Voya Financial, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Voya Financial fourth quarter 2018 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star two. Participants are limited to one question and one follow-up. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Michael Katz, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to Voya Financial's fourth quarter earnings call. We appreciate all of you who have joined us for this call. As a reminder, materials for today's call are available on our website at investors.voya.com or via the webcast. Turning to slide two. Some of the comments made during this conference call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities law. I refer you to this slide for more information. We will also be referring today to certain non-GAAP financial measures. GAAP reconciliations are available in our press release and financial supplement found on our website, investors.voya.com. Joining me on the call are Rod Martin, Voya Financial's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, as well as Mike Smith, Boya's Chief Financial Officer. After their prepared remarks, we will take your questions. For that Q&A session, we have also invited the heads of our businesses, specifically Charlie Nelson, Retirement, Christine Hertzellers, Investment Management, Rob Grupka, Employee Benefits, and Carolyn Johnson, Individual Life. With that, let's turn to slide three, as I would like to turn the call over to Rob.

Good morning. Let's begin on slide four with some key themes. 2018 was a pivotal year for Voya. It was the culmination of purposeful decisions made over the last five years that reduced risk and strengthened our company. The annuities transaction we completed last year further advanced our transformation. Today, we are a simpler, more efficient organization with high growth Thank you for joining us. for the full year 2018 was $4.88 versus $2.67 per share in 2017, while our pre-tax adjusted operating earnings grew 34% year over year. Today, we are reaffirming our confidence in achieving our goal of annual EPS growth of at least 10% in each of the next three years. This growth will be achieved from the $4.88 per share I just mentioned. We understand we've set the bar high and we're not shying away from our target. We're confident in our ability to continue to grow due in part to the continued positive momentum across our businesses and the strong organic growth we achieved in 2018. For retirement, we achieved record full-year adjusted operating earnings and grew full-service recurring deposits for 2018 by 10% compared with 2017. In investment management, we generated more than $3 billion of institutional net flows in 2018, and the fourth quarter marked our 12th consecutive quarter of positive institutional net flows. In employee benefits, we delivered record full year earnings and grew voluntary benefit sales by 34% year over year. In addition to our organic growth, we remain on track to achieve the 230 to 250 million in annual run rate cost savings by the end of 2020. We also continue to maintain a strong capital position. with approximately $871 million of excess capital. As Mike Smith will discuss in greater detail, this reflects excess capital above our new target RBC ratio of 400%. We repurchased $275 million of shares during the fourth quarter and delivered on our plan to repurchase $1.5 billion of our shares in 2018. Additionally, we entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement to buy back $250 million of our shares this quarter. Since our IPO in 2013, we have repurchased 46% of our outstanding shares and returned more than $5 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases. At these valuation levels, we remain committed to share repurchases as a good use of shareholder capital. Turning to slide five, we have the right mix of complementary businesses and we're confident in the plans we shared with you at Investor Day. Our three high growth, high return capitalized businesses bring strong capabilities to our workplace and institutional customers. We're a top five retirement solutions provider across all tax codes Plan sizes and geographies with a balance of both investment spread and fee-based revenues. Investment management has a diversified mix of strategies across the risk spectrum and offers attractive products that perform well, especially in times of market volatility. Employee Benefits is a must-quote provider for stop loss with a fast-growing voluntary business. Employee Benefits and our individual life-enforced block provide earnings and capital diversification with minimal correlation to equity markets. Together, our businesses are finding greater opportunities to collaborate through cross-enterprise partnerships that will further support our future growth. Turning to slide six, building the character of our brand helps drive our success and supports our financial performance. Our culture and brand continued to differentiate us during 2018, earning us external recognition from numerous organizations and helping us win new business. Most recently, we were named a Best Place to Work by Pensions and Investment magazine for the fourth consecutive year. We also earned recognition on the 2019 Bloomberg Gender Equality Index. This marks our third consecutive year in the index. Our inclusive culture promotes diversity of thought, expertise, and perspectives benefiting our businesses and our stakeholders. Additionally, we have significantly grown our brand awareness and we continue to be one of the most recognized brands associated with retirement. Also differentiating us with customers, employees, and investors is our Voya Cares program. Voya Cares helps Americans with disabilities and their caregivers plan, invest, and protect their financial future. We're proud of what we've accomplished so far, and we're committed to the work ahead. Now, Mike will provide more details on our performance for the quarter.