On Dec 23, we issued an updated research report on American International Group Inc. (AIG). While noticeable debt reduction has improved leverage and capital position; the company’s core operations (property-casualty and life-retirement) face the brunt of interest rate and economic volatility, stiff competition and regulatory challenges.
Additionally, higher catastrophe losses, unfavorable reserves and pricing pressure have hampered the premiums, claims expenses as well as the underwriting results, whereby underwriting loss widened to $165 million in the first nine months of 2014 against $125 million in the year-ago period. Premiums are expected to grow in low single digits in the upcoming quarters as well. Meanwhile, low interest rates adversely affect AIG’s returns from investments, capital yields and sales of interest-rate sensitive products. Although, the company has returned to the recovery track and contracted its core product portfolio, we believe a consistent stability is far-fetched.
Nevertheless, a strong operating cash flow (up 10.4% year over year in the first nine months of 2014) and tightened debt position (which shrank by about $5.5 billion at Sep 2014-end from 2013-end level) has strengthened AIG’s balance sheet. This also helped improve total debt-to-capital ratio to 15.8% at Sep 2014-end from 17.3% at 2013-end, 20.5% at 2012-end and about 31% at 2010-end. Alongside, the sale of redundant operations, including the latest divestment of ILFC, has freed up capital for deployment in growth initiatives and to increase shareholder return, as reflected by two share repurchase programs authorized this year.
Effective capital deployment indicates improved earnings potential and capital flexibility by debt reduction and healthier operating leverage, thereby buoying investors’ confidence in the stock. Furthermore, AIG’s superior global brand and its diversified product offering, along with positive net flows and active spread management are boosting core operations.
Earnings Review
This Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock has kept its earnings streak alive by delivering positive earnings surprises in the trailing four quarters, with an average beat of 15.7%. AIG’s third-quarter 2014 earnings outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate by about 12% as well as the year-ago quarter figure by 26%.
Overall, a favorable risk-reward profile in the near term has prompted minor upward estimate revisions for 2014 and 2015 in the past 30 days. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2014 has moved north by 2 cents to $4.74 a share, while the same for 2015 remained intact at $4.97 per share. On a year-over-year basis, earnings are expected to rise by 3.9% and 4.8% in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Moreover, the Most Accurate estimate for AIG’s 2014 and 2015 earnings currently stands at $4.75 and $5.28 a share, translating into Earnings ESP of +0.2% and +6.2%, respectively. This indicates a possibility of an earnings beat for this year as well as the next.
Key Picks in the Sector
Some better-ranked stocks in the insurance sector include CNO Financial Group Inc. (CNO), AmTrust Financial Services Inc. (AFSI) and Enstar Group Ltd. (ESGR). All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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