Musings From Monte Carlo

NU Assistant Managing Editor Caroline McDonald is in Monte Carlo this week, gathering the latest news from the annual Reinsurance Rendezvous. You can check out her news coverage online on Friday. However, she also posted a side note about how SCOR is creating buzz with some unusual billboard advertising (one sample shown here). Click on to read more.

SCOR Creates Its Own Monte Carlo Buzz

By Caroline McDonald

MONTE CARLO–While so much talk here centering around the favorable market (with knocking on wood and breath-holding until the passage of hurricane season), there is also a lot of fanfare created by the French reinsurer SCOR, which just recently finalized the purchase of Swiss reinsurer Converium.

In fact, SCOR said at a press conference last Sunday that the deal-making was timed specifically to coincide with the Reinsurance Rendez-Vous in Monte Carlo. By contrast, just a few years ago, talk at the meeting centered on Converium, which was seriously downgraded immediately preceding the meeting. SCOR also had been previously downgraded.

This time around, not only is SCOR holding a celebratory cocktail party, it also commissioned a huge billboard space directly opposite the casino where many Rendez-Vous attendees pass, and has changed the billboard image four times since Sunday, while crowds gather, wondering what will go up next.

During one billboard incarnation, at least a half-dozen people with buckets of paint hanging from their belts were suspended by ropes from the top of the giant structure, while they simultaneously painted an Egyptian-themed image (pictured here, thanks to my digital camera). Many here wondered if it was a performance by the Blue Man group. But shortly after the work was finished, it was scrapped and a large canvas image was lashed to the frame.

SCOR reported some impressive numbers at its press conference on Sunday. Its net income is up a huge 77 percent; its net income per share is up 39 percent; and its net book value per share is up 14 percent–and they say this is only the beginning.

SCOR and Converium have made a significant comeback that is not often seen in this industry. Indeed, most companies in their predicament would have long ago gone into runoff.

So while both Rendez-Vous attendees and Monte Carlo tourists gape at SCORs large, ever-changing exclamation point, many reinsurers have expressed awe at their bigger achievementmaking such a giant comeback and having the loyal customers needed to pull off such a feat.

Now that SCOR has everyone's attention, it'll be intersting to see the follow-up act.