Aviva gets help from Friends

But most people do not get halfway through their DIY project and decide to buy the house next door, as Aviva opted to do with the acquisition of Friends Life. Management pointed to the £63m of annual synergies that had already been achieved. The combined entity delivered new business worth £534m, up a quarter at constant currencies, with Friends' corporate pensions business adding to Aviva's platform revenue.

While annuities continued to shrink, the value of protection business - including life insurance, critical illness and income protection - increased by 47 per cent to £66m. In the general insurance business, meanwhile, profitability was up as good weather helped push down claims as a proportion of income. At the group level, operating profit was up 9 per cent at £1.17bn.

In Europe, things are more patchy. Even before the hit from translating foreign business into sterling, sales were down in Turkey and Spain, while France was flat after a good run as low interest rates deterred would-be savers. Management is planning to grow higher-margin protection business to boost profitability on the continent. Asia performed more strongly, providing a 21.2 per cent return on equity compared with the 9.4 per cent it provided over the course of the 2014 financial year.

The Friends Life acquisition also provided £22bn-worth of assets to Aviva Investors, with agreement for a further £24bn to come. Good thing, too, given the continued net outflows from Aviva's fund management arm. At least these are slowing, with £0.3bn lost compared with £1.7bn in the comparable period last year. Management has high hopes for its AIMS multi-asset range, which returned an impressive 8 per cent in its first year, but it is likely to need a longer track record to move the needle on net asset flows.

Statutory figures suffer from comparisons with a one-off boost in investment income in the first half of last year. Analysts at broker Panmure Gordon expect adjusted EPS of 50.6p for the full year, compared with 47p in 2014.