Aspen reveals half-year results

Aspen Insurance Holdings has reported its financial results for the six months ended June 30, posting net income of $48.4 million.

“This is a strong set of results for Aspen, with the business reporting both double-digit topline growth and very healthy underwriting performance,” said Mark Cloutier, group executive chairman and CEO of Aspen. “Our year-over-year trends continue to show the impact of the work we have done to reshape our business and improve performance, resulting in a 6.5-percentage-points improvement of our combined operating ratio to 88.2% from 94.7%. Operating income increased to $130.0 million from $66.7 million for the same period last year, representing an annualized operating return on average equity of 13.8%.”

The company grew its gross written premium by 16.5% to $2,351.3 million, Cloutier said. The growth came from across both the insurance and reinsurance segments, driven by a combination of rate increases and new business. Average rate change across Aspen’s entire portfolio was 10.9%.

Aspen Capital Partners, the company’s capital markets franchise, reported total fee income of $47 million for the six months ended June 30, an increase of $16.5 million over the prior year.

Read next: Aspen unveils full-year 2021 results

“Our capital markets franchise continues to grow and now represents approximately $1 billion of AUM,” Cloutier said. “Our ability to grow and diversify the capital we manage, notwithstanding a challenging environment, supports our core proposition that capital markets investors are key partners in Aspen’s future growth and innovation efforts.”

The company has faced some economic headwinds despite the strong results, Cloutier said.

“Similar to the wider market, Aspen has seen the impact of rising interest rates result in unrealized losses in our investment portfolio,” he said. “We would expect the unrealized losses to unwind as securities reach maturity, while also seeing the benefit of higher interest rates starting to impact investment income. The trends we see in many of the key ratios and performance indicators we track give us confidence that Aspen is in a strong position to continue to benefit from attractive trading conditions we see across our markets, while at the same time continue to manage down volatility.”