Sun Life Financial Inc. (SLF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bill Anderson. I am the Chairman of your Board of Directors. And I am pleased to extend a warm welcome to all of you. As the notices of the meetings have been duly given and a quorum is present, I call to order the annual meetings of Sun Life Financial Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary, Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada. We are living in a new reality, quickly adjusting and responding to developments surrounding COVID-19 and monitoring directives and guidance from public health and government authorities around the world. The health and well-being of our employees, advisers, clients and investors as well as people in our communities is our priority. I want to thank everyone on the frontlines during this pandemic. They are working to keep food on our tables, to keep our lights on and technology working and to help keep us healthy and safe. We are all grateful for your acts of service, commitment and dedication to serve others. For today's annual meeting, we are doing our part to practice appropriate social distancing by being together virtually. The health and safety of all participants was a key factor in making this decision, while we are providing the opportunity for participation engagement with our shareholders and voting policyholders. I invite you, our registered shareholders, voting policyholders and duly appointed proxy holders to submit questions and vote on each of the matters of business as if you are attending our meeting in person. Our goal is to provide an experience similar to our usual meeting format as much as we possibly can. In accordance with Sun Life's bylaws, I will chair the 2 meetings. This afternoon, I am joined on the webcast by Dean Connor, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Troy Krushel, Vice President, Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Troy will act as secretary of the meetings. To respect social distancing guidelines, the 3 of us are joining you separately from our homes to conduct these meetings. Although Dean, Troy and I are the only purple -- people that you will see and hear from, also joining us remotely are our other directors and members of senior management. It is at time like these when the oversight and the governance from your Board and the strength and capability of your executive team are put to the test. While the risks and the impact of the pandemic continue to evolve, so does finding the right balance between fulfilling the Board's oversight responsibilities and allowing management to do what they do best, which is to run the day-to-day operations of Sun Life. In striking that balance, the Board has been highly engaged through brief but frequent meetings with management to share and analyze what we see happening across Sun Life and across markets more generally. The Board continues to provide counsel and guidance to ensure that decisions taken today align with the company's overall strategic direction, with a view to ensure Sun Life's long-term strength and stability. While this rapidly changing environment has meant exercising flexibility in how Sun Life is implementing its strategy, the company's strategic direction over the last few years has put Sun Life in a position of strength with a strong balance sheet, a prudent risk management culture and a well-articulated talent strategy. These strengths will help weather the current environment and continue to provide long-term value for our shareholders. While many things have changed over the last few months, what remains constant is Sun Life's unwavering focus on our clients, employees, advisers and the people in our communities. At Sun Life, we are in the business of helping clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. We view this as a noble purpose and one that resonates more than ever in today's unprecedented times for everyone dealing with COVID-19. I would like to recognize the leadership of Dean and the executive team, and thank every single Sun Life employee and adviser who have been working tirelessly to ensure we continue to put clients at the heart of everything we do. On behalf of the Board of Directors, thank you very much. I will now outline today's proceedings and go through some of the procedural matters for the virtual platform. We are holding 2 annual meetings today: the annual meeting of common shareholders of Sun Life Financial and the annual meeting of voting policyholders and the sole shareholder of Sun Life Assurance. There will be 2 sets of formal business, one for each company. Dean will provide an update on Sun Life's business and operations after the votes are taken. A joint question-and-answer period will be held after the formal portion of the meeting has been completed. We will conduct the business of Sun Life Financial first and then Sun Life Assurance. As with a physical meeting, only registered shareholders, voting policyholders