Edward A. Spehar - Head-Investor Relations Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer John C. R. Hele - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President Christopher G. Townsend - President-Asia Region Eric Thomas Steigerwalt - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, MetLife Insurance Company of Connecticut Steven J. Goulart - Chief Investment Officer & Executive VP Maria R. Morris - Executive VP & Head-Global Employee Benefits Oscar A. Schmidt - Executive Vice President, CEO-Latin America, MetLife, Inc.

John M. Nadel - Piper Jaffray & Co. (Broker) Jamminder Singh Bhullar - JPMorgan Securities LLC Erik J. Bass - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Randy Binner - FBR Capital Markets & Co. Sean Dargan - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc. Suneet L. Kamath - UBS Securities LLC Eric Berg - RBC Capital Markets LLC Steven D. Schwartz - Raymond James & Associates, Inc. Yaron J. Kinar - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Humphrey Hung Fai Lee - Dowling & Partners Securities LLC

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MetLife First Quarter 2016 Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Before we get started, I would like to read the following statement on behalf of MetLife. Except with respect to historical information, statements made in this conference call constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws including statements relating to trends in the company's operations and financial results, and the business and the products of the company and its subsidiaries. MetLife's actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of risks and uncertainties including those described from time to time in MetLife's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the Risk Factor section of those filings. MetLife specifically disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Ed Spehar, Head of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Greg. Good morning, everyone, and welcome MetLife's First Quarter 2016 Earnings Call. We will be discussing certain financial measures not based on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, so-called non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures and related definitions to the most directly comparable GAAP measures may be found on the Investor Relations portion of metlife.com, in our earnings release and our quarterly financial supplements. A reconciliation of forward-looking financial information to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is not accessible because MetLife believes it's not possible to provide a reliable forecast of net investment and net derivative gains and losses, which can fluctuate from period to period and may have a significant impact on GAAP net income. Now joining me this morning on the call are Steve Kandarian, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and John Hele, Chief Financial Officer. After their prepared remarks, we will take your questions. Also here with us today to participate in the discussions are other members of senior management. After prepared remarks, we will have a Q&A session. In fairness to all participants, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Steve. Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Ed, and good morning, everyone. Last night we reported first quarter operating earnings per share of $1.20, which compares to $1.44 per share in the first quarter 2015. The negative impact from market factors more than offset a benefit from volume growth. The combination of weak equity markets for most of the quarter, continued strength in the U.S. dollar, and low interest rates reduced operating earnings by $0.16 per share versus the prior-year period. In addition, variable investment income, or VII, declined by $0.12 per share. Variable investment…

Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of John Nadel from Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead. John M. Nadel - Piper Jaffray & Co. (Broker): Thanks for taking my question. Good morning. The first question is, I guess, can you give us some sense at least based on what your legal representation might be advising you as to the timing around this appeal process? Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, John. It's Steve. John M. Nadel - Piper Jaffray & Co. (Broker): Good morning, Steve. Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. Yes, the Justice Department filed their appeal nine days after the original decision came down from the District Court, and we anticipate that the ministerial paperwork will be filed by June 6. That's what the court has requested, the Circuit Court, and then there'll be a briefing schedule at that point in time which, we think concludes sometime in the fall time period. And that will be followed by oral argument, which is likely to occur in late 2016 or perhaps spill over to early 2017. And then, a decision will be forthcoming sometime after that. John M. Nadel - Piper Jaffray & Co. (Broker): Okay. Okay. So we could see something wrapped up on the initial appeal by mid-2017, give or take, you think is reasonable? Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: It's probably reasonable, but courts take their own calendar into account in terms of these kinds of things. There's no way to know for certain how long it's going to take once the case has been heard. John M. Nadel - Piper Jaffray & Co. (Broker): Okay. And then, my second question is just as it relates to the…

Your next question comes from the line of Jimmy Bhullar from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. So, I had a question first on just the weak sales in Asia and maybe Latin America as well. It seems like there's a major initiative to grow in Asia a few years ago, especially in accident & health. And now, you seem to be pulling back from some parts of the market. So, how much of the decline in sales recently has been in response to macro conditions in Japan versus maybe a change in your view on the economics of the business?

