Royal London announces next steps to accelerate growth of its international business
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
Royal London, the UK's largest mutual life and pensions company, has announced its intention to combine its international businesses, Scottish Provident International Life Assurance (SPILA) and Scottish Life International (SLI), to create a business with the scale to compete more aggressively in the international marketplace.
John Deane, Chief Executive of Royal London's Intermediary Division, said:
"Our acquisition of SPILA has added significant scale to Royal London's international business. We have looked hard at how best to achieve our ambitions to provide an enhanced platform for profitable growth and it was clear that there were likely to be considerable advantages in creating a single international business within the Royal London Group. This view has been confirmed by more detailed work in recent weeks.
"Today we are able to announce that David Kneeshaw, currently Chief Executive of SLI, will lead a Steering Group which has been tasked with designing the best model to deliver the future success of our international business. On approval of the Steering Group's proposals, David will assume the role of Chief Executive of Royal London's international business and will have responsibility for the implementation of the plans."
John Deane added:
"The Steering Group will be composed of people from both the SPILA and the SLI management teams. The underlying principles of the Steering Group's work will be to design a business which has the capability to grow market share profitably in offshore markets.
"More detailed plans will be announced in due course. Until that time, the two current Chief Executives – Lillian Boyle at SPILA and David Kneeshaw at SLI – will retain their current roles and responsibilities.
"Today marks the start of a very exciting time, as we begin the work to reinforce the success that both SLI and SPILA have enjoyed, by creating a stronger, dynamic new business which has the capability of being even more successful in the future. I am looking forward to working with the pool of talented individuals that we have across our enlarged international business."
Commenting on the progress of transferring the former Resolution intermediary businesses to Royal London, John Deane said:
"While the momentum of planning a new international business now starts to build rapidly, we are continuing to work towards the transfer of the protection businesses that Royal London is acquiring from Pearl. As we have previously stated, we will operate the Bright Grey and the Scottish Provident protection businesses as distinct brands. We have already identified the executive team that will lead the Scottish Provident protection business, and Bright Grey will continue to have its own, separate executive team. I look forward to working with the two teams to further develop the potential of each of these businesses."
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For further information please contact:
Royal London
Alasdair Buchanan
Group Head of Communications
Tel: 0131 456 7133
Mobile: 07919 170 413
Polhill Communications
Jenette Greenwood
Tel: 020 7655 0530
Editor's Notes:
Royal London Group is a specialist financial service provider. Its businesses focus on those sectors of the market which value premium propositions, operating through a number of brands:
- Scottish Life – UK pensions market
- Bright Grey – UK protection market
- Scottish Life International – offshore investment markets
- Scottish Provident International – offshore investment markets
- RLAM – fund management
- RLAS – life and pensions administration
- Fundsdirect / Ascentric – funds supermarket; Wrap Platform
Royal London is one of the stronger life and pension companies in the UK, and has a strong track record for with-profits performance.
Royal London is the largest mutual life and pensions company in the UK with Group funds under management of £32.6 billion. Group businesses serve around three million customers and employ 2,630 people (figures quoted are as at 31 March 2008).