text: our proven approach to asset management despite the stock market’s vagaries. It means 
  
  growing our business proﬁtably, maintaining financial discipline, controlling expenses and 
  
  providing extraordinary service to distributors and customers. 
  
  We take the last point very seriously, as evidenced by our earning a sixth consecutive 
  
  DALBAR Annuity Service Award in 2001. DALBAR also awarded us the Intermediary Service 
  
  Award and the ﬁrst-ever Life Insurance Service Award. 
  
  As you’ll read throughout this report, service means very speciﬁc—and very impor- 
  
  tant—things to us. We strive to forge strong partnerships with our distributors and provide 
  
  them with technological tools and outstanding products to enhance their selling efforts. 
  
  These are some of the underpinnings to our solid 2001 results. 
  
  Despite the challenges I’ve mentioned, our revenues for 2001 rose 3 percent to $15.1 