Prudential unveils strong first quarter and Asia reshuffle

Prudential has reported strong first-quarter profits growth and a boardroom reshuffle, with finance chief Nic Nicandrou shifted over to manage the key Asia business and a 26-year Deloitte veteran appointed to take over as chief bean counter.

Current Prudential Corporation Asia chief executive Tony Wilkey will step down "to pursue new challenges" after more than a decade with the savings and investment group.

Mark FitzPatrick, who will leave his role on Deloitte's UK executive committee and as managing partner for clients and markets, is well known to the Prudential board having been seconded to the FTSE 100 company as director of compliance in 2012.

Group new business profit in the first three months of 2017 of £856m is up 42% on the same period last year thanks the benefit of the weak pound, or 25% at the underlying level.

Asia was main contributor of new business, with new business profit up 45% to £561m, or 26% underlying.

In the US, $1.3bn of positive net flows and market movements lifted assets 5% to $157bn.

Pru's Jackson business is felt to be in the prime position to benefit from US regulatory developments, representing a "significant opportunity to access new asset pools" including the $2trn variable annuity market and the wider adviser distributed market where it sees an additional $14trn as yet been unpenetrated by variable annuities.

In the UK life business, sales were up 33% and assets under management up 11% to £27.5bn as gains were made in the retirement savings market.

Net inflows of £3.6bn at the M&G asset management arm lifted AUM 5% to £144bn.

Markets seemed reassured, with the late morning announcement sending the shares in Prudential into the red before they were later lifted to a slight 0.3% gain at 1,736.5p in late trading on Wednesday, not far from recent all-time highs.

'Matchless knowledge'

Taking over as finance director later in the summer should be a piece of cake for FitzPatrick, having led the advisory group's CFO training programme and its insurance and investment management audit practice, with Prudential CEO Mike Wells hailing FitzPatrick's "quarter of a century leading the most complex projects in global financial services" and a "matchless knowledge of the sector".

His appointment has received regulatory approval.

Nicandrou, who joined Prudential in 2009 after a number of finance roles at Aviva, has some operational experience at the Pru having been executive director responsible for its African insurance operations.

Wells added that he was "a talented strategist and rigorous operational manager".

He added: "We have built a market-leading business in Asia thanks to a relentless focus on the customer, disciplined execution by a talented team and clear priorities. As we have reported today, we continue to have strong momentum across the region. While our franchise strength and capability remains second to none, we have clear priorities to leverage our platform and accelerate our business to serve the significant and growing needs for savings and protection products across the region.