PRUDENTIAL PLC

Prudential plc is a financial services and asset management company that is headquartered in London. The company can trace its history back to 1848 when the Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association was founded. The company would first provide loans to professionals and workers, selling industrial branch insurance policies in 1854. The company would grow and change its name to Prudential Assurance Company in 1867 and convert to a limited company in 1881. By 1898, the company would become the loading life insurance company in the UK with £30 in total accumulated funds. The company began focusing on overseas expansion soon after, opening its first life branch in India in 1923 and becoming listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1924. Prudential Assurance Company would also focus on acquisitions to help facilitate its growth including Vanbrugh Life, M&G Reinsurance, and the Jackson National Life Insurance Company to establish its presence in the United States, creating Prudential Corporation plc in 1978 in order to enable flexible management over these newly acquired units. The company would see the high potential for growth in Asia in the 1990s and focus its expansion, creating Prudential Corporation Asia in 1994. In Europe, the company continued to acquire companies including M&G and Scottish Amicable in the UK. The company would change its name its current Prudential plc, becoming listed under that name on the New York Stock Exchange in 2000 and the Hong Kong and Singapore stock exchanges in 2010. Prudential plc currently has over 24 million customers located around the globe, employing over 23 thousand employees. It has almost half a billion British pounds in total assets under management, focusing on the significant protection gap and investment needs of the Asian middle class, the baby boomers in the US going into retirement, and the savings gap and returns and income needs of the retiring populating in the UK as its long term opportunities. Some of its available mutual funds include the PruFund Protected Cautious Fund and Growth & Income Fund, with many other families of funds available through its subsidiaries.