Ambac Financial Group, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the AMBAC Financial Group, Inc. first quarter 2024 earnings 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 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 Sebaske, Head of Investor Relations.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to AMBAC's first quarter 2024 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 statement due to a variety of factors. These factors are described under 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 mention some non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation to those non-GAAP measures are included in our recent earnings release, operating supplement, and other materials available to investors on our website, amvec.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. I'm pleased to report for the first quarter, we generated net income of $20 million and adjusted net income of $38 million. Book value per share stands at $30.19. David will discuss our financial results in more detail shortly. Turning to our P&C businesses. A rapidly growing specialty P&C insurance platform generated $187 million in premium for the quarter, a 45% increase over last year. We expect the growth of our specialty P&C businesses will continue to be fueled by strong tailwinds supported by the secular shift towards the E&S markets and expansion in underwriting specialization needed to support complex risks. We believe that being a premier destination for MGAs means offering a specialized and differentiated set of solutions tailored to the specific needs of this rapidly growing segment, which reached nearly $90 billion in premiums for 2023. Our differentiated market offering provides our MGAs with the following key value drivers. First, access to capital, whether it's in the form of risk capital from a rated balance sheet at Everspan or growth capital as a portfolio company under Serata. Second, leading risk and oversight controls. Third, access to reinsurance and other risk transfer solutions. And fourth, business agility supported by our broad technology-focused shared services. We believe that these differentiated solutions uniquely positions us to attract the best MGAs and program partners and in turn deliver superior long-term results for our shareholders. Turning to Everspan's results for the quarter. Everspan had a strong start to the year, generating gross written premiums of $96 million, which was up 86% over last year. Everspan's book is becoming more diversified and balanced across risk classes. For instance, At ERIN 2022, commercial auto represented 93% of our net premiums written. However, by the first quarter of 2024, commercial auto was down to 8% of net premiums written, and four other lines of business each accounted for over 10% of net premiums. We believe that continued diversification in our specialty lines will have the long-term benefit of more stable and predictable underwriting results. This quarter, Everspent also generated its first underwriting profit with a 98% combined ratio, the sixth consecutive quarterly underwriting improvement. And on the business we're writing, we continue to see pricing exceed loss cost trends. Turning to Serata, our insurance distribution business placed over $90 million of premium, up 17% over the prior year, and generated $5 million of EBITDA for the quarter. This was supported by the ongoing benefit of organic growth initiatives and the financial performance of last year's acquisitions. Over the last year, we launched several notable expansion efforts within Serata. These included the Exchange Re program and a new Transportation for Hire program at AllTrans. We're also gearing up to launch two new Professional Alliance programs. These initiatives, amongst others, are expected to be a catalyst for organic growth during 2024. We're also evaluating a number of strategic opportunities at Serata. Regarding the Legacy Financial Guarantee business, the assessment of strategic options for this business, which we announced late last year, is progressing as planned. Since launching our process, we have progressed discussions with a number of interested parties about the business. Consistent with our original expectations, we hope to be in a position to provide you with an update by or before our next earnings call. I will now turn the call over to David to discuss our financial results for the quarter. David.