Standard Life funds lose £4.5bn in value

Standard life, Europe's largest mutual insurer, yesterday moved to quash rumours that it is in ailing financial health, but did admit to using £1.5bn of future profits to boost its headline solvency rates.

The Edinburgh-based mutual yesterday rejected claims that heavy investment losses of up to £4.5bn in 2002 alone had damaged its financial position and said it had a free asset ratio in its with-profits fund of 13.8 per cent, well above the legal minimum of 4 per cent. The figure is 8.9 per cent excluding the future profits.

The company also reported a record year for sales, which were up 16 per cent in 2002 to £1.8bn. Its market share rose by almost 2 per cent to 13.3 per cent, but analysts were left wondering how profitable the growth had been to policyholders.

Roman Cizdyn, an analyst at Commerzbank, said: "It is not clear from this information if the company is generating returns for its policyholders, who own the company. It is very hard to see where the company is."

Ned Cazalet, one of Standard's most vocal critics, yesterday slammed the company for failing to "describe its performance in P&L or balance sheet terms". He calculates a like-for-like free asset ratio for the whole group, excluding future profits and including its £1bn of debt, of 0.8 per cent.

Sandy Crombie, the company's deputy chief executive, yesterday defended the group's published figures, saying they showed it had a substantial cushion of assets above the current value of its liabilities, which change year by year. It reduced its equity holdings to 55 per cent from 77 per cent during 2002.