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Continued progress for Bupa19 March 2003Income up 17 percent; pre tax surplus up 19 percent; expansion programme continues; growth from both existing and new business.Healthcare company Bupa today announced a surplus before tax and other charges and income, of £107.9 million for the year to December 31 2002, an increase of 19.4 percent on the previous year. Chief Executive Val Gooding said the result reflected increased sales and continued re-investment in the group. Group income was up 17.1 percent. Sales in all of Bupa's main businesses grew and the group continued its programme of investment both in the UK and overseas. UK health insurance volumes increased five percent and insurance revenues world-wide increased 20 percent. Bupa's provident status means all surpluses are reinvested in the business. Bupa's biggest investment was the purchase of AXA Australia Health which added nearly one million customers. It also added the Spanish health insurer Novomedic to its Spanish business and announced its intention to build a new £26 million hospital in Madrid. The group also increased its spending on existing facilities, hospital equipment and systems, to over £100 million in the year. The group added to its UK care homes business with the acquisition of 13 homes from Ashbourne KW and it bought out its joint venture partner in its Spanish care homes business Gestion de Recursos Sociales SA. By the end of 2003, Bupa plans to be running 20 care homes in Spain in addition to its 246 homes in the UK. "We have benefited from both organic growth and investment. All our main businesses improved their result year-on-year despite increasingly difficult trading conditions in some of our markets, in the second half. Organic growth delivered over two thirds of our increased operating surplus before goodwill and just under a third came from our acquisitions," Val Gooding said. Group income increased to £2,814.5 million (£2,403.3m) and reserves grew 14.5 percent to £1,120.8 million. Income from UK and overseas insurance activities increased to £1,826.8 million (£1522.4m). The trading surplus, before goodwill, was £97.9 million. The surplus was divided almost equally between the UK and overseas. The company grew its customer base in its insurance businesses by 28 percent to six million. Turnover from its hospitals, health screening and care homes businesses, at £987.7 million (£880.9m), accounted for just over a third of the group's income. The businesses achieved a surplus of £78.8 million (£75.3m), divided evenly between its hospital and screening businesses and its care homes. There was continued growth in hospital patients paying for their own treatment. The number of NHS patients increased and represented six percent of people treated in its hospitals. Bupa also opened the first privately run diagnostic and treatment centre, staffed by Bupa and NHS staff and dedicated entirely to NHS patients. Val Gooding said: "We have continued to develop as a balanced health and care business by maintaining a position in both insurance and provision and building a sensible degree of geographic diversity. This strategy will continue as will our dedication to quality, to customer service and investment in training and systems. This year we achieved our highest ever customer satisfaction scores across the group. "We have been encouraged by the increasing role the independent sector has been allowed to play in the UK in making more care available to more people, more quickly. We remain committed to our existing customer base but we are pleased to be able to make a wider contribution to the benefit of an increasing number of patients, where this is commercially viable. "Our experience with mixed health economies outside the UK convinces us that to attract even more money into health and take more strain off the NHS, the Government should be encouraging those individuals and organisations who can, to take responsibility for some of their health needs, rather than penalising them through taxation as at present." View Bupa 2002 summary
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