We will do better than our rivals, predicts Prudential

The company reported a better than expected 14 per cent rise in nine-month profits.

Prudential said its performance was boosted by growth in its key Asian markets.

Prudential’s new business profit rose to £1.53bn, just ahead of the consensus market forecast of £1.51bn, according to a poll of analysts conducted by the company.

Prudential’s shares rose following the update.

The stock is down five per cent in the year to date, outperforming an 11 per cent fall in the Stoxx Europe 600 insurance index.

Investors regard Asia-focused Prudential as relatively immune from the eurozone sovereign debt crisis.

“Whatever happens in Europe we will be less affected than others.

“We will always do better than others because we are less exposed,” chief executive Tidjane Thiam told reporters on a conference call.

Prudential began offloading its holdings of peripheral eurozone sovereign debt in early 2009.

Its exposure is now limited to £48m of Italian government bonds and £1m of Spanish notes, Mr Thiam said.

“Prudential has delivered another powerful performance, with almost all of the metrics ahead of ours and the market’s expectations,” Shore Capital analyst Eamonn Flanagan wrote in a note.

Prudential, which was founded in London 163 years ago, first began doing business in Asia in the 1920s.

The region accounted for 40 per cent of its sales and a quarter of its profit in 2010.

The group’s total sales in the first nine months of 2011 rose 10 per cent to £2.7bn, beating the £2.67bn pencilled in by analysts.

Sales in Asia rose eight per cent to £1.147bn, accounting for 42 per cent of the total.

Prudential is making “good progress” towards financial targets it set itself a year ago, including a doubling of pre-tax profits from life insurance and asset management between 2009 and 2013, Mr Thiam added.

The targets were introduced to help appease shareholders who were unhappy about Prudential’s aborted $35bn attempt to buy Hong Kong-based rival AIA in 2010.

The failed deal left Prudential to shoulder £377m in fees, and prompted calls for Mr Thiam and chairman Harvey McGrath to step down.