Prudential's 2009 Half Year New Business Results

We are pleased to share with you our new business results for the second quarter of 2009 showing another strong performance despite exceptionally challenging conditions.

UK Highlights

• Total sales of APE £376m were 14 percent lower than the same period last year, with Retail sales of £374 million down 8 percent.
• Our profit from new business was down 5 percent compared with last year to £122 million while our new business margin increased to 32 percent from 29 percent in 2008.
• Individual annuities - our overall individual annuity new business sales fell by 17 percent to APE £114 million. Internal vestings continued to perform well with sales up one percent to APE £73 million.
• Our with-profits bond sales of APE £71 million were up 48 percent on the same period in 2008. This strong growth shows how attractive our with-profits offering is to customers looking for a more cautious investment approach and to protect themselves from market downturns in a strong, well-run life fund. Sales of PruFund have been particularly strong with customers welcoming the extra reassurance of guarantees in the current climate. In July, we launched the PruFund Cautious series as a fund link in our Flexible Investment Plan.
• Sales of income drawdown of APE £5 million were up 67 percent on the same period last year.
• Individual pensions sales of APE £24 million were 50 percent higher than the first half of 2008. Sales of the Flexible Retirement Plan of APE £10 million were up 131 percent.
• With continuing uncertainty in the housing market, we have maintained our strict pricing discipline in the lifetime mortgage market which resulted in a fall in sales volumes.
• Although corporate pensions sales of APE £115 million were down 9 percent, new sales into existing schemes held up well. We remain a leader in the corporate pensions market and are the largest provider of pension schemes to the UK public sector.

While conditions in our market and the UK economy as a whole remain challenging, we have maintained our discipline and focus and the benefit of this has come through in our strong relative performance.

Read the full Press Release.