Not even flooding dents RSA revival

SHARES in RSA soared nearly 10pc as its boss declared its ‘turnaround is complete’.

Profits jumped 43pc to £523m as the FTSE 100 firm shrugged off a £76m hit from the flooding in England in December.

Boss Stephen Hester said the progress showed RSA – best known in the UK for its More Than brand – can ‘prosper independently, indefinitely’.

He was referring to rival Zurich’s decision to abandon a £5.6bn takeover bit last summer.

The former RBS boss, parachuted in two years ago after profit warnings and a UK accounting scandal, said it had received no bid approaches since then, adding: ‘RSA is stronger, better and inherently more valuable today than six months ago. The turnaround has been completed.’

Shares were up nearly 10pc to 433.20p. This made it the biggest riser on the FTSE 100 index. One of Hester’s first actions when he took the helm was to scrap the dividend in a desperate attempt to get RSA’s finances back on track.

Yesterday, it announced a final dividend of 7p per share, taking the total payout for last year to 10.5p, which is 2p up on 2014.

It enjoyed strong performance in Scandinavia, Canada and the UK despite a drop in income from motor and home insurance policies in its home market.

The turnaround has been painful, with 1000 people losing their jobs, including more than 300 in the UK.

Yesterday, Hester signalled more job cuts as the firm raised its annual cost-cutting target from £250m to £350m by 2018.

RSA made £181m from selling parts of the business. The £403m sale of its Latin American business should be completed in the coming months.