Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Great-West Lifeco Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity for analysts to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Paul Mahon, President and CEO of Great-West Lifeco. Please go ahead. Thank you, Ariel. Good morning, everyone. Earlier today, we announced that Great-West Lifeco has entered into a definitive agreement to sell Putnam Investments to Franklin Templeton, one of the world's leading asset managers. This is an important transaction that is expected to create benefits for all parties. We appreciate you joining us on short notice to discuss this news and what it means for our company. With me on the call today is Garry McNicholas, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Great-West Lifeco. Also joining us for the Q&A is Raman Srivastava, Chief Investment Officer of Great-West Lifeco. Garry and I will deliver brief formal remarks. We'll be pleased to take your questions. Bob Reynolds will not be joining us as he's with his team in Boston today. Before we begin, I'd like to draw your attention to Slide 2 for our cautionary notes regarding forward-looking information and non-IFRS financial measures. These notes apply to today's discussion and presentation materials. Please note that all financial information throughout the presentation is in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise indicated. Please turn to Slide 3. Great-West Lifeco has agreed to sell Putnam to Franklin Templeton, a leading asset manager with a broad range of investment and distribution capabilities. This combination is value-creating for our stakeholders. For Lifeco Shareholders, it's financially attractive, with potential transaction consideration and retained value of $1.7 billion-$1.8 billion. This aligns with our stated goal to unlock value through a combination that scales Putnam. For our Putnam team and customers, it will leverage and sustain Putnam's capabilities and strengths as part of a scaled, diversified asset manager. In addition to the asset sale, Great-West Lifeco, Power Corporation of Canada, and Franklin Templeton have entered into a strategic partnership. We look forward to leveraging Franklin Templeton's asset management strengths in support of our wealth, retirement, and insurance businesses across Lifeco. Beyond the transaction consideration and partnership benefits, Great-West Lifeco will retain its controlling interest in PanAgora Asset Management, a leading quantitative asset manager with $33 billion dollars assets under management U.S., will realize the value of Putnam seed capital and will retain certain tax benefits related to Putnam. Please turn to Slide 4. Putnam brings a lot to this transaction. Strong investment performance and complementary capabilities to Franklin Templeton. With over 80% of mutual fund assets in 4-star and 5-star rated funds, Putnam's performance will help Franklin accelerate its growth, benefiting clients of both companies. The addition of Putnam's scale, product, and distribution capabilities will strengthen Franklin in a number of areas, including the retirement and defined contribution investment-only markets. I'm looking forward to seeing Putnam flourish as part of Franklin Templeton, with the combination delivering benefits for clients, teams, and shareholders of both Great-West Lifeco and Franklin. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Garry to speak to the terms of the transaction and the components of value to be received by Great-West Lifeco. Garry? Thank you, Paul. Please turn to Slide 5. The overall transaction and retained value for Great-West Lifeco is estimated at over $1.7 billion and is expected to be moderately accretive to Lifeco EPS. There are a number of components to the value highlighted on the left-hand side of the page that I'll walk through. For the Putnam operations, excluding seed capital and subsidiary PanAgora, Franklin will pay Great-West Lifeco upfront consideration, comprised of cash of $100 million, plus stock consideration of 33.3 million Franklin shares. We have estimated the share value at $850 million-$900 million based on recent share price performance. Today's price is a little lower than the average over the last couple of months, reflecting market pressures in recent weeks, but we are looking at the value over a longer time horizon. The majority of Putnam's seed capital is also being acquired by Franklin for cash, and a portion is being retained with a combined value of $220 million, although this will also fluctuate. Lifeco is retaining PanAgora, a leading quantitative asset manager, with a value of $180 million. In addition, there is future contingent consideration of up to $375 million based on the strategic partnership. The $375 million contingent payments would be payable in cash and based on achieving certain milestones in the growth of the partnership over the next 3- 5 years, with the potential for catch-up payments based on growth out to year 7. EPS accretion is a result of the assumed incremental investment earnings on the stock and cash