Utmost Group plc announces its HY 2023 Results

Utmost Group plc (“UGP”) has delivered a resilient financial performance in a challenging economic environment. The Group has continued to progress against its core strategic pillars.

HY 2023 Highlights

• Resilient Results in the Face of Macroeconomic Headwinds: The Group’s strength is evidenced through the consistency of its financial and operating performance in the face of a challenging external backdrop. Resilient retention figures of 93% in our UWS business demonstrate the strength of our proposition.
  
  The Group maintained its strong capital position, with a Group Solvency Coverage Ratio of 185% and Own Funds of £1,840m, reflecting our robust capital management processes.
  
• Fitch Ratings Upgrade: The Group received a revision to our Fitch Ratings to a Positive Outlook. Our Issuer Default Rating (“IDR”) was affirmed at ‘A-‘. The revision reflects our increased scale which has been achieved while maintaining our strong operating profitability, robust capitalisation and conservative financial leverage.
  
• IT and Operations Optimisation: The Group has continued work on its digital strategy to leverage emerging technology trends and best practises. New security controls and capabilities have been deployed to ensure that our technology estate remains robust and secure in the face of the evolving threat of cyber-crime.
  
• The Quilter International integration is on track to complete by early Q4 2023, in line with the original deadline.

Commenting on the results, Paul Thompson, Group CEO, said:

“The first half of 2023 has seen ongoing uncertainty across the geopolitical and macroeconomic spheres. The negative dynamics of geopolitical tension, persistent inflation, and interest rate rises have been countered by better than expected equity market performance and resilient global economies.

“In the face of these challenges, we continued to deliver strong financial results and progressed against our core KPIs. I look to the rest of 2023 with quiet confidence that Utmost will continue to execute against our strategic goals and capitalise on our leading position in the market.”

Please read the full RNS here