HONG KONG: Asian insurance giant AIA said Friday its net profit last year soared more than 50 percent to $2.7 billion, several months after the firm raised $20.5 billion in a monster Hong Kong share sale.
New business growth along with currency and investment gains propelled the Pan-Asian insurer's results for the fiscal year ended November 30 to 54 percent above its $1.8 billion net profit in 2009, the company said.
Excellent growth in profitability, driven by a strong existing in-force book of business and a material uplift in new business growth," AIA's Chief Executive Mark Tucker said in a statement announcing the firm's first public results since its listing in October.
AIA said it booked a 22 percent hike in new business to $667 million, up from $545 million in 2009, with boosts seen across key markets including mainland China, Malaysia and Thailand.
Its shares were 4.5 percent higher at HK$22.05 ($2.83) in morning trade.
The Asian unit of troubled US insurer American International Group raised $20.5 billion in October, marking the world's third-biggest initial public offering at the time.
AIA's sale came after Agricultural Bank of China raised $22.1 billion in Hong Kong last July, beating the previous world record set by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which raised $21.9 billion in 2006.
Some of the cash from AIA's huge IPO was earmarked for helping its then parent AIG pay off a $182 billion US government bailout it received at the height of the global financial crisis.
Once the world's largest insurer, AIG received the massive government cash injection after it teetered on the brink of collapse in 2008 and threatened to take down a number of large banks with it.
On Thursday, AIG reported a $7.8 billion net profit for 2010, largely aided by asset sales including the AIA offering, after reporting an almost $11 billion net loss in 2009.
AIG, which still owns about one-third of AIA, was forced to look at floating its Asian unit in Hong Kong after the collapse last June of a proposed $35.5 billion sale to British insurer Prudential.
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