on March 1, 2017, with ongoing compliance deadlines over the next 24 months. We are in the process of updating processes and procedures to comply with the new requirements. We cannot predict the effect or the amount of compliance costs that will be incurred if state and federal regulators pursue investigations and increase the regulatory requirements for the security of protected information.

Further, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which implemented fundamental changes in the regulation of the financial services industry in the United States, includes privacy requirements for financial institutions, including obligations to protect and safeguard consumers’ nonpublic personal information and records, and limitations on the re-disclosure and re-use of such information.

Finally, our investment in a limited partnership which is in the business of originating RML, as well as our direct investment in any residential or other mortgage loans, may expose us to various environmental and other regulation. For example, to the extent that we hold whole mortgage loans as part of our investment portfolio, we may be responsible for certain tax payments or subject to liabilities under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980. Additionally, we may be subject to regulation by the CFPB as a mortgage holder or property owner. We are currently unable to predict the impact of such regulation on our business.

Broker-dealers

Our securities operations, principally conducted by our limited purpose SEC-registered broker-dealer, Athene Securities, LLC, are subject to federal and state securities and related laws, and are regulated principally by the SEC, state securities authorities and FINRA. Athene Securities, LLC does not hold customer funds or safekeep customer securities or otherwise engage in any securities transactions. Athene Securities, LLC was the principal underwriter of a block of variable annuity contracts which has been closed to new investors since 2002. The closed block of variable annuity contracts was issued by a predecessor of AAIA. Athene Securities, LLC continues to receive concessions on those variable annuity contracts. Athene Securities, LLC also provides supervisory oversight to Athene employees who are registered representatives.

Employees or personnel registered with Athene Securities, LLC are subject to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (Exchange Act) and to regulation and examination by the SEC, FINRA and state securities commissioners. The SEC and other governmental agencies and self-regulatory organizations, as well as state securities commissions in the United States, have the power to conduct administrative proceedings that can result in censure, fines, cease-and-desist orders or suspension, termination or limitation of the activities of the regulated entity or its employees.

As a registered broker-dealer and member of various self-regulatory organizations, Athene Securities, LLC is subject to the SEC’s net capital rule, which specifies the minimum level of net capital a broker-dealer is required to maintain and requires a minimum part of its assets to be kept in relatively liquid form. These net capital requirements are designed to measure the financial soundness and liquidity of broker-dealers. The net capital rule imposes certain requirements that may have the effect of preventing a broker-dealer from distributing or withdrawing capital and may require that prior notice to the regulators be provided prior to making capital withdrawals. Compliance with net capital requirements could limit operations that require the intensive use of capital, such as trading activities and underwriting, and may limit the ability of our broker-dealer subsidiaries to pay dividends to us.

ERISA

We also may be subject to regulation by the DOL when providing a variety of products and services to employee benefit plans governed by ERISA. ERISA is a comprehensive federal statute that applies to U.S. 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. Among other things, ERISA imposes reporting and disclosure obligations, prescribes standards of conduct that apply to plan fiduciaries and prohibits transactions known as “prohibited transactions,” such as conflict-of-interest transactions, self-dealing and certain transactions between a benefit plan and a “party in interest.” ERISA also provides for a scheme of civil and criminal penalties and enforcement. Our insurance businesses provide services to employee benefit plans subject to ERISA. We are also subject to ERISA’s prohibited transaction rules for transactions with ERISA plans, which may affect our ability to, or the terms upon which we may, enter into transactions with those plans, even in businesses unrelated to those giving rise to “party in interest” status. The applicable provisions of ERISA and the U.S. Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (Internal Revenue Code) are subject to enforcement by the DOL, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Severe penalties are imposed for breach of duties under ERISA.

On April 6, 2016, the DOL issued a new regulation more broadly defining the circumstances under which a person is considered to be a fiduciary by reason of giving investment advice or recommendations to an employee benefit plan or a plan’s participants or to individual retirement account (IRA) holders. In addition to releasing the investment advice regulation, the DOL: (1) issued a new prohibited transaction class exemption referred to as the “Best Interest Contract Exemption” (BICE), to be used in connection with the sale of FIAs or variable annuities, and (2) updated the previous prohibited transaction class exemption 84-24, to be used in connection with the sale of traditional fixed rate annuities. To satisfy the requirements under the BICE, a “Financial Institution” (defined under the exemption as a registered investment adviser, bank, registered broker-dealer, or insurance company) must, among other things, accept fiduciary responsibility for the recommendations of the producer and, in the case of a retirement investor that is an IRA, enter into a contract with the IRA. To assist in understanding the regulation, the DOL, on October 27, 2016, issued its first in a series of frequently asked questions followed by its second series on January 13, 2017, responding to questions submitted by various retirement market participants impacted by the regulation. The frequently asked questions, among other things, clarified that an insurance-only licensed producer can meet the best interest requirements even though he or she is limited to selling insurance products. In addition, the DOL clarified that an insurance carrier that acts as a Financial Institution will only act as such with respect to the sale of that insurance carrier’s products. The DOL issued the Proposed Best Interest Contract Exemption for Insurance Intermediaries on January 19, 2017, in an attempt to provide a separate exemption for IMOs to act as Financial Institutions for the sale of insurance products. The proposed rule sets forth various requirements, including a minimum annual premium volume requirement and reserve or errors and omissions coverage requirements, limiting the availability of the exemption to only very large IMOs in the industry. The rule was subject to a comment period that ended on February 21, 2017.

