Financial strength
Adjusted operating profit before tax of £797 million was up 28% year-on-year (2022: £625 millionii), reflecting a resilient performance in Asset Management, and improved contribution from Life, Wealth and Corporate Centre.
IFRS profit after tax of £309 million improved significantly (2022: £2,055 million lossii), benefitting from higher adjusted operating profit and a meaningful reduction in losses relating to short-term fluctuations in investment returns.
Operating change in contractual service margin (CSM) of £355 million was up 175% year-on-year (2022: £129 million), primarily due to higher expected real-world return on with-profits business CSM following the increase in risk-free rates during 2022.
Operating capital generation of £996 million was also up by 20% year-on-year (2022: £821 million), supported by a strong underlying capital generation of £752 million (2022: £628 million) and other operating capital generation of £244 million (2022: £193 million).
Over 2022 and 2023, we generated £1.8 billion of operating capital, which puts us in a very good position to achieve our three-year cumulative operating capital generation target of £2.5 billion by end of year.
Shareholder Solvency II coverage ratio improved to 203% (2022: 199%).
The 2023 total ordinary dividend of 19.7 pence per share (2022: 19.6 pence per share) is in line with our policy of stable or increasing dividends. The second interim dividend of 13.2 pence per share is payable on 9 May 2024.
https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcem ... ts/8098922
Also posted on Company News here; viewtopic.php?p=654933#p654933
I hold these in my HYP, and know others here do too, so this may be of interest here.
Ian.