Equitable Holdings, Inc.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Equitable Holdings Q1 2026 earnings and conferencing 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 one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Eric Bass, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations. Eric, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Equitable Holdings first quarter 2026 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 differ materially from those expressed in or indicated by such forward-looking statements. Please refer to the Safe Harbor language on slide two of our presentation for additional information. Joining me on today's call are Mark Pearson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Equitable Holdings, Robin Raju, our Chief Financial Officer, Nick Lane, President of Equitable Financial, Onur Erzan, President of Alliance Bernstein, and Tom Simeone, Chief Financial Officer of Alliance Bernstein. 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. Reconciliations 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 and in our earnings release, slide presentation, and financial supplement. We will also refer to the pending transaction with CoreBridge. Any statements about the transaction made during this call are not an offer of securities. A registration statement containing a prospectus will be filed with the SEC in connection with the transaction. I will now turn the call over to Mark.

Good morning, and thank you for joining today's call. The first quarter marked an extraordinary moment in Equitable's 166-year history with the announcement of our planned merger with Corbridge, which will create a world-class platform to help our customers plan, save for, and achieve secure financial futures. This morning, I will spend some time discussing why we believe that by leveraging the complementary strengths of Equitable and Corbridge, the combined company will deliver tremendous value for both our customers and shareholders. On slide four, I will start by providing a few highlights from our first quarter results. We reported non-GAAP operating earnings of $1.62 per share, or $1.68 per share after adjusting for notable items. This increased 25% versus the first quarter of 2025, driven by healthy organic growth momentum, improved mortality experience, and a lower share count. We continue to expect earnings per share growth to exceed the high end of our 12% to 15% target range in 2026. Assets under management ended the quarter at $1.1 trillion, up 9% year over year. While equity markets declined modestly in the first quarter, They have since recovered, and higher average AUM versus 2025 levels should continue to provide a near-term tailwind for earnings. Our balance sheet remains a core strength with a combined NAIC RBC ratio of approximately 475% and $1.2 billion of holding company liquidity. Our credit portfolio continues to form well, and as Robin will walk through, we are positioned to handle even a severe stress scenario. We remain committed to being a consistent returner of capital and executing the share buybacks assumed in our 2026 financial plan. Turning to organic growth, we see good momentum in retirement sales and flows, even as the level of competition has increased. Total sales increased 10% year over year, driven by strength in Rylas, and we have $1.3 billion of net inflows. Wealth Management delivered another strong growth quarter with $2 billion of advisory net inflows. Over the last 12 months, the business produced a 13% organic growth rate. During the quarter, we also closed on the acquisition of Stiefel Independent Advisors, which is a good example of how we can use bolt-on M&A to help scale our wealth management business. Asset management earnings grew 11% year over year, driven by higher AUM and increased ownership. AB had net outflows of $7.1 billion in the first quarter, driven primarily by active equities and taxable fixed income. Private wealth and private markets remain bright spots as both had positive flows in the period. Total private markets AUM increased 13% year-over-year to $85 billion, and AB remains on track to meet or exceed its target of 90 to 100 billion in AUM by the end of 2027. While near-term flows may remain volatile, AB has a record institutional pipeline of nearly $28 billion, which includes several large insurance mandates that we'll fund over the next few quarters. AB will also be a meaningful beneficiary of the Corbridge merger, as we expect it to receive at least $100 billion of incremental assets over the next few years. As I will walk through over the next few slides, The motivating factor behind the Corbidge merger is our belief that it will accelerate our growth strategy and position us to be a long-term winner across all the markets we compete in. The companies have complementary strengths with limited overlap across products. We have already begun the integration planning process and have high confidence in achieving at least $500 million of expense synergies. As a result, the merger will be immediately accretive to earnings per share, and we expect to deliver 10% plus accretion on a run rate basis by the end of 2028 with potential upside from revenue synergies. Moving to slide five, before talking about the merger, I want to highlight five attributes we believe are critical for long-term success and which we use when evaluating any strategic option, including this merger. Underlying everything, of course, is providing an exceptional customer experience. Customers that are easy to do business with and offer the products and advice needed to transform complex financial risks into simple, reliable outcomes will attract clients and distributors. Developing deep brand loyalty will help create predictable and growing value for shareholders. Second, in intermediated markets like financial services, having strong distribution is critical as clients want local access to expert, personalized advice. Privileged shelf space, particularly in channels with high barriers to entry, provides a meaningful competitive advantage in acquiring new customers while also managing the costs of funds. Third is the imperative of competitive scale. Size matters. Being