Good day and welcome to the W. R. Berkley Corporation’s Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. The speakers' remarks may contain forward-looking statements. Some of the forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words including, without limitation, believes, expects, or estimates. We caution you that such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by us that the future plans, estimates, or expectations contemplated by us will in fact be achieved. Please refer to our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014, and our other filings made with the SEC for a description of the business environment in which we operate and the important factors that may materially affect our results. W. R. Berkley Corporation is not under any obligation and expressly disclaims any such obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. William R. Berkley. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon. We’re pleased with our quarter and we’re looking forward to an excellent year. I think that I’d like to start with Rob, our very soon to be Chief Executive, and he’s going to talk about our operations.

Okay, thank you very much and good afternoon everyone. Market conditions during the third quarter were by and large a continuation of what we have seen in the second quarter. Yes, competition is modestly on the rise, but truly is at its incremental rate. And in spite of some of the recent headlines that we heard about cat or cat-like events occurring and affecting the industry, the impact has really been quite modest and one that that’s hard-pressed to find any type of catalyst out on the horizon that is going to shift the direction or I should say the overall market climate. As far as the domestic insurance market goes, as we’ve said over the past couple of quarters, workers’ compensation, general liability and many of the professional lines remain very attractive and we think are sensible places to be deploying additional capital. On the other hand, aviation, much of the marine market, cat-exposed property as well as offshore energy are product lines that we are increasingly concerned about and do not see a lot of rational behavior in those parts of the market. Another large product line that we have been talking to about or I’d say at this stage probably goes back to 2013 or so, maybe even earlier, is commercial auto, particularly long-haul truck. We have had our reservations about this product line for a very, very long time, it feels like at least at this stage, and the lack of rational behavior that existed in the marketplace. While we have not come out of the woods as an industry when it comes to this product line, I think the fact is that it is beginning to get the attention that is required and we’re beginning to scratch the surface as far as the needed action…

Thanks, Rob. Gene, you want to take us through the numbers?

Okay. Thank you. For the quarter, we’ve reported operating income of $118 million, or $0.91 per share. That’s up from $0.80 and $0.81 that we reported in the first and second quarters of this year, but below the $1.06 that we reported in the third quarter of 2014, which included significantly higher than average earnings from investment funds. For the quarter, our net premiums increased $46 million or 3% from a year ago to almost $1.6 billion. Domestic premiums grew by 6% to $1.25 billion. That was led by 11% growth in workers’ compensation business and 8% for other liability business. International premiums declined 5% to $164 million due to the strengthening of the US dollar against the pound, the Canadian and Australian dollar and the Brazilian real, in our case. In local currency terms, international premiums actually grew 7% and that was led by growth in Canada, Germany and South America. Reinsurance premiums declined 7% to $171 million due to the continuing soft market conditions in both the US and overseas. Without the impact of FX changes, they would have declined as well, but by 5% instead of 7%. Our overall pre-tax underwriting profits were up 2% in the quarter to $96 million. The third quarter accident year loss ratio before cats was 61%, that's unchanged from a year ago. In fact, if you look back for each of the past seven quarters, our accident year loss ratio has been between 60% and 61% throughout that period as pricing and loss cost trend have generally offset one another. Our cat losses were relatively light again this quarter at $6 million or 0.4 loss ratio points. That's down from $15 million in the third quarter of 2014. And on a year-to-date basis, our cat losses were $46 million or one…

Thanks, Gene. These are especially interesting times. We really do focus on risk adjusted return. It means, we do some things that some of our competitors don’t do. We don’t focus truly on accounting results, because we’re focused on creating shareholder value more than reported earnings per se. That means, we start businesses instead of buying them, because that’s a better economic return; it’s not a better accounting statement return. We’re maintaining the quality of our investment portfolio and keeping a short duration, because the risks of an insurance company are doubling down if inflation comes. You get hurt with your loss reserves and if you extend the maturity and duration of your investment portfolio, you’re effectively doubling down. So we’ve chosen to reduce that risk, the one that we can control. We haven’t lowered the quality of our investment portfolio, because the risk of an adverse economic turn will have a general adverse view on our business. Therefore, we’ve chosen not to take the risk. So we’re constantly looking at the risk side of how we manage our business because all of our employees are owners, it’s the biggest single element on our profit-sharing plan. Clearly, the management of the company views that as how they bet on their future. We continue to look out and see lots of volatility and uncertainly in the future. But we have a lot of confidence in the things that we see. For every problem, for every change, it creates new opportunities. And we think having the smartest people, the best underwriters and the best teams of people continues to give us a competitive advantage. Rob spends a substantial amount of his time out talking to new teams, constantly trying to find the best teams to do particular things, whatever they might be, they can be small niches or big chunks of opportunity. But we’re constantly out there looking. And what we really are is a large group of small niches and we do it in a way that we can compete administratively and cost wise. We don’t look like the people we compete with, even though the numbers claim to be the same. So we’re very excited. We think the future is coming along today. We think that the numbers are moving in the direction we like. Clearly, it’s a cyclical business, but we think we’re well positioned and we’re constantly investing in that future. It probably costs us $20 million a quarter each year for the new things we’ve been investing in. Things we invested in three years ago give us a positive return than new things that we’re spending money on cost us money. We think that’s how you build business for the future. We think we’re going to have a better business in the future than we have today and today’s business is better than yesterday. So I’m happy to answer any questions. Patricia, we’ll take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ryan Tunis with Credit Suisse.

This is Crystal Lu in for Ryan Tunis. Our first question is just do you have any fourth quarter visibility into the investment fund returns given the move in energy?

We know that the energy prices are down and that we’re going to probably have a small loss there, but we haven’t released that number yet. We normally put that in our 10-Q filing.

Our net position in our energy funds as relates to our overall fund has continued to diminish as a percentage of our funds. So it’s a smaller and smaller number. But when we file our Q, we’ll announce those funds that we know already.

How should we think about the level of share repurchase this quarter? What kind of considerations are there?

It’s the same considerations we always give. We consider how to best use the capital owned by our shareholders, which is either buying back stock, paying special dividends, or expanding the business and we’re always looking at the balance for those things. And the cost of the balance - balance is the price of the shares, the availability of the shares and opportunities that we see.

[Operator Instructions] I'm showing no further questions at this time.

Okay. I thank Mike [McGavick] [ph] for that. Have a wonderful day.