On February 3, 2017, the President of the United States issued an executive memorandum directing the DOL to examine the fiduciary rule to determine whether the fiduciary rule has harmed or is likely to cause harm to investors by limiting access to certain retirement products or related financial advice, whether the fiduciary rule has resulted in dislocations in the retirement services industry that may adversely affect investors or retirees, or whether the fiduciary rule is likely to cause increased litigation and increased costs for investors and retirees. In direct response to the memorandum, the acting secretary of the DOL stated that the DOL will consider its legal options to delay the applicability date of the rule in order to comply with the memorandum. The DOL has published a proposed amendment to the fiduciary rule that will delay the applicability date for 60 days to allow the DOL to fully review the rule in light of the executive memorandum. The DOL has provided a 15-day comment period to respond to the proposed delay and it is anticipated it will issue the final rule officially delaying the applicability date in late March. In addition to the 15-day comment period for the delay itself, the DOL has opened a 45-day comment period to collect responses to the questions raised in the executive memorandum. We anticipate a delay, with a possible replacement of the rule that is less burdensome but still requires sales to be in the best interest of clients. However, until the rule is officially delayed, we continue to move forward in preparation for the April 10, 2017 applicability date.

While there remains significant uncertainty regarding our distributors’ response to the DOL’s regulation and our distributors’ ability to meet the requirement of the BICE, we believe many of our producers have a path to an entity capable of being a Financial Institution because the IMOs with which they are affiliated have a broker-dealer or registered investment adviser or because such producers are otherwise a registered representative of a broker-dealer that could sign the contract required by the BICE. In June 2016 we undertook a review of our producer relationships and estimated that approximately 84% of our retail sales of FIAs are through producers with a path to a Financial Institution under the regulation. While we cannot confirm this figure with certainty, we have used this assumption in preparing for implementation of the regulation. The following table summarizes the percentages of our new deposits for the year ended December 31, 2016 , by various categories we believe are relevant to understanding the impact of the DOL regulation on our business.

Given the uncertainty surrounding our distributors’ response to the DOL regulation, we are preparing to act as the Financial Institution for sales of our FIAs, subject to various conditions and qualifications, for a transitional period, during which our current distributors do not have access or the ability to be a Financial Institution with respect to sales of FIAs. In the event that we must serve as the Financial Institution, we expect to adjust the compensation paid to producers on the sales of our FIAs to compensate us for various compliance costs incurred in acting as the Financial Institution, as well as for the additional risk associated with such fiduciary sales.

We cannot predict with any certainty the impact of the regulation and exemptions, but the regulation and exemptions could alter the way our products and services are marketed and sold, particularly to purchasers of IRAs and individual retirement annuities. If implemented in its current form, the DOL regulation could have an adverse effect on our ability to write new business.

The SEC also has indicated that it may propose rules creating a uniform standard of conduct applicable to broker-dealers and investment advisers, which, if adopted, may affect the distribution of our products. Should the SEC rules, if adopted, not align with the finalized DOL regulations related to conflicts of interest in the provision of investment advice, the distribution of our products could be further complicated. The DOL has also issued a number of regulations recently, and may issue similar additional regulations, that increase the level of disclosure that must be provided to plan sponsors and participants. These ERISA disclosure requirements will likely increase the regulatory and compliance burden on us, resulting in increased costs.

Bermuda

General

The Bermuda Insurance Act regulates the insurance business of ALRe, and provides that no person may carry on any insurance business in or from within Bermuda unless registered as an insurer under the Bermuda Insurance Act by the BMA. The BMA is required by the Bermuda Insurance Act to determine whether the applicant is a fit and proper body to be engaged in the insurance business and, in particular, whether it has, or has available to it, adequate knowledge and expertise to operate an insurance business. See also Fit and Proper Controllers below.

The continued registration of an insurer is subject to the insurer complying with the terms of its registration and such other conditions as the BMA may impose from time to time. The Bermuda Insurance Act also grants to the BMA powers to supervise, investigate and intervene in the affairs of insurance companies.

The Bermuda Insurance Act imposes on Bermuda insurance companies solvency standards as well as auditing and reporting requirements. Certain significant aspects of the Bermuda insurance regulatory framework are set forth below.

