Voya Financial, Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to the Voya Financial third quarter 2019 earnings conference call. At this time, participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal in 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 touchstone phone. To withdraw your question, press star followed by two. Please note, participants are limited to one question and one follow-up. Also, 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. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to Voya Financial's third quarter earnings conference 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.voia.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, Voya's Chief Financial Officer. After their prepared remarks, we will take your questions. Before that Q&A session, we have also invited the heads of our businesses, specifically Charlie Nelson, Retirement, Christine Hertzellers, Investment Management, and Rob Grupka, Employee Benefits. With that, let's turn to slide three, as I would like to turn the call over to Rod.

Good morning. Let's begin on slide four with some key things. Our results this quarter reflect the strength of our diverse business mix and our clear focus on serving workplace and institutional clients. We also continue to demonstrate The value that our high free cash flow generating businesses provide to shareholders. Normalized adjusted operating EPS for the third quarter was $1.36 per diluted share. For the nine months ended September 30, our normalized adjusted operating earnings were $3.87, which is up 11% compared with the prior period. We discussed that our investor day a year ago. That we recognize that markets will shift, rates will change, and claims experience can fluctuate. We also shared last November that we're committed to the plan that we outlined, including ensuring that we actively manage the levers that are within our control. In the six plus years that we've been a public company, we've seen markets and interest rates swing. Each time, Thank you for joining us. Combined with our expectations for the fourth quarter means we fully expect to achieve our target of at least 10% normalized EPS growth in 2019. As we previously shared, our EPS growth objective will be achieved through a combination of organic growth, cost savings, and capital management. We've made strong progress in all of these areas during the third quarter. As it pertains to savings, we now expect to achieve run rate cost savings of at least $250 million by the end of 2020, exceeding our original goal due to the strong progress that we've made. We're also driving organic growth in each of our businesses. For retirement, full service recurring deposits grew 9% and exceeded $10 billion. We expect to be within our target range of 10% to 12% full service recurring deposits growth in 2019. In investment management, we generated $1.3 billion of net flows in the quarter, including positive institutional and retail flows. We also saw improvement in our operating margin. And in employee benefits, Total in-force premiums increased 12% compared to the third quarter of 2018, helping achieve a record quarter of operating earnings. Turning to capital management, we had $471 million of excess capital as of September 30. During the quarter, we repurchased $290 million of shares, bringing the total shares repurchased in 2019 back To $936 million We're also now paying a higher quarterly common stock dividend of 15 cents per share Since our IPO, we have returned approximately $6 billion of excess capital to our shareholders Which amounts to more than half of our original outstanding shares Additionally, in the fourth quarter We completed a significant reserve financing that will free up $200 million in excess capital. This is part of our plan to generate at least $1 billion in free cash flow from our individual life business between 2019 and 2024. Further, as we announced yesterday, our board has authorized the repurchase of an additional $800 million of common stock. We will continue to repurchase our shares to deliver value for our shareholders in support of our EPS growth targets. Speaking of our board, last week we welcomed Kathleen Treanor DeRose as a new director. Kathleen brings significant leadership and expertise from her more than 30 years of accomplishments in asset and wealth management. We're pleased to have Kathleen on our board who along with all of our directors provide valuable perspectives that helps us ensure we're thinking broadly and diversely as we advance our growth plans. Turning to slide five, we've achieved further recognition of our culture and our people. With Voya's vision to be America's retirement company, Voya has a noble purpose that emphasizes both what we do and how we do it. Most recently, We were once again recognized by the Great Place to Work Institute and were also named as one of the 2019 100 Best Companies by Working Mother magazine. Additionally, Boyd was named to the 2019 Dow Jones Sustainable Index for the fourth year. 35 companies in the financial services industry were invited to apply, and we were one of only eight to become a member. Finally, During September, we held our annual employee giving campaign with 69% of our employees helping us support more than 2,100 charities. As a reference point, the average workplace campaign has a 32% participation rate. Our noble purpose is demonstrated through our ongoing investment in our people and our communities and is differentiating us with both our current and prospective customers. We continue to see a strong correlation between our focus on doing the right thing and our financial performance. In summary, we've made great progress on a number of fronts during the third quarter, and we're on track to achieve the annual growth goals that we shared with you last November. With that, let me ask Mike to provide more details on our performance and results. Thank you, Rod. Let's begin on slide seven.