Morning, Mike. Thanks for joining us. Yep. Pleasure to have you. Yep, pleasure to be here. So, first order of business, obviously, a big congrats on your appointment. You've been with the company for a while, with Irish Life for a while. Yeah. Maybe just talk a little bit about some of your near-term priorities, just to remind investors what you're focused on, for Great-West. Yeah, so maybe just a brief introduction. Many people in the room won't know me, so yeah, I'm in the role now since 1st of July. I became part of the Great-West Group in 2013 when Great-West bought Irish Life. That was during the global financial crisis. It was a great acquisition for Great-West, but a fantastic acquisition for Irish Life as well, and they've prospered within the group since that acquisition. I ran Irish Life from 2016 to 2020, ran the European business then for the last five years, and more recently oversaw the reinsurance business, and I'm in this role now since 1st of July. So I feel very lucky, like I'm inheriting and coming into a portfolio that's in fantastic shape. You know, we talk about our geographies, our markets, and then our positions. You know, so we believe we're in the right geographies at the moment. We're in great markets, and we have fantastic positions in all of those. So we really like our positions here in Canada. Obviously, we'll talk about our position in the U.S. and Europe at Global Reinsurance. Our three market areas are retirement, wealth, and insurance, and then we have great positions in each of those. So, you know, we set out our stall very clearly on Investor Day. There's no change in that since I've come into the role on 1st of July, you know. So our targets are 8%-10% earnings per share growth. We expect our ROE to grow over 19%, we're within touching distance of that already. We've fantastic capital generation at the moment, so we expect 80%+ capital generation, and then we've a dividend ratio of 45%-55%. So all of those targets will come from organic growth. They are not in any way dependent on M&A activity. So my priorities are really around the organic growth and making the engine as strong as possible in that way. So we've four execution priorities that I'm really focused on. So, you know, the most important part of organic growth is your customers and what you're doing for those, so we really have to continue to have that relentless customer focus. AI and digital is going to be huge over the next five years. It's going to transform all of our businesses. and to really leverage off that, you have to have a very strong operational platform, and you need to invest to make sure that you have that in place. And what AI will do is interesting. It'll make us actually a more human organization. It'll be all AI in the middle, but there'll still be people at both ends of it, you know, so focus on talent and our people is still critically important. Awesome, so it sounds like continuity, everything's fitting in the right place. You're not looking to make any, no meaningful changes, no, no need to make any meaningful changes, I guess, is the argument. No, like, we're very happy with the markets we're in. I think it's very unusual for a portfolio to be in as strong a position as ours. Like, there's no market or product subset within our portfolio at the moment that we don't want to be in. Like, Paul has done a fantastic job before me, just putting that in shape. So it's really execution of that position now. Like, we've tilted the portfolio to capital light as well. Like, in 2024, 62% of our earnings were on capital light rather than the capital-supported business, and that's where the higher growth will be as well over the next five years. So within this planning period, we expect our capital light businesses to grow to 72% of base earnings. Yeah, so me coming into the job is just a continuation of the playbook that's worked very well for us the last few years. Awesome. I'd love to touch on some of your different business lines. Yeah ... Empower, I think that's the one that investors are probably most excited about. Yeah. If you take a bit of the noise out of last quarter's numbers and the prior year- Yeah ... I think you had 13% year-over-year growth on a clean- Yeah ... basis. Obviously, a lot of great things in terms of growth organically. Yeah. Pressure on the smaller players in the market. Yeah. You've got that M&A dynamic. You're obviously a consolidator as the, you know, number two player in that space. Yeah. Maybe talk about those two dynamics. The organic growth- Yeah ... is it going to continue at, you know, comfortably above industry levels? And then is the M&A dynamic getting more intense? Is it... Like, how, what's the competitive dynamic? Is it- Yeah ... is it more conducive to M&A for Great-West, for Empower, versus what it might have been in the past? Yeah, like, I suppose, first of all, yeah, like, we're very excited about Empower as well. I think we've built an incredible business there. Ed and the team have just done a great job there the last few years, and that's been through the acquisitions. Mm-hmm ... and