Endurance 2014 Q1 Net Income: $96.3 Million
Bermuda-based Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd today [May 5] reported net income available to common shareholders of $96.3 million for the first quarter of 2014, versus net income of $92.1 millionfor the first quarter of 2013.
John R. Charman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “During the first quarter we generated strong financial results as evidenced by our annualised operating return on equity of 15%. The transformation of Endurance began 12 months ago and as we promised, the much improved financial and operating performance is now emerging.
“This quarter our London Insurance underwriting platform is now fully staffed and we have realised significant, attractive, across-the-board premium growth from all our newly added US specialty underwriting teams. We successfully expanded our global specialty business whilst at the same time continuing the overall rebalancing and repositioning of our global reinsurance portfolio.
“From a strategic perspective we significantly increased our reinsurance purchasing activity across both our Insurance and Reinsurance portfolios to optimise the risk/ reward characteristics of our business.”
“Whilst we have planned for market conditions on both sides of our balance sheet to remain extremely challenging over the next couple of years, we have deliberately positioned Endurance to outperform in this environment. We remain dedicated to achieving superior returns for our valued shareholders.”
Operating highlights for the quarter ended March 31, 2014 were as follows:
- Gross premiums written of $1,157.5 million, a decrease of 1.7% from the same period in 2013;
- Net premiums written of $798.7 million, a decrease of 12.1% from the same period in 2013;
- Combined ratio of 81.3%, which included 12.7 percentage points of favorable prior year loss reserve development;
- Net investment income of $41.0 million, a decrease of $8.3 million from the same period in 2013;
- Operating income, which excludes after-tax realized investment gains and losses and foreign exchange losses, of $94.4 million and $2.12 per diluted common share;
- An operating return on average common equity for the quarter of 3.8% or 15.0% on an annualized basis; and
- Fully diluted book value per share of $57.53 as of March 31, 2014, an increase of 4.3% from year end 2013 and up 4.9% when adjusting for dividends paid during the quarter.
