Colin Morton Quotations

We've seen quite good sales figures from all the UK life insurance stocks. It looks like people are buying savings products once more and the sector seems to be performing relatively well again now after a tough few years.

I would be surprised if the stock does not react pretty strongly.

I would be surprised if someone was willing to pay at this price for the stock. I am pretty cynical, but I am loath to dismiss it completely.

Overall it looks okay, with earnings in line with expectations. Barclaycard is as bad as people thought it would be and retail is better than thought.

Market confidence towards savings products seems to have returned. As a result, the life insurance sector is getting back on track after a couple of tough years.

Margins are much more of an issue than they were, but hopefully if they can get the growth, it should help offset any margin pressure they see.

We like these stocks. You can have more confidence in the profits.

It wouldn't be a surprise if one of the smaller UK banks got bought, but Northern Rock have always had a disciplined organic growth investment model of their own, so it would be something new for them.

These companies should, touch wood, have a guaranteed growth pool, because people will have to save more for their retirement.

As a shareholder you get nervous when companies say they are looking at the U.S., because historically, UK firms haven't made a good fist of it over there.

The business really does seem to be firing on all cylinders at the moment.

They are doing a very good job of controlling costs, which is what you want when things are a bit tougher.

They're good numbers, with both the UK and international figures a touch ahead of what people were expecting.

There just seems to be a new deal every day. M&A activity is driving the market.

It's unclear whether they could find something in the U.S. at a price they'd be willing to pay.

It's difficult to see them getting it at that price; it would take a lot of talking to the institutions, because on the face of it the premium looks a bit skinny for Prudential shareholders.

I'm very surprised to hear they've done this. Maybe they're covering their own position should someone else come in and make a bid.

If you look at the $65 billion figure and the market cap of about $200 billion, they're saying you could technically get back almost a third of the company by 2008.

You can't argue with 29 percent growth in worldwide new business.

The life insurers are finding that some of the new products they sell are not making anywhere near the margins their older products used to make.

These (infrastructure) companies have a very consistent income stream, and they are borrowing money relatively cheaply at the moment.

This is no real surprise -- had been groomed to take over the job. What is more interesting is why Crosby has decided to go now. Maybe he felt it was time to go, or was it a case of giving it to Hornby now or else he would go somewhere else?

The emerging markets are where Europe was five to seven years ago.

All the life insurers have got to get used to the fact they are no longer writing business at the same high margins they used to six or seven years ago, when they wrote a lot of with-profits business.

All retail stocks have bounced. M&A activity is driving the market.

The long-term question is if they can get extra revenues out of these services. I'm not convinced.