Reuters: Financial Services and Real Estate: UPDATE 1-Tryg profit up on mild winter, cost control

Reuters: Financial Services and Real Estate Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UPDATE 1-Tryg profit up on mild winter, cost control May 14th 2012, 15:47 Mon May 14, 2012 11:47am EDT (Adds further details, quote, share price, background) * Q1 pretax profit 721 mln DKK, vs 577 mln forecast * Q1 gross earned premiums 5.14 bln DKK, vs 5.25 bln forecast * Sees lower 2012 premium growth than in 2011 * To announce cost, claims costs in H2 COPENHAGEN, May 14 (Reuters) - Danish group Tryg, the Nordic region's second-biggest insurer, beat expectations with a doubling of quarterly pretax profit on the back of cost control and a mild winter resulting in a low level of weather-related claims. "This improvement is driven by both the insurance business and the investment (portfolio) result," Tryg said on Monday. "This result is satisfactory and shows that Tryg is still on course to meet the medium-term target". Denmark's largest insurance company by market value said first-quarter pretax profit rose to 721 million Danish crowns ($125 million), compared with a forecast for 577 million in a Reuters poll. Gross earned premiums rose 2 percent to 5.14 billion crowns, slightly missing forecasts. The combined ratio was 93.9 percent compared with 96.1 percent a year ago and against a 92.7 percent forecast. The combined ratio is the percentage of revenue spent on claims and costs. A figure below 100 shows an underwriter is profitable. The group kept its medium-term target of a combined ratio of 90, corresponding to an after-tax return on equity of 20 percent. It said it would announce a cost-cutting and claims cost reduction plan in the second half. It has previously introduced cost cuts, including restrictions on hiring staff. To cover options issued to senior employees, Tryg will sell about 200,000 of its own shares in May and August. Tryg shares closed down 0.2 percent before the report, outperforming a 2.2 percent fall in the Copenhagen Stock Exchange's benchmark index. ($1 = 5.7905 Danish crowns) (Reporting by Mette Fraende; Editing by Dan Lalor) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions