Mike Holliday-Williams

The firm said that the rise was driven by higher fee revenues resulting from “favourable” equity markets, a provision release and decreased expenses.

Mike Holliday-Williams, chief executive of Aegon UK, said that the business had made “good progress” but stressed that there is “still a lot to do but we continue to invest in the business”.

For the three months to September 30th 2021, net outflows reached £2.5bn, compared with £1.3bn in the third quarter of 2020.

For the retail business, net outflows stood at £53m, whereas the third quarter of 2020 showed net outflows of £420m. Aegon said that this improvement was the result of “stronger retail investor sentiment” and reflected investments made in the business.

Net outflows for the group’s institutional business reached £1.8bn, compared with the £1.3bn of net outflows in the same period last year.

Lard Friese, CEO and chairman of the executive and management board, Aegon, added: “In the third quarter of 2021, we continued to drive our transformation forward by delivering on our financial and strategic commitments. Performance improvements across most of our businesses, supported by the disciplined execution of our operational improvement plan, were offset by elevated mortality in the United States.

“This quarter’s operating result reflects the benefit from addressable expense savings that we have achieved so far. We remain on track to deliver our target of EUR 400 million expense savings by 2023.

“To date, we have executed 684 out of 1,200 performance improvement initiatives, with expense initiatives representing the majority thereof. Benefits from implemented growth initiatives can be seen in the results from Strategic Assets and Growth Markets, and our Asset Management business extended its track record of over nine years of positive third-party net deposits.”

Mr Friese added: “As we look back at the third quarter, I also want to take a moment to recognize our 22,000 colleagues who are driving Aegon’s transformation. The pandemic has fundamentally changed the way in which we work and the way we interact with our stakeholders. And while the way we interact may have changed, our colleagues remain committed to transforming Aegon into a high-performance organization.”