Great-West Lifeco Inc. (GWLIF) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Great-West Lifeco Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call Event Date/Time: July 29, 2026 — 9:30 a.m. E.T. Length: 75 minutes

DISCLAIMER The information contained in this transcript is a textual representation of Great-West Lifeco Inc.’s (“Great West” or “the Company”) Q2 2026 earnings conference call. While efforts are made to provide an accurate transcription, there may be material errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in the reporting of the substance of the conference call. In no way does Great West assume any responsibility for any investment or other decisions made based upon the information provided on Great West’s website or in this transcript. Users are advised to review the webcast itself (available at https://www.greatwestlifeco.com/news-andevents/events/2026/2nd-quarter-2026-conference-call-and-webcast.html) and Great West’s regulatory filings on www.sedarplus.com before making any investment or other decisions.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

From time to time, Great West makes written and/or oral forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including in this presentation. In addition, in the course of the Company’s Q2 2026 earnings conference call, representatives of the Company may, in their remarks or in responses to questions, refer to forward-looking information. Forward-looking information includes statements that are predictive in nature, depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or include words such as "achieve", "ambition", "anticipate", "believe", "could", "estimate", "expect", "initiatives", "intend", "may", "objective", "opportunity", "plan", "potential", "project", "target", "will" and other similar expressions or negative versions of those words. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements about the Company and its operations, business (including business mix), financial condition, expected financial performance (including revenues, earnings or growth rates, and medium-term financial objectives), strategies and prospects, expected costs and benefits of acquisitions and divestitures (including timing of integration activities and timing and extent of revenue and expense synergies), the timing and extent of expected transformation charges/impacts, expected expenditures or investments (including but not limited to investment in technology infrastructure and digital capabilities and solutions and investments in strategic partnerships), value creation and realization and growth opportunities, product and service innovation, expected dividend levels, expected cash remittances, expected cost reductions and savings, expected capital management activities and use of capital, the timing and extent of possible share repurchases, market position, estimates of risk sensitivities affecting capital adequacy ratios, estimates of financial risk sensitivities (including as a result of current market conditions), expected credit experience, anticipated global economic conditions, potential impacts of catastrophe events, potential impacts of geopolitical events and conflicts and the expected impact of regulatory developments (including changes to laws and government policies) on the Company’s business strategy, growth objectives and capital. Our medium-term financial objectives are forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures. Our ability to achieve those objectives depends on whether we are able to achieve our segment earnings growth ambitions and other business growth objectives and on certain key assumptions, including: (i) the performance of equity, interest rate and credit markets during the relevant period is consistent with management’s expectations, which take into account current market information and assume no credit-related impacts; (ii) the achievement of our segment base earnings growth ambitions; (iii) the achievement of enterprise and segment efficiency ambitions; (iv) capital levels and available and attractive options for capital deployment; (v) no significant changes in the level of our regulatory capital requirements; (vi) no significant changes to our effective tax rate; (vii) no significant changes to our number of shares outstanding; (viii) no material assumption changes and no material accounting standard changes. Our mediumterm financial objectives do not reflect indirect effects of equity, interest rate and credit market movements, including the potential impacts of those movements on goodwill or the current valuation allowance on deferred tax assets as well as other items that may be non-operational in nature. Further, our target base dividend payout ratio assumes that our financial results and market conditions will enable us to maintain our payout ratio in the target range. Dividends on outstanding common shares of the Company are declared and paid at the sole discretion of the Company's board of directors. The decision to declare a dividend on the common shares of the Company takes into account a variety of factors including the level of earnings, adequacy of capital and availability of cash resources. Forward-looking statements are based on expectations, forecasts, estimates, predictions, projections and conclusions about future events that were current at the time of the statements and are inherently subject to, among other things, risks, uncertainties and assumptions about the Company, economic factors and the financial services industry generally, including the insurance, wealth and retirement solutions industries. They are not guarantees of future performance, and actual events and results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Many of these assumptions are based on factors and events that are not within the control of the Company and there is no assurance that they will prove to be correct. In particular, with respect to the proposed acquisition of Milliman’s retirement plan and benefits administration business, management’s expectations are subject to: (a) the timing and completion of the proposed acquisition; (b) the expected costs and benefits of the proposed acquisition, including the timing and cost of integration activities, the timing and extent of expected cost efficiencies and synergies, increased scale, capabilities and marketing of Empower, revenue diversification, value creation/realization and growth opportunities, product and service innovation, and improved client outcomes; (c) the impacts of the proposed acquisition on Great West’s and Empower’s financial condition and flexibility, including the expected internal rate of return of the proposed acquisition and expected base earnings accretion resulting from the proposed acquisition; and (d) the business and financial condition of Great West, Empower and

the acquisition business and the U.S. retirement and benefits industry generally. With respect to possible share repurchases, the amount and timing of actual repurchases will depend on the earnings, cash requirements and financial condition of the Company, market conditions, our ability to effect the repurchases on a prudent basis, capital requirements, applicable law and regulation (including applicable securities laws), and other factors deemed relevant by the Company, and may be subject to regulatory approval and/or conditions. With respect to expected cash remittances, management’s expectations are subject to applicable regulatory approvals and assume market conditions remain generally consistent with current conditions. In all cases, whether or not actual results differ from forward looking information may depend on numerous factors, developments and assumptions, including, without limitation, the ability to integrate and leverage acquisitions and achieve anticipated benefits and synergies, the achievement of expense synergies and client retention targets from the acquisition of the Prudential retirement business, the Company’s ability to execute strategic plans and adapt or recalibrate these plans as needed, the Company’s reputation, business competition, assumptions around sales, pricing, fee rates, customer behaviour (including contributions, redemptions, withdrawals and lapse rates), mortality and morbidity experience, expense levels, reinsurance arrangements, global equity and capital markets (including continued access to equity and debt markets and credit instruments on economically feasible terms), geopolitical tensions and related economic impacts, interest and foreign exchange rates, inflation levels, liquidity requirements, investment values and asset breakdowns, hedging activities, financial condition of industry sectors and individual issuers that comprise part of the Company’s investment portfolio, credit ratings, taxes, impairments of goodwill and other intangible assets, technological changes, including the use of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), in our business, breaches or failure of information systems and security (including cyber attacks), assumptions around third-party suppliers, changes in local and international laws and regulations, changes in accounting policies and the effect of applying future accounting policy changes, changes in actuarial standards, unexpected judicial or regulatory proceedings, catastrophic events, continuity and availability of personnel and third-party service providers, unplanned changes to the Company’s facilities, customer and employee relations, levels of administrative and operational efficiencies, and other general economic, political and market factors in North America and internationally. The above list is not exhaustive, and there may be other factors listed in the Company’s filings with securities regulators, including those set out in the "Risk Management" and "Summary of Critical Accounting Estimates" sections of the Company’s Q2 2026 MD&A and in the Company's annual information form dated February 11, 2026 under "Risk Factors". These, along with other filings, are available for review at www.sedarplus.ca. The reader is cautioned to consider these and other factors, uncertainties and potential events carefully and not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Other than as specifically required by applicable law, the Company does not intend to update any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Unless specified, all in CAD. Certain amounts and percentages may not add precisely due to rounding.

