Genworth pays half of debt due in 2009

Genworth Financial Inc. has repaid half of its long-term debt that is coming due this year.

It plans to repay the rest on schedule next month, the company said yesterday. Once it does that, it will have no other long-term debt to pay off until 2011.

In the Wall Street panic sparked by last year's credit-market crisis, worries about its debt helped send the Henrico County-based insurance giant's shares tumbling.

But though Genworth never managed to win federal bailout money through a proposal to buy a Minnesota savings bank, much to Wall Street's disappointment, executives always said they expected that repaying the debt wouldn't be a problem.

Genworth has been focusing on building up its cash, with belt-tightening that included layoffs of 400 people at its Henrico headquarters and 230 at its Lynchburg operation this year as part of a worldwide effort to cut expenses by about $100 million a year.

It also is selling its Mexican auto, property, life and accident-insurance business and plans to do an initial public offering of a 49 percent stake in its Canadian mortgage-insurance business.

Yesterday, Genworth said it repaid $330 million of 5.231 percent senior notes due Saturday.

It has $331 million of 4.75 percent notes coming due in June.

Genworth ended the most recent quarter with a total of $7.1 billion of cash and cash equivalents, up from $3.8 billion at the same time last year.

The cash helps back its promises to pay claims on billions of dollars of insurance policies and annuities.

Genworth also plans to take $200 million in dividends from units based outside of the U.S. The company said it expects to end 2009 with about $150 million in cash at the holding company.

Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or .