Stealing a sales march in Asia is keeping the Pru in good health

They complained about the cost at the time but, however much Egg might have been worth - or not worth - a year ago, it is worth a lot less now. It specialises in credit-card lending but was losing money even in the good times. There could scarcely be a worse place in a credit crunch.

Shareholders now have other reasons to cheer Tucker. The Pru's new business figures for the whole of last year, announced today, are perhaps 50% higher than analysts had expected. Overall, the growth rate is a remarkable 21% against forecasts of between 14% and 16%. Growth in the retail division was 25%.

The whole business is making progress, but it is again the Asian sales operation that has set Prudential apart. It now accounts for 55% of retail sales, and grew 44% in the year. The American business - long the mainstay of Prudential's growth - put on 19%, which in any other circumstances would be considered exceptional, and the UK retail business notched up just over 4%, helped by the purchase of a large slice of what remains of Equitable Life.

Of course, Tucker remains determined only to write profitable business in the UK. As long as he is of that mind, and given the competitive intensity of the UK market, it is never going to be where the excitement is. Bits of it throw off a lot of cash, though.

Life assurance valuations have plunged in line with fears of a global economic slowdown but Prudential must be better-positioned than most to weather the storms. While latecomers to the party are looking to Asia to mitigate the worst of the effects, Prudential is already there.

TALK to any medium-sized British company, and they will tell you their banks are looking to ways to reduce their credit lines.

Banks are not reneging on existing agreements, but the message is quite clear. They are seeking to conserve cash, and companies had better take nothing for granted because the bank will want to cut back at the first opportunity. Credit is already becoming much tighter.

It is a similar story from private equity groups. Until last summer, the medium-sized groups could easily find a bank prepared to lend them up to £500 million to do a deal. Now they report that no one bank is prepared to offer more than £100 million on a single project, so the only way a £500 million facility can be put together is if the client puts together a syndicate of willing banks.

This takes them back to the old fashioned, time-consuming and highly uncertain process whereby they have to beat on each door and convince each bank in turn of the merits of a deal. The fact this is so hard to do is one reason why deals above a certain size have dried up.

Or take Northern Rock. A few weeks ago, Citigroup came out and said it would put the odd billion at the disposal of any potential bidder, and at one point the Virgin consortium seemed to think it had lined up £12 billion of support. Then it all went a bit quiet, and today the willingness of the banks to put in that kind of money seems much less certain.

Given how tough it is out there, it is hard to believe weekend reports that Brazilian mining giant Vale has lined up a £25 billion debt package so it can bid for rival Xstrata. It may well have made a polite inquiry of its banks, but it is hard to believe it received a polite reply.

If banks are as strapped for cash as they obviously are, why would they commit such a vast amount of money for such an uncertain length of time, on a bid with no guarantee of success where the value, and hence the collateral, is based on a cyclical high for metal prices at a point where the global economy is slowing down?

Seems an odd way to rebuild a balance sheet.

FIRST JP Morgan Chase signed up Tony Blair for a sum that may have been as much as $2.5 million (£1.26 million) to advise chief executive Jamie Dimon on globalisation, presumably because the bank's armies of economists are not up to the mark.

Now Zurich Financial Services has enlisted the services of our ex-Prime Minister to advise its chief executive, James Schiro, on climate change - perhaps because the insurance company's underwriters and risk managers can't work out the implications by themselves.

Sounds like there is scope here for a hedge fund - one to go short of any company that feels the need to sign up the former Premier.