UPDATE: Credit Suisse Upgrades Aspen Insurance Holdings to Outperform on Restructuring Initiatives

Credit Suisse upgraded Aspen Insurance Holdings AHL from Neutral to Outperform and increased the price target from $30.00 to $44.00. Credit Suisse commented, "We are upgrading our rating to Outperform (from Neutral) based on expense ratio improvement, a small ($400mn) but growing U.S. specialty lines platform, the potential for additional capital management, a conservative reserving philosophy and a stock that is trading at just 0.90x book value. … Aside from AHL's initiative to become less of an outlier in regards to its investment portfolio asset allocations which will help offset low interest rate pressures, management also recently announced the pairing back of its primary property insurance writings in the U.S., which will free up $200mn of capital via ~$135mn of lost premium volumes." Aspen Insurance Holdings closed at $36.79 on Friday.