2008, a challenging year

The Annual Report 2008 is a complete overview of Atradius’ performance in 2008. It includes information in the Annual Review 2008 together with the full annual accounts and additional financial information. The Annual Review 2008 is a concise overview of our activities, performance and strategy in the past year.

January 2008 started with the completion of the business combination with Crédito y Caución becoming part of the Atradius Group. This acquisition raised Atradius’ profile in Spain and Portugal and resulted in a larger and more diversified insurance group with a global market share of approximately 31% and an increased capital base.

During the second half of 2008 however, the risk environment deteriorated rapidly, particularly in Spain, which following the combination became the company’s largest market. The net claims ratio for the second half of 2008 was 134.2% compared to 62.8% in the first half of 2008. Dedicated and tailored measures in both buyer and policy underwriting have been implemented in order to rebalance the risk-return ratio and to guide customers through the economic cycle.

Service revenues excluding information fees increased 20.3% to EUR 74.3 million. Debt collection income which contributes 74% of the service revenues grew, 19.7% benefiting from growing payment defaults and demand. Here the counter-cyclical characteristics of the industry materialise. Atradius Collections geographic presence was expanded to 18 countries in 2008 with the addition of new offices in the Czech Republic and Mexico.

Mr Unda, CEO of Atradius commented, “The current business environment will provide us with many new opportunities to grow our service income, most notably our debt collections revenues. The expansion of our debt collections capabilities over the last two years has put us in a much stronger position to capitalise on these opportunities.”