Prudential Reports Higher 3Q Annuity Sales, Gain From Wachovia Deal

NU Online News Service, Nov. 4, 2003, 6:07 p.m. EST – Prudential Financial Inc., Newark, N.J., says the move to put its securities unit in a joint venture with Wachovia Corp., Charlotte, N.C., paid off in the third quarter.

The company is reporting $307 million in net income for the quarter on $6.7 billion in revenue, up from $302 million in net income on $6.6 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2002.

Net income figures for both quarters include the effects of income taxes and a variety of special gains and charges. Prudential says its financial services operating income, which excludes the special gains and charges and the contributions of what it calls a “closed block” of business left over from before its demutualization, increased to $361 million, from $303 million.

At Prudential’s individual life unit, sales of corporate-owned life insurance plummeted to $2 million, from $21 million, as a result of regulatory turmoil, while a decrease in variable life sales and increases in universal life sales and term life sales left Prudential with $66 million in new, ordinary life sales, down from $68 million for the third quarter of 2002.