Prudential plc

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This article is about the British company. For the American company, see Prudential Financial. For
other uses, see Prudential (disambiguation).

Prudential plc

Type Public limited company

Traded as LSE: PRU

NYSE: PUK
SEHK: 2378
FTSE 100 Component

Industry Financial services

Founded 1848; 171 years ago

(London)

Headquarters London, EC4

United Kingdom

Area served Worldwide

Key people Paul Manduca

(Chairman)
Mike Wells
(Group Chief Executive)

Products Life insurance

Investment management
Consumer finance
 Revenue £86.562 billion (2017)[1]

Operating income £3.970 billion (2017)[1]

Net income £2.390 billion (2017)[1]

Total assets £493,941 million (2017) [1]

Total equity £16,094 million (2017) [1]

Website www.prudential.co.uk

Prudential plc is a British multinational life insurance and financial services company headquartered
in London, United Kingdom. It was founded in London in May 1848 to provide loans to professional
and working people.[2]
Prudential has 26 million life customers.[3] It owns Prudential Corporation Asia, which has leading
insurance and asset management operations across 14 markets in Asia, Jackson National Life
Insurance Company, which is one of the largest life insurance providers in the United States, and
M&G Prudential, a leading savings and investments business serving customers in the UK and
Europe [3]
Prudential has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100
Index. Prudential has secondary listings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, New York Stock
Exchange and Singapore Exchange.

Contents

 1History
o 1.1Early history
o 1.2Twentieth century
o 1.3Twenty-first century
 2Operations
 3Prudential RideLondon
 4Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon
 5Senior management
 6See also
 7References
 8External links

History[edit]
Early history[edit]
The company was founded in Hatton Garden in London in May 1848 as The Prudential, Investment,
Loan, and Assurance Association and in September 1848 changed its name to The Prudential
Mutual Assurance, Investment, and Loan Association,[4] to provide loans to professional and working
people.[2] In 1854, the company began selling the relatively new concept of industrial branch
insurance policies to the working class population for premiums as low as one penny through agents
acting as door to door salesmen. The army of premium collection agents was for many years
identified with the Prudential as the "Man from the Pru".[2] It moved to its traditional home at Holborn
Bars in 1879 and converted to a limited company in 1881.[2] The building was designed by Alfred
Waterhouse, and is built of terracotta manufactured by Gibbs and Canning Limited of Tamworth
(c.1878) — two of the same driving forces behind the Natural History Museum in London.[5]
Twentieth century[edit]

Holborn Bars—Traditional home of Prudential

The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1978.[6] In 1986, Prudential acquired
the American insurer Jackson National Life.[7] In 1997, Prudential acquired Scottish Amicable, a
business founded in 1826 in Glasgow as the West of Scotland Life Insurance Company, for
£1.75bn.[8]
In 1998, Prudential set up Egg, an internet bank within the UK. The subsidiary reached 550,000
customers within nine months but had difficulty achieving profitability.[9] In June 2000, an initial public
offering of 21% was made to allow for further growth of the internet business but in February 2006
Prudential decided to repurchase the 21% share of Egg.[10] Egg was subsequently sold to Citibank in
January 2007.[11] In 1999, M&G, a UK fund management company, was acquired.[12] In June 2000,
the company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange to help focus on the US market.[13]
Twenty-first century[edit]

