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February 2007/4

  • Mid-tier North American broker Hub International Ltd has been acquired by funds advised by Apax Partners and Morgan Stanley Principal Investments in a $1.8bn deal which is further proof of private equity’s interest in the insurance broking sector.
  • Australian-headquartered insurer QBE has appointed John Neal to the newly created position of chief operating officer for its European Operations.
  • Fuelled by its acquisition of GE Insurance Solutions (GEIS), Swiss Re reported a 14 percent increase in business at the January renewals, the equivalent of SFr1.3bn.
  • European insurance giant Zurich Financial Services Group (ZFS) revealed its losses from European Windstorm Kyrill will not exceed $150mn.
  • Bermudian reinsurer Aspen Insurance Holdings has strengthened it aviation and specialty reinsurance with the creation of the post of head of division.
  • UK-listed broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc (JLT) received a £14.2mn present last week following the merger of Continental brokers SIACI and Assurances et Conseils Saint-Honoré (ACSH).
  • Arab Insurance Group (Arig) posted profits of $30.4mn for 2006, down from the $48.2mn it recorded the year before. However, the company said it had actually exceeded the 2005 result once exceptional items of $10.4mn and $28.9mn were removed...
  • US insurer CNA Financial Corp saw profits rise over 400 percent last year to $1.1bn, compared to $264mn in hurricane-hit 2005. The turnaround was even more marked in the fourth quarter of the year with CNA bouncing back from a deficit of $217mn...
  • Bermudian catastrophe reinsurer Montpelier Re said the “favourable pricing environment” was amongst the factors driving it to a profit of $303mn, or $3.25 per share, last year, against a loss of $753mn, or $10.49 per share, in 2005.
  • Strong growth at subsidiaries Guy Carpenter, Kroll and Mercer pushed Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc (MMC) to book fourth quarter 2006 revenue growth of 9 percent to $3.1bn, as it reported consolidated net income of $226mn for the period.
  • Another Bermudian (re)insurer to bounce back from 2005 was Arch Capital, which almost tripled its full-year profits from $256.4mn then to $692.6mn for last year.
  • If the recent Florida insurance legislation had been passed in a foreign country, US (re)insurers would be asking the State Department to intervene, according to Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, chairman and CEO of CV Starr & Co.