International General Insurance Holdings Ltd.

Good day and welcome to the International General Insurance Holdings Limited's first quarter 2024 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 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, Debbie, and good morning. Welcome to today's conference call. Today we'll be discussing our first quarter 2024 results. You will have seen our press release that we issued after the market closed yesterday. We can also get a copy of the press release on 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 as well, also in the investor section on the presentations page. On today's call, our Executive Chairman of IGI, Wasip Jokce, President and CEO Waleed Jobche, and Chief Financial Officer Pervez Rizvi. As always, Wasip will begin the call with some high-level comments before heading over to Waleed to talk you through the key drivers of the results for the quarter and finish up with our views on the market conditions and our outlook for the remainder of 2024. At that point, we'll open the call up for Q&A. Beforehand, I'll just go through the customary safe harbor language. Our speakers' 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 of 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 materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including the risk factors set out in the company's annual report on Form 20F for the year ended December 31, 2023, and the company's reports on Form 6K and other violence 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. During this call, we will use certain non-GAAP financial measures for reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures. To the nearest GAAP measure, please see our earnings press release, which has been filed with the SEC and is also available on our website. With that, .

Thank you, Robin, and good day to everybody. Thank you for joining us on today's call. I'll just make a few short remarks before handing the call over to Alin. We had an excellent start to 2024, as you can see from our results that we issued last night. Once again, we posted a combined ratio in the 70s, a return on average equity of 27.6%. and a core operating return on average equity of 29%. We grew our book value per share by 1.5% on top of the more than 36% in 23, where you can go into more detail on what's behind these numbers. As you know, our primary focus is managing the cycles that are inherent in our business. One of the hallmarks of IGI is our deep technical underwriting talent, people who understand the dynamics of their business, who have strong relationships and who can anticipate shifting tides in their markets and respond accordingly. Our business doesn't move in some different lines and Markets move at different times and at different stations. What's most important at any stage of our cycle is that we maintain our discipline, execute consistently, and move our capital to those areas with the strongest rate momentum and the highest margins. and always work within our risk appetite and policies. This is exactly what we are doing today. Throughout our 32 year history, we have consistently demonstrated our ability to do this. While producing high quality results, that is entrusted to us by our shareholders. Our markets remain broadly positive overall, more so in insurance and some of our core specialty lines, and a little more challenging in others. It is natural to see more competition in those lines where conditions are strong and this appetite is increasing. I'm confident 24 will represent more opportunities for IGI to seize that will both expand and diversify our footprint and generate profitable results as we continue to build on our very solid foundation. We will continue to actively and efficiently manage our capital, deploying it first to underwriting opportunities and then returning excess capital to shareholders as we have demonstrated in recent quarters and years. I will now hand over to Walid, who will discuss the first quarter results in more detail and talk about market conditions and our outlook for the remainder of 2024. I'll remain on the call for any questions at the end.