(Reuters) - Pension and life insurance administrator Chesnara Plc's <CSN.L> profit before tax halved year-on-year in the six months to June, the company reported on Thursday, saying its Scildon business had been hurt by losses on Italian bonds.
The fall in profit was just 14 percent when accounting for a 20.7-million-pound gain the company said it made on the acquisition of Scildon a year ago.
Chesnara's Solvency II ratio, which dictates the amount of capital an insurer must hold to reduce the risk of insolvency, was 157 percent as of June 30, compared with 146 percent at the end of 2017. The lower the ratio, the greater the chances of a company defaulting on its obligations.
IFRS half-year profit before tax fell to 26.5 million pounds ($34.6 million) from the year-earlier period's 51.6 million pounds.
Economic value earnings (EcV) net of tax slipped to 700.8 million pounds, from 723.1 million pounds a year earlier. EcV is a measure adopted by European insurance companies to make their results more meaningfully comparable and provides a longer-term measure of value generated during a period.
($1 = 0.7677 pounds)
(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru)