Hi. It's Chris Townsend here. Let me tell you the story for Asia for sales. So overall, the headline number is down 10%. The Japan sales are flat but with a very different mix, as both Steve and John referenced in their prepared remarks, the Yen life portfolio is significantly down driven by the economics and I think both referenced the long payback period of that and the challenges of low interest rate environment. But this is offset by a significant increase in terms of the foreign currency life and foreign currency annuity products, both of which our customers find highly attractive given the enhanced yield they can get from a foreign currency play. The A&H business is still highly attractive for us and generates very good margins in that business, but there is a packaging issue there for us in terms of when we sell Yen Whole Life, we packaged that often with A&H. And as that Yen Whole Life came down by 60%, the A&H business came down as well. But we'll look to offset that going toward. For the rest of Asia, China was up 16% for the quarter, Hong Kong and Bangladesh had good sales, and emerging markets overall were up 16% for the quarter. The one challenge for us and the rest of Asia was Korea. Korea was down sharply this quarter, but again because of the management or accelerating value action work we've been taking there, we basically changed commissions predominantly in the general agency channel to reward persistency and better customer behavior or better behavior for our customers. And also, we changed the crediting rate in terms of the macro environment there in terms of the lower interest rate environment. But we'll be launching new products there in the second quarter, and we think we'll get the sales back on track for that business. So that's been really a roundup of the sales for Asia.

And on the Yen Whole Life, how much business is sitting on the books now and what are your views on margins on that business given what's happened with JGB yields?

Let me tell you in terms of the sales, first of all. So, the sales this quarter made up 12% of our total sales in Japan. A year ago it was a third, so we've made a significant reduction in terms of that business. Given that the rate environment there at the moment, we believe that the current margin on that business under a range of assumptions meets our cost of capital for that business.

Your next question comes from the line of Erik Bass from Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you. I realize it's too early to get specifics, but I was hoping you could expand a little bit on your comments that combine the expenses for the remaining Met and the separated combined company would be lower than the current level. It seems a little bit counterintuitive given that you may need separate infrastructure for two public companies, so if you could provide any examples of where you see dissynergies from size, that would be helpful. Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I think, Erik, there are synergies from being one company, so if you're going to separate the two businesses by definition, there'll be dissynergies, and there will be in some places duplicative costs if you take no actions. So, what we're saying is that we're engaged in a very rigorous analysis around our cost structure. Part of it has to do with the separation with stranded costs, and part of it just has to do with this macroeconomic environment of lower rates for longer tepid growth, and not just in the United States but globally. So, in that environment, we have to take a very close look at our cost structure and look at unit cost in particular, and that is what we're undertaking as an effort right now.

Got it. And does the $250 million of savings from the Adviser sale, is that included in your comments when you say that combined expenses would be less than the current level? Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: No, we're saying above and beyond that.

