MetLife, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MetLife Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Before we get started, I refer you to the cautionary note about forward-looking statements in yesterday's earnings release and to risk factors discussed in MetLife's SAC filings. With that, I will turn the call over to John Hall, Global Head of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate your participation today on MetLife's second quarter 2025 earnings call. Before we begin, I direct 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 supplement, 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 available to participate in the discussion are other members of senior management. Last night, we released a set of supplemental slides which address the quarter. 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 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 welcome everyone to this morning's call. During the second quarter, we continued to navigate an evolving and dynamic economic environment while executing against our new frontier growth strategy. We demonstrated all-weather performance and clear momentum across business segments, posting strong sales in many markets, executing strategic transactions, maintaining a laser focus on managing expenses, and returning capital to shareholders. Although the second quarter does not demonstrate the full earnings power of MetLife, we're confident in our ability to deliver on the commitments of our new frontier strategy. Looking ahead, we are encouraged by the underlying momentum across our businesses as we head into the back half of the year. Turning to the results, we reported adjusted earnings of $1.4 billion, or $2.02 per share for the second quarter. This reflects less favorable underwriting, albeit within normal fluctuations, and less favorable investment margins versus a year ago. Variable investment income, which we report on a one-quarter lag, was in line with our June disclosure. Our private equity portfolio generated a positive 0.9% return in contrast to a negative 4.6% return for the comparable timeframe for the S&P 500. We anticipate a better result in the third quarter and will continue with our advanced disclosure protocol. Among key performance metrics aligned to our new frontier commitments, we generated a quarterly adjusted return on equity of 14.6%, well above our cost of capital and very near our mid-teen target range, while also absorbing below par variable investment income. We continue to focus on what we can control actively managing our expenses while still investing for growth, and achieving a quarterly direct expense ratio of 11.7%, beating our annual target of 12.1%. And we generated strong free cash flow, enabling us to return roughly $900 million to shareholders in the form of common dividends and share repurchases in the quarter. Moving to business segment highlights, group benefits adjusted earnings of $400 million were down from a record quarter in the prior year, largely due to less favorable life and non-medical health underwriting in the quarter. Although group life underwriting was less favorable than a year ago, we outperformed relative to our 2025 outlook range, which we expect to continue for this year. For non-medical health, while still within a normal range, we saw some elevated experience in several products, which we do not expect to continue in the balance of the year. We also saw a small number of large disability claims during the quarter that can occur from time to time, which we do not believe to be a trend. Year to date, group benefit sales are up 9% driven by growth in regional business. Adjusted premiums, fees, and other revenues grew 4% from a year ago. We continue to find new ways to grow and capitalize on market trends, including investing in tools that simplify and enable the benefits experience while creating a distribution advantage. We signed an additional strategic partnership with Workday in June to reach more employers and better serve their employees with our benefits experience platform, Upwise. In fact, two-thirds of employees surveyed have shared that Upwise makes the process of choosing benefits easier, leading to greater participation in voluntary products. In our Retirement and Income Solutions, or RIS, segment, We reported adjusted earnings of $368 million, mainly due to lower recurring interest margins. Total liability exposures were up 6% from a year ago and above our 2025 outlook range of 3 to 5%. This was driven by outstanding growth in UK longevity reinsurance and a strong contribution from general account products. Another product line within RIS is our funding agreement back node, or FABN business. As a pioneer in this type of spread lending, our ability to originate this business is well established. We originate at a favorable cost of funding due to the quality of our balance sheet and the breadth and liquidity of our market presence. We match our low cost origination with our top flight asset and liability management. We do all this while minimizing funding and maturity risks, satisfying two principal tenets of our new frontier strategy. attractive returns with lower risk. Shifting to Asia, adjusted earnings were $350 million on less favorable investment and underwriting margins. Business momentum was particularly strong as sales rose 9% on a constant currency basis, propelled by our two largest markets in the region. On a constant currency basis, sales jumped 29% and 36% in Japan and Korea, respectively, following successful new product launches. Strong sales growth also translated into growth in general account assets under management, which rose 6% year over year on a constant currency basis. Tied to this momentum, I recently visited Japan and Korea, where I had the opportunity to witness firsthand the team's energy and focus on achieving our new frontier commitments. For Latin America, adjusted earnings totaled $233 million, matching the segment's all-time quarterly high results. Adjusted earnings were up 3% and 15% on a constant currency basis from the same period a year ago. Contributors included volume growth across the region, a consistent theme for Latin America, along with favorable Chilean and Caja returns in the quarter. Rounding out our international markets, EMEA posted near-record adjusted earnings of $100 million, up 30% on both a reported and constant currency basis, primarily due to volume and sales growth across the region. In addition to driving organic growth across our portfolio of businesses, we are adding value through strategic transactions, including three we've announced since December, the acquisition of Pinebridge Investments, the formation of Chariot Re, and a risk transfer deal with Taka Financial Group. We are excited about the growth prospects for our expanded investment management platform with Pinebridge. The acquisition has been well received by both firms' clients and we're on track to close in the second half of this year. On July 1, we successfully launched Chariot Re alongside our co-sponsor, General Atlantic, with an initial $10 billion reinsurance deal and more to come. Our strategic partnership with Chariot Re will support growth in our diversified retirement platform and generate institutional client assets under management for MetLife Investment Management. And our variable annuity risk transfer deal with Talcott is moving forward, and we're on schedule for our second half close. This transaction will positively reduce MetLife's enterprise risk associated with the capital markets. These three initiatives showcase new frontier in action. They are closely linked and illustrate how we are already delivering on our new frontier priorities. Significantly, they place us at the convergence of insurance and asset management and position us to leverage the full power of MetLife. Turning to capital and cash, MetLife was active with capital management in the second quarter. We paid roughly $400 million of common stock dividends to shareholders and repurchased approximately $500 million of our common stock. In July, we repurchased around $140 million of our common stock, which brings our total year to date to over $2 billion. Since 2021, We've repurchased nearly $16 billion of our shares. We've done so consistently and evenly over that timeframe, reducing our share count by more than 240 million shares. At the same time, we continue to invest for growth, funding acquisitions like Pinebridge, which is an addition to the capital we'll return to shareholders in 2025. At the end of the quarter, we had $5.2 billion of cash and liquid assets at our holding companies, which is above the high end of our 3 to 4 billion target buffer range. We have pre-funded second half preferred stock redemptions and debt maturities totaling $1.5 billion, which are included in our second quarter cash balance. In closing, this quarter showed how MetLife's diversified portfolio of market-leading businesses can deliver across economic cycles while providing a strong foundation for future financial outperformance. Our focus is unchanged. generating responsible growth and attractive returns with lower risk for our shareholders, as well as value for our customers as we execute on the strategic priorities outlined by our new frontier strategy. Now I'll turn it over to John to cover our performance in greater detail.