Sun Life Financial Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Sun Life Financial Q4 2024 conference call. My name is Gaylene and I will be your conference operator today. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise 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 1 on your telephone keypad. The host of the call is Paul Poon, Assistant Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Poon.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sun Life's earnings call for the fourth quarter of 2024. 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, Tim Deacon, 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. And with that, I'll now turn things over to Kevin.

Thanks, Paul, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide four, Sun Life's Q4 results highlight our continuing commitment to helping our clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. Fourth quarter underlying earnings saw good results in Canada, Asia, and asset management, offset by lower U.S. results on weaker stop-loss morbidity claims experience. The stop-loss claims experience in the U.S. was driven by higher claims severity, which we have observed across the industry. reported earnings were down year-over-year from market-driven factors, as well as the negative impacts from several one-time items that we don't expect to reoccur. Tim will go through these one-time items in more detail. Wealth sales and asset management gross flows were up 33% on strong distribution execution at MFS and SOC. Strong net flows at SOC were more than offset by the negative net flows at MFS, which were consistent with the continued outflows across the industry. Individual protection sales were up, driven by strong sales in Asia. Group protection sales were down, reflecting the lower number of large cases coming to market in the quarter and our pricing discipline. Group sales are lumpy, and we continue to have strong momentum in our Canadian and U.S. group businesses. We ended the quarter with a strong capital position with a LICAT ratio of 152% at SLF. Given our strong capital position, we will continue to execute on our buybacks under our normal course issuer bid. Moving to slide five, let's look at the Q4 highlights and our progress against our purpose and our strategy. In asset management, the fundamentals of our businesses remain strong. SLC management achieved record capital raising of $10 billion this quarter, bringing our full year total to $24 billion. And net impulse this quarter at SLC were over $14 billion. MFS long-term retail fund performance remains strong, with 95% of fund assets ranked in the top half of their respective Morningstar categories based on 10-year performance. MFS continues to see solid fixed income net inflows, with $1.5 billion this quarter driven by their distribution strategies and strong fund performance. In December, MFS launched five active ETFs, expanding our diverse range of investment products and saw continued sales momentum with their separate managed accounts. In Asia, we're accelerating our growth momentum. We're realizing value from our high-quality, well-balanced mix of distribution channels across Asia. Our agency channel grew with year-over-year increases in sales and the number of agents, while we continued to strengthen our bank insurance relationships with leading banks across Asia. Individual sales were up, driven by healthy high-net-worth sales, growth in India bank insurance and direct-to-consumer channels, and robust growth in Hong Kong agency and bank assurance. In our India joint venture, our full year underlying earnings for insurance and wealth surpassed the $100 million milestone this year, maintaining our strong growth trajectory there. In Indonesia, we recently launched our expanded partnership with CMB Niagara with integrated digital capabilities and co-branding. In Canada and the U.S., we are showing strength in our core health businesses. In Canada, group benefits revenue was up 11% compared to the same period in the prior year. In the U.S., we see continued momentum in group benefits revenue up 6% compared to the same period in the prior year. Additionally, our U.S. dental business is building momentum with stabilization and membership and improving results driven by repricing and claims expense management actions. On the digital front, we're driving impact at scale. Our leading virtual care provider in Canada, Dialog, now offers virtual care services to more than 3.5 million clients and their families including primary care and mental health support. This represents over 8 million Canadians, approximately 20% of the Canadian population. Our services are delivered through partnerships with nearly 50,000 employers, insurance companies, and various organizations nationwide. In the Philippines, we launched Advisor Buddy to help approximately 5,000 new advisors to speed up their onboarding journey. The new generative AI tool provides fast and accurate answers to what new advisors can do to start serving clients more effectively. These digital highlights demonstrate our commitment to drive meaningful client impact, efficiency, innovation, and growth through digital leadership. Our exceptional people and culture are reflected in our employee engagement index average score of 88%, which has been above the financial services industry norm for more than five consecutive years. In 2024, Sun Life was certified as a great place to work in all participating markets, This recognition reflects Sunlight's commitment to fostering high-performing, future-ready, and a welcoming environment where our people thrive and are empowered to deliver on our purpose. Turning to slide six, we ended 2024 with solid full-year results. Underlying net income increased 3% to $3.9 billion. Our total assets under management reached a new milestone at $1.54 trillion. In Canada, we achieved record underlying net income of $1.5 billion, up 6% over the prior year, supported by solid results across all businesses. Wealth AUM is up 13%, with Divine Benefit Solutions, our pension risk transfer business, achieving record annual sales of $2.5 billion. In the U.S., we grew client revenues to U.S. $8.2 billion, driven by successful execution of our health strategy. We also saw record underlying earnings and employee benefits. In Asia, we saw strong growth momentum and achieved underlying net income of more than $700 million, up 17% year-over-year. These are record results driven by strong protection sales. Total Asia CSM grew by 30%, reinforcing our growth trajectory. Our results demonstrate the strength and resilience of our business. We will continue to build upon the strength and remain purpose-driven as we move into the year ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tim, who will walk us through the fourth quarter financial results in more detail.