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Seems iis can't make minds up. Last RNS's: UBS went over 5% then sold some of that whilst Alliance Bernstein gave up all of their 5%. And now today before the start, seems about £33m / 6.2% reported sells, whilst after close c.£3m shown as buys. I wonder if it's related to re-financing referred to in interims...which seemed pretty upbeat overall. Will have another look. "The Group’s refinancing strategy is well advanced, with active discussions ongoing with its existing relationship banks. The Group expects to execute this financing during the third quarter."

So now we know what the insider traders knew.

No idea, but looking too spikey to risk a punt for me. Still little volume showing.

Well this news pretty good: Revenues comfortable Grant income materially higher Operating losses materially lower Continued contract wins Healthy pipeline Any thoughts on where it could take the price for now? Broker rating of 132p and previous highs of 145 and 81p seem to give plenty of head-room for rewarding this more commercially solid news than the previous market speculation. I'm going to guess 72p over a week as a more modest reflection of how the market reacted to the MOU with China in December. Low visibility and high volatility makes for an unpredictable but potentially exciting ride here.

CFO leaving announcement said he's staying on until September until after H1 results delivered 27 Aug. Doesn't sound like someone leaving under a cloud, dodging disaster or not coping. On the other hand he does have roles with other companies too, so "pursuing other interests" also sounds natural. So am hoping it's just the combined effect of the selling out factor (though UBS has recently upped their stake) and typical 2014 AIM yo-yoing on sentiment at the least thing (or should I say plummetting). Not that political unrest is a small thing, but translated to economic impact on APR, am struggling to see the price impact as a true reflection of that, but more likely increasing domino effect of stop losses and sentiment. But admittedly hoping hasn't done much for my holdings in this one so far. Just trying to make sense of it.

On 27 March PA. announced a £30m bulk annuity deal. You can check it on their investors' site ...http://www.partnership-group.com/media/news/company/2014/partnership-sign-buy-in-deal.aspx It's their stated intention to go for these. As ayoayo was right about the individual annuities drop off rate, hopefully further deal in June will be right too.

Yes, and future sales look to be double the feared rate expected by many for the individual annuity market. Happy to see 50% rather than 25%, along with good progress in other product lines. Plus the "hedge your bets" 1 year annuity only just announced should help lift the figure from 50%.

http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/2010108.article?cmpid=pmalert_276796 Not the only one doing this, but should still help increase PA's share of the business leaving pension funds from other providers.

Agreed not much demand likely from the impaired end of enhanced, ie terminally ill etc, but can still expect demand from the sub-healthy as per ayoayo's egs...plus smokers and overweight

£4.125m, ah, yes would have to be. Just accepted "blue" at face value, silly me. Thanks for additional comments. V reassuring. Have been buying in on the basis APR must have good growth opportunities in Aggrekko's space, but floundering price making me start to doubt. Happier with travel so far today though!

Sorry if you've seen this before from Money Marketing 25/3, but worth repeating [square brackets edits mine] “Partnership managing director of retirement Andrew Megson says the City “got it wrong” after the insurer’s share price plummeted over 50 per cent on the back of radical pension reforms announced during the Budget. [19/3], Chancellor George Osborne shocked the pensions industry when he revealed [ ] anyone aged 55 or over will be able to take their entire pension pot as cash from April next year. Osborne’s bombshell announcement sparked a mass sell-off of shares in FTSE100 insurance companies. Partnership, which specialises in enhanced annuities, has seen its share price drop from over 280p per share before the announcement on Wednesday to just 125p per share this morning[25/3]. Megson says while the company is expecting a drop in the percentage of people who buy annuities, he also expects the overall size of the market to grow. [And he's right according to the Financial Services Consumer Panel. They said in December "The market is expected to double in size by about 2015 and then triple in subsequent years." http://www.fs-cp.org.uk/publications/pdf/annuity%20literature%20review%20final%2020131209.pdf] He says: “Whenever you get a surprise announcement like this you get a huge overreaction. But fundamentally if it was right for an adviser to advise his or her customer to take out an enhanced annuity product last Monday, we cannot see what has changed by this Monday except for the triviality rules. “There is obviously going to be a short-term dislocation in the market as there always is with an announcement like this. As this bombshell dropped anybody who could read a paper was picking up the consumer facing press and saw complete freedom with no risk. “Do we think the City have got it wrong? Absolutely and we are having conversations with analysts over the next few days. Clearly this came out of the blue and it was a shock to everyone, including the market. “It will take some time to right that but our fundamental business is sound and we will just carry on.” Megson suggests the experience of the US and Australia – where savers have more freedom over how they spend their pension pots and the annuity market is relatively small – is unlikely to be replicated in the UK. He says: “People have been comparing the UK with the US and Australia but neither of those markets have had compulsory annuitisation. “The concept of annuities is alien to those countries and so, while annuities are available, they have never really taken hold. “Both Australian and US governments are distinctly concerned with customers running out of money. In fact, 35 per cent of people in retirement in the US run out of money. “We think Switzerland is a better model to compare to. Compulsory annuitisation was in place there and ac

