(9 May 2005 – Australia) AMP’s Financial Services (AFS) business has posted a first quarter net cash flow of A$118 million, up A$30 million on the previous year.AMP chief executive Andrew Mohl called the result “encouraging” as the first quarter was normally the slowest.
“The underlying sales growth and higher persistency reflected in these numbers are an encouraging start to the year,” he said.
“Given fair markets we expected underlying return on equity to rise strongly, to see strong growth in the value of new business and embedded value, controllable costs to be broadly stable, and notwithstanding the loss of tax relief and the effect of 2004 repricing initiatives, to see moderate growth in our AFS business,” Mohl said.
Mohl said AFS had both a mature and contemporary book of business with 50 percent of its assets under management invested in equities.