9/18/2008- Statement on Financial Services Market and Knights of Columbus

By Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson

 

The upheaval in the financial markets in recent days has caused a great deal of concern virtually everywhere among financial services professionals, regulators, and consumers alike.  Every major financial institution has been affected by the turmoil because of the complexity of our economy, and we are no exception.  Nevertheless, I am able to report to you that because of our very conservative approach to investing our $14 billion in assets, the impact on the Knights of Columbus as not been material - far smaller than for many other organizations.   We purposefully avoided investing in the highly structured and highly leveraged investments that brought disaster to some of Americas most well known companies.  As Standard & Poor’s noted just one month ago when they reaffirmed our AAA rating for the 16^th consecutive year, our “liquidity is viewed as extremely strong with a liquidity ratio of 246% at year end 2007, reflecting an asset portfolio that consist primarily of high quality  investment grade bonds.”  Standard & Poor’s also called our capital adequacy “among the strongest in the industry,” and said that our “investment portfolio has very strong credit quality.”  Our capitalization is, and remains, “extremely strong.”  Our surplus stood at more than $1.7 billion on June 30 of this year, provided an unusually large cushion of protection against market turmoil of the sort we have seen in recent weeks.  In one crucial area that sets us completely apart from some firms which had leveraged their debt to dangerous levels, we have no debt at all on our balance sheets.   As a result, our financial condition remains extremely strong and you can rest secure in the knowledge that you are protected by one of the strongest and most reliable insurance programs in the entire industry.

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