Assured Guaranty Ltd.

Good morning and welcome to the Assure Guarantee Limited First Quarter 2024 earnings conference call. My name is Carla and I will be your operator for today's call. All participants will be in listening only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star and then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. Please note that today's event is being recorded. I will now like to turn the conference call over to your host, Robert Tucker, Senior Managing Director, Investor Relations and Corporate Communication. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining Assured Guarantee for our first quarter, 2024, financial results conference call. Today's presentation is made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The presentation may contain forward-looking statements about our new business and credit outlooks, market conditions, credit spreads, financial ratings, loss reserves, financial results, or other items that may affect our future results. These statements are subject to change due to new information or future events. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on them as we do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise them except as required by law. If you are listening to a replay of this call or if you're reading the transcript of the call, please note that our statements made today may have been updated since this call. Please refer to the investor information section of our website for our most recent presentations and SEC filings, most current financial filings, and for the risk factors. This presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. We present the GAAP financial measures most directly comparable to the non-GAAP financial measures referenced in this presentation, along with a reconciliation between such GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures in our current financial supplement and equity investor presentation, which are on our website at assuredguaranteed.com. Turning to the presentation, our speakers today are Dominic Frederico, President and Chief Executive Officer of Assured Guarantee Limited, Rob Balentine, our Chief Operating Officer, and Ben Rosenblum, our Chief Financial Officer. After their remarks, we will open the call to your questions. As the webcast is not enabled for Q&A, please dial into the call if you'd like to ask a question. I will now turn the call over to Dominic.

Thank you, Robert, and welcome to everyone joining today's call. I want to begin with a little history. Last month, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of our IPO. Since that time, through the end of the first quarter of 2024, we produced cumulative net adjusted operating income of almost $9 billion, increased our adjusted book value by 542%, returned $1 billion in dividends to our shareholders, and increased our share price by 385%. The increase in our share price over that period exceeded those of the S&P 500 financials, the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and New York Stock Exchange Composite Index. It proved the effectiveness and prudence of our operating strategy, as well as the resilience of our business model through difficult circumstances. These include the 2008 global financial crisis, with its many high-profile municipal and corporate bankruptcies, the increased occurrence and scale of natural disasters, and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic with its far-reaching global effects. During those periods, we maintain our ratings and claim paying resources at high levels and continue to write new business. We also reduce our insured leverage and our single risk exposures, while at the same time returning more than $6 billion to our shareholders through share buybacks and dividends and maintaining significant excess S&P capital. While we sought to reserve sufficient excess capital, we did not lose sight of our shareholders' need for appropriate returns on their investments. We began our share repurchase program in 2013. And since then, through May 7th of this year, we repurchase a total of 75% of the shares that were outstanding at that time. This year, we are commonly ramping up our expectations for share buybacks to the level that prevailed in earlier years, when we generally bought back about $500 million per year. In 2024, we repurchase $129 million of common shares in the first quarter alone, which equals 2.7% of the shares outstanding when the year began and positions us to reach our $500 million target for 2024. Additionally, on May 2nd, our board of directors authorize an additional $300 million of share repurchases in line with our target, which brings us to the other impressive result of the quarter. Adjusted operating income per share came in at $1.96 for first quarter 2024, compared with $1.12 in the first quarter of last year. Our key non-GAAP valuation measures again reach new highs on a per share basis, with adjusted operating shareholder's equity at $107.69, compared with $94.58 in the first quarter of 2023, and adjusted book value at $157.31, $14 higher than a year ago. Shareholder's equity per share at quarters in was $102.19, also $14 higher, also a record. New business production in the quarter was strong, and I'll let Rob give you more details in a moment. Our strategic approach to management through our 30% interest in Soundpoint is generating fee-based earnings consistent with our expectations, and our investment portfolio is benefiting from returns in our alternative investments through Soundpoint. As we previously discussed, we resolved all of our non-paying Puerto Rico exposures with the sole exception of the Electric Power Authority, PREPA, which is currently only $624 million of net power exposure. In fact, PREPA plus all the other below investment-grade exposures constitute just 2.1% who are occurring at poor outstanding. We prefer to resolve prep and consensually if possible, but we'll continue to use the legal process to vigorously oppose any plan of adjustment that does not include a fair treatment of our bond claims. To that, I firmly believe our insurance and financial condition are stronger than ever. When I reflect on how far our company has come, the development and evolution of our different business strategies, our proactive and strategic approach to running the company, and the way we have protected investors, served issuers, and created value for both our policyholders and shareholders, I am extremely optimistic about not only the rest of the year, but also our future for years to come. And I'll turn the call over to Ross.