Aspen Insurance Holdings yesterday reported profits of $49 million for the second quarter of the year.

The figure is equivalent to 62 cents a share, with a corresponding figure of $1.82 for same period in 2014.

Operating income after tax amounted to $72.2 million, or 99 cents per share, over the same period. That fell well short of the $1.38 per share consensus estimate of analysts tracked by Yahoo Finance.

Aspen chief executive officer Chris O’Kane said: “Through the first half of the year we continued to execute on our diversified insurance and reinsurance strategy, achieving a 10.6 per cent annualised operating return on equity.

“Our reinsurance segment once again had an excellent performance with an impressive accident year ex-catastrophe loss ratio of 51.4 per cent in the second quarter.

“In our insurance segment, our US platform continued to grow in scale with 23.9 per cent premium growth in the quarter.”

Mr O’Kane added: “In our international markets, the rate environment varied by line and geography. We reduced our exposure in certain energy-related Lloyd’s lines where rates were under pressure and competition was intense and as a result our level of insurance premiums declined.

“This, combined with several mid-sized losses, had a negative effect on this quarter’s insurance results.

“We redeployed capital to those opportunities which were better rated and will continue to do so. We expect to achieve 11 per cent operating return on equity for 2015.”

The second quarter saw a 7.7 per cent drop in gross written premiums to $722.8 million compared with the second quarter of last year.

For the first two quarters, net income per share was $2.50 compared to $3.48 for the first six months of 2014.

In insurance operations, Aspen said there gross written premiums of $462.1 million, a decrease of 3.9 per cent on the $480 million in the second quarter of 2014.

The firm said: “Growth in property and casualty was more than offset by a decline in marine, energy and aviation as a result of decisions to decline business where the pricing levels were not deemed adequate for the underlying risk.

“The US platform continued its record of strong growth with a 23.9 per cent increase in gross written premium in the quarter.”

Aspen insurance CEO Mario Vitale said “disciplined growth” had helped the firm reach $579 million of net earned premium in the US insurance business.

He added: “In our international platform, we maintained discipline and chose not to renew a meaningful amount of business in the energy sector.

“The market is experiencing intense competition and in our assessment the rates offered did not adequately reflect the underlying risks.

“We are redeploying that capital into areas where the rates are not as pressured, such as financial and professional lines and our UK property and casualty business and are excited about these areas of growth.”

Aspen’s reinsurance sector saw gross written premiums down 12.6 per cent for the quarter at $250.7 million compared to $294.6 million in the same period in 2014.

The firm’s reinsurance CEO Stephen Postlewhite said: “We achieved growth in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa of 25 per cent through the first half of the year and look forward to expanding in those regions through our established international office network.”

And he predicted “profitable growth” for the rest of the year and into 2016.