By Carolyn Cohn
LONDON (Reuters) - Insurer Prudential (L:PRU) said on Tuesday its chief executive Tidjane Thiam is leaving to take the reins at Credit Suisse, as it reported a 14 percent rise in operating profits in 2014, sending its shares lower.
Prudential released its results nearly two hours ahead of schedule, after the Financial Times reported late on Monday that Thiam would replace Brady Dougan at the Swiss bank.
The insurer said it had already assessed a number of external and internal candidates to replace Thiam, who is slated to remain in place until after the company reports its first quarter figures in May.
A successor has been identified and would be announced after the regulatory approval process, the company said. In response, shares in Prudential fell 3.7 percent in early trading to lead fallers on the FTSE 100 (FTSE) index of blue-chip stocks.
Speaking on a conference call with journalists, Thiam refused to answer questions about the move to Credit Suisse other than to say there was there was "no better time to leave" given he was leaving behind "a really high-performing company".
Prudential posted a 14 percent rise in operating pretax profit to 3.2 billion pounds ($4.8 billion), in line with a forecast 3.2 billion, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine.
It said it would pay a total dividend of 36.93 pence per share, against a forecast 35.68 pence.
Prudential's Asian business, from which it gains a third of its operating profit, posted IFRS operating profit of 1.1 billion pounds, up 17 per cent.
Its U.S. life business Jackson saw a 21 percent rise in operating profit to 1.4 billion pounds, helped by the sale of variable annuities without guarantees, while the UK life business lagged, rising 7 percent to 752 million pounds.
But Prudential said UK sales of bulk annuities - taking on the risk of company defined benefit, or final salary, pension schemes, rose six-fold, to 171 million pounds in 2014 from 28 million in 2013.
The UK asset management arm M&G saw an operating profit of 446 million pounds, up 13 percent.
"Looking ahead, the economic environment in the U.S. and the UK appears to show signs of improvement," Thiam said in a statement.
"We continue to see strong economic growth and increasing demand for insurance from a rapidly growing and prosperous middle class which is under-insured."