MetLife, Inc.

Also available to participate in the discussion are other members of senior management. Last night, we released an earnings call presentation, which addresses the quarter as well as our near-term outlook. It is available on our website. John McCallion will speak to this presentation in his prepared remarks. An appendix to the deck features outlook sensitivities, 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. When we launched New Frontier a year ago, we introduced four strategic priorities with a greater emphasis on growth. Over the past 12 months, we have advanced these strategic priorities growing our business responsibly, deploying capital soundly, and operating with speed and discipline, all while navigating a dynamic market and economic environment. Reinforcing our market leadership, our best-in-class group benefits business added approximately $600 million of new adjusted premiums, fees, and other revenues in 2025, with higher margin voluntary PFOs rising 10% year over year. Scale, technology, and discipline continue to drive this attractive business forward. We capitalized on our unique retirement platform by seeding a sidecar, Chariot Re, tapping the U.S. retail retirement space via Flory Insurance, and originating more than $14 billion of pension risk transfer sales, MetLife's highest ever annual PRT total. To accelerate growth and asset management, we closed on the acquisition of Pinebridge Investments, and established a new business segment, MetLife Investment Management. At year end, MEM had $742 billion of assets under management, up from roughly $600 billion a year ago. And our high-growth international markets demonstrated their strategic importance with impressive growth rates. In 2025, Asia saw constant currency sales jump 18%, aided by a strong contribution from Japan. While Latin America saw constant currency sales rise by 12%, with Mexico leading the charge. Our business growth has been fueled by sound capital deployment and capital management. And 2025 was a seminal year for MetLife on this front. We expect to have deployed close to $4 billion to support organic new business in 2025, driven in part by the PRT origination and the Asia and Latin sales production that I just mentioned. We returned roughly $2.9 billion to shareholders via common stock repurchase and another $1.5 billion through common stock dividends, bringing the total to approximately $4.4 billion. We did this while funding about $1.2 billion of acquisitions and business investments, including Pinebridge and Mesereau, making two investments in chariotry, as well as boosting our investment in PNB MetLife, our India joint venture. And we executed several strategic reinsurance transactions. Among these were two separate deals with Charitry totaling about $11 billion of liabilities and a risk transfer agreement with Talcott totaling $10 billion of liabilities. When we introduced our new frontier strategic priorities last year, we also established a fresh set of five-year financial commitments that underscore MetLife's superior value proposition. These commitments not only serve to challenge us, but more importantly, to hold us accountable. We committed to achieving double-digit adjusted EPS growth over the timeframe, recognizing this will not always be a linear path. And in 2025, we delivered roughly 10% adjusted EPS growth, excluding notable items. We committed to achieving a 15 to 17% adjusted return on equity. For the full year, X notable items, we delivered 16%. we committed to shaving 100 basis points over five years to achieve a direct expense ratio of 11.3%. In 2025 alone, aided by AI and other emerging technologies, we lowered our direct expense ratio to 11.7%, putting us well ahead of schedule. And where it all comes together, free cash flow, we committed to generate $25 billion over the course of five years. In 2025, we made a $4.9 billion down payment toward that cumulative target. Throughout Next Horizon and now through New Frontier, the prevailing constant has been change. The all-weather nature of our market-leading businesses position MetLife to adapt and succeed in a variety of economic environments. One year into New Frontier, it is clear we have the right strategy at the right time, focused on the right growth opportunities, and measuring ourselves against the right metrics. Turning to fourth quarter results, we reported strong quarterly adjusted earnings of $1.6 billion, or $2.49 per share. Excluding notable items, we reported $2.58 per share, up 24% compared to $2.08 per share a year ago. On an actionable basis, this represents MetLife's highest single EPS quarter. Contributing to the outperformance in the quarter was robust underlying business momentum across most segments aided by another consecutive quarter of improved variable investment income, which totaled $497 million. Our private equity portfolio returned 2.8% in the quarter, and we also saw a modest rebound in returns on our real estate and other funds as well. Adjusted premiums, fees, and