International General Insurance Holdings Ltd.

Good day and welcome to the International General Insurance Holdings LTD's fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results conference call. All participants are in 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 touchtone phone. 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 welcome to today's conference call. Today we'll be discussing our fourth quarter and full year 2023 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 investor section of our website at www.iginsure.com. We've also posted a supplementary investor presentation, which can be found on our website on the presentation page in the investor section. On today's call are Executive Chairman of IGI, Wasif Jobche, CEO, Waleed Jobche, and Chief Financial Officer, Pervez Rizvi. Wasif will begin the call with some high-level comments before handing over to Waleed to talk you through the drivers of our results for the fourth quarter and full year, 2023. Also giving some insight into current market conditions and our outlook for 2024. At that point, we'll open the call up for Q&A. I'll begin with the customary State 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 bias that 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 materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including the risk factors that are set forth in the company's annual report on Forms 20F, for the year ended December 31st, 2022, the company's reports on Form 6K and other filings with the SEC, as well as our results 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 they are made. In addition, as you're aware, we voluntarily changed our basis of accounting from IFRS to US GAAP effective January 1, 2023, During the conference call today, we'll use certain non-GAAP financial measures for reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures. To the nearest GAAP 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 Executive Chairman, Wasif Jobche.

Thank you, Robin. And good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's call. I'll just make a few short remarks before handing the call over to Alip. I'm very proud of our achievements in 2023, both financial and non-financial. It is very much the year where many things came together and we really demonstrated what IGI is capable of. During the year, we had our first CEO transition in our 22-year history, and I'm pleased with the seamless way in which this has occurred all around. Not just the leadership, but Walid has displayed but the support given to a need by all our people and the cultural integrity that has been maintained throughout. You saw from our press release last night that we had a strong fourth quarter to finish a superb 2023, clearly demonstrating how our focus, discipline, and consistency in execution are paying off. Our results for the full year 2023 are the best in our 22-year history. And this is on the back of very strong results in recent prior years. We recorded significant growth in all areas of our business. our underwriting portfolio, our investment portfolio, and our shareholders' equity, which is now comfortably in the space of half a billion dollars. We took advantage of the opportunities to capitalize on what were worldly positive conditions across our business. We continued to actively and efficiently manage our capital deploying it first to our underwriting operations and returning excess capital to shareholders in the form of share repurchase and dividends. During 2023, we bought back 3.4 million shares for $31.1 million. We purchased all outstanding warrants at a total cost of $16.3 million. And we paid $1.9 million in dividends. As you saw from our second announcement last night, I'm particularly pleased that our board has declared a special cash dividend of $0.50 per share for 2023, in addition to the regular quarterly dividend of $0.01 per share. Ultimately, we delivered 28.1% core operating return on average equity, the highest annual core ROE we have ever recorded. And we grew book value per share by over 36% in 2023. These are exceptional results, and I congratulate the whole IGI family for their dedication, commitment, and focus. We are a diverse, experienced, hardworking, and cohesive team at IGI. We are existing at a high level in all areas of our business, and where we have capital that is greater than we are able to put to work is underwriting. We are returning that capital to our shareholders in the form of dividends, share repurchase, and other capital management actions, as you saw from our announcements last night. We are firmly committed to delivering on our promise to continuously generate value for our shareholders. who have put their trust in IGI and supported us. We take this promise seriously and I'm very pleased with what we have achieved as a company, especially in 2023. I will now hand over to Alit who will take you through the results in more detail and talk about our outlook for the remainder of 24. I will remain on the call for any questions at the end. Walid, please.