Banking, finance, and taxes

Investors Not Satisfied With Travelers Earnings Beat

Chris Lange

Published: July 21, 2016 9:05 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 5:28 am

Travelers Companies Inc. (NYSE: TRV) is one of the more forgotten Dow stocks. Even though it may be forgotten, its stock has had a quiet rally over the past year. These earnings are continuing to prove that point with solid gains in personal insurance and business insurance. Although it may be forgotten, investors should take notice of this solid earnings beat.

The company said that it had $2.20 in earnings per share (EPS) on $6.79 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter. The consensus estimates were $2.07 in EPS on revenue of $6.33 billion. In the same period of last year, Travelers posted EPS of $2.52 and $6.17 billion in revenue.

Travelers repurchased 4.9 million shares during the second quarter at an average price of $112.12 per share for a total cost of $550 million, leaving $2.234 billion of remaining capacity under the existing share repurchase authorization at the end of the quarter. Keep in mind that this company has a market cap of roughly $34 billion.

At the same time, the board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.67 per share. This dividend is payable on September 30, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on September 9.

Alan Schnitzer, CEO of Travelers, commented:

Our second quarter results were solid, with operating income of $649 million and operating return on equity of 11.6%. We were particularly pleased with our operating return on equity relative to the persistent and increasingly low interest rate environment, which highlights our ability to continue to generate attractive underwriting returns. Our underwriting results remained strong, as reflected in a 93.1% combined ratio, despite catastrophe and other PCS weather-related losses being higher by $135 million after-tax as compared to the prior year quarter. As a consequence of the interest rate environment, returns from our high-quality fixed income portfolio declined by $21 million after-tax, in line with our expectations. Returns from our non-fixed income portfolio declined from the prior year period but remained positive and improved from recent quarters. In terms of capital management, we returned $747 million of excess capital to shareholders in the quarter, including $550 million of share repurchases, bringing the total capital returned to shareholders year-to-date to more than $1.5 billion.

Shares of Travelers closed Wednesday at $117.01, with a consensus analyst price target down at $113.59 and a 52-week trading range of $95.21 to $119.30. Following the release of the earnings report, the stock price was down fractionally to $116.50 early Thursday.