and duly appointed proxy holders who have standing at the meeting will be able to address the meeting and submit questions during the formal conduct of business. You can submit a question anytime during the meeting by clicking on the messaging icon on the platform and following the instructions. When submitting a question, please identify whether your question relates to a motion being considered as part of the formal business or whether the question is of a more general nature, so we can address your question at the appropriate time during the meeting. As with our in-person meetings, please keep your questions and comments brief. I also encourage you to submit your questions and comments as early as possible so that we may address them at the right time during the meeting. Troy will receive the questions and read them out at the appropriate time, and Dean or I will address them. Each item of business will be open to submit questions or comments before a vote is taken. If your questions do not relate to the item of business on the agenda, they will not be addressed until the joint question-and-answer period at the end. We will also observe the same protocol of appropriateness and relevance to the meeting. Rest assured, we will not be attempting to limit or filter legitimate questions, and we will do our best to address any issues that are raised. In an online format, we may receive questions of a similar theme, and your specific questions may be paraphrased in the interest of efficiency and addressing as many themes as possible. A significant difference in how we will conduct today's meeting is the manner in which voting will take place. As in past years, the vast majority of all votes were cast in advance of the meeting by proxy through the various available channels, with only a small number opting to vote their shares at the meeting. Under our normal procedure, registered shareholders, voting policyholders and proxy holders who wish to vote at the meeting would be required to attend the meeting in person. This year, the vote on each motion will be conducted by online poll instead of in-person ballot. On a poll, every shareholder or policyholder entitled to vote on a matter has one vote in respect of each share entitled to be voted on that matter and held by the shareholder or policyholder. The poll would be open to all resolutions at the same time. This will allow you to choose to vote on each resolution immediately or wait until the conclusion of the questions or comments submitted on each resolution prior to casting your vote. There will be an opportunity to submit questions on each resolution in turn. You may vote at any time until the last item of business has been put to a vote and I declare the voting closed. If you have voted in advance of the meeting and do not wish to revoke your previously submitted proxies, then you do not need to do anything. Once the poll is closed, the preliminary results of votes cast and proxies received prior to the meeting will be received by Troy and read out to the meeting, and the final results will be posted on our website. To facilitate proceedings since the meeting is conducted in a virtual-only format this year, I've asked Troy, who is also a shareholder and a duly appointed proxy holder, to move all of the motions. I will call on him at the appropriate time. We now appoint AST Trust Company (Canada) by its representatives Pat Lee and Jennifer Anderson, who are joining us remotely, to act as scrutineers for each meeting. I have the preliminary attendance report of the scrutineers. There are 3,648 shareholders holding 299,516,286 common shares of Sun Life Financial represented by proxy. This represents 51.19% of the issued and outstanding common shares as of the record date of March 13, 2020. There are 4,920 voting policyholders of Sun Life Assurance represented by proxy. This represents 17.44% of the voting policyholders who asked to receive the materials for this meeting as of the record date of March 15. The sole shareholder of Sun Life Assurance, Sun Life Financial, is represented by proxy. A quorum is present for each meeting, and I declare these meetings to be properly constituted and declare the polls open on all resolutions. Our auditor, Deloitte LLP, is represented here today by Bill Cunningham and [ Margaret Tang, ] who are joining us remotely for the meeting. Copies of the auditor's report and annual financial statements of Sun Life Financial were published and sent to the shareholders who requested them. We will be pleased to take any questions on the annual financial statements of Sun Life Financial at this time. An opportunity to submit questions about the annual financial statements of Sun Life Assurance will be provided later in the meeting. Please hold questions unrelated to the annual financial statements until the general question -- question-and-answer period. Troy, are there any questions or comments from participants on the annual financial statements?

