Great-West Lifeco Inc.

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Great West LifeCo fourth quarter and full gear 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 the number 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 like to now turn the conference over to Mr. Shubha Khan, Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations at Great West Life Co. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Morgan. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the call to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 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 adjustments, 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, Ed Murphy, President and CEO, Empower. Fabrice Morin, President and CEO, Canada. Lindsay Briggs-Broom, CEO, Europe. Jeff Poulin, CEO, Reinsurance. Linda Kerrigan, our appointed actuary. And John Melvin, our Chief Investment Officer. We will begin with prepared remarks, followed by Q&A. With that, I'll turn the call over to David.

Thanks, Hubert. Please turn to slide five. 2025 was a great year for Great West. marked by strong financial results, further advancement of customer propositions and leadership transitions that position us for continued growth. We delivered record base earnings up 11% over the previous year and a 12% year-on-year increase in base earnings per share, well above our medium-term objective. The double-digit base earnings growth in retirement, wealth and group benefits has continued our shift to a more capital-efficient business mix. The strength of our balance sheet gives us substantial financial flexibility. This includes over 2 billion in deployable cash at year end, virtually unchanged from a year ago, despite 1.6 billion of share buybacks. This is a testament to the strong cash generation profile of our business. We also continue to bring an increased focus on shareholder value during the year. Our record performance, strong balance sheet and our continued commitment to driving shareholder value through disciplined capital deployment have contributed to strong total shareholder return we delivered in 2025. Please turn to slide 6. As I already mentioned, we delivered record base earnings per share in 2025, up 12% from the prior year, primarily owing to strong growth in our capital efficient businesses. This helped drive base ROE of 18.2%, with our US business crossing 20% for the first time. We continue to reinforce our position as a leading player in retirement services and wealth management, ending the year with total client assets of $3.3 trillion, of which more than $1 trillion represents higher margin assets under management or advisement. In 2025, Empower crossed the $2 trillion US dollar mark for the first time, highlighting the incredible progress the business has made in attracting and retaining customers. Robust capital generation has supported significant return of capital to shareholders, maintained our LICAT ratio above target levels and reduced leverage. In addition to the 1.6 billion of share buybacks in 2025, we've repurchased 250 million in common shares so far this year, and may repurchase up to 20 million shares this year under our renewed normal course issuer bid. Given our strong results and financial position, we are delighted to announce an increase to our quarterly dividend of 10% to $0.6 per common share. Please turn to slide seven. As we reflect upon 2025, it's important to recall that less than a year ago at our Investor Day in Toronto, we unveiled our updated medium-term financial objectives. We reiterated our objectives for base EPS growth and dividend payout, raised our base ROE ambition and introduced a new objective for base capital generation. Recent growth in base earnings per share has consistently exceeded our objective, supported by strong global equity markets and favourable currency movements. The consistency of these results and the consistency of the delivery from each of our four segments makes us very confident of achieving our growth ambitions in 2026 and beyond. With higher growth in the capital-efficient retirement and wealth businesses, we are well on track to deliver ROE of over 19% in the medium term. We've maintained our disciplined and consistent approach to dividends all throughout maintaining a payout ratio around the middle of our range. And finally, we are pleased that our base capital generation this year exceeded 80% of base earnings, while at the same time deploying considerable capital in our capital and risk solutions business this past year to take advantage of compelling opportunities in the market. Please turn to slide 8. Each of our businesses performed in line with our growth ambitions in 2025. This performance is a credit to our clear strategies, focused execution and commitment to delivering for our customers. The US and CRS comfortably met our medium-term growth ambitions on a constant currency basis. In Canada, our results were adversely impacted by lower earnings on surplus due to falling yields. Adjusted for this, base earnings increased by 6%, a very strong result on the back of 7% growth in 2024. In Europe, earnings on surplus decreased significantly as a result of the nearly 2 billion in dividends paid to Great West over the past 24 months, which exceeded the earnings of the business by a significant margin. Adjusted primarily for earnings on surplus, base earnings growth for Europe was 7% in constant currency. Overall, I am pleased with the strong underlying momentum across all four business segments, which gives us confidence, as I said, on continued growth in 2026 and beyond. Please turn to slide nine. As I shared last August, we're focused on four execution priorities in bringing our strategy to life. I am pleased with the significant progress we have made against each of these priorities in just the past year. Let me highlight a few examples. We have continued to strengthen our wealth platforms, which are seeing the most promising growth opportunities. Empower Wealth exceeded US$100 billion of client assets, driven in large part by increasing rollover sales, with net new assets alone driving net flow organic growth of 14%, which added to market growth during the year and increased operating margin, drove an increase in base earnings of 26%. In Canada, we continue to bolster the platform with book acquisitions and greater integration of the dealer network. And in Europe, we achieved record retail net flows of 4.2 billion as Irish Life continues to expand its market presence. We are also deeply committed to delivering best-in-class service for our customers. There is no better example of this than the strides we have made in expanding Empowered's workplace offerings with the introduction of private market investments for 401k participants, expanded consumer-directed health options, and a broadened suite of stop-plan administration services. At the same time, we continue to invest in and accelerate the use of new digital technologies, including AI. In Canada, that includes the launch of Kali, our first AI assistant that is helping to streamline workplace plan member inquiries. And Irish Life is seeing the continued development and utilization of CARA, which has revolutionized the claims process through advanced AI. And finally, we made tremendous progress in streamlining our operations. This included the ongoing optimization of our balance sheet in the UK, which has yielded more than $2 billion in capital benefits since the start of the program in 2024. And in 2025, CRS ceased writing new mortality risk reinsurance in the U.S., thereby devoting more resources to capital solutions where risk-adjusted returns continue to be significantly more attractive. I'll pass now to John to provide more detail and insights in our performance.