# Brighthouse Financial (BHF.US)

Canonical: https://gigainvestors.com/s/BHF

Analysis as of: 2026-10-16T07:26:55.775Z. Financial observations: FY2015–FY2025.

Listing currency: USD. Reporting currency: USD.

## Verdict

Not a wonderful business

Quality tests for Buy: not passed (profit record: fail; earnings resilience is evidence only). Published buy qualification: no.

Share price: $48.70 per share; close as of 2026-10-15.

## Checklist

### understandable: fail

- positive earnings in fewer than 8 of 10 years

- Financial history: 10 years

- Profitable years in the last ten: 5

- Required profitable years: 8

- Return on common equity variation (informational): 6.27×

Chart: Net income; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: -$2.9B

- FY2017: -$378M

- FY2018: $865M

- FY2019: -$761M

- FY2020: -$1.1B

- FY2021: $1.6B

- FY2022: $3.8B

- FY2023: -$1.2B

- FY2024: $286M

- FY2025: $331M

### moat: fail

- Common book per share

- Parent-total proxy for preferred equity

- median return on common equity below threshold

- Bank / P&C ROTE, median of available years: 0.1%

- Required median return: 10.0%

- Return uses tangible common equity: No

- Bank ROTE, second-lowest year: -19.8%

- Years with reported combined ratio: 0

Chart: Return on common equity; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: -19.8%

- FY2017: -2.6%

- FY2018: 6.0%

- FY2019: -0.3%

- FY2020: -0.5%

- FY2021: 0.6%

- FY2022: 68.2%

- FY2023: -24.6%

- FY2024: 5.8%

- FY2025: 4.9%

### economics: fail

- Common book per share

- Parent-total proxy for preferred equity

- book value per share plus dividends compounded below 7% annually

- Book value per share + reinvested dividends, annualized return: 3.0%

- Book return interval: 10 years

- Starting book value per share: $137.21

- Ending book value per share: $116.81

Chart: Annual book + dividend return; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: 17.5%

- FY2017: 9.8%

- FY2018: -0.6%

- FY2019: 1536.7%

- FY2020: 29.3%

- FY2021: 18.9%

- FY2022: -97.5%

- FY2023: 1.6%

- FY2024: 9.7%

- FY2025: 47.3%

### management: fail

- Common book per share

- Parent-total proxy for preferred equity

- book per share gain below retained common earnings per share

- Diluted shares, 10-year annual growth: -7.2%

- Diluted shares, 5-year annual growth: -9.5%

- Share growth excluding flagged crisis recapitalisations: -7.2%

- Five-year share growth excluding flagged crisis recapitalisations: -9.5%

- Flagged crisis recapitalisations: 0

- Book value created per share: -$20.40

- Earnings retained per share after dividends and buybacks: -$80.33

### accounting: pass

- Financial accounting warning count: 0

- Known restatement years: 0

## Holders

- [David Einhorn](https://gigainvestors.com/GLRE): tracked 13F investor; follow the investor page for holding quarter and amounts.

## Price story

Down 26% since Nov 2025 · "BHF Q2 Earnings Miss Estimates, Investment Income Falls Y/Y" (finance.yahoo.com, Aug 2026) · net income +15.7%

Story as of 2026-10-16T09:58:23.910Z; price observation 2026-10-15.

- 2025-05-09: Brighthouse Financial Q1 Earnings Miss Estimates on Higher Expenses ([finance.yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/brighthouse-financial-q1-earnings-miss-130700289.html))

- 2025-08-08: Brighthouse Financial Q2 Earnings Miss Estimates on Lower Premiums ([finance.yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/brighthouse-financial-q2-earnings-miss-155900753.html))

- 2025-11-08: Brighthouse (BHF) Hits New High on Aquarian’s $4.1-Billion Buyout Bid ([finance.yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/brighthouse-bhf-hits-high-aquarian-101130560.html))

- 2026-05-08: Brighthouse Financial Q1 Earnings Miss Estimates on Lower Premiums ([finance.yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/brighthouse-financial-q1-earnings-miss-155400390.html))

- 2026-08-07: BHF Q2 Earnings Miss Estimates, Investment Income Falls Y/Y ([finance.yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/bhf-q2-earnings-miss-estimates-181300020.html))

### Net income · FY2025

net income +15.7%; source https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1685040/000168504026000011/bhf-20251231.htm; observed 2026-02-24.

