Prudential plc

This article is about the British company. For the American company, see Prudential Financial. For places named after the company, see Prudential (disambiguation).
Prudential plc
Public limited company
Traded as LSE: PRU
NYSE: PUK
SEHK: 2378
Industry Financial services
Founded 1848 (1848)
(London)
Headquarters London, United Kingdom
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Paul Manduca[1]
(Chairman)
Mike Wells
[2](Group Chief Executive)
Products Life insurance
Investment management
Consumer finance
Revenue £41.305 billion (2015)[3]
£3.321 billion (2015)[3]
£2.579 billion (2015)[3]
Website www.prudential.co.uk

Prudential plc is a British multinational life insurance and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was founded in London in May 1848 as The Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association to provide loans to professional and working people.[4]

Prudential's largest division is Prudential Corporation Asia, which has over 13 million customers across 12 Asian markets and is a top-three provider of life insurance in Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam.[5] Its Prudential UK division has around 7 million customers and is a leading provider of life insurance and pensions in the UK.[5] Prudential also owns Jackson National Life Insurance Company, which is one of the largest life insurance providers in the United States, and M&G Investments, a Europe-focused asset manager with total assets under management of £547 billion at June 2014.[6]

In December 2013 Prudential acquired the Ghanaian life insurance company, Express Life, marking its entry into the African direct life insurance market. Prudential subsequently rebranded the business as Prudential Ghana.[7] In September 2014, it purchased Kenyan life insurer Shield Assurance, rebranding the company as Prudential Kenya.[8]

Prudential has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It had a market capitalisation of approximately £41,630 million as of 4 February 2015.[9] Prudential has secondary listings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and Singapore Exchange.

History

1848 to 2000

The company was founded on 30 May 1848 in Hatton Garden in London as The Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association providing loans to professional and working people.[4]

In 1854, the Company began selling the relatively new concept of industrial branch insurance policies to the working class population for premiums as low as one penny through agents acting as door to door salesmen. The army of premium collection agents was for many years identified with the Prudential as the "Man from the Pru".[4]

It moved to its traditional home at Holborn Bars in 1879 and converted to a limited company in 1881.[4] The building was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, and is built of terracotta manufactured by Gibbs and Canning Limited of Tamworth (c.1878) — two of the same driving forces behind the Natural History Museum in London.[10]

The Prudential Assurance Company Limited was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1924.

In 1986, Prudential acquired the American insurer Jackson National Life. In 1997, Prudential acquired Scottish Amicable, a business originally founded in 1826 in Glasgow as the West of Scotland Life Insurance Company, for £1.75bn.[11]

Holborn Bars—Traditional home of Prudential

In 1998, Prudential set up Egg, an internet bank within the UK. The subsidiary reached 550,000 customers within nine months but had difficulty achieving profitability.[12] In June 2000 an initial public offering of 21% was made to allow for further growth of the internet business but in February 2006 Prudential decided to repurchase the 21% share of Egg.[13] Egg was subsequently sold to Citibank in January 2007.[14]

In 1999, M&G, a UK fund management company, was acquired.[15]

In June 2000, the Company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange to help focus on the US market.[16]

2000 to present

In October 2004 Prudential launched a new subsidiary, PruHealth, a joint venture with Discovery Holdings of South Africa selling private medical insurance to the UK market.[17]

In April 2008 Prudential outsourced its back office functions to Capita: about 3,000 jobs were transferred (1,000 in Stirling, 750 in Reading and 1,250 in Mumbai).[18] This significant outsourcing deal, worth an estimated £722m over a 15-year contract, built on Prudential's existing relationship with Capita who took over its Belfast operation in 2006 along with approximately 450 employees in a smaller operational restructure.[19]

On 1 March 2010, Prudential announced that it was in "advanced talks" to purchase the pan-Asian life insurance company of AIG, American International Assurance (AIA) for approximately £23 billion.[20] The deal later collapsed and AIA ended up raising money in an IPO.[21]

In December 2013, Prudential announced the purchase of Ghana’s Express Life Company. Express Life was subsequently rebranded as Prudential Ghana. .In April, Prudential launched two corporate responsibility initiatives to support education in Ghana: the Prudential Scholarship Programme for more than 500 senior high school students, in partnership with the NGO Plan Ghana; and a scheme to support actuarial science graduates.[22]

In September 2014, Prudential purchased Kenyan life insurer Shield Assurance and rebranded it as Prudential Kenya, further expanding the company’s presence in Africa.[8]

On 10 March 2015, it was announced that the CEO, Tidjane Thiam, would leave Prudential to become the next CEO of Credit Suisse.[23] On 1 May 2015, it was announced that Mike Wells, head of the company's US business, would succeed Tidjane Thiam as CEO, on a pay package worth up to £7.5 million.[24]

Operations

Prudential's administrative centre in Reading, United Kingdom

The Company has four business units:[25]

Prudential RideLondon

Prudential RideLondon is an annual two-day cycling festival, held for the first time in 2013. The 2015 Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 saw over 25,500 finishers and set a new fundraising record for the event with more than £12 million raised for charity.[28]

The event was developed by the Mayor of London and his agencies and is organised by the London & Surrey Cycling Partnership. The main events are a 100-mile professional road race through Surrey and London, and an amateur race along the same route. Participants in the amateur race typically raise money for good causes. The 20,709 finishers in the 2014 event raised more than £10 million for charity.[29] The event is now one of the largest fundraising events in the UK, with more than £20 million raised in its first three years.

