In this episode of QAV America, Cameron and Tony dissect the surprising fundamentals of Jackson Financial (NYSE: JXN) — a life insurance and annuities company that’s quietly throwing off “truckloads of cash” despite confusing accounting quirks. Cameron explores the company’s backstory (strangely has nothing to do with the Jackson 5), explains its spin-off from Prudential, and struggles to understand how interest rates and reinsurance affect its bottom line. Tony weighs in on debt management, actuarial complexity, and where annuity products fit in the spectrum of retirement options. They also touch on the controversial new U.S. tax on foreign investors (with implications for Aussie super funds), and deliver a performance update on the QAV U.S. portfolio — up a staggering 54% since inception. This episode is nerdy, weird, and funny as hell.

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### **🕒 Timestamps & Key Topics**

**[00:00:00 ]** Welcome back to QAV America — episode 009 and the license to invest

– **[00:01:30 ]** 🇺🇸 The “Big Beautiful Bridge” Bill — U.S. tax on foreign investors & implications for Australian super funds

– **[00:04:30 ]** 📈 Portfolio Performance Update

– US Portfolio: +54% vs. S&P 500 +35% since Sep 2023

– **[00:05:30 ]** 💬 Listener feedback on Ford (NYSE: F) — is debt a problem? Tony’s rebuttal

– **[00:08:00 ]** 🥩 Pulled Pork: Jackson Financial (NYSE: JXN)

– **[00:21:00 ]** 🧠 Explaining the impact of interest rates on annuity businesses

– **[00:26:00 ]** JXN product mix: fixed annuities, variable annuities, and how it resembles a fund manager

– **[00:30:00 ]** Reinsurance risks and accounting noise — why Q1 looked worse than it is

– **[00:32:00 ]** Governance and leadership: CEO Laura Prieskorn’s 30-year tenure

– **[00:33:00 ]** JXN share buybacks, price targets, and consensus ratings

– **[00:34:30 ]** Risks: interest rates, regulation, economic volatility

– **[00:35:30 ]** 🧮 QAV Score Breakdown

[00:00:00 ]

Cameron: Welcome back to QAV America, Tony, 9 0 0 9. License to talk about investing.

Tony Kynaston: Well, we are.

Cameron: It’s not, not sexy like oh seven is a license to Kill oh oh nine is a license just to talk about investing and we don’t have a license to talk about it.

Tony Kynaston: oh 0 in one of the movies, wasn’t it? I think from memory.

Cameron: he was, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. so Tony this week on QAV America, I mean, lots of chaos happening again over just in the US market. knows we don’t need to talk about that again. I do have a pulled pork to do this week on a company called Jackson Financial. Uh, this is apparently, um, Tito and uh, the rest of the Jacksons after Michael died.

They. Turn themselves into a, um, annuities, uh, business. [00:01:00 ] Yeah.

Tony Kynaston: him.

Cameron: yeah. Can you feel it is the, uh, motto of the company. Have you got anything else though before I get into Jackson’s? Uh, do you got anything else you wanna talk about Tony?

Tony Kynaston: well, I, we just talked off air quickly about it. I’ll just mention in case there are any overseas investors listening to this, that part of the big beautiful bridge bill that’s going to the Senate being passed by the lower house, there is a 5% tax on dividends and interest if you’re an overseas investor you come from a country that, uh, America doesn’t like, um, and Australia is one of those.

Because

Cameron: Which is all of them pretty much at the moment, I think. Yeah.

Tony Kynaston: yeah. Um, uh, it rises by 5% for the next four years, every year for the next four years until it gets to 20%. So, um, just be aware of

Cameron: on dividends?

Tony Kynaston: Mm. There, there

Cameron: no.

Tony Kynaston: [00:02:00 ] Apparently there are a lot of people upset about this in the US, in in the institutional area who are lobbying like crazy, uh, lobbying their senators like crazy.