- FY2016: -$2.9B 

- FY2017: -$378M 

- FY2018: $865M 

- FY2019: -$761M 

- FY2020: -$1.1B 

- FY2021: $1.6B 

- FY2022: $3.8B 

- FY2023: -$1.2B 

- FY2024: $286M 

- FY2025: $331M 

## Owner memo

Memo as of 2026-10-16T08:06:05.509Z.

### How it makes money

Operates in insurance life; annual sales are USD 6.8 billion.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1685040/000168504026000011/bhf-20251231.htm#000168504026000011 (filed 2026-02-24); FY2025: revenue 6766000000.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16); BHF.US: Brighthouse Financial, Inc. provides annuity and life insurance products in the United States. The company operates through Annuities, Life, and Run-off segments. The Annuities segment offers variable, fixed, index-linked, and income annuities for contract holders' needs for protected wealth accumulation on a tax-deferred basis, wealth transfer, and income security. The Life segment provides term, universal, whole, and variable life products for policyholders' needs for financial security and protected wealth transfer. The Run-off segment manages universal life with secondary guarantees, structured settlements, pension risk transfer contracts, various company-owned life insurance policies, and funding agreements. Brighthouse Financial, Inc. was founded in 1863 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.

### Why customers stay

It earns 0.1% on shareholders’ money, excluding intangible assets.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); 10-year return on tangible equity observations [[2016,-0.1977526577849549],[2017,-0.026042025490871513],[2018,0.05999445138021917],[2019,-0.0034350610953376155],[2020,-0.004550827179763851],[2021,0.006079312732521976],[2022,0.6822700162660401],[2023,-0.2455998381549666],[2024,0.05767291792700141],[2025,0.04890661938534279]]; median 0.0013221258185921803. ROIC follows the displayed moat series; financial companies use return on tangible equity.

### Where the cash goes

Paid dividends in 10 of 10 years; bought back USD 102 million of shares.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); Dividend observations: [[2016,4446000000],[2017,1798000000],[2018,21000000],[2019,21000000],[2020,44000000],[2021,89000000],[2022,104000000],[2023,102000000],[2024,102000000],[2025,102000000]]. Zero only counted when supported by a complete cash-flow statement.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1685040/000168504026000011/bhf-20251231.htm (filed 2026-02-24); FY2025: cash repurchases 102000000 USD.

### Are managers owners

Insiders own 1.4% of the company.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16); BHF.US SharesStats.PercentInsiders = 1.4200000000000002 percentage points; cache date 2026-10-16.

### What the price says

The price is 0.4 times annual sales; cash earnings are negative.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-24); Closing price 48.7 USD; reporting-to-trading FX 1; FY2025 annual sales per share 116.77642056591206; price multiple 0.4170362455365061. FY2025 cash earnings/share -1.7604485512449055. Closing-price date 2026-10-15.

