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 listening 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, Janella Frias, Chief Financial Officer, and Rob Axel, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer. We will start with prepared comments by Charlie, Rob, and Janella, and then we will take your questions. Today's discussion may include forward-looking statements. It is possible that actual results may differ materially from the predictions we make today. In addition, our presentation includes 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 slides titled Forward-Looking Statements and Non-GAAP Measures in the appendix of today's presentation and the Corley Financial Supplements. 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 all of you for joining us today. Our third quarter performance reflects continued positive momentum in growing our businesses, increasing capital efficiency, and pivoting our product suite to address the investing, insurance, and retirement needs of our customers and clients around the world. We reported robust sales across our U.S. and international insurance and retirement businesses, as well as strong investment performance and private credit originations in PGM. We also maintained our disciplined approach to capital deployment, while continuing to invest in our businesses and returning excess capital to shareholders. Our strategic progress and performance are backed by our financial strength. Turning to slide three. This morning, I will highlight how we continue to become a higher growth, more capital efficient company. We are growing our market leading businesses while increasing our capital flexibility. Let's start by taking a closer look at how our retirement strategies business is benefiting from the global retirement opportunity. On the institutional side, our continued leadership in pension risk transfer was reinforced through a second transaction with IBM, this time to reinsure $6 billion of pension liabilities. With this latest transaction, we have now closed seven out of the 10 largest pension risk transfer deals in the US. On the individual side, five of our annuity products have exceeded $1 billion in sales so far this year, validating our product diversification strategy. Our Japan business is another great example of how we are addressing the growing demand for retirement products. While life insurance has traditionally comprised the bulk of our business in Japan, Year-to-date sales of retirement and savings products are up 30% compared to the prior year. Meanwhile, PGM is well-positioned to help plan sponsors deliver benefits to millions of retirement beneficiaries through its diversified investment solutions. As a market leader, with nearly half a trillion dollars of assets under management supporting defined benefit and defined contribution plans, PGM serves more than half of the world's 300 largest pension funds. Now let's look at how we are further growing our market-leading businesses by diversifying our products and expanding our global distribution networks. In our retirement strategies business, we're increasing the number of individual annuity solutions and adding new workplace partnerships, like the relationship we recently announced with JPMorgan Asset Management. In our group insurance business, we are expanding our disability and supplemental health products and growing our position in the under 5,000 lives and association market segments. Turning to our individual life business, we continue to launch innovative, more capital-efficient products, and we have positive momentum across our distribution channels. In our international businesses, we're benefiting from recent product launches and our strong multi-channel distribution in both Japan and Brazil. And lastly, PGM continues to benefit from our deeply connected and reinforcing business mix, resulting in strong affiliated flows on a year-to-date basis. In addition, private alternatives capital deployment has increased 24% year-to-date, underscoring the demand in the market and PGM's private credit capabilities. PGM is also well-positioned to continue to capture the growing retail demand for fixed-income products. In addition, our investments in technology across our insurance, retirement, and asset management businesses is helping us to deliver exceptional sales, service, and claims experiences supporting our growth strategy. At the same time, we're improving the quality of earnings from the continued shift of our business mix. This quarter, we announced a transaction with Wilton Re to reinsure an $11 billion guaranteed universal life block. Following this transaction, we will have reduced our guaranteed universal life reserves by 60%. advancing our strategic progress to become a higher growth, more capital-efficient company. Turning to slide four, our continued investments in our businesses are supported by our disciplined approach to capital deployment, which included returning more than $700 million to shareholders during the third quarter. Turning to slide five, our growth strategy is further supported by our financial strength and our risk and capital management framework. We maintain a AA rating, which reflects a healthy capital position, including more than $4 billion in highly liquid assets at the end of the third quarter. We also maintain a well-diversified, high-quality portfolio and disciplined approach to asset liability management. In closing, we're operating from a position of strength, with confidence in our strategy, our capabilities, and our path to deliver long-term, sustainable value for all our stakeholders. And with that, I'll turn it over to Rob.