Voya Financial, Inc.

Good morning. Welcome to Voya Financial's third quarter 2023 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 call over to Mike Katz, Executive Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to Voya Financial's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. We appreciate all of you who have joined us this morning. As a reminder, materials for today's call are available on our website at investors.voya.com. Turning to slide two. Some of the comments made during the call may contain forward-looking statements or refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of federal securities law. GAAP reconciliations are available in our press release and financial supplement found on our website. Now, joining me on the call are Heather LaValley, our Chief Executive Officer, and Don Templin, our Chief Financial Officer. After their prepared remarks, we will take your questions. For the Q&A session, we have also invited the heads of our businesses, specifically Christine Hertzellers, Investment Management, Rob Grupka, Workplace Solutions. With that, let's turn to slide three, as I would like to turn the call over to Heather.

Thanks, Mike. Let's begin on slide four with some key themes. Our results reflect the underlying strength of our businesses, the benefits of our diversified revenues, and our strong track record of executing on our targets while continuing to invest for future growth. In the third quarter, we generated $1.74 per share of adjusted operating earnings, including notable items. We remain on track to achieve our EPS target of 12% to 17% for the three-year period ending in 2024. We've taken the steps necessary to protect margins and will continue to be disciplined on spend as a key lever to manage our businesses. As we look ahead, robust pipelines across all three businesses will power our growth into 2024 and beyond. Our commercial momentum continued to build in the third quarter in wealth solutions. full-service recurring deposits grew 10% with positive net flows in both full-service and recordkeeping. In health solutions, annualized in-force premiums and fees were up 21% with growth across all product lines. And while investment management flows continue to reflect a difficult market for asset management, as well as the ongoing transition of our international distribution channels, the underlying business is strong. Importantly, we head into the fourth quarter with most transition-related outflows now behind us and the expectation of even greater benefits from our new international distribution relationship with Allianz GI. The benefits of that relationship continue to emerge with international retail contributing more than $1 billion of positive net flows in the quarter. As we look ahead to 2024, we're seeing a strong pipeline of growth across all of our businesses. A few examples. In wealth, we already have $12 billion of plans and implementation for 2024. In health, our outlook includes premium growth at the high end of our 7% to 10% target range with a strong sales pipeline for 2024. This includes known sales in life and disability up more than 40% and voluntary sales up almost 50% year over year. In investment management, with the transition headwinds we experienced in 2023 now largely behind us, we are confident that our strong pipeline will support our return to at least 2% organic growth. That pipeline includes unfunded private credit commitments in the institutional channel, robust projected flows in secondary private equity, and continued growth opportunities in international markets. With its preeminence in fixed income and strong investment performance, Avoya Investment Management is well positioned to benefit as cash that is currently on the sideline moves back into longer duration assets. The combination of our strong pipelines and robust expense discipline will allow us to protect margins and deliver on our financial goals. Turning to capital management, we maintained a strong excess capital position at quarter end of approximately $400 million. We deployed nearly $300 million of capital in the third quarter across debt extinguishment, share buybacks, dividends, and the completion of the transaction to take full ownership of Voya India. More on that in a moment. We generated an additional $200 million of excess capital this quarter, contributing to over $800 million over the past 12 months, exceeding our 90% free cash flow conversion target. Don will share more on our results and performance shortly. Turning to slide five, after the strategic acquisitions we've made over the past year, we continue to keep our focus squarely on successful business integration. These acquisitions have diversified our revenues, helped us establish a strategic foothold in new markets, and positioned us to capitalize on strong growth opportunities. Our acquisition of the U.S. business of Allianz GI has reshaped Zoya Investment Management, providing access to high-growth international markets and revitalizing our retail capabilities. With its international focus and retail-oriented business, Allianz GI has diversified our revenue and earnings at a time when institutional demand for fixed income continues to adjust to last year's market dislocations. Our international distribution partnership will continue to drive growth in investment management. BenefitFocus provides Voya with new capabilities in benefits administration, access to new employer markets, and a platform to advance our strategic vision for workplace benefits and savings. With open enrollment season currently underway, we're focused on delivering outstanding service to our customers, which we see as a key driver of growth that will help us both retain and expand our customer base. And even beyond our current base of benefit-focused clients, the acquisition is bringing Voya's workplace benefits and savings strategy into sharper focus for customers. It helps define our presence in the market with a message that is resonating with customers and supporting our strong sales pipeline. In the third quarter, we took full ownership of our global technology and operations subsidiary, which we have rebranded as Voya India. By deploying capital in this manner, we've gained a significant strategic flexibility that will allow us to maximize the value of the Voya India organization which we built from scratch in only four years and today encompasses almost 2,000 Voya employees. Through Voya India, we are further building our capabilities in technology and customer experience and enhancing the value of our workplace and investment management businesses. We are bringing innovative solutions to our customers while also driving technology that is leading to greater automation, faster speed to market, improved performance, and a more efficient cost structure. Turning to slide six, Voya's purpose and vision continue to drive positive outcomes for our clients, our colleagues, and the communities in which we live and work. To support employer and employee needs and recognizing the increasing importance of mental health to our customers, we recently introduced new mental health offerings to our critical illness and accident insurance products. To support our communities, we once again held our annual employee giving campaign in September. The campaign was a resounding success with approximately 75% of Voya colleagues participating in programs that collectively supported more than 1,900 charitable causes. With that, Don will now provide more details on our performance and results. Don?