An insurance giant, which went through a dramatic financial restructure of £1 billion debts last year, has sold part of its business for £46 million amid declining revenues and earnings.

Towergate, headquartered in Maidstone, has sold its majority stake in Broker Network to Highbridge Principal Strategies, the company which led the takeover of the stricken underwriter last year.

Chief executive David Ross said the move would give the company “extra focus” as it turns around the business, which lost £720 million in 2014.

The company, which has insurance operations in Sevenoaks and Faversham, the latter under the Capital and County brand, revealed in its annual financial results that revenues declined by £24 million last year to £352.7 million.

However Mr Ross said a £14.5 million decline in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and other charges to £78.7 million was “in line with expectations for a business that has experienced the legacy infrastructure and underinvestment challenges that we face”.

“These results show a remarkably resilient performance given the group went through a major restructuring and change of ownership during the course of 2015..." - John Tiner, Towergate

Towergate reduced its £1 billion debts by 60% after it was bought by its a group of its creditors in February last year, led by Highbridge, KKR and Sankaty Advisors.

Since the restructure, the firm has signed multi-year deals with clients like LV=, AXA, Ageas and Allianz.

However, its latest results show the damage from its financial restructuring was £41.2 million, while it paid another £49 million in other exceptional costs.

When this is taken into account, the company actually suffered losses of £34.6 million, a 205.1% decline on its unadjusted earnings before interest, taxes and other charges of £32.9 million a year earlier.

Towergate chairman John Tiner said: “These results show a remarkably resilient performance given the group went through a major restructuring and change of ownership during the course of 2015.

“Maintaining revenue to within 6% of the previous year’s level is a tremendous achievement and reflects the quality of our people, the strength of our client relationships and Towergate’s extraordinarily strong market position.

“The new management team has identified the actions needed to stabilise the business and to create a platform for growth and we are already beginning to see the benefits of effective execution.”

Mr Ross added: “We’re very comfortable that we now have a good line of sight to what needs to be done, how much it’s going to cost, how long it’s going to take, and of the favourable impact it will have on improving efficiency in the business.

“The finance team have done heavy lifting to get further behind the numbers which we detail today. This transparency and movement allows us to go forward with confidence.

“The uncertainty created by management and ownership changes last year is firmly behind us. We have seen that stability flowing through to organic improvements in our insurance broking and underwriting businesses.”

The company, which handles more than £3 billion of gross written premium across more than 100 offices, employing 4,400 people, also revealed it has hired Atrium Underwriting founder Christine Dandridge as a non-executive director.