Corebridge Financial Inc.

Hello everyone and welcome to today's Corbridge Financial fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. My name is Seb and I'll be the operator for your call today. If you would like to ask a question during the Q&A session, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw from the queue, please press star 2. I will now hand it over to Ishil Miderosolu to begin the call.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Corbridge Financial's earnings update for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. Joining me on the call are Mark Costantini, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Elias Habaieb, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin with prepared remarks by Mark and Elias, and then we will take your questions. Today's comments may contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and are based upon management's current expectations and assumptions. Corbridge's filings with the SEC provide details on important factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Except as required by the applicable securities laws, Corbridge is under no obligation to update any forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change, and your caution to not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Additionally, today's remarks may refer to non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation of such measures to the most comparable GAAP figures is included in our earnings release, financial supplement, and earnings presentation. all of which are available at our website at investors.corbridgefinancial.com. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mark and Elias for their prepared remarks. Mark?

Good morning, and thanks for joining us. I want to begin by recognizing Kevin Hogan, who led this business for more than a decade, executed Corbridge's successful launch as a standalone company, and established a solid foundation for future growth. His help through the transition was invaluable and demonstrated a hallmark of his leadership style, his unwavering commitment to the success of his colleagues and company. For me, it's a tremendous honor to lead this great franchise with its noble purpose. Customer needs have never been greater. For financial protection, wealth accumulation, and retirements with dignity and confidence. And that means our opportunity to create value for customers and shareholders alike has never been greater. In my remarks this morning, I'd like to recap the company's 2025 performance through a strategic lens and share my early impressions of the company's strengths and opportunities. Then I'll turn it over to Elias for additional color on both our fourth quarter results and the company's 2026 outlook. Corbridge had a strong year in 2025. Earnings per share were up 4% year over year. Return on average equity was up 20 basis points and capital return to shareholders was up 13%. To create long-term value for shareholders in our industry, We must demonstrate an ability to grow profitably and generate consistent and growing cash flows from the insurance companies while preserving balance sheet strength. Corbridge did all three. Our growth in 2025 was strong, with sales up 4% to a record $42 billion. We launched our Ryla product, MarketLock, in a crowded field and quickly joined the top 10 providers. In fact, we are the only company to have a top 10 position across every major annuity product category. MarketLock is now available to more than 200 distribution partners across the United States, and we expect continued growth in 2026. Our diverse businesses at CoreBridge give us flexibility to adjust our capital allocation between our different offerings based on where risk adjusted returns are the highest and customer demand is the strongest. An example of that is the higher allocation to our institutional markets business in 2025. We grew institutional market sales by 24% overall, led by pension risk transfers and guaranteed investment contracts. to drive both current and future earnings growth. Proactively managing our balance sheet and maintaining financial flexibility are foundational to Corbridge. In 2025, Corbridge executed the industry's largest variable annuity reinsurance transaction to date, the final portions of which closed last month. The transaction de-risked the company's most complex liabilities And going forward, our legacy liabilities comprise approximately 1% of the balance sheet. In addition, we finished the year with a life fleet RBC ratio above 430% and holding company liquidity of $2.3 billion, both exceeding our targets. Finally, we continue to expand our Bermuda strategy where we have seeded approximately $20 billion of reserves to date providing critical financial optionality that helped Corbidge deliver on its financial and strategic goals. Disciplined execution of these levers is essential to driving shareholder value and ensuring resilient cash flows. As promised, the company is returning the substantial majority of the proceeds from the VA reinsurance transaction to shareholders in the form of share repurchases, which helped lift our 2025 payout ratio to 110%. Excluding the VA reinsurance transaction proceeds, we grew our insurance company dividends to the parent by 6% year over year in line with our guidance. Reflecting our continued confidence in our financial flexibility, we are pleased to report that our board of directors has approved a 4% increase in our quarterly common stock dividend to 25 cents per share above the pace of inflation. As Elias will discuss further, we've also taken action to reduce our sensitivity to short-term interest rate movements down nearly 75% since mid-2024. At the 10-week mark in my tenure as CEO, I want to provide some initial thoughts on the business. The four strategic pillars that have guided Corbidge for the past few years remain a useful lens to view the company's prospects. Although I am adding a fifth called win with customers. As I've told the team, my focus on delivering a superior customer value proposition could not be stronger. Everything from ongoing product innovation to industry leading service to a seamless end-to-end digital experience. As I look at our key strengths and opportunities, I'll begin with the powerful demographic tailwinds that are driving strong customer demand for retirement solutions. CoreBridge is well positioned to meet these needs. I believe our vast distribution network provides us with a clear competitive advantage. The average relationship with our top 25 partners is a quarter century long, and more than 40% of the annuity sales came from products that have bespoke features tailored for each specific distributor. With many partners, not only are they one of our top distributors, but we are one of their top manufacturers, commanding significant shelf space. I've competed against this distribution powerhouse in the past, and I can tell you how hard it is to replicate. Furthermore, our diversified business model is a proven source of strength. Our breadth of product and service offerings helps provide more stability to our financial results. allowing us to allocate capital to where returns are the most attractive and demand is the strongest. I also believe CoreBridge has an underappreciated critical differentiator that supports growth. Some companies in our space are liability-driven, designing products and then searching for assets to support them. Others are asset-driven, originating attractive opportunities and then finding suitable liabilities. CoreBridge excels at both. Another strength is our Bermuda strategy. It is an important lever for growth, profitability, and capital efficiency, and we will continue to take full advantage of it. One area of opportunity is fee-based earnings. We plan to grow them faster to achieve better balance across our sources of earnings. In group retirement, for example, there is a tremendous potential to grow wealth management by capturing more IRA rollovers and consolidating household assets. We have a captive opportunity within and out of plan clients to further expand and deepen our relationship. We believe this alone represents a $30 billion opportunity. But we have some work to do. We are actively investing to significantly enhance customer experience adding more advisors, and upgrading our digital wealth management capabilities. Collectively, we believe these investments will improve retention levels and grow our wealth management business. I also believe we are striking the right balance between returning capital to shareholders and investing for growth. Our 60 to 65% payout ratio rewards shareholders with cash today, while our reinvestment in the business rewards shareholders with cash in the future. Both are important. Since the IPO, the company has successfully reduced expenses with the Corbridge Forward program, which is a testament to the work the team has done to get ready to compete as a standalone entity. Going forward, I believe Corbridge must do two things at once. Deliver continuous improvement in our operating leverage while also making strategic investments to drive faster growth. We need to invest more to accelerate the pace of digitization, which is essential to improving our productivity as well as our distribution partners' and customers' experience. The easier we are to do business with, the greater the share market we can capture from the demographic surge fueling growth in our industry. All of which adds up to my most important early impression. The significant opportunity Corbridge has to grow faster and more profitably. As we further differentiate our customer value proposition and more fully capitalize on our world-class distribution, we will continue to create sustained shareholder value. In closing, I joined CorBridge because I believe in this franchise and believe we are capable of more than we've ever achieved before. We have a huge opportunity in front of us. We have hard to replicate competitive advantages. and we have a world-class team ready to show what they can do. Finally, as this is his last earnings call, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to Elias. He is an excellent CFO who helped me get under the hood and quickly understand all the moving parts at Corbridge. I wish him all the best in his next chapter. Elias.