other revenues, or PFOs, rose 8% to $12.8 billion and rose 29% to $18.6 billion when retained pension risk transfer deals are included. For the full year 2025, we reported adjusted earnings excluding notable items of $6 billion, or $8.89 per share, up roughly 10%. Higher variable investment income, volume growth, and capital management drove the growth in earnings per share. As we do each fourth quarter, we included our outlook for certain near-term targets and other elements of guidance in our earnings call presentation. This year, in view of our resegmentation, we have taken a more prescriptive approach. In a moment, John will delve into our near-term outlook in greater detail. But on a high level, it should be evident we are on track to achieve our five-year commitments for adjusted EPS, adjusted ROE, direct expense ratio, and free cash flow, among others established on their new frontier. Turning to MetLife's businesses, group benefits adjusted earnings excluding notable items totaled $465 million in the fourth quarter, contributing to full-year adjusted earnings ex-notables of $1.7 billion. Life mortality continues to trend favorably, which we expect to persist in 2026. Repricing has returned dental to target profitability, while disability experience trailed our expectations in the quarter. This year anticipates 7% to 9% growth in adjusted earnings year over year, driven by PFO growth and supported by underwriting. In retirement and income solutions, adjusted earnings excluding notable items were $454 million for the quarter, up 18%, bringing full-year adjusted earnings ex-notables to $1.7 billion. For the year, RIS benefited from record origination in both PRT and UK longevity reinsurance. For Asia, adjusted earnings ex-notables totaled $444 million for the quarter and $1.6 billion for the year. Strong annual sales growth from new products, in particular foreign currency-denominated products in Japan and Korea, pushed general account assets under management to advance 7% on a constant currency basis in 2025. Looking to Latin America, adjusted earnings excluding notable items came to $227 million, up 13% in the quarter. Business momentum in the region has been outstanding over the past several years, supplemented by the expansion of digital platforms such as Accelerator and growing strategic partnerships. Given the segment's strength in the quarter, it is not hard to see a pathway to $1 billion in annual adjusted earnings over the near term. With EMEA, the segment continues to punch above its weight class relative to last year's outlook. The segment reported adjusted earnings ex-notables of $97 million in the quarter, which is close to the run rate implied by our 2026 outlook. And to close out business highlights, in the fourth quarter, we transitioned to new segmentation with the introduction of MetLife Investment Management as a business segment. This aligns with our new frontier strategic priorities, reflects the critical mass we've gained with the acquisition of Pinebridge, and underscores our intent to grow and further capitalize on the increasing conversions of life insurance and asset management. Moving to cash and capital, the fourth quarter serves as an excellent reminder of MetLife's capital strength and flexibility. After retiring half a billion dollars of debt, buying back around $430 million of common stock, paying roughly $370 million of common stock dividends, and funding close to $1 billion of acquisitions and other investments. We ended the year with $3.6 billion of cash and cash equivalents. This falls firmly within our target liquidity buffer of $3 to $4 billion. A final note on capital. In the month of January, we repurchased another $200 million of our common stock. We expect 2026 repurchases to be in line with 2025. To wrap up, The strategic actions we took in 2025 set the table for the coming years of new frontier and position MetLife to deliver on our financial commitments and our superior value proposition of responsible growth and attractive returns with less risk. We are entering 2026 as a stronger company with sustained business momentum and expanding market leadership. While the macro and market environments continue to evolve, we remain laser focused on the levers we control and on relentless execution to generate responsible growth, deploy capital with rigor, and further drive operating efficiency. MetLife's financial strength feeds our ability to deliver for our shareholders, as well as other stakeholders, including our customers, employees, and communities. In 2025, MetLife paid roughly $50 billion in policyholder benefits and claims, and invested more than $90 billion to support our liabilities. The sheer scale of these numbers highlights the dedication of our people to MetLife's purpose, always with you, building a more confident future. I am energized by our team's commitment and look forward to the future as there is still much for us to achieve. Now I'll turn it over to John to cover our performance and outlook in greater detail.

