James Turner joining me from the stock exchange, James's group,
CFO Prudential PLC.
We're gonna try this again. James. Good to see you. I think you can hear.
I want you to tell me more about your company's
business and strategy as an insurer in ASIA and Africa.
Okay, so thank you for the invitation today.
Listen,
we've just completed a significant transformation of our
company with the demerger of our UK business,
our US business so that we're now fully focused
on the structural growth opportunities in ASIA and Africa.
We've just results reported our half year results and we're really pleased
with the fact that we're able to report a p growing at 9%
and new business profit of a billion dollars.
And what brings you to the floor of the new york stock exchange today.
So we're here just to invest,
to invest time with our investors to talk about our results,
Talk about our structural opportunities
and to really get people to know more about our company.
How are you finding James amid the market
downturn that we've seen these past two days?
Certainly yesterday, a volatile session today.
How is that impacting your business?
So we're very much a long term business. So we're investing for 2030 years. So
the short term volatility isn't having a significant impact on our business.
So for example, in the period between the year end and the half year,
our capital ratio only fell from 3 22 3 17%.
And it really just shows the resilience of our earnings
and resilience of our capital when there's market volatility.
I know you're listed both on the Hong kong stock exchange,
the London stock exchange,
as well as secondary listing here on the new york stock exchange by expanding
the business to multiple exchanges around the world. The ability to raise money.
How is that helping reach your long term goals?
So one of the things we did last year is you're absolutely right.
We raised $2.5 billion on the Hong Kong stock
exchange and that's really reflecting our pivot to Asia.
So the fact that we are
really in Asia and Africa play, soul, Asia and Africa play
and so that's aligning our investors with our customers.
So we have 19 million customers across the room.
And really we're just proving the fact that we
can raise capital in the markets where we are,
where we are meeting our customers needs
now,
of course digital technology I know impacting your business James
to do what you need to do at scale.
It is so important. How is that helping you serve your clients?
So we were really fortunate in in retrospect, in terms of timing,
we launched our big digital initiative in the third quarter of
2019. And what it's meant is that we've had
an ability to continue to sell
to customers virtually through our pulse digital
toll to be able to support our agents
and really to be able to support our relationship
Relationship managers in banks.
So over the period from half year,
2018 through till the half year that we've just reported excluding Hong
Kong we've raised our profits and our NBP by Akagera of 14%.
So it's really demonstrated the resilience of our business and we've really been
able to leverage our digital tools to help us continue to deliver.
What impact has the coronavirus had in your
business as a company that offers insurance products.
Certainly financial planning as well.
I would imagine that Covid has had some sort of impact.
I know you're absolutely right and and clearly it's
had a huge humanitarian impact in the region.
So we are an insurer and it's it's important
that were there in the moments that matter.
So one of the first decisions we took strategically
was that where we had pandemic exemptions
to our policies, we removed those so that we would pay out for covid
related mortality and morbidity.
And so in the since the covid began, we paid out nearly $300 million.
And in some countries like Indonesia Asia that have been
the most severely
severely impacted
our payouts. There have been almost $200 million. So
it has had a significant impact on our customers.
But I think frankly what it's also done is
it's proved the
and it's raising awareness of health and protection and insurance.
So we've seen a significant increase
in the volume
of health and protection policies that we've sold.
So in 2020 to 2021 that increased 40%. For example,
James Turner, thank you so much for joining,
joining me live from the floor of the new york Stock Exchange.
We've got to leave it there James, the group's CFO at Prudential PLC.