Your next question comes from the line of Randy Binner from FBR. Please go ahead. Randy Binner - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Thank you. I had a question, thinking ahead a little bit on the NewCo as it likely will be standing alone by April 2017 when the new DOL rule goes into effect. So, if that's purely a manufacturing entity, do you view that NewCo Met as being subject to legal liability under the best interest contract to the extent it's selling variable annuities? Eric Thomas Steigerwalt - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, MetLife Insurance Company of Connecticut: Good morning. It's Eric Steigerwalt. Look, one of the primary things that we've done is the announced sale of our field force MPCG to MassMutual. And so, given the timing of DOL, our, what we'd call, tied Adviser force will not sell any products under the umbrella of MetLife or NewCo when the DOL regulation goes into effect. That sale will be done long before the DOL regulation goes into effect. And just to give you little color on that, we think we're going to close in July. We're on track to close in July, so the answer is with respect to the biggest piece of the effect on MetLife, which is our own field force in the United States, it will be sold to MassMutual and closed in July. Randy Binner - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: But to the extent you're going to manufacture, do you think that the distributor will sign the best interest contract in the VA or indexed-annuity sale? Or would you also be subject to that legal risk? Eric Thomas Steigerwalt - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, MetLife Insurance Company of Connecticut: So, it's hard to tell. I can talk about that in two pieces. One, obviously, we will have a very important field force which is our wholesaling force going forward, and so you have to think about the DOL with respect to how wholesalers will operate, so that's something that we have to work through over time here. And then secondly, it's just too early to know where distributors are coming out with respect to the regulation. So, maybe four months or five months from now, we'll have a better view of that, but right now given the fact that this is almost 1,100 pages, we're just going to have to wait and see what a number of distributors are going to do.

Your next question comes from the line of Sean Dargan from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Sean Dargan - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Thanks. And good morning. I have a question about the variable investment income and specifically what your view of hedge fund investment is going forward, given some of the headlines about pension funds rethinking their strategy and some other insurers and just recent volatility in that asset class. Steven J. Goulart - Chief Investment Officer & Executive VP: Hi, Sean. It's Steve Goulart. Certainly, the first quarter was challenging for variable investment income. And if you look at our miss, it was heavily because of hedge fund returns which actually were negative for the quarter. And I think if we look at the market environment that exists today and we can talk about a number of factors, I think it'll be continue – continued to be challenging for hedge funds. I think when you combine that with our capital and cash flow predictability objectives, we've decided that we're going to continue reducing our hedge fund portfolio, as John alluded to in his comments. Just to remind you of some numbers, the portfolio today is just over $1.8 billion, and recall, we did reduce it during the course of last year. Also, we actually ended up redeeming about $600 million worth of hedge funds last year. And as we look out from where we are today, we expect that we're going to redeem probably on the order of another $1.2 billion, so really take the portfolio down by another two-thirds from where it is today. Just given the way redemption provisions work and the industry, I think it will take us a couple of years to do that, but I expect that we'll probably see 60% of those redemptions…

Your next question comes from the line of Suneet Kamath from UBS. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. Just to quickly follow up on VII. I think last quarter, Steve, you sort of indicated that you'd reassess the outlook for the rest of the year. I think your range quarterly is $300 million to $375 million. Any update there in terms of what we should be thinking about for the balance of the year? Steven J. Goulart - Chief Investment Officer & Executive VP: Sure. Again, as I just mentioned, the hedge fund returns were actually negative for the first quarter. And I think if you look at the rest of the year, you have to make some assumptions, of course, and if we were able to see hedge funds and private equity return to our plan expectations for the second half of the year, we'd probably end up around the bottom of the range that we had given for the full year. I will remind you, private equity continues to perform fairly well. I mean, it was slightly below plan, but again, still very positive. And it really – again, most of the underperformance came from hedge funds. So like I said, it depends on your assumptions for the rest of the year. Right now, we're not going to change anything. And if we hit the plan for the second half of the year, we'll be at the lower end of the range.

All right. And then maybe for Steve, I know it's early days around the separation, but if we think about your consolidated ROE of, I guess, roughly 10% on a normalized basis in the quarter, and we think about this sort of separation, is there any directional guidance you can give us in terms of how you'd think the return profiles of the two businesses would be post-separation? Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Suneet, because there's so many moving pieces right now, it's premature for me to give out ROE targets, but I would anticipate we'd talk about this certainly in Investor Day.

All right. Then maybe just to sneak one last one in. I think, John, you said the stat earnings in the quarter for the U.S. businesses were around $700 million. I think a year ago, it was around $1.2 billion. And I think in the prepared comments you talked about interest rates, but is there any more color you can provide on what caused that big decline year-over-year? John C. R. Hele - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: So, you have the statutory operating net income. Also some of the derivative accounting goes right through to – it's not in net income. It's statutory goes right through to the equity. So there's a lot of moving pieces when you get into the statutory accounting that we have, particularly in Met U.S.A. that has all of the VAs in it. So, everything is consolidated, remember, in our statutory statements, and you'll see the volatility flowing through here.