Thank you, Michel, and good morning, everyone. I'll review our fourth quarter results. and refer to the fourth quarter earnings call presentation for financial highlights, including our near-term outlook. Starting on page three, we made significant progress in 2025 toward our five-year financial goals. We achieved 10% adjusted EPS growth, an adjusted ROE of 16% within our target range, a two-year average free cash flow ratio of 81%, surpassing our target, and a full year direct expense ratio of 11.7%, also beating our target. Overall, an excellent first year, which establishes a strong foundation for our new frontier strategy. Net income was approximately $800 million and $3.2 billion for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025, respectively. The difference between net income and adjusted earnings was mostly attributable to net derivative losses. primarily due to rising long-term interest rates, favorable equity markets, and stronger U.S. dollar. We use derivatives to hedge economic exposures where these offsets are either reported elsewhere in the financial statements or where the offsetting economics emerge over time. In addition, net investment losses were largely the result of normal trading activity on the portfolio, and credit remained stable. We had two notable items in the fourth quarter that reduced adjusted earnings by $61 million in the aggregate, or 9 cents per share. The notable items were the Mexico VAT impact we discussed in the third quarter, and higher asbestos litigation reserves recorded in corporate and other. Moving to page four, this slide compares fourth quarter year-over-year adjusted earnings, excluding notable items, by segment and corporate and other. All my comments refer to figures excluding notable items. Adjusted earnings rose 18%, 17% in constant currency to $1.7 billion driven by higher variable investment income, strong volume growth, and favorable expense margins, partially offset by lower recurring interest margins. Also, we have revised our definition of adjusted earnings to exclude the non-cash accounting of real estate depreciation. to align the impact of real estate asset value changes and better reflect the recurring cash flow and returns of the investment in adjusted earnings. This change increased fourth quarter adjusted earnings by $57 million and is expected to add about $200 million annually, mostly benefiting corporate and other. Adjusted earnings per share were $2.58, up 24% and 23% on a constant currency basis. Growth was supported by disciplined capital management. Moving to the businesses, group benefits adjusted earnings were $465 million, up 12% year over year, largely driven by favorable underwriting, primarily in life and dental, partially offset by weaker disability. The group life mortality ratio is 81.1% for the quarter and 83.1% for the full year. Below our 2025 target range of 84 to 89%, reflecting continued improvement in working age mortality trends. The fourth quarter non-medical health interest adjusted benefit ratio of 72.2% was within our annual target range. Seasonally low dental utilization was in line with expectations. However, disability results came in below expectations due to higher average severity and higher incidence in the quarter, albeit within pricing expectations. Group benefits adjusted PFOs for the fourth quarter and full year 2025 was up 2% year-over-year. Excluding the impact of roughly two percentage points from participating life contracts, the growth would be 4%. RAS adjusted earnings were $454 million, up 18% year-over-year, primarily driven by higher variable investment income. Investment spreads, excluding VII, remained relatively stable at 99 basis points, up one basis point sequentially. RAS delivered substantial inflows in 2025, driven by record sales of $42 billion in the year. Venture risk transfers were more than $14 billion, and UK longevity transactions were $11 billion, including $7 billion in the fourth quarter. The strength of this origination platform and growth throughout 2025 underscores the global demand for life and retirement solutions, as well as our focus in leveraging strategic reinsurance to enhance our capital flexibility to support this trend. Asia adjusted earnings were $444 million, essentially flat year over year, up 1% on a constant currency basis. The primary drivers were volume growth and favorable expense margins. These were partially offset by less favorable underwriting margins versus the prior year quarter, which had positive reserve refinements that benefited adjusted earnings by roughly $30 million. Asia's key top line growth metrics were robust in the fourth quarter and full year of 2025. The general account assets under management at amortized costs were up 7% on a constant currency basis. Sales were up 18% on a constant currency basis on both a quarterly and a full year basis. primarily driven by Japan and Korea, our two largest markets in the region. Latin America adjusted earnings were $227 million, up 13%, and up 4% on a constant currency basis, driven by volume growth across the region. Latin America's adjusted PFOs were up 25% and 16% on a constant currency basis, while sales were up 26% on a constant currency basis due to strong growth across the region most notably in Mexico and Brazil. EMEA adjusted earnings were $97 million, up 64% on both a reported and constant currency basis. The primary drivers were robust volume growth as well as favorable underwriting margins. EMEA adjusted PFOs were up 21% and up 17% on a constant currency basis. Sales were up 24% on a constant currency basis, reflecting strength across most markets, led by