PENSIONS specialist Scottish Equitable's first-quarter pre-tax profit contribution to Dutch parent Aegon jumped by 40% to #21m, enabled partly by a 10% increase in new business.
A ScotEq spokesman said that a comeback in the individual pensions market had made up for any shortfall in group personal pension business, which was particularly strong last year because of new minimum funding requirements and other issues arising from the Pensions Act.
He added that single premiums on the personal investment side, into both onshore and offshore products, had been ''pretty strong''.
On the standard industry measure of new regular premiums plus one-tenth of single premiums, ScotEq's new business during the three months to end-March was up 10% on the first quarter of last year. Single premiums were particularly strong, giving rise to a 32% hike in total premium income to #658m.
The ScotEq spokesman was upbeat about second-quarter prospects. He said: ''I think the second quarter is quite lively for a lot of companies. There is certainly a lot of business out there.''
ScotEq's advance played a part in Dutch parent company Aegon's achievement of a 63% hike in first-quarter profits to 845 million guilders (#258m) before tax. Be-cause of the strengthening of the pound, Scottish Equitable's guilder-translated profits were up 52%.
A small part of the rise in ScotEq's profit contribution was a result of Aegon's share of the Edinburgh-based outfit's profits increasing from 90% to 95%. It will increase to 100% at the end of this year as Aegon's creeping takeover of ScotEq, which began in 1993, comes to a conclusion.
Excluding the impact of divestments, exchange rate movements and acquisitions, notably the purchase of the insurance activities of the former Providian Corp in the US which was completed in the summer of last year, Aegon's profits were 24% higher at the pre-tax level.
Aegon's overall net income was up 61% at 648 million guilders (#198m) and the company, based in The Hague, upgraded its own forecast of the rise in its full-year net income from 20% to 25%.
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