INSURANCE giant Prudential today revealed a 33 per cent rise in full-year operating profit to a record £1.71 billion, helped by strong performances in regions such as Asia and the United States.
The 2005 figure was well ahead of the £1.58bn the City had been expecting.
In the first annual update since former HBoS director Mark Tucker replaced Jonathan Bloomer as chief executive, Britain's second-biggest insurer said it had achieved doubl
e-digit growth in all key performance measures.
Mr Tucker said a 15 per cent increase in new business on an annual premium equivalent basis - a standard industry measure used to iron out volatility - to £2.15bn and an 11 per cent jump in the present value of new business premiums to £16.8bn were markers that the business was making real progress.
Prudential said new business profit reached £867 million, a rise of 15 per cent on the year before, with a group profit margin of 41 per cent.
In the highly-competitive UK market, Pru managed just a one per cent increase in profit from new business to £243m. But the overall surplus for the group's home region showed a 12 per cent slide to £426m.
It was the first time that the Pru had reported its figures on the new European Embedded Value (EEV) basis, which experts claim better compares the performance of the continent's life insurers.
Mr Tucker, who joined the Pru on May 6, 2005, said: "Prudential has had a successful year across all its businesses, and we have delivered double-digit growth in all our key performance measures.
"These results demonstrate the progress we are making in developing compelling positions in the world's leading retail financial services markets."
He said the group had "ambitious growth plans in place" and was confident about the future in each of its individual product areas. Since taking up the reins, Mr Tucker has continued with the Pru's strategy of focusing on selling more banking, asset-management and retirement-savings products as the UK insurance market became more competitive.
Retail banking arm Egg, which the Pru acquired in full earlier this year after buying the 21.7 per cent stake it did not own for £240m, posted underlying profits of £60m, down from £72m last time. But Mr Tucker insisted that had been "successful in testing market conditions".
In the wake of the Egg deal, the company - which also owns brands such as the M&G asset management business in the UK and Jackson National Life and PPMA in the United States - is looking for annual cost savings of £40m across its UK operations by 2007.
However, it did not provide further details on how it expected to achieve this today.
In the Far East, Mr Tucker said new business grew by 23 per cent to £731m with double-digit rates of growth achieved in Korea, China, India, Singapore and Indonesia. He added: "We have an unrivalled opportunity in the high growth and high profit markets of Asia."
In America, new business sales climbed by 13 per cent to £515m.