successfully integrating those, and you know, we've taken time and care in that to put them on a single platform and really, you know, executed those integrations really well, and that's what's given us the position that's there at the moment. When it comes to organic and inorganic, I think, it's like, I think of organic like the cake and maybe M&A, the icing on the cake, so you know, organic is the most important because your organic engine has to be right, and then if that's right, it's easy to add on to it. Like, you're right, we've had recent double-digit growth in the U.S. business, and that is going to continue, so we've two businesses in the U.S. through Empower, and, like, the dominant one is the 401(k), the workplace. That's over 80% of earnings, and then the wealth business at the moment is just at less than 20%. So we are doing better than anybody in the workplace market in the U.S.. We've a fantastic open architecture platform. We've a great product set behind that. We're really passionate about the job that we do for 401 participants. I think we work harder than anybody, getting them to save more and getting them into the right asset products, and that's the reason we've won $135 billion in net plan sales in the last three years. So even though, like, our total assets under administration, just to give some context, are $1.8 trillion, but $135 billion of that has come from net plan sales just in the last three years. We have a fantastic, organically growing workplace business in the U.S., and that makes us very confident of a sort of mid-single-digit-plus growth platform in the U.S.. The reason then that goes to double-digit growth is the amount of growth that we're seeing in the wealth business, and obviously, that growth in the wealth business is coming from people retiring out of the workplace business. At the moment, that business is only $100 billion compared to the $1.8 trillion in the workplace, but over time, we expect that wealth business to be as big as our workplace business, and that, that's what makes us very confident about double-digit growth in the U.S.. You know, we can certainly add on to that. The 401(k) market is still very fragmented. You know, there are a number of reasonable-size players, much smaller than ourselves and Fidelity, but still of a reasonable size. And then you go down below that, and there are lots of small players. So I don't think the M&A dynamic or whatever has changed that much. It's still pretty similar to the time when we did our recent acquisition. So there's good opportunities for us to execute synergies if we can get some more at the right price. So it'll be organic first, and then fantastic organic engine makes M&A a very likely target for us in the U.S. Okay, great. So the 80/20 split, and then obviously the wealth side seems to have a lot of growth potential. Yes. You've added some capabilities, private markets, ETFs. Yeah. Maybe talk about that dynamic and how that changes things for the wealth business. Yeah, it's very important. The wealth business is interesting- Mm ... because obviously what you're trying to do is capture as much of your 401(k) participants as they retire. We're already the number one - our wealth business is already the number one destination for our 401(k) participants when they come to retire. So we capture at the moment mid-teens, maybe around 15% of those into rollover, but that can be a lot better. Like, that's improved from about 10% a few years ago. That's on a journey to 20%, and when it gets to 20%, it's going to be on a journey to 25%, and when we get to 25, it's going to be on a journey to 30%. So the key to getting that, you know, increasing that rollover rate is absolutely the key to making the wealth business, in time, as large as, as the workplace business. So as I said, it's CAD 100 billion at the moment, our workplace is CAD 1.8 trillion. So maybe it's going to take a decade to get as big, maybe a little longer, maybe a little shorter, but it will get as big. And the key to that, as I said, is getting that rollover rate up. And then obviously, to get the rollover rate up, you have to have fantastic experience for the member as they come to retirement, and we already have that in place. But really, the battle is sort of lost or won before a member gets to retirement. It's all about the engagement and the work, that you do with them while they're saving for retirement. And, you know, that's all about, you know, the way we combine our digital tools and, and our advisor population to coach people as to save for retirement. It's all about having the widest product set, possible, just to up the engagement. So, you know, that goes to our, stock option plans that we have at the moment, our individual savings account, the health savings accounts that we've added, the private markets that we've added, zero-based funds that we've added for BlackRock. So the more of these things you can put in place, the more engagement opportunities, you're creating for people. Branding is hugely important as well. Like, our unaided brand awareness in the U.S. is only 50%. We're