Prudential Financial, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Prudential's quarterly earnings conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. If you should require any assistance during the call, please press star zero and an operator will assist you offline. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Bob McLaughlin. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for joining our call. Representing Prudential on today's call are Charlie Lowry, Chairman and CEO, Rob Fausen, Vice Chairman, Andy Sullivan, Head of International Businesses, and P. Jim, our Global Investment Manager, Caroline Feeney, Head of U.S. 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. As a reminder, our financial results reflect the long-duration target improvements accounting guidance that was adopted at the beginning of the year, and prior year results have been adjusted accordingly. Today's presentation may also include forward-looking statements. It's possible the 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 a 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 to today's presentation and the quarterly financial supplement, both of which can be found on our website at investor.prudential.com. And now I'll turn it over to Charlie.

Thank you, Bob. And thanks to everyone for joining us today. During the first quarter, We continue to transform our business to be less market sensitive and better positioned to deliver sustainable long-term growth. Our financial strength, disciplined asset liability management, and robust risk management position us well to navigate the current macroeconomic environment while maintaining our balanced approach to capital deployment focused on creating value for our stakeholders. Turning to slide three. I'll begin this morning with an update on the progress of our strategy to become a higher growth, less market sensitive, and more nimble company. We are investing in long-term sustainable growth by expanding access to our products and services in markets around the world, including through programmatic M&A and organic growth opportunities, creating the next generation of financial solutions, and delivering industry-leading customer experiences. Let me provide a few recent examples. Yesterday, we announced that Prudential is acquiring a majority stake in Deer Path Capital Management, a leading U.S. private credit and direct lending manager with more than $5 billion in assets under management. The acquisition will expand PGM's alternative capabilities while providing additional fee-based revenue and complementing PGM's existing direct lending origination capabilities. In addition, Deer Path is a great example of how we are building our self-reinforcing business model, which will benefit both third-party investors as well as our insurance and retirement customers. Our institutional retirement strategies business had strong first quarter sales, largely driven by our pension risk transfer business, which had its best first quarter ever, with more than $2.8 billion in total new business transactions. In addition, we experienced continued momentum in international reinsurance, with a $500 million longevity risk transaction. We also achieved new growth milestones in our international business, especially in Latin America, where Prudential of Brazil sales reached double-digit year-over-year growth through our three distribution channels. In particular, we are driving growth in Brazil through our expanded third-party distribution channel, which allows more consumers to access our products and services. During the quarter, we also expanded our distribution through the MercadoLibre platform into Mexico to sell life and accident and health products. In the U.S., our individual retirement strategies business continued to expand its suite of next-generation protection solutions. We expanded our FlexGuard distribution and introduced new product enhancements to meet the evolving needs of our customers. We are also diversifying our sales mix to meet increasing customer needs in a higher interest rate environment. Sales of fixed annuities represented one third of total individual annuity sales in the first quarter, a significant increase from a year ago quarter. We continue to enhance the ways in which customers engage with our products and solutions to drive more digital experiences and better customer outcomes. Let me give you a couple of examples. First, An industry survey ranked Prudential as a top three carrier in e-signature adoption. A majority of annuities applications are now submitted with e-signature, which has reduced processing time by several days and improved our environmental impact. Second, we launched a new electronic claims portal for life insurance customers that allows beneficiaries to file claims in minutes and to receive payments in days rather than weeks. By using the portal this quarter, we have experienced a 300% increase in digital claims processing and overwhelmingly positive customer feedback. Turning now to slide four, Credential's rock-solid balance sheet and robust risk and capital management frameworks have allowed us to confidently navigate the current macroeconomic environment. Our financial strength, including our AA rating, is supported by $4.6 billion in highly liquid assets at the end of the first quarter, as well as a high-quality, well-diversified investment portfolio and a disciplined approach to asset liability management. We've also taken advantage of opportunities to further optimize our financial flexibility and liquidity position. We proactively issued a contingent capital facility to replace the one that matures in November of this year, and issued $500 million of hybrid debt to pre-fund a maturity of the same amount next year. Moving to slide five. Our disciplined approach to capital deployment also enables us to effectively balance investing in the long-term growth of our businesses with returning capital to shareholders. In the first quarter, we returned $700 million to shareholders and increased the quarterly dividend by 4%. our 15th consecutive annual dividend increase. Looking ahead, we will maintain our disciplined approach to capital management and redeployment. We are confident that this approach, coupled with our robust financial position, mix of mutually enhancing businesses, and growth strategy positions us well to be a leader in expanding access to investing, insurance, and retirement security for people around the world. Thank you for your time this morning. And with that, Rob will now provide an overview of our first quarter financial results and an update on our business performance.