Bermudian-based Maiden Holdings Ltd has continued its return to profitability, and reported third quarter net income of $2.2 million, or three cents per diluted common share.

That compares to a net loss of $58.3 million, or 70 cents per share for the same period last year.

The company’s book value per common share was 86 cents at the end of September, up from 51 cents at the end of 2019.

Lawrence Metz, Maiden’s president and co-chief executive officer, said: "Our return to profitability continued in the third quarter, with increasing stability in our loss experience driving the result.

“On a net basis we reported net favourable loss development for the quarter, and these ongoing improvements have enabled us to continue to extend our strategic vision in both the asset and capital management pillars previously articulated.”

Mr Metz, on Friday, added: “More substantially, we simultaneously announced today our tender offer to repurchase a significant portion of our preference shares, which we believe will offer those shareholders a liquidity opportunity while enhancing Maiden's value to common shareholders.

“Over the long-term, we believe this blended approach will enable Maiden to build value while retaining options to participate in the re/insurance marketplace, though our present assessment remains that active re/insurance underwriting is likely to present more limited opportunities. We continue to experience immaterial impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic on our operations, and we continue to lower our operating expenses."

Patrick Haveron, Maiden’s co-CEO and chief financial officer, said: "Our book value continued to increase as we extended our profitable 2020 during the third quarter. Our active portfolio management enabled us to capture realised investment gains in conjunction with expected settlement of our run-off insurance liabilities. While there is no guarantee that recent loss development trends will persist, with multiple successive quarters of stabilisation, we are encouraged by them, although a prudent assessment dictates that the run-off portfolio still requires additional maturity to fully emerge.

“Nonetheless, the stability we have sought to activate our longer-term asset and capital management strategies are increasingly in place, although we are careful to approach these strategies in a deliberate fashion as we build Maiden's value for the future. In addition to the tender offer announced today for a portion of our preference shares, during the quarter we completed a number of investment opportunities that we believe will produce appropriate risk-adjusted returns over the foreseeable future.”

Net premiums written for the three months ended September 30 were $3 million compared to $35.9 million in the same period last year.

While net income for the nine months ended September 30 was $32.2 million compared to a net loss of $110.4 million for the same nine months in 2019.