South Korea’s largest insurer Samsung Life Insurance Co. on Thursday reported a 40 percent on-year drop in net income for the first six months of this year despite solid performance across its businesses.

The company said in a regulatory filing that its net profit for the first half of this year ended June reached 946.7 billion won ($828.4 million) on a consolidated basis, down 39.7 percent from the same period last year. The company, however, said that excluding the one-off accounting gain of 820.7 billion won from its purchase of Samsung Card Co. stakes early last year, the bottom line gained 26.4 percent on year.

According to Samsung Life Insurance, its premium income reached 11.1 trillion won in the first half of this year, up 0.7 percent from the same period last year on improved persistency rate. Its value of new business - which measures the profitability of business that can be generated during the whole insurance period from current premium contract - was 598.3 billion won, up 6.5 percent over the same period.

As of the end of June, Samsung Life Insurance’s total asset amounted to 276.2 trillion won, up 4.4 percent from the same period last year.

The company’s risk-based capital, the minimum required cash reserves to sustain operating losses and remain financially sound, also improved 30 percentage points to 332 percent from the end of December last year despite overall enhanced assessment standard.

Its stocks ended down 3.3 percent, or 4,000 won, at 118,000 won on Thursday.

By Park Joon-hyung

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]