Assured Guaranty's CEO Discusses Q2 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Turning to the presentation, our speakers today are, Dominic Frederico, President and Chief Executive Officer of Assured Guaranty Limited; and Rob Bailenson, our Chief Financial Officer. After their remarks, we will open the call to your questions. As the webcast is not enabled for Q&A, please dial into the call if you’d like to ask a question.

I will now turn the call over to Dominic.

Dominic Frederico

Thank you, Robert and thank you all for joining Assured Guaranty for our second-quarter 2012 earnings call. Our positive operating results in the second quarter reflect our strategic versatility and the strength of Assured Guaranty’s business model. While the reliable stream of revenue from our $5.6 billion of unearned premium reserve led a solid base of income, we wrote new business generating $50 million of PVP and created additional shareholder value through our alternative strategic programs.

Our business production in the second quarter concentrated on U.S. public finance where our gross par written totaled $4.7 billion, up 28% from the second-quarter of 2011 and PVP reached $47 million, up 5% from last year’s second quarter. Our premium rates have held for over the last year but compared with last year’s second-quarter PVP, PVP grew less than the par insured. This is because our premium rates are applied to total insured debt service. That is principal and interest to calculate PVP.

As average 30-year yields have decreased about 125 basis points from where they were in last year’s second quarter, total debt services reduced, and this is the basis of premium we recorded in the quarter. The fact that we insured over 350 new issues in the quarter despite adverse market conditions is testimony to the fundamental demand for our guaranty.

Our market penetration remained consistent with prior quarters. In our target market bonds with single A underlying credit quality, our market penetration in the second quarter remained reasonably strong as we insured 29% of the transactions and 10% of the par sold despite the low interest rate environment.

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