Classification of Insurers

The Bermuda Insurance Act distinguishes between insurers carrying on long-term business, insurers carrying on special purpose business and insurers carrying on general business. Long-term business is generally defined as life, annuity and accident and health insurance, while general business broadly includes all types of insurance that are not long-term business (property and casualty business). Special purpose business is fully funded insurance business approved by the BMA to be written by a company registered as a Special Purpose Insurer. There are five classifications of insurers carrying on long-term business, ranging from Class A insurers (pure captives) to Class E insurers (larger commercial carriers). Class A insurers are subject to the lightest regulation and Class E insurers are subject to the strictest regulation.

ALRe, which is incorporated to carry on long-term business, is registered as a Class E insurer which is the license class for long-term insurers and reinsurers with total assets of more than $500 million that are not registrable as a single-parent or multi-owner long-term captive insurer or reinsurer. ALRe is not licensed to carry on general business and has not sought authorization as a reinsurer or approval as an accredited reinsurer in any state or jurisdiction of the United States. Consequently, in order for its ceding companies to receive statutory reserve or RBC credit for the reinsurance provided by ALRe, ALRe typically structures its reinsurance transactions in one of three ways: (1) coinsurance, where ALRe’s liabilities to ceding companies in connection with reinsurance transactions are secured by assets held in trust for the benefit of the applicable ceding company, (2) funds withheld, where, although ALRe recognizes an insurance reserve liability, the assets to secure such liabilities are held and maintained by the applicable ceding company, or (3) modco, where both the insurance reserves and assets supporting the reserves are retained by the applicable ceding company.

Cancellation of Insurer’s Registration

The BMA could revoke or suspend ALRe’s license in circumstances in which (1) it is shown that false, misleading or inaccurate information has been supplied to the BMA by ALRe or on its behalf for the purposes of any provision of the Bermuda Insurance Act, (2) ALRe has ceased to carry on business, (3) ALRe has persistently failed to pay fees due under the Bermuda Insurance Act, (4) ALRe has been shown to have not complied with a condition attached to its registration or with a requirement made of it under the Bermuda Insurance Act, (5) ALRe is convicted of an offense against a provision of the Bermuda Insurance Act or (6) ALRe is, in the opinion of the BMA, found not to have been carrying on business in accordance with sound insurance principles.

Head Office and Principal Representative

An insurer is required to establish and maintain its head and principal office in Bermuda, which requires certain officers and a director to reside in Bermuda, and to appoint and maintain a principal representative in Bermuda. For the purpose of the Bermuda Insurance Act, the ALRe principal representative is Zachary Jones and his principal office for these purposes is AHL’s Bermuda office. It is the duty of the principal representative to forthwith notify the BMA where the principal representative believes there is a likelihood of the insurer becoming insolvent or that a reportable “event” has, to the principal representative’s knowledge, occurred or is believed to have occurred. Examples of such a reportable “event” include failure by the insurer to comply substantially with a condition imposed upon the insurer by the BMA relating to a solvency margin or other ratio or a significant loss which is likely to cause the insurer to fail to comply with its Enhanced Capital Requirement (ECR), as discussed below.

Public Disclosure

The Bermuda Insurance Act provides the BMA with powers to set standards on public disclosure. Using this power, the BMA requires all commercial insurers and insurance groups to prepare and publish a Financial Condition Report on their website. According to the BMA’s guiding principles on public disclosure, an obligation to disclose exists only if it would not compromise competitive advantage and confidentiality. The BMA has discretion in granting exemptions.

Independent Approved Auditor

Insurers must appoint an independent auditor who will annually audit and report on the insurer’s financial statements (Bermuda Financial Statements) prepared under GAAP or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and statutory financial returns, each of which are required to be filed annually with the BMA. The auditor must be approved by the BMA as the independent auditor of the insurer.

Approved Actuary

Long-term insurers must appoint an actuary approved by the BMA. In order to be approved, the actuary must be a member in good standing of either the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, the Casualty Actuarial Society, the Institute of Actuaries of Australia, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (for the United Kingdom (UK)), the Society of Actuaries, the American Academy of Actuaries or a member of an actuarial body recognized by the BMA. Additionally, the actuary must be qualified to provide an opinion in accordance with the requirements of the Bermuda Insurance Act.

A Class E insurer is required to submit annually an opinion of its approved actuary with its capital and solvency return. The approved actuary’s opinion must state, among other things, whether or not the aggregate amount of technical provisions shown in the statutory economic balance sheet as of the end of the relevant financial year meets the requirements of the Bermuda Insurance Act and makes reasonable provision for the total technical provisions of the insurer under the terms of its insurance contracts and agreements.

Non-insurance Business

Pursuant to an amendment to the Bermuda Insurance Act, after a grandfathered period ending on December 31, 2016, as a Class E insurer, ALRe will not be permitted to engage in non-insurance business unless that non-insurance business is ancillary to its core business. Non-insurance business means any business other than insurance business and includes carrying on investment business, managing an investment fund as operator, carrying on business as a fund administrator, carrying on banking business, underwriting debt or securities or otherwise engaging in investment banking, engaging in commercial or industrial activities and carrying on the business of management, sales or leasing of real property.