Your next question comes from the line of Eric Berg from RBC. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. John, I have a question about your comments related to dental. Are you saying that the seasonality that you saw in the past – I'm sorry, that the claims that you experienced in the just-reported quarter, the March quarter, were absolutely there in the past as well but were somehow masked? Is that what you mean by other considerations? Is that what you mean when you say the seasonality wasn't evident? And that therefore, since this is, so to speak, normal seasonality that the earnings were in line with your expectations? Or should I be reaching a different conclusion? Thank you. John C. R. Hele - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. So, the last two years in the first quarter, we had pretty tough winter weather conditions, and we saw a decline of frequency of dental claims coming through in that quarter. If you looked at the first and second quarters of the last two years, it got caught up. People ended up going to the dentist, so you had higher frequency in Q2 for the last two years. This quarter, we were just above the high end of our range of our expectations for dental, so it's a little higher than what we had expected. But there is a seasonality to dental. And so we just think that may have been missed as we looked at how a lot of analysts had done the numbers for the expectations for this quarter. So I just wanted to highlight that for you that this dental is more close in line of what we do expect.

All right. Thanks very much. I'm all set.

Your next question comes from the line of Steven Schwartz from Raymond James. Please go ahead. Steven D. Schwartz - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. And congratulations to everybody. Just one more that hasn't been answered yet. Can we talk a little bit about U.S. Direct? I think, John, you said that sales were down 18%, maybe you could talk about that. And also, am I wrong, wasn't that supposed to be moved from Lat Am? Maria R. Morris - Executive VP & Head-Global Employee Benefits: Hi. It's Maria Morris. Yes, sales are down this quarter year-over-year, and that's very purposeful on our part. You may have seen that media spending is quite high as a result of both the election and other things going on. So, we're very selective in terms of how we actually put media into the marketplace. So, that's been planned. You probably also noticed, though, that our PFOs are up 34% year-over-year because we've had very strong sales over the last 12 months. And that gives us some optionality in terms of how we're really thinking about sales for this year. We will be moving the U.S. Direct business out of Latin America later this year and we'll obviously be disclosing that when we do so. Steven D. Schwartz - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. So I guess my sense here is the election is taking up too much advertising space, advertising costs have gone up, so it's – you can't beat hurdle rates, I guess, with what you want to pay. Is that the deal? Maria R. Morris - Executive VP & Head-Global Employee Benefits: Exactly. The way that we actually go to market, as you know, is through both a combination of DirecTV, digital and since the advertising spending is up, plus it's a cluttered space, we made the decision to delay some of that until future quarters. Steven D. Schwartz - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. Thank you very much.

Next we'll go to the line of Yaron Kinar from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to start with the alternative portfolio. So, I heard Steve talk about the added value of the portfolio and how it's actually generated excess returns over the course of a long period of time. And then, I hear John talk about the interest of maybe scaling that portfolio down a bit, at least the hedge fund component of it. Would the thought be that you'd replace some of these hedge funds with other alternative investments? Or should we just think about maybe a smaller benefit or boost coming from overall VII going forward? Steven J. Goulart - Chief Investment Officer & Executive VP: Hi. It's Steve Goulart again. When Steve made his opening comments, he was referring to the full mix of variable investment income. So, remember, that includes private equity, that includes hedge fund, there's some old real estate development JVs in there, as well as prepayments. So he was talking about the whole mix. If we look at the hedge fund contribution to that, actually it didn't contribute to it negative – positively over 10 years. It's had up and down years, and really it's just too inconsistent we think in the actual performance. So that's our reason for pulling it out. As far as how to think about it going forward, we're basically just going to – and because the way the redemptions come in, which are spread out over a long period of time, we're really going to look at reinvestment just as part of our overall ongoing regular asset allocation and optimization plans.

