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Business Wire
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
AM Best Affirms Credit Ratings of CESCE México, S.A. de C.V. and CESCE Fianzas México, S.A. de C.V.
MEXICO CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of B++ (Good), the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings of 'bbb' (Good) and the Mexico National Scale Rating of ' (Superior) of CESCE México, S.A. de C.V. (CESCEM) and its affiliate, CESCE Fianzas México, S.A. de C.V. (CESCEF). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. Both companies are domiciled in Mexico City, Mexico. The ratings of CESCEM and CESCEF reflect the companies' balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as very strong, as well as their marginal operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management (ERM). The ratings of CESCEM and CESCEF also reflect their affiliation with Compañía Española de Seguros de Crédito a la Exportación, S.A. Compañía de Seguros y Reaseguros (CESCE), which provides underwriting and business expertise, policies and procedures, and reinsurance support. Partially offsetting these positive rating factors for CESCEM and CESCEF are the competitive market dynamics in Mexico's credit insurance and surety segments. CESCEM is 51% owned by CESCE's subsidiary, Consorcio Internacional de Aseguradores de Credito, S.A. (CIAC), and 49% owned by Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior, a Mexico-based development bank. CESCEM specializes exclusively in credit insurance and ranks in the top five of Mexico's credit insurance segment. CESCEF began operations in 2011 and is wholly owned by CIAC. CESCEF currently has a small share of Mexico's surety market. The company's business portfolio is concentrated almost completely in administrative surety, which is consistent with the portfolios of other market participants. AM Best assesses the companies' business profile as limited given their concentration on one business line, with relatively small participation, in very competitive markets. AM Best assesses the companies' balance sheet strength as very strong, given their historical strongest level of risk-adjusted capitalization, as measured by Best's Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), denoting sound capitalization levels that effectively cover risk exposures. The companies' ERM is assessed as appropriate given their well-established practices and defined risk appetites substantially through a conservative underwriting and investment policy, as well as a comprehensive reinsurance program mainly placed with its parent and affiliates, with the remainder placed with high-quality counterparties. CESCEM's operating performance assessment remains as marginal. In 2024, the business volume slightly deteriorated, the claim levels returned to historical levels, the acquisition ratio continued benefiting from the inflow of reinsurance commissions, and the administrative ratio increased considerably. Nonetheless, profitability prevailed due to investment income. CESCEF's operating performance assessment is marginal due to sustained combined ratios that stand above premium sufficiency levels. The challenging growth environment faced in the surety sector, driven by the low volume of public projects, along with CESCEF's small market share, increases the vulnerability of the company's business model. AM Best will monitor the deployment of the company's strategy to strengthen operating performance and achieve consistent profitability. CESCEM's stable outlooks reflect AM Best's expectation that the company will maintain its balance sheet strength assessment at the very strong level as it continues with its prudent underwriting practices. Positive rating actions could occur if the company continues achieving a positive trend that denotes steady premium sufficiency in the medium term. Conversely, negative rating actions could occur if CESCEM's operating performance deteriorates to a level that affects its capital base. CESCEF's stable outlooks reflect AM Best's expectation that the company will maintain its balance sheet strength assessment at the very strong level, in line with prudent underwriting practices, while maintaining its current levels of risk-adjusted capitalization. Negative rating actions could occur as a result of CESCEF's negative bottom-line results eroding the company's capital base, either as a cause of increasing administrative expenses or lower investment income. Although unlikely, positive rating actions could occur if the company achieves a positive trend that denotes steady premium sufficiency in the medium term. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best's website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Best's Credit Ratings, Best's Performance Assessments, Best's Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Best's Ratings & Assessments.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
AM Best Affirms Credit Ratings of CESCE México, S.A. de C.V. and CESCE Fianzas México, S.A. de C.V.