Annual Financial Statements, Annual Statutory Financial Return and Annual Capital and Solvency Return

Class E insurers must file annual Bermuda Financial Statements and statutory financial returns within four months of the end of each fiscal year. The Bermuda Insurance Act prescribes rules for the preparation and substance of statutory financial returns (which include, in statutory form, an insurer information sheet, an auditor's report, a balance sheet, income statement, a statement of capital and surplus and notes thereto). The statutory financial returns include detailed information and analysis regarding premiums, claims, reinsurance and investments of the insurer.

A Class E insurer is required to file with the BMA its Bermuda Financial Statements and a statutory financial return no later than four months after its financial year end (unless specifically extended). The statutory financial return includes, among other matters, a report of the approved independent auditor on the statutory financial returns of the insurer.

In addition, each year a Class E insurer is required to file with the BMA a capital and solvency return along with its annual statutory financial return. The prescribed form of capital and solvency return comprises the insurer’s BSCR model or an approved internal capital model in lieu thereof, a schedule of fixed income and equity investments by BSCR rating, a schedule of funds held by ceding reinsurers in segregated accounts/trusts by BSCR rating, a schedule of long-term premiums written by line of business, a schedule of risk management, a schedule of fixed income securities, a schedule of long-term business data, a schedule of long-term variable annuity guarantees data and reconciliation, a schedule of long-term variable annuity guarantees - internal capital model, a schedule of eligible capital, a schedule of commercial insurer’s solvency self-assessment (CISSA), a statutory economic balance sheet, the approved actuary’s opinion, a schedule of particulars of ceded reinsurance, a schedule of cash and cash equivalents counterparty analysis, a schedule of currency risk, a schedule of concentration risk and a schedule of anti-money laundering assessment.

Neither the statutory financial return nor the capital and solvency return is available for public inspection.

Minimum Margin of Solvency (MMS), ECR and Restrictions on Dividends and Distributions

Class E insurers must at all times maintain an MMS and an ECR in accordance with the provisions of the Bermuda Insurance Act. Each year the insurer is required to file with the BMA a capital and solvency return within four months of its relevant financial year end (unless specifically extended). The Bermuda Insurance Act mandates certain actions and filings with the BMA if an insurer fails to meet and/or maintain its ECR or MMS including the filing of a written report detailing the circumstances giving rise to the failure and the manner and time within which the insurer intends to rectify the failure.

An insurer is prohibited from declaring or paying a dividend if in breach of its ECR or MMS or if the declaration or payment of such dividend would cause such a breach. Where an insurer fails to meet its MMS on the last day of any financial year, it is prohibited from declaring or paying any dividends during the next financial year without the approval of the BMA. Under the Bermuda Insurance Act, ALRe is prohibited from paying a dividend in an amount exceeding 25% of the prior year’s total statutory capital and surplus, unless at least two members of ALRe’s board of directors and its principal representative sign and submit to the BMA an affidavit attesting that a dividend in excess of this amount would not cause ALRe to fail to meet its relevant margins. In certain instances, ALRe would also be required to provide prior notice to the BMA in advance of the payment of dividends. In the event that such an affidavit is submitted to the BMA in accordance with the Bermuda Insurance Act, and further subject to ALRe meeting its MMS and ECR, ALRe is permitted to distribute up to the sum of 100% of statutory surplus and an amount less than 15% of its total statutory capital. Distributions in excess of this amount require the approval of the BMA. Further, ALRe must obtain the BMA’s prior approval before reducing its total statutory capital as shown in its previous financial year statutory balance sheet by 15% or more. ALRe is also required to obtain a certification from its approved actuary prior to declaring or paying any dividends and such certificate will not be given unless the value of its long-term business assets exceeds its long-term business liabilities, as certified by its approved actuary, by the amount of the dividend and at least the MMS. These restrictions on declaring or paying dividends and distributions under the Bermuda Insurance Act are in addition to those under Bermuda's Companies Act 1981 (the Companies Act) which apply to all Bermuda companies.

At the time of filing its statutory financial statements, a Class E insurer is also required to deliver to the BMA a declaration of compliance, in such form and with such content as may be prescribed by the BMA, declaring whether or not the Class E insurer has, with respect to the preceding financial year (1) complied with all requirements of the minimum criteria applicable to it; (2) complied with the MMS as at its financial year end; (3) complied with the applicable enhanced capital requirements as at its financial year end; and (4) complied with applicable conditions, directions and restrictions imposed on, or approvals granted to, the Class E insurer. The declaration of compliance is required to be signed by two directors of the Class E insurer and if the Class E insurer has failed to comply with any of the requirements referenced in (1) through (4) above or observe any limitations, restrictions or conditions imposed upon the issuance of its license, if applicable, the Class E insurer will be required to provide the BMA with particulars of such failure in writing. A Class E insurer shall be liable to civil penalty by way of a fine for failure to comply with a duty imposed on it in connection with the delivery of the declaration of compliance.

