Manulife Financial Corporation

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Manulife Financial Corporation fourth quarter and full year 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 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 reach an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Hong Ko, Global Head of Treasury and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Welcome to Manulife's earnings conference call to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial and operating results. Our earnings materials, including the webcast slide for today's call, are available in the investor relations section of our website at manulife.com. Before we start, please refer to slide two for a caution on forward-looking statements and slide 41 for for a note on a non-GAAP and other financial measures used in this presentation. Please note that certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from what is stated. Turning to slide four, we'll begin today's presentation with Phil Worthington, our President and Chief Executive Officer, who will provide highlights of our full-year 2025 results and the progress made toward our new and elevated strategic priorities. Following Phil, Colin Simpson, our Chief Financial Officer, will discuss the company's financial and operating results in more detail. After their prepared remarks, we move to the live Q&A portion of the call. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Phil.

Thanks, Hung, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. 2025 was a defining year for Manulife. We delivered strong financial results, announced our refreshed enterprise strategy to shape Manulife's next chapter of growth, and are laser-focused on executing against our vision through targeted strategic investments. While macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty remains, we're confident that the diversified nature of our business positions us well to navigate the current environment and capitalize on the opportunities ahead. So let's start with our 2025 financial results, which we announced yesterday. We delivered strong top-line results with new business CSM growth exceeding 20% in each insurance segment. contributing to a double-digit growth in our CSM balance and supporting our future earnings potential. Despite experiencing net outflows in the second half of 2025, Global WAN continues to deliver strong margins and core earnings growth. The strong results in Global WAN combined with the double-digit earnings growth in Asia contributed to our record core earnings this year. Together with the benefit of continued share buybacks, we delivered 8% core EPS growth. We also continue to generate attractive returns with core ROE expanding 30 basis points from the prior year, and we're tracking well towards our 2027 target of 18% plus. Moving to our balance sheet, we generated $6.4 billion of remittances this year, and returned nearly $5.5 billion of capital to shareholders. Our LICAT ratio of 136% and leverage ratio of 23.9% provide significant financial flexibility, and I'm pleased to share that we announced a 10% increase in our quarterly common share dividend. In addition, we have received OSFI approval for a new NCID program, which will allow us to repurchase up to 42 million shares, or approximately 2.5% of issued and outstanding common shares, highlighting our continued commitment to returning capital to shareholders. We plan to commence buybacks under this new program in late February, subject to approval by the Toronto Stock Exchange. Moving on to slide seven. In November, we introduced our refreshed enterprise strategy, which builds on our strength is growth focused, and is anchored in our ambition to be the number one choice for customers. There is tremendous enthusiasm across the company as we execute on our new and elevated strategic priorities, which provide logical continuity as we progress in our new chapter with refreshed ambition. As a result, we've already made meaningful progress in 2025. Starting with our winning team and culture, our world-class talent is one of our greatest strengths. And this year marked our sixth consecutive year of top quartile employee engagement. I'm encouraged by the energy and commitment of our colleagues around the world who've embraced our ambition to be the number one choice for customers. Together, we will continue to bring focused execution and innovation to the work ahead. And as we drive high-quality, sustainable growth, we will maintain a balanced, diversified business model. This year, we've made strategic investments, both organically and inorganically, to further strengthen our portfolio. We acquired Convest Credit Partners, announced a joint venture to enter the India life insurance market, and entered into an agreement to acquire Schroders Indonesia, with the latter two subject to regulatory approval. We also became the first international life insurer to establish an office in the Dubai International Financial Center dedicated to advising on and arranging life insurance solutions for high net worth customers. And we've expanded our customer solutions, including a new indexed universal life offering in the US, while in Canada, we launched a simplified specialized lending suite of products in Manulife Bank. As Colin will highlight, the benefit of a diversified portfolio was evident in our fourth quarter results, and I expect our diversification to serve us well amidst rising global uncertainty. On to slide eight and our focus on being the most trusted partner in health, wealth, and financial well-being. We took meaningful steps to further empower our customers this year, including a significant milestone in our ambition to be the health partner of choice in Asia. Through a strategic collaboration in Hong Kong with Bupa International, we will offer greater choice and sustainable healthcare solutions that empower individuals and communities to live healthier and more fulfilling lives. In Canada, we became the first insurer to offer access to Grail's Gallery multi-cancer early detection tests supporting earlier detection and longevity for our customers. And in the U.S., we're providing additional resources and offerings to eligible U.S. customers to proactively manage their health and wellness. These actions deliver measurable benefits for customers while generating value for Manulife, and we're proud to be a leader in this space. We also continued to invest to make it easier for customers to buy and advise us to sell our solutions. We renewed our bank assurance partnership with China Bank in the Philippines, extending the exclusive partnership to 2039. In Singapore, we leveraged our digital capabilities to enhance our Manulife iPhones platform through using a single platform and leveraging AI-powered analytics. Advisors can deliver more personalized and insightful financial guidance. And in the U.S., we expanded our wholesaling team to accelerate our penetration into the high net worth and mass affluent markets. By expanding our reach and scaling our digital and AI capabilities, we can more effectively reach our customers and enhance their experience. Finally, over to slide nine. Becoming an AI-powered organization is core to delivering on our ambitions, and while we've been an early adopter of AI and built the underlying infrastructure necessary to support our vision, it's very important that we sustain our leadership position. We're investing with discipline and a clear focus on areas where AI can be deployed at scale and further improve our efficiency, enhance our customer and colleague experiences, and support sustainable growth. In 2025, we ranked first among global life insurers for AI maturity by Evident and achieved 30% of the $1 billion plus of AI enterprise value generation by 2027. To drive measurable outcomes, we're concentrating on core focus areas where AI can make the greatest difference for manual life. And we're already deploying initiatives across businesses and geographies to continue to drive value. Across the organization, we're deploying virtual assistants that create efficiencies while equipping employees and advisors with deeper insights, more personalized outreach, and instant product guidance, strengthening the quality and consistency of customer interactions. In underwriting, AI is accelerating decision-making by automating data analysis, enabling faster and more accurate assessments while maintaining strong risk discipline. And we're prioritizing AI solutions that remove manual transactions, driving measurable improvements in efficiency and operational outcomes. Within distribution, AI is enhancing client engagement through tailored sales support, leading to improved sales close ratios and outcomes. We're strengthening our internal productivity by equipping our global technology teams with modern engineering tools helping us build better solutions and faster. And we're also exploring how AI can help close the advice access gap and support more meaningful ongoing investor engagement at scale. Moving forward, we're progressing towards a proprietary agentic AI platform that will make it easier to manage and coordinate AI tools across the company. allowing us to scale AI even faster and more consistently while ensuring a robust governance process. Overall, these are high impact areas that reduce friction, support long-term growth, and will enable us to deliver on our 2027 and medium-term targets. In closing, I am thrilled with the progress we've made in 2025. We've delivered strong financial results and are already making meaningful strides against our refreshed strategy. As we begin 2026, we're executing from a position of strength with clear momentum and confidence in our ability to achieve our 2027 targets while generating high-quality, sustainable growth for all our stakeholders for the long term. With that, I'll hand it over to Colin to discuss our results In more detail, Colin.