Market watch: Nish to look on bright side of Life

By KRISTY DORSEY AND PETER RANSCOMBE
Published on 28/10/2012 00:00

STANDARD Life chief executive David Nish will strive to paint a bright outlook this week amid turbulent conditions in the insurance sector.

The firm is expected to report further growth in assets on Wednesday, when Nish will update the market on third quarter trading. However, in-flows of long-term savings will be down as consumers struggle to bank for the future amid rising prices and stagnant wages.

Despite these difficulties, analysts say Standard Life is among those companies best-prepared for the retail distribution review. New rules will ban the payment of commissions by life assurance firms to the brokers who sell their products, a structure Standard Life abandoned several years ago.

Marcus Barnard, an analyst at Oriel Securities, said Nish should emphasise the potential of deals such as the five-year distribution agreement signed with Royal Bank of Scotland earlier this month.

The inclusion of a chip made by Edinburgh-based Wolfson Micro­electronics in one of Apple’s adaptors will only give a small boost to revenues, but it will be a “giant leap for sentiment” ­according to analysts at Citi. Investors will hope the deal could lead to more contracts for Wolfson, which posts third-quarter results on Tuesday.

Week ahead

Tomorrow: BAA Q3 airport passenger figures

Tuesday: BP, Imperial Tobacco

Wednesday: Barclays, GlaxoSmithKline, Next

Thursday: BG, BSkyB, BT, Glencore, Legal & General, Lloyds Banking Group, Shell

Friday: Admiral, Direct Line, Royal Bank of Scotland