Jackson Financial Inc.

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Jackson Financial First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode until the question and answer session begins. Following the presentation, we'll conduct a question and answer session. This call is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Liz Werner, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning everyone and welcome to Jackson's 2026 first quarter earnings call. Today's remarks may contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or events. Jackson's filings with the SEC provide details on important factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially. Except as required by law, Jackson is under no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Today's remarks may also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation of those measures to the most comparable U.S. GAAP figures is included in our earnings release, our financial supplement, and earnings presentation, all of which are available on the Investor Relations page of our website at investors.jackson.com. Presenting on today's call are Jackson CEO Laura Prescorn and CFO Don Cummings. Joining us in the room are our President of PPM America, our Investment Management Subsidiary, Chris Robb, and our Head of Asset Liability Management, Brian Walta. At this time, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Laura Prescore.

Thank you, Liz. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today for Jackson Financial's first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'll start by highlighting the quarter's positive results and the solid progress toward achieving our 2026 financial targets. Following my remarks, Don Cummings, our Chief Financial Officer, will discuss our financial results in greater detail. Beginning with the bigger picture, 2026 is off to a strong start. Through a volatile market, we successfully executed our capital management and growth initiatives. Turning to the quarter's key metrics on slide 3, you'll see we maintained a resilient capital position. Total adjusted capital of $5.5 billion is up nearly 5% from the first quarter last year. Our strong capital generation continues to support both distributions to our holding company and consistent capital return to shareholders. During the quarter, we distributed $288 million from our operating company to JFI, our holding company. Our common shareholders benefited from an 11% increase in capital return from a year ago to $257 million in the form of shareholder dividends and share repurchases. We remain focused on maintaining a balanced approach to capital management, including investing in new business while maintaining our financial strength and consistent capital return to our shareholders. Looking ahead, we're confident in our ability to generate free cash flow supported by a healthy book of business and expectations for profitable growth. Turning to earnings, our operating performance was strong. Pre-tax operating earnings were up 12% from a year ago, excluding the impact of notable items. On a per-share basis, the increase was 18%, reflecting the benefits of our share repurchase program. Growth of spread-based earnings more than offset the impact of market volatility on fee income. We expect continued momentum here driven by our spread-based business and the benefits of our expanding product lineup, our enhanced investment capabilities, and our broad distribution reach. For the first quarter, retail annuity sales increased 31% from a year ago, a great result. Much of that growth came from our MarketLink Pro 3 and MarketLink Pro Advisory 3, our leading RILA offerings. Ryla sales have now exceeded $2 billion in quarterly sales since we launched the products in May 2025. We're proud these sales have elevated us to be the industry's third largest Ryla provider with more than $21 billion in Ryla assets. We expect continued strong demand from advisors and their clients who value the combination of the growth potential and the downside protection that these products offer. Further adding to retail annuity sales growth was our spread-based business, including the recent launch of Jackson Income Assurance. our fixed indexed annuity or FIA. Our FIA offers a highly valued income benefit and helps advisors deliver retirement income protection solutions their clients can count on. Since our launch in August of 2025, our FIA offering has been positively received and we expect FIA sales momentum to continue. In the first quarter, fixed annuity and FIA sales reached $756 million, a significant increase from $174 million a year ago. We anticipate future sales momentum for our spread-based products. With PPM's broad-based investment expertise and the recently announced investment partnership with TPG, we're confident in our ability to offer competitive spread-based products to our many distribution partners. Importantly, we saw considerable improvement in net outflows, which improved by 30% from a year ago and decreased nearly 6% from the fourth quarter 2025. This improvement reflects significant RILA inflows and lower variable annuity surrenders and withdrawals. The decline from last quarter reflects recent equity market uncertainty, which typically leads to lower surrender activity. As our variable annuity block continues to mature, we do expect continued withdrawal activity as policyholders take advantage of their valued benefits. On the distribution front, we're expanding and making annuities more accessible as a retirement solution. Within the advisory channel, we're a leading provider and have accelerated our product diversification efforts. In the first quarter, Ryla and Elite Access accounted for more than 70% of fee-based advisory sales. Additionally, our new competitive FIA product accounted for more than 10% of total advisory sales this quarter, and we anticipate continued growth in its contribution to sales in this channel. As advisors and their clients navigate changing markets and individual financial goals, we believe our solutions-based and consultative approach underscores a unique value proposition across a growing annuity market. With our full suite of products and industry-leading service, Jackson remains a trusted partner across a growing and dynamic annuity market. Turning to slide four, you can see the significant shift in our business since our separation. Today, nearly 40% of our account values come from spread-based and investment-only variable annuities, a meaningful shift that reflects the progress we've made in diversifying our InForce book. Nearly five years into our journey as a public company, our focus remains clear. We're driving growth through a diversified and broader product portfolio and expanded distribution reach. Staying disciplined and execution-focused is a long-held strength for Jackson. As we execute on our growth initiatives and deliver on our commitments, we expect to build long-term value in our business and for our stakeholders. Now turning to slide five and looking ahead to the full year, We've started the year off strong and are on track to achieve our 2026 financial targets. In the quarter, free capital generation was $271 million and we expect that to build over the course of the year under our current modest market assumption. We continue to expect to reach our 2026 free capital generation target of $1.2 billion along with our capital return to common shareholders in the range of $900 million to $1.1 billion. Further, at the end of the first quarter, our holding company liquidity is nearly $650 million comfortably above our minimum buffer. As you know, We recently established a long-term strategic partnership with TPG, which brings expertise in asset-based finance and direct lending areas that complement PPN's existing capabilities and create opportunities for enhanced investment returns. We've already started allocating new money to TPG-managed assets, And while we don't expect an outsized allocation to these asset classes, we do believe the investment returns will support profitable growth across our spread-based products over time. Importantly, our relatively low current exposure to private credit provides us the flexibility to invest opportunistically when market volatility creates attractive entry points. We continue to maintain our disciplined investment approach, working closely with TPG, and see great value in our strategic partnership. Later in our remarks, you'll hear more about our investment portfolio and how the asset classes and the expertise TPG brings fit well within our current portfolio and business strategy. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Don.