Prudential Financial, Inc.

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Prudential Quarterly Earnings Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be given to you at that time. If you need assistance during the call today, press star and then zero, and an operator will assist you offline. And as a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Darren Arita. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Cynthia. Good morning and thank you for joining our call. Representing Prudential on today's call are Charlie Lowry, Chairman and CEO, Rob Falzon, Vice Chairman, Steve Pelletier, Head of U.S. Businesses, along with Andy Sullivan, our next Head of U.S. Businesses, Scott Slyster, Head of International Businesses, Ken Tanji, Chief Financial Officer, and Rob Axel, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer. We will start with prepared remarks by Charlie, Rob, and Ken, and then we will take your questions. Today's presentation may include forward-looking statements. It is possible that actual results may differ materially from the predictions we make today. In addition, this presentation may include references to non-GAAP measures. For a reconciliation of such measures to the comparable GAAP measures and a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, please see the slide titled Forward-Looking Statements and Non-Gap Measures in the appendix to today's presentation, which can be found on our website at investor.prudential.com. I'll hand it over to Charlie.

Thank you, Darren. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on this call. Yesterday, we reported third quarter earnings per share of $3.22. We also reported a year-to-date ROE of 13%. I'll begin by discussing our progress in executing our financial wellness strategy. We are committed to delivering a broader set of financial wellness solutions to more people in new ways, leveraging our scale across multiple distribution channels and drawing on our expertise, including product development and asset management. During the quarter, we took steps to expand our digital distribution capabilities through the announced acquisition of Assurance IQ, a fee-based and capital-light growth engine. Assurance is a leading direct-to-consumer platform for financial wellness solutions that enables us to serve a different demographic segment, including the mass and middle markets. Over time, we believe we can expand these capabilities internationally. The Assurance acquisition, which closed in October, also provides attractive financial benefits and significant upside potential. Assurance shares our purpose of solving the financial challenges of a changing world. which is at the core of who we are. In that vein, I'm pleased to note that Fortune has named Prudential to its prestigious Change the World list for a second consecutive year. We also made progress in the quarter towards our margin expansion goals by evolving and transforming the way we do business across the organization. Along these lines, we launched a voluntary separation program in October for segments of our U.S. workforce. These efforts are intended to better position us to meet the needs of our customers while driving greater speed and efficiency. Finally, we continue to advance our efforts to reduce the impact of market fluctuations and add transparency to our quarterly financial performance. As a result, beginning in the fourth quarter, our corporate and other results will be less affected by changes in the equity market and our own stock price. Looking ahead, we're taking a very disciplined approach to pricing to help offset the impact of rates on new business profitability, which will have an obvious effect on some of our sales. We are encouraged by our progress and are moving quickly and with conviction to implement the plans we have set forward to deliver meaningful solutions and long-term value to our customers and shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Rob for a closer look at our business performance for the quarter.