German reinsurer Munich Re's Q1 profit down 65 pct

Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-07 22:04:05|Editor: huaxia

BERLIN, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Munich Re generated a profit of 221 million euros (about 239 million U.S. dollars) in the first quarter (Q1) of 2020, down 65.1 percent compared with the same period last year, the German reinsurance company announced on Thursday.

Munich Re set aside around 800 million euros in the first three months of the year for insurance claims resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, according to the company.

"The high losses due to COVID-19 are financially manageable for Munich Re," said Christoph Jurecka, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Munich Re. "Thanks to our strong balance sheet and our prudent risk management, we remain a reliable partner to our clients, even in these challenging times."

The core business in reinsurance was suffering from the effects of COVID-19 and contributed only 149 million euros to the consolidated result in Q1, a slump of 73 percent, according to Munich Re.

The reason for this development was losses from cancellation and postponement of major events due to the pandemic.

In March, Munich Re had announced that due to "great uncertainty" concerning the macroeconomic and financial impacts of COVID-19, the company would not attain its profit guidance of 2.8 billion euros for 2020 as a whole.

Because of ongoing uncertainties, Munich Re "will not specify a new profit target for 2020 at this time," it noted. (1 euro = 1.08 U.S. dollars) Enditem

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