Standard Life unveils a better profit performance

Mar 11 2010 by Iain Laing, The Journal

STANDARD Life has unveiled better than expected profits and says it plans to target a further £100m of efficiency savings by 2012.

The Edinburgh-based company, which recently appointed finance chief David Nish as its new chief executive, said operating profits of £919m represented a good performance in an uncertain year for financial markets. The 1.5% drop was much higher than City forecasts for a figure of around £662m.

It added that it had started the new year in a healthy position after the return of investor appetite resulted in a 38% leap in UK sales to £2.88 billion over the last three months of 2009.

The company, which employs around 10,000 people, made savings worth £47m last year towards its target of £75m of efficiencies by the end of 2010. It will look to boost margins with another £100m of savings by 2012, including from technology and procurement.

At the same time, Standard said it will spend more than £200m to develop and promote its products in retail and corporate markets in 2010.

Mr Nish said: “2009 was a successful year for Standard Life in which we delivered against our strategic objectives and built a strong platform for future profitable growth.”

The efficiencies achieved during 2009 included the restructuring of European customer service operations and the outsourcing of some IT development.

Standard’s UK life and pensions business reported a 3% drop in operating profits to £649m last year.