Assured Guaranty Q2 results ‘highly successful’, claims CEO

Assured Guaranty’s second quarter 2017 results have been described as “highly successful” by Dominic Frederico, president and CEO of the company.

According to Frederico: “The second quarter of 2017 was highly successful for Assured Guaranty. We saw an increase in our financial strength, as well as in net income and operating income, versus last year’s second quarter. With the additional benefit of our share repurchase program over the last year, net income and operating income per share grew 14 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

“Additionally, our PVP [present value of new business production] increased 71 percent for the quarter and 114 percent for the half, while we widened our lead in the US public finance primary market to 62 percent of par insured and continued our success in writing new business in international infrastructure and structured finance.”

Assured Guaranty reported that its net income for second quarter 2017 was $153 million, an increase on the $146 million it reported for the same period of 2016. The company attributed this increase primarily to lower loss and loss adjustment expenses, a lower effective tax rate and changes in fair value of committed capital securities and FG VIEs, offset in part by changes in fair value of credit derivatives and lower net earned premiums from accelerations.

Gross written premiums for the second quarter of the year came to $79 million, a 119 percent increase on the $36 million it made over the same quarter of 2016. The company said that this increase was due to increased new business production in public finance and international structured finance.

However, net earned premiums were $162 million in the quarter, compared with $214 million in second quarter 2016. According to Assured Guaranty the decrease is due primarily to lower accelerations from refundings and terminations.