Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to Octave Specialty Group Inc. First Quarter 2026 Learning Squad. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Karen Byer, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Octave's first quarter 2026 call to discuss financial results. Speaking today will be Claude LeBlanc, President and CEO, and David Tritt, Chief Financial Officer. They will discuss the financial results of our business in the current market environment. And after prepared remarks, we'll take your questions. Also available for Q&A today will be executives from our insurance distribution segment. For those of you following along on the webcast during the prepared remarks, we will be highlighting some slides from the investor presentation, which can be located on our website. Our call today includes forward-looking statements. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statement involves risks and uncertainty, and it is not a guarantee of future performance. Actually, results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statement due to a variety of factors. These factors are described under forward-looking statements in our earnings press release and in our most recent 10Q and 10K filed with the SEC. We do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements. Also, in our prepared remarks or responses to questions, we may mention some non-GAAP natural measures. Reconciliation to those non-GAAP measures are included in our recent earnings press release, operating supplement, and other materials available in the investor section on our website, octavegroup.com. And now I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Claude LeBlanc.

Thank you, Karen, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report that we started the year with a strong first quarter. Our performance was led by our core insurance distribution business, which grew total revenues 92%, driven by robust organic growth of 42%, and the October 2025 acquisition of Roboticare. Adjusted EBITDA for this segment was $25 million, nearly a four-fold increase compared to a year ago, with margin still contributing negatively to adjusted EBITDA. Our specialty property category segment reported good top-line growth and is well-positioned to grow through both third-party and select active programs as the year progresses. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $1.6 million, essentially flat year-over-year when excluding the impact of a settlement or a potential litigation matter related to an insurance claim. David will provide more details of the financial results for the quarter in his commentary. Our story has been one of continued momentum. Over the last five years, we have executed a clear strategy to reposition Octave, transitioning from our legacy business toward a modern, scalable MGA platform. We have executed strategic acquisitions, including Deep Capital Partners in 2024 and Herboticare in 2025. while making significant strides in realigning our cost structure to match the scale of our growing platform. Optive Ventures, our incubator, is the best-in-class scalable platform, offering a full suite of business solutions and capacity for startup MGAs, which provides us a significant advantage in attracting top underwriting talent in the market. Our pipeline and white space for startup MGAs remains broad and robust. One of Octave's core strengths is the diversification of its platform, both in terms of sector and product line, as well as in the maturity of our businesses. This is further bolstered by our focus on specialized areas where we have a competitive edge, a combination that we believe will enable our portfolio to perform across market cycles. For example, our action and the acquisition of Roboticare and strong organic growth in our other A&H business. We believe our A&H businesses are well positioned to capitalize on secular trends, such as growth of self-funded employer health plans, leading to opportunities for growth in our employer stop-loss, employee benefits, and supplemental A&H businesses. As part of our key organic growth initiatives, geographic expansion and crossover, supported by enhanced carrier relationships and a digital data infrastructure that reinforces underwriting and speed to market. Octave's data and AI strategy, supported by our digital data infrastructure, is a digital part of our company strategy, woven into our growth, integration, and risk oversight plans. We are pursuing AI through two complementary tracks. The first is bespoke proprietary systems, which are capabilities built on our data designed by us and built by us for specific underwriting and servicing use cases. Hammurabi, which I discussed last quarter, is one example. The second is a curated partner model where we work with best-in-class AI providers who bring proven commercial capabilities and where the data foundry is clearly defined and contractually protected. For us, or her data extraction from submissions. Together, these tracks let us move quickly on impactful opportunities while building the proprietary capabilities that will define and differentiate Octave as a theater-rich and AI-powered energy platform. With that backdrop, I would like to provide our perspective on the current environment and how we see Octave navigating the current market. Property lines continue to soften following years of hardening. This is particularly evident in the large and middle market account segments, as well as on cap-driven exposures. At Octave, our property-focused MGAs are well-diversified across the U.S., U.K., and Bermuda markets, and primarily focus on low-cap exposed lines and niche SME markets, which has sheltered us from the most volatile parts of the property market. So while we are exposed to property pricing trends, our property-focused portfolio companies are navigating rate declines and selectively seeking to underwrite risk where risk-adjusted returns remain attractive. In casualty lines, our portfolio companies continue to see a positive rate environment, particularly in higher hazard lines such as transport and habitational, where loss trends continue to drive rate increases, in many cases above 10%. We are seeing a moderation of rate increases in segments with lower hazard risk and in the SME segment of the casualty market. And lastly, our niche professional and other specialty portfolio companies continue to show good growth in a moderating to stable rate environment. In summary, while we have experienced some headwinds in certain lines, the diversification of our portfolio, our experienced underwriting leadership team, and the early stage growth of our USMGAs give us confidence in our ability to achieve our growth targets while maintaining strong underwriting performance. I will now turn it over to David to review our first quarter results. David?