GREAT WEST Shubha Khan Senior Vice-President and Head of Investor Relations David Harney President and Chief Executive Officer Lindsey Rix-Broom Chief Executive Officer, Europe Jon Nielsen Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Poulin Chief Executive Officer, Capital & Risk Solutions Ed Murphy President and Chief Executive Officer, Empower John Melvin Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer Fabrice Morin President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Linda Kerrigan Senior Vice President and Appointed Actuary CONFERENCE CALL PARTICIPANTS John Aiken Jefferies — Analyst Mike Ward UBS — Analyst Tom MacKinnon BMO — Analyst Alex Scott Barclays — Analyst

Paul Holden CIBC World Markets — Analyst Doug Young Desjardins Capital Markets — Analyst Gabriel Dechaine National Bank Financial — Analyst Darko Mihelic RBC Capital Markets — Analyst Mario Mendonca TD Securities — Analyst

PRESENTATION Operator Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Great West Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Shubha Khan, Senior Vice-President and Head of Investor Relations at Great West. Please go ahead. Shubha Khan — Senior Vice-President and Head of Investor Relations, Great West Thank you, Morgan. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the call to discuss our second quarter financial results. Before we start, please note that a link to our live webcast and materials for this call have been posted on our website at greatwestlifeco.com under the Investor Relations tab. Turning to Slide 2. I’d like to draw your attention to the cautionary language regarding the use of forward-looking statements, which form part of today’s remarks. And please refer to the appendix for a note on the use of non-IFRS financial measures and important notes on adjustments, terms, and definitions used in this presentation. And turning to Slide 3, I’d like to introduce today’s call participants. Joining us today are David Harney, our President and CEO; Jon Nielsen, our Group CFO; Ed Murphy, President and CEO, Empower; Fabrice Morin, President and CEO, Canada; Lindsey Rix-Broom, CEO, Europe; Jeff Poulin, CEO, Capital and Risk Solutions; Linda Kerrigan, our Appointed Actuary; and John Melvin, our Chief Investment Officer. We’ll begin with prepared remarks, followed by Q&A.

With that, I’ll turn the call over to David. David Harney — President and Chief Executive Officer, Great West Thanks, Shubha, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 5. This quarter, we built on our strong start to 2026, delivering 15% base EPS growth, driven by double-digit growth at both Empower and CRS. We continue to demonstrate strong execution across all of our growth platforms. Empower crossed a notable milestone, surpassing US$2 trillion in client assets on its Workplace platform. This business will be further strengthened by the acquisition of Milliman’s retirement and benefits administration business, which is expected to close later this year. Great West continues to generate strong risk-adjusted returns, with a base ROE of 19.3% this quarter, supported by our ongoing shift to a more capital-efficient business mix, as well as balance sheet optimization initiatives. Lindsey will discuss some of these initiatives in more detail shortly, as part of an update on our European operations in this quarterly call. Our strong cash generation and balance sheet continue to provide significant financial flexibility, and we expect total capital deployment through buybacks and M&A in 2026 to be at least as much as was deployed in 2025. Please turn to Slide 6. As I mentioned, we delivered base EPS growth of 15% year on year, primarily driven by strong growth in our Retirement, Wealth and Reinsurance businesses across markets. Total Retirement and Wealth client assets grew 22% year over year, to more than $3.7 trillion, of which $1.3 trillion represents higher margin assets under management or advisement.

Robust capital generation continues to reinforce our financial position. We continued our share buybacks during the quarter and still ended with a solid capital base, including a LICAT ratio of 128%; Holdco cash of $2.5 billion; and a leverage ratio of 27%, down 1 percentage point from Q1. Please turn to Slide 7. Our results this quarter highlight the benefits of diversification in our portfolio. Our segments are largely delivering on their growth ambitions through the first half of the year, despite the impact of more volatile earning drivers. Empower grew base earnings at a double-digit pace year over year, with strong operating margins and Retirement plan wins, while delivering impressive growth of 66% in its Wealth business through the first half of 2026. Canada saw a double-digit growth in both Retirement and Wealth earnings on particularly strong margins, though this was offset by moderated insurance experience in the second quarter. In Europe, business performance has been strong across markets year to date, with robust sales, including $1.2 billion of bulk annuities in the second quarter continuing to support the growth outlook. And finally, Capital and Risk Solutions continues to see strong demand for capital solutions across geographies and product lines, driving 38% year-over-year base earnings growth for the first half of the year. Overall, I am very pleased with our performance at the midpoint of the year. Please turn to Slide 8. I want to take the opportunity to highlight Empower’s recently announced acquisition of Milliman’s retirement and benefits administration business. The acquisition further scales our defined contribution platform and, more importantly, has the leading Defined Benefit capability that strengthens our go-to-market offering. By adding 1.5

million participants and US$130 billion in client assets upon closing, Empower’s Workplace platform will be better positioned to compete for bundled opportunities. This transaction is expected to be financially attractive and accretive to base earnings in the first year. Ed is available today to address any additional questions on the transaction and the strong outlook for Empower’s business overall. With that, I will pass over to Lindsey to discuss our European operations, where we have significantly enhanced the risk-return profile through sustained new business momentum and balance sheet optimization. Lindsey Rix-Broom — Chief Executive Officer, Europe, Great West Thank you, David, and good morning. Please turn to Slide 10. In Europe, our base earnings increased 2% year over year in the second quarter, primarily driven by higher global equity markets, favourable insurance experience gains, and supportive currency movements. These were partially offset by a moderation in trading gains from the exceptionally strong levels recorded in the prior year. For the first half of 2026, base earnings grew 8% year over year, better reflecting the solid underlying business performance and successful execution of our strategic priorities. These results reinforce our confidence in the long-term earnings trajectory of the European business. We continue to benefit from a diversified earnings mix, recurring fee-based revenue streams, and strong growth across our lines of business. Turning to Slide 11. Looking more closely at business activity, Europe continues to see robust demand across product lines, providing attractive opportunities for organic investment and a strong foundation for sustained earnings growth at a mid-single digit pace or higher.

