Great-West Lifeco Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Great West Life Co. second quarter 2025 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. Shubha Khan, Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations at Great West Lesko. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Gaylene. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the call to discuss our second quarter financial results. 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. Turning to slide two, 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-IFRS financial measures and important notes on adjustment terms and definitions used in this presentation. And turning to slide three, I'd like to introduce today's call participants. Joining us today are David Harney, our President and CEO, John Nielsen, our Group CFO, Fabrice Morin, President and COO, Canada, Ed Murphy, President and CEO, Empower, Lindsay Redsbrough, CEO, Europe, Jeff Poulin, CEO, Reinsurance, and Linda Kerrigan, Senior Vice President and appointed actuary. We will begin with prepared remarks followed by Q&A. With that, I'll turn the call over to David.

Thank you, Bill. Please turn to slide five. As I step into the role of CEO, I want to begin by reaffirming our direction. Our strategy is clear, consistent, and it's working. Over the past several years, we've built leading market positions, delivered solid earnings growth, and shifted towards a more capital-efficient business mix. We remain focused on executing the strategies outlined at our recent investor day to drive growth and deliver lasting value for our stakeholders. Our teams remain central to our success. I'd like to highlight a few recent leadership updates. John Nielsen has assumed responsibilities as interim chief investment officer in addition to his role as chief financial officer. This will ensure continuity as we continue to drive value from our global investments capability. Lindsay Riggs-Broom, formerly CEO of Canada Life UK, has joined our global leadership team as CEO of Europe. Emma Watkins will join LifeCo in September, succeeding Lindsay as CEO of Canada Life UK. We're making strong progress against our medium-term objectives. Our businesses are well on track to meet or exceed those ambitions. We delivered another record quarter of base earnings, supported by broad-based organic growth and healthy capital and cash generation. The U.S. has been a key growth engine and Empower continues to perform strongly. We've taken further steps to enhance Empower's value proposition, expanding their product lineup to better meet evolving participant needs and sharpen our competitive edge in the market. Ed will share more on this shortly. Our balance sheet remains a core strength. Despite ongoing macroeconomic and trade-related uncertainty, we're in a strong financial position. This has enabled us to return capital to shareholders through our normal course issuer bid and raise our full-year buyback target to $1 billion, all while preserving the flexibility to invest in future growth. Please turn to slide 6. Looking ahead, we have the strategy priorities and positioning to win by offering our clients simple, technology-enabled experiences. Our strategy continues to be guided by the playbook we introduced at Investor Days. It builds on our market leadership, expands into adjacent growth areas, and emphasizes disciplined, capital efficient investment in our branding capabilities. Where it makes sense, we'll continue to use M&A to accelerate progress and strengthen our competitive position. To bring this strategy to life, I'm focused on four execution priorities. Number one, our customers are at the heart of everything we do. We're deepening our understanding of their needs and continuing to deliver solutions that build trust and affinity. Secondly, we will leverage technologies to transform how we serve clients, make decisions and operate. AI and digital innovation will help enable more personalized and intuitive experiences, making us a more human financial services company. Thirdly, as we mentioned at Investor Day, we're investing significantly over the medium term to strengthen our operating leverage and execution. We're doing this by driving efficiency, agility, and discipline, simplify processes, reduce friction, and deliver consistent, scalable quality outcomes. And finally, we continue to invest in leadership culture and capabilities to ensure teams are empowered to lead, innovate, and deliver. We have an exceptional team with deep experience, and we are an attractive destination for market talent. We turn to slide eight. As outlined at investor day, there are strong tailwinds supporting growth in our markets. These demographic, economic, and social trends combined with our strategic playbook and our four execution priorities give us confidence in delivering on our medium-term financial objectives of 8% to 10% EPS growth, 80% close capital generation, return in equity of over 19% and a dividend payout ratio of 45 to 55%. Now turning to our results on slide nine. We are pleased to report a strong second quarter driven by solid execution across our business. We delivered double digit base earnings growth with base EPS of 12% year over year and a strong base ROI. Our financial position remains healthy supported by our robust balance sheet as well as strong regulatory capital and leverage ratios. We continue to take a disciplined approach to capital allocation. So far this year, we've repurchased $432 million in common shares, and we're raising our full-year buyback target to $1 billion, reflecting confidence in our growth outlook and commitment to long-term shareholder value. Please turn to slide 10. We delivered solid performance across our retirement businesses this quarter, excluding credit-related impacts and a one-time fee income adjustment in 2024. Base earnings grew by 12% year over year. Empower was a key driver supported by a growing asset base and number of participants, along with enhancements to its value proposition for sponsors and participants, which, as I said, Ed will speak to shortly. Our wealth businesses remained strong, with day-sardines up 15% year-over-year, driven by fee growth, and power delivered exceptional net flows and sustained momentum in personal wealth, reinforcing that our strategy to capture money in motion through rollovers and crossovers is working. In Europe, we saw healthy retail flows, while partially offset by one-time institutional withdrawal, our focus on serving the mass-to-mass affluent market continues to gain traction. In Canada, our wealth platform continues to advance, and we have enhanced our offering to better meet client needs, including a new partnership with Clear Estate to support estate planning. Please turn to slide 11. The quality results from our insurance businesses this quarter highlight the strength of our diversified portfolio. In group benefits, base earnings rose 17% over the prior year. We continue to lead the Canadian market with steady growth across the business. Our disability offering remains a key differentiator, delivering results and reinforcing our leadership position. We've maintained a disciplined approach to pricing in this business, ensuring long-term value for both clients and stakeholders. Capital and risk solutions continue to grow organically, supported by deep expertise and market demand. We also made a strategic decision to exit U.S. traditional life mortality reinsurance market reflecting our strategy of focusing on areas, including capital solutions business, where we see clear paths to leadership. In the UK, we continue to expect to see healthy growth in both individual and bulk annuities, and our focus remains on optimizing and growing this portfolio in a disciplined and sustainable way. I'll now pass it to Ed to cover the performance at Empower in a bit more detail.