consideration, including Franklin common share dividends. The transaction is expected to be broadly neutral to book value, depending on the value of Franklin shares and other adjustments at close. Closing is expected in the fourth quarter of 2023, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary conditions. Putnam employees own 12.2% of Putnam, and Great-West Lifeco will purchase their shares at closing and also share any future contingent payments as and when received. Life Co will have a 5-year lockup on a portion of its Franklin Equity stake, equal to 4.9% of total Franklin shares outstanding, representing approximately 26.2 of the 33.3 million shares. We plan to hold the shares within Empower's insurance companies as part of the assets supporting their RBC regulatory capital ratio. The transaction is to be treated as an asset acquisition for U.S. tax purposes, which enables Lifeco to retain certain tax benefits with a value of approximately $345 million. I'll now turn the call back over to Paul to provide additional context about how this transaction furthers Great-West Lifeco's growth strategy. Thanks, Garry. Please turn to Slide 6. This transaction generates immediate value for Great-West Lifeco shareholders, including seed capital recovery, cash proceeds, as well as participation in Franklin Templeton dividends, and potential share price appreciation. It also allows us to increase our focus on building and extending leadership positions in the U.S. retirement and personal wealth markets through Empower. Further on in this presentation, we've included a slide profiling how we've built Empower into a leader in the U.S. retirement market, with 18 million plan participants and $1.4 trillion in assets under administration. We believe in the value of strong asset management. The sale of Putnam to Franklin Templeton is about scaling and strengthening Putnam for the benefit of stakeholders. We are confident that the combined Franklin Putnam organization will also provide Lifeco. Our affiliates with access to scaled and diversified asset management solutions that will further enhance our wealth, retirement, and insurance offerings. We will also continue to build on Great-West Lifeco's strength in asset management through our diverse general account capabilities, our ownership of investment managers such as PanAgora, ILIM, and Setanta, and through our growing number of strategic partnerships that include Franklin Templeton, Mackenzie, Northleaf, and Sagard. I will now ask you to turn to Slide 7 for more detail about the strategic partnership. We believe the strategic partnership between our companies will benefit our clients, distribution partners, and shareholders. Franklin's diverse specialist investment managers are complementary to both Lifeco and Power affiliate capabilities, providing significant opportunity to cooperate on a global scale. As noted on the slide, Lifeco. will provide an initial long-term asset allocation of $25 billion to Franklin's specialist investment managers within 12 months of closing. Beyond this, we expect additional AUM allocations over the next several years as we leverage Franklin's diverse and competitive asset management solutions across Lifeco platforms. While these allocations will benefit our companies and clients, they will also benefit our shareholders, as growth in the partnership will drive the contingent consideration. Please turn to Slide 8. Franklin Templeton is a great fit for Putnam, as one of the world's leading investment managers with a strong presence in traditional and alternative investments, operating in more than 30 countries under multiple recognizable brands. This business model will allow Boston-based Putnam team and their investment solutions to flourish as part of an at-scale organization. Importantly, Franklin, like Putnam, is a long-term oriented investor with a client-centric culture and a strong track record of M&A execution and integration, including several recent high-profile acquisitions. Please turn to Slide 9. As I shared with you a few moments ago, we believe this transaction is a great key next step in Great-West Lifeco's U.S. growth strategy. This slide highlights the steps we've taken to reposition our U.S. business through multiple transactions, supported by investments in technology and talent. Like the scale Franklin Templeton brings to unlock Putnam's strength, we believe the scale we've built at Empower provides us with a platform for growth. Not highlighted on this slide is the significant opportunity we see to provide technology-enabled personal wealth advice, products, and services to Empower's 18 million participants. This will be an area of focus at an upcoming Investor Day we've scheduled for June 20th. Please turn to Slide 10. To conclude, we believe we found the right partner in Franklin Templeton. The strategic partnership enhances value creation opportunities for Great-West Lifeco shareholders and clients, while positioning Franklin to build upon Putnam's complementary capabilities. The transaction unlocks the value of Putnam while focusing Lifeco's