Mr. Chairman, there are no questions or comments on the annual financial statements.

Thank you, Troy. We will now proceed with the election of directors of Sun Life Financial. I will ask Troy to nominate the individuals proposed for election as directors.

I'm pleased to nominate the following individuals to serve as directors of Sun Life Financial Inc. until the close of the next annual meeting or until their successors are elected or appointed: William Anderson, Dean Connor, Stephanie Coyles, Martin Glynn, Ashok Gupta, Marianne Harris, Sara Grootwassink Lewis, James Peck, Scott Powers, Hugh Segal and Barbara Stymiest.

Thank you, Troy. The company did not receive advance notice of any other nominations of directors, and I therefore declare the nominations closed. Troy, are there any questions or comments from participants on the nomination?

Mr. Chairman, there are no questions or comments on the nominations.

Shareholders may now proceed to vote on the election of directors of Sun Life Financial by selecting your choice on your display screen. As a reminder, if you have already voted or sent in a proxy, there is no need to do anything unless you would like to change your vote. Please vote now. [Voting]

The next item on the agenda is the appointment of our auditor. I'll ask Troy to make a motion for this appointment.

I am pleased to move that Deloitte LLP be appointed the auditor of Sun Life Financial Inc. until the close of the next annual meeting.

Thanks, Troy. Are there any questions or comments from participants on the appointment of the auditor?

Mr. Chairman, there are no questions or comments on the appointment of the auditor.

Shareholders will now proceed to vote on the appointment of the auditor of Sun Life Financial by selecting your choice on the display screen. And again, if you've already voted or sent in a proxy, there is no need to do anything further unless you would like to change your vote. Please vote now. [Voting]

The next item of Sun Life Financial business is an advisory vote on the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the management information circular. The resolution is set out on Page 18 of that circular. I will now ask Troy to make a motion approving this resolution.

I move that the resolution, the full text of which is set out on Page 18 of the management information circular dated March 13, 2020, be adopted by the shareholders of Sun Life Financial Inc.

Thank you, Troy. And are there any questions or comments from participants on the advisory vote on the approach to executive compensation?

Mr. Chairman, there are no questions or comments on the advisory vote on the approach to executive compensation.

Shareholders will now proceed with the advisory vote on executive compensation using the online poll. And as a reminder, if you have already voted or sent in a proxy, there is no need to do anything further unless you wish to change your vote. Again, please go ahead and vote now. [Voting]

We will now proceed with the items of business for the annual meeting of Sun Life Assurance. The audited annual financial statements of Sun Life Assurance were mailed to voting policyholders who requested them. Troy, have there been any questions or comments from participants on the annual financial statements?

Mr. Chairman, there are no questions or comments on the annual financial statements.

Thanks. Next item of business is the election of directors of Sun Life Assurance. In accordance with the Insurance Companies Act, at least 1/3 of the directors must be elected by voting policyholders only. 5 of the 11, Stephanie Coyles, Martin Glynn, Marianne Harris, Scott Powers and myself, are proposed as nominees for election as policyholder directors. I will now ask Troy to nominate the individuals proposed for election.

I'm pleased to nominate William Anderson, Stephanie Coyles, Martin Glynn, Marianne Harris and Scott Powers to serve as policyholders' directors of Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada until the close of the next annual meeting.

The company did not receive advance notice of any other nominations of policyholders' directors, and therefore, I declare the nominations closed. Troy, have there been any questions or comments from participants on the nomination?

There are no questions or comments, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks. Policyholders will now proceed to vote on the election of policyholders' directors of Sun Life Assurance using the online poll. And as a reminder, if you have already voted or sent in a proxy, there's no need to do anything unless you want to change your vote. Please vote now. [Voting]

I now turn to the election of shareholder's directors by the sole shareholder of Sun Life Assurance being Sun Life Financial. Six shareholder's directors are proposed for election. And Sun Life Financial has, by written resolution, elected the following shareholder's directors to serve until the close of the annual meeting to be held in 2021. They are Dean Connor, Ashok Gupta, Sara Grootwassink Lewis, James Peck, Hugh Segal and Barbara Stymiest. The next item on the agenda is the appointment of our auditor. I'll ask Troy to make this motion.

I'm pleased to move that Deloitte LLP be appointed the auditor of Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada until the close of the next annual meeting.

Thanks, Troy. Are there any questions or comments from participants on the appointment of the auditor?

There are no questions or comments, Mr. Chairman.

Policyholders will now proceed to vote on the appointment of the auditor of Sun Life Assurance using the online poll. Again, if you have already voted or sent in a proxy, there is no need to do anything unless you wish to change your vote. Please vote now. [Voting]

Now for those of you who have not yet voted on all the resolutions, I would ask you to please do so now. I will close the polls on all resolutions in approximately 1 minute to allow online viewers to catch up. [Voting]

Okay. The polls are now closed. While we await the preliminary report of the scrutineers, Dean will speak to you about Sun Life's business and operations. Dean, over to you.

