Equitable Holdings, Inc.

Good morning. My name is Rob and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Equitable Holdings fourth quarter and full year earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again press the star one. Thank you. Ashil Mudurasoglu, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Equitable Holdings' fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings call. Materials for today's call can be found on our website at ir.equitableholdings.com. Before we begin, I would like to note that some of the information we present today is forward-looking and subject to certain SEC rules and regulations regarding disclosure. Our results may materially differ from those expressed in or indicated by such forward-looking statements, so I'd like to refer you to the Safe Harbor language on slide two of our presentation for additional information. Joining me on today's call is Mark Pearson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Equitable Holdings, Robin Raju, our Chief Financial Officer, Nick Lane, President of Equitable Financial, and Kate Burke, Alliance Bernstein's Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. During this call, we will be discussing certain financial measures that are not based on generally accepted accounting principles, also known as non-GAAP measures. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures and related definitions may be found on the investor relations portion of our website in our earnings release slide presentation and financial supplement. I would now like to turn the call over to Mark and Robin for their prepared remarks.

Good morning, and thank you for joining today's call. On slide three, I will highlight results from the year. Non-GAAP operating earnings were $5.08 per share or $5.55 per share after adjusting for notable items, down 8% in the year. A strong performance despite 2022's turbulent markets, which saw equity markets fall 20% and bond values down 13%. Managing what is within our control is particularly important now. We have achieved our 180 million incremental general account investment income target one year ahead of schedule and realized net expense savings of $50 million. Assets under management at the end of the period was $754 billion down 17% year to date, but up 5% compared to quarter three. We had a strong year with $10 billion in total company inflows, with $4.6 billion of inflows in our core retirement business, in addition to $900 million in asset management and $4.5 billion in wealth management. While we did see elevated mortality in the fourth quarter, This reversed favorable experience reported earlier in the year. And overall, our full year mortality experience was $20 million better than our expectations. The benefits of our economic management and hedging program continue. We have $2 billion of cash at holdings and a combined RBC ratio at the end of the year of 425%. In 2022, we returned $1.3 billion to shareholders, a 15% growth in free cash flow per share. This payout was 57% of our adjusted non-GAAP operating earnings at the top end of our guidance range. Post-LDTI accounting changes, we are increasing our payout guidance to 55% to 65% of operating earnings and expect 2023 cash generation of $1.3 billion. We see continued momentum in our retirement and asset management businesses. We benefit from the increasing demand for advice-orientated retirement products, with total premiums up 6% over the year to $19 billion. At AB, Seth and his team are navigating the industry-wide pressures on flows and margins extremely well. We've completed the acquisition of Carvel Investors, helping shift AB's asset mix over the year and improving its annual fee rate by 3%. Interest rate increased over 230 basis points in the year, benefiting both our general account and new business values. On the general account, new money yields are 190 basis points higher than the average portfolio yield. and interest rate rises combined with strong sales have resulted in record new business value for the year. Turning to slide four, we highlight the unique opportunity we have to leverage synergies across our retirement, asset management, and advice businesses. This demonstrates how businesses are stronger together and drive significant value for shareholders. As of the year end, we have deployed 70% of our $10 billion capital commitment from our insurance business to seed growth in AB's private markets platform, with meaningful impact coming through higher yields in our general account and supporting the acquisition of Carvel investors. Similarly, AB's Lifetime Income Solutions supports Equitable's institutional 401k business with nearly $800 million of premiums in the year. Looking forward, we see this as a largely untapped opportunity to benefit from the passage of the Secure 2.0 Act. Turning to advice, we continue to realize the benefits of a proprietary sales force with equitable advisors delivering approximately 50% of our $19 billion retirement premiums this year, in addition to $10.4 billion of wealth management sales. In retirement, our strong premiums supported $4.6 billion in core retirement inflows, up 89% compared to prior year. And despite the fall in markets, we are delivering a 4% organic growth rate. We also delivered record new business value from strong sales and the benefit of rising interest rates. Turning to asset management, Flows and short-term performance remained under pressure, a consistent story for the industry. But AB's relative performance is strong, with $900 million in total inflows, driven by $3.2 billion in active strategies, excluding the expected redemptions from AXA. Despite fixed income outflows with rising rates putting pressure on performance this year, AB saw organic growth across the U.S. retail and Japanese markets, along with active equities and municipals, and the private wealth business grew organically for the fifth year in the last seven. Importantly, the strategic focus on AB's private markets and the acquisition of Carvel brought our private markets platform to $56 billion, up 57% on the year, resulting in a 3% fee rate improvement and a healthy institutional pipeline. Through AB's track record of attracting third-party teams and building internal capabilities, we see meaningful long-term growth opportunities for AB and Equitable, leading to higher multiple earnings and cash flows. In our wealth management business, we reported $10.4 billion in investment product sales, of which over 85% were in fee-based advisory accounts, our second best year in sales after a record year in 2021. Despite challenging markets, our advisors delivered $4.5 billion in wealth management net inflows, driving a 5% organic growth rate, and productivity was up 2% over prior year. We look forward to breaking out this segment next quarter, providing further disclosure and transparency around the importance of our 4,300 advisors to our business model. I will now turn the call over to Robin to discuss the results from the year and fourth quarter in more detail. Robin?