Irish Life’s profits up 11% last year to €204 million

Irish Life contributed €204 million in profit last year to its Canadian parent company, Great-West Lifeco, according to full year results just published. This was an increase of 11 per cent on 2014.

For the three months to the end of December, Irish Life produced a profit of €77 million, a year-on-year rise of 57 per cent.

Commenting on the results, Bill Kyle, Irish Life’s chief executive, said: “Our business continues to grow. Irish Life now has €64 billion of assets under management, more than one million customers and 2,300 employees.

"One in three Irish adults has some savings with us and we manage 15 per cent of personal assets in Ireland. "

Mr Kyle said a highlight of the fourth-quarter performance was the success of Irish Life’s Empower pension programme for corporate businesses. It signed up five new large clients representing more than 7,000 members, €500 million in assets and €50 million in annual premium flow.

On January 27th, ratings agency Fitch upgraded Irish Life's to 'AA' from 'AA-'. This upgrade reflected Fitch's view that Irish Life has become "core" to its Canadian parent.

“We are particularly pleased that Fitch noted [THAT]Great-West Lifeco’s acquisition of Irish Life has been well managed and has provided the company with critical scale in the Irish market as well as operational synergies and expense savings,” Mr Kyle said.