JLT H1 boosted by US specialty

Jardine Lloyd Thompson reported first half revenues up 3% to £713.5m, with underlying pretax profits up 10% to £108.8m, boosted by a strong performance from its US specialty business.

Reported pretax profits were down 9% to £89.4m after exceptional costs from the group’s Global Transformation Programme.

The broking group said the specialty division’s new management structure helped boost the division’s revenues by 4%.

The Global Transformation Programme delivered benefits of £6.1m in the period and remains on track to deliver annualised benefits of £40m by 2020 for a one-off cost of £45m.

Group chief executive Dominic Burke described the first half results as “a robust trading performance”.

“We are trading with real momentum as we move into the second half and we expect to report continued strong organic revenue growth and further financial progress for the full year,” he said.