Aviva boosts EPS and dividend for first half
Never miss an issue of Master Investor Magazine – sign-up now for free! |
FTSE 100 insurer Aviva (LON:AV.) has announced that it will increase its interim dividend by 10% to 9.25p after it increased earnings per share by 4% during the first half of 2018.
Operating profits for the period fell by 2% to £1,438 million, largely due to the impact of disposals, but the impact on EPS was counteracted by a major share buyback programme during the period. Management also believe that digital propositions will be key to long term growth and said that new offerings would be coming to market.
Chief Executive Mark Wilson commented that: “Our progress in the first half of 2018 shows the strength and depth of our businesses, with attractive growth maintained across our major markets. Continuation of these major market growth trends coupled with improvements in Canada and further benefit from capital deployment reinforce our confidence in delivering our target of greater than 5% operating earnings per share growth in 2018“.
Shares in the company dropped by 1.37% to 488.80p (as of 14:00 BST).
Comments (0)