U.S. business on building and extending its leadership position in retirement and wealth management markets. It allows Great-West Lifeco shareholders to benefit from equity participation in a large and scaled global asset management platform. It establishes a strategic partnership between Great-West Lifeco, Power Corporation, and Franklin Templeton, which is expected to generate meaningful value for all parties well into the future. Finally, and importantly, before we get into Q&A, I would like to thank Bob Reynolds for his continued leadership over the past 16 years. I would also like to thank the entire Putnam team for their commitment to excellence for their clients. During his tenure, Bob built an exceptional team. Together, they revitalized Putnam through strong, sustained investment performance, disciplined expense management, and the development and delivery of competitive and relevant solutions for clients and their advisors. Ultimately, this laid the foundation for Putnam to come together with Franklin Templeton for its next phase of growth. With that, we'll now open to questions, operator. Thank you. Thank you. We will now begin the analyst question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. ... If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. Our first question comes from Meny Grauman of Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Just to start, just a few questions on the components of value as you laid them out. Just to clarify, the line item that deals with estimated seed capital, is that just Franklin buying out that seed capital stake or those seed capital stakes? I'm just trying to understand that line specifically. First question. Thanks for that. Okay, Garry? Yeah. The current values of the seed capital, Franklin is buying $165 million, and we're retaining $55 million, it's $220 million, which is the midpoint of that range. That's where that line is getting at. Obviously, there can be other closing adjustments, so both the value and the close, yes, will fluctuate at close. Got it. Then for the contingent consideration, are you able to provide us a little more in terms of what is this tied to? Is it AUM growth? Anything else to kind of help scale, what kind of upside the business needs to achieve before you get those payments? I'll start out by. I'm gonna let Garry maybe provide a bit more detail, but I'll start out by, you know, just providing some insight that we've spent a lot of time looking at Franklin's capabilities, trying to understand where they're complementary. We've noted their significant growth and strength in alternative asset management. We look to that, and we see significant opportunity for Franklin to be a partner in terms of supporting our general account, our wealth management solutions. We see a lot of opportunity in that transaction. Ultimately, the value of the contingent consideration is gonna be based on growth in the partnership. We're not gonna provide more details on that specifically other than that, you know, there's various thresholds over time. Garry, do you want to just speak to that? Yeah. I'd just, I'd note it's, there are, the $375 is divided into 3 payments in years 3, 4, and 5 of up to, $125 million each, and then there's various catch-up mechanisms, and it's based on a revenue metric that, is the growth in the partnership. That's the main metric. just to reiterate, we've done a lot of work to understand that, and we come into this with great confidence that we can drive strong revenue flow just because of the strengths and the complementary nature of their capabilities. Got it. Finally for me, just bigger picture, trying to understand from your perspective, the timing of this transaction, why you felt now was the right time. You highlighted, you know, valuations for asset managers, definitely are not at their peak right now, why do this deal now? Yeah, good question. Well, you know, the reality is we've looked at a number of opportunities over time, and it's always come down to, obviously there's gonna be the financial side of it, but there's gonna be the fit side of it. The reality is, we take on Franklin stock, the value to me is a bit secondary because, you know, as if values are down now, ultimately, we believe values will grow, and we'll be holding stock in an asset manager. The other point I'd make is fit was critically important to us. We really think that Franklin is the best fit partner that we've come across. We think it's good for the Putnam team, we think it's good for Putnam clients, and we think it's good for our overall company. You know, timing is one of those things you can't select the timing. The opportunities come when they come. I think we're most focused on fit, and we're really excited about the fit of Putnam with Franklin and in the context of the partnership. Thanks, Paul. Our next question comes from Paul Holden of CIBC. