International General Insurance Holdings Ltd.

Good day and welcome to the International General Insurance Holdings Limited second quarter and half year 2020 financial results conference call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Robin Sitters, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning and good afternoon and welcome to today's conference call. This is the first time that we've had the opportunity to host a call to discuss results and you can expect that we'll continue to do this on a half and full year basis from here on. Today we'll be discussing our second quarter and half-year 2020 financial results. You will have seen our press release, which we issued after the market closed yesterday. If you'd like a copy of the press release, it's available in the Investors section of our website at www.iginsure.com. On today's call are Wasif Jobche, Chairman and CEO, Waleed Jobche, President, and Pervez Rizvi, Chief Financial Officer. Wasif will begin the call with some high-level comments before handing over to Waleed to talk through the results for the second quarter and first six months of 2020 before giving some insight into current market conditions and opportunities that we're seeing. Then Wasif will come back to provide some closing thoughts. At that point, we'll open the call up to Q&A. As we're doing this call from different locations, We'll take all the questions in the first instance and then instruct the relevant person on our team to respond. I'll begin with the customary Safe Harbor language. Our speaker's remarks may contain forward-looking statements. Some of the forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words. We caution you that such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by us that the future plans, estimates, or expectations contemplated by us will in fact be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Actual events or results may differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including the risk factors set forth in the company's annual report on Forms 20F for the year ended December 31, 2019, the company's reports on Form 6K, and other filings with the SEC, as well as our earnings press release issued yesterday evening. We undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date on which they are made. In addition, we use non-IFRS financial measures in this conference call. For a reconciliation of non-IFRS financial measures to the nearest IFRS measure, please see our earnings release, which has been filed with the SEC and is available on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Wasif Jamshed.

Thank you, Robyn. And good day to everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's call. Since we last communicated with you after our first quarter resolved, the world, at least in the jurisdictions where we operate, is slowly and carefully returning to some form of normal, a different normal. When we began the process of becoming a public company and first visited with many of you in person last year and at the beginning of 2020, I would never have imagined we would be in the situation we find ourselves in today. We have not been able to travel, and see you in person, and for me that is a disappointment. It was always our intention to come and meet with you face-to-face. That's how strong relationships are built. So I assure you that when we are able to travel again, and when the way in which we do business returns to something more normal, we will visit you in person. On the subject of COVID and the pandemic, I'm very proud of our people at IGI. They have done a very good job of staying calm and focused and continuing to run our business seamlessly. while providing the same high quality client service that we are known for. In our communities around us, while governments and first responders and medical workers have been doing their part, we at IGI are continuing to do our part. Keeping close contact with clients and partners Paying for services and paying claims expeditiously while taking care of our people. You see the results that we published last night. I'm very pleased with these results. They are very good indication of what we can do at IGI, even in these very uncertain times. We'll talk to you about the results in more detail, so I'll just highlight two things. First, we have grown our total book of business by almost 27% since the beginning of the year. We're seeing many opportunities in all of the lines of business we are writing, and we are writing a new class of business, such as USC. excess and surplus property and energy business, as well as some new marine lines. These are market conditions that have been a long time coming, and IGI is in the right place at the right time with the right people. Second, you would have seen that we announced a dividend last night. This is the first dividend that we have announced as a public company and represents a 40% payout ratio. We are grateful for the support of all our shareholders, many of whom have supported IGI for many years, and in particular, our new shareholders. IGI has a long track record of generating shareholder value and This is something we intend to continue to do. Lastly, before I hand the call to a lead, I would like to express our deepest sympathies to the people of Lebanon following the devastation, destruction and loss of life caused by the explosion in the port of Beirut. We have long-standing relationships in Beirut and throughout Lebanon, as we do across the Middle East and MENA region, and our thoughts remain with Lebanon and Lebanese people in what are horrific times and a full humanitarian crisis for the country. With that, I'm going to now ask Walid to talk to you about the results and our market outlook. Again, thank you.