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Text: Before we begin, however, I will remind you that this conference call might include statements that are forward looking in nature.
During the call today we might also discuss non-GAAP financial measures.
Jim, over to you.
What a difference a year makes.
Twelve months ago we were all facing tremendous uncertainty about the future.
A year later, all the personal, social and economic effects of COVID-19 are still impacting each of us individually and collectively.
The outlook at Loews has significantly improved.
Each of our subsidiaries has been affected differently by the pandemic, but across the board, their responses have been extraordinary and each business has found its footing in 2021.
First, let's look at our largest subsidiary, CNA.
The company's operational strength and resilience is evident not only in its underlying combined ratio and rate increases, but also on its ability to respond nimbly to ongoing challenges.
In the first quarter, CNA did experience higher-than-usual cat losses from what I call the Texas Freeze-Off, but its basic business continued to perform well.
CNA's underlying combined ratio of 91.9% improved nearly 2 points over the prior year quarter of 93.7%, with a 1.6 percentage point improvement in the expense ratio.
Rate continues to be strong with an 11% increase in the quarter.
CNA's investment portfolio ended the quarter with $4.3 billion in unrealized gains, down from a high of $5.7 million last quarter, primarily due to higher interest rates.
Over the long term, higher interest rates will be beneficial to CNA, allowing it to invest its cash flow at higher rates than today.
Boardwalk Pipelines has substantial operations in Texas, but the February storm had little financial impact on the company.
Boardwalk's revenues slightly increased due to higher system utilization during the freeze-off as was the case with other companies in the natural gas transportation industry.
The company's solid performance during this crisis was not a lucky accident.
Rather, it was a result of significant preparation, planning and hard work by the Boardwalk team.
The company's considerable efforts paid off and Boardwalk was able to deliver gas to its customers with minimal disruption.
Boardwalk's revenue increased to $370 million in the first quarter of 2021 that was due to growth projects that had been placed into service and the colder winter weather.
Of all our subsidiaries, Loews Hotels has been hit the hardest by the pandemic.
However, as travel picks up across the country, we are seeing gradual progress at Loews Hotels, especially at the company's resort destinations.
By the end of the first quarter of '21, 23 of the company's 27 hotels were open.
In further good news, the company expects to have hotels opened in all its markets by the end of the second quarter.
Comparing the first quarter of 2021 to the final quarter of 2020, we saw continued improvement in trends.
The average daily room rate of our owned and JV hotels that are open increased by 25% to $234.
Leisure travel continues to improve at a faster pace than business travel, and while we expect that circumstances will vary by hotel property, occupancy at hotels should increase gradually as the economy recovers from the pandemic.
Loews Hotels has an ownership interest in nearly 15,000 rooms, approximately 11,000 of which are located in resort destinations.
So we think that Loews Hotels is well positioned to benefit from this leisure-led recovery.
When acquiring a subsidiary, our long-term goal is to have that subsidiary return capital to Loews when the time is appropriate.
Loews acquired Altium in 2017 for $1.2 billion; that was $600 million in equity and $600 million in debt at the Altium level.
In February of 2021, Altium refinanced its term loans and replaced its roughly $850 million of debt with a new $1.05 billion seven-year term loan, allowing the company to pay $200 million dividend to Loews.
And a month later, on April 1, Loews sold 47% stake in Altium to GIC, the Singapore wealth fund, for gross cash proceeds of $422 million.
With these two transactions, Loews has recouped its entire initial investment in Altium while still retaining a 53% ownership interest in the company.
From a portfolio optimization standpoint, we felt the time was right for us to monetize a portion of Loews's ownership stake in Altium.
We believe strongly in the long-term prospects of Altium's business and it's our opinion that the Altium management team is second to none in the industry.
By retaining a majority ownership position, Loews will be able to capitalize on the future growth trajectory of the company.
Additionally, we have gained a strong and like-minded partner in GIC.
Under the new ownership structure, Altium has increased in financial flexibility when it comes to larger acquisitions.
Finally, so far in 2021 Loews has purchased more than 6,150,000 shares of our common stock at an average price of $49.58 per share for a total of $305 million, representing 2.3% of our outstanding shares.
Many a time you've heard me bemoan the discount at which Loews trades.
So I'll spare you the rant this time and just let our repurchase activity speak for itself.
David, over to you.
For the first quarter, Loews reported net income of $261 million or $0.97 per share, a sharp rebound from last year's first quarter net loss of $632 million or $2.20 per share.
As a reminder, last year's net loss had two main drivers.
One, investment results at CNA and the Loews parent company stemming from financial market disruptions as the pandemic spread; and second, rig impairments at our former consolidated subsidiary, Diamond Offshore.
This year's first quarter benefited from dramatically improved investment results at CNA and the parent company; strong P&C underwriting income at CNA before catastrophe losses; and favorable results posted by Boardwalk Pipelines.
Also, the year-over-year comparison benefited from the absence of losses from Diamond Offshore.
Conversely, losses at Loews Hotels reduced quarterly results as the pandemic continued to mute travel and thus hotel demand.
Additionally, earnings in the corporate segment were reduced by some items related to Altium, our packaging subsidiary.
Let me get into more detail about the quarter.
CNA contributed net income of $279 million, up dramatically from a $55 million net loss in Q1 2020.
The year-over-year turnaround was driven primarily by investment results, both net investment income and net investment gains.
But before I discuss investment results, I wanted to highlight CNA's continued solid property/casualty underwriting performance.
CNA's core property/casualty business posted terrific underwriting results before catastrophe losses.
Net earned premium was up almost 6% year-over-year, and the combined ratio, excluding cat losses, was 91.3%, 1.7 points better than last year's first quarter and 1.1 points better than full year 2020.
