annual report 2007 - the Admiral Group plc

8 CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S STATEMENTChief Executive’s statement“We had a bumper yearin absolute terms ANDwe made great stridestowards the creation ofan even better futureHenry Engelhardt“2007 was a good year forthe Admiral Group.I should quit right there!But I won’t. Why was it a good year?Well, the Group made more moneythan ever before. A lot more. Wemade more money by serving morecustomers than ever before, whichresulted in a larger turnover than everbefore. All these new records wereset within the context of a challenging,highly competitive environment.But those items don’t tell the wholestory. As compelling as they maybe, they only account for part ofthe reason why I think the year wassuccessful. For me, the reason it wassuch a good year is that we did allthe good things already mentionedwhile simultaneously making largeinvestments of time and money inour future. These investments couldeasily have retarded our 2007 tradingperformance. But they didn’t. We hada bumper year in absolute terms ANDwe made great strides towards thecreation of an even better future.The list of achievements:· Profit before tax up 24% to £182m;· Number of customers up 16% to 1.5m;· Net revenue up 17% to £364m;· Turnover* up 16% to £825m;· Confused record pre-tax profit of£37m on 13m quotes;· Combined ratio improved to 85%from 87%;· Top 10 in the FT Best Companies ToWork For; 57th in The Sunday TimesBest Companies To Work For in theUK;· Invested in Balumba in Spain wherewe ended the year with 47,000customers and £16.6m turnover;· Invested in AdmiralDirekt.de, our newoperation in Germany that launchedon October 16 and had 9,000customers on January 1, 2008;· Began investing in an operation inItaly which is planned to launch in2008.