DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) _ Principal Financial Group Inc. (PFG) on Thursday reported fourth-quarter profit of $472.6 million.

The Des Moines, Iowa-based company said it had profit of $1.70 per share. Earnings, adjusted for investment gains, were $1.48 per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.43 per share.

The financial services company posted revenue of $3.77 billion in the period. Its adjusted revenue was $3.68 billion.

For the year, the company reported profit of $1.4 billion, or $5.05 per share. Revenue was reported as $14.58 billion.

Principal Financial shares have increased nearly 6% since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has risen almost 1%. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $52.55, a drop of slightly more than 2% in the last 12 months.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on PFG at https://www.zacks.com/ap/PFG

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