Mike Wells
Management
Good morning. I’m Mike Wells, CEO of Prudential PLC, and today we announced our 2021 half year results. Our purpose is to help people get the most out of life. And we do this by making healthcare affordable and accessible and by protecting people’s wealth and by growing their assets. We want to do this for as many people as possible, which is why we want to build the capacity to serve 50 million customers by 2025. Our Asia-focused strategy is expected to support the long-term delivery of future shareholder returns, and as we intend to grow new business profit substantially faster than our markets’ GDP and achieve long-term double-digit growth in embedded value per share. We want to achieve our growth trajectory in a sustainable and socially responsible manner by committing to become net carbon neutral by 2050. We will achieve this in three ways. Firstly, through delivering profitable growth particularly in the big markets of China, India, Indonesia and Thailand. We want to grow our Health & Protection business by making healthcare affordable and accessible, and we want to grow our customers’ wealth in a sustainable way through Eastspring. Secondly, through digitizing our products and services. We are making it easier for customers to interact and stay with us in the way that they choose. The key here is we are doing all this at scale and complementing our existing multi-channel capability. Thirdly, through humanizing our company and advice channels. We are upskilling our people and networks and providing relevant products and broader advice enabling a much more inclusive approach to the segments we serve. Because of our focus on operational improvements and the disciplined execution of our strategy, we have delivered a long track record of strong growth in all our key metrics. Our 2021 interims results…