The inaugural sponsor of RideLondon, Prudential has extended its sponsorship of the event for a further three years, up to and including the 2018 event.[30]

Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon

In October 2014, Prudential announced that it will invest up to £100 million in the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon Power station, a world-leading infrastructure project. Prudential has committed to invest £25 billion in UK infrastructure projects over five years. Prudential will be one of the main investors in the scheme designed to harness tidal-energy, which could power 120,000 homes for 120 years.

If approved, the project would take two years to build and would create 1,850 construction jobs.[31]

Senior management

There are currently 17 people on the board of directors. Key individuals are:

Chairman of the Board of DirectorsPaul Manduca
Group Chief ExecutiveMike Wells
Chief Financial OfficerNic Nicandrou
Chief Executive of M&GMichael McLintock
Chief Executive of Prudential Corporation AsiaTony Wilkey
Chairman and Chief Executive of the North American Business UnitBarry Stowe
Chief Executive, Prudential UK & EuropeJohn Foley
Group Chief Risk OfficerPenny James

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Prudential appoints Paul Manduca as its new chairman". BBC. 29 May 2012. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  2. ↑ Jones, Sarah (1 May 2015). "Prudential Names Mike Wells to Succeed Thiam as Group CEO". Bloomberg.
  3. 1 2 3 "Full Year Results 2015" (PDF). Prudential Public Limited Company. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Timeline 1826–1901". Prudential plc. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  5. 1 2 "Fact File 2013" (PDF). Prudential plc. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  6. ↑ "Prudential Plc Investor Conference 2014". Prudential plc. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
  7. ↑ "Prudential Moves into Insurance in Ghana". The Financial Times. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
  8. 1 2 Jones, Sarah (16 September 2014). "Prudential Buys Kenyan Insurer in Second African Purchase". Bloomberg Business. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
  9. ↑ "London Stock Exchange: Prudential Plc". londonstockexchange.com. Retrieved 10 February 2015.
  10. ↑ Research page including details of many buildings that used Gibbs and Canning terracotta accessed 25 March 2012
  11. ↑ Pru of Britain in Deal to buy Scottish Life Insurancer. The New York Times, 26 March 1997.
  12. ↑ Egg cracks internet for Pru BBC News, 1999
  13. ↑ Prudential to swallow the Egg whole. BBC News, 2005.
  14. ↑ Pru sells Egg to Citigroup. BBC News, 2007.
  15. ↑ Pru pounces on investment rival BBC News, 1999
  16. ↑ Prudential goes to New York BBC News, 2000
  17. ↑ Insurance boon for health conscious. BBC News, 2004.
  18. ↑ Prudential jobs deal with Capita BBC News, 2007
  19. ↑ Prudential outsources 450 jobs in Belfast to Capita Group. The Independent, 17 August 2006.
  20. ↑ "Prudential gambles on Asia with $35bn deal". theguardian.com. 1 March 2010. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  21. ↑ "Prudential abandons bid for AIA". BBC News. 2 June 2010. Retrieved 25 March 2012.
  22. ↑ "Prudential Increases Capital Base". Business and Financial Times. 25 April 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
  23. ↑ Milmo, Dan (10 March 2015). "Prudential's Tidjane Thiam to take top role at Credit Suisse". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
  24. ↑ Julia Kollewe. "Prudential appoints new CEO on £7.5m pay package". the Guardian. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  25. ↑ "About us". prudential.co.uk. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  26. ↑ "Prudential Corporation Asia – How to contact us". Prudential.co.uk. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  27. ↑ "Jackson National Life Insurance Company - How to contact us". Prudential.co.uk. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  28. ↑ "Prudential RideLondon raises record-breaking £12 million for charity". Prudentialridelondon.co.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  29. ↑ "Prudential RideLondon raises record-breaking £10 million for charity". Prudentialridelondon.co.uk. Retrieved 18 December 2014.
  30. ↑ "Prudential renews sponsorship of RideLondon". Prudentialridelondon.co.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  31. ↑ "£100m investment in Swansea Bay tidal lagoon". BBC News. 20 October 2014. Retrieved 20 October 2014.
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