20 May 2014News

Aspen at an 'inflection point'

Aspen has issued an investor presentation detailing the strong progress the company has made as it continues to pursue an ambitious growth strategy in the face of continued hostile overtures from Endurance.

The presentation outlines a path for delivering further growth in operating return on equity and shareholder value.

Aspen recorded $2.7 billion gross written premiums for the twelve months ended March 31st 2014, backed by strong balance sheets and ratings.

The company has had a keen long-term focus on shareholder value creation, and has generated over $3 billion in capital over the last 10 years while developing an increasingly diverse mix of business, Aspen reports.

The firm is already benefitting from its prior investment in building a US specialty insurance platform, and the restructuring of its ceded reinsurance and retrocessional programs is expected to deliver an estimated $25 million benefit to net income in 2014 and a further $20 million in 2015.

The company will also continue to benefit from a well-established Lloyds platform with offerings across a diverse range of risks and geographies, and a reinsurance business that is an established leader and positioned for continued profitable growth, the presentation says.

In its investment portfolio, the company is constantly evaluating ways to increase returns within its risk tolerance, including investing a further $200 million in equities in 2013 and $40 million in Q1 2014, it outlined.

Outlining the company's position Chris O’Kane, CEO of Aspen says: “Aspen is executing on a clear strategy for delivering superior performance, as evidenced by strong results across all parts of our business in the first quarter, with a resulting annualized operating ROE of 14.8 percent."

"Aspen is at an inflection point where the significant investments we have made over the past several years are now paying off. As a result, we are well positioned to achieve our 10 percent operating ROE objective in 2014 and to deliver on our expectation that 2015 operating ROE will increase in the order of 100 basis points from 2014.”