Manulife Financial Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Manulife Financial fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results conference call. I would like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Koh. Please go ahead, Mr. Koh.

Thank you. Welcome to Manulife's earnings conference call to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial and operating results. Our earnings materials, including webcast slides for today's call, are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at manulife.com. Turning to slide four. We'll begin today's presentation with a highlight of our four-year results and strategic update by Roy Gorey, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Following Roy's remarks, Colin Simpson, our Chief Financial Officer, will discuss the company's financial and operating results in more detail. After the prepared remarks, we'll move to the live Q&A portion of the call. Before we start, please refer to slide two for a caution on forward-looking statements and slide 43 for a note on the non-GAAP and other financial measures used in this presentation. Note that certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from what is stated. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Roy Gorey, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Roy. Thanks, Hung, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Yesterday, we announced our fourth quarter and full year of 2023 financial results. As you can see, our strategy and discipline focus on execution are delivering, even in uncertain market conditions. we generated double-digit top-line growth with a record AP sales during the year, while Global WAM delivered another year of positive net inflows despite challenges in the retail fund market. That is the 13th year of positive inflows in the past 14 years. Core EPS grew 17%, supported by strong core earnings growth and the impact of share buybacks. Our core ROE increased to 15.9% achieving our medium-term target. We delivered robust growth of 9% in adjusted book value per share, and our strong LICAT ratio of 137% and low leverage ratio provides ample financial flexibility. Turning to slide seven. Today, we're a very different company from when we began our efforts to reshape our portfolio towards lower risk and higher returns. And 2023 was also a milestone year in that transformation journey. As part of that agenda, we further grew our highest potential businesses. In Asia, we saw double-digit growth across key new business metrics. We are a high-growth top three Pan-Asian life insurer. In Global WAM, we acquired CQS. whose multi-sector alternative credit capabilities complement our existing fixed income and multi-asset solutions business and are a powerful addition to our global credit offering. We also generated remittances of $5.5 billion and returned $4.3 billion of capital to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. And I'm pleased to tell you that yesterday our Board approved a 9.6% increase in our common share dividend beginning in March. But first, it goes without saying that meeting our customers' needs and expectations is at the core of what we do. We've sped up our processing times, reduced costs and improved the customer experience. As a result of these and other actions, we've seen a 22-point increase in our Net Promoter Score since 2017, and we are leading or on par with our peers across the majority of our business lines. And none of this would be possible without our winning team and culture. And I'm proud that for the fourth consecutive year, we achieved top quartile employee engagement results. Finally, we entered the year with a significant milestone in our transformation journey, the announcement of the largest ever LTC reinsurance deal, which I'll touch on in the following slide. You'll remember that in December, we announced the milestone LTC transaction. We transacted at attractive terms, de-risked our business, and it will be accreted to Core EPS and Core ROE after deploying the capital released to share buybacks. The transaction, which we expect will close by the end of February, also contributes to establishing an active LTC reinsurance