Guaranty Trust Assurance Plc grows income by 38 %

Guaranty Trust Assurance Plc (GTAssur) unadited 9-month results for the period ended September 30, 2011. The insurer recorded a 38.5 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in Gross Written Premiums, while its quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) performance also showed a 34.4 per cent increase in premiums written. A slower growth in re-insurance costs (27.5% y-o-y increase) led to a 26.2% increase in net premium as total underwriting income improved by 26.6% to N3.1bn. PBT and PAT grew by 21.6% and 19.6% to N1.0bn and N809.9bn respectively.
Based on these results, GTAssur now trades at a trailing P/E of 10.8x and P/BV of 0.5x versus peer averages of 11.4x and 0.5x respectively. With a justified P/BV of 0.8x, we maintain our BUY rating on the counter having established a price target of N1.69.