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MHNC, Maiden Holdings, Ltd.
Maiden Global had previously operated internationally by providing branded auto and credit life insurance products through insurer partners, particularly those in Europe and other global markets.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- Situation
- Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand.
- What moves the needle
- Underwriting discipline and the float. What decides it: whether the combined ratio stays below 100% so the policies make money on their own, how large the float is against equity, and what that float earns once it is invested. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- The underwriting result is not cleanly tagged in the filings. Book value per share, the measure Berkshire is judged on, has compounded about −33% a year across the record. The float runs about 20.2× equity, the leverage that magnifies both the underwriting and the investing. Whether the discipline holds through a soft market, and how the float is invested, are what the 10-K decides.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2015–2024
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2015’15 | 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | TTMTTMMar 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $2.6B | $2.1B | $2.1B | $2.2B | $576M | $184M | $99M | $58M | $89M | $56M | $45M | RevenueRevenue |
| $2.4B | $1.9B | $2.0B | $2.0B | $448M | $106M | $53M | $38M | $44M | $49M | $45M | Premiums earnedPremiums |
| $124M | $49M | ($170M) | ($545M) | ($132M) | $42M | $27M | ($60M) | ($39M) | ($201M) | ($211M) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 2% | 1% | — | — | — | -0% | 0% | — | — | — | — | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $634M | $470M | $459M | $182M | ($1.1B) | ($542M) | ($394M) | ($196M) | ($60M) | ($67M) | ($97M) | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| ≈ 101% | ≈ 102% | ≈ 115% | ≈ 129% | ≈ 153% | ≈ 139% | ≈ 151% | — | — | — | — | Combined ratioCombined |
| 67% | 67% | 78% | 93% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Loss ratioLoss |
| 9% | 4% | -14% | -98% | -26% | 8% | 7% | -21% | -15% | -445% | -562% | Return on equityROE |
| 6% | 0% | −18% | −106% | −26% | — | — | — | — | — | −562% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $1.5B | $1.8B | $2.5B | $3.1B | $2.4B | $1.9B | $1.5B | $1.1B | $867M | $794M | $757M | Float (reserves)Float |
| $5.7B | $6.3B | $6.6B | $5.3B | $3.6B | $2.9B | $2.3B | $1.8B | $1.5B | $1.3B | $1.2B | Total assetsAssets |
| $90M | $41M | $54M | $201M | $48M | $74M | $27M | $31M | $35M | $26M | $29M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $1.3B | $1.4B | $1.2B | $554M | $508M | $528M | $384M | $285M | $249M | $45M | $38M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 85.6M | 78.7M | 85.7M | 83.1M | 83.1M | 84.3M | 86.1M | 87.1M | 101M | 99.9M | 99.1M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $1.45 | $0.62 | $-1.98 | $-6.56 | $-1.59 | $0.50 | $0.31 | $-0.69 | $-0.38 | $-2.01 | $-2.13 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $0.45 | $0.55 | $0.60 | $0.50 | $0.00 | — | — | — | — | — | $0.00 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $15.74 | $17.29 | $14.38 | $6.67 | $6.11 | $6.26 | $4.46 | $3.27 | $2.46 | $0.45 | $0.38 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | −35.7%/yr | −39.4%/yr |
| Book value / share | −32.6%/yr | −40.6%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2015–2024Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 84%
What this means
Premiums or claims weren't found in the filing data.
- Return on equity −445%Loss on equityNet income ($201M) ÷ equity $45MIndustry peers: median 12%
What this means
What it earns on shareholders' capital, the underwriting result plus what the float earns invested. Durably above the ~10% cost of equity is what compounds book value.
The float
- Float (reserves) $794M17.6× equityLoss and claim reserves $794M, 17.6× equity
What this means
Money held against future claims and invested in the meantime. Buffett's insight was that good underwriting makes this float cost less than nothing, a pool of other people's money the owners earn on. Measured here from loss and claim reserves only; it excludes unearned premiums and funds held, so the true float is somewhat larger than shown. The larger it is against equity, the more that leverage works, for better or worse.
- Not enough data
What this means
Net investment income wasn't found.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow recordGoodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.
$59M written down across 2 years (2016, 2018): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.
Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.
Peers, Insurance — Property & Casualty
The same industry, side by side on the underwriting lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | Combined ratio | Loss ratio | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASICAtegrity Specialty Insurance Company Holdings | $424M | 91% | 59% | 12% |
| ACICAmerican Coastal Insurance Corporation | $335M | — | 62% | 2% |
| AMSFAMERISAFE Inc. | $317M | 84% | 57% | 18% |
| NODKNI Holdings Inc. | $285M | — | 69% | 3% |
| AIIAmerican Integrity Insurance Group Inc. | $276M | 66% | 40% | 30% |
| KWYKingsway Corporation | $135M | — | — | -60% |
| MHNCMaiden Holdings, Ltd. | $56M | 129% | 73% | -15% |
| KGKestrel Group Ltd. | $34M | — | 71% | 36% |
| Group median | — | 87% | 62% | 7% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookAn insurer is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what Maiden Holdings, Ltd.’s record justifies.
Tangible book / share, delivered−37%/yr’19→’24
The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). An insurer earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; the premium above that prices each point of durable excess return. A higher cost of equity lowers the justified multiple for an insurer.
Enter a price above to run it.
Graham applied the same standards to financial enterprises (Intelligent Investor ch.14): the 15× multiple cap on averaged earnings, and P/E times price-to-book at most 22.5. The gate marks the bargain-hunter’s floor, not a verdict.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Tangible book $38M on 100M shares, a −15% normalized return on it. The dials set the multiple such a return would justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. It assumes the insurer keeps earning that return; an underwriting cycle, a reserve shortfall or a bad year on the float changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.
Manual order: ← MHLA its page in the Manual MHO →
Industry order: ← MHLA the Insurance — Property & Casualty chapter MKL →