Mortgage Insurer Genworth Sees Housing Improvement

STEPHEN BERNARD

NEW YORK (AP) — Genworth Financial Inc. is starting to see improvement in the housing and investment markets, which helped the life and mortgage insurer return to profitability in the third quarter.

The unexpected profit helped limit the decline in the company's shares on a dreary day for the stock market. Shares slipped 18 cents to $10 in afternoon trading Friday after trading as high as $11.45 earlier in the session.

Genworth's profit available to common shareholders for the quarter ending Sept. 30 was $19 million, or 4 cents per share. The company lost $258 million, or 60 cents per share, during the same quarter last year.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters forecast, on average, a loss of 2 cents per share for the quarter.

While not fully recovered from the real estate meltdown, Genworth's U.S. mortgage insurance business is showing significant signs of improvement that have helped it steady its quarterly results.

The division posted a net operating loss of $116 million in the quarter, but $62 million was tied to a special, previously announced charge to settle an arbitration proceeding.