RE: Any ideas.....6 Mar 2024 19:35
TheTrotsky you make some very valid points. I guess the way I am seeing it is the City fell out of love a long time ago with the UK Insurance sector and Aviva was a clunky business based on former mergers and takeovers plus all the overseas businesses. Previous CEO's including Richard Harvey, Mark Wilson and Maurice Tulloch failed to deal with the issues. Don't forget the CGNU/Aviva SP was over £11 twenty years ago so other than a decent dividend return the longterm shareholders have suffered. Therefore there was added pressure to do something with the overseas operations when AB arrived and only amplified when Cevian bought 6% and got very noisy about what direction they needed to go in. Then once the return of funds was complete Cevian disappeared. Now Aviva are just a smaller company and in a very limited market. Not a lot will come from Canada or Ireland so they now pretty much have all their egg in one basket - UK and as you correctly state no further acquisitions likely for the reasons you have given. Lets hope for a good set of results tomorrow (L&G disappointed today) but either way I am in it for the long haul purely as a dividend stock in my portfolio.