LONDON, June 23, 2026, 15:06 BST
Prudential plc traded slightly up at 1,014.5 pence by 1457 BST Tuesday, after dropping as much as 1.5% earlier in the session. Shares opened at 1,000p, dipped to 998p, then bounced. The stock is Asia-focused.
The move was noticeable in London trading, where the FTSE 100 slipped roughly 0.4% by 1500 BST. The index dropped earlier to its lowest since June 12. Worries about more U.S. and UK rate hikes held back risk demand.
JPMorgan picked up 1,967,063 Prudential shares for the insurer over the June 15-19 period, according to the latest filing. Prudential has now bought back 40.95 million shares since January 6, paying an average 1,102.5252p per share. The company plans to cancel the repurchased stock, which would leave about 2.513 billion shares outstanding.
That average purchase price is roughly 8% higher than Tuesday’s market price. The program is limited to $1.2 billion, split into $500 million in ongoing capital returns and $700 million tied to the ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company listing. A buyback cuts the total shares on the market and lifts each share’s future earnings potential.
Stronger operating numbers are supporting the capital return. Prudential is seeing a 12% gain in its 2025 new business profit, coming in at $2.78 billion. The company plans to return over $7 billion to shareholders from 2024 to 2027. New business profit measures the expected earnings from policies sold in a given period.
Shareholder returns are “a key theme for 2026 and beyond,” Marc Jocum, senior product and investment strategist at Global X ETFs, told Reuters. Reuters
Prudential’s first-quarter new business profit climbed almost 10% to $686 million, driven by a strong showing in Hong Kong, which was the company’s top profit earner last year. CEO Anil Wadhwani said, “We remain confident in delivering double-digit growth across our key financial metrics in 2026.” The company also flagged that inflation may hit consumer sentiment in Southeast Asia. Reuters
AIA Group posted a 13% rise in first-quarter value of new business, which tracks expected profit from new premiums. The Hong Kong business gained 21%, while mainland China was up 26%. That demand has lifted both insurers’ Asian operations.
The downside is still a risk. Beijing’s tighter controls on cross-border investment could make it tougher for mainland Chinese clients to pay for Hong Kong insurance products, which are a key sales line for Prudential and AIA. “The biggest problem is that you never know how far the crackdown on cross-border capital flow can go,” said Gary Ng, senior Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis. Reuters
Prudential shares stayed down about 11% for 2026, even with some recovery on Tuesday. The buyback is picking up shares while the price is weak, but that move hasn’t eased the market’s worries around Chinese capital rules, inflation, or how strong insurance demand in Asia will be.