Turkey and the UK. Turn to MetLife Investment Management, or MIM, which we are reporting as a standalone business segment for the first time. MIM delivered adjusted earnings of $60 million in Q4 of 25 versus $16 million in Q4 of 24. The primary driver year over year was the transition to general account market fees. as part of becoming a business segment. Looking ahead, we would point you toward MN's key financial metrics as shown in our quarterly financial supplement. In addition to the statement of adjusted earnings, we provided AUM and revenue information for both institutional clients and the general account. Corporate & Other, which now includes MetLife Holdings, our legacy runoff business, reported an adjusted loss of $38 million for Q4 of 25. compared to an adjusted loss of $72 million in the same period last year. The primary drivers were favorable investment margins and expense margins. These were partially offset by less favorable life underwriting margins. Page 5 shows our pre-tax variable investment income, or VII, for the four quarters in full year 2025 as well as full year 2024. Variable investment income is $497 million in Q4, driven by private equities, which had an average return of 2.8%, while real estate and other funds had an average return of 1.1%. As a reminder, PE and real estate and other funds are reported on a one-quarter lag and accounted for on a mark-to-market basis. For the full year, VII was $1.5 billion, below our 2025 target of $1.7 billion, but well ahead of the prior year. Real estate and other funds accounted for much of the shortfall, while PE returns, which generated a full-year 2025 return of 8.2%, were modestly below our annual expected return of 9%. On page six, we provide VII post-tax by segment and corporate and other for the four quarters and full year of 2025. Most of the VII assets are concentrated in Asia, RAS, and our legacy runoff business now in corporate and other. consistent with the long-term nature of these obligations. As of December 31, 2025, total VII assets stood at approximately $19 billion. Asia represented nearly 45% of the assets, while RAS and corporate and other accounted for about 30% and 25% respectively. Turning to page 7, this chart shows a comparison of our direct expense ratio for the fourth quarter and full year 20 2024 and 2025, as you can see, we continue to benefit from our efficiency mindset and driving down our cost curve with our direct expense ratio falling to 11.7% for the year, which is well ahead of target. This includes seeing the benefits from the adoption of Ai tools and other emerging technology broadly across our company. as we've seen the opportunities to re-engineer processes while also injecting AI tools to enhance the speed and accuracy of our delivery, all of which improves the lives of our customers and our employees. Let me now review our cash and capital position as detailed on page eight. MetLife remains strongly capitalized with robust liquidity. As of December 31st, cash and liquid assets at the holding companies totaled $3.6 billion. in line with our target cash buffer of $3 to $4 billion. The acquisition of Pinebridge, which closed in the quarter, was the main driver of the reduction in whole code cash sequentially. In addition, total cash returned to shareholders in the fourth quarter was about $800 million, including approximately $430 million of share repurchases. An additional roughly $200 million of shares were repurchased in January. For the two-year period, 2024 and 2025, our average free cash flow ratio excluding total notable items was 81%, exceeding our 65% to 75% target range. In terms of statutory capital for our U.S. companies, our combined 2025 NAIC RBC ratio is expected to be above our 360% target. Our estimated U.S. statutory adjusted capital on an NAIC basis stood at approximately $17.2 billion as of December 31st, up 1% from the third quarter. We anticipate the Japan solvency margin ratio to be around 770% as of December 31st, pending the final statutory filings in the coming weeks. As a reminder, this will be the last stat filing in Japan based on the SMR. which will be transitioning to an economic solvency ratio, or ESR. As we have previously disclosed, we expect to report an initial ESR within a range of 170 to 190 percent for March 2026. Now let's discuss our outlook starting with the overview on page 10. Based on the forward currency curve, we expect the U.S. dollar to be stable in 2026 relative to 2025. The forward interest rate curve projects long-term interest rates to be modestly higher and the yield curve expected to steepen, a positive development. And we use an assumption of 5% annual return for the S&P 500. For our near-term targets, we expect to achieve double-digit adjusted EPS growth. We expect adjusted ROE to be in the range of 15% to 17%. We expect to maintain our two-year average free cash flow ratio of 65% to 75% of adjusted earnings, which supports our five-year commitment to generate $25 billion plus of free cash flow. Specifically for 2026, given asset management businesses tend to have higher expense ratios, the acquisition of Pine Bridge will add 50 basis points to our direct expense ratio in 2026. with our 2026 target being 12.1%. However, with the considerable progress we've made in the first year under New Frontier towards achieving 100 basis point improvement over the five years, we intend to maintain our 2029 target of 11.3% despite the higher expense ratios associated with accelerating growth in our asset management business. Variable investment income is expected to be approximately $1.6 billion pre-tax Our corporate and other adjusted loss