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. Similar to Meny, I have a number of questions just to make sure I understand the transaction details correctly. I guess starting with the payment to employees, assuming they get 12.2% of gross proceeds as it comes in, I guess where I need clarity is just like, what does that include? What does it not include? Like, I'm assuming that does not include any proceeds for seed capital, but is there anything else that would be excluded in terms of those payments to employees? Garry, over to you. Yeah. The employees get the 12.2% is for the actual, like, the full Putnam. That includes the seed capital. That's all part of Putnam. I, there, you know, it's about, what would that be? It's somewhere in the $165 million range, would be the 12.2%. It is on the full value of Putnam. It does not include the tax benefits that are retained. Got it. Okay, thanks for that. Then in terms of the roughly $7 million of Putnam shares, not under the lockup, once the deal closed, can those be sold at any time, or is there sort of a, you know, standard with these deals, typically, you know, there might be a 60, 90-day type lockup, like a shorter lock-up period? Well, there's an initial lock-up period of 180 days, after which we could, but, you know, ultimately we'll make that decision when that time comes. As we said, we like the ownership stake in Franklin, so we'll cross that bridge when that time comes. Understood. In terms of the cash proceeds, other than the payments that need to be made to employees, is this gonna be, I don't know if there's a ton left over, is this mostly gonna be about deleveraging similar to your current use of excess capital? Yeah, Garry, over to you. Yeah, yeah. I'd point out a couple of things. One is that obviously there is the cash, and then there's the potential, depending on the shares in six months. Also, I'd note that we are holding this under the U.S. Insurance Entities. The shares will be held there. They'll account for RBC Capital, so that also frees up some potential RBC room. Now, obviously, it's not liquid, but it is potential RBC room as well. The use of the cash, yeah, we'd certainly have a priority in the short term on continuing our deleveraging. Obviously it can be deployed elsewhere as well, beyond the deleveraging. Okay. Are you able to quantify that RBC benefit? It's. Yeah, I mean, there's, it is a fairly complex calculation because of the way RBC works. I would imagine, you know, it'd be a few hundred million of capital generated on top of the. You know, we have some requirements for holding it, and then there'd be excess generated. It would be in that CAD 300 million-CAD 400 million, in that sort of range. Okay, that's helpful. Then, last one for me is just in terms of the $25 billion of long-term asset allocation to Franklin, can you talk with any more specifics around what type of mandates, what the advisory fees might be on that? I guess just really bigger picture, given the internal capabilities, you have, why allocate $25 billion of assets to Franklin? What do they bring to the table that GWO can't manage internally? Good question. I'll turn it to Raman to provide a bit more detail. You know, as part of the transaction, we looked at this from the standpoint of both the economics, the organizational fit, and but also the partnership opportunity, because there really are a number of complementary capabilities that we think augment, you know, the strengths that we have internally. Raman, maybe you can provide a little bit of context? Yeah, sure, Paul. Thanks for the question. I'd say a couple things. One is, you know, as you know, our U.S. business has grown significantly, and along with it, our assets have grown significantly. You know, the $25 billion principally will be a lot of it coming from the general account. If you recall, you know, our general account is high quality. It's mostly fixed income, investment-grade rated 99%. It's, you know, these assets which are in scope, at least at first instance. As Paul mentioned earlier, you know, Franklin does provide a very broad platform for us to look at. They have capabilities in fixed income for sure, they have capabilities in other areas which are complementary, such as partially alternatives market. You know, we expect this still, you know, to evolve over time. Initially, though, we think there's some path forward there in the general account. Great. That's it from me, and congrats on getting this transaction across the line. Thanks, Paul. Our next question comes from Gabriel Dechaine of National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Good morning. What's the so the tax loss carry forward that you're retaining, what's the duration of those? Garry? Yeah. you know, the exact duration, I don't know the exact duration. I think we'd be using those up probably within the next five years or so. Okay. You know, cash component of the proceeds, I guess you got the $100 million from the direct sale, then, $165 from the seed capital sale, you know, U.S. dollars. Not a huge amount, but would it be safe to assume that's, you know, gonna be directed towards deleveraging? Garry? Yes. Yeah, that's, I mean, obviously, you know, it's fungible in that regard, but certainly deleveraging continues to be a priority, and then