By Noor Zainab Hussain
(Reuters) - British insurance firm Rothesay Life reported a 42 jump in full-year pretax profit on Monday, driven by an increase in new reinsurance and corporate pensions deals.
The specialist pensions insurer posted a rise in pretax profit to 347 million pounds in 2015, after new business volumes grew to 3.5 billion pounds and assets under management rose 20 percent to 15.4 billion pounds.
Separately, Rothesay said it had agreed to buy 6 billion pounds of annuities from the UK arm of Dutch insurer Aegon (AS:AEGN) for an undisclosed sum, and said it expected to do more deals in the future.
"Rothesay Life has delivered a record year for organic new business growth and profits against a backdrop of Solvency II uncertainty in 2015 for the industry," Chief Executive Addy Loudiadis said.
"We believe that the trend of multi-line insurers looking to reduce their exposure to annuities will continue and provide further opportunities for us to accumulate assets and grow the business."
On the new European capital rules for insurers that came into effect in January, the insurer, which is reportedly considering a stock market listing, reported a Solvency II capital ratio of 158 percent.
Rothesay Life, whose backers include Blackstone (N:BX) and Goldman Sachs (N:GS), competes with specialist providers and larger insurers such as Legal & General (L:LGEN) and Prudential (L:PRU) in the growing bulk annuity market.