Good day, and welcome to the International General Insurance Holdings Ltd.’s Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants are in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Robin Sidders, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Cindy, and good morning, and welcome to today’s conference call. Today, we’ll be discussing our third quarter and nine months 2024 results. You will have seen our results press release which we issued after the market closed yesterday. If you’d like a copy of the press release, it’s available in the Investors section of our website at iginsure.com. We’ve also posted a supplementary investor presentation, which can be found on the website as well on the Presentations page in the Investors section. On today’s call are Executive Chairman of IGI, Wasef Jabsheh; President and CEO, Waleed Jabsheh; and Chief Financial Officer, Pervez Rizvi. As always, Wasef will begin the call with some high-level comments before handing over to Waleed to talk you through the key drivers of our results for the third quarter and nine months of 2024 and finish up with our views on market conditions and our outlook for the remainder of the year and the upcoming January 1 renewals. At that point, we’ll open the call up for Q&A. I’ll begin with the customary safe harbor language. Our speakers’ remarks may contain forward-looking statements. Some of the forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words. We caution you that such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by us that the future plans, estimates or expectations contemplated by us will in fact be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including the risk factors set forth in the company’s annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2023, and the company’s reports on Form 6-K and other filings with the SEC as well as our results press release issued yesterday evening. We undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date they are made. During the conference call, we will also use some certain non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the nearest GAAP measure, please see our earnings release, which has been filed with the SEC and is available on our website. With that, I’ll turn the call over to our Executive Chairman, Wasef Jabsheh.

Thank you, Robin, and good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us on today’s call. As we head into the final weeks of 2024, I’m very pleased with the consistent and high quality performance of IGI. Through the first nine months of this year, we have achieved a combined ratio of 80.5%, net income of over $100 million and an annualized return on average shareholders’ equity of 23.5%. These are excellent results. As you know, we are nearing the fifth anniversary since we became a public company and began trading on the NASDAQ exchange. During this time, we have clearly demonstrated our ability to deliver on our promise of generating consistent and sustainable value for our shareholders. This is reflected in our compounded annual growth and book value per share plus dividends of 12.3% since 2020. We have built our company into a strong and resilient organization with a solid balance sheet, a well-diversified book of business and strong, high performing and diverse leaders across our group. We have the strategies in place that allow us to respond quickly and decisively to our markets and focus on those areas with the highest margins and best rates of risk adjusted return. And we have a well-defined culture of inclusion and collaboration that underpins everything we do. I expect that as we navigate the remainder of 2024 and head into 2025, this will hold us in very good state. I will now hand over to Waleed who will discuss the numbers in more detail and talk about market conditions and our outlook for the year ahead. I will remain on the call for any question at the end. Waleed?

Thanks, Wasef, and good morning, everybody, and thank you all for joining us today. I’m delighted to be talking to you today from our new London offices in the landmark Walkie-Talkie' Building. We recently moved here from our old Lime Street location. Given the tremendous growth we’ve seen over the past few years, we outgrew our old offices where we were spread over two floors. Our new location gives us additional space to continue to grow and to have all our people on one floor, which really enhances our ability to connect and collaborate more effectively with each other. This new location is very much a reflection of our growth, our maturity and our progress. And I’m proud to see the very genuine and visible sense of pride amongst our London and global teams at everything we’ve achieved. Coincidentally, as Wasef touched upon a moment ago, we’re nearing the fifth anniversary since we became a publicly traded company and whilst five years is a relatively short span of time given our 23-year history. It is the period where we’ve seen the greatest transformation of IGI into a truly global company with an equity base of more than $650 million now and a market cap that recently surpassed the $1 billion mark. This is particularly gratifying. It was only five years ago where we had a market cap of less than $400 million. In the same period, we’ve doubled our gross premiums significantly increased our investment portfolio and doubled our asset base to over $2 billion. We’ve also added new lines of business, opened new offices in Malta, Bermuda and Oslo, and entered new territories, most notably the U.S. We’ve built a much larger and more dynamic, resilient and stable business which we’re confident will hold us in good stead in…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Scott Heleniak of RBC. Go ahead, please.

Yes. Waleed, hope you're doing well. Just the first question was just on gross written premiums. Not surprised to see the long-tail line down in premiums. It's been that way for a little while now. The short-tail and reinsurance, it was a little below what we would have expected. You did show some growth there in the second quarter, but are you viewing that pullback is temporary there? You talk about where you're seeing the competition and do you expect to see overall premium growth in 2025 across the organization based on what you're seeing now?