beyond that. Mm-hmm for investments. I don't know if you answered it in the prior question, but are the sub-advisory of that $25 billion, are there any cost savings? Because, you know, you'll be paying a sub-advisory fee, presumably, but maybe some internal changes are possible too. No, I would say broadly, it's, you know, it's sort of a break even. Really what we're doing is we're just looking for the benefits of diversification. We're looking for the benefits of some of their alternative strengths, you know, some of their, you know, their global capabilities that we actually don't have in place. It's really looking for things that are complementary in the same way that we've been able to leverage complementary capabilities with Sagard and with Northleaf. We really look for this to be complementary to the strength that Raman has on his team. Anything else you'd add, Ram? Raman? I think that's right. Thanks, Gabriel. Okay. How long have you been working on this deal? I know, I mean, I've certainly asked the question over the years, and others have, whether you'd buy something or sell something. Maybe you can give me a sense of when the decision was made to, you know, ultimately go the sale route, and how long have you been negotiating with Franklin Templeton there specifically, and were there other at other points in time, had you engaged in discussions with other potential partners? Yeah. Thanks for the question. I'll go with your last question first, which was, yes, we have, over the years, looked at a number of opportunities. As I said before, it's always been about strong fit, you know, as well as sort of the financial part of it. This particular transaction, I'm not gonna tell you when we, when we got into discussions, you know, obviously we worked with them. We wanted to understand, in particular, you know, there's the economic side of it, but we also wanted to understand the potential of this partnership and the potential fit. We worked Yeah hard to understand their capabilities, and ultimately, we came to a decision and concluded on this last night. Okay. Well, I know you wouldn't give me a specific timeline there, but is it, you know, months, years? How long have you been talking to these? Well, these things don't happen in weeks, I'll tell you that. It's a. Yeah It's always gonna be a matter of months. You know, like all transactions, it takes a lot of hard work and time to really come to terms, but also come to a decision. We're really pleased with our decision. All right. Thanks, I echo the congrats statement earlier. Thank you very much, Gabe. Our next question comes from Nigel D'Souza of Veritas Investment Research. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. I have a couple questions for you. First, just a point of clarification. On the income and appreciation related to Franklin Templeton stock, is that going to be included in base earnings, or were you referring to accretion on a reported EPS basis? Garry? That, the dividends and a modest appreciation, that will be included in base earnings. Okay. Any clarity, which, you know, under the DOE framework, is that surplus income, net investment, income, or how is that reported there? Yeah, I think we'll get into the specifics later on. It will be within the U.S. segment in terms of, likely gonna be surplus income. That would be my quick off the top. Okay. Switching gears to kind of the profitability of Putnam. When I look at Franklin Templeton's expectations, they also expect EPS accretion on their side, and they see Putnam hitting a 30% operating margin after, you know, one year after closing. You know, when I look at Putnam's core margin, historically, the last three years, I think your high watermark was around 20%. Were they... You know, is there a structural, kind of challenge with the economics, if you retain Putnam, where it's difficult for you to achieve that 30%? What prevented you from achieving the 30%, whereas Franklin expects to achieve it? Yeah, good question. Ultimately, it's scale. It comes down to scale. Putnam has had strong performance. They've added a great track record in terms of for their clients. The challenge has been scale, and we've, you know, we've talked about that in the past. You know, Putnam as, their core margin has moved around a bit, has been a little bit lower in the last year, obviously. You know, it's probably been, you know, low double digits, sort of is where it was at for a period of time there for in the 2021 period. This really, the scaling of this really unlocks it. When you really think about it's lift and shift the Putnam assets and capabilities into a scale business like Franklin Templeton's, and it unlocks a lot of value, you know, we could say, from the standpoint of scale. Then we also believe it unlocks a lot of value, potential value for Franklin because of the capabilities that Putnam brings to the transaction. Okay, that makes sense. Last question for me, you know, I know you didn't outline continued consideration targets, but Franklin Templeton, I think, outlined a 30% + revenue increase relative to current annual