The loss ratio, excluding cats, was 59.5%, an excellent result that was in line with last year's first quarter and with full year 2020.
I would note that prior-year development was comparable this year and last, with less than 1 point of favorable development in both periods.
CNA's expense ratio, which, together with the loss ratio, makes up the combined ratio, declined to 31.5%, which was 1.6 points better than in Q1 2020.
The Company's expense ratio improvement is notable and results from both expense management and premium growth.
As an historical footnote, the Company's expense ratio in, say, 2017, was over 34%, so you can see how far CNA has come in a few short years.
CNA booked 6.8 points of cat losses in Q1, up from 4.3 points in last year's first quarter.
As a result, the Company's overall combined ratio was up slightly to 98.1% from 97.3% last year.
I would highlight that CNA's Q1 cat losses were essentially in line with its market share in the affected areas.
CNA's after-tax net investment income increased $133 million or 48% from last year, with common stocks and limited partnership investments accounting for the entire improvement.
The S&P 500 returned 6.2% in this year's first quarter as compared to a negative 19.6% total return in Q1 of last year.
The turnaround in CNA's net investment gains were substantial, swinging from net pre-tax investment losses of $216 million in Q1 '20 to investment gains of $57 million in Q1 '21.
Last year's large losses were mainly attributable to market value declines of non-redeemable preferred stock as well as impairment losses on corporate bonds.
Taken together, the uplift in CNA's net investment income and the turnaround in its net investment gains benefited Loews' year-over-year net income by $306 million.
In summary, CNA's investment and non-cat underwriting results were strong during the quarter, with CNA and its peers impacted by an unusually high level of natural catastrophes.
Boardwalk posted an over 8% increase in net revenue and a net income contribution of $85 million, up from $65 million in last year's first quarter.
Turning to Loews Hotels.
While the company continues to suffer from the COVID-induced downturn in travel, business is gradually improving, as Jim described.
The company posted a net loss of $43 million in the quarter versus a net loss of $25 million in Q1 '20.
GAAP operating revenue was $39 million, down from $109 million last year, and the pre-tax equity loss from joint venture properties was $12 million as opposed to a $4 million loss last year.
In last year's first quarter, business was quite strong during January and February and into the first week of March, only to decline precipitously thereafter; so precipitously, in fact, that most properties suspended operations between March '19 and the end of the quarter.
To provide a comparative sense of the hotel company's results, let's look at adjusted EBITDA, which is defined and reconciled in our earnings supplement.
It includes all properties and excludes non-recurring items.
Adjusted EBITDA was $61 million in Q1 of 2019 and declined to $17 million in Q1 of 2020 and was a loss of $13 million in this year's first quarter.
The low point for profitability was last year's second quarter when Loews Hotels posted an adjusted EBITDA loss of $54 million.
Adjusted EBITDA has improved steadily since that low point as business has steadily come back.
For a good snapshot of this operational improvement, I would encourage you to review page 11 of our quarterly earnings supplement, which shows the increase in available rooms, occupancy and average daily rate since Q2 last year.
We currently expect, absent any divestitures or development projects, to make a net cash contribution to Loews Hotels of less than $80 million in 2021, down materially from our earlier estimates, given better-than-anticipated cash flow.
During the first quarter, we invested $32 million in Loews Hotels.
Turning to the Corporate segment.
The parent company's investment portfolio generated net pre-tax income of $46 million as compared to a loss of $166 million last year.
Like at CNA, equities and alternatives led the decline last year and the rebound this year.
The remainder of the corporate sector generated a $75 million pre-tax and $106 million after-tax loss in the quarter.
Two main factors, both connected to Altium, drove this larger than normal loss.
One, Altium undertook a recapitalization during the quarter, refinancing its existing term loans with a single $1.05 billion term loan; the company booked a $14 million pre-tax debt extinguishment charge in connection with the recap.
And second, the sale of a 47% stake in Altium to GIC, which was pending at quarter-end, required Loews to book a $35 million deferred tax liability which impacted net income but not pre-tax income.
Diamond Offshore materially affected our year-over-year earnings comparison, given Diamond's $452 million net loss in last year's first quarter, driven largely by rig impairments.
Diamond was consolidated effective April 26, 2020 and had no impact on our results this past quarter.
A few words about the parent company.
As always, we remain determined to maintain a strong and liquid balance sheet.
During the quarter, we repurchased 5.6 million shares of our common stock for $274 million, and we received about $274 million in dividends from CNA in the quarter, including the $0.38 regular quarterly dividend and the $0.75 special dividend.
We also received, as Jim mentioned, $199 million dividend from Altium pursuant to its recapitalization.
The parent company portfolio of cash and investments stood at $3.6 billion at quarter-end, with about 80% in cash and equivalents.
After quarter-end, we received about $410 million in net proceeds from the sale of 47% of Altium and have repurchased another 599,000 shares of common stock for about $32 million.
Finally, let me clarify some details relating to the sale of a stake in Altium to GIC.
The transaction price implied a total enterprise value of $2 billion for the company and a total equity value of about $900 million.
As a reminder, we purchased the company for a total enterprise value of $1.2 billion in 2017 and have not invested any additional capital in Altium since the acquisition.
In the second quarter, upon deconsolidation, we will book a net pre-tax gain of approximately $560 million, which reflects both the net realized gain on the stake sold to GIC and the unrealized gain on our retained 53% stake.
The 53% stake will be held as an equity investment in a non-consolidated subsidiary at approximately $475 million, reflecting the valuation implied by the price paid by GIC for its 47% stake.
I will now hand the call back to Mary.
Moving on to the Q&A portion of the call.

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compname reports net income of $261 mln.
compname reports net income of $261 million for the first quarter of 2021.
q1 earnings per share $0.97.

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