LONDON (Reuters) - British insurer RSA (L:RSA), subject of a potential takeover bid by Swiss rival Zurich Insurance (VX:ZURN), on Thursday posted forecast beating pretax profit of 288 million pounds ($450 million), helped by benign weather conditions.
Zurich has said it is weighing a potential cash bid for RSA, expected to top $8 billion, but earlier on Thursday said it did not want to overpay.
RSA's pretax profit for the six months to June 30 beat a company supplied consensus forecast for 235 million pounds, and compares with 69 million pounds in the first half of 2014 and 275 million pounds for the whole of 2014.
RSA said in a trading statement that large losses from volatile weather conditions were "slightly better than planned levels overall".
It said cost reductions were ahead of plans. It added losses were coming down in its Irish unit, which suffered in 2013 from an accounting scandal, but said that some uncertainty remained.
RSA reinstated its interim dividend at 3.5 pence a share, against a forecast 3.4 pence.
It said it remained confident in meeting its medium-term performance targets, including underlying return on tangible equity of 12-15 percent by 2017, adding that it "will strive to do better still".
RSA, which is undergoing a turnaround under ex-RBS boss Stephen Hester, said it hoped by year-end to have "substantially completed" its restructuring and disposals.