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LONDON (Alliance News) - Hansard Global PLC Thursday said full-year new business sales came in at about half of the level of the prior year, after the suspension of activities by a large distributor in Japan and the company's subsequent decision to stop accepting new business from Japanese residents.
Using a present value of new business premiums basis metric, the long-term savings provider reported new business sales of GBP83.0 million in the year ended June 30, compared with GBP172.1 million in the prior year.
Continuing low volumes of new business hurt the group's new business margins, Hansard said. Reduced volumes, coupled with product changes and other incentives in operation during the year, resulted in margins falling to about 4.0% on the present value of new business premiums basis. In the year before that, the group reported 12.0% margins.
Hansard said its new strategy and products have generated interest among independent financial advisors and contract holders.
"Relationships have just been established with a number of major IFA networks in target markets in Asia and the Middle East and plans are being implemented to extend the group's distribution potential," Hansard said in a statement.
"Whilst new distribution continues to be built," Hansard said, "recent new business from our existing distribution has been slow despite the introduction of new products." This led Hansard to say it expects new business results for the first quarter of the current financial year to be about 30% below the results achieved in the fourth quarter of the last year.
Hansard said its full-year pretax profit fell to GBP8.3 million from GBP10.7 million.
Hansard increased its full-year dividend to 8.4 pence from 8.0p.
Hansard shares were Thursday quoted down 0.2% at 92.79 pence per share.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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