International General Insurance Holdings Ltd.

Good day and welcome to the International General Insurance Holdings Limited Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be 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 and then one. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Robin Sitters, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Allison, and good morning. Welcome to today's conference call. Today we'll be discussing our second quarter and half-year 2024 financial results. You will have seen our results press release, which we issued after the market closed yesterday. website in the investor section at www.iginsure.com. We've posted a supplementary investor presentation as well, which can also be found on our website under the Presentations page. On today's call are Executive Chairman of IGI, Wasif Jobche, President and CEO, Waleed Jobche, and Chief Financial Officer, Pervez Rizvi. As always, Wasif will begin the call with some high-level comments and then hand the call over to Ali to talk through the key drivers of our results through the second quarter and first half, and finish up with our views on market conditions and our outlook for the remainder of 2024. At that point, we'll open the call up for Q&A. I'll begin with some customary safe harbor language. Our speaker's remarks today may contain forward-looking statements. Some of these statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words. We caution you that such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as representation by us that the future plans estimate or expectations contemplated by us will in fact be achieved these statements involve risks uncertainties and assumptions actual events or results may differ materially from these 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 forbes 20f for the year ended december 31st 23 the company 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. During this call, we'll use certain non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of these measures to the nearest GAAP measure, please see our earnings release, which has now been filed with the SEC and is available also on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to our Executive Chairman, Wasif Javshy.

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 Ali. I'm pleased to report that IGI once again delivered excellent results in the second quarter leading to a very strong first half of 2024. We reported an annualized return on average equity of 22.9% for the quarter and 25.1% for the half year. These are impressive numbers. especially given that our average equity increased by almost 30% in the year to June 30th. So far in 2024, we have grown our book value per share, which is our most important measure, by 7.3%. and this is after paying regular quarterly dividends and an extraordinary cash dividend of 50 cents per share. I would also note that this is on the back of book value per share growth of more than 36% in 2023. Our promise to shareholders is to generate consistent and sustainable value over the long term. We do that first through our underwriting, where we believe we can generate the greatest returns. In the past five years, we have more than doubled our underwriting portfolio, significantly improving our diversification, Along with the strength of our growing balance sheet, where we have double the size of our investment portfolio, we are more resilient than ever. And that is showing in our results. Our value at IGI is in our ability to generate consistently high quality results in any stage of the market cycle. so that we continue to reward our shareholders who have put their trust in us and supported us. I will now hand over to Alit who will discuss the second quarter results in more detail and talk about market conditions and our outlook for the remainder of 2024. I will remain on the call for any questions at the end.