Manulife Financial Corporation (NYSE:MFC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 15, 2024 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Hung Ko - IR

Roy Gori - President and CEO

Colin Simpson - CFO

Steve Finch - Chief Actuary

Phil Witherington - President and CEO, Manulife Asia

Marc Costantini - Global Head of Inforce Management

Scott Hartz - Chief Investment Officer

Conference Call Participants

Meny Grauman - Scotiabank

Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial

Doug Young - Desjardins Capital Markets

Paul Holden - CIBC

Lemar Persaud - Cormark Securities

Nigel D'Souza - Veritas Investment Research

Mario Mendonca - TD Securities

Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Manulife Financial Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Ko. Please go ahead, Mr. Ko.

Hung Ko

Thank you. Welcome to Manulife's earnings conference call to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial and operating results. Our earnings materials, including webcast slide for today's call, are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at manulife.com.

Turning to Slide 4. We'll begin today's presentation with a highlight of our full year results and strategic update by Roy Gori, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Following Roy's remarks, Colin Simpson, our Chief Financial Officer, will discuss the company's financial and operating results in more detail. After the prepared remarks, we'll move to the live Q&A portion of the call.

Before we start, please refer to Slide 2 for a caution on forward-looking statements and Slide 43 for a note on the non-GAAP and other financial measures used in this presentation. Note that certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from what is stated.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Roy Gori, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Roy?

Roy Gori

Thanks, Hung, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Yesterday, we announced our fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results. As you can see, our strategy and disciplined focus on execution are delivering even in uncertain market conditions. We generated double-digit top line growth with a record APE sales during the year.

While Global WAM delivered another year of positive net inflows despite challenges in the retail fund market, that is the 13th year of positive inflows in the past 14 years. Core EPS grew 17%, supported by strong core earnings growth and the impact of share buybacks. Our core ROE increased to 15.9%, achieving our medium-term target. We delivered robust growth of 9% in adjusted book value per share, and our strong LICAT ratio of 137% and low leverage ratio provides ample financial flexibility.