Rating strengthened

Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) has affirmed North P&I Club’s “A” financial strength rating and stable outlook for the 13th consecutive year. The rating covers North P&I Club and its subsidiary Sunderland Marine. S&P has also strengthened its assessment of North Group’s capital adequacy from very strong (“AA”) to extremely strong (“AAA”). According to S&P, North Group has very strong capital and earnings, supported by an extremely strong capital adequacy. It said: “Our base-case scenario anticipates this will be sufficient to support the Group’s strategy for the next three years and that the free reserves of the combined Group entities will be sufficient to maintain capital adequacy at the ‘AAA’ level for the 2018 and 2019 financial years.”