Just seen a mini-sign- backing up your point that Partnership have already anticipated the changes well. MoneyMarketing reports "Partnership has hired Costas Yiasoumi as director of defined benefit solutions. Yiasoumi, whose background is in corporate pensions de-risking, will lead development of the firm’s bulk annuity proposition. He has previously held senior roles at Swiss Re, JP Morgan Chase and Mercer. Partnership managing director of retirement Andrew Megson says: “Partnership was the first company to undertake a medically underwritten bulk de-risking deal and this appointment will help to keep the company at the forefront of industry developments.” " http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/news-and-analysis/pensions/partnership-recruits-defined-benefit-solutions-director/2008747.article

OK Dan, to answer your point below you're right again when you say "Secondly - "from April 2015, as few as 40,000 a year might be taken out. ". I'm intrigued where they have drawn their figures from, or if they are just plucked from the air? Given, this is more in line with what I was expecting - but seems a little bit of an overestimate to me." They've obviously taken a previous run rate of 400,000 cases pa and applied the 90% drop rate suggested by eg RBC Capital. Neither seem to have factored in the fact that the run rate for 2015 was due to double to 800,000 cases just because of the increasing numbers of DC pensions coming to maturity, Also they've ignored an addition 200,000plus cases due to enter the market to to take an annuity or alternative, who've deferred retirement since 2009. So IMHO, factoring in the growing number of relevant potential annuity buyers, if the % annuity uptake drops 75% this year and compared to last year, 66% in 2015 (ie improves a bit as people will know their options then and advice will be sorted), annuity cases for 2014 would be about 175,000 and 385,000 in 2105. But I could be wrong!!!

Well, Dan, how clever you are! After a lot of researching and sounding out a couple of industry folk and stringing together the load of resulting factors on a conservative basis, a predicted level of 2014 annuity business (ignoring their inroads to the bulk annuity side and other stuff) for PA. and JRG comes out at 49% as a worst case scenario. What's 1% between friends? So one reduced income stream (will be growing again in 2015, but haven't crunched the numbers yet) and another increasing one in the bulk annuities market along with other new business lines, merits more than a market valuation of 5p above it's value if closed to New business (Embedded value is 130 per share.) For others to appreciate Dan's genius, here's his off the cuff stab at it: "I see a drop off across the at-retirement annuity market in the range of 55-75%. As you have noted though, this isn't necessarily the impact I see on PA. - as those still wishing to take an annuity are more likely to be the type that 'shop around', and as such PA. may feel a lower portion of this fall. It will still be significant though, at the lowest end I'd say 50%." And now, Dan if you don't mind, how the next winning number for the Euro millions jackpot?

