Patience is a virtue that investors in Prudential have long needed to possess owing to its slower-growth UK and US businesses. Judging the insurer’s ability to accelerate growth as a purely Asia and Africa-focused operation has now been drawn out further.
Measures to control a resurgence of Covid in Hong Kong have hamstrung sales in what has traditionally been its largest market. Annual premium equivalent sales, a measure of new business activity, were down by more than a quarter in Hong Kong last year. Gaining more credit from the market for making the logical move to simplify its business is going to take more time.
The FTSE 100 constituent completed the demerger last year of its US retirement business, Jackson. Unlike other UK-listed insurers, Prudential
