Thursday March 27, 11:05 AM
Insurer Swiss Life posts record profits, untouched by subprime crisis
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ZURICH (AFP) - Swiss Life (Virt-X: SLHN.VX - news) , one of the biggest Swiss insurers, posted record profit for 2007 on Thursday, saying it had been little touched by the US subprime crisis which has hit many financial firms hard.
The insurer posted full-year net profit of 1.345 billion Swiss francs (873 million euros or 1.350 billion dollars), up 43 percent from the 2006 figure.
"In 2007, we have again made great progress and have already achieved the targets that we had set for 2008," chief executive officer Rolf Doerig said in a statement.
"Thanks to operational progress and to the strategic steps taken, we are ready for the next phase of growth," he said.
The insurer's profits topped market expectations, and added a boost to the sector, coming just after Swiss fellow insurer Baloise's better-than-expected profits announced on Wednesday.
The company said it was "not directly affected by the crisis on the US mortgage market", while direct and indirect investments in subprime US mortgages totalled 83 million Swiss francs on December 31 2007.
However, it had completely written off in 2007 all positions vulnerable to a further aggravation of the liquidity situation.
The company said it expected to boost earnings per share by at least 12 percent a year up to 2012.
According to statistics from the Swiss insurer industry group, in 2006 Swiss Life had the third-biggest premium volume, after Zurich Financial and Swiss Re (Virt-X: RUKN.VX - news) .
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