This spinoff has strong backing

Article Excerpt

TRISURA GROUP LTD. $27 (Toronto symbol TSU; Finance Sector; Shares outstanding: 6.6 million; Market cap: $178.2 million; No dividends paid; Takeover Target Rating: Medium; www.trisura.com) offers insurance in three areas: Risk Solutions provides warranties for manufactured products; Surety Insurance guarantees that specific tasks are completed; and Corporate Insurance and Reinsurance offers policies to professionals to cover malpractice and defamation. Brookfield Asset Management (Toronto symbol BAM.A) spun off Trisura in June 2017. Investors received one Trisura share for every 170 Class A or Class B shares they held. In the quarter ended September 30, 2018, Trisura’s gross premiums rose 58.6%, to $57.3 million from $36.1 million a year earlier. Earnings per share jumped 77.1%, to $0.62 from $0.35. In the latest quarter, the company’s combined ratio (the claims paid out divided by the premiums taken in—the lower, the better) improved to 85.5% from 90.2% a year earlier. Trisura aims to grow through a mix of increased business for its existing operations as well as the acquisition of smaller…