## Monthly share-price history (USD per share)

- 2017-07: $66.00 per share

- 2017-08: $57.07 per share

- 2017-09: $60.80 per share

- 2017-10: $62.18 per share

- 2017-11: $58.79 per share

- 2017-12: $58.64 per share

- 2018-01: $64.26 per share

- 2018-02: $54.27 per share

- 2018-03: $51.40 per share

- 2018-04: $50.78 per share

- 2018-05: $47.11 per share

- 2018-06: $40.07 per share

- 2018-07: $43.43 per share

- 2018-08: $41.51 per share

- 2018-09: $44.24 per share

- 2018-10: $39.63 per share

- 2018-11: $40.26 per share

- 2018-12: $30.48 per share

- 2019-01: $37.34 per share

- 2019-02: $38.72 per share

- 2019-03: $36.29 per share

- 2019-04: $41.79 per share

- 2019-05: $35.49 per share

- 2019-06: $36.69 per share

- 2019-07: $39.17 per share

- 2019-08: $35.26 per share

- 2019-09: $40.47 per share

- 2019-10: $37.76 per share

- 2019-11: $41.16 per share

- 2019-12: $39.23 per share

- 2020-01: $38.90 per share

- 2020-02: $35.84 per share

- 2020-03: $24.17 per share

- 2020-04: $25.71 per share

- 2020-05: $29.71 per share

- 2020-06: $27.82 per share

- 2020-07: $28.34 per share

- 2020-08: $30.36 per share

- 2020-09: $26.91 per share

- 2020-10: $33.10 per share

- 2020-11: $35.10 per share

- 2020-12: $36.21 per share

- 2021-01: $35.36 per share

- 2021-02: $39.89 per share

- 2021-03: $44.25 per share

- 2021-04: $46.79 per share

- 2021-05: $48.66 per share

- 2021-06: $45.54 per share

- 2021-07: $43.06 per share

- 2021-08: $48.96 per share

- 2021-09: $45.23 per share

- 2021-10: $50.23 per share

- 2021-11: $48.61 per share

- 2021-12: $51.80 per share

- 2022-01: $54.45 per share

- 2022-02: $52.26 per share

- 2022-03: $51.66 per share

- 2022-04: $51.36 per share

- 2022-05: $49.12 per share

- 2022-06: $41.02 per share

- 2022-07: $43.42 per share

- 2022-08: $47.55 per share

- 2022-09: $43.42 per share

- 2022-10: $57.07 per share

- 2022-11: $55.74 per share

- 2022-12: $51.27 per share

- 2023-01: $56.27 per share

- 2023-02: $57.83 per share

- 2023-03: $44.11 per share

- 2023-04: $44.20 per share

- 2023-05: $40.26 per share

- 2023-06: $47.35 per share

- 2023-07: $52.13 per share

- 2023-08: $49.66 per share

- 2023-09: $48.94 per share

- 2023-10: $45.30 per share

- 2023-11: $52.03 per share

- 2023-12: $52.92 per share

- 2024-01: $51.77 per share

- 2024-02: $46.55 per share

- 2024-03: $51.54 per share

- 2024-04: $48.25 per share

- 2024-05: $44.51 per share

- 2024-06: $43.34 per share

- 2024-07: $49.87 per share

- 2024-08: $45.90 per share

- 2024-09: $45.03 per share

- 2024-10: $47.30 per share

- 2024-11: $52.27 per share

- 2024-12: $48.04 per share

- 2025-01: $61.71 per share

- 2025-02: $59.31 per share

- 2025-03: $57.99 per share

- 2025-04: $58.22 per share

- 2025-05: $59.81 per share

- 2025-06: $53.77 per share

- 2025-07: $47.85 per share

- 2025-08: $47.26 per share

- 2025-09: $53.08 per share

- 2025-10: $57.07 per share

- 2025-11: $65.55 per share

- 2025-12: $64.79 per share

- 2026-01: $64.06 per share

- 2026-02: $59.98 per share

- 2026-03: $59.88 per share

- 2026-04: $62.26 per share

- 2026-05: $62.55 per share

- 2026-06: $63.30 per share

- 2026-07: $61.91 per share

- 2026-08: $53.02 per share

- 2026-09: $49.90 per share

- 2026-10: $48.70 per share

## Annual estimated value (USD per share)

Historical values use today's bond yield for every fiscal year

Historical values use today's FX rate into trading currency for every fiscal year

Historical values use current restated fundamentals and current commodity classification; they are not point-in-time estimates

## Sources

[Original 10-K filing](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1685040/000168504026000011/bhf-20251231.htm); period 2025-12-31, filed 2026-02-24.

Estimates depend on assumptions and are not guarantees or investment advice. Underlying data remains subject to its source licenses; public reading does not grant bulk redistribution rights.