Prudential lifts adjusted EPS 17% and the dividend 15%, and sells an ICICI asset-management stake to fund a bigger buyback

Prudential plc reported first-half 2026 results with growth that is genuinely double-digit on most measures, though not on all of them. Adjusted earnings per share rose 17% to 58.4 cents, gross operating free surplus generation climbed 15% to $1,791 million, and adjusted operating profit after tax rose 10% . New business profit, the metric most often quoted as the headline, grew 8% to $1,384 million, which is single-digit and worth separating out rather than folding into the double-digit framing.

Capital returns moved with earnings. The first interim dividend rises 15% to 8.88 cents per share, with currency election, scrip and dividend reinvestment options available across the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore registers. A 15% dividend increase alongside 15% free surplus generation growth is the internally consistent pairing here, and it is the more informative pair than the earnings number alone.

The portfolio action needs precision, because the ICICI name attaches to several different entities. Prudential is selling a 2% stake in ICICI Prudential Asset Management, the asset manager, held through subsidiary Prudential Corporation Holdings, taking its holding down to 32.6% and raising roughly $0.3 billion. This is distinct from the separate, unrelated matter of its ICICI Prudential Life Insurance holding, and the two should not be conflated. The proceeds fund an addition of about $0.3 billion to the existing $1.2 billion 2026 buyback programme, so this is a stake recycled into share count reduction rather than a retreat from India.

Taken together the half reads as a capital-returns story more than a growth story. Free surplus generation, the dividend and the buyback are all moving in step, while new business profit growth trails them.

What to watch: whether new business profit growth reaccelerates into double digits in the second half or continues to lag capital returns, how the remaining Indian asset-management and life holdings are treated, and the pace at which the enlarged buyback is executed.

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