Prudential plc (PRU) Q2 2023 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good afternoon to you in Hong Kong. Good morning elsewhere in the world. It's Patrick Bow speaking. Thank you for joining us today. In the interest of ruthless efficiency and operating rhythm, we're going to start at exactly 4.30 Hong Kong time. Thank you very much. I'll pass over to Charlie, our operator for today. Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the Prudential Half-Year Results 2022 live Q&A. My name is Charlie and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you'd like to ask a question at the end of the presentation, you can do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Alternatively, if you wish to ask a written question via the webcast during the presentation, you can type your questions using the questions tab above the slides. I will now hand over to our host, Anil Wadwani, Chief Executive Officer to begin. Anil, please go ahead. Thank you, operator, and thank you, Patrick. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone, and a very, very warm welcome to the half-yearly results for 2023. I'm Anil Badwani. I have taken over the role as Prudential PLC CEO over the last six months, and I'm delighted to be sharing both the first half results as well as the update on our new strategy. Right at the outset, we are very pleased with the exceptionally strong performance that we have been able to communicate and deliver in the first half of this year. Our new business profit touched $1.5 billion, registering growth year-on-year of 39%. And if you were to remove the impacts of interest rates, our growth was even stronger at 52%. Importantly, our margins were resilient, and our margins came in at 49% on an overall basis, which was more or less flattish to the same time last year. And if, again, you remove the impact of interest rates, our margins improved by ...