OREANDA-NEWS. Fitch Ratings has affirmed Brit Limited's (Brit) Long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'BBB' with a Stable Outlook and its subordinated notes at 'BB'. At the same time, Fitch has withdrawn the ratings.

KEY RATING DRIVERS
Fitch has withdrawn the ratings as Brit has decided to stop participating in the rating process. Therefore, Fitch will no longer have sufficient information to maintain the ratings on Brit. Accordingly, Fitch will no longer provide ratings or analytical coverage of Brit.

The ratings are constrained by Fitch's view of the financial strength of Brit's owner, Canadian financial services group, Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (Fairfax). This reflects the risk that if the Fairfax group comes under financial stress, it could seek to extract capital or other resources from Brit to support the rest of the group.

Fitch believes that Brit's financial profile is sound, supported by strong risk-adjusted capitalisation and underlying earnings. At end-2014, Brit's risk-adjusted capitalisation was 'Strong' as measured by Fitch's Prism Factor Based Model, although the ratio of net written premiums to equity of 1.2x was high relative to London market peers. Brit reported a combined ratio, after the effect of foreign exchange on non-monetary items, of 91.7% for 1H15 (1H14: 86.5%).