Direct Line Misses the Market; Restorative Actions in Motor; Unlikely Interim Dividend

Direct Line has reported full-year 2022 results today that have not been taken well. Estimates from PitchBook place consensus estimates of earnings per share at around GBP 0.02. Yet, negative GBP 0.03 is the actual. In terms of the business’s group profit, this amounted to negative GBP 39 million for the year. That is versus the negative GBP 55 million that we forecast. There is a lot to digest in the results but we reduce our fair value estimate to GBP 2.65 per share and we maintain our rating of no economic moat.