investing a lot in brand at the moment, but that needs to get up to 80%. So all of these things combine then to driving up that rollover rate, and then that's what fuels the growth in the wealth business. Okay. Are you able to touch on that rollover rate? Maybe not the absolute numbers, but what direction is it going in? What sort of momentum are you seeing now as you've, you know, made some more investments in your capabilities on the wealth? Yeah. So we've improved – we're improving our disclosures on this all of the time. So we've improved that rollover rate by 30% in the last five years. So it's gone from sort of north of – just north of 10% of retiring members going to our platform to 15% at the moment, and we expect to get to 20%, maybe a little bit more, within the next planning period. And just to give some context, like, like obviously within the market, in the 401(k) space, we're the number two player to Fidelity. They have 30 million odd participants, we have 20 million participants now. This is just in workplace. They do an incredible job and have been doing this for a long time on that rollover rate. So 50% is what they capture at retirement. So we have a long way to go to get to that. Now, we're doing all the right things, and we're on the right journey, and I don't mind saying that we're sort of copying the Fidelity playbook, and they've really showed people how to do this. You know, so obviously we're not going to get to 50% overnight but, you know, an aspiration of getting to 20% first and then making that 20% to 30%. Right ... is very realistic. Okay, that's very interesting. Thanks for that color. Maybe switching over to the Europe business, and maybe talk about the different areas that you're in. Obviously, Irish Life- Yeah ... you're a dominant player. Yeah. You've got the bulk annuities in the U.K. Yeah ... maybe Germany. Maybe just touch on the different business lines that you operate in and how you sort of see the opportunity. Yeah, so maybe, I suppose the overall portfolio is... Mm ... reasonably balanced. The U.S. is our biggest segment, and that's just over 30%. That passed out Canada last year, which is also 30%. And then our European business is 20%, and our global reinsurance business, 20%. So that just gives you an idea of just the shape of the overall portfolio. So within Europe then, we've very targeted position, so it's not a broad position across the whole European market. So we have our business in Ireland, which is a broad-based waterfront business, incredible market share position there, like over 30% in nearly all product lines, over 40% in some. We've more of an insurance franchise than in the U.K., and a smaller position in Germany. And again, we don't really intend to go into any other geographies within Europe. We're very happy with those three core positions, so within Ireland then, like, Ireland is small, very dynamic economy, very fast-growing economy, so to have the business that we have there is just great. Like, obviously, we have to maintain and defend that position, which we're doing well, and then that allows us to benefit from the growth that we see in Ireland, and that economy is continuing to grow strongly, even in the current global environment, and within the U.K. then, so you know, our two big positions in Europe are Ireland and the U.K.. The U.K. then is very much an insurance franchise. We've a great group risk business, very similar to the group benefits business that we have here in Canada, and then we're a good player in the annuity market there, both in the individual annuity market and the bulk annuity market. We are targeting growth in the U.K., so that would be on, you know, obviously continuing to do very well in the group risk and the individual annuity market, but we expect to see growth in the bulk annuity market. ... And in Germany, small, small presence there? It's a small presence there. Like, I suppose our European position came from the Great-West acquisition of Canada Life in 2003, and Canada Life had those positions in the U.K., owned a smaller company in Ireland, which was added onto with the acquisition of Irish Life in 2013, and then just a small position in Germany that's built up. Like, I think what we expect to see in time in Germany is reform of the market. You know, there's a lot of reform going on in Germany at the moment across lots of different industries. You know, even the way they're opening up their debt levels, and things like that. So Germany is a very interesting economy at the moment, but on the financial services side, it's still a little bit conservative. So I think we've a nice position there. We've quite a modern platform there, and I think as Germany reforms, there's, you know, opportunities for growth there. But, you know, our main engines in Europe will continue to be that insurance franchise in the U.K., and that position that we have in Ireland. So, not looking to get into any other jurisdictions in Europe, or- No, like- Or will you be opportunistic if something does seem interesting? No, like, I think what we have in Europe is perfectly