Assured Guaranty Ltd. has reported net income of $98 million, or $1.29 per share for the second quarter to June 30, 2021.

And shareholders’ equity climbed to the highest ever reported at $87.74 per share.

Second quarter capital returned to shareholders was $105 million, including share repurchases of $88 million, or 1.9 million shares, and dividends of $17 million.

But this week, the Board of Directors authorised an additional $350 million in share repurchases.

Insurance segment adjusted operating income was $152 million for the three months, gross written premiums were $84 million and the present value of new business production was $81 million.

The Asset Management segment adjusted operating loss was $2 million for the quarter and gross inflows were $426 million.

President and CEO Dominic Frederico stated: “At midyear, our key measures of shareholder value – shareholders’ equity, adjusted operating shareholders’ equity and adjusted book value – stood at all-time highs on a per-share basis.

He said: “Our insurance production has been very strong, with total first-half gross premiums written and PVP (present value of new business production) reaching $171 million and $167 million, respectively.

“After a first quarter driven by exceptional new business production in US public finance, second-quarter production was well distributed across our US and international public finance and global structured finance businesses, illustrating again the advantage of what S&P Global Ratings recently described as our ‘well-defined, diverse underwriting strategy’ in their July report affirming our AA with Stable Outlook financial strength ratings.”

“Assured Investment Management has continued its progress since the beginning of the year,” Mr. Frederico added, “increasing AUM (assets under management) to $17.6 billion, aided by the issuance of three CLOs (collateralised loan obligations), and bringing fee-earning AUM to 93 per cent of the total.

“Fee-earning AUM on June 30, 2021 was $16.3 billion, a 64 per cent increase over the $9.9 billion in fee-earning AUM a year earlier on June 30, 2020.”