Aviva Share Discussion Threads

[harleymaxwell] 03/6/2024 07:14

i think one of the reasons is the less time spent in your car the more chance your car is stolen ...ie theft is the higher probability over accident ...

[engelbert1969] 02/6/2024 23:27

On renewal I advised my insurer of a drop in mileage of about 30%. My premium went up! When asked why, all they could say was 'computer says'. I renewed elsewhere

[cyberian] 02/6/2024 23:08

Our car insurance with Aviva has just gone up 20% to £579 and we only do about 4,000 miles a year. Mind you a friend from my tennis club aged 83 years is paying £1300 like us with no claims for years. He has a set 8,000 so asked if he reduced to 5,000 how much discount. He was offered £15 repeat £15, so told them to revert to his 8,000. He is not with Aviva! It seems to me that nearly all retailers and service providers are just being greedy and accounting for the hike in our cost of living crisis. We found this in Holland and Belgium last week. A real rip-off everywhere and so hence pay increases are chasing basic costs in our daily needs...well most of us, and inflation may well bounce back higher in due course. I sense that this will be more likely with a Labour Government which looks almost a certainty. Personally I cannot see this challenging Aviva, and more share price gains are likely, but who knows?

[xtrmntr] 01/6/2024 15:15

From IC.Ten years ago, Aviva was a sprawling group of insurance businesses, a legacy from its days of expansion through bolt-on acquisitions. In 2015, then chief executive Mark Wilson set up an umbrella group to cross-sell between the group's life and general insurance product lines. His big idea was to harness technology to drive the business forward.The new team was set up not in an office block, but in an old garage in London's Hoxton Square, and so became known as the "technology garage". It developed "MyAviva", so that all of a customer's policies could be viewed in one place. Analysing the data enabled finer pricing to reward customers for the breadth and depth of their Aviva relationship, out of which AvivaPlus emerged – a promise never to charge Aviva customers more for their policies than new customers. Another part of the technology garage was an innovation team, set up to identify emerging trends and launch new concepts.This was a long-term strategy, the sort that investors support, but the short-term costs were high. Dramatic returns were promised, but after a while, shareholders began to have doubts. That's the problem with jam tomorrow – unless investors can see tangible value emerging, they begin to wonder whether tomorrow will ever come. This must have produced some frank discussions in the boardroom. In October 2018, Wilson left rather quickly.Sir Adrian Montague, who had been chairing the group as a non-executive, temporarily covered both roles. The search for a new chief executive was extensive, but they eventually chose from within. Maurice Tulloch had been with Aviva for over 25 years and was seen to be a safe pair of hands. A few months later, with the succession sorted out, Montague reached the end of his tenure and bowed out.In March 2019, Tulloch told shareholders that he aimed to increase return on investment. After so much emphasis on the technology garage, this was music to analysts' ears. Tulloch restored the dividing line between Aviva's general (home and motor) insurance and life insurance divisions. It went back to seeming like business as usual.Despite his back-to-basics approach, progress was sluggish. In his earlier role, Tulloch had been responsible for the speciality business, together with the life and general ones in France, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Turkey and India. Some were now calling for the group to be broken up. Instead, he restructured Aviva into five divisions with a promise of greater cash generation and an increased dividend. He also put the group's Singapore and China businesses up for sale, but this was just as the pandemic began to dampen confidence, and only low offers came in. The sale was pulled, but the lockdowns continued to squeeze cash out of the business. The 2019 final dividend had been announced but had to be withdrawn. The share price slumped from more than 400p pre-Covid to under 250p. Critics thought that he should have seen all this coming. They asked where the strategy was to reinvigorate the group.Meanwhile, the boardroom had a new clutch of directors. In the same year that Montague retired, four other non-executives left as well, so by the time George Culmer began chairing the group in late May 2020, many on the board were new. Having a new boss brings risks for any employee. Those who select candidates have a vested interest in seeing them succeed. They make allowances and tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. New bosses are often more critical and inclined to justify their new position by making changes. On 6 July 2020, just five weeks after Culmer took up the reins, Tulloch left "for family health reasons". He'd been chief executive for little over a year.One of the new non-executive directors was Amanda Blanc. She stepped seamlessly into the chief executive role. She would bring a renewed focus, she said, and that was how she'd increase returns.It took a while for her 'focus' to shine through. With lacklustre half-year financials in mid-2021, she promised better operational efficiency and pledged to return at least £4bn to shareholders over the next year through buybacks and dividends. She kept her word, and by the end of 2021, a total of eight businesses had been sold to raise £7.5bn, and other non-core operations followed. The slimmed-down Aviva has since added some small strategic acquisitions and the group is now concentrated in the UK, Ireland and Canada.The big unknown with recruitment is that, however much vetting is done, nobody can be certain about how well the successful candidate will take to the role until after they've started. With the low-hanging fruit plucked, only the future will tell whether Aviva is back on track, but there's no doubt that it's gone through some difficult but decisive succession planning – which is why it's important for non-executive directors to maintain independent and open states of mind.

