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Premium growth aids Validus 63% rise in profits 保费增长使Validus集团利润上涨63% Validus Holdings Ltd.’s profits for the first half of 2009 grew 63%, due mainly to strong premium growth and a near-absence of major loss events, the company said. Validus reported first-half net income of $232.5 million, compared with $142.4 million in the same period last year. For the second quarter, its net income was $137.6 million, up from $75.9 million a year earlier. Net premiums written for the first half totaled $900.1 million, a 10.4% increase. The company reported a combined ratio of 73.5%. Investment income for the first half totaled $53.7 million. Net realized investment losses for the first half were $26.1 million, compared with a $5.3 million gain a year earlier. In addition, Validus said it experienced an $11 million loss related to the Air France crash in the second quarter. “This has been an excellent quarter with very high earnings driven by growth in our noncatastrophe business globally,” Validus Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ed Noonan said in a conference call with investors Thursday. “We continue to see positive rate movements in the vast majority of the classes we underwrite,” he said. The Hamilton, Bermuda-based insurer and reinsurer, which recently won a bitter battle to acquire fellow Bermuda-based reinsurer IPC Holdings Ltd., said it is “on pace” to close the transaction in the third quarter. For the second quarter, the company reported $15.9 million of nonrecurring expenses related to the IPC amalgamation. The $1.65 billion cash-and-stock deal raised concerns with some analysts about the combined entity’s large concentration of catastrophe-exposed business as the U.S. hurricane season is under way. Mr. Noonan said Validus has done a “significant amount of hedging in anticipation of combining the two portfolios. As we approach wind season, in total we have $250 million of protection in place,” he said. As part of the deal, Validus has given up termination