good. You know, we expect mid-single-digit-plus growth in Europe. It's very complicated to go into another geography in Europe. Even though it's a single market, like, when you get into insurance and retirement products, they're very linked to the social security systems, you know, the individual tax systems, which still vary by country. So there's no real easy way to sort of extend out from what you have. And then if you stand back and look at it, the two big economies in Europe are the U.K. and Germany. The fastest-growing economy in Europe is Ireland, so, like, we're in just a very nice position where we are, so yeah. Got it. Maybe switching over to Canada, obviously, Empower is your growth engine. Europe has some upside. Maybe talk a bit about Canada. When I look at, you know, high-level industry, the life business tends to grow at, you know, right around nominal GDP. Yeah. The health business, a little bit better than nominal GDP, and then- Yeah ... retirement solutions would be- Yeah ... a bit better of a growth driver, just given the demographics in Canada. Yeah. Maybe talk about how you see Canada in your strategy, and how it sort of how do you tie that into the 19% ROE? I'm I would assume it's a, you know, very profitable business for Great-West. Yeah. Just talk about the Canada business, so your thoughts there. Yeah, like, Canada is obviously our home market. The U.S. is our biggest market now, but Canada is our home market, and I suppose, you know, Great-West is a global group now, and has that balanced portfolio that I talked about, but all of that was possible just because of the amazing business that we have here in Canada. Like, Canada Life is one of the great brands here, so you know, obviously we want to grow all of our markets, and we have ambition in all of our markets, but there's something special about being a Canadian company and winning here in Canada, so it's still probably the most important, well, most important is maybe wrong, but I think winning in Canada maybe gives us a little bit more satisfaction than winning in other markets. And with a brand like Canada Life, you know, our aspirations and ambitions here in Canada are very strong. So if you look at the business we have in Canada, like, our group benefits business is very strong. And, like, obviously, there's some of our competitors here today, and we enjoy competition, and that's great for customers. But we've a great group benefits business. You're right, that's quite a mature business, and probably its growth mirrors the growth in the overall economy. But I think where I'm excited about growth in Canada is on the wealth side, and on the retirement side. Like, obviously, the wealth market, there's lots of different players and lots of different sectors to it. We operate in the individual advisor space within the wealth market, and I think there's an opportunity for that segment to actually grow quicker maybe than some of the other segments within the wealth market. We've invested quite a lot in that over the last number of years through a number of acquisitions, and we're making some big investments at the moment on the platform there to serve those independent advisors. You know, growth in that market will be, you know, a jump ahead of economic growth. You know, like, so that should outperform economic growth, I mean, in Canada, maybe four or five%, or something like that. Then on the retirement side, I think it's interesting just looking in. I think the defined contribution market could benefit from some reform here, and maybe is poised for higher growth as well. You know, I think economies or governments all around the world are encouraging people to save more. We're number three in that market here, which is not a natural position for us. Our aspiration would be to be number one. Now, that takes a bit of time, but you know, we're incredible at this in the U.S. Like, we're on track to catch up with Fidelity in time, you know, so we're already the number two. See ourselves fighting to be number one in the U.S., and that's the natural position for us to have here. So that will take time to invest. So, you know, we've equal ambitions across all of the markets. It's double-digit growth in the U.S., but just because that rapid acceleration that we're poised to get in the wealth business. It's mid-single digit plus in Europe and in reinsurance, and then it's mid-single digit in Canada. And maybe that's just a little bit lower at the moment, because we're giving that business some room for investment, particularly on the wealth side, and I want to see more investment in the retirement space as well. Okay, and then in Canada, just a maybe an oddball question, but, pricing power, I'm imagining, is pretty good. We often hear it with the Canadian banks, but Lifeco obviously have very dominant positions in the Canadian space. Yeah. Very good dynamic on the pricing side. You don't tend to see pressures, and you can, you know, easily reprice when you need to. Yeah, it's yearly. Well, it varies a little bit by product, but yeah, it's repriceable business. Like, it's competitive. People get good value for money, but it's a sensible, rational market. Yeah. Got it. Maybe switching to the CRS business. Yeah. Just in terms of how it plays a role in your sort of capital light strategy. Maybe just talk about that dynamic, the capital- Yeah needed for that to run that business. Yeah, so yeah, like, we've a great reinsurance business. It has grown very strongly over the last number of years. Maybe to stand back, as I said, just on our overall portfolio, like, it's the U.S., it's Canada, it's Europe, it's reinsurance. 