Aviva FY Pre-tax Profit Down; But Hikes Dividend

(RTTNews) - British life and health insurer Aviva Plc (AV.L, AV) reported that its profit before tax for fiscal year 2015 declined to 1.17 billion pounds from last year's 2.66 billion pounds.

Mark Wilson, Group Chief Executive Officer, said, "The integration of the £6 billion Friends Life acquisition has gone faster and better than expected. We expect to achieve our target of £225 million integration synergies in 2016, one year ahead of schedule. After nine months, we have achieved run-rate synergies of £168 million and expect £1.2 billion of capital benefits, £400 million of which we have realised in 2015."

The Board has decided to increase the final dividend per share 15% to 14.05 pence.

Annual profit attributable to equity holders of the company dropped to 918 million pounds from 1.569 billion pounds in the prior year. On a per share basis, earnings declined to 22.3 pence from 49.6 pence in the prior year.

Operating profit increased 20% to 2.665 billion pounds from the prior year's 2.213 billion pounds. The contribution from Friends Life (554 million pounds) and underlying growth (103 million pounds) more than offset headwinds from foreign exchange movements (117 million pounds) and a reduction in one-off items.

Operating earnings per share rose 2% to 49.2 pence from the prior year's 48.3 pence after allowing for the dilutive impact of the Friends Life share issuance.

Net earned premiums were 18.92 billion pounds, down from 20.06 billion pounds in the previous year. But, gross written premiums grew to 21.93 billion pounds from 21.67 billion pounds in the prior year.