Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited

Good morning and welcome to Fairfax's 2023 third quarter results conference call. Your lines have been placed in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, to ask a question, please press star 1 on your phone keypad. Now, for time's sake, we do ask that you limit your question to 1. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Your host for today's call is Prem Watsa. with opening remarks from Mr. Derrick Beulis. And Mr. Beulis, please begin.

Good morning and welcome to our call to discuss Fairfax's 2023 third quarter results. This call may include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ, perhaps materially, from those contained in such forward-looking statements. as a result of a variety of uncertainties and risk factors, the most foreseeable of which are set out under risk factors in our base shelf prospectus, which has been filed with Canadian securities regulators and is available on CDAR. Fairfax disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable securities law. I'll now turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Prem Watsa.

Hey, thank you, Derek. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Fairfax's 2023 third quarter conference call. I plan to give you a couple of highlights and then pass the call on to Peter Clark, our president and chief operating officer, to comment on the quarter, and Jen Allen, our chief financial officer, to provide some additional financial details. As I said for the last number of quarters, the most important point I can make for you is the repeat what I've said in the past. For the first time in our 37-year history, almost 38 years now, I can say to you we expect, of course, no guarantees, our operating income to be more than $3 billion annually for the next three years. Operating income consisting of $1.5 billion plus from interest and dividend income We earned $1.4 billion year-to-date, $1 billion from underwriting profit. We made $943 million year-to-date and $0.5 billion from associates and non-insurance companies versus $1 billion year-to-date. This works out to be over $100 per share after interest expenses, overhead, and taxes. We continue to exceed our expectations of the year with the year-to-date operating income already at $3.1 billion, excluding the effects of discounting and risk margin. Fluctuations in stock and bond prices will be on top of that, and this only really matters, as I've said many times, over the long term. Recently in October, during the spike in Treasury yields, we have extended our duration to 3.1 years, with an average maturity of approximately four years and a yield of 4.9%. In the next four years, we are likely to have a recession in the United States, resulting in corporate spreads widening, allowing us to extend our maturities further. Our fixed income portfolio remains conservatively positioned, with approximately 70% in government securities and 19% primarily in short-dated, high-quality corporate bonds. Insurance and reinsurance operations continue to perform exceptionally well, with gross premiums written for the nine months of $22 billion up 7.5%, a combined ratio of 94%, resulting in an underwriting profit of $943 million for the first nine months. I will now pass the call to Peter Clark, our President and Chief Operating Officer, for further updates. Peter?