Profits soar at Swiss Life
Switzerland's largest life insurer, Swiss Life, saw net profits double last year to SFr924 million ($541 million) on the back of a 49 per cent increase in financial earnings.
The company said on Wednesday that profits had exceeded expectations by far and it described 2000 an extraordinary year. It plans to increase its pre-tax dividend by SFr2 to SFr13 and to offer shareholders a special dividend of SFr5 before tax.
Financial earnings rose to SFr10.4 billion with much of that coming from swapping shares in French bank, CFF, into HSBC shares.
As well as capital gains, Swiss Life also cited extremely positive underwriting results for its performance, with gross premium income rising by 7.2 per cent to SFr19.3 billion.
Swiss Life’s share price has shed more than 14 per cent since the beginning of the year after rising 46 per cent last year on takeover speculation.
swissinfo with agencies
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.