RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Renaissance Reinsurance Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star, then 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to one of your speakers today, Keith McHugh, SVP Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for joining our first quarter financial results conference call. Yesterday, after the market closed, we issued our quarterly release. If you didn't receive a copy, please call me at 441-239-4830, and we'll make sure to provide you with one. There will be an audio replay of the call available from about 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time today. through midnight on August 23rd. The replay can be accessed by dialing 855-859-2056, U.S. toll-free, or 1-404-537-3406 internationally. The passcode you will need for both numbers is 537-1939. Today's call is also available through the investor information section of www.renry.com. and will be archived on Renaissance Re's website through midnight on August 31, 2021. Before we begin, I'm obliged to caution that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those discussed. Additional information regarding the factors shaping these outcomes can be found in Renaissance Re's SEC filings, to which we direct you. With us to discuss today's results are Kevin O'Donnell, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bob Kutub, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'd now like to turn the call over to Kevin. Kevin?

Thanks, Keith. Good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining today's call. Last night, in our earnings release, we reported a solid quarter with strong top-line growth and increasing bottom-line profitability. This resulted in annualized return on average common equity of 27.6% and annualized operating return on average common equity of 16.8%. Now that many of our locations are tentatively reopening, we are excited to begin reestablishing our normal cadence of business. In many ways, last year was a trying one, but it was also a year of great opportunity. I'm incredibly thankful for the loyalty of our customers and the resilience of the RenRee community. I'm especially proud of our team's ability to continue to thrive and execute in a time of great uncertainty. While for many, 2020 was a year of challenges, for us, it was also a time of opportunity and growth. I am pleased with all that we accomplished and would like to take a few minutes to talk about the journey we have been on and how that affects who we are and what we do. Back in 2013, the market was evolving rapidly. We anticipated that investors would increasingly seek yield, which would result in capital becoming more interested in reinsurance risk. At that time, we made the strategic decision to focus on our vision, which is to be the best underwriter. For us, this meant leveraging our skills into remaining a leading reinsurer while diversifying both geographically and into traditional casualty lines. It meant remaining focused on reinsurance business and not pursuing an insurance strategy. It also meant committing to grow our hybrid business model by expanding our capital partners franchise. We knew that achieving this strategic imperative would require us to become more efficient. We set specific goals to increase our capital leverage, investment leverage, and operating leverage, with a particular focus on managing expenses. This was because we expected the market to become more efficient, and we wanted to insulate our investors as best we could from the effects of the soft market. Lowering our expense ratio helped to mitigate the effect of the falling rates and offset its impact on our ROE. In short, we transformed the profile of the company to ensure we continued to benefit our shareholders over the long term. We knowingly began building our casualty business during a challenging phase of the market with the intent that by doing so, we could construct a portfolio with embedded options for growth when pricing improved. This is not a strategy for the faint of heart. You must believe that you understand the risk you are taking because there is little room for error. You need conviction in your beliefs on how, when, and why the market will change, and you must be positioned as a respected market participant so you can grow quickly when opportunity arises. I am pleased to report that we have succeeded in executing this strategy in our casualty book. Of course, we continue to monitor the impacts of social inflation and other trends. What I am confident of, however, is that the successful execution of our strategy to grow casualty in a clearly improving market will serve us well, and the favorable balance of profitable business will ultimately benefit our shareholders. As we have said many times, we evaluate our casualty business over rolling 10-year periods. For the last few years, we have been writing well-rated risk that we believe will serve as the foundation for a strong portfolio with superior returns. While we believe that we are already beginning to see this profitability, we are in no rush to make changes today. Our long-term shareholders support us, and they will be rewarded. Shifting gears briefly to capital management, which Bob will address in greater detail, we have always been thoughtful and careful stewards of our capital and have methodically grown our capital base at a pace consistent with scaling our business while maintaining strong ratings. Since the second quarter, of 2020, we have raised $1.1 billion in equity capital, raised over a billion of partner capital, grown gross written premiums in our in-force portfolio by $1.8 billion, earned a billion in net income, and returned over $700 million to our shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. As a result, we now find ourselves in the enviable position of having what we believe to be the most to be more than ample financial flexibility to support our existing risk, take advantage of potential opportunities, and continue repurchasing our shares of what we believe are attractive valuations. I cannot emphasize too strongly, however, that last year's common equity raise was the cornerstone of all these capital management and underwriting successes. Having the right capital at the right time provided us the fortress balance sheet necessary to accomplish all that we have. That concludes my opening comments. I'll provide more detailed update on our segment's performance at the end of the call, but first let me turn it over to Bob to discuss financial performance for the quarter.