Chesnara profit soars as Swedish life insurance clocks growth

March 28 (Reuters) - Insurance-focused takeover specialist Chesnara Plc (LSE: CSN.L - news) 's full-year pretax profit more than tripled as Movestic - its Swedish open life insurance business - captured market share.

Chesnara, which mainly buys life insurance funds closed to new customers, said IFRS pretax profit rose to 60.6 million pounds ($100.7 million) in the year ended Dec. 31 from 19.7 million pounds a year earlier.

Movestic like-for-like new business volume rose 61.9 percent, Chesnara said.

The company said it raised its final dividend by 3.4 percent to 11.63 pence. ($1 = 0.60 British Pounds) (Reporting by Esha Vaish and Richa Naidu in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)