Okay. But would the VII component of the overall net investment income come in a bit over the next few years? Steven J. Goulart - Chief Investment Officer & Executive VP: Well, as an example, for this year, again, if we look at the planned VII, the hedge fund redemptions would have a very modest reduction to overall VII. It's under $30 million. And going forward, it will depend on the mix that we achieved.

Okay. And then, the other question I had was going back to the Investor Day, so I'm assuming that given the delay and the interest in maybe sharing a little more color with the investment community, at that point then come November, ultimately there will be more publicly available material data out there, would it be fair to assume then that buybacks could be back on the table by November? Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yaron, the separation of the U.S. Retail business will be the driving force here. I think at the time of the Investor Day, my guess is it's probably not going to be completed. We'll know a lot more, but we won't have final clarity about our capital needs, et cetera until the actual form is known through the execution of a separation. So, and a lot of that is going to be determined not just by what we want to do, it's going to be determined by the marketplace, what we can do. So, a little bit of this is going to be a timing issue. If we're not able to execute by the time of Investor Day, then we're still going to be not knowing some key components here of the picture that will enable us to be clearer on our capital plans.

And if you are not able to execute or you don't have that clarity at that point, will you still be able to share enough material information with the Street? Or do you think that at that point maybe you'd reconsider holding Investor Day in November? Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: No, we're not going to change the date of Investor Day from November. We'll still hold Investor Day, but we may not have all the answers at that point in time. In fact, I anticipate we won't have all the answers as to how the execution of the separation actually occurred because if I had a guess, it's less likely than more likely that it will be done by then.

Okay. I appreciate the color.

Your next question comes from the line of Humphrey Lee from Dowling & Partners. Please go ahead. Humphrey Hung Fai Lee - Dowling & Partners Securities LLC: Hi. Good morning. And thank you for taking my question. Just a question for Steve. In your letter to shareholders, you mentioned your interest in growing the fee-based earnings organically or through acquisitions. Can you talk about what type of fee-based business that you're interested in growing either organically or through acquisitions? Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure, Humphrey. As you know, we purchased ProVida, a pension fund administrator in Chile, a few years ago. That is a business that we found very attractive. We were able to purchase it – a very good multiple of earnings, and it was a business we think will grow over time. We also have started up our own internal third-party asset management business, and we're growing that. So, it's both organic and acquisition-related efforts to grow our fee-based business. So, the asset management space is attractive if we can find the right opportunities, both organically and by acquisition. And we continue to look at opportunities as they become available. Humphrey Hung Fai Lee - Dowling & Partners Securities LLC: And then, in terms of the, call it, pension business, granted you have the presence in Latin America, but would you consider growing your pension business elsewhere? Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You're referring to fee-based businesses like ProVida? Humphrey Hung Fai Lee - Dowling & Partners Securities LLC: Yes. Steven Albert Kandarian - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes, we would. If we find the right opportunities in other markets, we are absolutely interested in looking at those kinds of acquisitions. Humphrey Hung Fai Lee…

And at this time, there are no further questions.

Okay. Well, I want to spend just 30 seconds to go back to a question that was asked that we didn't answer. It was cut off; it was on Latin America sales. I'm just going to pass it to Oscar Schmidt.

Thank you, Ed. So as we saw, Lat Am year-over-year sales are flat. If you exclude the U.S. direct, and as we know, it's still included in Lat Am this quarter, it moves up to 3%. Now, that 3% is affected by a decline in the reported sales in Mexico. That decline was originally a regulatory change. But that regulatory change there produced lower sales, it's also producing better persistency, no impact in bottom line. So, if you exclude the reported sales, Lat Am growth year-over-year is 8%, which is in line with our expectations.

Okay. Thank you all for joining. Have a good day.

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