AIA Group reports 28 pct growth in new business

Insurer AIA Group Ltd. saw the value of its new business register a year-on-year growth of 28 per cent or US$2.75 billion (MOP22 billion) for the fiscal year ended November 30, 2016, according to its filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last Friday.
Operating a wholly-owned branch in Macau, the company’s value of new business from the Hong Kong and Macau segment surged by 42 per cent year-on-year to US$1.16 billion during the period.
The company said the notable growth in the two SARs is due to ‘higher activity and productivity levels in our agency distribution,’ as well as the ‘increased volumes of business from Mainland Chinese customers.’
Meanwhile, the company’s Mainland market also soared by 54 per cent year-on-year in terms of value of new business, amounting to US$536 million.
For the whole year, the insurer’s operating profit after tax reached US$3.98 billion, an increase of 15 per cent year-on-year, while profit generated from the SARs rose by 16 per cent year-on-year, contributing some US$1.33 billion of the total.
The company’s chief executive and president, Mark Tucker, added in the filing that the group has also recorded a “strong value of new business growth in the first two months of our [2017] financial year,” without providing the related figures.
The company has proposed a final dividend of 63.75 HK cents per share for the fiscal year, an increase of 25 per cent year-on-year.