Don't forget that it's earnings have direct equity market...

Don't forget that it's earnings have direct equity market leverage via its Funds Management business - which has been a pretty ordinary performer in its own right and as a result has been a drag on overall group performance over time, thereby masking the organic growth of the Life business.

In the most recent half, Funds Management EBIT was down 32%, compared to the 15% increase in Life EBIT, leaving overall Group EBIT up by only 5%.

But there's a silver lining to this: the outperformance of Life vs Funds Management over time has left the Funds Management contributing just 12% of Group EBIT, so if its performance rebounds, then great but if it doesn't, well then its becoming proportionally smaller and, by the law of numbers, over time the growth rate of the whole tends to the growth rate of the fastest-growing part.

So the days of Funds Management being a volatile ball-and-chain on Group earnings are coming to an end.

But in the meantime, there is a lingering default perception of CGF being an "equity market proxy", although I sense that is a perception based more on history than the actual situation today.

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