Assured Guaranty Ltd.

Good morning and welcome to the Assured Guarantee Limited Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Ezra and I will be the operator for today's call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. 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 that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference 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 third quarter 2024 financial results conference call. Today's presentation is made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provision 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 FCC 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 Federico, President and Chief Executive Officer of Assured Guarantee Limited, rob balinson 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 we continue to build value for assured guarantee shareholders and policyholders during the third quarter

and first nine months of 2024. Adjusted book value per share at $166.47 and adjusted operating shareholders' equity per share at $113.96. Both reached record highs at the end of the third quarter. New business production has been strong this year with significant contributions from each of our three market segments, U.S. public finance, non-U.S. public finance, and global structured finance. For the fifth consecutive year, our PVP for the first three quarters reached or exceeded $240 million, coming into $281 million for 2024, $32 million higher than the first three quarters of last year. We benefited from greater overall municipal bond issuance and strong investor demand for our insurance, including from institutional investors on some very large infrastructure transactions. Rob will speak more about this shortly. Year-to-date, Assured Guarantee has earned adjusted operating income of $5.80 per share, 13% more than in the first nine months of last year. As I mentioned in detail in our last earnings call, AGM completed its merger into AG, formerly AGC, on August 1st, with AG as a surviving company. As we said at that time, we believe there are a number of benefits to this merger, including improved operating efficiency and better capital utilization. After the merger, S&P, Moody's, and KBRA all issued statements affirming that there was no change to AG's ratings post-merger. We believe AG is well positioned for future growth in its new structure. We still have excess insurance company capital above what is needed to maintain our high ratings. KBRA last month affirmed AG's AA-plus financial strength rating, noting our strong capital position, skilled management team, strong risk management framework, and strengthening market positions. We continue to focus on optimizing the alignment of our capital and business opportunities to improve returns. In the first nine months of 2024, we benefited from earnings generated by alternative investments and marked the market gains on trading securities with solid performance totaling $135 million. The inception rate return on return on investments, including funds managed by SoundPoint and AHP, was approximately 13% through September. We continue to focus on our capital management program, in which we have targeted for years the repurchase of approximately $500 million annually of our common shares outstanding. We remain committed to our share repurchase program and expect to reach our $500 million target this year. As of November 8, 2024, the company has repurchased 10% of the shares that were outstanding on December 31, 2023. Our board has authorized an additional $250 million which brings our current authorization to approximately $385 million. For next year, we are targeting $500 million again for share repurchases. Touching on our one remaining unresolved Puerto Rico exposure, PREPA, the Title III Court has ordered the parties to continue mediation and extended the time for them to resolve their differences. We remain committed to a fair and consensual resolution for all PREPA stakeholders, but are determined to enforce our rights as a secured creditor if a reasonable settlement may not be achieved. Overall, this has been a strong year. Since 2020, the value our bond insurance provides has been more widely recognized by the market. More issuers continue to turn to Assured Guarantee to help control their borrowing costs and execute their transactions more cost efficiently. In 2024 specifically, we have seen an increase in the number of large, high-profile transactions that use insurance. We believe that we are on a trajectory for future growth of our business as we strategically pursue new product opportunities while appropriately managing risk and capital. I will now turn the call over to Rob to discuss our production results.