Voya Financial, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Voya Financial first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. All participants will be in 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, 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. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to Voya Financial's first quarter 2020 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.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. This includes potential impacts related to COVID-19. 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.goea.com. Joining me on the call are Rod Martin, FOIA Financial's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, as well as Mike Smith, FOIA'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, 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. As the world confronts the many challenges related to COVID-19, we at Voya are incredibly grateful to all who are working on the front lines to address this global pandemic. As we navigate this crisis, the safety of our employees, their families, and our customers remains our top priority. I am extremely proud of our 6,000 employees and the dedication and commitment that they have shown for our advisors and customers. We have quickly pivoted to having more than 95% of our employees working remotely, and we're seeing great resilience among our teams. This would not have been possible without the significant dedication of our employees To support them, we have enhanced several benefits, including fully covering COVID-19 medical testing and providing care coordinators to assist employees who are caring for someone with COVID-19. When we do return to our offices, we will do so thoughtfully and gradually, and we will continue to make decisions based on the best interest of our people. We are also taking actions to address our customer needs. As we shared last month, we were the first major retirement plan provider to waive fees in response to the CARES Act to help our customers and all Americans manage through this difficult time. We did this just four days after the economic relief package was implemented. Specifically, we are crediting hardship distribution and loan initiation fees. Associated with COVID-19 related distributions. In total, we expect to credit back approximately $10 to $20 million to our participants through September 30, 2020. We are proud to serve many customers and clients who are directly serving others during this time, and we're incredibly grateful to all who are working on the front lines. We're also supporting our broader communities, including but not limited to providing all Americans with free online resources and phone access to our financial advisors. And through our partnership with AmeriCares, we're supporting the shipment of more than 23 tons of personal protective equipment to partners across the United States. COVID-19 has, of course, had important effects on our business. And Mike will update you shortly on the impact to our financial results and outlook. While this situation will continue to evolve, we are confident in how Voya is positioned and the team that we have to navigate through it. We will get through this together. Let's move to slide five and our key themes. We entered the first quarter in a position of strength as a result of the purposeful strategic decisions We saw strong results during the quarter, including March. and we continue to see demand for our products and services given the compelling value proposition that we provide for our workplace and institutional clients. In retirement, full service recurring deposits increased 10.6% compared to the trailing 12 months ended March 31, 2019. In investment management, we generated $2.2 billion in positive net flows. and in Employee Benefits we saw another quarter of record earnings. Additionally, in-force premiums grew 5% year over year. We continue to deliver on the cost savings that we previously announced. We remain on track to achieve runway cost savings of at least $250 million by the end of 2020. We also remain on track to complete the sale of our individual life and legacy annuity businesses. We continue to make great progress with resolution life and our regulators and expect to close the sale by September 30, 2020. Finally, our balance sheet and capital position remains strong. We had approximately $612 million of excess capital as of March 31st. Thank you for joining us. During the past year and quarter, we have demonstrated our ability to increase EPS and improve value for all of our stakeholders. And we will continue to execute on what we can control. This includes achieving our targeted cost savings, completing the individual life sale, and maintaining our proactive dialogue and engagement with clients. These actions, combined with our strong balance sheet, and Lower Risk Business Profile position us well for these uncertain times. Turning to slide six. During the quarter, Foyer was named as one of the world's most ethical companies for the seventh consecutive year. Foyer was one of 132 companies to be recognized and one of only five companies in the financial services category. and others like it reflect our culture and the character of our brand. I am confident that Voya will stand apart in our industry, both for our commitment to doing the right thing and because of our strong business profile. The proactive attitude and commitment of our management team remains as fully in force as it has been in the past. With that, let me ask Mike to provide more details on our performance and results.