able to invest in technology and automation will improve efficiency and result in lower unit costs and a lower expense ratio. This provides capacity to reinvest in growth while simultaneously delivering higher profit margins. Fourth, we know that shareholders value consistent growth in earnings and cash flow across different market cycles, and having diversified sources of earnings and capital enhances the ability to deliver this. Disciplined risk management is also critical to give clients and investors confidence in the resilience of the balance sheet, especially during periods of macro uncertainty and market stress. Finally, we see significant value in owning insurance, asset management, and wealth management businesses to participate in the full value chain and benefit from the significant demographic tailwinds driving growth across each of these markets. It also means that shareholders capture the high multiple fee earnings generated by distributing and managing the assets associated with the insurance and retirement solutions that are manufactured. By attracting the very best talent and aligning to these five convictions, we ensure that when our clients win, our shareholders win. Turning to slide six, I will highlight why the merger with Corbridge aligns to these convictions and will drive growth and shareholder value. The merger brings together three outstanding franchises to create a diversified financial services company with over 12 million customers $1.5 trillion in AUMA and leading positions across retirement, life insurance, asset management, and wealth management. Equitable and Corbridge complement each other well with different strengths and limited overlap. We intend to capitalize on our scale advantages to reduce unit costs and achieve a lower cost of capital. We expect to have a top quartile expense ratio and we'll be able to combine our resources when making growth investments. This will make us more profitable, drive more cash generation, and increase our return on capital. We will have formidable distribution capabilities and leading positions across the retail, institutional, and worksite channels. The depth and breadth of our distribution should enable us to expand our offerings while achieving a lower average cost of funds, resulting in more profitable new business. We will also have flexibility to allocate capital where we see the best risk-adjusted returns and customer demand. In addition, our integrated business model allows us to capture the full value chain by acting as a product manufacturer, distributor, and asset manager. This differentiates us from our competitors, most of whom only participate in one or two of these verticals. While the merger will shift our mix more towards retirement, it also helps scale AB and wealth management, enhancing the value of these high multiple businesses. We remain focused on maximizing the flywheel benefits inherent in our model. Finally, the new equitable will have a robust balance sheet and is expected to generate over $4 billion of cash flow annually. We are aligned in having strong financial principles that govern how we operate, starting with economic management of the balance sheet and a focus on cash generation. Ultimately, we want to produce consistent results and cash flow across market cycles so that we can provide attractive returns to shareholders while also investing for growth. I will conclude on slide seven by providing some clear examples of how the merger will help accelerate growth across all our businesses. Starting with retirement and institutional, the combined firm will have approximately $540 billion of AUM, an unmatched breadth across products and distribution. We knew that equitable would need to become more diversified over time in order to fully participate in the growing US retirement market. And combining with Corbridge makes us a top three provider of fixed and indexed annuities, and expands our institutional capabilities, notably in pension risk transfer. It also adds a strong life business that provides earnings and capital diversification and should benefit from selling through equitable advisors. In addition, the merger doubles our third party distribution network to approximately 900 firms, expanding our ability to reach new customers. The combined firm will originate $70 to $80 billion of liabilities annually, highlighting the size and scale of our platform. We will have a more balanced business mix that provides liquidity benefits and positions us well to generate consistent growth across market cycles while deploying capital where we can earn the most attractive returns. Moving to asset management, AB will also benefit from the merger in multiple ways. We expect AB to add at least $100 billion of core bridge general and separate account assets over the next couple of years, resulting in total AUM of nearly $1 trillion. AB will also benefit from the combined firm's increased liability generation, which should drive higher ongoing net inflows. we also see an opportunity to commercialize some of Corbidge's internal asset origination capabilities, particularly for real estate and commercial mortgage loans by leveraging AB's global distribution. Over time, we expect to find additional sources of incremental revenues and net flows, including the potential to develop new commercial partnerships. Lastly, The addition of Corbridge Advisors accelerates the path to scaling our wealth management business and adds approximately $20 billion of AUA. The merger will expand our proprietary product offering to include fixed and indexed annuities and indexed universal life, which will be a win for Advisors, particularly our emerging sales force. We will have a more attractive platform and more financial resources which should enhance our ability to recruit and develop new and experienced financial advisors. Overall, the key message I want to leave you with is that having increased scale would provide competitive advantages that translate into stronger and more consistent growth and enhances our profitability. I will now turn the call over to Robin to highlight the financial benefits from the merger and discuss our first quarter results in more detail.