MEXICO CITY, May 30, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of B++ (Good), the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings of "bbb" (Good) and the Mexico National Scale Rating of " (Superior) of CESCE México, S.A. de C.V. (CESCEM) and its affiliate, CESCE Fianzas México, S.A. de C.V. (CESCEF). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. Both companies are domiciled in Mexico City, Mexico. The ratings of CESCEM and CESCEF reflect the companies' balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as very strong, as well as their marginal operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management (ERM). The ratings of CESCEM and CESCEF also reflect their affiliation with Compañía Española de Seguros de Crédito a la Exportación, S.A. Compañía de Seguros y Reaseguros (CESCE), which provides underwriting and business expertise, policies and procedures, and reinsurance support. Partially offsetting these positive rating factors for CESCEM and CESCEF are the competitive market dynamics in Mexico's credit insurance and surety segments. CESCEM is 51% owned by CESCE's subsidiary, Consorcio Internacional de Aseguradores de Credito, S.A. (CIAC), and 49% owned by Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior, a Mexico-based development bank. CESCEM specializes exclusively in credit insurance and ranks in the top five of Mexico's credit insurance segment. CESCEF began operations in 2011 and is wholly owned by CIAC. CESCEF currently has a small share of Mexico's surety market. The company's business portfolio is concentrated almost completely in administrative surety, which is consistent with the portfolios of other market participants. AM Best assesses the companies' business profile as limited given their concentration on one business line, with relatively small participation, in very competitive markets. AM Best assesses the companies' balance sheet strength as very strong, given their historical strongest level of risk-adjusted capitalization, as measured by Best's Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), denoting sound capitalization levels that effectively cover risk exposures. The companies' ERM is assessed as appropriate given their well-established practices and defined risk appetites substantially through a conservative underwriting and investment policy, as well as a comprehensive reinsurance program mainly placed with its parent and affiliates, with the remainder placed with high-quality counterparties. CESCEM's operating performance assessment remains as marginal. In 2024, the business volume slightly deteriorated, the claim levels returned to historical levels, the acquisition ratio continued benefiting from the inflow of reinsurance commissions, and the administrative ratio increased considerably. Nonetheless, profitability prevailed due to investment income. CESCEF's operating performance assessment is marginal due to sustained combined ratios that stand above premium sufficiency levels. The challenging growth environment faced in the surety sector, driven by the low volume of public projects, along with CESCEF's small market share, increases the vulnerability of the company's business model. AM Best will monitor the deployment of the company's strategy to strengthen operating performance and achieve consistent profitability. CESCEM's stable outlooks reflect AM Best's expectation that the company will maintain its balance sheet strength assessment at the very strong level as it continues with its prudent underwriting practices. Positive rating actions could occur if the company continues achieving a positive trend that denotes steady premium sufficiency in the medium term. Conversely, negative rating actions could occur if CESCEM's operating performance deteriorates to a level that affects its capital base. CESCEF's stable outlooks reflect AM Best's expectation that the company will maintain its balance sheet strength assessment at the very strong level, in line with prudent underwriting practices, while maintaining its current levels of risk-adjusted capitalization. Negative rating actions could occur as a result of CESCEF's negative bottom-line results eroding the company's capital base, either as a cause of increasing administrative expenses or lower investment income. Although unlikely, positive rating actions could occur if the company achieves a positive trend that denotes steady premium sufficiency in the medium term. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best's website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Best's Credit Ratings, Best's Performance Assessments, Best's Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Best's Ratings & Assessments. AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit Copyright © 2025 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on Contacts Juan Pablo Castro Associate Financial Analyst +52 55 1102 2720, ext. 133 Olga Rubo, FRM, CPCU Associate Director +52 55 1102 2720, ext. 134 Christopher Sharkey Associate Director, Public Relations +1 908 882 2310 Al Slavin Senior Public Relations Specialist +1 908 882 2318 Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
UK's secret dolphin pool of horrors as ex-trainer has warning for holidaymakers
