not vested
Ping An net spikes 68pc on premiums growthby Avery Chen
China's largest insurer Ping An Insurance (2318) posted its first-half net profit rose 68.1 percent year-on-year to 97.68 billion yuan (HK$108.79 billion), beating expectations and the fastest pace of growth in more than a decade, driven by an increase in retail customers.
Ping An declared an interim dividend of 75 fen per share, an increase of 21 percent year-on-year. Basic earnings per share were 4.12 yuan.
"Customer development yielded strong results," the insurer said in its statement, adding it welcomed 20.09 million new customers in the first half.
Gross written premiums were up 9.4 percent year-on-year to 446.48 billion yuan.
In the first half, operating profit advanced 23.8 percent to 73.46 billion yuan. Operating profit of the life and health insurance business rose 36.1 percent to 48.43 billion yuan.
The new business value of the life and health insurance business for the first six months this year grew 4.7 percent year-on-year to 41.05 billion yuan, while embedded value was up 16.3 percent to 713.19 billion yuan.
The operating profit of property and casualty insurance business grew by 69.5 percent to 10.04 billion yuan.
Ping An Bank's net profit climbed 15.2 percent to 15.4 billion yuan, due to increases in net interest margin and net non-interest revenue.
However, the operating profit of technology business segment, including Lufax, OneConnect and Ping An Good Doctor, slumped 33.3 percent to 2.8 billion yuan. As of June 30, the total valuation of these technology companies was about US$70 billion (HK$546 billion).
Moreover, trading volume for Lufax's wealth management products in the first half was down 47.3 percent to 487.33 billion yuan.
Last month, it was reported that Lufax, China's largest online wealth management platform, plans to exit its once-core peer-to-peer lending business.
The move by Lufax to exit P2P, in which companies gather funds from retail investors and loan the money to small corporate and individual borrowers, is due to regulatory hurdles, sources said, and comes amid China's crackdown on the business to contain broader financial risks.
Shares of Ping An rose 0.35 percent to HK$87.20 yesterday, with a market turnover of HK$3.38 billion.
In other news, China Life Insurance (2628) announced its accumulated premium income for the first seven months this year rose 5 percent year-on-year to 405.1 billion yuan.
Source: The Standard
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-n ... 0816&sid=2
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"