Hanover Insurance
 |
|
| Public | |
| Traded as | : THG S&P 400 Component |
| Industry | Insurance |
| Founded | 1852 |
| Headquarters | Worcester, Massachusetts, United States |
|
Key people
|
Joseph M. Zubretsky President and Chief Executive Officer |
| Website | http://www.hanover.com/ |
The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc., based in Worcester, Massachusetts, is one of the oldest continuous businesses in the United States still operating within its original industry. It was the original name of a property-liability insurance firm born in 1852, and it remained a publicly traded company under that name until the early 1990s, when it changed its name to Allmerica Property & Casualty Companies.
In 1996 it spun off Allmerica Financial Corporation as a property and casualty insurance and financial services holding company, which then bought out the original firm, and grew to become one of the 500 largest publicly traded companies of the United States. In 2005, Allmerica Financial Corporation reverted its name to "The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc.".
The Hanover Insurance Group was established in 1852. It paid a cash dividend to shareholders every year since 1853.
Though remaining a relatively small company over the next 1¼ centuries, Between 1971 and 1983, Hanover's price, from its low point early within that decade, multiplied in price by over 23 times at its eventual peak. During the late end of that period, in 1981, it split its shares three-for-two. The stock was traded publicly on the Over the Counter (OTC) exchange, as the NASDAQ was still commonly referred to back then.
The rapid growth of the company continued into the mid-1980s, and in 1984 it split again, two-for-one, and by 1985 nearly doubled in price once more, trading then at a high price/earnings ratio of 61. At that time the company was debt-free, and carried a book value of nearly US$330 million. However, by then the company's earnings had fallen to about a third of what they had been in the early 1980s.
In 1987, the company split its stock two-for-one again, and was yet again on its way to another double in price, even as its PE ratio dropped back down to a bargain five times earnings. Those earnings had grown to nearly US$100 million, more than double what the company had earned at the prior peak of 1981. Book value by 1987 stood at US$550 million.
However, by the early 1990s recession, Hanover's earnings had declined once more, to about US$50 million.
In 1993, earnings reached another peak, up fivefold from the recession years, at over US$250 million. The stock price also reached another multi-year peak that year.
By 1994, Hanover Insurance had changed its name to Allmerica Property & Casualty Companies, Inc., and had moved from the NASDAQ to the , where it traded publicly under the new symbol, APY. The company's rapid growth was back on track, as the company shares again split, three-for-one in 1994. By 1994, book value had doubled from the late 1980s to $US 1.2 billion.
...
Wikipedia