The reconciliation of such measures to the most comparable GAAP figures is included in our earnings release, financial supplement, and earnings presentation, all of which are available on our website at investors.corebridgefinancial.com. Our enhanced scale will drive significant synergies, $500 million in expense synergies plus meaningful upside opportunities from additional revenue, tax, and capital synergies. Our greater scale should reduce our cost of capital, help us provide better customer solutions at lower cost, allow for greater investment, and strengthen our ability to attract top talent. The transaction will allow us to further diversify our source of income, which helps provide resilient earnings across market cycles.
Our growth prospects will be considerable across the combined company's businesses with our integrated model allowing us to capture the full value chain. The merger will be immediately accretive to both earnings per share and cash generation, both of which should increase to 10+% by year-end 2028. We will have more capabilities and balance sheet capacity to support our growth in Institutional Markets. In the combined company's asset management and wealth management businesses, AllianceBernstein will have nearly $1 trillion in AUM, and we'll have over 5,000 advisors to drive growth.
Any remaining capital we plan to deploy will be facilitated post-close, likely through an accelerated share repurchase. Turning to slide five, Corebridge's demonstrated strong performance driven by favorable industry demographics and sustained customer demand in the first quarter. Excluding variable investment income and notable items, year-over-year operating earnings per share were up 13% and adjusted return on equity was up 120 basis points. Fee-based earnings are approximately 60% of the total, with advisory and brokerage assets rising to all-time new highs, growing 14% year-over-year, benefiting from record levels of net inflows.