In Insurance and Annuities, UK bulk annuity sales were $1.2 billion this quarter, with yearto-date sales amounting to a fivefold increase from 2025, reflecting robust demand for bulk annuities across the industry and healthy margins, particularly in the SME segment of the market. We continue to deploy capital in a disciplined manner, targeting returns in the mid-teens or higher. Retail annuity sales also remained strong, increasing 54% year to date, reflecting strong consumer demand for guaranteed retirement income solutions amid ongoing retirement planning needs. Within Group Benefits, in-force premiums increased 9% year over year, reflecting solid retention, pricing discipline, and ongoing growth, particularly encouraging with the performance in Wealth, as net flows improved significantly from the prior-year period to $7.1 billion of net inflows in the first half of 2026. This improvement was driven by continued momentum in retail sales and a rebound in institutional flows. It also underscores the attractiveness of our value proposition, as clients continue to seek trusted advice and comprehensive wealth solutions across our European markets. Finally, Retirement net flows remained positive at approximately $600 million, consistent with the prior year, demonstrating the resilience and stability of our Retirement franchise. Taken together, the UK, Ireland, and Germany have a breadth of avenues to drive sustained growth. These drivers are supporting stronger earnings, higher ROE, and increased capital generation, while reducing dependence on any single market or product line. Please turn to Slide 12. Beyond top-line growth, we continue to make significant progress in optimizing our balance sheet. At the Investor Day last year, we outlined a series of initiatives designed to improve capital efficiency, enhance returns, and increase financial flexibility.

We’re pleased to report that we are on track to deliver over $3 billion in capital benefits, exceeding our expectations from a year ago. These benefits were generated through enhanced asset liability management practices, strategic use of reinsurance, and modernization of our ALM tools and risk-modelling capabilities. Improved capital efficiency has translated to more than $2 billion in additional cash remittances and has reduced capital strain on new business by approximately 30%, enhancing capital deployment flexibility across the broader organization. The impact of these initiatives is most clearly reflected in our return metrics. Europe’s base ROE this quarter reflects a 350 basis point improvement from 2024, demonstrating our ability to translate business growth and capital optimization into greater value creation. Importantly, this improvement has not come from taking additional risk. Rather, it reflects deliberate actions to optimize capital utilization, improve our business mix, and increase operating efficiency. Overall, Europe has delivered a good first half of 2026, marked by strong top-line growth and enhanced capital efficiency, enabling the business to drive strong risk-adjusted returns. As we look ahead, our focus remains on executing against attractive growth opportunities, maintaining disciplined capital deployment, and continuing to enhance returns while preserving the strength and resilience of our balance sheet. I’ll now pass it over to Jon to talk through the broader financial results for the quarter. Jon Nielsen — Group Chief Financial Officer, Great West Thank you, Lindsey, and good morning. Please turn to Slide 14.

Great West, again, delivered a strong quarter with double-digit earnings growth, driven by sustained momentum across our Retirement and Wealth businesses and strong new business volume in our CRS business. Base earnings per share growth of 15% year-over-year was also supported by $925 million of share buybacks since the start of the year. These results drove base ROE of 19.3%, in line with our medium-term objective of 19%+ for a second straight quarter. While net earnings in the second quarter were impacted by unfavourable market experience, primarily from interest rate movements, the year-to-date impact of interest rates was largely neutral. Turning to Slide 15. We are pleased that credit experience for the second quarter was down year over year and within our expected range of 4 to 6 basis points on an annualized basis. As a reminder, total credit experience is the aggregate of credit experience shown in our drivers of earnings disclosure, as well as our Retirement and Wealth P&L statements, all of which are included in the supplemental information package. We continue to expect that under normal conditions, credit experience would be at the lower end of the $80 million to $120 million pre-tax range that we indicated at the beginning of the year. Turning to our results by segment, starting with Slide 16. Empower delivered an excellent quarter, with double-digit growth in base earnings up 34% in constant currency, reflecting continued organic growth momentum across both the Retirement and Wealth businesses.

In Retirement, strong equity markets drove double-digit growth in average client assets, which now exceed US$2 trillion for the first time. Net plan inflows remain strong, and we continue to expect positive net plan flows for the full year 2026. Operating margins also improved by over 600 basis points from a year ago, helped by improved credit experience and underscoring the significant operating leverage in the business. Empower Wealth performed exceptionally well, with base earnings up 67% year over year in constant currency. Operating margins were a record 40% this quarter, up almost 10 percentage points year-over-year, demonstrating the scalability of the Wealth platform. We intend to further invest in the business in the second half of the year and beyond and, as a result, expect the full year operating margin to be in the mid-to-high 30s. Overall, the significant momentum in our businesses drove Empower’s base ROE to a record 22.2% and reinforces the double-digit growth outlook for 2026. Turning to Slide 17. Base earnings in our Canadian operations decreased 9% year over year, as continued momentum in Retirement and Wealth was offset by moderated long-term disability experience gains, which can fluctuate from quarter to quarter. Underlying business growth was solid, with Group Benefit sales up 20% from a year ago, Insurance and Annuity sales up 15% year over year, and rising equity markets and operating leverage supporting base earnings growth of 26% in the Retirement business and 38% in Wealth. Turning to Slide 18. Capital and Risk Solutions continued the strong start to the year, with base earnings up 35% on a constant currency basis in the second quarter. This was driven by continued demand for our Capital Solutions globally, which drove a 54% year-over-year increase in the run-rate insurance result in the second quarter.

The pipeline in that business remains strong, and we continue to expect new deals through the remainder of 2026. Turning to Slide 19. As we’ve highlighted in the past, our organic capital generation is significant and is a key strength of our businesses. In the second quarter, base capital generation exceeded 80% of base earnings, while free cash flow was 86% of base earnings. As we’ve said before, Great West capital is highly fungible, providing significant support for continued capital deployment. While attractive organic growth opportunities in our more capital-supported businesses may impact base capital generation in any given quarter, we expect Great West to remain highly cash generative. Turning to Slide 20. Great West’s exceptional free cash flow generation has supported significant capital deployment. So far this year, we’ve repurchased $925 million of common shares and announced the acquisition of Milliman’s retirement and benefits administration business in the United States for a total consideration of US$340 million. Similar to last year, we’ve amended our existing NCIB, allowing us to repurchase up to 40 million shares in 2026. We continue to expect that total capital deployed, either through share repurchases or M&A, will at least be as much as the $1.6 billion deployed in 2025. Our LICAT ratio stood at 128%, down from 129% at the end of the first quarter, driven by a number of individual insignificant items. For the remainder of the year, we expect to maintain a LICAT ratio at or above 125%, even if new business volume in our Reinsurance business remains elevated.

