S&P’s upgrades XL Group’s outlook to ‘Stable’

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has revised its outlook on XL Group Ltd. and its subsidiaries to ‘Stable’ from ‘Negative.’Standard & Poor’s also affirmed its ‘A’ counterparty credit and financial strength ratings on XL Group’s core insurance subsidiaries and its ‘BBB+’ counterparty credit ratings on the holding companies.”The revision of the outlook to stable recognizes the group’s success in strengthening its capitalization and financial flexibility,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Steven Ader. “It has done so by de-risking its investment portfolio while sustaining strong operating results and a strong, stable competitive profile.” S&P’s added it believed XL still “has a higher potential for realized investment losses and potential losses from runoff businesses than its property/casualty peers,” but it has “markedly reduced this potential, and we do not anticipate that any such losses would materially detract from the group’s continued strong operating performance.”S&P’s further revised its assessment of the group’s enterprise risk management to ‘Strong.’