National Mutual announces shakeup with profits
National Mutual Holdings will embark on a review of products and services as well as continuing to reduce costs in a bid to arrest the slide of its local business according to new managing director, Les Owen.
National Mutual Holdings will embark on a review of products and services as well as continuing to reduce costs in a bid to arrest the slide of its local business according to new managing director, Les Owen.
The shakeup will target retail products with a possible rationalisation of their num-bers and the distribution channels with more emphasis being placed on the use of non-aligned channels for use across the product range.
"This is not rocket science, I intend that the review to be swift and we'll be moving to implement the changes that we will find are necessary," Owen says.
The announcement came as outgoing National Mutual managing director Tony Killen released the group's results for 1999 which saw a 47 per cent jump in annual profit to $302 million for the year to September.
The key driver in the increase was the sale of non core assets and good returns from Asia with AXA China Region contributing $138 million, a 340 per cent in-crease on the previous year.
The other face of the results was the negative returns from the income protection arm which lost $22 million.
Killen says the loss was attributable to the rise in length and number of claims on the books but emphasised this was an industry wide occurrence but had taken ac-tion to reverse the trend.
In other business plans to launch more banking products are continuing according to Killen and rollout should begin in the first quarter next year.
National Mutual already supplies a home loan product to Industry Funds Services, an industry superannuation funds service provider, and will offer a suite or prod-ucts to five million super fund members of IFS.
"We have finalised shareholder agreements and the board will consider the plans. The only other work to be done is the finalisation of the products in the range," Killen says.
In keeping with the growing Asian presence Owen also announced the National Mutual Holdings group in Australia will take on the full AXA mantle and be known as AXA Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd.
The change has still to be passed by shareholders at the annual general meeting but both Owen and Killen say the name change has been well received with over 80 per cent recognition.
"The success of the rebranding is encouraging and is a tangible sign of our com-mitment to the Asia Pacific region," Owen says.
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Jason Spits
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