Great Eastern Q3 earnings fall 26% to S$213.3m on market conditions

GREAT Eastern Holdings on Tuesday (Nov 2) posted a 26 per cent fall in net profit to S$213.3 million for the third quarter ended Sept 30, from S$287.9 million a year ago.

The insurance arm of OCBC said this was mainly because financial market conditions were not as favourable for Q3 2021, resulting in mark-to-market losses.

Meanwhile, operating profit rose 46 per cent to S$248.7 million, from S$170.2 million a year earlier, in line with higher profit from the insurance business.

However, non-operating profit came in at a loss of S$4.6 million for the quarter, swinging from a profit of S$51.2 million in the preceding year.

Profit from shareholders' fund fell to a loss of S$28.4 million, from a profit of S$74.9 million a year ago, due to mark-to-market losses in equities and collective investment schemes, the insurer noted.

Despite the negative impact from Covid-19 on sales in Malaysia and Indonesia, strong momentum for the business in Singapore led to a 29 per cent growth in total weighted new sales to S$555.2 million, from S$431.1 million last year.

The sustainable total weighted new sales performance was underpinned by the successful execution of the group's distribution, product and digital strategies, the insurer said.

In addition, lower margins in Singapore also led to new business embedded value edging up 3 per cent to S$177.1 million, from S$171.3 million in the corresponding period last year.

Great Eastern group chief executive officer Khor Hock Seng pointed out that the group has continued to build on the momentum from the past 9 months to achieve robust growth in total weighted new sales and new business embedded value for the year thus far.

"Our priority remains to build resiliency into our businesses amid current and evolving Covid-19 challenges. This would entail delivering the right solutions to meet the needs of our customers, leveraging on our comprehensive suite of products, strengthening our distribution capabilities as well as sharpening our digital solutions and services.

"We will stay the course as we pursue a disciplined strategy to grow our franchise across our key markets in an increasingly uncertain and competitive business environment," he said.

Great Eastern shares closed 1.8 per cent or S$0.39 higher at S$21.91 on Nov 1.

Read more:

• Great Eastern Q2 profit falls 22% to S$232.2m amid less favourable market conditions
• Great Eastern Q1 profit hits S$437.6m on favourable market conditions
• Digitalisation seen as key to Great Eastern's growth