Sun Life Financial Inc. (NYSE:SLF) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Sun Life Financial Inc. (NYSE:SLF) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 8, 2024
Sun Life Financial Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Sun Life Financial Q4 2023 Conference Call. My name is Shree, and I'll be your conference operator today. [Operator Instructions] The host of the call is David Garg, Senior Vice President, Capital Management and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Garg.
David Garg: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sun Life's Earnings Call for the Fourth Quarter of 2023. 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, Manjit Singh, 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 2, 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 will now turn things over to Kevin.
Kevin Strain: Thanks, David, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 4. We delivered strong performance during the fourth quarter, contributing to strong full year results for 2023. Our results show the strength and resilience of our business mix and the positive impact we're having on our clients. We achieved strong underlying earnings for the quarter of $983 million, up 10% year-over-year. Our strong results were broad-based with strength in Canada, U.S. and SLC management. Underlying ROE of 18.4% this quarter is above our medium-term financial objective of 18% plus, reflecting our strong earnings and disciplined financial management. Further, we maintained a strong capital position with an SLF LICAT ratio of 149%. Our results reflect exceptional individual protection sales and good momentum in our group health and protection businesses in the fourth quarter.
Strong group health and protection sales were driven by both our Canadian and U.S. Group businesses. In Canada, sales were up 63% year-over-year, largely due to higher large case sales and in the U.S., both Dental and Health and Risk Solutions sales were strong. This quarter, DentaQuest was awarded two new Medicaid dental benefits contracts in two states and commercial dental sales increased 55% over the prior year. The dental business has recorded more than US$ 650 million in sales since the closing of the DentaQuest acquisition on June 1, 2022. Individual protection sales were driven by strong performance in Asia, with sales up 49% year-over-year. International high net worth sales were 2x higher than the prior year and Hong Kong sales were 4x higher.
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