AUB Group has forecast strong growth in the current financial year after the company improved its performance over the past 12 months amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Underlying net profit is expected to rise to $70-$73 million, representing growth on continuing operations of 15.7-20.7%.

“We do not know whether the current Delta outbreak will have a meaningfully different impact on the Australian economy than was the case with previous outbreaks,” CEO Mike Emmett said last week.

“We do know the business was resilient last year so we’ve assumed operating conditions in FY22 similar to last year.”

Reported net profit rose 50.3% to $70.6 million for the year to June 30, boosted by a strong result from the Australian broking division and proceeds from the divestment of Altius, completing an exit from health and rehabilitation services.

On an underlying basis, revenue rose 11.6% to $651.8 million and profit increased 25.7% to $67.1 million, excluding an accounting change for Software as a Service (SaaS).

Mr Emmett says premium placed through the network grew 17.6% to $4 billion, bolstered in part by rate rises of 6.2% for the full year and 5.5% in the second half, in line with the company’s forecasts of 5% to 6%.

AUB says the performance of Austbrokers has accelerated and BizCover, in which it invested in February last year, continues to strongly grow revenue and profit.

Remediation of the agencies business will remain a priority while the New Zealand operations are in the early stages of a transformation that will run until financial 2023.

In New Zealand, AUB has started a restructure of the business, made several senior broking leadership changes and started a project introducing a new broking and fast-flow platform.

“We have seen some early market success with the recent win of a large corporate account from a global broking competitor,” Mr Emmett said. “In addition to the restructure program, we intend to continue to grow by acquisition with investments in broking and agency.”