All change at Resolution as it takes Friends Life sale off the agenda

By GARETH MACKIE
Published on 16/08/2012 00:00

RESOLUTION, the insurance buyout specialist founded by Clive Cowdery, has unveiled an overhaul of its complex board structure and scrapped plans to spin off its Friends Life pensions business through a flotation.

As part of the revamp, Resolution will stop outsourcing activities to Resolution Operations, an external firm that advised it on mergers and acquisitions.

Cowdery will join the board of Resolution Limited, where former Scottish Widows boss Andy Briggs, who was named chief executive of Friends Life last year, will become chief executive. Former Lloyds Banking Group finance director Tim Tookey, who joined Friends Life in March, will become the group’s chief financial officer.

John Tiner, a former Financial Services Authority chief, will step down from the Friends Life board and retire as a partner at Resolution Operations.

Resolution chairman Mike Biggs said the time was right “to move to a more conventional governance and operating structure for the company”.

As well as abandoning plans to sell off Friends Life, the group said it would no longer seek acquisitions.

The overhaul was announced as Resolution reported a pre-tax operating profit of £163 million for the first six months of the year, down from £390m a year earlier.

The profits fell short of the £176m the market had been expecting, and Investec analyst Kevin Ryan, who has a “sell” recommendation on Resolution’s shares, said news of a 5 per cent increase in the interim dividend to 7.05p per share was “a surprise”.