By Noor Zainab Hussain
(Reuters) - British insurer Prudential Plc (L:PRU) reported a 19 percent rise in new business profit for the first nine months of the year, driven mainly by strong performance at its Asian business, and said it planned to boost its dividend.
The life insurer has been focussing its growth efforts on Asia's expanding middle class, with its Asian business contributing around a third of Prudential's operating profit.
Prudential, which serves about 24 million insurance customers and has 562 billion pounds of assets under management, said new business profit rose to 1.97 billion pounds from 1.66 billion pounds a year earlier.
Group Annual Premium Equivalent (APE) sales, which include regular premium sales plus one-tenth of single premium insurance sales, rose 16 percent to 4.55 billion pounds, the insurer said.
The company said it would aim to raise its ordinary dividend by 5 percent every year.
Prudential said new business profit from Asia increased 34 percent on an actual exchange rate basis to 1.31 billion pounds in the period, while APE sales jumped 25 percent.
The firm saw a 41 percent rise in new business profit from retail sales in its British life business to 179 million pounds, helped by the popularity of its with-profits product range, Prudential said in a statement.
New business profit at the U.S. business fell 13 percent to 485 million pounds, however, after the Department of Labor tightened rules about the sale of variable annuities, which offer a variable rate of income often above a guaranteed minimum level.
Market moves drove an eight percent rise over the nine-month period in UK fund arm M&G's external assets under management, to 136.2 billion pounds at end-September.
Retail net outflows from M&G slowed to 1.1 billion pounds in the third quarter, compared with 2 billion in the second quarter.
The company's estimated Group Solvency II surplus at end-October, 2016 was 11.5 billion pounds, resulting in a capital ratio of 189 percent, up from 175 percent at end-June, Prudential said in a statement ahead of an investor day.
A ratio of 100 percent shows insurers have sufficient capital to cover underwriting, investment and operational risks.