Prudential logo with older wordmark, currently used in Asia

In October 2004, Prudential launched a new subsidiary, PruHealth, a joint venture with Discovery
Holdings of South Africa selling private medical insurance to the UK market.[14] In April 2008,
Prudential outsourced its back office functions to Capita: about 3,000 jobs were transferred (1,000
in Stirling, 750 in Reading and 1,250 in Mumbai).[15] This significant outsourcing deal, worth an
estimated £722m over a 15-year contract, built on Prudential's existing relationship with Capita who
took over its Belfast operation in 2006 along with approximately 450 employees in a smaller
operational restructure.[16]
On 1 March 2010, Prudential announced that it was in "advanced talks" to purchase the pan-Asian
life insurance company of AIG, American International Assurance (AIA) for approximately
£23 billion.[17] The deal later collapsed and AIA ended up raising money in an IPO.[18]
In December 2013, Prudential announced the purchase of Ghana's Express Life Company. Express
Life was subsequently rebranded as Prudential Ghana.[19] In April 2014, Prudential launched two
corporate responsibility initiatives to support education in Ghana: the Prudential Scholarship
Programme for more than 500 senior high school students, in partnership with the NGO Plan Ghana;
and a scheme to support actuarial science graduates.[20] In September 2014, Prudential purchased
Kenyan life insurer Shield Assurance and rebranded it as Prudential Kenya, further expanding the
company's presence in Africa.[21] Prudential has since entered three other African countries –
Uganda in 2015, Zambia in 2016 and Nigeria in 2017.[22]
On 10 March 2015, it was announced that the CEO, Tidjane Thiam, would leave Prudential to
become the next CEO of Credit Suisse.[23] On 1 May 2015, it was announced that Mike Wells, head
of the company's US business, would succeed Tidjane Thiam as CEO, on a pay package worth up
to £7.5 million.[24]
In August 2017, it was announced that Prudential was to combine its asset manager, M&G, and
Prudential UK & Europe to form M&G Prudential.[25]
In November 2017, Prudential announced the change in the name of its joint venture with Chinese
investment company CITIC to "CITIC Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited".[26]
In March 2018, Prudential announced that it would demerge M&G Prudential from the Group.[27]

Operations[edit]

Prudential's administrative centre in Reading, United Kingdom

The Company has three business units:[28]

 M&G Prudential, created from the merger of Prudential UK & Europe and M&G Investments.
Prudential UK & Europe offers pensions, annuities, savings and investments (bonds, ISAs).
They are particularly well known for the sale of with-profit bonds and pensions, corporate
pension schemes, bulk annuities and individual annuities. The company left the general
insurance (household, car) market in 2002, licensing Churchill Insurance (now part of the Direct
Line Group) to use the Prudential name. M&G offers investment management services including
retail fund management, institutional fixed income, pooled life, pension funds, property and
private finance. Part of M&G, Prudential Property Investment Managers specialises in the
management of Prudential's property assets.
 Prudential Corporation Asia: based in Hong Kong,[29] the business is the largest UK life assurer in
Asia. It has had a presence in the continent since 1923 when an overseas agency for life
assurance was created in India. Although this was subsequently nationalised, Prudential
relaunched in India in 2000 as ICICI Prudential, a 26% joint venture with ICICI Bank.
 As CITIC Prudential Life, a 50–50 joint venture, they were the first UK company to re-establish
life business in China in 2000. There are also businesses in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South
Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. Prudential's Asian
asset management business, Eastspring Investments, has total funds under management of
£138.9 billion.[3]
 Jackson National Life Insurance Company: based in Michigan, United States,[30] the business
was purchased in 1986. It was named after Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the
United States of America and started business in 1961.

Prudential RideLondon[edit]
Prudential RideLondon is an annual two-day cycling festival, held for the first time in 2013. The 2017
Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 set a new fundraising record for the event, with £12.75 million
raised for charity, bringing the total raised by the event to more than £53 million in its first five
years.[31]
The event was developed by the Mayor of London and his agencies and is organised by the London
& Surrey Cycling Partnership. The main events are a 100-mile professional road race through Surrey
and London, and an amateur race along the same route. Participants in the amateur race typically
raise money for good causes. The 20,709 finishers in the 2014 event raised more than £10 million
for charity.[32]
The inaugural sponsor of RideLondon, Prudential has extended its sponsorship of the event for a
further three years, up to and including the 2018 event.[33]

Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon[edit]

In October 2014, Prudential announced that it would invest up to £100 million in the Swansea Bay
Tidal Lagoon Power station, a world-leading infrastructure project. Prudential has committed to
invest £25 billion in UK infrastructure projects over five years. Prudential will be one of the main
investors in the scheme designed to harness tidal-energy, which could power 120,000 homes for
120 years. If approved, the project would take two years to build and would create 1,850
construction jobs.[3
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