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 PGM, our Global Investment Manager, Caroline Feeney, Head of US Businesses, Ken Tangi, 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, get a comparable GAAP measure 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. Our third quarter results reflect continued momentum across our businesses, including the benefits from strong sales and the fifth consecutive quarter of underlying earnings growth. We continue to execute on our strategy to become a higher growth, less market sensitive and more nimble company. This quarter, we increased our capital efficiency and enhanced our capabilities in mutually reinforcing business systems. We are also optimizing our operating model to drive both efficiency and growth. Our strategic progress and financial strength position us well to navigate the current macroeconomic environment and maintain a disciplined approach to capital deployment. Turning to slide three. During the quarter, we launched Prismic, a life and annuity reinsurance company alongside Warburg Pincus and other investors. It is one of our most exciting opportunities to drive sustainable, long-term growth across our investment management, insurance, and retirement businesses. Through Prismic, we can reinsure portions of our life and annuity in force and new business to reduce market sensitivity, free up capital, and invest in growth opportunities. PRISMIC can also offer its services to other insurance companies in need of reinsurance support, tapping into additional sources of third party capital to drive further growth. In addition, PRISMIC expands PGM's assets under management. Prismic is a great example of how Prudential can unlock value for customers, shareholders, and other stakeholders with our mutually reinforcing business system, which combines the power of our brand, global asset and liability origination capabilities, and multichannel distribution. We're also growing and investing in our businesses to better serve our customers through both the products and services we offer and through the ways we do business. Our distribution channels continue to evolve and expand to provide more people around the world with our products and services in the way they want them. I'll provide a few examples from the third quarter. In Brazil, we achieved the second consecutive quarter of record sales, driven by continued expansion in the third-party distribution channel and the strong performance of our life planner channel. In the U.S., individual retirement strategies posted its strongest sales quarter in three years, driven by the continued success of FlexGuard, as well as the expansion of our fixed annuity suite with the launch of our new WealthGuard multi-year guaranteed annuity. Within the institutional market, retirement strategies secured $2.5 billion in new pension risk transfer transactions. and entered the health savings account space by securing a $1.2 billion transaction with a top HSA provider, expanding our addressable market. And in our Prudential Advisors distribution channel, we announced a strategic relationship with LPL Financial, which upon completion in the latter part of next year, will enhance both our advisor and customer experience by leveraging LPL's expertise, industry-leading technology, and robust broker, dealer, and registered investment advisor services. Alongside these investments in our businesses, we continue to focus on improved customer service through enhanced sales, service, and claims platforms. For example, this year we have announced seven customer experience technology partnerships within Group Insurance. These include Enrollify, an innovative platform transforming the enrollment experience for millions of employees. and Evolution IQ, an AI-driven platform that will streamline the disability claims process. We're also working to create a leaner, faster, and more agile company so that we can better meet the changing needs and expectations of our customers around the world while driving growth and efficiency to further strengthen our competitive position. We're taking new steps to simplify our organizational structure by reducing management layers, complexity, and costs while making investments in technology and data platforms. Our goal is to empower faster decision-making and bring our integrated business teams closer to our customers and clients. Turning now to slide four. Prudential's rock-solid balance sheet and robust risk and capital management frameworks have allowed us to confidently navigate the current macroeconomic environment. Our AA financial strength is supported by our strong capital position, including approximately $48 billion of unrealized insurance margins, $4.3 billion in highly liquid assets at the end of the third quarter, and a high-quality, well-diversified investment portfolio and disciplined approach to asset liability management. Moving to slide five. Our disciplined approach to capital deployment, coupled with the added capital efficiency from the PRISMIC transaction enables us to effectively balance investing in the long-term growth of our businesses with returning capital to shareholders. In the third quarter, we returned over $700 million of capital to shareholders. And with that, I'll turn it over to Rob.