David Holroyd is a former top dolphin trainer-turned-whistleblower - who says as long as the unwitting public keep paying to see dolphins in captivity, the more animals will die painful deaths If you're going on holiday this summer to Europe, Japan or the USA, chances are you'll see signs to theme parks containing captive dolphins that have been trained to perform tricks for crowds. Some may even offer 'swim with dolphins' experiences for an extra fee, allowing a small number of people to get into the pool with the dolphins to be towed by their dorsal fin, hug them and play with them. But the former top dolphin trainer in the UK, who walked away from the industry after witnessing some of its horrors, has begged holidaymakers not to give a penny to these "hellholes" - because of the death, violence and illegal practices he's claimed to have seen first-hand. David Holroyd, now 72, was best known by his stage name David Capello when he worked with dolphins as a young man in the 1970s. He was forced to leave his beloved animals behind when he suffered a mental breakdown after witnessing brutal scenes of cruelty towards the dolphins - a decision that has haunted him for the rest of his life. Now an author and campaigner, David wants to lift the lid on the conditions of places like Gulf World in Florida and Marineland Antibes in southern France are really like for the intelligent mammals kept imprisoned in too-small tanks. Gulf World Marine Park in Panama Beach City has been criticised for a litany of faults and, on May 28, lost its fifth dolphin within the last year. While reports are still unconfirmed, the latest death is rumoured to be that of Soleil, a nine-year-old female bottlenose dolphin. The park's Mexico-based parent company, The Dolphin Company, has not responded to The Mirror's request for comment. Britain experienced a dolphin craze in the 1970s, with many animals imported from America to entertain crowds at dolphinaria like Windsor Safari Park, Blackpool Dolphinarium and Brighton Aquarium, all of which have since closed down. It was at the start of the decade that David, then aged 17, answered a newspaper advert calling for a "young person to present dolphins". Out of 350 applicants, he was picked - and was quickly sent to a secret training pool in the small Yorkshire mining village of South Elmsall, which had been converted from a swimming pool to hold wild dolphins. Most of the animals would have come from the 'Killing Cove', Japan's Taiji, where each year hunters would drive hundreds of dolphins towards the shore and pen them in, slaughtering most for meat and capturing the young ones who had not yet left their pod to sell on to dolphinaria around the world. The horrors of Taiji have been widely reported, including in the 2009 documentary The Cove. Many of the dolphins would arrive at South Elmsall traumatised and terrified, having been ripped from their social structures and crammed into tiny crates to be shipped to the UK. Some would refuse to eat - so David and his fellow trainers would have to force-feed them dead fish. "We had a dolphin called Bubbles come in from the US, and when I checked her over it was like looking in a coffin," David recalls. "She was void. She was so bad. I asked the handler who brought her, 'Why did you bring this dolphin?' He said, 'Because she looks good.'" Bubbles had refused to eat throughout her long journey from Florida to the UK because she had gone into shock when she was caught. "She was in shock for the rest of her short and miserable life," says David. "And that dolphin never took a fish willingly. I force-fed her three times a day." The horrific procedure would mean catching the dolphin manually in the pool, tying gags to her upper and lower jaws to wrench open her mouth, and extra handlers pinning her down so that someone could push fish down her throat, "five at a time". "She was trying to starve herself to death," says David sadly. Bubbles failed to thrive in the UK, and suffered mentally from the treatment she'd endured since being captured. David's mentor warned him that Bubbles had been put on suicide watch because she'd started behaving erratically in her holding pen. "Normally she just swam round and round and round, but one day I walked in and she suddenly started to speed up. I thought she was going to ram the wall, so I jumped in to the pool and grabbed her. She did hit the wall, but I'd taken the sting out because I'd got to her first. And I said to my friends, my colleagues, 'I did the right thing. I saved her.' And the look on their faces told me that I hadn't done the right thing at all," he remembers. "I should have let her kill herself because she was in so much torment." Another dolphin called Scouse was packed into the same cargo hold as Bubbles and suffered horribly when he was unloaded in the UK. "The handler tried to reach Scouse, who was laying in a sling inside his transport. Scouse started to thrash around and fight, and then his sling tore and took out both of his eyes. He was instantly blinded," says David. While animal welfare legislation has been tightened in the UK since David's time, dolphins kept in captivity in other countries still face brutal and cruel mistreatment. One now-closed theme park in a country visited by millions of British tourists removed all the teeth from a dolphin who had nipped a child during a swimming with dolphins session, in a case that is still going through the courts. "Of course, the dolphin continually got infection after infection because it was kept in rotten water," says David. "And it died. This happened less than two years ago." In any theme park that features captive dolphins, the water will be treated with chlorine to kill off bacteria. But the very act of bleaching the water causes untold damage to the animals - and one giveaway sign of poor health is the colour of their skin. "In captivity they're almost silver, they look gorgeous," says David. "But that's not their true colour. In the wild they're slate-grey to