UK's Phoenix ups cash target on wrapping life insurance brands merger (updated)
13/11/2023 07:55
(Adds details from the press release in paragraph 4)
Nov 13 (Reuters) - Britain's Phoenix Group PHNX.L
raised its full-year cash generation forecast on Monday after it
completed the merger of two of its insurance brands - Standard
Life and Phoenix Life - to bring together about 8 million
policies.
Phoenix, which historically managed books of life insurance
businesses that are closed to new customers, said the merger
resulted in a one-off increase to a new full-year cash
generation target of about 1.8 billion pounds ($2.20 billion).
Its earlier forecast was for between 1.3 billion pounds and
1.4 billion pounds.
Phoenix bought the Standard Life brand from asset manager
abrdn ABDN.L in 2021 and has been looking to expand into bulk
annuities - which insures company-defined benefits, or final
salary and pension schemes - due to growing corporate demand
against a backdrop of rising interest rates that have driven up
yields.
The insurer also hiked its cash-generation target across
2023 to 2025 to 4.5 billion pounds, from 4.1 billion pounds
previously.
($1 = 0.8171 pounds)
(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar and Eva Mathews in Bengaluru;
Editing by Savio D'Souza)
((Radhika.Anilkumar@thomsonreuters.com;))