Helios Underwriting - Delivery into a strong underwriting cycle

Helios Underwriting (Helios) delivered strong EPS of 21.6p in FY23, from a loss of 3.1p in FY22, ahead of our 14.7p forecast. On 7 June, the company announced that CEO Martin Reith had stepped down, with Michael Wade taking over as executive chair. Mr Reith had driven a strategy of investment in internal capabilities and Lloyd's of London (Lloyd's) capacity expansion via tenancy capacity and promotor activities. While Helios will still pursue select capacity acquisition, indications are that future strategy will increasingly be focused on extracting value from the existing portfolio, with greater shareholder distributions through dividends and share buybacks. We have updated our forecasts based on the FY23 performance and underwriting outlook, paring back our near-term capacity growth forecasts but allowing for a more liberal distribution policy. We have cut our EPS forecasts by 5.5% in FY24 and 1.9% in FY25, and introduce FY26 forecasts. Our valuation is unchanged at 280p/share, supported by higher distributions.

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