Our leverage ratio of 27% and Holdco cash balance of $2.5 billion positions us for continued financial flexibility and to pursue strategic capital deployment opportunities. Overall, we’ve had a great first half in 2026 and are excited about the continued momentum across all our business segments. With that, I’ll turn it back over to David for concluding remarks. David Harney Thank you, Jon. Please turn to Slide 22. I’m really pleased with how well we have continued to execute on our strategy since I took over as CEO a little over a year ago. With double-digit earnings growth through the first half of the year and a base ROE in excess of 19%, the results speak for themselves. This is a testament to the focus and efforts of our people across the organization. I’d also like to note that we are presenting our results for quarter two a week earlier than we did last year, and I’d like to thank the finance and related teams for the amazing work they did in accelerating their timelines to facilitate the earlier reporting of these results. I am confident in the outlook for our business. We remain well positioned to deliver on all our medium-term objectives. Empower is on track once again to generate double-digit organic base earnings growth this year. CRS continues to outperform its growth ambitions, with strong demand for its capital solutions expected to persist through 2026. We also demonstrated the strong and improving return profile of the business, supported by our balance sheet optimization efforts, especially in Europe.

I am confident that we will continue to deliver on our strategy and create long-term value for our shareholders in the years ahead. Thank you. And with that, I’ll turn it over to Shubha to start the question-and-answer portion of the call. Shubha Khan Thank you, David. In order to give everyone a chance to participate in the Q&A, we’d ask that you limit yourselves to two questions per person. You can certainly re-queue for follow-ups, and we’ll do our best to accommodate if there’s time at the end. Morgan, we are ready to take questions now.

Q&A Operator Your first question comes from John Aiken with Jefferies. Your line is open. John Aiken — Jefferies Good morning. With the Capital Risk Solutions that you mentioned the strong pipeline. As you’re seeing demand increase in this segment, is this actually having any impact on margins? Are they actually widening out? Jeff Poulin — Chief Executive Officer, Capital & Risk Solutions That’s a good question, John. Thanks for that. I mean, there’s always eroding margins on business that’s been in the books for a long time. So you can think of Capital Solutions as innovative and, in the early years, you tend to get really good margins and, as other reinsurers enter the market,

then the margin erodes over time. So we always have a little bit of erosion on our margins on existing transactions over time, and that’s the way it works. However, I think what we are seeing right now, and what we’ve seen the last 18 months or so and continuing to see, is a lot of demand for some of the solutions that are working, and it’s actually a very diversified portfolio, we’ve got behaviour risk in Europe and in North America, policy behaviour risk that people are reinsuring out, and then we’re seeing some health reinsurance demand in the United States, mass lapse transactions in Europe on savings products, and then a lot of demand on our Capital Solutions for non-life products. So it’s coming in a very diversified manner. We’re very happy with it. However, our business is lumpy, and it comes in waves. I think I highlighted that at the Investor Day last year. So it is a very lumpy business. Right now, we’re riding the wave, and we’re very opportunistic that way. But we remain disciplined. If the margins are no longer there and we’re not getting our returns, we’re going to move on to other types of products. So it’s important for us to continue to get new ideas and new products, and we’re working on those, and we’ve got some pretty good ideas right now. So whether the demand will be there or not for these products is hard to tell, but it’s been a good run. David Harney But I think it’s fair to say, Jeff, that margins on the new business have been good and in line with— Jeff Poulin They’re very good. Yes. David Harney

Like what’s driving the growth here is increased demand from the market, rather than any change in our competitive posture. Jeff Poulin That’s right. John Aiken No. Understood. Understood. Thank you. And, Jeff, just as a follow-on, given your success, how is competition shaping up in your markets? Jeff Poulin It’s the same usual suspects. We’re the same player. I think that what we’ve seen, John, is over the years, I think that reinsurers have—there’s been a shift from just a risk partner to a capital and planning partner. And we’ve been at the forefront of that, and we’re constantly coming up with ideas. So we’ve got extremely good relationships with large insurers in all the markets we’re in, and I think we benefit from the trust that they have in us. There’s always some copycats in the market and people that are coming in and trying to get in the market, and that’ll continue to happen. But we have been one of the leaders in Capital Solutions and intend to continue to be that way. It’s a hard market to get in. You need to have experience and the right mindset and the right balance sheet, and the backing of a strong company really helps as well. So I think we’ve got all the right tools in our toolbox to get there. John Aiken Thanks for the colour. I’ll re-queue. Jeff Poulin And we continue to be successful.

Operator Your next question comes from Mike Ward with UBS. Your line is open. Mike Ward — UBS Hi. Thanks, guys. I was just wondering if we could dig into the Milliman deal a little bit. And one of the things I was curious specifically about is some of the opportunities beyond sort of the cost synergies, I guess revenue opportunities, right, the health and welfare benefits kind of administration. Just because I don’t think that you guys kind of quantified that potential opportunity, but it’s an exciting part of that deal, I think. David Harney Ed, do you want to take this? Ed Murphy — President and Chief Executive Officer, Empower Sure. Yeah. Thanks for the question, Mike. Absolutely. I would say, unlike some of the other major transactions that we did, and MassMutual and Pru in particular, those were really driven in large part by cost synergies. This was very much about a strategic growth opportunity for us. This is a core capability that we were lacking, to some degree, because we were working through a third party. We were working through a partner. And we really felt like we needed to own the capability, similar to what we did with the acquisition of OptionTrax, where we now own proprietary capability in the equity plan administration category and space. And so we think there’s tremendous opportunity, obviously, to cross-sell our DB admin capabilities with our existing customer base, tens of thousands of corporate clients. But also, it puts us in a position to be far more effective in new pursuits when clients and sponsors are typically

looking for a multiproduct-type solution, defined contribution, defined benefit administration, and health and welfare administration. And so we’re better positioned, we will be better positioned, once that’s successfully integrated, to compete for those opportunities. I would say the market has moved to valuing the bundle, and that’s very much core to our strategy is to build out these capabilities that allow us to establish deeper relationships with existing clients and with prospective clients. And what I would say is in our Workplace business, we continue to grow, as measured by net new participants, at 1.5 to 2 times the rate of the market. In fact, this year, without an owned DB admin capability, we’ll add close to a million participants net to the platform on a base of 20 million, so 5% growth in a market that’s growing at 2 - 2.5%. So I think this is a tremendous growth opportunity. Obviously, coming out of the transaction once it closes, we are establishing a partnership with Milliman. We think there’s tremendous consulting opportunities that we can work on with Milliman. So I would just summarize by saying this was all about addressing a product gap that we felt like we had, but also very revenue-synergistic from the standpoint of being able to have a much more appealing offering across things like DC, DB, and health and welfare. Mike Ward Thank you. That makes a lot of sense. And then shifting away from the US, so you guys spent a good amount of time talking, sort of, about the capital efficiency and business mix optimization efforts in Europe. I’m just kind of wondering like how much more runway you see to further execute on that in Europe and what that could look like. And do you see similar opportunities in other regions?

