Aegon sells Guardian arm to Cinven for £275m

Aegon has sold its closed-book life business, Guardian, to a private equity firm for an “attractive” £275 million.

European buy-out group Cinven will take on Guardian Life Insurance’s 170 employees, mainly based in Lancashire.

Aegon’s parent company in the Netherlands, which managed the sale, said that Guardian “no longer fits with our strategic objectives”.

Guardian stopped taking on new customers around ten years ago and is seen by Cinven as the starting point for more deals.

Caspar Berendsen, a Cinven partner, said: “Guardian is an ideal entry point for us into the market and provides us with a strong platform from which to deploy further capital to create a leading closed life consolidator.”

Aegon’s asset management business – which is due to be renamed Kames Capital in September – will continue to manage Guardian’s £7.4 billion worth of assets.

On the same day, Resolution, the insurance consolidator, announced it would siphon off the closed book of its insurance business, Friends Life, as the group’s half-year operating profits jumped by nearly 40 per cent. Andy Briggs, Friends Life’s new chief executive, denied the group was planning to sell the book of five million customers.

Resolution announced that operating profits rose to £390m, a jump of 38 per cent, for the first half of 2011.

The UK life business was the main driver for the Resolution results, with operating profits jumping to £364m from £99m.