ASSURED GUARANTY LTD

The Company continually evaluates its business strategies and is currently pursuing key business strategies in three areas: (i) insurance; (ii) asset management and alternative investments; and (iii) capital management.

The Company seeks to grow the insurance business through new business production, acquisitions of legacy financial guarantors or reinsurance of their insured portfolios, and to continue to mitigate losses in its current insured portfolio.

Growth of the Insured Portfolio

The Company seeks to grow its financial guaranty insurance portfolio through new business production in each of its markets: public finance (including infrastructure) and structured finance. The Company believes high-profile defaults by municipal obligors, such as Puerto Rico, Detroit, Michigan and Stockton, California as well as events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have led to increased awareness of the value of bond insurance and stimulated demand for the product. The Company believes there will be continued demand for its insurance in this market because, for those exposures that the Company guarantees, it undertakes the tasks of credit selection, analysis, negotiation of terms, surveillance and, if necessary, loss mitigation. The Company believes that its insurance: (i) encourages retail investors, who typically have fewer resources than the Company for analyzing municipal bonds, to purchase such bonds; (ii) enables institutional investors to operate more efficiently; and (iii) allows smaller, less well-known issuers to gain market access on a more cost-effective basis.

The low interest rate environment and tight U.S. municipal credit spreads from when the financial crisis began in 2008 through early 2020 dampened demand for bond insurance compared to the levels before the financial crisis. After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, credit spreads initially widened as a result of market concerns about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on some municipal credits, thereby improving demand for financial guaranty insurance even in a low interest rate environment, before narrowing again in 2022. The Company believes that, over time, wider credit spreads may improve demand for bond insurance.

In certain segments of the infrastructure and structured finance markets, the Company believes its financial guaranty product is competitive with other financing options. For example, certain investors may receive advantageous capital requirement treatment with the addition of the Company’s guaranty. The Company considers its involvement in both infrastructure and structured finance transactions to be beneficial because such transactions diversify both the Company’s business opportunities and its risk profile beyond U.S. public finance. The timing of new business production in the infrastructure and structured finance sectors is influenced by typically long lead times and therefore may vary from period to period.

U.S. Municipal Market Data and Bond Insurance Penetration Rates (1)

Based on Sale Date

(1) Source: The amounts in the table are those reported by Thomson Reuters. The table excludes Corporate-CUSIP transactions insured by Assured Guaranty, certain of which the Company also considers to be public finance business.

The Company also considers opportunities to acquire financial guaranty portfolios, whether by acquiring financial guarantors who are no longer actively writing new business or their insured portfolios, generally through reinsurance. These transactions enable the Company to improve its future earnings and deploy excess capital.

Loss Mitigation

In an effort to avoid, reduce or recover losses and potential losses in its insurance portfolio, the Company employs a number of strategies.

In the public finance area, the Company believes its experience and the resources it is prepared to deploy, as well as its ability to provide bond insurance or other contributions as part of a solution, result in more favorable outcomes in distressed public finance situations than would be the case without its participation. This has been illustrated by the Company’s role in negotiating various agreements in connection with the restructuring of obligations of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and various obligations of its related authorities and public corporations, as well as Detroit, Michigan and Stockton, California. The Company will also, where appropriate, pursue litigation to enforce its rights. For example, the Company initiated a number of legal actions to enforce its rights with respect to obligations of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and various obligations of its related authorities and public corporations.

After over five years of negotiations, 2022 was a turning point for resolving a substantial portion of the Company’s Puerto Rico exposure in accordance with four orders entered by the United States District Court of the District of Puerto Rico (Federal District Court of Puerto Rico) related to the Company’s exposure to all defaulting Puerto Rico credits except PREPA (2022 Puerto Rico Resolutions) as discussed in Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 3, Outstanding Exposure — Exposure to Puerto Rico.

As a result of the 2022 Puerto Rico Resolutions, the Company’s obligations under its insurance policies covering debt of the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority (PRCCDA) and Puerto Rico Infrastructure Authority (PRIFA) were extinguished, and its insurance exposure to Puerto Rico general obligations (GO) bonds, Public Buildings Authority (PBA) bonds and Puerto Rico Highway and Transportation Authority (PRHTA) bonds was greatly reduced. The Company believes the 2022 Puerto Rico Resolutions mark significant milestones in its Puerto Rico loss mitigation efforts. In connection with the 2022 Puerto Rico Resolutions, the Company received substantial amounts of cash, new general obligation bonds (New GO Bonds) and new bonds backed by toll revenues (Toll Bonds, and together with New GO Bonds, New Recovery Bonds) and contingent value instruments (CVIs) associated with its direct exposures. The Company has sold some of the New Recovery Bonds and CVIs it had received in connection with the 2022 Puerto Rico Resolutions and may continue to sell amounts it still retains, subject to market conditions. The Company continues to work to resolve its remaining unresolved defaulted Puerto Rico exposure, PREPA. For more information about developments in Puerto Rico and related recovery litigation being pursued by the Company, see Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 3, Outstanding Exposure, and the Insured Portfolio section below.