Thank you, Bill. [Foreign Language] Let me add my sincere welcome to our shareholders, clients, employees and guests joining us today in these extraordinary circumstances. As our Chairman did, I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you to the doctors, nurses, first responders and all the essential workers who have provided service in this time of need. We all owe you a sincere debt of gratitude for your dedication and courage in keeping us going. I also want to thank our 40,000 Sun Life employees and 126,000 Sun Life advisers around the world for placing clients at the center of everything you do. I couldn't be more proud of the dedication and resilience of the Sun Life team. Today, I will comment on our results in 2019 and the first quarter of 2020. And next, I will describe how we are managing through this pandemic, and then I will close with some thoughts on the path from here to the new normal. So 2019 marked another year of growth and positive momentum for Sun Life. Our underlying net income exceeded $3 billion for the first time and we reached a milestone of more than $1 trillion in assets under management. We put capital to work through the purchase of a majority stake in BentallGreenOak, broadening our real estate capabilities. We signed a new bancassurance partnership with TPBank in Vietnam. We announced the acquisition of a majority stake in InfraRed Capital Partners, which is on track to close in the second quarter and adds infrastructure equity to our suite of alternative asset classes. We also returned $1.8 billion of capital to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. Over the past 5 years to December 31, 2019, we achieved or exceeded our medium-term financial objectives with growth of earnings per share of 12% compounded annually, a 13.2% underlying return on equity and a 41% dividend payout ratio. In 2019 we launched a new, more impactful sustainability plan targeting 3 areas specifically aligned to our strategy and purpose: improving financial security, fostering healthier lives and advancing sustainable investing. We introduced new data privacy principles that describe what we will do with client data, how we protect it, and what we won't do, including the commitment that Sun Life will not sell client data. We're supporting the transition to a low-carbon and more inclusive economy through our investment portfolio and other actions. For example, we were the first life insurance company globally to issue a sustainability bond, and the $750 million we raised in that bond will be invested in projects that bring positive environmental or social results. MFS significantly outscored the median and the UN's PRI signatory assessment report at the end of 2019. Now shifting to 2020. We just released our first quarter results. Underlying earnings grew to $770 million while reported earnings declined to $391 million, mostly due to the impact of equity market declines in the first quarter. Even with lower equity markets and lower interest rates, our SLF LICAT capital ratio remained unchanged at 143%, a very strong level well in excess of the supervisory minimum, and that includes $2.4 billion of excess cash at the holding company. I'm pleased to report that the Board of Directors approved a dividend of $0.55 per common share, consistent with the prior quarter. I'll now shift to how we are managing through the pandemic. And it won't surprise you to know that our business continuity plan has worked quite well. For example, we had 1,200 laptop computers in inventory for a rainy day, and that allowed us to get our training desks and call centers up and running quickly from home. So today, 95% of our employees around the world are working from home. By late January, early February, our colleagues in China and Hong Kong were working from home. Our first instinct there was to support our clients. So we did that by extending coverage of hospitals and clinics, extending benefits limits, expediting claims, waiving waiting periods and extending grace periods for premium payments. As COVID-19 spread around the world, we have continued to expand our help for clients. For example, we cut dental premiums by 50% for small and midsized employers here in Canada, recognizing that many dental services will be deferred, but some will actually be canceled. We rolled out Virtual Care, making it available to over 2 million Canadians who are members of a Sun Life Group Benefits plan. With Virtual Care, you can have a video consultation with a nurse or a doctor from the safety and convenience of your own home. We're concerned about the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. And in addition to our existing services, we rolled out new things, new webinars for plan members to talk about their mental well-being. In the U.S., we intervened to ask legislators to allow government COVID-19 loans to be used to keep benefits coverage going. We launched a series of town halls to explain to client how disability benefits, paid family and medical leave and government-provided COVID-19 support can all work together. Across Asia, we rapidly expanded our virtual technologies and engaged with regulators to promote virtual sales and client servicing. At MFS and SLC Management, our teams have doubled down on client communication with proactive outreach to individuals, webinars and other ways to provide our interpretation of market events. And our team in the U.K. has continued to do an excellent job supporting clients while working remotely with 98% of clients saying they would recommend us to others. For tenants who can't afford to pay their rents and borrowers who can't make their monthly loan or mortgage