Corebridge Financial Inc.

Hello everyone, thank you for joining us and welcome to Corbridge Financial Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Ixil Mudresolu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Please go ahead. Ixil Mudresolu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Please go ahead.

Ixil Mudresolu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Please go ahead. Ixil Mudresolu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Please go ahead. Ixil Mudresolu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Please go ahead. Ixil Mudresolu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Please go ahead. Ixil Mudresolu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Please go ahead. Ixil Mudresolu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Please go ahead. Ixil Mudresolu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Please go ahead. Ixil Mudresolu, Head of Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Please go ahead. Ixil Mudresolu We will begin with prepared remarks by Mark and Chris, 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, Probridge is under no obligation to update any forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change, and you are cautioned 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 on our website at investors.corbridgefinancial.com. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mark and Chris for their prepared remarks. Mark?

Good morning, and thanks for joining us. I'd like to formally welcome our CFO, Chris Vigliacci, to the call, as well as our Chief Investment Officer, Lisa Longino. I'll begin this morning with a recap on the strategic rationale of our transformative merger with Equitable and an update on progress we've made to date, followed by some observations on the current market environment and how Corbidge's business model performed in the first quarter. I'll also spotlight some of the actions we're taking to win with customers. Turning to slide three, We are bringing together three outstanding franchises to create a diversified financial services company with leading positions in retirement, life, wealth, and asset management. Together, we will have more than 12 million customers and 1.5 trillion in assets under management and administration. Our combined distribution capabilities will be formidable. We will have a large multi-channel distribution ecosystem to reach the broadest possible customer base. Our enhanced scale will drive significant synergies, $500 million in expense synergies plus meaningful upside opportunities from additional revenue tax and capital synergies. Our greater scale should reduce our cost of capital, help us provide better customer solutions at lower cost, allow for greater investment, and strengthen our ability to attract top talent. The transaction will allow us to further diversify our source of income, which helps provide resilient earnings across market cycles. Our growth prospects will be considerable across the combined company's businesses with our integrated model allowing us to capture the full value chain. The balance sheet of the combined company will be robust. By 2027, we expect earnings to exceed $5 billion per year. Cash generation will be strong and consistent, topping $4 billion per year. The merger will be immediately creative to both earnings per share and cash generation. both of which should increase to 10 plus percent by year end 2028. Turning to slide four, the upside potential for all our businesses will be strengthened with the merger. In individual retirement and life, we will have meaningful revenue synergies. For example, our fixed and fixed index annuities will complement equitable annuity offerings, and their variable universal life product will complement our life offerings. Together, we will be a leader in the 403B group retirement space with a large workplace distribution force. We will have more capabilities and balance sheet capacity to support our growth in institutional markets. In the combined companies, asset management, and wealth management businesses, Alliance Bernstein will have nearly a trillion dollars in AUM and will have over 5,000 advisors to drive growth. We are making good progress on steps required to close this transformative transaction. We already have completed a vast majority of our regulatory filings. Our Form S4, including the shareholder proxy statement, will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shortly. We believe the shareholders of both companies will approve the transaction given its compelling rationale. The executive team of the combined company has been determined and will be communicated soon. I'm confident we have the right leadership to execute on all our strategic objectives. Both companies have established integration management offices that are hard at work planning a seamless integration that captures the full value of the synergies. Finally, an important update on the timing of share repurchases. As we indicated in the 8 file earlier this month, we are exploring undertaking share repurchases prior to the closing of the merger, including during the period from filing the preliminary proxy with the SEC until we mail the final proxy to shareholders. We also continue to expect another opportunity when we can repurchase shares after the shareholders vote this summer, subject to normal blackout periods. Any remaining capital we plan to deploy will be facilitated post-close, likely through an accelerated share repurchase. Turning to slide five, Corbridge demonstrated strong performance driven by favorable industry demographics and sustained customer demand in the first quarter. Despite facing heightened market volatility and competition, our disciplined approach continues to deliver solid results. Our wide array of product and service offerings enable us to meet a wide variety of customer needs, enhance the stability of our financial results, and allow us to allocate capital where returns are the highest. Our powerful balance sheet continues to give us financial flexibility and our discipline execution shows up in everything we do. Our overall performance in the quarter was strong, excluding variable investment income and notable items. Year-over-year operating earnings per share were up 13% and adjusted return on equity was up 120 basis points. The foundation of our success is winning with customers, and I include our distribution partners and plan sponsors in that category. We were proud to be ranked number one by J.D. Power for partner satisfaction in annuity distribution. This validates our strategic focus on the advisor experience and our goal of being the easiest firm in the industry to do business with. We also continue to see strong momentum in our group retirement NPS with plan sponsor satisfaction rising year over year. I'll have more to say about how we're investing in customer experience in a minute. In individual retirement, we delivered strong sales of $4.3 billion while maintaining pricing discipline and consistently positive net flows. The market outlook remains positive. The peak 65 surge is continuing with another 4 million Americans hitting that retirement milestone this year. In group retirement, we continue to see the transition from a spread to fee-based business. Fee-based earnings are approximately 60% of the total with advisory and brokerage assets rising to all-time new highs, growing 14% year-over-year, benefiting from record levels of net inflows. In life, including VII and seasonally higher mortality, we continue to deliver earnings within our guided range, reinforcing its stable earnings for the company. And in institutional markets, the underlying business continues to grow with an 18% increase in reserves. We issued a billion dollars of guaranteed investment contracts in January, including our first ever Canadian dollar denominated gig. The pension risk transfer pipeline remains healthy with greater activity expected in the second half of the year. I believe the key to our success will be a relentless focus on putting the customer at the center of everything we do. Our roadmap is simple. Delivery a differentiated customer value proposition, be the easiest company to do business with, and maintain a world-class distribution. That is how we generate more value for customers and investors alike. As I said on my first earnings call three months ago, we're going to make the investments needed to improve the customer experience. Those efforts are well underway at Corbridge in 2026. A few highlights. We've launched a customer council steered by the executive leadership group and comprised of cross-functional senior leaders from across the company. They are showcasing key initiatives sharing best practices, identifying quick wins, and above all, ensuring we maintain a customer-first mindset. Across our retail operations, we're modernizing how new business is onboarded by further enhancing digital submissions, strengthening upfront suitability checks, and improving real-time application status, all of which helps remove uncertainty, delay, and friction from the process. We've launched a new wealth management digital experience last month that allows clients to seamlessly navigate their product and service relationship with us and stay connected with their financial advisor. We're moving permanent life products onto our digital submission platform, and we're launching a new payroll platform that makes it easier for group retirement plan sponsors to integrate their payroll data with us. In closing, we're excited about the future of our business. Externally powerful demographic tailwinds are creating a large market opportunity. Internally, our customer-first mindset and emphasis on operating at speed will enable us to capture a significant share of that opportunity. The result will be a company that delivers significant growth in earnings per share, cash generation, and shareholder value. This is true of Corbidge today and will continue into the future as a combined company. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Chris.