Standard Life share price: Company’s full-year pre-tax profit beats expectations

Standard Life Plc (LON:SL) has seen a better-than-expected pre-tax operating profit last year, driven by growth in assets under management and fee-based revenue, the company’s full-year results have revealed.

The company said today that its assets under management had risen four percent in the 12 months to December 31 to £307.4 billion. The increase was driven by net inflows of £6.3 billion, Standard Life said. Meanwhile, fee-based revenue rose 10 percent to £1.58 billion. All this helped the company increase its pre-tax profit from continuing operations by 9.4 percent to £665 million. The figure was well ahead of an average analyst forecast of £616 million.

Standard Life’s chief executive officer, Keith Skeoch, commented on the performance: “During 2015 Standard Life has made considerable progress towards creating a world-class investment company against a backdrop of volatile investment markets and an evolving regulatory landscape.” He added: “We have increased the assets that we administer on behalf of our clients and customers to £307bn with almost two thirds of these assets now coming from our Growth Channels.”
Looking ahead, Standard Life said that despite the difficult conditions in global financial markets seen the start of 2016, the company was “well positioned” to meet the needs of its customers.
In today’s trading, Standard Life shares were 2.3 percent higher at 346.10p, as of 08:17 GMT. The stock has fallen 10.7 percent since the start of the year and the company’s market capitalisation currently stands at £6.8 billion.
The 20 analysts offering 12 month price targets for Standard Life have a median target of 423.00p, with a high estimate of 537.78p and a low estimate of 320.00p. As of February 16, 2016, the consensus forecast amongst 22 polled investment analysts covering Standard Life had it that investors should hold their position in the company. The same consensus estimate has been maintained since December 09, 2014, when the sentiment of investment analysts deteriorated from “outperform”.
As of 09:49 GMT, Friday, 19 February, Standard Life Plc share price is 342.80p.

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