Sun Life Financial Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Sun Life Financial Q1 2023 conference call. My name is Michelle and I'll be your conference operator today. All lines must be placed on mute to prevent any background noise. The host of the call is Genevieve Bitton, Vice President, Head of Investor Relations and Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Mr. Bitton.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sun Life's earnings call for the first quarter of 2023. Our earnings released in 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 opening remarks from Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer. Following Kevin, Manjit Singh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer will then 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 are also 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.

Well, thanks, Yaniv, and good morning to everybody on the call. Turning to slide four, we started 2023 with strong results driven by our execution capabilities and growth across both our health and protection businesses highlighting the resilience of our business mix and the importance that our clients continue to place on health and financial security. This is Sun Life's first quarter reporting under IFRS 17 and IFRS 9. A special thank you to all the Sun Life employees involved in these efforts. While the adoption of these standards will impact how and when some of our business results are reported, it does not change our strong fundamentals, capital strength, or client impact strategy. While global markets remain challenging for our asset management businesses, we continue to see strong fundamentals and performance from MFS and SLC management. MFS AUM has increased since the end of last year, and net flows have improved year over year. SLC management fee-related earnings were up over 20% year over year on higher fee earnings AUM, reflecting strong capital raising and deployment across the platform. SLC management also completed the acquisition of a 51% interest in advisors asset management and are commencing the development of alternative products to meet the demand of high net worth individuals. Sun Life US had a strong first quarter underlying earnings, reflecting strong premium growth, contributions from DentaQuest, and meaningful improvement in mortality and disability experience. DentaQuest had strong business growth during the quarter, with significant Medicaid and commercial business wins. These contract awards, along with other dental sales in the quarter, will allow us to improve preventative care and oral health outcomes for an additional 650,000 members as they are onboarded over the next year. Sun Life Canada also achieved strong earnings during the quarter, driven by growth across all business lines. We closed the sale of our sponsored markets business, releasing capital and enabling greater focus on growing the core segments within our group benefits business, will continue to extend our focus to help our clients access healthcare and wellness solutions. We maintain great momentum in Sun Life Asia, achieving 24% overall sales growth and over 20% insurance sales growth in five of our markets, including our four largest markets, the Philippines, Hong Kong, India, and international. Notably, Hong Kong sales were up significantly as a result of tailwinds from the reopening of the border with mainland China, paired with uplifts from new product offerings. Our Philippines business achieved the number one market position for new business premiums and total premiums again in 2022. This is our 12th consecutive year leading the market in total premiums. We also announced a 15-year exclusive bank insurance partnership in Hong Kong with Dossing Bank, where Sun Life will be the exclusive provider of life insurance solutions to Dossing Bank's approximately 570,000 retail banking customers. We remain excited about the opportunity to further our growth in Asia as markets are open following pandemic restrictions and will leverage our quality distribution channels to meet the protection, health, savings, and investment needs of a rising middle class. Further to our strong earnings and sales performance over the quarter, new business contractual service margins, or CSM, of $257 million was up 50% year-over-year, driven by the impact of new insurance business in Canada and Asia, Total CSM reached $11.2 billion at the end of the quarter. Underlying ROE for the quarter was 17.3% and continues to trend towards our medium-term objective of 18% plus, reflecting our disciplined capital management and sustained emphasis on capital-light businesses. We also ended the quarter with a very strong capital position with a LICAT ratio of 148% at SLF. We announced a $0.03 increase to our quarterly common share dividend demonstrating our commitment to continue deploying capital to shareholders. Turning to slide five, this quarter we delivered on several key business initiatives that drove our client impact strategy. Helping clients access healthcare and coverage they need remains a top priority. In the U.S., we are seeing impactful results from our ABLE2 partnership, which provides access to virtual behavioral health therapy and coaching for our members with cancer. We began offering this program in Q2 2022 and are already making a difference for participating members where early results show a greater than 50% reduction in their anxiety, depression, and stress levels. This is important as there is a strong correlation between mental health and physical recovery. We continue to increase access to similar services in the first quarter, expanding our partnership again with ABLE II to offer self-care, an on-demand wellness program to support mental health for our life insurance members and partnering with GoodPath to provide digital personalized care and coaching to improve outcomes for members with certain disability diagnosis. These services help differentiate our offering in the U.S. while broadening access to programs that help people live healthier. Furthermore, Sun Life's Health Navigator, powered by Pinnacle Care, is providing personal care navigation services to help members access timely and quality care as well as expert medical opinions which benefits members with diagnosis and treatment plans. Recently, our services helped a member's eight-year-old daughter with a severe eye injury who had been recommended a surgical procedure with a low success rate. A personal health advisor connected the member to an ocular trauma specialist who recommended they not do the surgery. As a result, the child's eye is healing, giving her mother comfort in making medical decisions with our support. We continue to leverage our digital capabilities and product innovation to help clients achieve lifetime financial security. We recognize the importance of having a comprehensive financial plan that focuses on wealth, insurance, and protection services. We're committed to providing our clients with the tools and advice they need to build financial confidence and navigate through important life stages. In Canada, we enhanced the Sun Life One Plan digital tool, enabling clients to update their financial roadmaps directly. while collaborating with their advisors on personalized goals. We introduced this tool to retail clients in 2022 and in 2023 and extended that to over 750,000 Canadian GRS clients this year. Nearly 100,000 financial roadmaps have been created to date for retail clients in Canada using tools including Sun Life One Plan. In Hong Kong, we launched two new products designed to offer clients long-term financial growth potential, which actively integrate ESG concepts into investment strategies. Client reception for these products is strong, contributing to over 20% of Hong Kong's Q1 individual sales. We're also embracing our responsibility to create a more sustainable and brighter future. Sun Life has made a commitment to being sustainability-driven. It's critical to our purpose that we are focused on increasing financial security, fostering healthier lives, and advancing sustainable investing areas we know best. One key area of focus is climate change, and Sun Life is committed to being part of the climate solution. We set a goal to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in our operations and investments by 2050 and have established several interim targets for our general account and asset management businesses. To achieve our goal and contribute to the wider global movement to net-zero, We continue to collaborate with advocate programs and policies that can help drive the transition to a low-carbon economy. Furthermore, SLC management continues to invest in assets that generate a stable and attractive yield and that generate a positive environmental impact. For example, this quarter, SLC management invested in the construction of two new vessel builds that will support the long-term operation and maintenance of two offshore wind farms in the UK, which supply power to 2 million households each year. These vessels will support environmental clean operations and the use of alternative fuels. Keeping on the theme of sustainability and our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, Sun Life was named among the companies in the Globe and Mail's 2023 Report on Business Women Lead Here list. This is the fourth year in a row Sun Life was recognized for its commitment to achieving gender parity at BP Plus roles and helping women thrive in corporate Canada. We're also pleased that Sun Life was recognized among America's best employers for diversity by Forbes magazine in the U.S. And congratulations to Laura Money, our Chief Information and Technology Officer, for being recognized as one of the top CIOs in North America by Business Chief. Laura has been instrumental in driving our digital transformation and innovation efforts. Finally, trust is at the heart of our business. And around the world, we continue to be recognized for our trusted brand. This quarter, Sunlight Philippines received the Platinum Award in the Life Insurance category in the Trusted Brand Awards for the 13th consecutive year, demonstrating our ability to make a difference in our clients' lives and helping us sustain our market leadership position. While the external environment remains challenging and uncertain, we are confident that our diversified and capital-like business mix, strong capital position, and prudent approach to risk management will allow us to manage through market volatility and, more importantly, continue to help our clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. And with that, I will turn the call over to Manjit, who will walk us through the first quarter financial results.