almost black. That beautiful colouring is due to chlorine bleaching, it bleaches the skin. So if it's doing that on the outside, what do you think it's doing on the inside? It's poison. As soon as they're brought into captivity, it's poison." Because most marine parks have tanks that are too small for their captive dolphins - who in the wild can swim up to 100 miles a day - more chlorine is dumped in their pools to keep the water germ-free. "The higher the chlorine levels, the more it starts to burn," says David. "You can only do that for so long before your dolphins won't perform and will start vomiting. You'll start to see their skin peeling. And once the chlorine dies, the water becomes a toxic mix of spent chlorine, faeces and urine." The only way to save the dolphins at that point is to drain the pool entirely and fill it with clean, fresh water - but as that is expensive, David claims management teams are loathe to let it happen. "I was constantly fighting the management about water," he says. "I used to sneak in at midnight with a friend, move my dolphins to a holding pen and drain their tank. The problem was you could never re-fill a pool quick enough. So when the managers all came in the next morning, they only had half a pool. I was threatened so many times with the sack. But I wouldn't leave my charges in filth-ridden cesspools." But it was David's skill with the dolphins that kept him in a job, he believes. The very first animals he trained, Duchess and Herb'e, became known as the Perfect Pair, because they could move in perfect harmony - even performing a complex somersault routine dubbed the Shadow Ballet at their home in Knowsley Safari Park - which at that time was managed by the BBC naturist Terry Nutkins. "They were phenomenal," says David. "And yet you won't find them in the history books because every one of my dolphins died within six months after I walked." It was, claims David, company policy to destroy the records of any captive dolphin after their death at that time in the UK, which he alleges was to cover up the high rate of casualties. "In my day, a commercial dolphin's lifespan was three to four years. In the wild, they can live 50, 60, even up to 70 years. But in captivity they had the stress of the transports, chlorinated water and so on." On his last day in the job, David witnessed the tragic death of Herb'e - also known as Flippa - the dolphin he had trained from scratch and shared a special connection with. Herb'e and Duchess were being transported from Knowsley, Merseyside, to Rhyl in North Wales on Terry Nutkins' instruction, and were loaded onto canvas slings so they would stay in place during the van journey. But the slings were too small, so the accompanying vet said he would cut them to make more room for the dolphins, despite David's protests. "I had alarm bells ringing... I put my hand into their box and I could see Duchess' blue eye looking at me. I put my hand over her eye as I knew what was going to happen - the vet's scalpel went through the sling and into my hand," David recalls. The vet insisted David go straight to hospital for stitches, and against his better judgement he left his beloved dolphins to get treated. The animals were put outside in a van on a cold November day and caught pneumonia. "Herb'e never recovered," David says starkly. "When I got to Rhyl he was already unloaded into the pool. I remember how he died to this day: I was in the water and I heard people screaming because Herb'e had disappeared below the water. "I dived down to get him and all I could see was Herb'e looking at me sinking tail-first. When dolphins die they disembowel, so I was swimming through all of this muck with bits of him stuck to me as I was going down. He fell very slowly to the bottom of the pool, and it was like having an out-of-body experience, I was watching myself on the bottom of a pool cradling a dead eight-foot dolphin. "I pushed him up to the top, all I could hear was the echo of screams under 13 foot of water. All these hands came and dragged him out of the water. I never saw Herb'e again. I got out of that pool. I walked downstairs to the changing rooms and I stole five log books relating to Herb'e's life, walked to my car and I never set foot on the dolphin stage again." Traumatised by what he'd seen and been part of, David had a mental breakdown and turned down the opportunity to become head trainer of Ramu III, who was then Europe's only captive orca, held by Billy Smart's Circus at Windsor Safari Park. Within six months of his decision to quit his high-flying career, all six of the dolphins David had formed a bond with died. Scouse, the young dolphin who had lost his eyes during his transport, was killed when he ingested a razor blade. Duchess was taken back to Knowsley, where the vet said she died of a broken heart. "It always tortures me because I always said to her I would never leave her, and I did," says David. "I want to put my wrongs right if I can. They all escaped the dolphinarium when they died. I never did. It's haunted me throughout my life." Now David, who co-wrote The Perfect Pair dolphin trilogy with his sister Tracy, campaigns to close down the marine zoos that still keep dolphins and whales captive. "These animals weren't meant to be captive. In the wild they swim and ride waves for hundreds of miles They can't do that in a concrete fishbowl," he says. "If you want to see dolphins or whales, take a boat trip. Go and see them in their natural environment, as they should be seen, in the wild. Because while the public are still paying money to feed this vile industry, this isn't going to stop."
