Industry | Insurance, Pensions, Life Assurance |
---|---|
Founded | 2004 |
Defunct | May 2008 |
Fate | Acquired by Pearl Group |
Headquarters | London, England, UK |
Key people | Clive Cowdery, Chairman Andy Briggs, CEO |
Revenue | £5,152.2 million (2006) |
£482.3 million (2006) | |
£531.3 million (2006) | |
Number of employees | 40 (2009) |
Resolution plc was a UK insurance company headquartered in the City of London. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by the Pearl Group in May 2008.
The Resolution Life group was formed in 2004 to provide a vehicle for life funds that have been closed to new business, but have liabilities extending many years into the future, nicknamed zombie funds .[ citation needed ] The first purchase was the life insurance business of Royal & SunAlliance, followed by the purchase of Swiss Life's UK business.
In September 2005, Resolution Life merged with the FTSE company Britannic Group, who had closed to new business in 2003.[ citation needed ]
In 2006, the merged group bought the life business of Abbey National, a transaction of £3.6 billion that brought entry into the FTSE 100. [1]
On 30 May 2007 Resolution announced a strategic partnership with Capita which will result in the transfer of approximately two thousand staff in Customer Services and IT and phased outsourcing of back-office customer services to India. [2]
On 25 July 2007 Resolution agreed a merger with Friends Provident to create a new entity, Friends Financial, with a market cap of circa £8.6Bn, however by September 2007 it was announced that Hugh Osmond's Pearl Group, a critic of the proposed merger with Friends Provident, had undergone talks with Swiss Re about a potential deal to take over Resolution, [3] but talks broke down. On 10 October 2007, Pearl made a formal offer of 660 pence per share, worth approximately £4.5 billion, in conjunction with the Royal London Mutual Insurance Society. [4] Standard Life and Swiss Re also entered the bidding for Resolution, and for a brief period on 26 October 2007 their cash and shares bid, worth £4.9 billion was recommended by the board, which called off any deal with Friends Provident. [5] Within a short space of time, Pearl came back with an all-cash offer of 720 pence per share. In addition, Hugh Osmond, chief executive of Pearl, now controlled a stake of 24.1% of Resolution's ordinary shares, which would have effectively blocked any planned merger from Standard Life as it would have required 75% approval from shareholders. In mid-November 2007, Standard Life pulled out of the merger and the offer from Pearl was recommended by the board to shareholders. [6]
At the extraordinary general meeting, held on 8 January 2008, the shareholders overwhelmingly agreed to the merger. [7] Having been approved by the Financial Services Authority in mid-April 2008, the acquisition was completed on 1 May 2008. [8] The Scottish Provident and Scottish Provident International brands and various in-force blocks of policies were taken over by the Royal London Group, with the rest going to Pearl. At this time, Pearl agreed to allow Clive Cowdery to use the Resolution brand.
Resolution was relaunched by Clive Cowdery as an investment acquisition vehicle in December 2008. Resolution Life Group Holdings Ltd, which is registered in Bermuda, is the holding company for several global insurance brands, including AMP Life. [9] [10] In 2019, investors in the holding company included JPMorgan Chase, KKR, Nippon Life Insurance Company, Temasek Holdings and a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund. [11]
The group resumed talks with Friends Provident in July 2009 but was rejected twice, [12] though Friends Provident eventually agreed to a takeover in August 2009. [13]
Brands owned by the group included:
The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie", is a stock market index of 100 of the most highly capitalised blue chip companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.
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Friends' Provident Insurance was a banking institution founded in 1832 to serve the needs of the Society of Friends (Quakers). Based in Bradford, Yorkshire, it concentrated on sickness and annuity policies until its life fund acquired Century Insurance in 1918, expanding into general insurance. The restriction to Quaker membership was an increasing constraint but the ties were substantially reduced by the Friends' Provident Institution Act 1915. Although Century's branch network enabled FPI to expand, the periodic underwriting losses strained the life fund's capital base and Century was sold in 1975. In the year 2000, Friends Provident demutualised and listed on the FT100 Index. After abortive takeover negotiations, Friends accepted a takeover bid from Resolution Limited in 2009.
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Since Pearl intends to apply the Pearl brand to the Pearl Assets, Pearl and Clive Cowdery have entered into an agreement which provides... for the transfer from Pearl to Clive Cowdery of the right to the Resolution name