The MMS that a Class E insurer is required to maintain with respect to its long-term business is the greater of (1) $8 million, (2) 2% of the first $500 million of assets plus 1.5% of assets above $500 million (assets for this purpose are defined as the total assets reported in the insurer’s statutory balance sheet on Line 15, Column C in the relevant year less the aggregate of the amounts held in a segregated account reported on Lines 13(b) and (c) Column C) or (3) 25% of the ECR as reported at the end of the relevant year. We are well above each of these MMS requirements.

The BMA has embedded an economic balance sheet (EBS) framework as part of the Capital and Solvency Return that forms the basis for an insurer’s ECR. The premise underlying the EBS framework is the idea that assets and liabilities should be valued on a consistent economic basis. Under the Bermuda Regulatory Framework there are two solvency calculations: (1) a Class E Insurer must have total statutory capital and surplus as reported on the insurer’s statutory balance sheet greater than the MMS calculated pursuant to the Insurance Account Rules 2016; and (2) under the Insurance (Prudential Standards) (Class C, Class D and Class E Solvency Requirement) Rules 2011 an insurer is required to maintain available statutory economic capital and surplus to an amount that is equal to or exceeds the value of its ECR. Effective January 1, 2016, the method for preparing these statutory financial statements was amended, and in addition, the requirements and rules for preparing the Class E statutory EBS became effective. Prior to January 1, 2016, a Class E insurer's ECR and its total statutory capital and surplus were calculated using the company's statutory balance sheet. Following January 1, 2016, a Class E insurer's ECR and total statutory economic capital and surplus is calculated using the Class E statutory EBS.

A Class E insurer is required to maintain available statutory capital and surplus at a level equal to or in excess of its ECR which is established by reference to the Class E BSCR model. The BSCR model provides a method for determining an insurer’s capital requirements (statutory capital and surplus) by taking into account the risk characteristics of different aspects of the insurer’s business. The BSCR formula establishes capital requirements for fourteen categories of risk: fixed income investment risk, equity investment risk, long-term interest rate/liquidity risk, currency risk, concentration risk, credit risk, operational risk and seven categories of long-term insurance risk. For each category, the capital requirement is determined by applying factors to asset, premium, reserve, creditor, probable maximum loss and operation items, with higher factors applied to items with greater underlying risk and lower factors for less risky items.

As of December 31, 2016 , ALRe’s EBS capital and surplus, measured under the new regime in place after January 1, 2016, resulted in a BSCR ratio of 228% . ALRe’s total statutory capital and surplus as of December 31, 2015, measured under the regime in place prior to January 1, 2016, was 323% of its ECR.

While not specifically referred to in the Bermuda Insurance Act, target capital level (TCL) is also an important threshold for statutory capital and surplus. TCL is equal to 120% of ECR as calculated pursuant to the BSCR formula. TCL serves as an early warning tool for the BMA. If an insurer fails to maintain statutory capital at least equal to its TCL, such failure will likely result in increased regulatory oversight by the BMA. A Class E insurer which at any time fails to meet its applicable ECR shall, upon becoming aware of such failure or upon having reason to believe that such a failure has occurred, immediately notify the BMA in writing. Within 14 days of such notification, such Class E insurer shall file with the BMA a written report containing details of the circumstances leading to the failure and a plan detailing the specific actions to be taken to rectify the failure, and the time within which the Class E insurer intends to rectify the failure. Within 45 days of becoming aware of such failure, or of having reason to believe that such a failure has occurred, such Class E insurer shall furnish the BMA with (1) unaudited statutory economic balance sheets and unaudited interim statutory financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP covering such period as the BMA may require; (2) an opinion of the approved actuary in relation to total long-term business insurance technical provisions as set out in the statutory economic balance sheet, where applicable; (3) a long-term business solvency certificate in respect of the financial statements; and (4) a capital and solvency return reflecting an ECR prepared using post-failure data where applicable.

All Bermuda companies must comply with the provisions of the Companies Act regulating the payment of dividends and making distributions from contributed surplus. A company may not declare or pay a dividend, or make a distribution out of contributed surplus, if there are reasonable grounds for believing that: (1) the company is, or would after the payment be, unable to pay its liabilities as they become due, or (2) the realizable value of the company’s assets would thereby be less than its liabilities.

Eligible Capital

To enable the BMA to better assess the quality of the insurer’s capital resources, a Class E insurer is required to disclose the makeup of its capital in accordance with the recently introduced ‘3-tiered capital system.’ Under this system, all of the insurer’s capital instruments will be classified as either basic or ancillary capital which in turn will be classified into one of three tiers based on their “loss absorbency” characteristics. Highest quality capital will be classified as Tier 1 Capital, lesser quality capital will be classified as either Tier 2 Capital or Tier 3 Capital. Under this regime, up to certain specified percentages of Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 Capital may be used to support the insurer’s MMS,

ECR and TCL. The Bermuda Insurance Act requires that Class E insurers have Tier 1 Capital equal to or greater than 50% of the value of its ECR and Tier 3 Capital of not more than 17.65% of the aggregate of its Tier 1 Capital and Tier 2 Capital.

