Sun Life Financial Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Sun Life Financial Q1 2026 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 your call today 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 earning call for the first quarter of 2026. 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, Tom Murphy, President of Sun Life Asset Management, will provide an update on our asset management businesses. Following Tom, 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 Natalie, and good morning everyone. Turning to slide five, we delivered solid first quarter top and bottom line results. Underlying net income was $1.05 billion, with EPS growth of 4% over first quarter last year, and underlying return on equity was 18.6% on path to achieve our MTO of 20%. Reported net income was impacted by market adjustments, as well as a few one-time items that Tim will discuss in more detail. Strong protection income results were driven by growth in Canada, Asia, and U.S. stop-loss. In Sun Life Asset Management, MFS had consistent earnings year-over-year reflecting market conditions. SLC management results were below our expectations, reflecting the absence of catch-up fees and lowered seed income this quarter, which were both strong last year. We expect SLC earnings to rebound solidly over the remainder of 2026. For top line, insurance sales saw significant growth, driven by sales momentum in Asia and continued solid sales in the U.S. Asset management growth sales remain strong across MFS, SLC, Canada, and Asia. MFS U.S. equity outflows increased in the quarter amid the broader industry-wide dynamics impacting the U.S. mutual fund markets. We ended the quarter with a strong LICAT ratio of 143% following the completion of the BGO and Crescent acquisitions. This quarter, we announced a 4% increase to our common share dividend to $0.96 per share. And we also announced a renewed normal course issuer bid to repurchase up to 10 million shares, reflecting strong cash flow and a focus on execution across our businesses. Turning to slide six, we are making significant progress across our key strategic areas. At SLC, we achieved several significant milestones, including completing the acquisitions of BGO and Crescent, advancing leadership alignment through the launch of our management equity plan, and announcing our intention to acquire Bell Partners. We're confident in SLC achieving their medium-term growth targets. Later in the call, Tom Murphy will share a few words on the Sun Life asset management platform and the growth opportunities ahead. Staying on asset management in Canada, growing our wealth businesses is a key focus. Sunlight Gold Investments continues to build its ETF platform with the addition of two MFS powered low volatility equity strategies. Turn to Asia, we are seeing strong momentum with sales up 49% over last year, exceeding $1 billion in a quarter for the first time ever. Growth was led by Hong Kong where sales grew 75% driven by double digit sales growth across all channels. Indonesia also delivered strong performance on the ongoing strength of our expanded CNV-Niaga partnership. Our relationship with CNV-Niaga goes back 20 years. Together, we continue to innovate and partner to deliver exceptional solutions for our clients in the market. We also saw good sales momentum in high net worth, India, China, and Malaysia. CSM in Asia reached $7 billion, up 12% year over year, reflecting the quality of our sales growth. In the US, we delivered strong sales results. the rebuild and refocus of our U.S. dental business is progressing well. We are focused on executing against the targeted strategy to increase our share of the commercial dental market to deliver stronger margins and improve profitability over time. Helping members access care and improve health outcomes sits at the core of our U.S. strategy. Guided by this focus, we expanded Sun Life Expert Cancer Review. This service supports members facing a cancer diagnosis with access to objective second opinions. helping them attain the treatment plan best suited for their needs. We continue to advance our digital capabilities across the organization, with a focus on delivering improvements in both client experience and business efficiency globally. In Asia, our Hong Kong business expanded their data-driven underwriting, increasing straight-through processing and enabling faster client onboarding. In Malaysia, we deployed an AI-assisted Talkbot, expanding servicing capacity and creating more timely and consistent engagement with clients. In Canada, we're continuing to scale AI across the business with advisors using AI-enabled tools to support client conversations. Our operations employees are leveraging AI to access information more quickly, and more than 90% of our developers are using AI to improve efficiency and the speed of delivery. Building on this broader adoption, straight through underwriting increased to 40% for eligible individual life insurance applications, up more than 50% year over year, This reduced average issuance time from 25 days to 11 enables faster policy delivery and improved operational efficiency. These examples demonstrate how digital investments are enhancing client outcomes while enabling more efficient, scalable growth across the businesses. Turning to slide seven, we delivered solid first quarter results progressing against our medium-term objectives. Underlying earnings per share growth of 4% reflects our solid businesses. Our underlying ROE of 18.6% and dividend payment ratio of 49% are aligned with our medium-term objectives. Our four pillars are well-positioned to deliver our medium-term objectives. Canada continues to anchor Sunlight's performance and reinforces our role as a trusted partner to millions of Canadians. Asia is performing strongly, driven by growth in the high net worth and middle-class markets and solid execution. The U.S. is focused on scaled, capital-like group benefits businesses in a growing and increasingly complex healthcare market. At Sun Life Asset Management, our scale and broad capabilities enable our resilience to manage across cycles and leverage synergies from our protection businesses. Our purpose continues to guide how we serve our clients, while the strength of our diversified business mix and global capabilities positions us to navigate the current market conditions and geopolitical uncertainties with confidence. Across our businesses, we are making clear progress against our strategic priorities supported by strong fundamentals and disciplined execution. Looking ahead, we're confident in our ability to continue creating value by executing on our strategy with focus and consistency. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom, who will walk you through Sun Life Asset Management, what the platform looks like today, and where we see opportunities to grow.