S&P Sees No Rating Change in Canopius Acquisition of Creechurch

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said that its “interactive Lloyd’s Syndicate Assessment (LSA) of ‘2+/Stable’ on Canopius Managing Agents – Syndicate 4444 and its public information-based LSA of ‘1pi’ on Creechurch Underwriting – Syndicate 1607 are unaffected by the Oct. 24 announcement that Canopius Holdings U.K. Ltd., the parent company of Canopius Managing Agents, has acquired fellow Lloyd’s business Creechurch Holdings Ltd. and all its subsidiaries.

“Creechurch Holdings ultimately manages Syndicate 1607 and Creechurch Underwriting – Syndicate 3786 (not assessed), which write a largely noncorrelating book of business to that of Syndicate 4444,” the report continued. “The Creechurch syndicates have a combined capacity of £90 million [$170 million] for the 2006 year of account. Both will be placed into run-off at the end of 2006, and following this, Standard & Poor’s will withdraw its LSA on Syndicate 1607.”

S&P added that “subsequent to the acquisition, the capacity of Syndicate 4444 is expected to increase to £450 million [$847.5 million] from £300 million [$565 million].” It also said that it “believes that the acquisition will potentially provide diversification and capital efficiency benefits to Syndicate 4444. There will, however, be risks associated with the integration process and the performance of the acquired Creechurch portfolio, and the prospective performance of the acquired underwriting teams.”