The characteristics of the capital instruments that must be satisfied to qualify as Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 Capital are set out in the Insurance (Eligible Capital) Rules 2012, and any amendments thereto. Under these rules, Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 Capital may, until January 1, 2024, include capital instruments that do not satisfy the requirement that the instrument be non-redeemable or settled only with the issuance of an instrument of equal or higher quality upon a breach, or that the coupon payment on the instrument be cancellable or deferrable indefinitely, upon breach, or if it would cause a breach, of the ECR.

Where the BMA has previously approved the use of certain instruments for capital purposes, the BMA’s consent will need to be obtained if such instruments are to remain eligible for use in satisfying the MMS and the ECR. We do not currently use any such instruments.

Code of Conduct

Every Bermuda registered insurer must comply with the Insurance Code of Conduct (Code of Conduct) which prescribes the duties and standards that must be complied with to ensure sound corporate governance, risk management and internal controls are implemented. The BMA will assess an insurer’s compliance with the Code of Conduct in a proportionate manner relative to the nature, scale and complexity of its business. Failure to comply with the requirements of the Code of Conduct will be taken into account by the BMA in determining whether an insurer is conducting its business in a sound and prudent manner as prescribed by the Bermuda Insurance Act and may result in the BMA exercising its powers of intervention and investigation (see below) and, in the case of ALRe, as a Class E insurer, will be a factor in calculating the operational risk charge under the insurer’s BSCR or approved internal model.

Fit and Proper Controllers

The BMA maintains supervision over the “controllers” of all registered insurers in Bermuda. For these purposes, a “controller” includes (1) the managing director of the registered insurer or its parent company, (2) the chief executive of the registered insurer or of its parent company, (3) a shareholder controller, and (4) any person in accordance with whose directions or instructions the directors of the registered insurer or its parent company are accustomed to act.

The definition of shareholder controller is set out in the Bermuda Insurance Act but generally refers to (1) a person who holds 10% or more of the shares carrying rights to vote at a shareholders’ meeting of the registered insurer or its parent company, (2) a person who is entitled to exercise 10% or more of the voting power at any shareholders’ meeting of such registered insurer or its parent company or (3) a person who is able to exercise significant influence over the management of the registered insurer or its parent company by virtue of its shareholding or its entitlement to exercise, or control the exercise of, the voting power at any shareholders’ meeting.

Based on the shares as described above, shareholder controller ownership is defined as follows:

Where the shares of a registered insurer, or the shares of its parent company, are traded on a recognized stock exchange, and such shareholder becomes a 10%, 20%, 33%, or 50% shareholder controller of the insurer, that shareholder shall, within 45 days, notify the BMA in writing that such shareholder has become, or as a result of a disposition ceased to be, a controller of any such category.

Under our bye-laws, we have imposed restrictions on the ownership by holders of our Class A common shares (other than the Apollo Group) controlling more than 9.9% of the voting power associated with our common shares. The voting rights exercisable by shareholders of the Company other than the Apollo Group will be limited so that Control Groups are not deemed to hold more than 9.9% of the total voting power conferred by our shares. In addition, our board of directors retains certain discretion to make adjustments to the aggregate number of votes attaching to the shares of any person or group that they consider fair and reasonable in all the circumstances to ensure that such person or group will not hold more than 9.9% of the total voting power represented by our then outstanding shares. As such, other than the Apollo Group (at the 33% to 50% shareholder controller level), no shareholder will be considered, according to the Bermuda Insurance Act, a shareholder controller of ALRe.

Any person or entity who contravenes the Bermuda Insurance Act by failing to give notice or knowingly becoming a controller of any description before the required 45 days has elapsed is guilty of an offense under Bermuda law and liable to a fine of $25,000 on summary conviction.

The BMA may file a notice of objection to any person or entity who has become a controller of any description where it appears that such person or entity is not, or is no longer, fit and proper to be a controller of the registered insurer. Before issuing a notice of objection, the BMA is required to serve upon the person or entity concerned a preliminary written notice stating the BMA’s intention to issue formal notice of

objection. Upon receipt of the preliminary written notice, the person or entity served may, within 28 days, file written representations with the BMA which shall be taken into account by the BMA in making its final determination. Any person or entity who continues to be a controller of any description after having received a notice of objection is guilty of an offense and liable on summary conviction to a fine of $25,000 (and a continuing fine of $500 per day for each day that the offense is continuing) or, if convicted on indictment, to a fine of $100,000 and/or 2 years in prison.

Notice of Change of Controllers and Officers

All registered insurers are required to give written notice to the BMA of the fact that a person has become, or ceased to be, a controller or officer of the registered insurer within 45 days of becoming aware of such fact. An officer in relation to a registered insurer means a director, chief executive or senior executive performing duties of underwriting, actuarial, risk management, compliance, internal audit, finance or investment matters.