run rate. For Putnam, just, you know, do you have a sense of how realistic you think that is, or how achievable it is to kind of get to that maximum contingent consideration payment? Yeah. Let me turn that one to Garry. Garry? Yeah. Yeah, I think Franklin noted the 30%, and I think that was off a revenue base that they're quoting around $500. Though they're referring to the targets in the, in the, you know, the very, like, the accumulated targets and goals of the partnership, you know, five, seven years out. But we would see a path to that. We think that's quite achievable. We're certainly very excited about the opportunities that the partnership brings. Yeah, that's. But that is, when they were quoting that number, that was at the outer years of the partnership. With the ramping up, I see no issues getting there, but obviously, we have to deliver that. Yeah. Our expectation is, you know, post-close, we're gonna have our teams working together very effectively. You know, it's all about our platform teams, whether it's our wealth or our retirement and other teams, working with them to identify where there's, where there's opportunity. It's our teams understanding where their strengths are. We see significant opportunity. All right, that's it for me. Thank you. Appreciate it. Our next question comes from Mario Mendonca of TD Securities. Please go ahead. Good morning. This might be best for Garry. There are a few number of questions. I think you offered that the impact on book value for Great-West Life would be, I think you described it as modest. Can you talk about what the carrying value of Putnam is, including goodwill, excluding goodwill, that you might still have on Putnam? Because that would help me understand why the impact on book value would be modest. That's my first question. Garry? Yeah. I would have put the carrying value, just I'm going to just use broad terms, and I would exclude the, I'm trying to do an apples to apples, and exclude the tax benefits from both sides. You're probably looking at something just over $1.7 billion, is that sort of $1.7 billion-$1.8 billion range. And is that, is that U.S., Garry? That's why it would equate to the consideration of the value we're retaining is about the same. Right. That was a U.S. dollar number you gave us, right? Those are, yes, U.S. dollars. I could assume then, and I've kind of lost track. I mean, the original deal was announced in February 2007. Presumably between then and now, there have been some goodwill and other write-downs that have taken that carrying value down. Is that right? Yes. That was in 2008, we had we'd recorded an impairment of, I think it was $1.8 billion pre-tax, $1.3 billion post-tax in early 2008 with the financial crisis, or sorry, early in the financial crisis in 2008. That was probably the big drop in terms of impact. Okay. Since then, it's been more steady. Yeah, and the starting point, you know, was we value Putnam. Anyways, Garry's covered it. Yeah, that makes sense. The other thing I want to quickly address is, you made the point that you thought this deal would be modestly accretive, and I can certainly do the math on Franklin Templeton's dividends and what your proportionate interest in that would be. What are you thinking about when you, when you've taken into consideration the loss that Putnam was generating pretty much regularly? Like, are you... You're obviously taking that into account as well. That loss goes away. Maybe the question I'm asking is, what loss quarterly were you contemplating in offering the outlook that the earnings accretion be modest? Garry? Yeah, actually, you know, to try and keep this, straight up, we're third positioning more as Putnam being a breakeven. We're doing the accretion relative to what we sense, broadly speaking, would be in the consensus, and we're estimating that would be around breakeven on their core net income. That's, you know, that's the accretion is measured from that. I see. If I believe that there was gonna be an ongoing loss, then presumably there would be better accretion on that basis. That's helpful. I think I get it. Yeah. Finally, did you talk about what the implications for the leverage ratio would be on this sale? Garry? No, we didn't cover those, but I would not expect it to be material. No material change. Again, I'll stop here. These are just some detailed questions I want to get cleared up. In the case of Putnam and how it was reported in the U.S. drivers of earnings, is it fair to say that that was all captured, both the revenue expenses were captured in the asset and wealth management fee income line in the drivers of earnings? Yeah. In the drivers of earnings, you'll see, as, you know, we'd have had, on the asset management side, but the only thing I'd mention there is that PanAgora was in with Putnam, so we'll have to think about how we separate that out as we come to our Q2 reporting. Right. There was no unallocated expenses, like sorry, non-directly attributable expenses related to Putnam. It was all in that asset and wealth management line. Is that right? Yeah, it's all in there. