Swiss Re announces new finance chief as results beat expectations
Swiss Re, the reinsurer, has announced it’s appointed a new finance chief, David Cole, and upped its dividend on the back of an unexpected rise in net income.
The giant European firm’s proposed raising its dividend to 3.85 Swiss francs per share, with a special dividend of 4.15 Swiss francs per share.
The company reported a jump of 34 per cent in net profit in the fourth quarter, to $1.2bn (£720m) from a year earlier. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a figure of $656m.
Net income for the year was $4.4bn – up from $4.2bn in 2012.
Cole, currently the company’s chief risk officer, will take over from George Quinn, who’s leaving to take up the same role at Zurich Insurance at the end of April.
Michel Lies, chief executive officer said the insurer’s looking forward to 2014 “with confidence”.
Quinn says of today’s results:
Since 2009 we have been continuously growing our regular dividend in line with earnings.
We also met or exceeded the year's other two capital management priorities, namely deleveraging and increasing the share of high-quality credit and equities in our asset mix.
We continue to make good progress towards our 2011–2015 financial targets.
Shares initially spiked on the news this morning but have now dipped, down 0.1 per cent.
