Annual General Meeting (AGM)
London, June
28, 2024 - Helios Underwriting, the only publicly
traded investment company offering access to a spread
portfolio of (re)insurance risk at Lloyd's of London, the world's
largest insurance market, will today hold its Annual General
Meeting (AGM) at 9.30am at the City of London Club, 19 Old Broad
Street, London.
Interim Executive Chairman, Michael Wade, will address
Shareholders on the Company's progress and strategic direction. Key
extracts from his remarks are outlined below:
An excellent 2023,
supported by favourable market conditions
The outstanding performance of the Lloyd's market, with a net combined ratio of 84%, £5.3
billion in investment returns, and profits of £10.7 billion for
2023, underscores the favourable market conditions in which the
Company currently operates and which we anticipate will continue
into 2024.
For Helios, 2023 was a transformative
year reporting a significant rise in profits and return of capital
demonstrating the success of the strategy to build the capacity
portfolio as the prospects for underwriting profitability improved.
Helios's share of the capacity
portfolio and strong investment performance have delivered a
comprehensive profit of £29.9 million for 2023.
In 2024, our gross capacity portfolio has increased to
£507 million and the retained proportion by Helios shareholders has
risen to £392 million, although allowing for mid-year
participations the overall number will rise to £512m and £397m
respectively.
This growth has been achieved by both using our own
capital, and by means of quota share and excess of loss reinsurance
and by attracting third party capital to participate alongside
Helios on its Lloyd's syndicate capacity portfolio. Deploying the
funds raised in the issue the Unsecured Loan Notes in December 2023
geared the Helios capital stack for the 2024 year of account but
which we will utilise to reduce costs into 2025 as we form a
smaller proportion of the overall syndicate portfolio
Commitment to spread
syndicate portfolio strategy
We will continue actively to manage a balanced
portfolio of Lloyd's syndicate participations.
This strategy also allows us to continue attracting third-party
capital, which develops a stream of fee income for Helios, and has
already seen success with our 'starter-homes' concept and from the
support by existing Members of Lloyd's where they, in effect, rent
capacity from us per year of account.
As a part of the overall 2024 syndicate portfolio we
took the decision to support recently established or new syndicates
where we felt there were exceptional underwriting skill-sets mostly
focused upon specialist business accounts providing access to
exposures that diversify our portfolio. By definition, the
proportion of new syndicate start-ups will reduce into 2025.
We will now manage the operating costs so that the
expense ratio of the Company will show a significant reduction in
2025.
In view of the attractive future
earnings, we will consult with shareholders over the coming months
and look at all options for a capital allocation framework that
will balance investment in growth, the gradual reduction of our
financial gearing and Shareholder distributions in the form of
dividends and share-buy backs.
Directorate
changes
We recently announced the departure of Martin Reith to
pursue other opportunities and wish him well for the future. We
thank him for his significant contribution to the Company in
building the scale of the syndicate portfolio. On
7th June, we announced that Nigel Hanbury will move to a
non-executive role and the Company will seek additional independent
non-executives where they can offer experience in Risk and Audit
respectively. I am pleased to advise that John Chambers, who has
considerable Risk experience, will join as an independent
Non-Executive Director immediately following this AGM. We are also
seeking to appoint an independent director with audit experience.
The Board is committed to best governance practices and we want to
ensure a majority of the Board be independent. My own move to
interim executive chairman has caused an imbalance of independent
directors which we are looking to resolve as soon as is
practicable.
Positive
outlook
We remain confident that our spread Lloyd's
syndicate portfolio for 2024 should generate attractive returns,
alongside the exceptional pipeline profits already earned. We aim
to attract more third party capital to participate in our 2025
portfolio, and consequently reducing the Helios retained
proportion, but with the opportunity of generating a greater fee
income. We are uniquely positioned to capitalise on the
attractive pipeline presented by the excellent market conditions
and maintain our status as the pre-eminent provider of private
capital into the Lloyd's market.
For further information, please contact:
Helios Underwriting plc
Michael Wade - Interim Executive
Chairman
Michael.Wade@huwplc.com
+44 203 880 7518
Arthur Manners - Chief Financial Officer
Arthur.Manners@huwplc.com
+44 (0)203 965 6441
Deutsche Numis (Nomad and
Broker)
Giles Rolls / Charles
Farquhar
+44 (0)20 7260 1000
FTI Consulting
Ed Berry / Nathan Hambrook-Skinner
+44 (0)7703 330 199 / +44 (0)7977 817 092
About
Helios
Helios provides a limited liability direct investment
into the Lloyd's insurance market and is quoted on the London Stock
Exchange's AIM market (ticker: HUW). Helios trades within the
Lloyd's insurance market writing approximately £507m of capacity
for the 2024 account. The portfolio provides a good spread of
business being concentrated in property & casualty insurance
and reinsurance. For further information please visit
www.huwplc.com.