Prudential Financial, Inc.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Representing Prudential on today's call are Charlie Lowry, Chairman and CEO, Rob Falzon, Vice President, Vice Chairman, Andy Sullivan, Head of U.S. Businesses, Scott Fleister, Head of International Businesses, Ken Tangy, Chief Financial Officer, and Rob Axel, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer. We will start with a pair of 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 reconciliation of such measures to the comparable GAAP measures and the discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, please see the slides titled Forward-Looking Statements and Non-GAAP Measures in the appendix of today's presentation. and the quarterly financial supplement, both of which can be found on our website at investor.prudential.com. Now, I'll turn the call over to Bob McLaughlin.

Please go ahead. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Representing Prudential on today's call are Charlie Lowery, Chairman and CEO, Rob Fausen, Vice Chairman, Andy Sullivan, Head of U.S. Businesses, Scott Schleister, Head of International Businesses, Ken Tangy, Chief Financial Officer, and Rob Axel, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer. We will start with prepared comments 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 reconciliation of such measures to the comparable GAAP measures, and discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, please see the slides titled Forward-Looking Statements and Non-Gap Measures in the appendix to today's presentation and the quarterly financial supplement, both of which can be found on our website at investor.prudential.com. Now I'll turn it over to Charlie.

Thank you, Bob, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning. We delivered solid operating earnings for the first quarter, including strong variable investment income that more than offset the impact of elevated mortality from COVID-19. We've also recently achieved multiple significant milestones in our transformation process to become a higher growth, less market sensitive, and more nimble company. These milestones included continued execution on our plans to reposition our businesses. We completed two key divestitures and announced another programmatic acquisition. We continued to invest in our businesses to further enhance the customer experience and expand solutions to support sustainable long-term growth. And we also further advanced the progress on our $750 million cost savings program. We are pleased with the pace of these initiatives, which are well supported by our rock-solid balance sheet, and help us expand access to investing insurance and retirement security for our customers and clients around the world. I'll provide an update on each of these areas before turning it over to Rob and Ken. Moving to slide three. At the beginning of April, we successfully completed the divestiture of our full-service retirement business and the sale of a significant portion of our legacy variable annuities block. These dispositions reduce the overall market sensitivity of our businesses by approximately 20%, while enabling us to further sharpen our focus on higher growth opportunities, including programmatic M&A in asset management and emerging markets. To that end, we agreed during the quarter to acquire a minority stake in Alexander Forbes, a leading provider of financial advice, retirement, investment, and wealth management in South Africa. This deal provides access to essential financial tools and further expands our footprint in a strategically important market. We also continue to focus on enhancing customer experiences and creating solutions to drive sustainable growth across our businesses and to address the evolving needs of our customers. For example, FlexGuard continued to build momentum, and we are excited about its future and our broader suite of complementary annuity products, including FlexGuard income. In individual life, we continue to expand our reach to a broader range of customers and further address the $12 trillion life insurance coverage gap with the introduction of a final expense product. And we are also making similar growth investments to further enhance customer experience and expand solutions across our international businesses. In Japan, We are focusing on evolving our product suite to meet the increasing retirement and inheritance needs of the aging Japan population. In Brazil, we are diversifying our customer offerings with the introduction of a new standalone accident and health product. And in China, we introduced Grow Partners, a digital sales platform that we are extending to distribution partners and directly to consumers, beginning with a medical cash benefit plan. Turning to slide four, we continue to make steady progress towards achieving our cost savings target of $750 million at the end of 2023 while improving customer experience. During the first quarter, we realized $170 million in cost savings for a total of $680 million of run rate savings to date since 2019. Turning now to slide five, credentials rock solid balance sheets. provides significant financial flexibility to execute on our transformation strategy while returning substantial capital to shareholders. Our robust financial position includes a high-quality, well-diversified investment portfolio, a capital position that supports a AA financial strength rating, and $3.6 billion in highly liquid assets at the end of the first quarter. as well as over $4 billion of additional proceeds from divestitures that we have already received in the second quarter. In addition to supporting our strategy for sustainable, profitable growth, we remain committed to returning $11 billion of capital to shareholders between 2021 and the end of 2023. As part of this program, we have increased our dividend by 4% in the first quarter of 2022, our 14th consecutive annual dividend increase. Before turning it over to Rob, I'd like to update you on a few of our recent ESG initiatives, which we consider integral to our purpose of solving the financial challenges of our changing world. First, relating to the war in Ukraine. In addition to providing financial assistance to humanitarian and nonprofit organizations supporting people impacted by the war, we divested our modest level of Russian financial assets in our investment portfolio. Closer to home, we've adopted a hybrid working model that combines the benefits of in-person collaboration and remote work flexibility to support our employees and help us attract and retain talent. Our hybrid work model will enable us to reduce our total home office properties in the U.S. by approximately 50% over time. As we invest in the redesign of 600,000 square feet of office space, that will be optimized for collaborative and hybrid work, most of which was completed during the past two years. In addition to helping us achieve our cost savings targets, our real estate and hybrid work strategies are one of the several factors that will contribute to a 2050 net zero emissions target. Alongside these efforts, we are also finding new opportunities to support our home city in Newark, New Jersey, including new investments in local commerce, live workspaces for resident small business owners, and additional opportunities to foster local home ownership. We look forward to continuing to support the city's revitalization. With that, I'll turn it over to Rob for more specific details on our business performance.