Jon Nielsen Yeah. Thanks, Mike. So we’re really happy with the success that we’ve had in Europe. That’s a multi-year project and happy to report back on being ahead of where we expected to be at the Investor Day. And that’s really driven the ROE up significantly as we’ve done that and generated capital for us. I would say we’re kind of two-thirds through that work. It does cover all the countries in Europe, although the most significant impact were in the higher capital-intensive business, which is more a part of the UK business. And when I say two-thirds of the way through, we are reflecting what we expect to be the outcome of that work when we’ve reported back to you and when we set out our initial expectations. So as we continue to deliver that, it’ll be against those expectations that we’ve laid out. That’s not just a focus in Europe, albeit that was the biggest opportunity for us two years ago. But we’re looking across the business and continue to optimize the business mix, the capital intensity, and the return, and look for opportunities to continue to drive better capital deployment and better IRRs out of our business. Mike Ward Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Tom MacKinnon with BMO. Your line is open. Tom MacKinnon — BMO Yeah. Thanks very much. Good morning. Yeah. Two questions. First, on the Capital and Risk Solutions. Jeff, you mentioned the business comes in waves. It looks like the Capital Solutions business is largely in terms of short-term business and not CSM-related. So if demand did fall 10%,

would we expect those short-term expected earnings to decline 10%? And what is the outlook, really, for those short-term expected earnings in CRS going forward through 2026, given the strong demand? Jeff Poulin Thanks, Tom. I appreciate the question. I think you could look at some of the Capital Solution earnings as being a bit stickier than you’ve said there. It does erode over time, either through competition or people don’t renew some of their covers, but we tend to replace and expect to replace those earnings with more capital solutions. So the demand is still fairly strong, although I think it’s tapered off a little bit from the levels we’ve seen in the last 18 months, but there’s still plenty of demand. So I would say that the current level of run rate that we have now is very sustainable, and we’re probably going to continue to see that mid-single-digit-plus growth from this standpoint. So that’s how I would qualify it. That make sense? Tom MacKinnon Great. Yep. And the second question is with respect to Empower. Ed, we had $14 billion in participant net outflows. I can understand higher markets can sometimes lead to higher net outflows but that, to me, would suggest a lot of rollover possibilities. Yet, if I look into US Wealth, there was the $1.8 billion in net inflows. That’s kind of the lowest we’ve seen in the last seven quarters. Understanding you’re doing some transformation initiatives there, kind of trying to upgrade your capabilities with respect to rollover capture. But any colour you can add on the commentary I just made there? Thanks.

Ed Murphy Yeah. Sure. Tom, I think the one thing to take note of is the seasonality of the contributions on the Workplace side. So we had roughly $45 billion in contributions in Q1, and that was to be expected because that’s when a lot of the Company matches and profit sharing hits. And then that dropped to $32 billion in Q2. And we would see that being relatively constant through the balance of the year from a contribution standpoint. So the disbursement piece of it, or the distribution piece of it, on the Workplace side, was largely just driven by account balances. It wasn’t volume, per se. Now to answer the second part of your question, what I would say is, as we shared with you last quarter, we’ve instituted some changes. We’ve implemented several changes across the organization, made some structural changes, made some personnel changes. And I will say that I have seen improvement starting to take hold and, as I look at Q3 and beyond, we fully expect to see improvement above what we experienced in Q1 and Q2. So a lot of the indicators, I think, are very, very strong. The flow opportunity for us has been fairly constant from quarter to quarter in terms of the opportunity set. But as we look forward, we see greater success and higher net new assets in Q3 and Q4. So more to come there, but I feel good about the path that we’re on. Operator Your next question comes from Alex Scott with Barclays. Your line is open. Alex Scott — Barclays Hey. Good morning. First one I had for you is on excess capital. Was wondering if you could talk about the amount of capacity you have. Know you’ve got the Milliman going on, so just maybe

talk about your appetite for further M&A and how you’re measuring that against buybacks, especially considering your stock price has gotten to, yeah, a pretty attractive valuation in this point. Jon Nielsen Yeah. Thanks, Alex. As you know, we’re generating significant capital and in excess of our target of 80% plus, and that’s really translated into really strong free cash flow. If you look at this quarter, above 85%, and that trend, if you look backwards, was fairly consistent. Two-thirds of our business and the growth parts—the parts of our business that are growing the fastest, do come from capital-light businesses, and we expect those businesses to continue to outpace the growth of the overall Company. So we’re in a good position to see that free cash flow continue at high levels. We did—as we reported back on, we are in a process of capital optimization on some of those more capital-supported businesses and happy with the progress there that’s also driving that capital generation. We did end the quarter at around $2.5 billion of cash, and we haven’t changed our capital allocation priorities. It continued to be what’s in the best interest of the long-term return of our shareholders and deploying that. We have the tools available, both through our NCIB program and through an active watch on the M&A market, which we took advantage of this quarter, as you said, with Milliman, to deploy that capital. We would expect, over time, that we wouldn’t sit on excess capital in perpetuity, but there may be timing as to when opportunities present themselves in the M&A market. We want to be prepared for those and balance that with our ongoing buyback program.

So what we said consistently, and this is the third call of the year, is that we will do at least as much capital deployment as last year. That was $1.6 billion. We deployed $925 million in buybacks and then, obviously, the $350 million or so into the Milliman acquisition. So we’ll continue to evaluate as we head into the second half. We have the tools in place and thankful that Power Corporation has continued to support extending the NCIB program to the same level of shares as last year. Obviously, we probably wouldn’t get to the full usage of that NCIB program, but I guess our thought is have some flexibility. We still think there’s intrinsic value in buybacks and strong earnings growth and cash generation in our stock, and we’ll balance that against opportunities, as I said, with the thought that we’ll deploy that capital, but there may be timing in which we do it and, obviously, a balance between the opportunities in the M&A market and buybacks. Alex Scott Got it. Really helpful. Next one I had is on Empower Retirement. Wanted to see if you could talk a bit more about the margin there. I know I heard you opine on the margin for Wealth, I think, in your comments, but could you talk about Retirement? The margin’s gotten a lot better there. Yeah. How are you viewing the trade-offs between further margin improvement versus investment in the business in that segment? Ed Murphy Yeah. So I think a couple of factors there. Obviously, the market tailwind has been a contributing factor, and that’s been positive for sure. But as we’ve shared with you in the past, we’ve been on a multi-year journey in terms of transforming the operating environment and driving our unit

