Half year results: Confused.com profits fall to £15.6m following heavy marketing spend.
Admiral announced half year profits of £100.3m today (Wednesday), 16% up on the same period in 2007.
The insurer also announced a 13% rise in turnover to £472.5m, and a total interim dividend per share of 26p, up 26% on the same period last year.
Its UK motor book saw premiums rise by 9% to £350m, whilst the number of UK cars
insured grew by over 11% to 1.48m. The UK motor COR improved to 80.1% from 88.7% in the same period the previous year.
Confused.com, the group’s internet price comparison business, saw a 20% fall in operating profit, to £15.6, which the report attributed to heavy marketing costs.
Group chief executive Henry Engelhardt said: “When people in an organisation work together like people do at Admiral it makes my job very easy. I'm really proud of the results we’ve achieved in the first half of 2008. We set an all-time record for profits, the business grew in excess of 10%, and we will be paying a record dividend.
“We also continued to invest in our long-term future by developing our operations outside the UK. We now have 60,000 customers in Spain, more than 10,000 in Germany and saw the on-time, under-budget launch of our Italian operation at the end of May. Overall the business outside the UK contributed £15m in turnover in the first six months of the year.
“It’s a great set of numbers for the Group and as a result of this effort I’m very pleased to say that every member of staff who was here for the entire period (January 1 to June 30) will get £1,500 of free shares in the Group, with more than £3 million in shares being given out in total.”
