Investment management firm Challenger says the business has started this financial year on a strong note, boosted by a double-digit growth in life sales.

Total life sales for the three months to September rose 32% to $2.1 billion from a year earlier, demonstrating the success of its diversification strategy, the business says in a first quarter update.

Other life sales, which represents the Challenger Index Plus product, performed particularly strongly and increased by 149% to $856 million, benefiting from new clients and retention of maturities.

“The life business performed well, with book growth of 3.4%,” MD and CEO Richard Howes said.

“Strong quarterly sales growth highlights the success of our diversification strategy and reflects our focus on building relationships with institutional clients.

“Continuing to innovate has been a priority and we recently launched our new market-linked annuity for customers who seek the benefits of lifetime income, while maintaining exposure to investment markets.

“Benefiting from rigorous market testing, this option will form an attractive complement to our existing lifetime annuity offering.”

Challenger says it expects to achieve strong profit growth this financial year, reaffirming the business will deliver $430-480 million in normalised net profit before tax for the 12 months to June 30.

In the previous 2020/21 financial year, the business achieved $396 million in overall normalised pre-tax profit.