62% of our earnings at the moment are in capital light, and then 28% are in capital supported, and that capital supported business is mostly our reinsurance division and then the annuity business that we write, which is mostly in the U.K. Now because of just the growth that we'll see in the U.S., the capital light businesses will grow faster than the capital supported, so that will grow to 72% of earnings within the next planning period. But that capital supported business is still very important for us. You know, it gives great diversification across the portfolio. We earn very good returns on it. I think the great thing about our reinsurance business is that it's a global reinsurance business. Obviously, the reinsurance market is huge, through the support it gives to insurance companies, large corporates, and even just deals that they do within themselves. It's a share of our portfolio, which means we can sort of shop around, if you like, and go to areas where we like. You know, we're not. It's only ever going to be a share of our earnings, so we're not looking to aggressively target growth there. So that means we're very selective about the areas we go after and the risks that we go after, and that's why I think our underwriting experience and returns on that business are so strong. And what we've seen in the reinsurance business as well over the last few years is a move to more what we call capital-supported products. So that's where we're working very hard with insurance companies to help them get their regulatory capital closer to their economic capital. I think we've been one of the most successful players just in growth in that segment in the last few years. And that business has done very well for us and contributed very well to earnings. And I think, you know, the key to success there is it's very much a relationship business. Like, we've a team that just understands very much the needs of insurance companies. You know, they go all around the world, meeting, building up relationships, and just putting themselves in a position to offer those capital supported type solutions. You know, so, you know, even though the capital supported is going to become a lower percentage of our overall earnings, it's not that we're- it's not that it's not growing, it's just not growing as quick as the capital light. And it's a great diversifier in our overall portfolio and gives very good returns. Okay, thanks for that color. Let's talk a bit about capital. Yeah. You just increased your NCIB, so you've got more capacity there- Yeah ... and obviously a very solid capital position that you're sitting on with the LICAT. Yeah. Maybe talk about your priorities. It sounds like it's not gonna be any different from your, your predecessor, but- Yeah ... just remind investors what your priorities are, and why the decision to raise the NCIB? Yeah, I suppose, yeah, the short answer, the decision to raise that is just because we are in such a strong capital position at the moment. Like, our- like, just going back to our geographies first and our markets, you know, we have mature positions in all of our markets. You know, our capital generation is very high. So, like, our capital generation is, if you start at the top, 100% of our base earnings. We have quite a flat structure. All of that money flows up from the businesses into Lifec o. We typically set 20% of that aside to support those capital supported businesses. So of that 100%, 20% gets invested back into new business. Our dividend payout ratio target is 45%-55%. Think of the next 50 then going to dividends, and then that leaves 30% surplus. That's there if the right M&A opportunities are there, and obviously, we've done very well on M&A in the last few years, both in the U.S. and smaller wealth acquisitions here in Canada and some in Europe as well. But then if there's no imminent M&A activity, we're not going to be sort of hoarders of cash, and that's the motivation for the NCIB that we see at the moment. You know, I suppose, just on our overall capital position, our target LICAT ratio is 125. We're up at 130 or a little above that at the moment. We've been reducing our debts. Our leverage ratio is coming down. We're sitting on, I think, over CAD 2 billion of cash at the moment. So even with this buyback of CAD 1 billion at the moment, it's actually quite modest relative to our overall capital position. And again, if the right M&A activity comes up, which we would love to see in the U.S., you know, we're still in a position where we could finance that. Okay, thanks for that color. I'd