MetLife, Inc.

being recorded. Before we get started, I refer you to the cautionary note about forward-looking statements and yesterday's earnings release and two risk factors discussed in MetLife's SEC filings. With that, I will turn the call over to John Hall, Global Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for MetLife's first quarter 2025 earnings call. Before we begin, I'd point you to the information on non-GAAP measures on the investor relations portion of MetLife.com in our earnings release and in our quarterly financial supplements, which you should review. On the call this morning are Michelle Halaf, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John McCallion, Chief Financial Officer and Head of MetLife Investment Management. Also participating in the discussion are other members of senior management. Last night we released a set of supplemental slides which address the quarter as well as the risk transfer transaction we also announced yesterday. They are available on our website. John McCallion will speak to those supplemental slides in his prepared remarks. An appendix to the slides features additional disclosures, gap reconciliations, and other information which you should also review. After prepared remarks, we will have a Q&A session, which will end promptly at the top of the hour. As a reminder, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. With that, over to Michel.

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. A few months ago, we rolled out our new frontier strategy to guide MetLife over the course of the next five years. As you will recall, A keystone of our new frontier strategy is the all-weather nature of our market-leading set of businesses. And once again, after powering through the supply and mortality challenges of COVID and then bank liquidity concerns, we find our strategic diversification put to the test. As we move through 2025, with the odds of a recession on the rise, we are seeing unprecedented volatility in the daily trading of the U.S. equity markets. We are also seeing interest rates rise on the long end of the curve, fall in the middle, but Fed funds still remain high at the short end. Meanwhile, after a historic run of strengthening, the US dollar has started to weaken against many currencies around the world. Although MetLife is not immune to the impacts presented by this uncertain backdrop, we are confident we have the right businesses and the right strategy to meet the moment. At our core, MetLife is a recurring revenue business model. In any given year, the vast majority of the revenues and earnings we generate are a function of renewal premium or investment income from assets and liabilities that are already on our books. While a slowing economy can dampen growth for our group benefits business, we've not yet seen cracks in the job market. Further, the primary profit driver, mortality, for our largest group product line, Group Life, is largely uncorrelated to the economy. For our retirement and income solutions business and our investment management business, higher long-term interest rates are helpful on the demand side. The underlying growth of our international businesses, which has been partly masked by the strong dollar, could start to emerge as a tailwind. And standing behind it all, our investment portfolio has been risk-off for several years, and is well situated to absorb recessionary stress. Our positive track record on this front is well established. Over the course of our 157-year history, we have seen challenging times before and have succeeded in driving long-term value for our shareholders and other stakeholders, and we are well positioned to do so again. Let me now turn to our first quarter results, which we reported last night. I believe they reflect the resilience of our business model, and underscore many of the points I just made. We reported adjusted earnings of $1.3 billion, or $1.96 per share, up 7% from the same period a year ago. We saw favorable underwriting, good volume growth, and better variable investment income in the quarter, which were partially offset by unfavorable foreign currency exchange and recurring interest margins. Variable investment income was aided by the performance of our real estate funds, which continued this steady recovery. Private equity funds gained 1.6% in the quarter, which is below our implied quarterly outlook return. Our adjusted return on equity in the first quarter was 14.4%, and our 12% direct expense ratio is evidence of our efficiency mindset at work. Shifting to business segment results, Our group benefits business reported adjusted earnings of $367 million, up 29% from the prior year period, on favorable life underwriting margins due to lower mortality. We continue to see favorable mortality for the working age population, which is consistent with CDC data. Moving to retirement and income solutions, or RIS, adjusted earnings totaled $401 million in the quarter. Sales of synthetic gigs and UK longevity reinsurance were strong in the quarter and inflows associated with pension risk transfers totaled 1.8 billion, an outstanding start for the year. Our liability exposures are up 8% from a year ago. Looking to Asia, adjusted earnings were $374 million, down 12% over the same period a year ago on lower underwriting margins and higher taxes. Sales for the region were up 10% on strong volume growth in Korea and China. Sales in Japan have started to turn the corner, and we are seeing very good energy around a new U.S. dollar-denominated product that we introduced in the Banker Channel at the end of the first quarter. Turning to Latin America, adjusted earnings were $218 million, down 6% from the year-ago period, though foreign exchange rates played a role. On a constant currency basis, our adjusted earnings were up 7% compared to the prior year period. Adjusted PFOs in the region tell a similar story, up 1% on reported basis, but up 14% on a constant currency basis. Overall, we continue to see strong momentum across our leading markets in Latin America. Since launching our new frontier strategy in December, we have been laser focused executing on its key pillars, and we are already making meaningful progress. I'd like to expand by providing two related proof points. We were pleased to announce last night another significant risk transfer deal, particularly given the current economic landscape. We have entered into an agreement with Talcott Resolution Life Insurance Company to reinsure approximately $10 billion of U.S. retail variable annuity and rider reserves. Consistent with our long-term objectives, The planned transaction will accelerate the runoff of MetLife's legacy business, positively reduce the company's enterprise risk, and substantially lower the company's retail variable annuity tail risk. For its part, MetLife Investment Management is on an aspirational path to $1 trillion in total assets under management. We have integrated the teams from Mesero that we acquired in the quarter and we are working at pace to close our roughly 100 billion AUM acquisition of Pinebridge, a substantial down payment toward achieving our aspiration for MEM. Turning to capital and cash, in the first quarter, we accelerated our capital management activity, returning around $1.8 billion to shareholders through common stock dividends and share repurchases. We paid common stock dividends of roughly $400 million and repurchased approximately $1.4 billion of our common shares. The above average buyback pace was a function of fewer repurchases in the fourth quarter as we were locked out of the market due to pending announcements. We expect subsequent quarters this year to be at a more measured pace. Following our new $3 billion repurchase authorization that was announced last night, our total board authorization is now about $3.4 billion. In recognition of our financial strength and flexibility, our board of directors increased our common dividend per share by 4.1% last week. And further adding to our financial flexibility, we were active in the debt capital markets in the first quarter, issuing $1.25 billion of precapitalized trust securities, as well as $1 billion of subordinated debt. We ended the quarter with $4.5 billion of cash and liquid assets at our holding companies. which is above our target cash buffer of $3 to $4 billion. Shifting to governance, we announced in February that Christian Mumenthaler will be joining our board of directors effective May 1. Prior to joining our board, Christian had a distinguished career at Swiss Re, culminating in an eight-year term as group chief executive officer. We are glad to have someone with his skill set and experience on our board as we drive our new frontier strategy forward. In closing, the underlying fundamentals of our portfolio of businesses remain strong, as evidenced by our solid first quarter performance. While the operating environment may present challenges, we have emerged stronger from prior periods of turmoil. We've done this by following a playbook that focuses on the levers we control, like discretionary expenses, without sacrificing investments in strategic growth initiatives. When we set our new frontier goals, we were under no delusion that it would be easy. One of the things that gives me confidence in our ability to succeed is the team here at MetLife. For the third year in a row, we are proud to have been named among the 100 best companies to work for by Fortune. Our team is energized and engaged. That leaves me convinced that our people are up to the task at hand, driven and motivated to deliver on MetLife's superior value proposition of responsible growth, attractive returns, and lower risk. Now I'll turn it over to John to cover our quarterly performance in more detail.