A RESILIENT PERFORMANCE IN 2022, WELL POSITIONED FOR OPPORTUNITIES IN 2023 AND BEYOND – Form 6-K

Our strategy is aligned with the long-term structural opportunities in Asia and Africa. Across Asia, the middle class is growing and is forecast to increase by 1.5 billion1 by 2030. Prosperity is also rising across the region2. This, combined with a low level of insurance penetration3 and a high level of out-of-pocket health and protection spending4 is driving an estimated $1.8 trillion health protection gap5. In Africa, the population is expected to double to more than two billion6 people by 2050. These long-term trends underpin increasing demand for savings and protection and create significant opportunities for growth and value creatioWe have set out that our purpose is to help people get the most out of life and we put our customers at the heart of everything we do. We strive to meet the needs of our customers and continue to support the development of the capital markets in which we operate. We believe that it is important to the long-term success of our Group that we play a wider role in the societies in which we operate. In Asia and Africa, we seek to promote financial inclusion and a just and inclusive transition to a low-carbon economy. We will use our investments in both corporate and government sectors to promote long-term sustainable development that is equitable for our markets in the context of their historic carbon emissions. We also aim to fulfil our purpose for our employees, one of our greatest assets. As an employer, we have promised to make Prudential a place where our people can connect, grow and succeed.To further our purpose, we continue to focus on developing our range of products and investing in our distribution channels as well as enhancing and embedding our digital capabilities. In this way, we expand our capacity to help protect our customers from threats to their health and wellbeing, as well as support them to achieve their savings goals. We also remain focused on investing in our people and systems to ensure we have the resources to deliver on our long-term growth strategy and to enhance our operating model to keep pace with our opportunities.We have strong franchises and operational expertise in both the more developed markets and developing markets in Asia and Africa. We continue to build on our success in the Chinese Mainland where we see substantial opportunity to deepen our presence across a nationwide footprint. With the newly set up Macau branch of the Hong Kong business, we are strengthening our operations to capture the opportunities in the Greater Bay Area and to fully prepare ourselves for the increase in opportunities following the reopening of the border between Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland. We also see large growth opportunities in South-east Asia, particularly in Indonesia and Thailand, and also in India. Our focus on selected markets in East and West Africa has provided us with exposure to a growing and fast-changing continent since we re-entered Africa in 2014.We will allocate capital to those markets that we consider to have attractive size and demographic characteristics, and where we believe we have the ability to build and retain competitive advantage. Through leveraging our scale and expertise in those markets we believe we can achieve attractive returns. We have significant investment appetite and capacity to support organic growth through funding the writing of new business and through adding to our existing capabilities, including distribution. We also remain ready to consider strategic inorganic opportunities.We seek geographic diversification of our Asia operations among Greater China7, our businesses in South-east Asia8 and India.The first part of 2022 saw Covid-19-related disruption in many of our markets as the Omicron variant increased infection levels and associated social restrictions. Subsequently, most markets have returned to more stable operating conditions, albeit the border between the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong remained closed throughout 2022.Against this backdrop, APE sales9 increased 9 per cent10 to $4,393 million on a constant exchange rate basis reflecting growth in the second half of 2022 from both agency and bancassurance channels. New business profit11 was down (11) per cent10 with the impact of higher APE sales offset by increased interest rates, most significantly in Hong Kong, and business mix effects. Outside of Hong Kong,new business profit grew by 5 per cent10 to $1.8 billion. Additional commentary on the performance by segment is included in the Operational performance by market section below.At a Group level, overall adjusted IFRS operating profit based on longer-term investment returns (adjusted operating profit12) for 2022 was $3,375 million, 8 per cent10 higher than 2021, reflecting a 6 per cent10 increase from insurance and asset management business and a decline in central expenses13 of 26 per cent10, reflecting lower interest costs. IFRS profit after tax was $1,007 million in 2022 (2021: $2,143 million on a CER basis, $2,214 million on an AER basis), reflecting short-term volatility from the impact of higher interest rates and lower equity markets on the valuation of investments and insurance liabilities, offset in part by the benefit from refinements to the reserving basis following adoption of the Hong Kong Risk-Based Capital regime (HK RBC). The Group's financial performance for the year is further discussed in the Financial Review later in this strategic report.Customers

In 2022, a review of committees across the Group's head office was undertaken to ensure continued appropriateness of the level of Group governance that promotes individual accountability in decision-making and supports the overall corporate governance framework to provide sound and prudent management and oversight of the Group's business. The Group constituted a new Group Investment Committee, chaired by the Group Chief Financial Officer, which was accompanied by the approval of a revised Group Investment Policy, for the oversight of all investment activities and in line with GWS Framework requirements. During 2022, oversight responsibilities for the Group's reporting against the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the ongoing implementation of the Group's climate-focused commitments, as part of the Group's ESG strategic framework, were transferred from the Board-established Responsible and Sustainability Working Group (RSWG) to the Group Risk Committee with the RSWG retaining its focus on overseeing the culture, customer and digital aspects of the framework. Building on enhancements implemented in 2021, Prudential has continued to embed ESG and climate change considerations within the Group Risk Framework, such as explicitly defining time horizons for the purposes of climate risk and requiring the consideration of risks in the context of the time horizon of expected benefits/paybacks of decisions within core strategic processes where 'risk-based decision-making' must be incorporated, and the embedding of its Group-wide customer conduct risk (including the implementation of enhanced monitoring metrics), third-party and outsourcing and data management frameworks and policies.

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Prudential plc published this content on 15 March 2023 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 15 March 2023 12:26:20 UTC.