payments, we're working with them in trying to help and find a solution. Sun Life and MFS have donated over $2 million to charities and to communities in which we operate to support at-risk populations and provide access to food banks. We also had 600,000 surgical masks in inventory, and we donated those to hospitals across Canada. Now Sun Life is not alone. So we want to acknowledge the acts of governments and other organizations around the world to support people, to support communities and support businesses as a bridge through this pandemic. The pandemic has shown a bright light on 3 aspects of our business that really matter. First, the value of insurance stands out at moments like this. When you see people you know suddenly falling ill, in some cases sadly succumbing to COVID-19, suddenly it becomes real, becomes very real. And that causes more people to think about life and health insurance. For example, digital sales are up significantly, albeit off a small base. And some of our group benefit employees are asking us to open up enrollment midyear because their employees want to add insurance coverage. Second, it is encouraging to see how many clients are keeping a steady hand on the tiller when it comes to their investments. For example, in our Canadian Group Retirement business, with over $100 billion in assets under management, less than 2% of the assets were moved by plan members from equities to less risky funds. And we see a similar pattern in our retail wealth businesses in Canada and in Asia. And this is a big shout-out to the value of advice from a trusted financial adviser. And third, life insurance companies provide important countercyclical balance in times of severe economic stress. Sun Life puts over $1 billion a month of claims and benefit payments into the hands of our clients. And we continue to invest in projects in real estate and other kind of projects that drive the economy forward. The pandemic will make this a challenging year for life insurers. Rising unemployment means overall sales and group premium levels will likely [ decline ]. Mortality and disability experience will likely be higher. To the extent equity markets remain at current levels or lower, fee revenue for wealth and asset management businesses will be lower. Lower interest rates are challenging for life insurers, and we will likely see more credit headwinds, which would reduce earnings. But we've seen these things before, and Sun Life enters this period in a strong and differentiated position. We have a strong capital position, including $2.4 billion of cash. Our debt leverage is near historic lows and liquidity is strong. Over the past few years, we have been steadily reducing risk in our investment portfolio. Over the past 8 years, our 4-pillar strategy has significantly reduced our exposure to the impact of low interest rates. Our business mix is well diversified across geographies and across insurance, health and wealth. And in short, we are well placed with both a strong defense and a strong offense. I'd like to conclude by talking about the path forward. And the path forward is all about restoring confidence. Confidence to sit at a sidewalk cafe and have a meal with your family. Confidence to take that vacation in your home country this year. And I would say humans are generally optimistic, and our job now as companies and governments is to show the path forward to restore that confidence. Ultimately, confidence will return when life-saving therapies are available and there's a widely available vaccine. But until then, a critical component to building that confidence is the ability to rapidly detect and confine new clusters of infection. And that requires a well-planned and fully resourced testing and tracing regime. We need to hear more from our governments on how this capability will be created. That means hiring and training thousands, and in some cases tens of thousands, of additional public health workers who could be ready to do the heavy lifting of tracing and isolating people who've been in contact with those with COVID-19. It means quickly selecting one of the mobile app contenders sponsored by provincial or state or even federal departments of health, with aggressive promotion of voluntary use, coupled with a clear privacy and eventual data destruction policy. The private sector can help stand this capability up, and Sun Life is ready to help. I want to close today by thanking our clients and investors for your ongoing confidence and trust in Sun Life. I also want to thank Sun Life's Board of Directors for your sound guidance and support, especially as we lead our company through this unprecedented public health and economic challenge. And I want to thank our employees and advisers around the world who are doing such an amazing job to serve clients and to support each other. While it's far from business as usual, Sun Life continues to aspire to be one of the best insurance and asset management companies in the world. We continue to make great progress on this journey. The great irony of this pandemic is that while it has required physical distancing, it's in fact brought us closer to colleagues and closer to clients, in keeping with our focus on building clients for life. 155 years ago when Sun Life's founders huddled around a meeting room in Montreal, they aspired to create a company that would always be there for clients when they needed us the most. 155 years later, this purpose continues to shine brightly. It's the sun around which everything revolves, the sun that pulls us together and lights our way, the sun that will be here for clients in their time of need for years to come. Thank you. [Foreign Language]

