NETHERLANDS - Aegon’s pension sales in the Netherlands dropped 57% during the fourth quarter of 2008, and led to lower overall life sales of 44% compared to the previous year.

The insurer attributed its fourth quarter net loss of €1.2bn not only to declining financial markets and increasing impairment charges, but also to the impact of the financial markets on fair-value investments, following what had also been a strong fourth quarter in 2007.

According to Aegon, the UK and Spain were the exceptions amid a broad decrease of life sales.

New life sales in the UK increased by 5%, mainly driven by growth in the corporate pensions market and individual annuities, offsetting lower individual pension sales, while in Spain sales of life insurance rose to €23m, primarily because of extraordinary activity following changes in pension legislation, said officials.

The company said its total new life sales decreased by 19% to €598m compared to the last quarter of 2007, but in Central and Eastern Europe sales dropped further, by 27%.

The Netherlands-based insurer saw its year-round sales decline to €2.63bn from €3.27bn in 2007.

Aegon further reported a significant underperformance of alternative investments - such as hedge funds and private equity - in the Netherlands and the Americas which amounted to €500m, though no figures were available in the Q4 results to reveal the firm’s total assets under management and the performance of different sectors.

Impairments to performance were said to have been mainly caused by housing-related structured assets, corporate high-yield bonds and equity investments.

Aegon said given its liquidity and asset-liability management, it is unlikely that it will be forced to sell assets at distressed prices to generate cash.

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