Asia-focused, U.K.-based life insurer Prudential PLC has options to deploy capital "at scale" investing in existing partnerships, according to group CEO Mike Wells.

While he did not go into specifics, Wells told analysts on a call to discuss Prudential's first-half earnings that the company had built up some "unique opportunities" in China, India, Africa and at some of its joint ventures. He described the opportunities as "effectively hybrid inorganic," and that the difference between these and traditional acquisitions was that the company knew the businesses well, they were already partially integrated, and headaches such as due diligence and execution risk are a fraction of what they would be in a traditional deal.

However, Wells would not say when the company would act on these opportunities, saying the price and timing had to be right. He added that the company was "not missing anything" by holding back, pointing to the 29% increase in annual premium equivalent and 65% growth in new business profit in China as an example.

As previously announced, Prudential is considering an equity raise of between $2.5 billion and $3 billion following its imminent demerger of U.S. life insurer Jackson Financial Inc., scheduled for Sept. 13. The company intends to use the proceeds to pay off debt and give itself financial flexibility for growth, but Wells said Prudential was "not attempting to raise a war chest" for larger deals with the equity raise.

He noted that instead the equity raise would give the company room to do "a lot of the small things" with banks or digital distribution that would not typically require going to the markets for money. "It does increase our financial flexibility, and clearly it will continue to fund organic [growth]," Wells added.

Prudential CFO Mark FitzPatrick told analysts that about $2.25 billion of "relatively expensive" debt that has passed its first call date would likely be the first in line to be paid off from the planned equity raise proceeds. This would take Prudential's leverage down to "the low 20s" and save interest costs of about $125 million a year, he said.

Prudential made a profit after tax from continuing operations of $1.07 billion in the first half, up from $622 million in the same period in 2020. The company made a loss of $4.64 billion when factoring in the write-down of the value of its Jackson Financial ownership.