Greenberg Calls U.S. the Prettiest House in Shabby Neighborhood
(Bloomberg) — Ace Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Evan Greenberg, whose insurer posted a decline in fourth-quarter profit as currency fluctuations pressured results, predicted that recent gains in the dollar will be temporary.
“The U.S. right now is the preferred destination for many investors seeking safety,” Greenberg said in a conference call Wednesday. “We’re the prettiest house in a pretty shabby neighborhood. Over time, I imagine the dollar’s strength against many currencies will go the other way.”
Greenberg has for years targeted acquisitions in Latin America and Asia, and lamented in 2012 that regulators in the U.S. and Europe were stymieing growth with what he called an “assault.” The expansion helped fuel annual gains of at least 10 percent in Ace’s stock for five straight years through 2010. Ace advanced $1.09 to $112.39 at 9:48 a.m. in New York trading, narrowing its decline for 2015 to about 2.2 percent.
Shareholders “will, over any reasonable period of time, continue to benefit from our global presence and diversification and our ability to take advantage of opportunity all over the world,” Greenberg said.
The U.S. Dollar Index rose to the highest since September 2003 this week. The gain can limit revenue in other countries for Ace, which operates in more than 50 nations.
Fourth-quarter net income fell 44 percent to $555 million as the company had an investment loss tied to variable-annuity reinsurance, Zurich-based Ace said late Tuesday. Currency fluctuations contributed to a decline in book value, a measure of assets minus liabilities.
Ace joins Procter & Gamble Co., Pfizer Inc. and DuPont Co. in a group of companies where results were hurt because so much revenue is generated beyond the U.S. Greenberg said tensions in the Middle East, terrorism and the conflict in Ukraine have combined with declines in commodity prices to weaken other currencies against the U.S. greenback.
‘Investor Flight’
“There’s been a remarkably rapid investor flight to the dollar in search of safety as a result of several factors including the decline in the price of oil,” Greenberg said. He also cited “declining economic growth in major economies of the world including China, Japan and the euro zone, which is in crisis, and the follow-on impact in natural-resource based economies in Latin America, Asia and Africa.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jing Cao in New York at hcao38@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dan Kraut at dkraut2@bloomberg.net Steve Dickson
