Moody's affirms Validus

Moody's Investors Service said it affirmed the Baa2 senior debt rating of Validus Holdings, Ltd. and the A3 insurance financial strength rating of its principal operating subsidiary Validus Reinsurance Ltd. Moody's assigned provisional ratings to the renewal of the automatic shelf registration of Validus Holdings.

The outlook is stable.

Moody's said the rating action makes no assumption regarding the success or termination of Validus' ongoing bid for Transatlantic Holdings, Inc. Allied World, Validus and Berkshire Hathaway have all made offers to acquire Transatlantic, with Allied World and Transatlantic having entered into an agreement.

The ratings consider the company's status as one of the largest catastrophe reinsurance specialists in Bermuda, good capital adequacy, some product and geographic diversification from its Lloyd's operations and modest asset risk, the agency said.

The strengths are tempered by the volatility of the catastrophe reinsurance business, Validus' relatively limited track record and room for further improvement in Talbot's pricing and capital models and their integration into enterprise capital modeling, the agency added.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.