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(Alliance News) - Just Group PLC on Thursday posted improved retirement income sales, better new business fortunes and announced it has finally reinstated its dividend.
Just Group swung to a pretax loss, however, as a net investment loss hurt revenue. It also posted a GBP226 million loss from the sale of a lifetime mortgage portfolio.
Just Group, based in Reigate, Surrey, provides retirement financial services to individuals and companies.
In 2021, total revenue fell 45% to GBP2.54 billion from GBP4.65 billion in 2020.
Gross premiums written rose by a quarter to GBP2.68 billion, though it posted a GBP130 investment loss, a wild swing from income of GBP1.78 billion in 2020.
Just Group swung to a GBP21.4 million pretax loss, from a GBP236.7 million profit in 2020.
"Economic variances" stemming from the sale of a lifetime mortgage portfolio led to a GBP226 million profit hit.
More promisingly, retirement income sales jumped 25% to GBP2.7 billion from GBP2.1 billion. New business profit rose 13% to GBP225 million from GBP199 million.
Also on the up was underlying operating profit. The measure excludes operating experience and assumption changes.
Underlying operating profit rose 8.8% to GBP210 million from GBP193 million.
What's more, Just Group said it eyes an average 15% annual increase in underlying operating profit in the medium-term.
The company also reinstated its dividend, with a 1.0 pence final payout. Its last dividend was in respect to its 2017 financial year.
Just Group added: "From 2022 onwards, we intend to declare dividends twice annually with an interim dividend to be declared at our interim results in August and paid in September and the final dividend to be declared at the final results in March and paid in May. In future we would expect the interim dividend to be approximately one third of the prior year full year dividend and if this policy had applied for 2021 as a whole the equivalent dividend for the full year would have been 1.5p."
Chief Executive David Richardson added: "This is an excellent set of results which demonstrate our ability to generate profitable growth within a sustainable capital model. New business premiums, underlying operating profits and underlying capital generation have improved significantly on the previous year. Furthermore, we have also attained a sustainable level of underlying capital generation and coverage ratio to be in a position to re-commence dividend payments."
Just Group shares were down 0.7% to 83.20 pence each on Thursday in London.
By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com
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