Standard Life 9-month sales miss forecasts

By Myles Neligan

LONDON (Reuters) - Life insurer Standard Life reported weaker than expected nine-month sales, sending its shares lower, but said its capital position was strong despite the stock market slump.

Standard Life said on Thursday its worldwide life and pensions sales for the nine months to Sept 30 were 12.4 billion pounds, little changed from 12.3 billion pounds in the same period last year.

That was below the 12.6 billion pounds expected by analysts, according to the average of nine forecasts collected by the company.

By 12:14 p.m., Standard Life shares were down 1.5 percent at 197 pence, having earlier fallen as low as 185 pence, while the FTSE 100 share index was 2.1 percent higher.

"There was a slight miss against the consensus sales number. Standard Life has been one of the better performing UK life stocks," said Peter Eliot, insurance analyst at MF Global.

Standard Life shares have fallen about 24 percent since the beginning of the month, less than leading rivals Aviva and Prudential, which are down 28 percent and 36 percent respectively.

CAPITAL CUSHION

The Edinburgh-based insurer on Thursday also reported a capital surplus of 3.4 billion pounds at September 30, compared with 3.5 billion pounds three months earlier, and said its capital buffer would drop to 1.9 billion pounds if stock markets fell 40 percent from their September 30 level.