Sun Life Financial Inc.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Suzanne, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Sun Life Financial Q3 2021 Financial Assault Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. The host of the call is Yaniv Bidin, Vice President, Head of Investor Relations and Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Mr. Bidin.

Thank you, Suzanne, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sun Life's earnings call for the third quarter of 2021. Our earnings release and the slides for today's call are available on the investor relations section of our website at sunlife.com. We will begin today's call with an update on our client impact strategy and an overview of our third quarter results by Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer. Following Kevin's remarks, Manjit Singh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will present the financial results for the quarter. After the prepared remarks, we will move to the question and answer portion of the call. Other members of management will also be available to answer your questions this morning. Turning to slide two, I draw your attention to the cautionary language regarding the use of forward-looking statements and non-IFRS financial measures, which form part of today's remarks. As noted in the slides, forward-looking statements may be rendered inaccurate by subsequent events. And with that, I'll now turn things over to Kevin.

Thanks, Jean-Yves, and good morning, everybody. Turning to slide four, I'd like to start by sharing my thoughts on our strategy. Since becoming CEO, the executive team and I have taken the opportunity to reflect on and discuss our strategy with a focus on our purpose, our clients, our strengths, our priorities, and on our outcomes. We've refreshed our client impact strategy, which builds on our strong foundation. Over the past 10 years, Sun Life has been on a strategic course that has delivered exceptional value to our stakeholders We've built on this foundation and added emphasis on digital leadership, sustainability, and client impacts. We've prioritized four growth areas, thinking and acting like a digital company, leveraging the strength of our capabilities in both asset management and insurance, deploying capital into M&A that is strategic and at scale or capabilities, and building on our health strategy in Canada, U.S., and Asia. Our purpose... to help clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives, and our four-pillar strategy made up of asset management, Canada, U.S., and Asia, have served us well and will continue to be central to who we are and to what we do. Today, with nearly half of our underlying net income being driven by asset management, we have a balanced business model where both asset management and insurance have strong foundations with tremendous growth opportunities supported by macro trends And most importantly, the ability to fuel our future success with the right people and culture supported by a trusted brand. Our strategy keeps our clients at the center of everything we do. Whether helping clients navigate health concerns, save and plan for their retirement, or provide financial security for their families, our focus is on the impact we have on their lives. Our strategy focuses on digital leadership, sustainability, financial discipline, and distribution excellence. Digital leadership is about accelerating our digital capabilities as well as changing how we work together. We want to work in a more agile way, driving faster decisions that are made closer to the client. In short, it's about thinking and acting like a digital company to create deep client relationships and deliver exceptional client experiences. Sustainability is an imperative for us. Our employees, clients, and investors have told us that sustainability is important to them. We believe that to be a truly sustainably driven company, our plan must be purpose-driven. That's why we've aligned our sustainability plan directly to our purpose, to areas we know best, health, financial security, and sustainable investing, all to the benefit of our clients, investors, and communities. And we're continuing to emphasize measures that have supported our success, excelling in distribution, whether it be in Sun Life through our advisor channel, third parties, or new innovative channels combined with a prudent approach to financial discipline that includes financial performance, risk management, and strong capital management. Our refresh strategy brings together the elements that have been core to our success with emerging areas of increasing importance and supports our ambition to be one of the best asset management and insurance companies in the world. Turning to slide five, we've made some great progress bringing our strategy to life. In October, we announced our intention to acquire DentaQuest, a leading dental benefits provider in the United States with approximately 33 million members. The acquisition is right on strategy to grow our U.S. business and advances our sustainability strategy, focusing on improving health and wellness outcomes for all. And like our existing U.S. group benefits business, Dentiglass is capital light with low tail risk and repricable offerings, all of which support our medium-term financial objectives. As I mentioned earlier, sustainability is an imperative for Sun Life, and this quarter I was pleased to appoint our first Chief Sustainability Officer, Alana Boyd, reporting directly to me. She will build on our long-term environmental and social commitments to design and lead greater sustainability performance for Sun Life. Yesterday, we announced our goal to achieve net zero by 2050 for our operations as asset owner and manager. This includes commitments made by MFS, SLGI, Infrared, and BGO, who have all joined the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, pledging to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions for their portfolios by 2050. We continue to transform our business with a focus on digital leadership. In Canada, our digital coach, Ella continues to deliver nudges leading to meaningful client impacts with nearly $600 million in wealth deposits and $800 million in insurance coverage sold this year. This past quarter, we started the rollout of a digital financial planning tool in Canada in partnership with Conquest Planning. This tool complements our holistic advice model, addressing a broad need for all Canadians to have a financial plan. We'll be introducing this digital capability across all wealth and insurance service platforms enabling us to proactively respond to clients' evolving financial needs. During the quarter, we completed the acquisition of Pinnacle Care in the U.S. and launched Health Navigator, supported by Pinnacle Care, in our stop-loss portfolio. This solution offers a concierge approach to guiding members through the complex U.S. healthcare system, helping to ensure they get the right diagnosis, doctors, and treatment for their conditions, leading to better health outcomes and experiences. In Asia, we've seen a significant increase in digital adoption. Sixty-nine percent of new business applications were submitted digitally in the first three quarters of the year, up 51 percentage points over last year. Turning to slide six, I'm pleased to announce that we're increasing our return on equity medium-term objective to 16 percent plus from the previous objective of 12 to 14 percent. Over the past decade, we've made significant moves in our strategy to diversify our business mix and shift away from capital-intense, interest-sensitive businesses. Wealth and asset management, in addition to capital-like group and shorter-duration insurance businesses, now drive approximately 80% of our underlying earnings mix. This shift, coupled with our strong track record for execution, makes this the right time to update our underlying ROE objective. Turn to slide 7. we delivered a strong third quarter that underscores the strength of our diversified business mix. While we're seeing a lot of progress with a wide-scale rollout of vaccines, we are still feeling the impact of the pandemic around the world. Our employees and advisors continue to be there for our clients as we have throughout the pandemic. To date, Sun Life has delivered more than $700 million in COVID-19-related health and life insurance benefits to clients and their families at a time when they needed it the most. In the third quarter, reported net income increased to just over $1 billion, up $269 million over last year. Underlying net income and earnings per share increased 7%, driven by strong results in wealth and asset management, partially offset by mortality and morbidity impacts from COVID-19, primarily in our U.S. and Asia pillars. We generated an underlying return on equity of 15.6% in the quarter and also maintained our strong capital position. To sum it up, it was a strong quarter for Sun Life, reflecting the efforts and accomplishments of our employees and advisors and their continued commitment to our purpose of helping clients achieve lifetime financial security and to live healthier lives. Before I turn the call to Manjit, I'd like to touch on a recent update on our executive team leadership. Last week, we were pleased to announce the appointment of Ingrid Johnson, our new president of Sun Life Asia. We're excited that Ingrid is joining Sun Life. She'll be a great addition to the executive team and will join the call in Q4. With that, I will now turn the call over to Manjit, who will take us through our financial results.