£100m court win to boost Standard Life's bottom line

Standard Life investors are set to reap the benefits of its £100 million court win against indemnity insurers.

According to Panmure Gordon, Standard Life should see its operating profit and operating earnings per share boosted by around 16% to £841 million, and to around 33.9p per share, up 71%, on the back of last year's victory over insurance provided to its Standard Life Pension Sterling fund.

The insurer and asset manager is due to report its full year results for 2012 on March 7, the same day as Aviva.

Markets will be eyeing both reports closely given Standard Life's successful growth in recent months and Aviva's restructuring and strategy of streamlining the business.

Panmure said that ahead of the results it believes shares in Standard Life are a 'buy', even though they enjoyed a strong run in 2012.

'Despite the strong share price performance in 2012 we believe the valuation remains attractive and that there is still further upside,' analyst Barrie Cornes explained.

Standard Life's shares traded at 338.7p at 9.45 am today, versus its 52-week peak of 356p per share.