Berkshire’s Verisk Heads for Record Plunge on Revenue Slump

November 7, 2013 Leave a comment

Verisk Heads for Record Plunge on Revenue Slump

Verisk Analytics Inc. (VRSK), the supplier of actuarial and risk data to banks and insurers, headed for the biggest drop since its 2009 public offering after revenue missed analysts’ estimates as growth slowed in the health segment. Verisk slumped 8.4 percent to $62.12 at 10:02 a.m. Shares of the Jersey City, New Jersey-based company advanced 22 percent this year, compared with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s 24 percent climb. Third-quarter revenue of $438.6 million fell short of the average $444.8 million estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 13 analysts. Sales tied to health care at the decision-analytics operation climbed 6.2 percent from the third quarter of 2012 to $73.6 million, the company said in a statement late yesterday. That compares with a 21 percent increase in the second quarter. “We’d expect this slowdown to generate some concerns and questions,” William Clark, an analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods, said in a research note following Verisk’s earnings report. “Certainly something to keep an eye on.” Net income for the quarter rose 16 percent to $96.4 million on growth in its insurance and financial-services business, Verisk said in the statement. “Our health-care business delivered growth that was below our plan,” the company said in the statement. “But we remain enthusiastic about our longer-term outlook.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Marci Jacobs in New York at mjacobs63@bloomberg.net

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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