cost lower, and we have a multi-year plan to do that. Obviously, AI is playing a prominent role there, but also just the work that we’re doing around straight-through processing and automation. So as we look further out, the scale that we have, gives us tremendous operating leverage, and I’m confident that we can continue to drive unit cost lower. We can’t always rely on the markets, but we focus on the things that we can control, which is delivering value for our customers and doing it in a way that’s efficient. So I think our guidance, in terms of margins in the Workplace business, is really sort of in that low to mid-30s. As you acknowledge, we’ve seen really strong improvement in the margins over the last couple years and, in particular, a nice move just over the last couple of quarters. But it’s also a business that we are going to continue to invest in as we build out more capabilities. You think about the acquisition we did with Milliman, that’s largely a Workplace-type transaction. So we’re making investments there, but we’ve got a really strong expense discipline that I think is also a big contributing factor. Operator Your next question comes from Paul Holden with CIBC World Markets. Your line is open. Paul Holden — CIBC World Markets Thank you. Good morning. First question I want to ask you about is on asset allocation and in consideration, particularly of corporate spreads. We’re about as tight as we ever have [seen]. And the reason I’m asking the question, I always thought GWO asset allocation always took advantage of spreads, not just in terms of trading income opportunities but also just in terms of yield enhancement, right, being important part of the story over time. So just recent thoughts on asset

allocation, how you’re dealing with or trying to generate yield enhancement opportunities in a very challenging credit spread environment. David Harney John, do you want to comment? John Melvin — Chief Investment Officer, Great West Yes. Thank you. So what I’d say is, with respect to where we are in the current credit spread environment, we have a conservative, well diversified portfolio. We are not aggressively chasing or pressing on that, given that we are near historical tight spread levels across the board. And I think that the strategy remains consistent. We will certainly look for ways to be more capital-efficient and have a better balance in all of our businesses with ALM, but we also need to make sure we’re market-competitive in our product areas. And so far, we’re able to do that but, as you’ve seen with some of the changes that we’ve redeployed in some of our segments, in terms of becoming more capital-efficient and optimizing more effectively, that’s likely to continue throughout the portfolio, across our various segments. So again, I would say our strategy is to continue to hold the course on our desired risk-taking in the portfolio and continue to try and build the portfolio yields through the types of strategies we have been deploying and more efficient use of capital. I’ll turn it over to David. David, do you have any comments? David Harney Yeah. I’d just add, overall, like our earnings are becoming less dependent on trading gains, or a smaller portion. I think, even in the current environment, there will continue to be trading gain

opportunities. But it’s not a line we expect to grow. We’ll have less reliance in this going forward but, even in the current environment, there will continue to be trading gain opportunities. Paul Holden But given all that and sort of putting the trading gains aside, if I just sort of think about sort of the core net investment income, if there’s such a thing as core net investment income, do skinnier spreads put pressure on that over time, I guess, is really the nature of my question. David Harney Yeah. I think it comes through in two parts of the business. Like our spend at the capitalintensive business, pricing will reflect where spreads are at. And then, I suppose, the other area where it comes through is the general account in the US, and that’s more a straight-through; the crediting rates will affect where spreads are. So both of those become a little bit more difficult in a tightening spread market, but they reflect through in the underlying business. Paul Holden Okay. That’s good. And then second question is with respect to Europe and the Wealth business. So obviously, a lot of positives taking place in Europe but just kind of curious on Wealth shows good, Asset growth good flows, but no growth in earnings over the last year, and that looks to be an expense story. So maybe just kind of walk us through what’s happening on the expense line, if that’s intended to result in future opportunities. Or basically, how do we understand that lack of earnings growth and the higher expenses versus revenue? Jon Nielsen Maybe I’ll take the technical factor, and then Lindsey can talk a little bit more about the business. There was a reclassification between Wealth and Retirement that impacted this year’s

numbers. We didn’t go back and reclassify because it wasn’t that significant at the group. So when you kind of look at the growth rate, you might aggregate those two together to get a more accurate picture of things, and apologies for that. It just better reflects the margins on each of the businesses as we see them. I’ll turn it over Lindsey. Lindsey Rix-Broom Yeah. That’s right - Thanks, Jon. And then, just to build from a business point of view, I think, as you say, we’re seeing assets increase quarter on quarter. And due to just the mix of both client and revenue mix, you kind of see kind of a potential change in terms of how the fee revenue then comes through quarter on quarter. So I don’t think there’s anything else to see in that, other than mix over the course of the year, but we’re pleased with the growth that we’re seeing across all parts of the business in Wealth. Paul Holden Got it. Okay. That explains it. Thank you. I’ll leave my questions there. Operator Your next question comes from Doug Young with Desjardins Capital Markets. Your line is open. Doug Young — Desjardins Capital Markets Hi. Good morning. I guess this is for John. Just wanted to kind of go back to capital for a second. But just wanted to, maybe you can quantify how much excess capital you have at the Canadian and US Opcos. I see the cash at the Holdco. Just wondering how much is down at the Opco.

And then can you kind of define, just kind of clearly define on what the debt—what you see as the debt capacity? And then the third part of it is just you said the LICAT was down quarter over quarter. There were several smaller items. I just, I didn’t know if there was cash moved up from the opco that had an impact. But what were those smaller items? Jon Nielsen Yeah. Sure. Well, let me take you through the excess capital position overall, and then we can talk about the current trend. So as you indicated, the Holdco cash, with the way context this, that’s outside of the LICAT and RBC environment. That’s excess capital. We typically keep around a little bit of liquidity there, but you can generally think of it as fully deployable, and that was just around $2.5 billion. I think, as I’ve indicated in the prior couple of calls, that typically we would look at capital above 120%, or just over $2 billion, as being deployable. And as I indicated, for the right transaction, we could go down to that level, but we’d always balance that decision. And the question is, would we, and how would we fund a transaction? Not could we, but would we go down that low? So that’s about $2 billion. In terms of RBC in the US, I would think of the US as being highly cash generative for us. On the upper end of where we generate cash as a percent of base earnings, it’s very high, given the nature of the business. And whilst we have capital sufficient, capital excess there to a degree, there are ongoing developments in RBC and other factors. So there may be some there, Doug, but we really look at that as more cash into the future. In terms of leverage—so that kind of gets you to $4 - $4.5 billion, similar to what I said last quarter. And then you have the leverage capacity. We would see an ongoing rate, again, as I’ve

shared, of being 30% as being kind of an ongoing leverage rate this business could run at. So that’s another $2 billion, so just around $6 billion of excess capital. And as I’ve indicated before, for the right transactions, we have gone up temporarily and leveraged up to a 35% level. And then, what we typically have done in the past—and we have a great track record, and I think this helps build why we have this capacity in terms of paying it down quickly—we typically then will pay down that leverage quite quickly, both with the cash flows of any acquired businesses and our ongoing excess cash flows. That would add another $3.5 billion or $4 billion. So we have a lot of capacity. Our intention is to continue to generate that. And there’s no reason we don’t, excess of 80%. We should assume that we’ll continue to have cash flow move up to the Holding Company at a strong pace. During the quarter, it wasn’t quite 1 point; we round to 1 point. So I’ll just point out there’s a bit of a rounding there; number of insignificant items. I would call it a little bit of markets, a little bit of timing on capital deployment. There’s certain activities that you can’t align exactly in the time when you deploy capital organically and get everything lined up in terms of what the optimal capital structure for that new business is, so a little bit of timing. And then just a number of other small things that, honestly, are not very individually insignificant. Nothing that would be something that would be like an ongoing impact to have a concern about and, obviously, then, the upflow of capital. Doug Young Sure. Then there was outflow of capital. You haven’t quantified how much you put up, though, for just Canada.

