AVIVA shareholders are braced to see whether the insurance giant can regain some momentum this week after its share price has slumped to trade no higher than 30 years ago.

The FTSE-100 firm will update the City on its first half results on Wednesday, with investors eager for an update on its shift in focus towards core British, Irish and Canadian operations, as well as an update on the £385m acquisition of Succession Wealth, the UK wealth management and financial planning business.

Shares in the firm have stalled in recent months to trade down over 25 per cent this year, and analysts have been paring back their expectations for the stock, with Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and RBC all recently trimming their target price.

Equity analysts at AJ Bell said that breathing life back into its flagging share price will be near the top of the agenda for boss Amanda Blanc as she updates shareholders.

"Chief executive Amanda Blanc is trying to fix that [share price], but she bore the brunt of shareholder frustration - and some unpleasant, neanderthal behaviour - at the company's Annual General Meeting in May," said Russ Mould, AJ Bell investment director.

"Nor is that the only pressure point, since activist investor Cevian Capital is still on the shareholder register. The Anglo-Swedish firm has been pushing Aviva for even deeper cost cuts and greater cash returns than those announced by the FTSE 100 firm," he continued.

Investor and analyst eyes will therefore be trained on updates to Aviva's plans to slash £400m off the cost base between 2018 and 2023. Cevian has pushed for the plans to go further with £500m trimmed off costs by 2023.

Aviva produced an operating profit of £1.1bn a year ago although analysts expect a dip after new rules on pricing and the impact of business disposals.

(c) 2022 City A.M., source Newspaper