Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from Jay Gelb of Barclays Capital. Please proceed.
Jay Gelb - Barclays Capital
Thanks. Good morning. On the excess capital position, how much of that do you intend to deploy into buybacks and over what time frame?
Constantine Iordanou
Well, Jay this is a discussion we're going to have at our next board meeting. Right now, I only have 350 million authorization remaining from the existing authorization.
As I said in my prepared remarks, usually we're not aggressive in share buybacks during the third quarter because even to the last few weeks, you still accept storms that might or might not happen. We'll probably be a little more aggressive in the fourth quarter but that's the discussion as John said that we're going to have with the board and as -- once we make decisions, we'll will probably announce them for everybody to know what that decision is.
Jay Gelb - Barclays Capital
And when is the board meeting Dinos?
Constantine Iordanou
It's next week.
Jay Gelb - Barclays Capital
Okay, thanks. And then separately, can you talk about -- you mentioned the weighting -- weight increases across the portfolio. Given what's happen in terms of recovery of balance sheets and still some stock demand in the economy, what do you -- what your sense in the outlook and on the persistency of those price increases?
Constantine Iordanou
Well there is two school of thoughts when give you some -- I was more bullish in the first quarter and second quarter than I am today. In the third quarter because of the recovery of the asset side of the balance sheets for most of our competitors and the benign cap activity, it makes people to be more competitive in my view.
On the other hand they are recognizing that when you strip out reserve releases, favorable development and you factor in normalized cash instead of livecad activity, the current action is they're not anything to home about, they still produce the returns but they are closer to the 10% range and that's not what we try to achieve, our long-term strategy is to achieve 15% ROEs over a long period of time.
I having said that I believe, we're going to be in a competitive market place for probably another year or two until you see some pain in the balance sheets. We can not see as of yet for most companies in the next four to five quarters. So, but in a very low interest rate environment, people are getting cautious and that's why you're seeing the leveling of price reductions.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
