Prudential reported its UK business is “focused on the opportunity presented by the converging life assurance and savings markets” as it announced new business profits were up by a fifth in the first three quarters of the year.
The company released figures today (16 November) ahead of a report to investors.
In the UK and Europe, where the division was recently merged with the insurer’s fund management arm M&G, profits were up 31 per cent to £179m.
The company’s update showed that the new M&G Prudential had inflows of £9.9 billion in the nine month period.
Prudential stated that continued demand for risk managed solutions has driven life insurance annual premium equivalent sales growth of 25 per cent over the same period.
M&G Prudential's total assets under management increased to £336.5bn from £310.8bn, with the figure including growth of 12 per cent in the external asset management business to £153.5bon and 32 per cent in PruFund assets to £32.6bn.
Mike Wells, group chief executive of Prudential, said today’s report to investors “will highlight the scale of the opportunity ahead of us in three key geographic regions."
Mr Wells said: "In Asia, we are meeting the health, protection and savings needs of a rapidly growing middle class.
"In the US, we are addressing the savings and retirement income requirements of the baby-boom generation, and in the UK and Europe we are focused on the opportunity presented by the converging life assurance and savings markets."
Analysts have been speculating that Prudential might split its operations to take advantage of the growing Asian market.
The insurance giant is believed to be splitting its annuities book into saleable packages to make this more likely.
damian.fantato@ft.com
