Sun Life Financial Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Sun Life Financial Q1 2025 conference call. My name is Gaylene and I will be your conference operator today. All the 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 one on your telephone keypad. The host of the call is Natalie Brady, Senior Vice President, Capital Management and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Ms. Brady.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sun Life's earnings call for the first quarter of 2025. 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.

Well, thanks Natalie, and welcome to the call to you in your new role and to everybody who's on the call this beautiful Friday morning. Turn to slide four. Our results this quarter highlight the strength of our balanced and diversified business mix, an important attribute in an increasingly complex operating environment. We achieved top and bottom line growth across all of our businesses. Our underlying EPS was $1.82, up 21% year over year. Underlying net income was a record $1.045 billion, and reported net income was $928 million. Underlying ROE was 17.7%. Asset management and wealth saw strong earnings growth, particularly in SLC management and Asia, driven by higher fee income and seed investment income. Additionally, we saw strong asset flows across SLC, Asia, and Canada. Group health and protection earnings and sales growth were led by Canada. Individual protection earnings were higher year over year with sales growth across the board. In Asia, we're seeing good momentum with sales driven by continued distribution strength in Hong Kong and India. Our leadership position in the Philippines and the launch of our partnership with CNB Niagara also supported our sales growth. Our capital position remains strong, reflecting our financial discipline and capital light businesses. Our LICAT ratio at SLF remained strong at 149%, and cash at SLF Holdco level was $1.3 billion. Reflecting this capital strength, we bought back $520 million of common shares during the quarter. This quarter, we are pleased to announce a 5% increase to our common share dividend and are renewing our normal course issuer bid to enable continued share buybacks pending regulatory approval. We are confident in the resilience of our business mix our focus on executing our long-term business strategy, and our sustained commitment to deliver on our purpose. Turning to slide five, we highlight our progress against our strategic imperatives. We saw good performance across our asset management and wealth platforms. SLC management raised $4.4 billion in the quarter, including strong demand in BGO's Asia Value-Add Real Estate Fund series. Fee-earning AUMs surpassed $200 billion, driven by a large insurance mandate for fixed income, and increased BGO Asia deployments. These results reflect the scaling of our SLC platform. At MFS, we continue to experience solid fixed income flows, generating approximately US$1 billion in flows. MFS also won the 2025 US LIPRA award for fixed income, recognizing consistently strong relative returns over a three-year period. Beyond that, MFS is seeing strong early momentum for their active ETFs, which first spawned last December. In Canada, our group and individual wealth businesses also demonstrated attractive growth. We achieved strong sales in our group retirement services business, supported by large case and rollover sales and defined contribution, and in our individual wealth business, SLGI, grew well. Our Asia business delivered good results on higher protection sales growth and higher wealth management earnings. In India, individual protection sales were up 35%, demonstrating growth in our bank and direct channels. Our India Asset Management joint venture grew AUM by over 20%, underpinned by higher fixed income and other fund sales. Growth in India has been a consistent and robust driver of growth over the past few years and highlights the good growth in the Indian economy and our strong capabilities there. In Hong Kong, our agency and Bank S sales channels have contributed significantly to growth of individual protection sales. Our agency sales growth was driven by both increasing the size of our sales force and increasing productivity. Our bank insurance channel continued to perform well with strong results from our partnership with Dossing. While our broker channel remained a stable source of sales, we continue to diversify and accelerate our momentum in this attractive, fast-growing market. In health, we continue to show strength and resilience in our Canadian health business. Higher large case deals contributed to very strong sales in the group health and protection business. Earnings were strong and we continue to be the scale leader in this market. In the U.S., our management team continues to take action and we saw a positive shift in the performance across businesses. We continue to experience growth in our U.S. employee benefits business, driven by disciplined pricing, our focus on claims and expense management, and our strong technology capabilities. Results in stop loss improved significantly from the prior quarter as our pre-2025 cohorts of business performed in line with expectations we provided at the end of 2024. As noted last quarter, we have added two points to our claims expectations for the January 1, 2025 cohort, reflecting the higher claims experience we saw at the end of 2024. Our strong capabilities in this business and leading scale continue to give us confidence. Dental results continue to stabilize, reflecting a mix of improved pricing, beneficial claims experience, and expense discipline, as well as the benefit of a retroactive payment in the quarter. We continue to make it easier for our clients to do business with us by delivering streamlined digital experiences. Group retirement savings clients in Canada can now set up money movements within minutes. We plan to build upon and scale this functionality, integrating it into other client processes and experiences. We also launched several client portals, including a new client mobile app in the Philippines. In the U.S., we introduced the Your Benefit concept portal, designed to support absence and short-term disability management. This new portal features a streamlined claim filing process, provides valuable insights to help clients manage their benefits, and offers an employer dashboard to help them more effectively manage their business. Underpinning our strong business performance are our people and culture. We were recognized as the best place to work in Canada and in Ireland for the third year in a row. Achieving this recognition is a reflection of our positive culture and our care for people who are at the heart of Sun Life's success. I'm also pleased to congratulate Hela Pagano, Sun Life's Chief People and Culture Officer, on being recognized as the winner of the 2025 Global Males Report on Business Best Executive Award. Helena's exceptional leadership and innovative approach continue to drive our organization forward, empowering our people to thrive and grow. We're proud of her well-deserved recognition. Additionally, congratulations to Melissa Kennedy, Sun Life's chief legal and public policy officer, for being named one of the top general counsels by Chambers and Partners. This award recognizes outstanding in-house lawyers who significantly impact their organizations and clients, as well as reflects Melissa's contribution to our company the legal profession, and the industry at large. These awards reinforce the invaluable experience and vision Sunlight's global leadership team bring to our organization. Guided by our purpose, our dedicated leadership and their teams blend global strengths with local expertise, driving our continued success. All in all, Q1 was a strong start to 2025, despite the challenging political and economic conditions. We continue to watch both the geopolitical environment and the economy closely. Sun Life has been in business for 160 years and operates in 28 markets around the world, giving us the tools to manage challenging conditions. Our business mix, prudent risk management capabilities, and strong capital position provide resiliency to our company. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tim, who will walk us through the first quarter financial results in more detail.