Assured Guaranty Ltd.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Assured Guarantee Limited Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Bruno, and I'll be operating your call today. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need any assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask a question. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, you may press star followed by two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to our host, Robert Tucker, Senior Managing Director, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining Assured Guarantee for our second quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's presentation is made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The presentation may contain forward-looking statements about our new business and credit outlooks, market conditions, credit spreads, financial ratings, loss reserves, financial results, or other items that may affect our future results. These statements are subject to change due to new information or future events. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on them, as we do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise them, except as required by law. If you're listening to a replay of this call, or if you're reading the transcript of the call, please note that our statements made today may have been updated since this call. Please refer to the investor information section of our website for our most recent presentations and SEC filings, most current financial filings, and for the risk factors. This presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. We present the GAAP financial measures most directly comparable to the non-GAAP financial measures referenced in this presentation, along with a reconciliation between such GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures in our current financial supplement and equity investor presentation, which are on our website at assuredguarantee.com. Turning to the presentation, our speakers today are Dominic Frederico, President and Chief Executive Officer of Assured Guarantee Limited, Rob Balenson, our Chief Operating Officer, and Ben Rosenblum, our Chief Financial Officer. After their remarks, we will open the call to your questions. As the webcast is not enabled for Q&A, please dial into the call if you'd like to ask a question. I will now turn the call over to Dominic.

Thank you, Robert, and welcome to everyone joining today's call. The short guarantee had an exceptional second quarter and first half of 2024. Adjusted operating income per share came in at $1.44 for the second quarter of 2024, compared with $0.60 in the second quarter of last year. Our key shareholder valuation measures again reached new per share highs. Since June 30th of 2023, on a per share basis, shareholders' equity rose 16%, adjusted operating shareholders' equity rose 15%, and adjusted book value rose 12%. New business production for the first half remained strong, consistent with recent year's results. It was diversified across US public finance, international infrastructure, and global structure finance. The first half PVP of $218 million, more than in any first half since 2009, with the sole exception of first half 2018, where we assumed a large portfolio from another bond insurer. Rob will give you more production details in a few minutes. But first, I want to discuss the merger we completed last week of Assured Guaranteed Municipal into Assured Guaranteed Inc., which is the same company you knew for many years as Assured Guaranteed Corp. Those two companies have been our principal insurance operating subsidiaries since 2009 when Assured Guaranteed purchased FSA, later renaming it AGM. The rationale for operating them separately no longer exists, and we see the merger as beneficial to all of our stakeholders. Assured Guaranteed Inc. is the surviving company and its acronym is simply AG. This simplification of our brand marketing is only one of the many benefits. Two of the primary objectives of the merger are to achieve more efficient utilization of the combined capital of the two companies and to increase operating efficiencies. This includes having one principal U.S. regulator, Maryland. By aggregating the two platforms into a single insurance company, the merger enlarges the pool of capital and claims-paying resources available to support each insurance company's policies and results in further diversification of the single company's insured portfolio's credit profile. Both companies' insured portfolios had contained public and infrastructure finance exposures and structured finance exposures. The combined company will continue to serve the same markets. To be clear, all obligations of AGM are now obligations of AG. In all other respects, the policies have the same terms as when they were issued. AGM's UK and European subsidiaries are now subsidiaries of AG. At the time of the merger, AG and AGM had identical financial strength ratings, AA plus at KBRA, AA at S&P, and A1 at Moody's, all with stable outlooks. All three rating agencies have indicated that they see no change to Assured Guaranteed Financial Strength Rating as a result of the merger. KBRA wrote that it views the merger and the resultant simplification of the overall organization structure as creating capital, operational, and regulatory efficiencies. as well as enhancing insured guaranteed limits overall global platform and scale. Moody said he believes the merger resulted in moderate strengthening of AG's credit profile relative to those of pre-merger AG and AGM. S&P has always rated our guarantees based on the capital of the entire group, so it was already taking both companies' exposures into account. For the merger, AGM and AG were each overcapitalized, and each has experienced a substantial reduction and it's in short exposure since 2010, while their statutory capital increased maturely during the same period. In connection with the merger, we upstreamed $300 million through a special dividend, technically a stock redemption, that the Morrill Insurance Administration approved. And this followed the $100 million stock redemption by AGM during the second quarter. Rating agencies took these transfers into account when considering the combined company's ratings. There's more information about the combined company in a presentation on our website. where you can also find a Q&A with more detail on the merger, our press releases about both the merger and the rating agency decisions, and the full rating agency announcements. With the consolidation of the merge subsidiaries, the new AG is very well positioned for future growth and efficient operational success. Building on insured guarantees excellent first half 2024 production and financial results. We remain committed to our share repurchase program with a target this year of $500 million. As of August 6, 2024, The company had repurchased 7.2% of the shares that were outstanding on December 31st, 2023, and was authorized to repurchase an additional $275 million of its common shares. In June of this year, we saw a favorable ruling in the restructuring case of Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority, PREPA, our last remaining non-paying Puerto Rico exposure. The appeals court reversed several lower court findings looking at the utility's bondholders had a perfected lien, not just on trust agreement accounts, but also on past, present, and future net revenues as well. The appeals court also determined investors allowed claims to be the base amount of the utility bonds plus interest about $8.5 billion, which is more than the prior $2.4 billion cap set by the lower court. The lower court has ordered the parties to resume mediation in light of the appeals court ruling, and we look forward to working with all parties to reach a fair resolution of the proper restructuring. Uncertainty this year about economic geopolitical, and financial volatility, reminding investors why it's good to have investments that are protected by our insurance. Our guarantee has unique values for bond investors who need protection from what can't be predicted, and bond issuers can reduce their financing costs by issuing bonds with the extra protection of our guarantee. Shared Guarantee has proven its reliability over the past four decades, consistently meeting our obligations and returning excess capital to our shareholders while maintaining a high level of financial strength based on predictable earnings and market leadership. We have high potential for growth in our worldwide financial guaranteed business. With our new, more efficient organizational structure, we believe that we've never been better positioned to serve our clients, protect our policyholders, and create value for our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Rob to discuss our production results.