Ladies and gentlemen thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Loews’ second quarter earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks there will be a question and answer session. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. I’ll now turn the call over to Mary Skafidas, Vice President of Investor and Public Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Laurent. Good morning everyone. Welcome to the Loews Corporation second quarter 2014 earnings conference call. A copy of our earnings release and earnings snapshot slides may be found on our website loews.com. On the call this morning we have our Chief Executive Officer Jim Tisch and our Chief Financial Officer, David Edelson. Following our prepared remarks this morning, we will have a question and answer session. Before we begin, however, I will remind you that this conference call might include statements that are forward-looking in nature. Actual results achieved by the company may differ materially from those projections made in any forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements reflect circumstances at the time they are made and the company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. This disclaimer is only a brief summary of the company’s statutory forward-looking statements disclaimer which is included in the company’s filings with the SEC. During the call today we might also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our securities’ filings for reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to Loews’s Chief Executive Officer Jim Tisch.

Thank you, Mary. Good morning and thank you for joining us on our call today. Loews had net income from continuing operations of $303 million, or $0.79 per share, compared to $261 million or $0.67 per share for the second quarter of 2013. Before we go into specifics about this quarter, I want to take a moment to focus on HighMount. When Loews acquired HighMount in ’07, we considered it a low risk gas manufacturing business. Since then, the shale revolution and most notably the Marcellus and Utica plays have dramatically changed the U.S. natural gas market. When we bought HighMount, gas was trading at $7 per Mcf, and was thought to be a finite commodity. A year later it hit $14. Since then it has hit lows of $2 per Mcf and it is now at about $3.85. In light of the changing circumstances in the natural gas market, last quarter we announced that we would conduct a strategic review of HighMount, which could include the sale of the company. We are currently evaluating proposals for the sale of HighMount assets and can't say much more about the process at this time. Later on in the call, David Edelson, our CFO, will give you more details on the accounting ramifications of moving HighMount to held for sale status. We will be the first to tell you that HighMount is not the most successful investment we’ve ever made. We are certainly not always right but over the years, fortunately we've been more right than wrong. Now let’s take a look at about the performance of our other subsidiaries. At CNA, underlying property casualty underwriting results continued to improve. The non-cat accident year loss ratio is down almost 1.5 points versus the same quarter last year. CNA's property casualty business continues…

Thank you, Jim, and good morning. For the second quarter of 2014, Loews reported income from continuing operations of $303 million or $0.79 per share, compared to $261 million or $0.67 per share last year. Net income, which includes a loss of $187 million from discontinued operations, was $116 million for the quarter. Let me spend a moment on discontinued operation. As Jim mentioned, in May, we announced that HighMount is pursuing strategic alternative, including a potential sale of the business. We initiated a process during the quarter that we expect will result in the sale of HighMount. Accordingly HighMount assets and liabilities have been reclassified as held for sale as of June 30, 2014 and are reported at estimated fair value, based mainly on market response to date. The associated impairment, together with the results of operations of HighMount have been classified as discontinued operation. During the second quarter, Loews recognized an after-tax loss from discontinued operations of $192 million related to HighMount, which includes an impairment loss of $167 million to reflect the excess carrying value of HighMount over its estimated fair value. Additionally, this impairment loss reflects certain estimated exit and disposal costs. We expect that the impairment will be subject to subsequent adjustment, which could be positive or negative as the sale process reaches its conclusion. HighMount’s operating results are also included in discontinued operations and will continue to be until the close of the transaction. Finally, discontinued operations in the second quarter included after-tax income of $5 million from Continental Assurance Company, CNA's run-off annuity and pension deposit business. As Jim mentioned, the sale of CAC closed last week. For the six months ended June 30, 2014, income from continuing operations was $568 million or $1.47 per share as compared to $583 million or $1.49…

Thank you, David. Before we open up the call for the questions, I wanted to add that over the last few years the industries in which our subsidiaries operate have certainly witnessed tremendous changes. We all know that change brings both risk and importantly opportunity. Our experience with HighMount unquestionably has been disappointing, we believe that each of our other subsidiaries, CAN, Boardwalk, Diamond Offshore and Loews Hotels have real opportunities ahead that should in the long-term benefit all Loews shareholders. Now I’d like to turn the call back over to Mary.

Thank you, Jim. Lorri, at this time we’d like to open the call up for questions. Can you please give participants instructions on how to do that?

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Michael Millman of Millman Research Associates. Michael Millman – Millman Research Associates: Thank you. Assuming that you are able to dispose HighMount roughly we have it on the books, would that actually create a tax loss that you could use if you decided to sell some other assets?

Mike, I don’t want to comment that at what price we might be selling HighMount. But yes, we would expect that the sale to generate additional tax benefits that we should be able to utilize in the future. Michael Millman – Millman Research Associates: And also again what’s your plan on -- assuming you sell with the cash proceeds in the near-term

We have no plans. We currently have $4.9 billion. For the past several quarters we’ve had roughly $5 billion and as I am fond of saying over a long period of time we don't let cash burn a hole in our pockets.

(Operator Instructions) Your next question comes from the line of Josh Shanker of Deutsche Bank. Josh Shanker – Deutsche Bank: Jim, can you talk a little bit about the bond market right now and what you're doing – and are you concerned, are there opportunities –

To quote myself, I think from sometime before, the yield is too darn low. The yield on 10-year note right now is about 2.5%, inflation is about 2% based on the CPI and in a normal world you would expect to see a 10-year note probably 150 to 250 basis points higher than the current yield. But CNA is in the business of managing a fixed income portfolio. We can’t have all our assets and starks. And we just have to grin and bear it at CNA with respect to the relatively low yields the we’re able to obtain. For our non-matched portfolio we’re trying to keep that portfolio as short as we can and the benefit of the rolldown in the yield curves as the securities and we owned securities. With respect to our match portfolio, we were fortunate enough a year ago at this time to be buying a lot of municipal bonds which have worked to be very attractive investments for us. We were able to lots of securities with four, five and thin-film 6% coupons and those have gone up dramatically in pricing, have been used –we pre-bought those securities because it was such a good margin and have been using that to fund some of our match liabilities. Josh Shanker – Deutsche Bank: Is there anything that you can do with derivatives to protect yourself from rising rates?

Not really. CNA has the ability and intent to hold securities surprise recovery. So we just don't worry about it.

At this time, there are no further questions. I would now like to turn the call to Mary Skafidas just for anything or closing remarks.

Thanks, Lorri and thank you for all joining our call. Replay will available on our their loews.com in approximately two years. That conclude today’s call.

Thank you participation in the Loews’ second quarter earnings conference call. You may now disconnect.