New York Post
25-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Post
Gotham FC ‘over the moon' after securing place as global heavyweight with Concacaf Champions Cup win
NJ/NY Gotham FC secured their place among the global women's soccer heavyweights this weekend when they won the inaugural Concacaf Women's Champions Cup. They were crowned the best team in North America, Central America and the Caribbean after beating Mexico-based club Tigres UANL in the tournament's championship game Saturday night. Gotham FC's offense was relentlessly attacking and frustrating the Tigres. Advertisement Ultimately, Esther González's second-chance goal in the 82nd minute was all Gotham needed to secure the 1-0 win in Monterrey, Mexico. 4 Gotham FC players celebrate after winning the Concacaf Women's Champions Cup on May 24. Shutterstock 'It's a historic moment for the Concacaf and for women's football in this part of the world,' Gotham coach Juan Carlos Amorós said after the win. 'It was the whole target at the beginning of the year — not only to come here and compete, but to come here and win.' Amorós said the team was 'over the moon' that it did just that. Advertisement Gotham recorded 23 shots, with seven on goal, while the Tigres registered only seven shots, none on target. González scored the winning goal when she found the back of the net off a rebound after her penalty kick was initially stopped. 'We really left it all out there and everyone really fought hard to the end,' defender Mandy Freeman told reporters. 'We deserved the win and we really earned it.' Advertisement 4 Gotham FC players react after winning the Concacaf Women's Champions Cup on May 24. REUTERS Gotham took pride in knowing they were bringing the inaugural regional championship trophy to the NWSL. 'It's always great to win a trophy with your team this early in the season, and I think this will help us going into our league games,' midfielder Jaelin Howell told reporters. 'It's great to win as a team and represent NWSL in this way.' Not only did the Concacaf Women's Champions Cup victory present Gotham, the 2023 NWSL champions, their second major trophy in two years, but it also secured them a spot in what's considered to be the top two women's club competitions in the world — the new 2026 FIFA Women's Champions Cup and the first FIFA Women's Club World Cup in 2028. Advertisement 4 Esther Gonzalez scored Gotham's only goal during their Concacaf Women's Champions Cup win on May 24. AP Gotham join Arsenal, who won the UEFA Women's Champions League Final on Saturday, as the only teams to have secured outright spots in the 2026 FIFA Women's Champions Cup semifinals in January. Wuhan Jiangda from China and Auckland United from Oceania have qualified for play-in games. The final two open spots are for South America and Africa. For now, Gotham are going to savor Saturday's win. 4 Gotham FC players celebrate with their medals after winning the Concacaf Women's Champions Cup win on May 24. AP 'It's really an honor to be walking back with a trophy and we're just glad to have been able to contribute on the field and go to the Club World Cup for the first time,' forward Sarah Schupansky told reporters. 'That's an incredible step forward for women's football and it's going to be really, really fun.' Gotham are set to return to NWSL June 7, when they host the KC Current at Sports Illustrated Stadium.
Epoch Times
24-05-2025
- Epoch Times
US Sanctions 2 Leaders of Mexican Cartel for Drug and Arms Trafficking
The U.S. government on May 21 sanctioned two leaders of the Mexico-based Cártel del Noreste (CDN) who are accused of being involved in drug and arms trafficking and violent crimes along the U.S. border. The sanctioned individuals are Miguel Ángel de Anda Ledezma, alias De Anda, and Ricardo González Sauceda, also known as 'El Ricky,' both high-ranking members of the CDN in Nuevo Laredo, in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas. González was identified as the second-in-command of the CDN before being arrested in February by Mexican agents. 'This violent transnational cartel and U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist is involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, migrant smuggling, and other illicit activities,' the State Department said in a . De Anda is sanctioned for supervising payments to facilitators and front men in the United States and organizing deliveries of firearms to Nuevo Laredo that were later used in attacks against Mexican authorities. One of the weapons acquired in this arms trafficking scheme was recovered after the cartel attacked the Mexican army during one of its patrols in March 2024. 'Some of the weapons have been used in terrorist activity,' the U.S. Treasury Department said in a on May 21. González led the armed wing of the Cártel del Noreste and was involved in arms trafficking, drug trafficking, and attacks on the Mexican police and army. Related Stories 5/17/2025 5/15/2025 On Feb. 3, Mexican authorities arrested González in connection with a CDN attack on the Mexican army in August 2024, in which two Mexican soldiers were killed and five were wounded. Formerly known as Los Zetas, the CDN was designated in February by the Trump administration as a foreign terrorist organization in the Federal Register. 'CDN, one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in Mexico ... exerts significant influence over the border region, especially near the Laredo/Nuevo Laredo point of entry,' the U.S. Department of the Treasury said in the . The State Department said that in , the CDN attacked the U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo with gunfire and grenades following the arrest of a CDN member wanted in Mexico for murder and extortion. The sanctions announced on May 21 involve the blocking of assets and property of both individuals located in the United States, which must also be reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, and a ban on commercial transactions with them. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: 'CDN and its leaders have carried out a violent campaign of intimidation, kidnapping, and terrorism, threatening communities on both sides of our southern border. 'We will continue to cut off the cartels' ability to obtain the drugs, money, and guns that enable their violent activities.' He said that the Trump administration will continue working toward 'the total elimination of cartels' and 'to make America safe again.'
