Dutch insurer Aegon announced a 19 percent drop in fourth quarter net profit Thursday, and said it would issue shares worth about 900 million euros ($1.24 billion) to pay back a state loan.
The company said it made a net profit of 318 million euros in the fourth quarter, lower than the 363 million euros predicted by analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires.
This was partly the result of impairment charges and other charges for the consolidation of US-based operations.
Aegon, which received three billion euros from the Dutch government amid the global financial crisis in October 2008, hopes to repay the outstanding 2.25 billion euros “by the end of June 2011”.
Some of the money would also come from selling a US life insurance subsidiary, Transamerica Reinsurance, according to Aegon spokesman Dick Schiethart.
The company hopes to resume dividend payments next year. Aegon’s shares lost more than four percent on the Amsterdam stock exchange in morning trading, to 5.19 euros around 1030 GMT.
The company said it sold new life insurance policies worth 558 million euros in the fourth quarter of 2010, up from 557 million a year earlier. Its net profit for the year as a whole, 1.76 billion euros, was nine times higher than that of 2009.
Aegon has about 28,000 employees and more than 40 million clients, mainly in the Netherlands, the United States and Britain. It holds the pensions of a quarter of Dutch citizens.
The Hague, Feb 24, 2011 (AFP)