Jon Nielsen Yeah. It is available. And this is one thing that we’ve done that I think gives you a great view on that. If you look at the SIP, you’re able to back into all the numbers, but very transparently on the SIP on Page 17, Great West Holdco Cash at Holding Company, that gives you a sense of cash flows of the Holding Company and its related operations, the money that flowed up and where it went. I’ll just say that there’s always timing impacts on dividends. You can’t—some of our entities, you pay the—typically, you pay it out after you earn it. And some are annual dividends; some are quarterly. So look at that over the full year when you—always look at it over a full year or rolling fourquarter averages, and that’s kind of how we present it. Doug Young Okay. And then just second question. Like Canada, I know you had less favourable group LTD experience, and you talked a bit about that. But you had negative individual insurance experience. And I think it was maybe kind of fleshed out as being like normal volatility. But I just wanted to get a sense of like the individual—there was a big swing in the individual insurance line in Canada—Just maybe a little bit of colour of what you’re seeing there? Fabrice Morin — President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Doug, I think—it’s Fabrice here. Thanks for the question. That’s right. We’ve had an overall insurance experience in Q2 that was materially lower than a strong prior year, due mainly to less favourable group long-term disability experience, but there’s also other experience factors that all played in the lower direction.

In individual, as you pointed out, you would have individual disability, which was also unfavourable, although we see it as normal volatility there. And we would have mortality on both the workplace and individual side that are, in aggregate, unfavourable compared to prior year. The bulk of it is—when we do the year over year, the bulk of it is group long-term disability. Can give just a few details there. It’s been mainly around claims recovery, where we’ve seen less good experience than we’ve had in the past. We’ve seen this strange trend start to emerge in Q1. We’ve seen a continuation of it in Q2. And we’ve seen, at the industry level, others as well feeling the same pressure. So I think it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that may continue into Q3, but long term this is a strong business. We’ve also seen some higher incidence, so lower experience on incidence at this period, but this has been quite recent. So we would qualify this as normal volatility. But overall, we’re very pleased with the performance of our business, our Workplace benefits business. The sales momentum is high, as was mentioned in the formal presentation. Same thing in individual insurance. These businesses remain healthy. This doesn’t change our strategy. As I mentioned, group long-term disability, there’s a part of it that has emerged in Q1, continues in Q2, and may go on for a few quarters. The rest of it, I would say it’s too early to call, and it doesn’t change our strategy, and we’ve got strong businesses with good momentum. Doug Young Appreciate the colour. Thank you.

Operator Your next question comes from Gabriel Dechaine with National Bank Financial. Your line is open. Gabriel Dechaine — National Bank Financial Hey. Good morning. Just to keep going with that line of questioning, more on the group side. Can you explain, like you’re saying lower recoveries. Like what would have changed this year versus last? And then, I mean, does this preface, I guess, a need to reprice the portfolio? How long does that take to restore margins? Fabrice Morin Thanks for the question, Gabriel. Yes. The lower recoveries is a return to work. So the return to healthy and productive phase for our members on disability, that’s a bit slower than historical. So that’s the trend that we see there. We have strong case managers. We’re, of course, heavily focused on the factors that we can control, and we have good discipline in our case management and upped discipline on our case management. But as I mentioned, we’ve seen this trend at the industry level, not just in Canada, but in Canada primarily. And there can be a number of factors related to that, and this business can be cyclical. One thing that I’d point to is employment growth in Canada has been slower in ‘25 than ‘24, and then even slower in ‘26, almost flat in ‘26. And when there’s not a lot of employment growth, when there’s not a lot of demand for labour, the return-to-work process can be at the margin—just a

little bit more challenging. And we’re working through that, but that’s an example of macro factor that we might see in addition to the types of health conditions that we’re dealing with. So again, we’re at this business for a long time we’ve seen cycles and there’s no reason to believe this would change. You talked about pricing there. The business is annually renewable, of course, depending on conditions that we see. Pricing is a part of our toolkit. But I’m not going to expand more on that at this point. Gabriel Dechaine Gotcha. Thanks. And that job background answered my second question, do I’ll change my second question. Just for the buybacks, can you provide another explanation of your appetite for buybacks? The stock is 3 times book. How does that factor into your decision? And then also, like Milliman was not a big acquisition. So is that even a reason to hold back on buybacks here? Jon Nielsen Well, thanks, Gabe. First, we think there’s still significant intrinsic value and upside—in our share price. We continue to deliver at or above our medium-term objectives. And that’s our intention, to meet or beat those objectives and, relatively, still positive about the outlook on the growth out for the organization continuing at this pace. I wouldn’t characterize anything as an outlook change on buybacks. We did $925 million in the first half. We did significant buybacks in the second half of last year. And we have the commitment from our major shareholder on a continuation of the same level of authorization and buybacks as we had last year.

We are always looking for other opportunities that create long-term total shareholder return and, obviously, deploying capital into very accretive transactions, mid-teen IRRs on the Milliman transaction. We bought it at, call it, 10 times earnings level. So this is going to be accretive. And $350 million isn’t necessarily pocket change. We’d like to do more transactions that meet our financial criteria. It’s hard for us to time those. I mean, we can’t know when those opportunities come. So we always want to be apprised of being—having capital available. What we can assure you is, as we said on this third call, we’re going to do at least as much as we did last year in terms of capital deployment. And we are going to be active in buybacks and, hopefully, M&A as we look forward because we generate significant cash flow in excess of our ongoing dividend and other fixed capital needs. So we will deploy that cash. It will be deployed accretively. We want to do it very carefully. And whether it be through buyback or M&A, you should expect over time that excess capital to be deployed accretively. Gabriel Dechaine All right. Thanks. Operator Your next question comes from Darko Mihelic with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Darko Mihelic — RBC Capital Markets Hi. Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. The conference call’s going a little late. I’m looking at two pieces of information. First is from your shareholders report. It’s on Page

8 proper. And beside that, I have Slide 25, which shows how strong equity markets were. They were exceptionally strong in the quarter. So my question is, how did your equities underperform your expectations in the quarter? Jon Nielsen Well, thanks, Darko, for the question. There was—obviously, some noise from our hedging program on our share price. The Great West share moved up much in excess of the overall market and, obviously, in excess of the long-term return that we assume for our base earnings. The overwhelming amount of our exposure there is hedged, but there are a number of things that go into hedging those programs, including performance obligation—or performance standards, the length of service, the outstanding. As it relates to active management, all that ineffectiveness on the hedge is fully reflected in our base earnings, but a little bit of noise as it relates to just the sharp increase in price. I’d probably bring it back up a level in terms of the non-base earnings impacts during the quarter. It was principally driven by interest rates. And as you look at the interest rates year-to-date as a negligible level, and what we always look at in terms of the market experience is not just a quarter, not even an annualized level, but more on a long-term trend where we’d expect these to, over time, be 0% or close to 0%. And so if you look at, since we’ve applied IFRS, actually, market experience for Great West has been a slight positive over a 4.5-year period. What we’ve seen is higher interest rate levels have caused a bit of a positive in terms of the impacts over that period, or let’s say $1 billion of positive. And on the offset, really, we’ve seen that interest rate impacts our real estate portfolio and offset some of those benefits, as you might expect, from a cap rate.

