James River Group Holdings Ltd (NASDAQ:JRVR) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 3, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Brett Shirreffs - Senior Vice President of Finance, Investments & Head of Investor Relations

Frank D’Orazio - Chief Executive Officer & Director

Sarah Doran - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Brian Meredith - UBS

Meyer Shields - KBW

Tracy Benguigui - Barclays

Mark Hughes - Truist Securities

Operator

Good day everyone and welcome to today's -- and welcome to the James River Group Q1 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] And finally, I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. Thank you. I'd now like to welcome Brett Shirreffs, Head of Investor Relations, to begin the conference. Over to you.

Brett Shirreffs

Thanks and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the James River Group first quarter 2023 earnings conference call.

During the call, we will be making forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current beliefs, intentions, expectations and assumptions that are subject to various risks and uncertainties which may cause results -- actual results to differ materially. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, please see the cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements in yesterday's earnings release and the risk factors of our most recent Form 10-K and other reports and filings we have made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, during this presentation, we may reference non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted net operating income, underwriting profit, tangible equity, tangible common equity and adjusted net operating return on tangible common equity.

Please refer to our earnings press release for a reconciliation of these numbers to GAAP. A copy of which can be found on our website at www.jrvrgroup.com. Lastly, unless otherwise specified for reasons described in our earnings press release, all underwriting performance ratios referred to are for our business that is not subject to retroactive reinsurance accounting for loss portfolio transfers.

I will now turn the call over to Frank D’Orazio, Chief Executive Officer of James River Group.

Frank D’Orazio

Thank you for that introduction, Brett. Good morning and welcome to everyone on the call. I'm pleased to be joining you today to provide additional color on our strong first quarter results, while also sharing some thoughts on market conditions and growth opportunities for our company.

The results we released last night demonstrated a continuation of the positive momentum we established 5 quarters ago as we delivered another strong quarter of consistent mid-double-digit returns on tangible equity. We delivered impressive premium growth in our flagship E&S segment in concert with solid underwriting profitability and a meaningful increase in our investment income. Additionally, our shareholders continue to benefit from the strategic actions we executed in prior quarters to protect our balance sheet. All in, we produced adjusted net operating income of $21.6 million our highest quarterly total in more than 3 years. Our adjusted net operating return on tangible common equity ex AOCI was 16.3% in the first quarter which is consistent with the guidance we provided on our fourth quarter call and by all means a very strong result.