They have that bit taken out, but may well get passed. And if you think about all the people who are foreign investors in the us, it’s a large chunk of the us. Um. Economy and market companies like Shell, who I used to work for, um, you know, are domiciled in the Hague and in the UK and they’re, uh, investing and operating in the us So they’ll be, by this, if they pay a dividend back, if they pay a dividend example, or receive dividends from investments.

Um, then you think about all the big. Investment banks, um, HSBC, for example. in the other European ones, they’ll be facing problems. And of course the Australian super industry is trying to work out what to do. ’cause they have large investments in the US the, in the Mag seven. And um, I know they don’t always pay dividends, but if they dividends and they’ll be taxed as well.

So they’re trying to work out what to do. [00:03:00 ] So, um, I’m merely raising it for people to be aware of it if they’re investing in the us if that bill gets passed.

Cameron: I did see that talked about in the financial review, the Australian uh, finance newspaper,

Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm.

Cameron: lots of gnashing, his teeth and lots of different fronts with the big beautiful bridge Bill I.

Tony Kynaston: We should say to our US who may not have been along the journey with us that we’re referring to Kelly’s Heroes. When we talk about the big, beautiful bridge,

Cameron: I figure that

Tony Kynaston: out and

Cameron: any, yeah, like any, anyone who is uh, cool,

Tony Kynaston: Hmm.

Cameron: what we’re talking about there, and if they don’t

Tony Kynaston: we, we talked

Cameron: God wasn’t cool. You made me cool so early in the. Think that bridge will be there. Mm-hmm. And it’ll be there. It’s a mother beautiful bridge it’s gonna be there. There you go. RIP, [00:04:00 ] Donald Sutherland. So, so the Jacksons, let me get into the Jacksons. Tony and I have questions for you in, uh, this pulled pork because best, as much as I tried to get my head around this and think it through

Tony Kynaston: questions for you as well.

Cameron: Oh, you’re pointing at something. Oh, okay. You have questions for me? I wonder if they’re the same questions.

Tony Kynaston: Sorry, just before we start on that, did you wanna do a performance update quickly? I.

Cameron: Oh yeah. Portfolio report. Thank you for reminding me. So, uh, let me talk about our US portfolio. I had a look at it this morning. Uh, our US portfolio for the last seven days was up around 4.65% versus the s and p 500, which was up 1.18% for the last. Uh, 11 months, which is the Australian Financial Year. Our [00:05:00 ] US portfolio is up about 28% versus the s and p up about 10%. And since inception, which is September, 2023, our US portfolio is up 54% versus the s and p 500, up 35% You know, that’s a little bit over a year and a half.

Tony Kynaston: Hmm.

Cameron: 35% is insane. I mean, our 54% is, is better, but e even 35% for the s and p 500. Now I know a lot of that, well, I dunno how much of that is Maga MAGA seven?

The MAGA seven as I call them now. but, uh, a big chunk of it would be that none of ours is MAGA seven though. I wanna point that out. It’s all boring shipping and financial stocks mostly.

Tony Kynaston: Yeah. Catalogue retailers.

Cameron: By the way, I also wanted to say, mention to you, um, somebody on our [00:06:00 ] YouTube channel, uh, questioned, uh, last time we, we did a pulled pork on this couple of weeks ago.

I talked about Ford Motor Company and somebody took issue with that on our YouTube channel and talked about the amount of debt that Ford is carrying and how he didn’t think Ford was a good investment because of the amount of debt that they’re carrying. And I said, well, look, you know, if that’s a concern to you, then you shouldn’t invest in it.

But said that, from my perspective, usually look at debt levels. We don’t really look at debt to equity levels or anything like that. And just to, I wanted to check this with you, but my thinking on debt for companies like that is we look, we have a bunch of metrics that we do pay attention to where debt is part of it, they financial health and those sorts of things. But at the end of the day, I figure that if it’s a well run business and has been well run for some time, and the management seem to know what they’re doing and a