Thank you, Dean. As you can see, we had some technical difficulties there with Dean's presentation, but the absolute key was that you could hear everything Dean said. And the message was impressive and showed the commitment that the management team has. I thought it was very well done, Dean. Thanks. Ladies and gentlemen, now the scrutineers have completed their preliminary tabulation of the votes cast in respect of each of the items of business on the agenda. And I will now ask Troy to speak to the preliminary voting results. Troy, over to you.

For Sun Life Financial, the scrutineers have reported that 51.1% of eligible shares have been voted at this meeting. I'm pleased to report that all 11 director nominees named in the circular have been elected with 99% of the votes in favor, Deloitte LLP was reappointed as our auditor with 95.9% of the votes in favor. The advisory resolution on the approach to executive compensation was passed with 95.4% of the votes in favor. For Sun Life Assurance, scrutineers have reported that 17.4% of eligible votes have been cast at this meeting. I'm pleased to report that all 5 policyholder director nominees named in the circular have been elected with 93.5% of the votes in favor, and all 6 of the shareholder's directors have been elected. Deloitte LLP was reappointed as our auditor with 96.1% of the votes in favor.

That concludes the formal business portion of our meetings for this year. And we are now pleased to entertain questions from registered shareholders, voting policyholders and duly appointed proxy holders viewing the meeting by webcast. I'd like to remind you again that questions should be of interest to all shareholders and not of a personal nature. If your question is related to a personal matter, a Sun Life representative will contact you after the meeting. Again, to submit a question via the webcast, click on the messaging icon on the platform. Troy, are there any questions?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. First question comes from a shareholder and policyholder, Richard [ Sanbrook ], who comments, "Congratulations on an excellent 2019 for Sun Life and as well as the Sun Life logo-ed Raptors and Blue Bombers. As Sun Life shareholders, we can easily see that through 2019, we have been enjoying an approximate 5% dividend yield. As participating policyholders, the information has been a bit more opaque." Richard has a 2-part question. First, what is the current dividend yield for participating policyholders? And second, how might both shareholder and policyholder dividends possibly be sustained with the 2020 pandemic, especially with both the impact of now even lower interest rates and the dramatic disrupting of face-to-face sales activities resulting from social distancing and restrictions and concerns? We also have another question of a similar nature from shareholder, Sebastian [ Dishan ], who asks, considering the actual situation, what is Sun Life's capacity to maintain its dividend?

Okay. Thanks, Troy. Dean, why don't you deal with the participating shareholder and some of the elements of the question relating to the sales and the impact that the pandemic had on that?

