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LONDON (Alliance News) - Non-life insurance investor, service provider and underwriting manager Randall & Quilter Investment Holdings Ltd expects its full-year results to be in line with market expectations, Chairman and Chief Executive Ken Randall will tell shareholders at the company's annual general meeting on Wednesday, with the company continuing its hunt for acquisitions.
Randall is set to say the business he co-founded with Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Alan Quilter in 1991, is trading satisfactorily. He will also reiterate expectations that substantially all or the entirety of the company's profit is to emerge in the latter part of the year, subject to the ability to close certain run-off transactions by June 30.
"This is due to the second-half weighting of many of our service businesses, the payment of annual bonuses in the first half of the year and the timing of the annual actuarial reviews which tend to produce net reserve savings at the end of the year," Randall will say at the AGM.
Randall & Quilter's acquisition pipeline is strong, according to Randall, with the company pursuing a number of opportunities, some of which it hopes to complete in the near future. In January, Randall & Quilter completed the transfer of Chevanstell Ltd to R&Q Insurance (Malta) Ltd, which is now acting as the company's regulated European run-off insurance consolidator. The move was designed to give R&Q Insurance (Malta) a balance sheet strong enough to support future deals, and followed a broader group restructure that included the redomicile of the parent company to Bermuda.
"There is an excellent pipeline for the second half of the year, including deals of a larger scale than those recently announced," Randall will say.
Randall & Quilter's insurance investments division looks set to have a "satisfactory" first half, according to Randall, who will tell shareholders that the division's investment income has been higher than expected. The results from its insurance companies and syndicate participations are expected to be in line despite continuing slow premium growth, according to Randall.
In addition, the insurance services division is performing to budget, with "strong results" in UK broking outweighing some delays in new business income generation in the US. Despite performing "broadly" in line, the underwriting management division' full-year result remains largely dependent on its ability to generate new third party business in the second half of the year, Randall will say.
"We continue to look actively at ways to enhance delivery of our strategy of accessing niche business and generating related fee income and look forward to announcing developments in this area in due course," shareholders will hear.
Randall will caution that underwriting conditions remain challenging, which has caused a small hit to commission income from the company's managing general agents, but that the company is pleased that income levels have "largely held up" in recent months.
"The classes of business targeted by Syndicate 1991 have similarly suffered from challenging market conditions but we are confident that our singular business model will continue to help identify and develop profitable opportunities in our target markets," Randall will say at the AGM.
Randall & Quilter shares were Wednesday quoted at 145.00 pence, up 0.4%.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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