PARIS (Bloomberg)—SCOR S.E., France’s largest reinsurer, said second-quarter profit rose 32% after increasing income from financial investments amid higher market volatility.
Net income climbed to €120 million ($155 million) from €91 million ($117.5 million) a year earlier, the Paris-based company said in a statement Thursday.
“It’s a positive quarter,” said Jean d’Herbecourt, a Paris-based analyst at CA Cheuvreux who has an “outperform” rating on the stock. “But there are still gains on deferred taxes and the level of investment income might not be recurring.”
SCOR rose 0.4% to €16.43 ($21.22) by 11:54 a.m. in Paris trading, giving the reinsurer a market value of about €3.1 billion ($4 billion). The stock has fallen 6.2% this year, trailing the 1.4% gain of the 29-member Bloomberg Europe 500 insurance Index.
“The group is maintaining a ‘rollover strategy’ for its fixed-income portfolio in order to have significant financial cash flow to reinvest in the event of a sudden change in the economic and financial environment,” SCOR said. Invested assets were €13.6 billion ($17.57 billion) at the end of June, with 77% of that invested in fixed income, according to the company’s website.
The combined ratio, which shows costs and payments for claims as a percentage of premium income, was 102.8% in the first half, SCOR said. The company’s full-year combined ratio should be below 100% excluding exceptional events and unbudgeted natural catastrophes in the third and fourth quarters, it said.
SCOR was hurt in the first quarter by a combined €150 million ($193.7 million) of losses from the earthquakes that struck Haiti in January and Chile in February, as well as from a European winter storm, the company has said.
Copyright 2010 Bloomberg







Loading comments...