Okay. Thanks, Bill. And Richard, thank you very much for your comment and your question. And a shout-out for the Raptors and CFL sponsorship as well. The par dividend, this is a dividend on participating policies, and in Canada the par dividend on Sun Life participating policies is 6.25% right now. The Clarica, legacy Clarica policy dividend is a little bit higher than that. But the Sun Life par dividend scale, interest rate is 6.25%. That's reviewed every year. It's reviewed by management, by our actuaries and then brought to the Board for approval. The dividend scale reflects smoothing of investment results over long periods of time. So you don't see -- you tend not to see big jumps in that dividend interest scale from year to year. The smoothing has a -- does its intended effect. But what's behind your question, which is in this low-return world, the direction of travel of the dividend is downwards. There's a pull downwards on that dividend. But my main message is that that's a very gradual downward movement over time because of the effect of smoothing of the dividend. On the sales activities, I think you are right to call that out. In a world where we're physically distancing, it is difficult for advisers to meet face to face with clients in our retail businesses in Canada and in Asia. But necessity is the mother of invention or maybe say, the mother of adoption. And the investments that we have been making in digital and digital tools and ways to connect with advisers using Zoom technology and to be able to take them through financial plans; to take them through an application; to do e-signatures, digital signatures; to go right through from the initial conversation right through to actually putting solutions in place; we can now do that end to end digitally. And so what we're finding is our advisers are doing a great job, quickly adopting. The spread and the adoption of these tools is widening here in Canada as it is in Asia. Having said that, in the short run, and we will expect to see some reduction in sales as it takes time for all that to work through, but we're confident that the need is still there. As I said, in times of stress like this, if anything, we see more people taking the opportunity to revisit their financial planning. So I'll stop there and turn it back to you, Bill.

Okay. Thanks, Dean. And again, Richard, I unfortunately miss talking to you this meeting, but thank you for your question. With respect to the common share dividends, the Board of Directors approves those dividends every quarter and looks primarily at a couple of factors. One is the earnings power of the company and the other, of course, is its capital position. So with respect to the earnings power, we don't just look at the last quarter or even the next couple of quarters, but rather we try and think about the earnings over the course of a complete cycle. And certainly, that's what we have done now. And when we look at our earnings power, the diversification that we have both geographically across Asia, the U.S., Canada, but also the diversification and balance that we have in our businesses and our products both in the insurance and the wealth and asset management side. So we feel very confident that the company will do well and survive. There will be some ups and downs over the course of this next cycle, but the earnings power should continue to be a strength of the company. Our capital position also is -- as you would have heard Dean and our CFO, Kevin Strain, talk at various investor calls over the past year, we feel our capital position is quite strong. I'd also remind you that during the financial crisis going back to 2008, 2009, 2010, the company was not required and did not need to reduce its dividend. And I would say, today we are in a stronger position than we were at that time. Now having said that, we will continue as I say to pay and declare dividends. It will be based on a quarterly analysis and will consider the factors I just referred to. There's so much uncertainty today in terms of how this pandemic will evolve and what economic and financial factors will be caused as a result of it. So those factors will be considered every quarter, and we will take into account developments and changes in the company's position as we go forward. So hopefully -- again a long answer, but hopefully that gives you a sense as to how we're thinking about it. Troy?

We have one other question, Bill. This is from a shareholder Douglas [ Garman ], who asks, since this meeting is being held virtually, will Board meetings be held that way in the future to save on expenses and to protect Board member health?

Well, certainly we have held a number of directors meetings in March, April which have been done virtually like this. And we just had 2 days, or 3 days actually, of our regular quarterly meetings that were done virtually. I would say that the technology is terrific. And despite Dean having a bit of an issue with his visual, he was fine for 3 full days and it worked perfectly. And we'll just see going forward. I would say that we will take into account the health and safety of our directors, our management team and employees when we decide whether we will continue to hold director meetings virtually and for how long. I would say that expenses are important. On the other hand, the ability of the directors to get together for in-person meetings is critical. The meetings are more effective and the ability of the directors to interact together in person provides a camaraderie and ability to collaborate in a way that, I think, is really important. So I'm hoping that before the end of the year, we'll see, we will be able to be back to in-person meetings. Troy?

Mr. Chairman, there are no further questions at this time.

Okay. Thanks. Well, thank you all for your questions. That concludes today's proceedings. Dean mentioned in his remarks that our company was built on the premise of being there for clients when they need us most. In these extraordinary times, Sun Life's response to our clients and the people in our communities makes me proud to serve as your Chairman and even prouder that we're continuing the legacy on which Sun Life was founded. Thank you to everyone who joined us today for your continued confidence in our organization. Stay safe and stay healthy. Thank you.