Notification of Material Changes

All registered insurers are required to give notice to the BMA of their intention to effect a material change within the meaning of the Bermuda Insurance Act. For the purposes of the Bermuda Insurance Act, the following changes are material: (1) the transfer or acquisition of insurance business, including portfolio transfers or corporate restructurings, pursuant to a court-approved scheme of arrangement under Section 25 of the Bermuda Insurance Act or Section 99 of the Companies Act, (2) the amalgamation with or acquisition of another firm, (3) engaging in unaffiliated, third-party business that is retail business, (4) the acquisition of a controlling interest in an undertaking that is engaged in non-insurance business which offers services and products to persons who are not affiliates of the insurer, (5) outsourcing all or substantially all of the company’s actuarial, risk management and compliance or internal audit functions, (6) outsourcing all or a material part of an insurer’s underwriting activity, (7) the transfer other than by way of reinsurance of all or substantially all of a line of business, (8) the expansion into a material new line of business, (9) the sale of an insurer and (10) outsourcing of an “officer” role, as such term is defined by the Bermuda Insurance Act.

As a registered insurer, ALRe may not take any steps to give effect to such a material change unless it has first served notice on the BMA that it intends to effect such material change and before the end of 30 days, either the BMA has notified ALRe in writing that it has no objection to such change or that period has lapsed without the BMA having issued a notice of objection.

Before issuing a notice of objection, the BMA would be required to serve upon ALRe a preliminary written notice stating the BMA’s intention to issue formal notice of objection. Upon receipt of the preliminary written notice, ALRe could, within 28 days, file written representations with the BMA which the BMA would be required to take into account in making its final determination.

Supervision, Investigation and Intervention

The BMA may appoint an inspector with powers to investigate the affairs of an insurer if the BMA believes that an investigation is required in the interests of the insurer’s policyholders or potential policyholders. In order to verify or supplement information otherwise provided to the inspector, the BMA may direct an insurer to produce documents or information relating to matters connected with its business.

If it appears to the BMA that there is a risk of an insurer becoming insolvent, or that it is in breach of the Bermuda Insurance Act or any conditions imposed upon its registration, the BMA may, among other things, direct the insurer (1) not to take on any new insurance business, (2) not to vary any insurance contract if the effect would be to increase its liabilities, (3) not to make certain investments, (4) to realize certain investments, (5) to maintain or transfer to the custody of a specified bank, certain assets, (6) not to declare or pay any dividends or other distributions or to restrict the making of such payments, (7) to limit its premium income, (8) not to enter into any specified transaction with any specified persons or persons of a specified class, (9) to provide such written particulars relating to the financial circumstances of the insurer as the BMA thinks fit, (10) to obtain the opinion of an actuary loss reserve specialist and to submit it to the BMA, and (11) to remove a controller or officer.

Group Supervision

The BMA may, in respect of an insurance group, determine whether it is appropriate for it to act as its group supervisor. An insurance group is defined as a group of companies that conducts exclusively, or mainly, insurance business. The BMA may make such determination where it ascertains that (1) the group is headed by a “specified insurer” (that is to say, it is headed by either a Class 3A, Class 3B or Class 4 general business insurer or a Class C, Class D or Class E long-term insurer or another class of insurer designated by order of the BMA); or (2) where the insurance group is not headed by a “specified insurer,” where it is headed by a parent company which is incorporated in Bermuda or (3) where the parent company of the group is not a Bermuda company, in circumstances where the BMA is satisfied that the insurance group is directed and managed from Bermuda or the insurer with the largest balance sheet total is a specified insurer.

Where the BMA determines that it should act as the group supervisor, it shall designate a specified insurer that is a member of the insurance group to be the designated insurer (the “Designated Insurer”) and it shall give to the Designated Insurer and other competent authorities written notice of its intention to act as group supervisor. Once the BMA has been designated as group supervisor, the Designated Insurer must ensure that an approved group actuary is appointed to provide an opinion as to the adequacy of the insurance group’s insurance reserves as reported in its group statutory financial returns.

Pursuant to its powers under the Bermuda Insurance Act, the BMA will maintain a register of particulars for every insurance group for which it acts as the group supervisor detailing, among other things, the names and addresses of the Designated Insurer, each member company of the insurance group falling within the scope of group supervision, the principal representative of the insurance group in Bermuda, other competent authorities supervising other member companies of the insurance group, and the insurance group auditors. The Designated Insurer must notify the BMA of any changes to the above details entered on the register of an insurance group.

As group supervisor, the BMA will perform a number of supervisory functions including (1) coordinating the gathering and dissemination of information which is of importance for the supervisory task of other competent authorities, (2) carrying out a supervisory review and assessment of the insurance group, (3) carrying out an assessment of the insurance group’s compliance with the rules on solvency, risk concentration, intra-group transactions and good governance procedures, (4) planning and coordinating, with other competent authorities, supervisory activities in respect of the insurance group, both as a going concern and in emergency situations, (5) coordinating any enforcement action that may need to be taken against the insurance group or any of its members and (6) planning and coordinating meetings of colleges of supervisors (consisting of insurance regulators) in order to facilitate the carrying out of the functions described above.

