Asia-focused insurer AIA Group’s net profit plummeted in 2022, as investment returns suffered amid rising interest rates, although the company sees positive trends this year in the key mainland China market, reports Nikkei Asia. The Hong Kong-based company’s net profit dropped 96.2% to $282 million, down from $7.42 billion in 2021 and marked its biggest decline since the group’s Hong Kong IPO in 2010, according to company filings submitted Friday.
Its earnings reflect a year in which global markets took a hit as many central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve, aggressively raised interest rates to head off a wave of inflation stemming in part from economic and supply chain distortions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
AIA last year recorded its “poorest investment returns ever in history,” amid rising interest rates, according to a research note by Sanford C. Bernstein published Friday.