Industries: financial company, insurance
Aspen is a global provider of property and casualty insurance; marine, aviation and energy insurance; financial and professional insurance; and property catastrophe reinsurance.
| Most recent | Growth rate (CAGR) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 5 years | 10 years | ||
| Book value of equity per share | $49.17 | -19.4% | -0.3% | 4.1% |
| BV including aggregate dividends | -17.8% | 1.3% | 5.5% | |
| Most recent | Median | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 5 years | 10 years | ||
| ROE | -9.4% | -0.5% | 8.4% | 8.1% |
| ROA | -2.1% | 0.1% | 2.8% | 2.8% |
| Most recent | Growth rate (CAGR) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 5 years | 10 years | ||
| EPS | -$5.29 | — | — | — |
| Annual dividends | $0.94 | 8% | 7.3% | 4.6% |
| Share price | $44.30 |
| Most recent | Median | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 5 years | 10 years | ||
| P/B ratio | 0.90 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.7 |
| P/E ratio | — | 21.4 | 10.5 | 9.8 |
A company creates wealth for its long-term shareholders in 2 main ways - through dividend payments and through the accumulation of retained earnings. This graph shows the accumulation of per-share equity of long-term shareholders (green bars), which consists of the retained earnings plus all capital invested in the company, and the cumulative dividends the company has paid over time per share of its stock (blue bars).
In the words of Warren Buffett: "We're looking for... businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt."
Return on equity is a key metric of financial performance, indicating a company's ability to generate earnings using shareholder capital. Over time, ROE is one of the major determinants of the rate at which a company creates shareholder wealth. The average ROE for large U.S. companies is 12%, and many investors use it as a threshold for attractive investments.
Companies can boost ROE by increasing leverage, which reduces the safety of the investment. Therefore, it is useful to look at the return on assets (ROA), which measures a company's earning power regardless of its capital structure. A widening gap between ROE and ROA may be a warning sign that should be thoroughly investigated.
Earnings per share is a popular metric used to value a company (using P/E ratio); growth in EPS is often used to judge company growth potential. However, many investors believe that EPS is an inferior metric to ROE, because it ignores the amount of capital the company used to generate earnings.
Free cash flow shows how much cash a company generates from operations, above and beyond what is required to maintain or expand its productive assets. This cash can be returned to investors, or spent by management on growing the company or paying back its debts.
Balance sheets of many companies contain intangible assets such as goodwill, trademarks, patents, etc. Many investors consider intangibles more difficult to value than physical assets. If intangible assets had been valued incorrectly, they must be impaired, resulting in a loss charged against shareholder equity. This chart demonstrates the potential loss to shareholder equity from such impairments.
Aspen Insurance Holdings Limited is a financial company. Financial companies, by their nature, typically have high debt to equity leverage, which is not a meaningful analytical metric. We suggest you use the equity to assets ratio instead.
This chart shows shareholder equity as a percentage of total assets, allowing investors to judge the overall leverage. Companies with a higher proportion of equity can be viewed as safer investments. This metric is particularly important for highly leveraged institutions, such as banks, where it must be at least 4% according to government regulations.
This chart shows the cumulative dilution of investor ownership in a company over time. Dilution reduces an investor's participation in the future earnings. Dilution increases when a company issues new shares, and decreases when a company buys its shares back. Many investors avoid companies with large chronic dilution.
The dividend payout ratio tells investors what percentage of earnings a company returns to shareholders, and what percentage it retains and reinvests. This ratio represents a major capital allocation decision by the company, and can be used to judge management rationality. Rational management should pay out all earnings that cannot be productively reinvested. Therefore, a low dividend payout ratio for a profitable company with a low growth potential may be a warning sign.
Many investors use the P/B ratio as a quick way of judging company valuation. Value investors - followers of Graham and Dodd - specifically seek out companies with low P/B ratios. However, investors should be careful not to make investment decisions on this metric alone, without considering a company's earning and growth potential, since a low P/B ratio can be a sign of a bleak future for the business.
P/E ratio is a popular way of making a quick judgment of a company valuation. Value investors - followers of Graham and Dodd - often seek solid companies with low P/E ratios as investment opportunities. However, P/E ratio represents an oversimplified approach to business valuation, and can often lead to incorrect investment decisions.
On October 11, 2005, we issued a total of 17,551,558 ordinary shares in a public offering, at $22.79 per share, with total net proceeds to us of approximately $400 million. We have contributed $390 million from the proceeds of the offering to Aspen Bermuda, one of our insurance subsidiaries.
On December 12, 2005, we issued 8,333,333 ordinary shares which generated approximately $195 million in net proceeds.
In the fourth quarter of 2006 the company repurchased 7,481,946 ordinary shares at prices between $25.71 and $28.10 per share.
On November 9, 2007, we entered into a contract with Goldman Sachs & Co. (Goldman Sachs) for the purchase of ordinary shares to the fixed value of $50 million (the "ASR"). Under this arrangement we acquired and cancelled the minimum number of shares of 1,631,138 shares on November 28, 2007. On March 20, 2008, the ASR was completed pursuant to which we canceled an additional 139,555 ordinary shares.
On May 13, 2008, we entered into a share purchase agreement with one of the Companys founding shareholders, Candover Investments plc, its subsidiaries and funds under management and Halifax EES Trustees International Limited, as trustees to a Candover employee trust, to repurchase a total of 4,080,800 ordinary shares for a total purchase price is $100 million. The ordinary shares were purchased and cancelled on May 19, 2008.
On January 5, 2010, we entered into an accelerated share repurchase program with Goldman Sachs & Co. (Goldman Sachs) to repurchase $200 million of our ordinary shares. During the first quarter of 2010, 6,474,425 ordinary shares were acquired and cancelled. The program is expected to be completed within ten months at which point additional shares may be retired.