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Our next question comes from Joo Ho Kim of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple quick ones. The strategic partnership with Franklin and the $25 billion in the AUM allocated, I'm wondering, is there a ceiling for that? How many years, I guess, supposedly, can this AUM allocated increase for? Thanks. There's, I wouldn't characterize a ceiling. What we've done is we've been working with, you know, interacting with Franklin to understand where the opportunities are. We had a clear sighting on this initial $25 billion allocation, and we're confident that, by leveraging their capabilities, it's gonna help us with our, you know, our asset management solutions, backing our various product platforms. Ultimately, if you think about the, you know, the partnership going forward, we're looking to augment those allocations, we've done quite a bit of work to try and understand where their strengths are, where the complementary nature of their offerings are, both from a product and a regional perspective. We see opportunity for significant growth beyond that. There's really no ceiling. We see an opportunity. Our expectation over time is that, well, that'll grow significantly as we grow our actual business. As you know, we've been growing significantly when you consider the growth in Putnam AUM, pardon me, in Power AUM. We've been seeing solid growth in Canada as well, and Europe. The reality is we see this as a growth play. Got it. Thank you. Just switching gears, what was the rationale for keeping the PanAgora business separately? I guess I'm just trying to understand how this fits into Great-West as a standalone business and what the plan is, sort of, and whether we could see the company take any further actions on this business specifically. Yeah, well, I'll start off by saying that we actually quite like the PanAgora business. It is a quantitative asset manager. It tends to flourish when markets are, you know, when markets are performing, you know, in a positive direction. Generally, it could be a little bit more challenged when there's market dislocation. That's the nature of quantitative management, but it is a very strong manager with a strong reputation, strong client base, and we like it. The reality is, it didn't fit with what Franklin Templeton's interests were, and frankly, it fits quite nicely with our interests. We look at the diversification of our asset management, whether it be the stakes we've got in some alternative players, whether we look at ILIM in Ireland, Setanta. We like PanAgora as a hold, because it's a good business that we think has real upside to it. Got it. Thank you. That's it for me. Our next question comes from Darko Mihelic of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you. Good morning. I just have two questions. The first one, I just want to take back to the ownership position. There's a very explicit lockup for the 4.9%, just 180 days for the other portion. You mentioned you might actually hang on to it, depending upon some considerations. In my mind, when I think of things like this, I think of further cementing this partnership would be a board seat. Is that something that you're contemplating with respect to this partnership, or was that contemplated, and why not have a board seat? It is not something we're contemplating. This is really, you know, we're going to work this partnership from the standpoint of strong cooperation with our, with our organization, understanding their capabilities, their organization, understanding our opportunities. We really think that that is the best way to drive that partnership forward. Frankly, a lot of that will happen on the ground with our, with their investment management team, our platform teams working together. From the standpoint, we're going to have a joint steering committee of executives that are going to oversee that, but it'll be a lot of on-the-ground activity. From the standpoint of the holding, we think the actual holding of the 4.9%, it really aligns with, you know, our common interests in growing this partnership. We like that. From the standpoint of the access holding over the 4.9%, we'll cross that bridge when the time comes. As we said, you know, at this stage, we think there's real upside in their stock. We'll cross that bridge at that time. Okay, thank you for that answer. My follow-up question is slightly different. It pertains to the essentially farming out the general account to Franklin Templeton to manage. There seems to be an indication there that there was also some interest in their alternative assets, and that perhaps in the future, there'd be more allocated. Two-part question. The first is this sort of indicating that you are as a firm, potentially looking at alternative assets as becoming a bigger proportion of your general account? I guess secondarily to that, how do you manage the unique aspect of the general account with Franklin Templeton in the sense that there will be a lot of actuarial work required and a lot of back and forth? I'm just curious how that's going