PartnerRe bounced back from a tough first quarter, where it suffered losses as a result of the windstorm Kyrill in Europe, to record a year-on-year 35 percent increase in profits for the second quarter totalling $105.02 million.

The second three months of the year easily overshadowed the 2006 performance in terms of profit, gross premium written (up $90m) and a combined ratio reduced by 4.6 percent. For shareholders the results equate to $1.66 income per share for the quarter or $4.42 for the half year.

"As expected, the non-life market is continuing its slow decline as cedants retain a greater portion of their business and competition at the reinsurance level intensifies," said president and CEO Patrick Thiele.

"Despite this more competitive market environment, pricing declines are being broadly offset by continued favourable loss trends, and PartnerRe is benefiting from cedants' movement to higher quality reinsurers, which is consistent with this stage of the reinsurance pricing cycle. Given that, we are more sanguine about the outlook for 2007 premiums than we were at the start of the year."

The company reports net premiums have been essentially flat. During the second quarter PartnerRe spent $44.2m buying back 585,800 shares, and it currently has authorisation to buy a further 4.4 million shares.

Looking at both the second quarter and half-year results, where the profit rose $74m year-on-year, Mr. Thiele said: "PartnerRe had another strong quarter with an operating return on beginning shareholders' equity of 17 percent.

"On a six-month basis, we achieved an 18 percent operating return on beginning shareholders' equity. Despite the impact of rising interest rates, which had a negative effect on the market value of our bond portfolio, we grew GAAP book value per share by one percent during the quarter and 26 percent year over year to $58.96."

PartnerRe lost $2m pre-tax from the alternative risk transfer segment of its book, but saw a favourable $107m development in its estimate of non-life losses for prior accident years.

Net foreign exchange losses more than doubled to $9.3m.

As of June 30, PartnerRe's total assets were $15.7 billion, total capital was $4.8bn and total shareholders' equity was $3.9bn.