Will CNO Financial Thrive Under New CEO, Gary Bhojwani?

CNO Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:CNO) named Gary Bhojwani, who is currently the company’s President, as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective Jan 1, 2018.

Bhojwani will succeed Edward J. Bonach, 63, who will step down from his position as CEO of CNO Financial effective Dec 31, 2017.

Bhojwani doesn’t have a long association with CNO Financial since he joined the company last year. Nevertheless, he is an industry veteran and has a vast working experience, including his association with Allianz (DE:ALVG) for a span of eight years.

The company announced a number of executive leadership changes, in March. Mike Heard was appointed President of Washington National; Joel Schwartz was appointed President of Colonial Penn; and Gerardo Monroy was appointed Chief Marketing Officer. These moves were all internal promotions and demonstrate the company’s efforts to develop and retain strong talent. This step was executed as part of a broader plan to accelerate the company's strategic growth, further strengthening the enterprise, and positioning the organization for continued success.

Shares of CNO Financial have been steadily rising on a year-to-date basis, generating a return of 12.01% compared with the Zacks Inurance Multi-Line industry’s gain of 2.21%.

However, CNO Financial did not see much top-line growth since 2011, the year in which Bonach took over as the CEO of CNO Financial. Revenue for 2011 was $4.125 billion and declined to $3.985 billion in 2016. The bottom line during the same time frame, however, showed considerable growth, up from 75 cents in 2011 to $1.34 in 2016.

Along with instituting other required changes, we believe Bhojwani will work upon the set priorities for 2017 which includes initiatives to drive increased growth, productivity and retention of agent force; extension of customer reach within the middle-income market; and increase timely delivery of product and service offerings by promptly responding to customer needs.

We look forward to seeing whether the new CEO keeps the growth momentum alive for CNO Financial.

Earlier during the week another insurer from the same space, American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG) appointed Brian Duperreault as its new CEO, after the company failed to perform well under the outgoing CEO Peter Hancock.

CNO Financial carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked multi line insurers are Cigna Corporation (NYSE:CI) , and Old Republic International Corporation (NYSE:ORI) . These stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here

Cigna’s earnings beat estimates in three of the last four quarters with an average earnings surprise of 1.35%.

Old Republic International surpassed expectations in two of the last four quarters with an average beat of 11.37%.

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