Ambac Financial Group, Inc.

And welcome to NBAC Financial Group in first quarter 2023 planning call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press the star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Charles Sabatich. Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to AMBEC's first quarter 2023 call to discuss financial results. Speaking today will be Claude LeBlanc, President and CEO, and David Trick, Chief Financial Officer. They will discuss the financial results of our business and the current market environment. And after prepared remarks, we'll take your questions. For those of you following along on the webcast, during the prepared remarks, we will be highlighting some slides from the investor presentation, which can be located on our website. Our call today includes forward-looking statements. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statement involves risks and uncertainties and is not a guarantee of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors. These factors are described in the forward-looking statements in our earnings press release and our most recent 10Q and 10K filed with the SEC. We do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements. Also, in our prepared remarks or responses to questions, we may also mention some non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation to those non-GAAP measures are included in our most recent earnings press release operating supplement and other materials available in the investor relations section of our website, AMBAC.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Claude LeBlanc.

Thank you, Chuck, and welcome to everyone joining today's call. AMBAC kicked off 2023 with strong momentum and an enhanced financial position, which allowed us to maturely progress our strategic initiatives during the quarter. Our growing specialty P&C franchise continues to deliver strong results with over $129 million of premium production this quarter, an 87% increase over the prior year's quarter. We continue to work with AEC's regulator on a revised capital and operating framework, and we remain optimistic that we will be able to complete that process near the middle of this year. Working with our advisors, we are also actively exploring all of the options available to us to maximize value from our legacy financial guarantee businesses on both a time and risk-adjust basis. I'm also pleased that we continue to attract top talent to our specialty P&C business franchise, including our recent hire of Naveen Anand as president of Serata Group. Naveen's extensive experience in specialty P&C insurance will serve us well as we continue to grow our insurance distribution platform. Additionally, at our upcoming annual stockholders meeting we are excited to be nominating Christy Mattis and Michael Price for election to our board of directors. Christy and Michael will add significant insurance expertise to our existing board. The roster of high-caliber talent we continue to attract is a strong testament to our achievements to date and gives me great confidence in our ability to realize our long-term goals. As for our financial results, For the quarter ending March 31, 2023, AMBAC reported a net loss of $33 million or $0.73 per diluted share and an adjusted net loss of $14 million or $0.30 per diluted share. AMBAC ended the first quarter of 2023 with a book value of $1.25 billion and an adjusted book value of $1.26 billion, largely in line with the results reported at December 31, 2022. David will discuss our financial results in more detail shortly, but first I would like to share some segment highlights for the quarter. Everspan Group, our specialty program insurer, continued its strong growth, reporting gross premiums written of $52 million for the quarter, up 116% over last year. Everspan continues to expand and diversify its MGA program partners, which currently stand at 15, up from 10 a year ago. This expansion has the added benefit of diversifying the book, which should improve the stability and performance of the portfolio. For instance, commercial auto liability, our largest risk class at 61% of gross premium, is down this quarter from 94% last year. The team remains focused on growing and further diversifying the business with strong program partners backed by a leading panel of highly rated reinsurers. We expect Everspan to generate approximately $250 million of gross premiums this year, subject to market conditions. Hitting that growth target in 2023 should allow Everspan to reach profitability in the back half of the year and continue the trajectory of growing gross premiums upwards of $500 million over the next several years. Turning to our insurance distribution business. Serata had a great start to 2023, with premiums placed of $77 million, up 72% over the prior year, and EBITDA of $4.5 million, supported by last year's acquisitions of Altrans and Capacity Marine, in addition to strong growth at Exchange. We continue to see significant opportunities for Serata, whether in the form of additional de novo platforms, product expansion across our current businesses, or through additional M&A transactions. Exchange Re, our new personal accident cap and special risk reinsurance retrocession MGU launched earlier this year, is off to a great start and is already exceeding our expectations. When adjusting for anticipated seasonality, we believe Serata will exceed its 2023 target premium of $200 million while maintaining its attractive margins. Turning now to our legacy financial guarantee segment. As we explore strategic options for our legacy business, there are two key considerations that will influence our path forward. First will be the results of the OCI regulatory capital review. As I mentioned, over the course of the last quarter, we have been actively working with our Wisconsin regulator to achieve clarity on a new capital and operating framework. While not in our control, we remain optimistic that the OCIL will complete this work by the middle of the year, which is critical for our evaluation of strategic options. Second, we are currently working with our US and UK advisors on evaluating the range of available options for our legacy businesses, each of which are not mutually exclusive, including the following. One, the ongoing active runoff of a profitable, delevered, and de-risked legacy platform, potentially consolidating AEC with AUK. Two, strategic portfolio de-risking transactions with the goal of freeing up capital and further increasing the financial flexibility and value of our businesses. Three, a strategic joint venture arrangement to generate increased value and financial flexibility at both AEC and AFG. And finally, a full or partial sale of the legacy business, in which the value of our well-preserved NOLs at AAC would be a key consideration. In the meantime, we continue our active de-risking of the legacy insured portfolio. For the quarter, our net power standing is down 1.5% to $22.4 billion, and our watch list and adversely classified credits were reduced by approximately 3%, including the further reduction of our substantially diminished Puerto Rico exposure. I will now turn the call over to David to discuss our financial results for the quarter. David.