Continental Re Announces N2.92bn Profit in 2015

Ebere Nwoji
Continental Reinsurance Plc’s has said that its profit before tax rose by 83.61 per cent to N2.92billion in 2015, from N1.59billion in 2014 in 2015 financial period.

The firm’s gross premium income also grew by 22.19 per cent, from N16.9billion in 2014 to N19.7bn in 2015.
The continental Re Group, given its performance, turned in a year of a strong underwriting performance and overall profitability.

The Group Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer, of the company, Dr. Femi Oyetunji, said that in 2015, Continental Reinsurance showed resilience in an unfavourable environment leading to maintenance of its track record of profitability in both underwriting and investment activities.

He said: “We were able to attain our performance targets. Strategically, our pan-African geographic diversity helped us to absorb the shocks emanating from the array of challenges that confronted us from the external environment such as ‘tanking’ commodity prices, currency volatility and mounting competition.”

He said the company’s geographic expansion and broad product line mix gives it a diversified portfolio that has progressively positioned it to straddle local and regional market cycles and that its consistent positive underwriting results reflects effective countering of concentration risk and short-term market uncertainties.

Oyetunji also said the good underwriting performance in 2015 can also be attributed to a benign claims experience.

Continental Re’s profit after tax rose by 150 per cent to N2.14billion in 2015 from N856million in 2014, while its investment and other income rose by 31.7 per cent to N1.88billion in 2015, from N1.43billion in 2014.

Its total asset rose by 5.18 per cent to N29.67billion in 2015 from N28.21billion, while shareholders’ fund rose by 5.15 per cent to N15.54billion from N14.78billion in the period under review.

Continental Reinsurance currently operates from six strategic locations across the continent through a combination of regional and subsidiary offices including Tunis, Gaborone, Nairobi and Douala.

According to him, in 2015, the Lagos business constituted 54 per cent of the total non-life business down from 60 per cent in 2014 reflecting ongoing success in the strategy to de-risk the business by pursuing growth in new territories thereby reducing concentration in the Nigerian market.

He said: “Although the continent’s gross domestic product growth is expected to be a modest 3.4 per cent in 2016, insurance premium growth should continue to out-pace overall economic expansion.  Our pan-African footprint, local market approach and multinational talent repository means that we are well positioned to ride this upside. This bolsters our confidence in our optimism that we will continue to deliver top line and bottom line growth on a sustained basis into the future for our shareholders and other stakeholders, the Continental Re boss said.”
Continental Reinsurance is a composite reinsurer, writing business in more than 50 countries across the African continent.