Just Retirement sales down 8.6%

While equity release business continued to grow between July and December last year, annuity sales fell as the group offered less competitive rates to help boost profits. Total annuity sales dropped from £313.1m in the 6 months to December 2007 down to £272.1m in the same period of 2008, a fall of 13.1%. "We have deliberately priced to win more profitable annuity business, securing over £270m of annuity sales at positive margins," says chief executive Mark Fuller. Equity Release mortgage advances climbed from £73.9m to £81.8m, a rise of 10.7% despite problems elsewhere in the mortgage...