to happen, because it does seem to me like $25 billion plus, you may be one of the fewer insurers out there that has more of your general account managed sort of outside, so to speak. Thank you. Yeah. Well, to start, I'll let Raman put context around $25 billion, because it's actually a very small part of the overall general account. As you know, our U.S. general account has grown quite dramatically through the acquisitions of the MassMutual and the Prudential retirement book. We have a very large U.S. general account. We also have a large Canadian and European general account, this is a small part of the general account. As it relates to the alternatives, I'll let Raman maybe speak to the general account opportunity, but as we look to alternative assets, we see it both as, you know, part of a general account, diversified portfolio, but also we see the democratization of alternative assets that's starting to emerge more and more on wealth platforms. When you think about our wealth platforms, whether that's wealth platforms at Irish Life, the wealth platforms that we've got at Canada Life, wealth platforms that our, you know, sister company, Investors Group has, the wealth platform that we're building across the Empower platform, we actually do think alternatives are going to feature more prominently within structured solutions. You know, when we look to Franklin, when we look to Sagard, and when we look to Northleaf, all of those entities participating is something that we see as a real opportunity. The other approach we could take, obviously, would be to kind of go out to the general market and try and get access to alternative solutions. What this does is this gets us working closer with these providers so that we can actually structure solutions that make sense in the context of both those wealth management platforms and our general account. Maybe, Raman, you can provide a little context around the scale of the $25 billion relative to our general account overall. Yeah, sure, Paul. Just maybe just to further elaborate on Paul's comments there. Our overall general account is roughly CAD 225 billion. This is a relatively small portion of the general account that we're contemplating here. We fully expect to maintain our general account capabilities, and we expect that there'll be some complementary benefits from having Franklin manage a small portion of it. In terms of your other question on ALM or reporting or actuarial considerations, we don't see any of that changing. We'll be able to, and we'll work to, you know, oversee the assets the same way we have as if they were managed internally with respect to ALM considerations, with respect to reporting, considerations. Maybe the last comment I'll make just on your question around alternatives. I think Paul spoke to it well, in terms of the future growth beyond the general account and their various channels. Within the general accounts, you may recall we have roughly 7% in equities, and that's predominantly public equities. We do think there is a strategic imperative for us to diversify some of that exposure. As Paul mentioned, we've been doing it with some strategic partners already, Northleaf and Sagard. We think, you know, there'll be further scope to do that in the future with Franklin as well. Okay. Thank you for the context. I thought the general account. You're essentially allocating a global amount from the general account, or are we specifically suggesting that the general account that's being allocated, the $25 billion? I thought it was purely coming from the U.S. general account. Am I correct in that thinking? Which is about $100 billion. Well, the final details, we're still working out as we get close to close, but you're right, it'll principally be from the U.S. general account. In the future, will other general account assets be contemplated in allocating to Franklin Templeton? I, you know, we can't really speak to the future. I would say if there was a complementary capability that we thought was going to provide for better client outcomes and better shareholder outcomes, we would consider it. That's the frame we'll always take. It'll always be about better client outcomes, better shareholder outcomes. Okay, great. Thank you very much. This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Mahon for any closing remarks. Thank you very much, Ariel. I'd like to thank everyone who was able to join us on the call today. We really appreciate you joining on short notice. I'll just reiterate that we're really excited about this transaction. We're pleased for the Putnam organization in terms of its ability to thrive under new ownership. Ultimately, we look forward to working with Franklin Templeton on a partnership that we think really is going to create value for our clients, create value for teams, and also create value for shareholders. As I mentioned previously, we've, we're planning an Investor Day for June 20th, and we'll be getting some information out on that, and we hope you'll be able to join us. Thank you very much. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.