And in terms of the real estate portfolio, I thought it was important to give some update. What we’ve seen is almost 20% decline in that portfolio over the last couple of years. We have not made any active additions to our non-par real estate over the last two years, and we wouldn’t intend to. And even since the quarter’s ended, we’ve redeployed another $200 million of the real estate into other active asset classes. So while we’ve seen some of that noise continue, and as the market’s adjusted to higher rates, what we’ve done to respond to that is, obviously, not actively allocate and continue to—and we’ve seen a reduction in the real estate of 20%. So just wanted to give that context as well as an update to the analyst market. Darko Mihelic That’s helpful, Jon. Maybe just two quick follow-ups, if I may. Is the hedging, I mean, is this something newer? Or just—and given that the hedging was a negative against some of the strongest equity markets we’ve ever seen, and given that you’re not really looking at increasing sort of other assets like real estate, is it time to revisit the base investment earnings expectations, number one. And then, number two, I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at it this way. But I always look at this as a sort of a spread. There’s investment earnings on assets that are backing your liabilities. And throughout this entire period, whereas your results on an actual basis versus expected may be slightly better or actually might be slightly positive, your overall rate of return or spread on these assets, it’s much lower than your peers. So I’m wondering if you’re leaving money on the table, or if you should be lowering the base investment earnings expectation. Jon Nielsen

Well, we’re always looking at our long-term assumptions, Darko. We think they’re consistent with market. And as I said, if anything, our net to base earnings in terms of markets, while it’s volatile quarter-to-quarter, year-to-year, having been through a cycle of 4.5 years of quite volatile markets, if you think about that cycle, far higher interest rates, impacts on real estate, inflation. To come out of that period as a positive, I think it should give you a lot of confidence in our assumptions, should give you a lot of confidence in how we’re managing the balance sheet. So I would argue that, if anything, we’ve managed it very well. And in terms of the transition to IFRS 17 and how we do ALM, the ultimate answer to that is look at the free cash flow and ROE that we’ve generated over that time and the improvements there. So we always look at our assumed returns and so forth. There are different approaches that were taken at IFRS 17 in terms of the transition. I think John articulated well that in terms of our deployment into yield, we continue to deploy into the fixed income market positively and run it in a very conservative way. And so we’re very comfortable. We look at it all the time. And if anything, I think, go back to we’re net positive over 4.5 years in terms of the market experience. So I think that that’s probably the best I can give you. Darko Mihelic Okay. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Mario Mendonca with TD Securities. Your line is open. Mario Mendonca — TD Securities Good morning. Jon, can you go back to the public equity markets loss, the thing Darko’s asking about. If you’d applied your sensitivities literally and precisely, you’d expect something like

close to a $40 million gain. And in fact, it’s a $34 million loss. So we’re looking at about a swing of $70 - $75 million in 1 quarter. Now I understand that the hedging and effectiveness, as you described, goes through base earnings. So this would be anything in excess of what you might expect. So it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around a $70 - $75 million in effectiveness when, in fact, most of it gets recorded in base. So is there more going on there? Are there payments to executives, payments to other people within Great West Life that’s incorporated in that $70 - $75 million I’m estimating? Jon Nielsen It was—yeah. I wouldn’t context the volatility in the hedge to be the full gap between expected and actual. There were other performance-related factors in the investment portfolio. It wasn’t the full impact. And there was, as you might expect, noise in the base as well from the hedging program, as I articulated, that is in the base earnings. Mario Mendonca So it sounds to me from your response that there were payments here as well. And— Jon Nielsen Yeah. There’s a lot of factors that—sorry to cut you off, Mario, but there’s a lot of factors that go into that hedging program. When people retire, how long they stay with us, performance factors. And when you have—most of those aren’t felt in a quarter where you have a normalized return. But we’re really happy with the 35% return and the Great West share price during the quarter. And that accentuated what is a very highly hedged program with very little sensitivity, single-digit sensitivity to the overall balance of what we expect to pay on the share-based compensation program. Mario Mendonca

Okay. Like I can’t help but assume that there are payments here that are part of this $70 $75 million swing. So maybe the question I’m really asking is, should we—is this something we should see going forward— Jon Nielsen Not— Mario Mendonca —significant charges as payments are made? Jon Nielsen I wouldn’t anticipate that. As I said, we’re highly hedged across the portfolio - very close hedging. But when you have a combination of movements and people and long-term balances in terms of certain non-management and a hedging program, it stuck out this quarter. But we haven’t changed our position. We’ve always applied the same accounting. Just happens to be this quarter, with a sharp increase, we saw this volatility. So it’s not something that would recur. Mario Mendonca And different type of question. Jon, you announced the increase from $20 million to $40 million shares in the buyback, but from your response, it doesn’t sound like you’d get to $40 million. So my question is this. Is there a set of facts or circumstances that could get you to $40 million? Or is $40 million just highly improbable and it’s just there for flexibility in case circumstances warrant it? Jon Nielsen

Yeah. And obviously, there’s certain limitations on the use of the NCIB program in terms of volume and so forth. I would context it as improbable. Last year, we didn’t even get to $40 million. I call it as improbable. Certainly, we have the free cash to deploy. We have $2.5 billion of cash to deploy into buybacks if we choose to, Mario. We want to make sure that we do the most accretive balance sheet management as possible. And certainly, one of the tools that we’re going to actively continue to pull is the buyback tool. When we say we’re—I think we’ve been consistent at least as much as last year. And over time, we will deploy all of that excess capital in one way or the other into accretive transactions. Mario Mendonca All right. Thank you. Operator This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Khan. Shubha Khan Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Following the call, a telephone replay will be available for one week, and the webcast will be archived on our website for one year. Our 2026 third quarter results are scheduled to be released after market close on Wednesday, November 4th, with the earnings call starting at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time the following day. Thank you again, and this concludes our call for today. Operator

This brings today’s conference call to a close. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.