like to ask you about the efficiency ratio as well. It looks like you're targeting sub-50%, currently at just under 57%. Yeah. You did talk about wanting to invest in Canada Life for- Yeah ... for some growth initiatives there. Yeah. You're obviously investing in Empower for sure. Yeah. The health side in particular. Yeah. And in Europe, maybe also, it's not quite the expense push that- Yeah ... would necessarily change the expense ratio meaningfully. So- Yeah, yeah ... how do you sort of look at that in the context of, you know, wanting to get that expense ratio down versus your or your efficiency ratio down versus your wanting this to- Yeah to keep investing in your Yeah, like obviously it's very important to be efficient and have your expense ratio in a good position. But it probably comes more just from the strong market positions that we have, and that expense target actually mirrors in a lot of ways our ROE target. You know, so we like our markets. We're in very strong positions. We have good scale positions. And a lot of those can grow without capital, so that's what drives up the ROE. But similarly, it's mostly growth that actually drives the improvement in the expense ratio. So we will be investing for efficiencies, but a lot of that reduction just in the expense ratio is just going to come from the scale positions that we have, and growth, and revenue growth in those markets. That's just going to outpace cost. On the efficiency side then, like as you mentioned, we are investing in Canada just to get better positions on the wealth side and the retirement side, so that strengthens our market positions, but will allow for savings as well. And then I think, you know, the big thing that's coming on the expense side is AI. Like, there's already a lot of AI in financial services and insurance companies that people are not seeing. So if you take call centers maybe, for example, like obviously AI isn't doing conversation and interactions with customers yet, but all of the preparation of material and information to help a call agent is being done on AI. AI is monitoring calls, and in some cases giving live coaching on calls. And then all of the wrap-up at the end, AI is doing as well. And then another dynamic within financial services on the operational side, like we move around huge amounts of information and text language-type information, and there's a lot of reasoning needed within that that only people have been able to do up to now. AI can now do that. So what we're starting to see, and we've done it already, is full automation of core operational processes, and that is only going to get bigger. Like, I think maybe within 60 months, all core operational processes will be fully AI automated within financial services. So if you take it at, like this 58%-50% on the efficiency side is, you know, is a very actually modest target, and we've probably or maybe we're not being ambitious enough in what we've set out on that. And then I think the other thing that's just fantastic about that, and maybe it, maybe it goes back to, to just all of that, the organic growth, you know, like, I suppose this is great from an efficiency point of view, but, but where it's really going to be fantastic is just the customer experience that's going to come from it as well. Because it's going to be quicker, it's going to be simpler, it's going to be a lot more intuitive. And really what we're trying to do as a business is get people to save for, for retirement or, you know, put more money aside for protection. And, you know, people know themselves they should be doing this. We're not, we're not trying to sell people products that they know are bad for them. Yeah ... or anything like that. People know that they're good for them. But for whatever reason, you know, people get a little bit daunted by it. They tend to procrastinate, you know? So the more we can make, you know, just our products simple, quick, intuitive, the more people are likely to take them. And you'll still need the humans. As I said, either side, advice will continue to be critically important, because people need the energy to make that jump. So we think AI, in a way, can make us a more human and easy business for customers. Okay, thanks for that color. I'd like to turn it over to you, David. Any final thoughts, key messages for investors you'd like to leave? No, just, I'm delighted to be in position. Since 1st of July, I've relocated from Dublin to Toronto. I'm having a great time here. I think it's a fantastic city, and Until the winter hits. I've been here during the winter as well, and you know, we have winter in Europe as well, so it's not, that's not completely new to me. No, but I love it here, and Canada is an amazing country, and a country with fantastic potential. So it's just... I don't know, I have to pinch myself sometimes that I have the job here, so I'm just loving it. Awesome. Thank you very much for joining us, David, and all your great insights. Yeah. Really appreciate your time, and thanks again. Okay. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, Max. Yep. Thank you, David.