In carrying out its functions, the BMA may make rules for (1) assessing the financial situation and the solvency position of the insurance group and/or its members and (2) regulating intra-group transactions, risk concentration, governance procedures, risk management and regulatory reporting and disclosure.

The BMA has not yet designated any long-term life reinsurers, such as ALRe, for group supervision, accordingly, we are not currently subject to group supervision. The BMA may, however, exercise its authority to act as our group supervisor in the future.

Disclosure of Information

In addition to powers under the Bermuda Insurance Act to investigate the affairs of an insurer, the BMA may require certain information from an insurer (or certain other persons) to be produced to the BMA. Further, the BMA has been given powers to assist other regulatory authorities, including foreign insurance regulatory authorities, with their investigations involving insurance and reinsurance companies in Bermuda but subject to restrictions. For example, the BMA must be satisfied that the assistance being requested is in connection with the discharge of regulatory responsibilities of the foreign regulatory authority. Further, the BMA must consider whether cooperation is in the public interest. The grounds for disclosure are limited and the Bermuda Insurance Act provides for sanctions for breach of the statutory duty of confidentiality.

Certain Other Bermuda Law Considerations

All Bermuda “exempted companies” are exempt from certain Bermuda laws restricting the percentage of share capital that may be held by non-Bermudians. However, exempted companies may not participate in certain business transactions, including (1) the acquisition or holding of land in Bermuda except that which is required for their business and held by way of lease or tenancy for terms of not more than 50 years or, with the consent of the Bermuda Minister of Finance, land which is used to provide accommodation or recreational facilities for officers and employees for a term not exceeding 21 years, (2) the taking of mortgages on land in Bermuda to secure an amount in excess of $50,000 without the consent of the Bermuda Minister of Finance, (3) the acquisition of any bonds or debentures secured by any land in Bermuda, other than certain types of Bermuda government securities or securities issued by Bermuda public authorities or (4) the carrying on of business of any kind in Bermuda, except in furtherance of the business carried on outside Bermuda or under license granted by the Bermuda Minister of Finance. Generally it is not permitted without a special license granted by the Bermuda Minister of Finance to insure Bermuda domestic risks or risks of persons of, in or based in Bermuda.

Exchange Control

The permission of the BMA is required, pursuant to the provisions of the Exchange Control Act 1972 and related regulations, for all issuances and transfers of shares (which includes the Class A common shares) of Bermuda companies to or from a non-resident of Bermuda for exchange control purposes, other than in cases where the BMA has granted a general permission. The BMA, in its notice to the public dated June 1, 2005, has granted a general permission for the issue and subsequent transfer of any securities of a Bermuda company from and/or to a non-resident of Bermuda for exchange control purposes for so long as any “Equity Securities” of the company (which includes the Class A common shares) are listed on an “Appointed Stock Exchange” (which includes the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)). The BMA accepts no responsibility for our financial soundness or the correctness of any of the statements made or opinions expressed in this report.

Germany

The following paragraphs outline the most relevant legal provisions applicable to our German business and Athene Real Estate Management Company s.a.r.l (Luxembourg subsidiary).

Basic Legal Framework

Our German Group Companies licensed as insurers are subject to the relevant laws and regulation applicable to insurers in Germany. Our German Group Companies acting as insurance holding companies are subject to the relevant laws and regulations applicable to insurance holding companies in Germany. The relevant laws include the VAG, which constitutes the basic regulatory framework for operating an

insurance business in Germany and which also includes a limited set of provisions that apply to insurance holding companies. The VAG is supplemented by various ordinances implemented by the German Ministry of Finance and/or Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) which regulate and mandate, among other things, eligibility criteria for investments, policyholder participation in income, accounting principles, corporate governance requirements, regulatory capital and reporting of insurance undertakings. The relevant insurance contracts are governed by the Insurance Contracts Act and the German Civil Code and further specific consumer protection laws, data protection requirements and anti-money-laundering requirements.

Profit Sharing and Dividend Restriction

German insurance law provides that policyholders participate in the income of the insurance undertaking unless explicitly excluded in the contracts (which is not the case for the portfolio of our German Group Companies). In particular, the minimum transfer ordinance provides for a minimum profit participation in the amount of 90% of the investment result, 90% of the insurance result and 50% of the other results of the insurance undertaking. Additionally, on maturity policyholders are entitled to 50% of the unrealized capital gains, which are hidden reserves which have not yet materialized from an accounting perspective. Unrealized gains on fixed-interest investments and interest-rate hedges only participate in excess of a certain safety requirement necessary to ensure payment of the guaranteed interest.

Distribution of dividends by insurance undertakings is only permitted in excess of a safety requirement, which is an amount that is necessary in order to secure the payment of the insurer’s liabilities in case the guaranteed interest is above a certain reference rate (based on a zero-coupon euro swap with a maturity of ten years).

BaFin and European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA)