Validus Holdings said last night it posted second-quarter net income of $30.7 million, compared to $167.6 million for the three months ended June 30, 2012 — a decrease of $136.9 million, or 81.7 percent.Validus' chairman and CEO Ed Noonan stated: “I am pleased to announce another very good quarter for Validus with diluted net operating income of $1.03 per share and an annualised net operating return on average equity of 11.9 percent. All three of our segments — Validus Re, AlphaCat and Talbot — performed strongly, with particularly notable numbers posted by Talbot, which had record second quarter net operating income of $56.6 million."The company said net operating income available to Validus for the three months ended June 30 was $111.4 million, or $1.03 per diluted common share, compared to $171.2 million, or $1.65 per diluted common share, for the three months ended June 30, 2012.Validus said gross premiums written for the second quarter were $702.3 million compared to $627.1 million in the 2012 period, an increase of $75.2 million, or 12 percent.Net premiums earned for the three months ended June 30 were $547.5 million compared to $447.6 million, an increase of $99.8 million, or 22.3 percent.The combined ratio was 78.5 percent which included $41.0 million of favourable loss reserve development on prior accident years, benefiting the loss ratio by 7.5 percentage points.During the three months ended June 30, Validus said it incurred $77.6 million of losses from a notable loss event.Validus previously said it expected to record a catastrophe loss of $69.6 million in the second quarter, resulting from heavy flooding in Central Europe.More earnings season news on pages 14 and 15.