Atrium lost £1.9m before tax in the first six months of the year despite being able to charge high prices and suffering relatively low losses.

The Lloyd's operator put the result down to past losses and the bad investment environment.

It lost £8.2m in the same period last year.

Before tax and amortisation, Atrium scored an operating profit of £1.4m compared to a loss of £3.2m the time before.

The company said profits were now "foreseeable".

Gross premiums written in the period increased to £80m from £54m the same period last year.

Atrium started the year with 34% of its directly held investments in equities. Sales and falling stock markets pushed this figure down to just under 25%. The fund lost 1.6% of its value over the six months.

Topics