[1robbob] 28/5/2024 13:43

Share Buy-back update
As at 24th May

Total Shares purchased: 44.1m
Total cost of shares purchased: £210.5m
Average cost of shares purchased: 477.74p
% of Buy-back completed: 70.2%

Saved cost of Final Dividend: £5.1m

Assuming a total dividend cost of £960m for 2024
the total dividend per share will be 35.61p (+6.62% on 2023)

[whatsup32] 28/5/2024 10:21

The Times "Leading insurers ready to join coalition offering pensions dashboards"
Aviva and Scottish Widows plan to become official pensions dashboard operators.

Not sure if significant

[mountpleasant] 27/5/2024 22:03

Neil Woodford is back ...

UK equities poised for bull run

Woodford also said he believed UK-listed equities are poised for a comeback after two decades in which pensions regulation had encouraged the managers of defined benefit schemes to sell off their UK equity holdings.

‘What you now have is an absence of sellers and, I think, a healthy, slightly increasing balance of buyers. The UK equity market has already shown signs this year that it’s beginning to break out of this long decline that it's had for 20 years. So I think the market can rise to a much higher level, and a much higher valuation.’

[waterloo01] 24/5/2024 16:15

HL paid yesterday as did Barclays

[villarich] 24/5/2024 16:04

AJ Bell paid my divi yesterday too. They tend to drop into my account around 9.30am on pay day

[roghart1] 24/5/2024 13:28

tfergi - my wife's divi hasn't paid via HL so you are not alone. I'm due a divi from another company today and that hasn't paid in yet. Not bothered at the moment, it'll arrive.

[engelbert1969] 24/5/2024 12:48

Interactive Investor paid divi yesterday. Far better than my previous broker. However if they'd delayed, I might have been reinvesting at 450p instead of 486p the way its going :)

[dope007] 24/5/2024 12:14

So China cuts a UK company to hold ;)

[nerja] 24/5/2024 11:20

HSBC cuts Aviva to 'hold' - price target 525 pence

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Berenberg raises Aviva price target to 584 (572) pence - 'buy'

Waiting to see if the yanks buy the dip or continue the sell off , the holiday weekend might stop them doing anything.

[youngrestless] 24/5/2024 11:08

Trading 212 paid Aviva div yesterday. Find them really good plus get 5.2% interest on uninvested cash

[watfordhornet] 24/5/2024 10:58

I am with HL and mine were in yesterday across 4 separate accountsSuggest you ping HL - there never quick but normally always on the correct day

[tfergi] 24/5/2024 10:30

No dividend into Hargreaves Landsdown yet !?

[whatsup32] 24/5/2024 09:18

The Times. "Aviva would prefer a clear election victory " says boss

Edit. Into blue, should finish nicely

[nerja] 24/5/2024 08:37

Rongetsrich looking to buy and looking at NG suggestion of yours, it looks like it will fall closer to the rights.

[belluci] 24/5/2024 08:23

I'm kind of hoping this dropps down to 4.60 ish and makes a new trading range. I'm keen to keep adding.

[spud] 24/5/2024 08:10

Guys, just a gentle reminder to stay on topic please.

spud

[rongetsrich] 24/5/2024 07:06

Futures are down 60, not a day to sell methinks. This has BUY written all over it, the city mice detest uncertainty.
The first updated poll may exacerbate things further if the two parties show signs of converging.
Nerja, stay away from your broker site this morning at least!

[rongetsrich] 23/5/2024 21:39

Paul, don’t follow them, sorry.
Proactive have a piece on NG, their idea is the present price could drop to 800p. Not saying I will invest but the dividend dates suit me, as does the amount. It will reduce, but then I would buy more. I’ll wait out on that one, but curious for now.

[nerja] 23/5/2024 21:17

I’m in Fsfl been top slicing of late, not sure what the Labour Party will do, Ng, can’t work out what’s the real buy point with that rights issue, they generally fall to the issue price so will keep a watching brief on it.

[paulboz] 23/5/2024 20:48

Any thoughts on FSFL as an alternative to UKW? I have UKW but I'm not sure whether to buy more or get some FSFL