Commenting on the results Rodney Cook, Group Chief Executive, said:
“This is our first set of results in the post-Budget environment, so I am delighted to be able to point to resilient profits, early signs of a return to growth in sales, and record embedded value. Around half of our underlying operating profit came from new business in H1 14/15, while the significant value of our back book supported total earnings. Net inflows after annuity payments and expenses are strongly positive, which underpins the growth in our back book.
We strongly welcome the FCA’s proposed reforms announced in December. Further encouragement for all retirees to shop around will give us access to a larger customer base and means that a fully brokered, medically underwritten individual annuity market could finally be achievable. The FCA has also confirmed that for retirees with modest pension pots, the right annuity purchased on the open market offers good value for money relative to alternative drawdown strategies. Moreover, at Just Retirement we have no legacy issues relating to past sales of annuities or pre-2000 pension products.
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