Sun Life Financial Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Sun Life Financial Q2 2023 conference call. My name is Michelle and I'll be your conference operator today. All alarms have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. The host of this call is David Garg, Senior Vice President, Capital Management and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Garg.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sun Life's earnings call for the second quarter of 2023. 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 opening remarks from Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer. Following Kevin, 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 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. With that, I will turn things over to Kevin.

Thanks, David, and good morning to everyone on the call. Turning to slide four, we delivered good performance during the second quarter. Our results demonstrate the continued resilience of our diversified business mix, the value we are realizing from our recent acquisitions and strategic partnerships, our ability to execute on our strategy, and the positive impact we continue to deliver for our clients. We achieved strong underlying earnings for the quarter of $920 million, representing 14% growth over the prior year. The earnings growth was driven by strong results in our group health and protection businesses and our individual protection businesses, alongside of resilient wealth and asset management performance. Sun Life Canada achieved record earnings this quarter, driven by strong investment results and favorable insurance experience. Sun Life U.S. also had a strong second quarter for results, reflecting balanced contributions across the business. Notably, Dentiquest recorded the largest Medicare Advantage sale in its history, bringing sales for the U.S. dental business to approximately $580 million since closing our acquisition in June 2022. Sales in the second quarter are expected to add approximately 700,000 Medicare and Medicaid members over the next year, supporting our commitment to improve preventive care and oral health outcomes for our clients. We made good progress in Sun Life Asia, with individual sales up 51% year-over-year. Most notably, Hong Kong insurance sales grew nearly four times over last year, partially driven by pent-up demand with the reopening of the border with mainland China. This includes contributions from new quality agency teams and the newly opened Sun Gateway Prestige Client Center. The fundamentals of our asset management businesses remain strong. MFS long-term retail fund performance was strong, with 98% and 92% of fund assets ranked in the top half of their respective Morningstar categories based on 10- and 5-year performance. while SLC fee-related earnings increased 19% driven by higher AUM, reflecting strong capital raising and deployment across the platform and the AAM acquisition. Asset under management are now $1.37 trillion and are up 9% over last year, supported by increases from both MFS and SLC. Underlying ROE for the quarter of 17.7% continues to trend towards our medium-term financial objective of 18% plus, reflecting our disciplined capital management and sustained emphasis on capital light businesses. We also ended the quarter with a strong capital position with a LICAT ratio of 148%. Given our strong capital position and capital generation, we announced our intention to launch a normal course issuer bid to purchase up to 2.9% of our outstanding common shares or 17 million shares, subject to regulatory approval. We will continue to maintain flexibility for other potential capital deployment opportunities. Turning to slide five, this quarter we delivered on several key business initiatives that drove our client impact strategy, helping clients achieve the healthcare and coverage they need to remain a top priority. And we are leveraging our digital capabilities and recent acquisitions and strategic partnerships to make this happen. In Canada, we continue to make progress in building a health ecosystem with holistic solutions and services for our clients. Last month, we announced an agreement to acquire Dialogue Health Technologies, Canada's leading integrated health and wellness virtual care platform that provides clients with access to affordable, on-demand quality care. We've been in partnership with Dialogue since 2020. and see the incredible growth potential, but more importantly, this acquisition will allow us to play a larger role in Canada's health ecosystem and help Canadians navigate and receive care. Sun Life Canada also launched Luminal Health Pharmacy, provided by Pillway, an online pharmacy app that helps clients access knowledgeable pharmacists by chat or phone and have medications delivered right to their door. This service helps clients monitor their medications, usage, and refills, allowing them to easily access and manage care from the comfort of their home. In our U.S. dental business, we expanded Advantage Dental Plus by opening two new dental care practices in Texas. We opened these offices in areas where access to quality oral health care is a challenge for children with Medicaid coverage. In Asia, we continue to leverage our digital capabilities and product innovation to help clients live healthier lives. In Hong Kong, we introduced eSunPro, a new digital healthcare platform that offers one-stop comprehensive care. Clients have access to advanced treatment and support from the point of diagnosis to post-treatment, all in support of helping our clients focus on recovery and safeguard their health. We're using our distribution capability to build lifetime financial security for our clients. Last quarter, we announced an exclusive bank insurance partnership with Dossing Bank in Hong Kong. We're pleased with the early sales momentum and progress in July, demonstrating early traction from our new partnership and our commitment to leveraging quality distribution to meet the protection, savings, and investment needs of our clients. In SLC, Advisors Asset Management, a U.S. retail distribution affiliate, which we acquired last quarter, announced it will distribute BGO iREIT, a non-traded real estate investment trust launched by BGO, supporting the needs of high net worth individuals. We're also embracing our responsibility to create a more sustainable, brighter future. In line with our commitment to sustainable investing, this quarter we announced our second sustainability bond, issuing $500 million. We intend to invest an amount equal to the net proceeds of this offering into green and our social assets as defined by our sustainability bond framework. Additionally, SLC management continues to invest in assets that generate a stable and attractive yield with a positive environmental impact. For example, Infrared recently announced an investment in Jolt, an e-mobility company. Infrared's investment in Jolt's rapid electric vehicle charging infrastructure supports a low-carbon future and contributes to its target of achieving 50% of AUM invested in climate solutions by 2025. Finally, we continue to maintain our position as an empowered and inclusive workplace, This quarter, Sun Life was recognized as one of Corporate Night's best 50 corporate citizens in Canada for the 18th time since 2002, driven in part by strong scores on executive gender diversity and board racial diversity. In closing, we're encouraged to see our business continue to grow as we emerge from the pandemic. We're seeing accelerated growth in Asia, mortality experience being less impacted by COVID, and morbidity experience improving. We continue to monitor the macroeconomic environment closely with interest rates remaining high, particularly at the short end of the curve. But inflation is showing some signs of moderating, the credit environment remains very stable, and equity market performance overall was good in the quarter. Real estate has been a headwind for us and for the industry recently, but we continue to benefit on a relative basis from a rebalanced portfolio reflecting actions taken over the past five years. Asset management and wealth flows remain challenging, but we continue to outperform our competitors. We continue to generate capital to support our organic growth, a healthy shareholder dividend, the ability to execute on the right acquisitions or strategic partnerships like Dialogue and Dossing Bank, while also supporting the buyback we announced this quarter. Overall, we continue to deliver a positive impact for our clients, whether it's making healthcare more accessible, creating strong investment performance, or providing protection. Put simply, helping our clients achieve lifetime security and live healthier lives. With that, I will turn the call over to Manjit, who will walk us through the second quarter financial results.