To Our Shareholders
Loews delivered a strong performance in 2021, as each of our consolidated subsidiaries contributed meaningfully to our growing profitability and fundamental value. The company’s net incomereached $1.6 billion or $6.07 per share, reversing a prior year net loss of $931 million or ($3.32) per share. In 2021, we bought back 21.1 million shares of Loews common stock for a total of $1.1 billion, which was equivalent to almost 8% of the shares outstanding at the start of the year.
During the four-year period from January 2018 through December 2021, Loews has spent $4.1 billion on repurchases, retiring about 26% of our common shares outstanding at the beginning of 2018.We ended 2021 with cash and investments totaling $3.4 billion. The fact that these positive results were achieved in a year marked by the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply chain disruptions and the return of inflation, is a reflection of Loews’s well-established approach to creating value, over the long term, for all shareholders. We have built a company composed of diverse businesses under the leadership of highly capable management teams. And we have strategically allocated our capital – whether to fund share repurchases, invest in the growth of our subsidiaries or (albeit rarely) acquire a promising new business.
Each of our consolidated subsidiaries made solid progress in 2021, leading to higher year-over-year net income contributions. While Loews’s subsidiaries operate in vastly different industries and markets, there are a number of common factors that we believe justify our investment in these businesses, including their attractive growth prospects, increasing operational efficiency and strong management teams.
An important element of Loews’s strategy to deliver value for shareholders is our multi-industry holding company structure, with subsidiaries spanning diverse sectors.
2021 Annual Report