Munich Re “On Track” for 2005; Ups Dividend 60%

Nikolaus von Bomhard, chairman of Munich Re’s Board of Management, presided over an upbeat annual general meeting yesterday at the world’s largest reinsurer’s corporate headquarters in Munich.

Shareholders had reason to be pleased. After some rough going in 2003, von Bomhard noted that the company had recorded “an excellent result” of 1.8 billion euros [$2.33 billion] in 2004, and he saw Munich Re continuing “along this successful path.” He noted that in 2004 “the underwriting result improved by 50 percent to 3 billion euros [$3.885 billion] in terms of the profit before amortization of goodwill,” and that the company was “on track” to achieve its goal of a 12 percent return on equity after tax. He indicated this is still the case “despite the fact that the quarter showed a random increase in the costs for major losses compared with the same quarter last year.”

An additional reason to cheer came from the Board’s approval of a dividend of 2 euros ($2.60) per share, a 60 percent increase over 2004′s 1.25 euros $1.55) per share.