Thanks Scott. Thanks for the question. Hope all is well. I mean, as we said on the call, this is nothing to be overly concerned about. Q3 is always the tricky quarter throughout the year where outside of the first of July, honestly there's not as much consistency in the business that comes through the quarter as there are in the other quarters. So we're not concerned about the slight decrease in premium in Q3. I think Q4 and it's not an indication of a trend. Long-tail lines, I think as we said the pressure will be there. But in terms of short-tail and reinsurance especially, I think we're laying the groundwork for continued growth and profitable growth in those areas. And I think whilst the market is more competitive, it's still in a state where it is conducive for healthy underwriting and profitable underwriting. So for 2025, we're not, definitely not thinking that we're going to stand still or growth is very much on our minds, and expect to continue to grow in 2025.

Okay, that's helpful. Just on the reinsurance unit too, I know some companies, there's some lumpiness and timing that happens too in revenues when contracts are renewed. Do you see a lot of that in your book? Was there anything in this quarter where there's any timing issues in terms of something that was non-renewed or anything like that? And is that fair to say that there is some lumpiness that happens in that book, if you can talk about that at all?

On the reinsurance side, I mean, the biggest period for us is the first half of the year and then your adjustment starts coming through throughout the second half and you get, as we mentioned those what we call true ups. The reinsurance is the brightest spot for us and we will write most of it in the first half and the adjustments will come through. Again it's nothing really to be. It's not indication or anything like that, it can get. The Q3 is always a bit of the sort of trickier, more messy quarters. But for us, reinsurance is as I said as I mentioned earlier, the brighter spot in the book in the whole – the brightest segment in our portfolio now. And we're working hard to continue to take advantage of the market and continue to grow this segment. It's by far if done right, by far the most attractive segment at the moment.

Yes, that's helpful explanation. And then just on U.S. business, I know you touched on a little bit. So it’s over $100 million in premium now. Can you just talk about the profitability of that business you started? You’ve been in it for four or five years now. Can you just talk about how the profitability has trended over that time and just your future growth plans on that? I know you talked about the market being a little more competitive in E&S. But where do you see that heading in the next five years just that U.S. business? And where’s the profitability compared to where you expect it to be?

Yes, I mean, I think the results on the U.S. book for us have improved over the years. Obviously as we started, it was on a much smaller sort of premium base and we’ve grown that over the years. We’re $100 million now, all Short-tail. It’s been an extremely profitable book of business for us. And just like any other part of the world, if there are opportunities to grow, we will continue growing. We – it is becoming a more competitive environment. We are seeing a lot more aggressiveness from domestic markets. As you know, Scott, we write that U.S. book here from London which has served us well for the time that we have been writing it. But we are seeing more of that business stay local and London orders reducing. So we are looking at ways now to try and to tackle that business from not just from London but directly from the U.S. or Bermuda. So as long as we feel the market is going to – is conducive for profitable growth, we will continue to grow. Our intention is definitely to continue to grow in the U.S. I mean, the U.S. is the biggest market in the world by far and even $100 million book for us plus over a handful of lines of business, we haven’t scratched the surface there. So it is definitely – it definitely continues to be a big focus for growth for us going forward. Again, always caveat, as long as the market is on our side and we feel is conducive for that profitable growth. We added engineering and construction to our product suite in the U.S. this year. And if there are opportunities to add more going forward, then I mean that’s definitely something that we will do. So yes, very much still focused on growing in the U.S.

Okay. That’s helpful. And then just the last question I had was just a numbers [ph] question on the net investment income level for Q3 was pretty similar to Q2. Is there anything that we should be aware of in that? I guess with higher yield I would have thought it’d be up a little bit. And is there anything I should be aware of and do you expect that to grow from the Q3 base, the net investment income level over the next few quarters?

I mean, I don’t think there’s much really to what do you call it outline on it. I mean it may have been relatively flattish, but our yields are slightly going up and I think that will take a little bit of time to filter through maybe. You’ll probably start seeing more, a bit more growth in the investment income going forward, but it’s not going to be significant. I think we’ve hit a relatively what do you call it sort of we’ve hit the peak on the interest rate environment. And remember, we’ve edged out the duration, so I wouldn’t make much of it, I mean…

Okay. Got it. Thanks for all the answers.

No problem. Pleasure.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Just thank you all for joining us today, and thanks for your continued support. As always, any additional questions, please contact Robin and she’ll be happy to assist of course. And we look forward to speaking to you on next quarter’s call. Wish everybody a good day. Thank you.

Thank you.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.