Good to hear this, thanks. Complicated to pull together a sensible estimate on the annuity loss, but I don't feel so out on a limb now with sensing it will be at the more optimistic end of the scale. So as you point out, they have other stuff to go for too, all meaning the SP drop is clearly overdone. Like you I'd be pleased to take some up below 120. I suspect we won't be going there again however, This afternoon was a good tes when the market for insurers generally was spooked by news of the fca announcing a review next week of fairness of savings and insurance stuff sold pre- 2000. Knee-jerk took us down to 128 again, but no doubt realisation has set in that the review isn't likely to have much impact if any on PA. So here we are back up to 134. 130 area looks like the probable floor anyway being the value of the existing business alone, (embedded value) per share. So if you're looking for a better bargain than that, trot over to check out JRG, where SP drop even more overdone. Whilst their business is very similar to PA. (not meaning to offend either one of them), their EV per share is 177p, whilst you can still get them at 140p.

Oh here we go already 139.3, no 139.9. What with these, QPP and Blinky, a great week-end for the recovery plays gla

Yes, you make (another) good point here. The reality of the advice gap. I'd be surprised if your experience isn't representative. Advice has become such a hot potato, that staff of many providers, I expect ,are specifically banned from going anywhere near anything that could be considered advice. Unless they've got an in-house team specifically trained to give advice for existing investors...but often this expensive headcount is more likely to be pointed towards chasing new business. So admin staff are on auto-pilot to say take financial advice....if it's really an advice question, or if it's just a question of fact, they often still say take advice because the investment in their training is relatively low and they don't know the answer or aren't confident of the advice line(or it's a handy excuse not to bother!) Which just highlights that reality is different from theory, especially when we consider the the defensive approach to advice we've developed in the UK (thanks to idiots and rogues doing the wrong thing so many times before). So in theory George says we can all take our pension pots elsewhere. But the proviso that this is done with advice means it's very likely most people still will be shepherded into annuities, due the likely attitude of the fca. This article explains why. http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/news-and-analysis/pensions/lg-osborne-pensions-overhaul-blocked-by-fca-annuities-stance/2008317.article And any shepherding is likely to lead to shopping around for the best deal, and where possible getting an enhanced annuity via medical underwriting. For which market leaders are JRG and PA.. So hooray for FCA for that and also for causing a bit of needless panic today on the price from their announcement of a planned review of old insurance products and pensions. A lovely chance to buy a few more of these before a nice rally into the week-end.

£10.8m total big buys showing HL in last 24 hours: today 10:20 £1.8m Thurs 16:30 £4.125m Thurs 16:28 £4.125m Thurs 13:04 £0.336m Thurs 12:44 £0.422m Price still depressed. No comment on bulletin boards. What's going on?

Excellent. Thanks for posting this. Digging away in the background to see what the future market will look like, though it's hard to call, I'm still sure there will be one, it will just look different in terms of the product features. 2 simple facts remain: larger and larger numbers of people are reaching the time to do something with their pension pot and the need to make sure you don't run out of money by living too long is increasing too. Annuity redesign and combination with other products is possible to give more people a combination of flexibility and security. And as one annuities expert I've exchanged notes with points out, suddenly retirement planning's getting discussed down the pub. "God forbid we may even have made this market sexy! " Well, that might be taking it too far, but raising people's interest in new options will be positive for the likes of PA. IMHO.

In the pensions world article I just mentioned, it also makes reference to the niche PA. and JRG have competitive advantage in: “The use of medical underwriting or enhanced buyin as a means of derisking continues to grow. David Ellis of Mercer says “medically underwritten bulk annuities are likely to grow in popularity in the UK during 2014 and beyond, primarily due to the potential to reduce prices in certain circumstances. There are pros and cons to the approach and it is unlikely to produce best results for every pension plan, but it may be worth considering in earnest if the number of lives to be insured is small – as that is currently where the market is.” There are four main players in the enhanced buyin market: Just Retirement, Partnership, Aviva and Legal & General. Aviva’s Stephen Robinson expects the “underwritten bulk annuity market to grow, especially while new entrants target business growth”. “ So PA. sounds worth a bit more than just the value of its existing book, which I think someone pointed out is what the 130p level roughly equates to? (For JRG, if you’re interested, I’ve calc’d they’d be at 177p on that basis….currently languishing at 137p and silent bulletin boards. Just saying.)