is expected to be between $500 and $700 million after tax. We are maintaining our expected effective tax rate range of 24 to 26%. And we expect our 2026 share repurchases to be in line with 2025. At the bottom of the page, you will see certain interest rate sensitivities relative to our base case, reflecting a relatively modest impact on adjusted earnings over the near term. Page 11 provides our outlook for VII. We expect the average asset balances for private equities to decline in 2026 and over the near term as we continue to strategically reposition the portfolio to higher yielding fixed income securities consistent with the higher interest rate environment. We are assuming annual returns for private equity be 9% and real estate and other funds to be 7% over the near term. Finally, as a reminder, we include prepayment fees on fixed maturities and mortgage loans in VII. Moving to our business segments on page 12, starting with group benefits, we are maintaining our adjusted PFO growth target of 4 to 7% over the near term as we continue to strengthen our market leadership. We are reducing our group life mortality ratio target range by one point to 83 to 88% as we expect favorable mortality trends will continue in 2026. For group non-medical health, we are increasing our interest adjusted benefit ratio target range by one point to 70 to 75%. We are seeing the benefits of our leave and absence capability and technology investments take hold in the market. And therefore, this range is reflective of our updated view of product mix over the near term. Taking all these factors into account, we expect group benefits adjusted earnings ex-notables to grow 7% to 9% in 2026. Please keep in mind Q1 tends to be seasonally low quarter with both life and non-medical health results skewing to the higher end of the target ratio ranges. RES near-term outlook is on page 13. As part of New Frontier, we are strategically leveraging reinsurance to augment our organic capital with third-party capital to support the building demand for retirement solutions. This further supplements our liability growth while allowing us to maintain capital discipline. The common theme is capital flexibility. With our expanded toolkit, we're able to support liability growth and at the same time generate additional investable assets to be managed by MetLife Investment Management. As a result, we've enhanced the statistical pages in the QFS to more clearly reflect the impact of our growing use of reinsurance. As such, RAS segment earnings will be driven by retained liability exposures net of reinsurance. More specifically, the average retained liability exposures, which we expect to grow 3 to 5 percent in 2026, with growth weighted toward the second half of the year. We expect RAS adjusted earnings in 2026 to be between $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion. Given growth is weighted to the second half of 2026, Q1 adjusted earnings is expected to be relatively flat year over year. Finally, we expect total general account investment spread to range from 100 to 120 basis points in 2026. For Asia, on page 14, we expect annual sales growth to be mid to high single digits on a constant currency basis over the near term and general account AUM growth in the mid single digits. Asia adjusted earnings excluding notable items are expected to grow mid single digits over the near term. Regarding the Japan ESR, assuming 100 basis point change up or down in either or both the 10-year U.S. Treasury and or the 30-year jgb rates we expect to remain within 170 to 190 percent target range on page 15 for latin america we expect adjusted pfos to grow high single digits over the near term we expect latin america adjusted earnings excluding notable items to increase six to eight percent in 2026 including a roughly $50 million impact from the Mexico VAT change, which we expect to be mostly in the first half of the year. We expect adjusted earnings to return to high single digits growth in 2027 and 2028. Moving to EMEA, we expect adjusted PFOs to continue to grow high single digits given the strong momentum in the business. For adjusted earnings, we expect EMEA's new quarterly run rate to increase to $90 to $100 million in 2026, and then grow mid to high single digits in 2027 and 2028. Finally, for MIM, we expect revenues to grow roughly 30% in 2026, largely driven by the combination of Pinebridge, and then increase by mid single digits thereafter. For MIM adjusted earnings, we expect to be between $240 and $280 million in 2026. then grow 15 to 20% per year in 2027 and 2028 from a combination of revenue and expense synergies as well as greater operating leverage. By 2028, we are targeting an operating margin of approximately 32%. In addition, we expect MIMS Q1 adjusted earnings to be approximately $50 million, lower than the implied quarterly run rate due to higher seasonal expenses in the first quarter. In total, MetLife delivered a strong quarter to close out another strong year. We successfully executed key strategic initiatives to support new frontier while achieving our financial commitments. Building on our clear momentum and solid fundamentals across our diverse set of market leading businesses, we achieved robust top line growth, maintained disciplined underwriting, and exercised prudent expense management. With a strong balance sheet and reliable free cash flow generation, we are well positioned to achieve responsible growth and deliver attractive returns with lower risk, creating sustainable value for both our customers and our shareholders. And with that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for your questions.