The Company is, and for several years has been, working with the servicers of some of the RMBS transactions it insures to encourage the servicers to provide alternatives to distressed borrowers that will encourage them to continue making payments on their loans to help improve the performance of the related RMBS.

The Company may also purchase attractively priced obligations, including BIG obligations, that it has insured and for which it had expected losses to be paid, in order to mitigate the economic effect of insured losses (Loss Mitigation Securities). The fair value of Loss Mitigation Securities as of December 31, 2023 (excluding the value of the Company’s insurance) was $459 million.

In some instances, the terms of the Company’s policy give it the option to pay principal on an accelerated basis on an obligation on which it has paid a claim, thereby reducing the amount of guaranteed interest due in the future. The Company has at times exercised this option, which uses cash but reduces projected future losses. The Company may also facilitate the issuance of refunding bonds, by either providing insurance on the refunding bonds or purchasing refunding bonds, or both. Refunding bonds may provide the issuer with payment relief.

Asset Management and Alternative Investments

Until July 1, 2023, the Company pursued its asset management strategy through AssuredIM. With the consummation of the Sound Point Transaction and AHP Transaction, effective as of July 1, 2023, the Company participates in the asset management business through its ownership interest in Sound Point, and no longer directly manages investments for third parties.The Company’s ownership interest in Sound Point furthers its strategy of participating in a fee-based earnings stream independent of the risk-based premiums generated by its financial guaranty business. The Sound Point business was strengthened by the addition of AssuredIM’s AUM (excluding AUM relating to AHP). See Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 1, Business and Basis of Presentation, for a description of the Sound Point Transaction.

The Company expects its relationship with Sound Point to also enhance its alternative investment opportunities. Upon closing of the Sound Point Transaction and the AHP Transaction in July, the Company has increased the aggregate amount it has agreed to invest in alternative investments to $1.5 billion, including $1 billion in Sound Point managed investments, subject to regulatory approval. Of the $1.5 billion, the U.S. Insurance Subsidiaries through their jointly owned investment subsidiary, AGAS, are authorized to invest up to $750 million plus previously distributed gains of $108 million for a total of $858 million as of December 31, 2023. As of December 31, 2023, AGAS commitments to funds managed by Sound Point and AHP were $775 million.

Capital Management

The Company has developed strategies to efficiently manage capital within the Assured Guaranty group.

From 2013 through February 27, 2024, the Company has repurchased 145 million common shares for approximately $4.9 billion, representing approximately 75% of the total shares outstanding at the beginning of the repurchase program in 2013. On November 1, 2023, the AGL Board of Directors (the Board) authorized the repurchase of an additional $300 million of its common shares. Under this and previous authorizations, as of February 27, 2024, the Company was authorized to purchase $228 million of its common shares. Shares may be repurchased from time to time in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions. The timing, form and amount of the share repurchases under the program are at the discretion of management and will depend on a variety of factors, including funds available at the parent company, other potential uses for such funds, market conditions, the Company’s capital position, legal requirements and other factors. The repurchase program may be modified, extended or terminated by the Board at any time and it does not have an expiration date. See Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 19, Shareholders’ Equity, for additional information about the Company’s repurchases of its common shares.

Summary of Share Repurchases

As of December 31, 2023, the estimated accretive effect of the cumulative repurchases of common shares since the beginning of 2013 was approximately: $48.26 per share in shareholders’ equity attributable to AGL, $51.79 per share in adjusted operating shareholders’ equity, and $87.10 per share in adjusted book value.

In December 2023, the Maryland Insurance Administration approved, and AGC implemented, the redemption of $200 million of its shares of common stock from AGUS.

The Company considers the appropriate mix of debt and equity in its capital structure. In 2023, the Company issued $350 million in 6.125% Senior Notes due in 2028, and used the proceeds primarily to redeem $330 million of 5% Senior Notes due in 2024. In 2021, the Company also redeemed $600 million in long-dated high coupon debt using a portion of the proceeds from the issuance of $900 million in shorter-dated, lower coupon debt. Proceeds from the debt issuances that were not used to redeem debt were used for general corporate purposes, including share repurchases. Since the second quarter of 2017, AGUS has also purchased $154 million in principal of AGMH’s outstanding Junior Subordinated Debentures.

The Company may choose to redeem or make additional purchases of this or other Company debt in the future. See “— Liquidity and Capital Resources — AGL and its U.S. Holding Companies”, and Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 12, Long-Term Debt and Credit Facilities.