Great-West Lifeco Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Great West Life Close Second Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity for analysts to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, You may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Chuba Khan, Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations at Great West Life Co. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the call to discuss our second quarter financial results. As many of you already know, this is my first time hosting Great West Life Co.' 's quarterly results call since I joined the company earlier this summer. It's a pleasure to welcome many familiar faces on today's call, and I look forward to working with you all. Before we start, please note that a link to our live webcast and materials for this call have been posted on our website at greatwestlifeco.com under the Investor Relations tab. Please turn to slide three. I'd like to draw your attention to the cautionary language regarding the use of forward-looking statements, which form part of today's remarks. And please refer to the appendix for a note on the use of non-GAAP financial measures and important notes on adjustments, terms, and definitions used in this presentation. Please turn to slide four. To discuss our results today, to discuss our results on today's call, we have our President and CEO, Paul Mann, our Group CFO, John Nielsen, David Harney, President and COO, Europe and Capital and Risk Solution, Fabrice Morin, President and COO, Canada, Ed Murphy, President and CEO, Empower. Linda Kerrigan, Senior Vice President and Appointed Actuary. Jeff Poulin, Executive Vice President, Reinsurance. And Raman Shavasala, Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. We will begin with prepared remarks followed by Q&A. With that, I'll turn the call over to Paul.

Thanks, Shubha, and it's great to have you here. Please turn to slide six. I'm very pleased to report strong results for the second quarter, which builds on our performance over the last 12 months. As we work to strengthen our business and deliver for our customers, we continue to create sustainable, profitable growth for our shareholders with a fourth consecutive quarter of record base earnings. In the second quarter, both base and net earnings exceeded $1 billion for the first time. This positive momentum is backed by clear strategies, disciplined decisions, and focused execution from our teams across Lifeco. These results have been supported by equity market tailwinds partially offset by headwinds facing many of our businesses, including regulatory and policy changes, an inflationary environment, and shifting interest rates. We're executing against our ambitions in the U.S. with focused investments to deliver scale and build new capabilities, which are fueling an engine for sustainable growth. In line with the target we provided in early 2024, Empower continues to report double-digit earnings growth driving a nearly 200 basis point increase in the US segment ROE in just the past 12 months. Our US segment is on course to become the largest within the portfolio this year. Overall, the portfolio continues to create value for shareholders. We're operating at the top end of the range of our medium-term objective for base ROE, despite the full impacts of the newly implemented global minimum tax. In light of the market volatility we've seen in recent days, It bears noting that the earnings mix of our business is diversified across our geographies and value drivers. And in our insurance business, we run a well-matched book, removing a lot of the sensitivity to market movements. We also remain in a position of financial strength with building regulatory capital levels. This provides additional downside protection as well as substantial flexibility to take advantage of future opportunities as they arise. we are well equipped to navigate the current market environment. Please turn to slide seven. This quarter's results continue to deliver strongly against our medium-term objectives. Base earnings of $1 billion and base EPS of $1.11 both increased 13% over the prior year. Base ROE increased to 17.2% over a full percentage point from the prior year, and book value per share also increased 9%. We've maintained a comfortable leverage ratio and our regulatory capital position has strengthened with our LICAT ratio increasing one point over last quarter. Please turn to slide eight. In Canada, we remain committed to driving growth and unlocking value for our customers. Recent acquisitions coupled with positive market performance have accelerated growth in our Canadian individual wealth business. Net flows have improved despite the overall industry tend to outflows in segregated funds. As we discussed at our Wealth Focused Investor Day last year, our wealth strategy includes providing a full range of market-leading products and support for advisors and their customers. This approach will help us capture an increasing share of investable assets as they move from segregated funds to other wealth products. Further, we've remained focused on strengthening our seg fund value proposition and reinforcing the unique benefits of these products have for customers. In group life and health, our results continue to reflect our commitment to growing the business and deepening plan member relationships. Book premiums were up 70% year over year, supported by the addition of the public services health care plan and solid organic growth. The negative net cash change in book premiums for the quarter is the result of a single termination of a large administrative services-only plan. In insurance and annuities, CSM declined largely due to insurance experience losses. As a reminder, given our focus on growing our wealth platform and extending our leadership in workplace, we do not consider CSM to be a key growth metric in Canada. We have maintained discipline in our approach to risk selection and pricing within the more capital-intensive insurance and annuities businesses. We continue to believe in the value of protection products and regularly review our non-par insurance book. We will take actions as appropriate to maintain its sustainability and stability. Please turn to slide nine. At Empower, we delivered another strong quarter across both workplace and personal wealth. In workplace, average AUA was up 14% over last year due to sales and U.S. equity market performance. Net flows were negative this quarter largely due to the anticipated one-time impact of terminations from the prudential retirement business that we acquired in 2022. Excluding these shock lapses, the business had modest net outflows due to higher withdrawals by D.C. plan members, principally as a result of higher balances they have achieved over the past years from strong equity markets. While this is weighing on flows in the near term, Empower remains well-positioned to meet growing market demands for retirement solutions over time. The expanded range of offerings introduced earlier this year provides Americans with even more options to secure the income stream they need in retirement and will bring more Americans into the retirement system. We continue to believe that we are well-positioned from a scale perspective to drive long-term growth in the DC business at Empower by gaining market share through differentiated customer experience while maintaining our cost advantage. The need for cost competitiveness and differentiated customer experience will drive more consolidation in the DC market, which we are uniquely positioned to benefit from. Empower Personal Wealth also benefited from positive equity market performance, with average AUA up 23% over the past year. This business continues to see gains largely from the scale brought by the workplace business adding another $1.6 billion in net flows to the platform this quarter. Looking ahead, Empower remains focused on driving profitable growth and building on its recent success, and is well positioned to continue this performance over the medium term. Please turn to slide 10. We had great results in Europe, where we delivered a sixth straight quarter of growth across all value drivers. These results are supported by a set of targeted strategies and focused actions to strengthen our positions in Ireland, the UK, and Germany. Average AUA across wealth and retirement businesses was up 15% year over year due to solid market performance and net inflows. We're continuing to deliver against our wealth strategy in Ireland, building out UNEO to become a business of significant regional scale. to provide more individuals with advice on managing their wealth. In workplace, we experienced solid sales and organic growth in group life and health in both the UK and Ireland, with book premiums up 8% year over year. In insurance and annuities, growth in the individual and bulk annuities in the UK helped drive CSM up 13% year over year. We see further opportunities for targeted growth in our bulks business this year, supported by discipline pricing and risk selection in line with our value creation objectives. Please turn to slide 11. Capital and risk solutions provided a consistent contribution to base earnings and remains an important source of diversification to the overall portfolio. Run rate reinsurance earnings were up slightly over last year as our short-term structured businesses continued to drive growth. These results are pre-tax and better reflect the underlying trend as they do not include the impact of global minimum tax. DSM remained relatively stable as we continued to approach our other reinsurance businesses with pricing discipline. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to John to review the financial results. John? Thank you, Paul.