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Shares of Zurich Insurance Group AG headed for the biggest gain in more than four years after Switzerland’s biggest insurer posted a first-quarter profit that beat analyst expectations.
Source: Facebook – Zurich Switzerland
The stock rose as much as 5.6 percent, and was trading 5.4 percent higher at 228 francs as of 11:24 a.m. in Zurich, paring losses this year to 12 percent. A close at this level would mark the biggest one-day gain since September 2011. The Stoxx 600 Insurance Index fell 0.9 percent. Net income fell 28 percent to $875 million from $1.22 billion a year earlier, the Zurich-based company said in a statement on Thursday. That beat the $745 million average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. “This looks to be an excellent result,” Farooq Hanif, an analyst for Citigroup Inc. in London, said in a note to clients. “We are cognizant that this is just one quarter, and other companies have also benefited from good weather and low large-losses,” he said. Chief Executive Officer Mario Greco took over in March with a mission to restore confidence in the company after it reported operating losses for its general insurance unit in the third and fourth quarters of 2015. Greco, the former CEO of Italian insurer Assicurazioni Generali SpA, is continuing with an overhaul of the insurer’s biggest unit, while preparing a strategy update to be announced in November.
Jan-Henrik Foerster (Bloomberg)
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