Aviva brags about its balance sheet strength

20th Jan 2011 13:24

Insurance group Aviva saw its share price edge higher Thursday in an otherwise weak market after it talked up its balance sheet strength in a presentation to investors and analysts."We have a clear strategy to grow our dividend and profits through increasing our geographic focus and in light of the changed economic environment and our strong capital generation we're planning to reduce our hybrid debt over the next three years," revealed company chief executive, Andrew Moss.The company said its pension deficit had been reduced to £0.4bn at the end of November 2010 from £1.7bn at the end of 2009. "The strength of Aviva's balance sheet rests on our successful track record of managing credit and insurance risk and the financial and risk actions we have taken, such as the material reduction of our pension deficit. We have also delivered consistent outperformance in our asset portfolios and we're disclosing today a net asset value of 617p on an EEV [European Embedded Value] equivalent basis," said Aviva's chief financial officer, Pat Regan.